A THE AIR OF STOVE-HEATED ROOMS. MONG the most inveterate of the many prejudices of Englishmen are those concerning stoves and open fireplaces. "The Englishman's fireside" is the altar of his most adored family fetish, whereon he burns his daily sacrifice of coal, and at which he worships by roasting his knees and nose, while his back is lumbagoed by exposure to the main draught of cold air that flows from door and windows to the chimney. If his lungs were in his legs with tracheal breathing apertures at their sides like those of a caterpillar, the ventilation due to open fireplaces would be admirable, sceing that the fresh air comes in and goes out by a current running along the floor and never reaching the height of the mantelpiece. One of the reasons for the common aversion to stoves is that formerly they were usually constructed as small iron boxes which were filled with coal, and when in full operation became red-hot. This heating was accompanied with a peculiar suffocating smell, and those who breathed the air of rooms heated by such stoves were victims of a peculiarly oppressive headache. It was once supposed that in such cases the air was unduly dried by the stove, and vases or basins of water were accordingly placed on the top. These failing to remedy the mischief, another theory was started, viz. that the odour, &c., is produced by the singeing of those particles of fibrous and other matter which are suspended in the air and visible in a sunbeam. But Tyndall has shown us that the burning of such suspended organic matter purifies and improves the air, and even that their partial combustion or roasting is advantageous by destroying the vitality of contagion germs. In Germany and the northern parts of Continental Europe, where the winter is so severe that, with our open fireplaces, the floor stratum of cold air would be quite intolerable, the construction and operation of stoves has occupied the attention of eminent men of science. In 1851 Pettenkofer examined the action of heated stove-plates on the air, and these investigations were followed up by Deville, Troost, Morin, and others. They proved that red-hot iron absorbs carbonic oxide, formed by the semi-combustion of the carbon of the fuel, and that the gas thus absorbed passes through the iron and is given off from the outside of the stove. Now, this carbonic oxide which is produced when the carbon takes up one equivalent of oxygen is an active irritant poison. The carbonic acid which is formed by the complete combustion of the carbon, or its combination with two equivalents of oxygen, is a suffocating gas, and, when it largely takes the place of atmospheric oxygen, may cause stupor or death, something after the manner of drowning,-but carbonic oxide is far worse than this. It is directly and actively poisonous even when mixed with air in very small proportion, "a sensation of oppression and tightness in the head" being one of the first symptoms of its action; these symptoms corresponding with those produced by breathing the air of a room heated by an ill-constructed iron stove. Further investigations of the diffusion of carbonic acid through such stoves have recently been conducted by F. Fisher, in Germany, who finds that the diffusion of this gas and of the hydrogen that accompanies it may be prevented by lining the inside of the stove with firebrick or stone so completely as to prevent the iron from becoming red-hot, and at the same time maintaining the combustion within as perfect as possible. To do this the external dimensions of the stove must be sufficiently increased to make room for the lining, and also to compensate by greater radiating surface for the lower temperature of the outside of the stove. These conditions are admirably fulfilled in the stoves commonly used in Norway, Sweden, Russia, and North Germany. Such stoves, however, are costly, but they are frequently so placed that the stove shall heat two rooms; the dining-room being heated by the iron back of a stove, the front of which is in the kitchen, and usefully occupied in cooking the dinner. W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS. A TABLE TALK. STORY which, with a characteristic comment of action and words by Mr. Ruskin, has been recently told again in a daily journal is, if true, almost enough to turn every feeling man into a vegetarian. In this it is stated that a girl whom her lover had sought to slay had strength enough, wounded as she was in fifteen places, to crawl into a field, where she sank insensible. That her life was saved was, the story alleges, attributable to two calves, who, lying down on each side of her, kept her warm and in part sheltered during the night. The woman was afterwards sent to prison for refusing to prosecute the miscreant who had attempted her life. This part of the story it is which most moves Mr. Ruskin. To my own thinking, the episode of the calves is the most striking feature. I would, indeed-always with the reservation, if it is true-commend it to M. Victor Hugo as a companion subject to "Le Crapaud," and ask whether in some continuation of "La Légende des Siècles" he might not place these calves by the side of the ass of whom, for a like act of mercy, he says, with sublime exaggeration : Cet âne abject, souillé, meurtri sous le bâton, Est plus saint que Socrate et plus grand que Platon. Wordsworth, too, were he alive, might class with the dog of Helvellyn, the hero of his poem of "Fidelity," the poor beasts whose sympathy with humanity was so strangely manifested, and marvel concerning them who Gave that strength of feeling great It is a little humiliating, meanwhile, to think what reward man, unswerving in the selfish pursuit of his needs, in all probability accorded to this display of tenderness. In one of the most cynical of his comedies M. Labiche, one of the wittiest of modern Frenchmen, puts in the mouth of a comic bourgeois, who is indefatigable in his efforts to tame the gold-fish in a pond, the words, "Quand ils seront apprivoisés, nous jetterons le filet, et nous les mangerons." So near the truth is this, that it is scarcely a satire upon human nature. is, in our Dictionaries of Quotations, assumed to be found in Prior's lines to the Hon. Charles Montague From ignorance our comfort flows, The only wretched are the wise There are, both quotations being in fact referable to the passage in Ecclesiastes, "He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." however, as a literary friend has pointed out to me, other passages which are almost identical with those supplied. Churchill thus, who is later than either Prior or Gray, has a couplet directly imitated from the former In ignorance our comfort lies, Sir William Davenant, meanwhile, who is earlier than any, being a century before Churchill, and almost a century before Gray, has a similar idea FR Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy, 'Tis better not to know. ROM the same source to which I owe these parallel passages I derive a good story concerning one of the most illustrious of our judges, on whom, as he is still living, I will force no further publicity. Baron A., then let me call him, was travelling with a friend through the south of France and so into Italy. He was at the time of his journey the possessor of a brand-new and very splendid chronometer, of which he was, justly as I am told, very proud. A constant source of complaint on the journey was that no watch-pockets were affixed to foreign beds, and that the chronometer, placed under the pillow at night, slipped, after the custom of chronometers, from that position, and in so doing incurred risk of breakage. At length, at a small hotel near Lugano, at which a night's rest was to be taken, the Baron found, to his delight, the pocket the absence of which had marred the pleasure of his journey. So overjoyed was he that there was some talk of arranging the next day's journey with a view to returning to sleep once more at an inn so far in advance of its rivals in its attention to the comfort of guests. In the morning, however, the Baron came down with a rueful visage and showed the chronometer now silent and ruined. What had been taken for a watch-pocket at the head of the bed was a small vessel full of holy water. In that the watch had slept all night without experiencing the benefit a more responsible being might or might not have received from such an immersion. IT T is strange that, with the ardour for teetotalism which prevails, no attempt has been made to collect or reprint teetotal literature. Collections of books relative to tobacco or to wines and viticulture are not unknown, and those of books dealing with various weaknesses, indulgences, or vices of human nature, drunkenness included, are common. Why, then, should there be no attempt to extract from past literature the works or passages which condemn the use of wine or suggest the substitution for it of some other solace or beverage? The only reason I can supply is, that the instances previous to the present century in which the moderate use of wine is condemned are too few to be worth collecting. From the recently and privately published study upon Peter Anthony Motteux of Mr. Henri Van Laun I extract, for the benefit of those who may purpose commencing such a collection, the earliest utterance with which I am familiar of a preference for tea over wine or other stimulants. In a poem published in 1712, Motteux declares : 'Tis vain in wine to seek a solid joy, All fierce enjoyments soon themselves destroy: The crystal stream transcends the flowing mud, In opposition to received authorities, Motteux asserts tea to be the nectar of the gods. "Wine," he holds, proves most fatal when it most invites, Tea is most healthful when it most delights. Improved by age, see how it age improves, Whatever may be thought of the sentiment, the verses are, in their eminently artificial class, highly creditable to a foreigner who did not quit his native country, France, and settle in England, until his twentyfifth year. A task of no ordinary difficulty is indeed accomplished by one who earns his living, or a portion of it, by writing in a foreign language. It is possible that the resemblance in their conditions |