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"You had a younger brother, Mr. Brown, hadn't you?'' "Yes."

"Who was guilty of forgery?"

"Out of Ross's power!" he repeated, with savage triumph. "But he's not out of mine! By heavens, I'll crush him! What wanton barbarity, what cold-blooded murder, to use me in this way, and my poor brother dead! But go on, Miss Bland, for you have much to explain."

"Well, having been led to believe your brother was dead, and surmising that I knew something of Ross, I went direct to his lodgings, and charged him with what you call his wanton barbarity. Allow me, Mr. Brown, to observe here, that Steele,

He didn't answer, so I turned my gaze from the fire to his and not Ross, is his real name." Mr. Brown started, as if the face. It was charged with black astonishment.

"If you wish it, Mr. Brown, I'll stop."

"Go on," he said, waiving away my proposal, "only allow me to say that you are extorting, not giving information."

"I am seeking to verify what I've learnt. If what I have heard be not true, what I have to offer in explanation is worthless. Mr. Ross has had this brother in his own custody somewhere in London, screening him from the law, hasn't he?" "Yes."

remark had punctured him. "I was impressed with this con-
viction, the moment I caught a glimpse of his face. I found
him high and huffy at first. But I knew I could bring him
down from his lofty perch to a humbler bough. And I did.
He was soon willing to abandon his designs with reference to
Miss Brown, and even to quit the country with Littleton, it I
would supply him with money, I had not enough, so, as you
know, I borrowed."
"Have you en-

"What!" he bawled out in quite a fury.

"And hasn't he demanded as a recompense that you should abled my enemy to escape by means of my own money? Have compel Miss Brown to marry this Littleton?'' you-"

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"Not so fast, Mr. Brown. Be cool. Do."

"Cool! How can I? You have deceived me, Miss Bland. And what was that ugly figure with you at the wicket? Was he mixed up with this crafty plot? Was he-"

"Be sparing of your charges and epithets, sir," I said with grave earnestness. "You'll only have the more to repent of." I was warm, for I thought him hasty-unreasonable. But wasn't

"Then with that Ross meant to replenish himself, and go I unreasonable in supposing it possible for him to receive my abroad."

"I've guessed that to be the villain's mark."

"Then you were threatened, were you not, in case you should refuse to consent to this marriage, with the exposure of your brother's crime, and the vengeance upon him of the law?" Mr. Brown couldn't sit still; my question cut right to the quick.

explanations and statements calmly? "That ugly figure was
Ross-Steele-your enemy, murderer. And now, Mr. Brown,"
I rose, placed my hand on his arm, and looked up into his face.
He halted suddenly, and listened attentively.
"You think,
insinuate, say, that I've served you unfaithfully. That I've
deceived you. I've deprived your vengeance of the object on
which it fumes to spend its rage. I've helped him to escape
you by means of your own money, which by faithful service I
intended to repay. I admit all this; confess it, without a
blush, without a pang. More I'm prepared to confess. Hear
me, I've been closeted with him who sought your daughter's
fortune, rather than her welfare. At the gate I allowed his
perfidious lips to kiss me, his arms strong for mischief to en-
circle me, his blood-stained hands to grasp and hold those that
now cling to you, as clings the sinking seaman to a rock. I'm
faulty. I confess it. A weak woman, with a loving, trusting,
hoping heart, that shrinks from revenge. Forgive, Mr. Brown;
your brother was not faultless. Pardon the allusion. Yet to
him you extended charity; made allowance for temptation.
You say, he was my brother. True he was. Then pardon me
for being indulgent to Edward Steele; for screening him; for
furnishing him with wings with which to fly to India, for
Edward Steele is my own erring brother!"

"Bertha," he replied, pushing away his chair, and beginning to stride about, it is truc-all true. That brother I love, for him I would die! In an evil hour he yielded to a fearful temptation, and is ruined. O God, shield him! He was the Benjamin of our family, and was loved by all. Handsome, affectionate, modest, and I cannot but think upright, be was a brother of whom I was proud. Mr. Ross knew of this forgery -I can't help thinking was mixed up with it; they sent for me to London, where they were both hiding, to ask what was to be done. Ross being an old neighbor and acquaintance, it was agreed that he should keep him concealed awhile, at least, and that I should pay a heavy price for his connivance. Ross's wife died-she was the widow, when he married her, of a Mr. Littleton and he somehow became poor; then he came to Grassland, and demanded Bella for his son's wife. To obtain her has been the aim of his lodging here and visiting me, of his deep plots and cruel persecutions. I can't consent to it-how can I? You know, Miss Bland, that my daughter is an inno-spoken. Mr. Brown had pressed me wildly to his heart. I cent-"

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Twenty minutes at least elapsed, before another word was

had yielded, feeling powerless as a swooning invalid. The deep fountain of pent-up emotion gushed forth its torrents of tears and sobs; yet I was not unconscious of a strange, dreamy bliss, that flitted on the face of the dark waters-the tinge and sheen, the silvery ripple and feathery spray, of the turbid

wave.

"Then you are Margaret?" he observed softly, putting back my dishevelled hair, and looking fondly into my face. "Yes, Mr. Brown. Margaret Steele."

"What a romance is this? Your brother and I often spoke of you. He thought you were in Bristol, or somewhere about there, in a school. I knew your father and mother very well." Indeed," I replied languidly.

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"Woman!" he exclaimed wildly, staring at me through a gathering cloud of bewilderment, "what do you mean?'' "Now be calm, Mr. Brown. Be yourself, and I'll enlighten For long hours we chatted; reconciled, loving, not even unand comfort you. Your brother is dead! This I learnt quite happy. No allusion was made to the conditions once laid down. accidentally from a silly love-letter written to me by that Our hearts had come, somehow, to understand each other withLittleton. The event took place, I've since ascertained, before out words. In that hot furnace they were welded into one; had Ross came to reside, or lodge here; he died peacefully and hap-henceforward the same hopes and fears, cares and joys. pily, of a sort of decline, I've been told. Hence you are now out of Ross's power."

He was still as death, and looked at me with a pair of eyes that glittered like glass balls. I feared he was in a fit. To my relief he spake, his words breathing an impotent revenge.

In a few weeks Mr. Brown recovered the shock consequent on these disclosures. All was forgiven. We were married; heard from, and wrote to, Edward; and at Christmas went up to London, to make inquiries respecting the last end and remains of my husband's brother.

room is specially prominent, being not only poisonous but perfectly abominable in odor. The Linnean name for the species of fungi to which the mushroom belongs is the Cryptogamic.

LOGAN STONES.

We had but one heavy care; but one source of deep solici- | esculent and the poisonous. In the latter class the egg mushtude, and that was Bella. She was loving as ever, but not less eccentric. We sorrowed the more, because the following spring we discovered symptoms of rapidly failing health; for though Bella was a care in the house, she was not a cross. She pined and sighed for her mother, whose grave we often visited together, and for "bright, beautiful Canaan." Often would she constrain me to walk with her, and note, and talk about, cloud and stars and moon and sky and Canaan. At length the change came; the end arrived. One morning we missed her. We hastened to her room, then the library, then the chamber, where we found her stretched on her mother's bed, so still, so cold, so beautiful! The body was with us. The spirit had fled. Poor Mr. Brown! It was a wail of grief, without any affectation of sorrow, in which you sought relief, when you lifted that fragile form in your arms, kissed those clay-cold lips, and felt the icy truth with all its woe on your heart, that your Bella was dead! We laid her in her mother's grave, and often in summer days we sat in that quiet churchyard, beside that hallowed dust, and talked of Bella, and her " bright, beautiful Canaan."

Readers of these pages there may be, in whose minds this narrative will awaken dreamlike recollections. They'll remember, that in their native town, in the north of Yorkshire, forty years ago a small, agricultural village, there resided a family that owned a daughter like Bella; how that she fretted and pined for her mother and heaven; how that her father married the governess of his children; how that two strangers lodged in the village; how that suddenly they disappeared, and how that this eccentric daughter gradually melted into the grave. If so, they remember some of the incidents, and wiil, perhaps, be further able to remember the writer of this "Widow's Story."

THE EGG MUSHROOM.

THIS is one of the numerous family of fungi, the most rapid of all natural plants, since they spring up in an incredibly short space of time. White, in one of his entertaining studies of nature, declares that, going out with a lantern to look for a silver buckle he had dropped in his meadow, he was startled while peering on the ground by something springing up out of the ground; a second glance showed him that the object of his terror was a mushroom. As every one conversant with good living is aware of, mushrooms are divided into two classes the

THE EGG MUSHROOM.

THESE stones, which are so equally poised upon their basis that the motion of the wind sets them rocking, were so called on account of their being discovered on the estate of a Scotch chiettain named Logan, in the northern part of Scotland. Our illustration represents the scene in question. In the course of time the word has been corrupted into Logging, which is a common expression in the north of England for swaying to and fro. Some of those venerable twaddlers called antiquarians have endeavored to prove that these curious anomalies in nature were the work of the Druids; but of course this hypothesis is founded on the merest and vaguest speculations. To contradict this theory, it is only necessary to remark, that there are several of these oscillating stones in different parts of the world -some in Asia, and others in Europe, where the Druidical religion or barbarism most certainly was never practised. Among the fables connected with this freak of nature are-that no amount of human strength can move them, while the whisper of the zephyr can make them rock, and that musical sounds come from them at sunrise and midnight.

Brande, in his Geology, says that there is a tendency in every square thing to become round, either by the action of water or air, and he therefore concludes that the most celebrated of these Logan or Logging stones, called the Cheesewring, near Liskeard, consisting of five blocks, the upper ones being larger than the lower, and resembling a head upon shoulders, the neck being the axis, were formerly worn away by some rushing stream long since dried up.

LONG-TAILED TITMOUSE AND ITS NEST.

THE long-tailed tit, or as it was called by the Latins, caudatus (tailed), is a well known species of the numerous family of the titmouses. Unlike the other members of the tit family, it does not frequent human habitations during the winter, but branches of hedgerows and field trees. In the summer they are may be seen in great numbers twisting and creeping about the quite as bold and sociable as their relatives, and are especially fond of apple trees for the sake of the diseased buds, which they devour with great relish. Their affection for this tree often excites the vengeance of the ignorant gardener, who, not aware that their visit is a benefit to the tree, fires at them while they are enjoying their banquet, and whether he hits the feathery thief or not, invariably damages the tree to a greater extent than all the tits in the neighborhood could inflict. The beautiful and elaborate nest which the long-tailed tit constructs is its chief claim to our notice, and there are few things more calculated to arouse the reflective mind of man than the examination of one of these triumphs of instinctive mechanism. In shape it is oval, and entirely closed, with the exception of one small hole at the side, just large enough to admit the bird. The exterior of the nest is usually covered with lichens, and is invariably lined with a thick layer of soft feathers and moss. In this warm and commodious habitation the affectionate mate of the long-tailed tomtit generally lays from ten to fourteen eggs, which are small, being about the size of hazel nuts, and very delicately spotted. The entire length of the bird is about five inches and a half. We need hardly add that this interesting little bird is well known to every one who remembers the nursery legends of our childhood.

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As a proof of the valuable services rendered by swallows, it is estimated that one of these birds will destroy nine hundred insects per day; and when it is considered that some insects produce as many as nine generations in a summer, the state of the air, but for these birds, may be readily conceived. One kind of insect alone might produce 560,970,489,000,000,000 of its race in a single year.

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THE IDEAL-A SCULPTURED FANCY.

I.

OUR visions grow in marble everywhere-
In place, and out of place-in snowy air
Light draped they glance around in quiet pride,

Or else beneath the sun's imperious glare

They stand like handmaids waiting for the brideOh, soul! be marbie to sleek Fortune's stings!

A sycophant who waits on gilded kings,

But scowls at merit with its icy stare.

II.

Oh! that I could, like to a sculptor grand,
Take up the future in my plastic hand,
And mould it into shape-that I might place
My soul upon a pedestal, and face

The storm or stern indifference of fate-
Waiting for snow and hail, and blinding rain
To pass away, till skies be fair again.

Then would I wait till the mysterious breeze

Charged, as it ever is, with melodies

Which come and go, and wander, hour by hour,

Cresting the wave, and fluttering the flower,

Shrieking and whispering, moaning now, and then

Dying away in silence, like to men

Whose grief and passion have o'erspent their strength,

Till a deep slumber seals their woes at length.

III.

The wind has heard my wish-it lies as still

As a sweet thought that waits upon my will

And here I call upon it in my woe,

Immortal breeze arouse ! my thoughts ye know!

Breeze! brisk breeze! that movest with the morn!
Breeze! lithe breeze! that creepest through the corn!
Breeze! O breeze! that fannest the forlorn!

Oh, linger by the lattice of sweet Blanche of mine!

Breeze! coy breeze! that loiterest for noon!
Breeze! true breeze! that hast a tryst with June!
Breeze! kind breeze! I beg of thee a boon!

Oh, peep in through the lattice of poor Blanche of mine!

Breeze! fleet breeze! that goest with the day!
Breeze! dear breeze! that hastenest away!
Breeze! breeze! breeze! I beg of thee to stay,
And touch the propped-up pillow of pale Blanche of mine!
Breeze! night breeze! that wailest on the wold!
Breeze! lost breeze! that wanderest in the cold!
Breeze! dread breeze! oh, flit not by the mould
Which shelters what is left me of lost Blanche of mine!

CALIFORNIA PONY EXPRESS.

THE great importance of maintaining a rapid communication between the States of the American Union, situated on the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards, has long been felt, and numerous projects for connecting them by railways have been continually before Congress, but to the present tine scarcely anything has been done either towards the railway or telegraph. Between the Missouri river and California-a distance of two thousand miles-there exists a huge wilderness of prairies, arid plains, mountains, forests, and two huge mountain chains-the Rocky and the Cascade Ranges.

Through the whole of this must an Atlantic and Pacific railway be carried when it is made, if it be made through United States' territory. The railway works were extraordinary in perforating and climbing the Alleghanies. Railways are now being made through the mountains in India, and in other places where tremendous obstacles have to be overcome, yet on none of the liues made or being made do such formidable barriers exist as are found between the Atlantic and Pacific States of the American Union. The present unhappy state of affairs -the waste of war-is draining the national exchequer dry, and deferring to a distant date the completion of the most important work the United States' government has had in hand since the Declaration of Independence-the binding their eastern and western territory together with a band of iron.

EARLY WINTER.

Mr. W. H. Russell, of the firm of Russell, Major and Waddel, extensive government contractors for the conveyance of stores overland to the States on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, having observed the daily-increasing importance of a more rapid means of communication than then existed, hit upon the exceedingly bold idea of running a pony express from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, carrying a letter in thirteen days from New York, or any other part of the States, to San Francisco. Those who knew the country through which the express must pass shook their heads, and said it would never do; the route was far north, the winter severe, the roads impassable, the snow lying often fifteen feet deep on the ground. It then took one hundred and fifteen days to make a quick passage between New York and San Francisco.

Mr. Russell was not the man to set aside a plan he had made up his mind he could carry out by any multiplication of difficulties; he therefore prepared to make the attempt. First he built stations all along the route, and stocked them well and plentifully, then engaged a corps of fearless and trustworthy riders, and purchased about six hundred horses, the very best that money could procure. Having done all this and a great deal more that was necessary, on April 9, 1860, two ponies started simultaneously, one from San Francisco, and the other from St. Joseph, on the Missouri; and, although the season was most unfavorable, the mud being in some places two or three feet deep, yet the entire distance, one thousand nine hundred miles, was run in seven days and a half, carrying despatches from New York and San Francisco. This performance is the more remarkable, because the early part of April is considered the very worst season of the year. The snows on the mountains are deep, and on the plains the rivers are swollen and filled with floating ice. Old moun' aineers consider April as bad as any winter month on the mountains, and worse on the plains.

The pony express, being "un fail accompli," continued to run regularly with letters once a week from each end, travelling invariably to a time schedule, until the month of June, when a source of trouble appeared which had long given cause for anxiety. The wild Indians of the western plains began to meddle with the express, and shot dead from his horse one of

the couriers. His body was found a few days after, stripped of everything; but the bag of letters remained beside him untouched. The horse and the firearms are what the Indians want, and they wisely consider that meddling with the letters would only unnecessarily irritate Uncle Sam without doing them any good.

The dangerous ground extended about three hundred and fifty miles from Salt Lake, in Utah territory, west to Carson City. In this district the interruptions became so incessant, that it was considered necessary to "haul off the pony" from that particular section of the route. On the other portions the express continued to run, delivering its letters at Salt Lake and Carson City, where they accumulated, waiting the first favorable opportunity to push through with safety.

Those unacquainted with the country west of the Rocky Mountains can scarcely appreciate the difficulty and danger attending a journey through it. For hundreds of miles it is a long dreary waste, inhabited only by bands of warlike Indians, who prowl about robbing and killing as they choose, and dotted at every fifteen miles of distance with the stations of the pony express, in charge of two or three persons. Occasionally its monotony is broken by the passage of a train of emigrant waggons bound west to California or Oregon. Night and day, heedless of the weather or attacks of the redskins, the pony courier dashes along, at the rate of twelve miles an hour, his revolver in his belt, his hand on the trigger of his rifle, his eye watching intently for redskins, so that he may have the first shot. Under him, on the saddle, is the bag of letters so anxiously looked forward to in New York, for they tell important things-how ships have sailed for Europe laden with California gold, of terrible wrecks and losses, or of rising markets and great gains, or perhaps how the votes have counted that decide the destiny of States.

Not only to America is this bold and solitary rider's leather saddle bag of interest, but on to Europe will electricity and steam send many a long-looked-for message which it contains; and the merchant on many a 'change in the Old World will tell of news he has received so soon from the farthest shores of the

Pacific. He little knows, and less cares, for the hairbreadth dangers run by this lonely courier of the plains and mountains. Altogether, the Pony Express Company have lost six men killed by the Indians. They, however, provide liberally for the wives and families, if there be any.

It is a remarkable fact that they have as yet lost only one mail, and this one was lost under peculiar circumstances. The let ters are inclosed in two leather bags, which are slung across

the pony's back, and are kept in their place by the rider sitting on them, so that in case of anything happening to him, the bags fall off, and are recovered, though the pony scamper off and be. lost. In the case alluded to the rider had, against special instructions, fastened the bags to the saddle. On a dark night in July, 18f0, the express, bound east, on crossing the bridge over the Platte river, stumbled over an ox that had taken up its quarters there for the night, and was precipitated

into the river. The rider reached the shore, but the

pony and

the mails were gone no one knows whither, never having been

heard of to this day.

The company have suffered severely from first to last by the depredations of the Indians; they are, however, now in a much better state. The express was almost driven off the line west of Salt Lake City, their stations being burnt or otherwise des troyed, their people killed, and their horses stolen. All, however, is now repaired, and in better order than ever-the troops of the United States' government, and a force organized by the company, having driven the Indians away, and made them as scarce, and their occupation as dangerous, as it would be in the State of New York.

There is nothing very particular about either the pony or the rider. The riders are small, courageous, active young men, capable of great endurance; the ponies, or rather small horses, are the best description of animals for the purpose that can be procured. There is nothing showy or ornamental about either riders or horses; yet they are very picturesque, and are evidently got up entirely for business. Our artist saw one of the expresses arrive at St. Joe. The young man who rode was a long, wiry, reddish-haired chap, who looked made to gallop through the world on a horse's back. He wore a red worsted

shirt, a rowdy hat, and a long, light blue greatcoat, with a little cape, and plenty of brass buttons. This young man had ridden on one occasion two hundred miles in twenty-four hours without rest or food, except such as he could get on the pony's back. The rider usually rides fifty miles, using two ponies, who run twenty-five miles each.

The pony express does not pay the running expenses directly, but the company continue it nevertheless, allowing a little extra time during the winter.

NOTES ON THE HANGMAN.

(From "Notes and Queries.")

THE earliest hangman whose name has descended to us, as far as I can trace, is one Bull, who is mentioned in his public capacity in the year 1593.

Ball was succeeded by the more celebrated Derrick, whe appears to have been a "prime villain,” and well adapted for his odious occupation. Derrick cut off the head of the unfortunate Earl of Essex in the year 1601. This circumstance is the more remarkable, because Derrick, on one occasion, had his own life saved by the interposition of the earl. Both these facts are stated in a ballad of the time. It seems that Derrick had accompanied the Earl of Essex in the well-known expedition to Cadiz, and had there hanged no fewer than twenty-three prisoners; but that, having himself committed a gross outrage on a woman, he would have been hanged in his turn, had not Essex interfered to save him. In the ballad in question, the earl, on the scaffold, thus addresses his executioner :

Derrick, thou know'st at Cales I sav'd
Thy life, lost for a deed there done;
Where thou thyself canst testify

Thine own hand three-and-twenty hung.

Derrick was succeeded by the notorious Gregory Brandon, who seems early to have been his pupil and the assistant of his declining years. Gregory did not retain his post of chief executioner long. "He was succeeded by his son Richard, the butcher of Charles I. Among the Civil War Tracts in the British Museum there are three relating to this man. One is entitled, The Confession of Richard Brandon, the Hangman (upon his Deathbed), concerning his Beheading his late Majesty. Printed in the Year of the Hangman's Downfall, 1649." Another is entitled, "The Last Will and Testament of Richard Brandon,” printed in the same year. The third is "A Dialogue or Dispute between the late Hangman and Death," in verse, without date. Richard Brandon is stated to have been "twice condemned by the law to be hanged for having two wives, and by the mercy of the State pardoned, as a fit instrument of their new reformation." He was the only son of Gregory Brandon, and the Earl of Strafford. In the burial register of St. Mary's, claimed the gallows by inheritance. The first he beheaded was Whitechapel, the following entry occurs: "1619, June 21st. Rich. Brandon, a man out of Rosemary Lane." To this is added: "This R. Brandon is supposed to have cut off the head

of Charles I."

The next public hangman was the well-known "Squire Dun," immortalized by Butler in his "Hudibras :"

And while the work is carrying cn,
Be ready listed under Dun;

That worthy patriot, once the bellows
And tinder-box of all his fellows,

I am, fortunately, enabled to give the description of a bibliographical rarity (formerly in the collection of Richard Heber) which possesses much interest in connection with the subject under notice. It is a little tract entitled, "Groanes from Newgate; or, an Elegy upon Edward Dun, Esq., the Citie's Common Hangman, who Dyed Naturally in his Bed, the 11th of September, 1663. Written by a Person of Quality, and licensed according to order. London, Printed by Edward Crouch, dwelling on Snow Hill, 1663." On the title-page is a coat of arms, and on a label underneath the words, Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw." The pamphlet consists of fifty-eight lines, concluding with the following:

HIS EPITAPH.

Underneath this place doth lie

The miracle of crueltie;

I'le tell thee now I have begun ;

Then know, kinde reader, all's but Dun.

This monster was succeeded by the famous, or rather infamous Jack Ketch-that dreaded name which has descended with his successors down to the present time. Pegge, in his "Curialia Miscellanea," 1818, says: "Whether the name of Ketch be not the provincial pronunciation of Catch among the Cockneys, I have my doubts, though I have printed authority to confront me; for that learned and laborious compiler, B. E. Gent, the editor of the Canting Dictionary,' says that Jack Kitch, for so he spells it, was the real name of a hangman, which has become that of all his successors. When this great man lived, for such we must suppose him to have been and renowned for his popularity or dexterity, biographical history is silent."

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In 1681 we find him at Oxford exercising his calling upon the poor "Protestant joyner." Wood says: "Aug. 31, 1681. Wednesday, at eleven, Stephen College suffered death by hanging in the Castle yard, Oxon, and when he had hanged about half an hour was cut down by Catch or Ketch, and quartered under the gallows."

This man was the executioner of Lord Russell and the Duke of Monmouth. Macaulay, in his account of the death of the latter, after describing his behavior on the scaffold, says: "He then accosted John Ketch, the executioner, a wretch who had butchered many brave and noble victims, and whose name has, during a century and a half, been vulgarly given to all who succeeded him in his odious office. 'Here,' said the duke, 'are six guineas for you. Do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard that you struck him three or four times. My servant will give you some gold if you do the work well." In the year which followed Monmouth's execution, Ketch was turned out of his offce. In the "Diary" of Narcissus Luttrell, we read: "Jan. 1685-6. Jack Ketch, the hangman, for affronting the sheriffs of London, was committed to Bridewell, and is turned out of his place, and one Rose, a butcher, put in." Four months later we have this entry: May, 1685-6. Five men of those condemned at the sessions were executed at Tyburn, one of them was one Pasha Rose, the new hangman; so that now Ketch is restored to his place."

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This event gave occasion to the "Tyburn Poet," and a broadside occurred (a copy of which is preserved in the City Library) under the following title: "A Pleasant Discourse, by way of Dialogue, between the Old and New Jack Ketch. 1685."

How long Ketch continued in his office, or whether he died peacefully in his bed, like his predecessor, I have no means of ascertaining. It appears that he grew rich, and was doubtless "respected" by his brethren. Titus Oates is made to say, in his "Melancholy Complaint:"

The many famous deeds that I have done,
Since the kingdom's mighty work begun,
Have made Ketch halt as rich as Squire Dun.

HUSBANDS AND WIVES.

How often is it said, in the present day, that men and women are falsely placed with regard to each other! According to one party, men are too strong and women too weak, and they demand that women's prerogative be forthwith greatly increased -they would make men of them at once. Others consider that by a different course of education, which should direct their minds to great objects, women would quietly assume a position equal to that of men, without any more active interference. A third and large party assert that, so far from men being the stronger, they have always been the victims of the other sex.

There is perhaps some truth in each of these propositions; but when we consider that men have always been the lawmakers, there may be a suspicion of their having secured to themselves an undue portion of the powers and privileges of social life. It is so easy to make a law in favor of oneself, that we think there is a chance of the suspicion being well-founded. On the other hand, the small amount of truth which we have supposed to exist in the propositions above stated is completely swamped by the presence of a load of injustice.

The destiny of man and woman, husband and wife, is the same; each has certain duties to perform, which of themselves combine for the mutual advantage. If men and women, when brought together by marriage, and who have to live together for the whole of their lives, would make up their minds to be as charitable to each other's fallings, as much disposed to mutual forbearance and considerateness towards each other's feelings in private, as they appear to be when in the presence of their friends, we should hear much less about injustice and false position.

To use a common expression, what is fair for one is fair for the other; in the married state there should be the strictest equality. The husband must come down from the position of master, not that his place may be taken by the woman, but that she may be the sharer of his pleasures, hopes and joys, as she has ever been the partaker of his pains, fears and sorrows. There is nothing more beautiful than friendship; and the friendship of husband and wife insures the highest earthly happiness.

Many married men consider themselves fully justified in passing most of their evenings away from home, among their companions. If this be fair for the man, it is equally fair for the woman to go out and visit her friends also. If it be essential that the woman have always a smile ready to greet her husband when he enters, it is equally essential that he should bring good humor and a pleasant countenance with him. True, he may be troubled and annoyed with business cares; but is she not troubled and annoyed, often to a greater degree, with family and household cares? with the difference that, whilst she is always amongst hers, the man by his more active outdoor life does in some measure modify his. If it be fair for the husband to keep the purse, it is fair that the wife should know how much or how little there may be in it. There must be no secrets on either side; what the man knows the woman ought to know. In cases of difficulty woman's feelings will often suggest a better remedy than man's reason.

The case might be met by the mutual recognition of one common purpose and object, combined with respect for differing views regarding its attainment. Generally speaking, it may be said that there wants for man more of sympathy, for woman more of discretion.

The kindest and the happiest palr
Will find occasion to forbear;
And something every day they live
To pity, and perhaps forgive.

MRS. ROCHEFOUCAULD'S MAXIMS.

TEARS are a woman's best and most convincing reasons. A looking-glass never pays compliments, but enables us to win them,

A woman will tell a secret to you, -but to nobody else..

"because you're different"

Children are milestones that tell the world the distance a woman has travelled from her youth.

Beardless youths are most prone to arrogance and self-sufficiency. As they grow older their whiskers cover a great deal of their cheek.

Men should never choose a flirt for a wife, be she fair as Venus. The sagacious housewife avoids the fruit that has its bloom off.

When a female friend asks your advice about a lover, say that he is not worthy of her and counsel her to reject him. She will vastly relish the compliment you pay her, and the lover may fall to your lot into the bargain.

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We are "very happy to see" people whom we detest and very much obliged" to persons whose favors are nuisances. We return thanks for the kind inquiries of acquaintances who have not the least interest in us, and whom we rather dislike

than otherwise.-Punch.

Learn in childhood, if you can, that happiness is not outside, but inside. A good heart and a clear conscience bring happiness, which no riches and no circumstances alone ever do.

A smile may be bright while the heart is said the rainbow is beautiful in the air while beneath is the moaning of the sea.

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