ments, the reflective mind can not but view it as an unique cabinet, in which are tastefully arranged the proofs of that unerring sequence of Providence which finds a substitute at the exact period of the decline or extinction of that which it is intended to supersede. Thus, at a period when the scarcity of whales is an accepted fact, we have here an artificial whalebone, now used almost throughout America, and greatly on the continent of Europe. With the dearth of elephants and the greater demand for ivory, a fitting and unimpeachable substitute is provided by vulcanite, and so throughout a length and breadth of usefulness of encyclopædian variety."

be a knowledge of the establishment of a "Vulcanite Court" by Mr. Goodyear in the Sydenham Palace, near to London. We clip a description of it from the papers: "It is placed in the South Transept Gallery, upon the Terrace side; and whoever is anxious to obtain any just idea of the rapid progress of invention in that which relates to India rubber or its appliances, should witness what is here exhibited, more particularly if the desire is to have any conception of the present and future results of the discovery of the vulcanization of India rubber, and the apparently endless uses to which this material is already and may be hereafter applied. When the Vulcanite Court was yet unfinished and unfurnished, we alluded to the wide-spread benefits it was destined to confer upon the public. Already, so far as civilization extends, there is hardly a nook so obscure or a person so humble as not to have been in some degree benefited by it; and few who do not know something of the merits of one of al-ical uses; but the men who are taught in foreign most the necessaries of life-the American India rubber galoche, one of the first articles to which the discovery was applied. The same remark is applicable to a vast number of other articles of vulcanized and vulcanite India rubber. It needs

The pride with which this great invention may be regarded by Americans is somewhat modified by the fact, that the art which has fashioned the infinite variety of its products is wholly foreign. American ingenuity has wrought out the great secret of the vulcanite and adapted it to mechan

schools of design have been needed to carry the invention almost into the province of art.

Editor's Drawer.

ARPER'S FERRY is known the land over for

but a glance for the visitor to discover that a far the picturesque and magnificent scenery of the

more extensive industry is now opened with this new material, vulcanite, which has grown out of only another phase of vulcanization. This will not appear so strange to our readers who have not seen these displays, if they consider that in this material there is found a substitute for ivory, whalebone, bone, and shell-possessing their valuable qualities without their defects, such as splitting, altering by change of temperature, waste in working, and expensiveness of carving, turning, etc.; when also they consider that these articles are worked without, waste of material, and moulded in a soft state with all the facility of wax or dough.

"It would occupy considerable space to detail the hundreds of articles exhibited, which, from the now well-known properties of this material, are proved to be unquestionably superior to the same articles heretofore made of ivory, buck-horn, bone,

etc. We therefore pass to a brief description of the Court and the main features of the invention. "The Vulcanite Court is about sixty feet in length by eighteen feet in breadth. It is built, for the most part-more particularly such portions as are the most ornamental and striking-of the vulcanite, the columns being inlaid in different colors of workmanship, and the signs, lettering, etc., being of the same material. The interior is divided into three compartments-drawing-room, bedroom, and dining-room. These are filled with exquisite works of ornament and utility. The drawing-room is elegantly furnished with all the articles usually found in the most fashionable mansions, added to which there are numbers of others of interest, and entirely new. The jewelry and carving, and the entire requirements of both the gentleman's and lady's toilet, are unexceptionable. The walls are decorated with choice engravings, worked upon vulcanite parchment; and the paintings in oil on vulcanite panels are evidently from the hands of accomplished masters, and are framed in polished or gilded vulcanite frames. In a word, every thing that an accomplished resident might require is here found in its place; and while the tout ensemble is made simply to represent an elegant suite of apart

|

region, as well as for the extensive Armory of the United States Government there located. A few weeks ago, as the railway train stopped at this romantic place, for the passengers to take refreshments, a traveling II inglishman stepped out of the cars upon the platform, and looking around him, inquired of a boy,

66

'Harper's Ferry," said the boy.

"Oh! ah! thank you. 'Arper's Ferry, is it? And, pray, is 'Arper's Magazine at this ferry, too?" The boy was stumped for a moment, but Young America soon recovered himself, and replied, "You mean the powder magazine, Sir." "Ay, ay," responded Bull.

"Yes, Sir, that's here, down there below the Armory; and if you go to look at it, 'Arper's Weakly will be there too!"

The Englishman could make neither head nor tail of the matter, but walked in to his dinner, muttering to himself, "'Arper's Ferry, 'Arper's Magazine, 'Arper's Weekly! What a musical people these Yankees must be, so many 'Arpers all in one place!"

MR. STEELE was putting up a splendid suit of apartments. One of the largest of them was to be devoted to public lectures, and he was very solicitous that it should be so constructed as to be favorable for the transmission of sound. He was very slack in paying his workmen; and one day, when he was quite behindhand in this matter, he came suddenly into the midst of them, to see what progress they were making. They were at work on the lecture-room, and he told the boss carpenter to stand on the rostrum and make a speech, so that he might judge of the effect of sound in the house. The carpenter took the stand, but commenced scratching his head instead of speaking, and was obliged to say that he was a better hand at clenching nails than arguments, and could make a house sooner than a speech.

"Never mind," said the owner,

"never mind

that; say the first thing that comes into your head."

"Well then, your Honor, if I must, I must; so here goes: We have been working here for six months past, and have not received one dollar of our pay, and we would just like to know how soon you intend to do the fair thing?"

"Very well done," said Mr. Steele; "you speak very well. I can hear distinctly, but I must confess I don't like the subject!"

liniment; and many another patient would find that rubbing the prescription in is quite as effectual as the medicine.

THE Hutchinson boys were very popular some years ago, until Judson set up for a wit, and proved to be too much of a fool. His wretched attempts at fun made him a laughing-stock when he, poor fellow, thought they were laughing at his poor jokes. The Buckley minstrels, in their negro caricatures, take off the Hutchinsons; and the THIS reminds us of a very good thing that was other night one big black fellow steps out on the said and done last winter at a capital dinner-party stage, à la Judson, and, imitating him to the life-capital party and capital dinner. It was given voice, manner, shirt-collar, and all-he said: "If by Mr. Stoneham, in Fourteenth Street, to a select-any-of the ladies-wish-to-to-to-kiss the circle of friends, including some of the pleasantest performers, they will have an-opportunity at the characters of the town. All went merrily as a close of the entertainment." It would have taken dozen marriage belles, and when the health of Mr. the conceit out of Jud to have seen himself in this Stoneham was given, and a speech invoked, he imitation nigger. said what was, indeed, very true-that he never made a speech in his life, and it was too late for him now to begin. But he would call upon his friend, Mr. Wagjaw, who was sitting on his right, to express his feelings, instead of attempting to do it himself.

Mr. Wagjaw rose, and regretted that some one else had not been called on to do justice to Mr. Stoneham's sentiments; but having been commanded to speak in behalf of their noble host, he would thank the gentlemen for the honor of their company around his social board; the pleasure he had enjoyed in their flow of soul; and he would beg that they would give him the additional happiness of dining with him again a week from this day. A sudden start of Mr. Stoneham told the company how unexpected was this climax to the speech of his mouth-piece; but the unbounded applause with which it was received, and the richness of its humor, silenced all objections, and he made the best of it by repeating his banquet on the following Thursday. It was another good season.

PHONOGRAPHY, or funnygraphy, as it is called, is certainly making progress. A Western correspondent sends us the original copy of the following notice, written and posted in the village whence he writes, and by the learned teacher whose name is hereunto appended:

"NOTICE will here be given that those wishing to studdy Phonography or the Ponetic short hand can have lessons in this useful art of learning to rite it is far superior to any yet thoaght of you can tell better when you come to see some of it and see whairin it is better. all of those wishing to studdy this useful studdy are requested to call to Mr. Milners Saturday eavning March the 28

1857 between the ours of 7 and 8

CB CARMAN"

A FEW days ago the doctor at the Demilt Dispensary was greatly amused with a limping Irishman, who had been there a short time before with a sprained ankle. Dr. B-wrote out a prescription for a liniment, and told Paddy to rub it on his ankle every night, and come back at the end of a week and report. Paddy now presented a paper, sadly soiled and worn, which proved to be the original prescription as written by the doctor.

"Well, what have you been doing with this, Pat?"

"Sure, yer honor, I've did as ye tould me. I've rubbed me ankle with it every night, and it's cured intirely, God bliss yer honor!"

And so the poor fellow had got well without the

"WHAT a lovely woman!" was the exclamation of Lord Chancellor Eldon, upon passing a first-class beauty, when pacing up and down Westminster Hall, with his friend the Master of the Rolls, previous to the opening of their respective courts.

"What an excellent judge!" said the lady, when her sensitive ear caught the flattering decree of the Lord High Chancellor of England.

NOT long since, a certain noble peer in Yorkshire, who is fond of boasting of his Norman descent, thus addressed one of his tenants, who, he thought, was not speaking to him with proper respect:

"Do you not know that my ancestors came over with William the Conqueror ?"

“And, mayhap,” retorted the sturdy Saxon, nothing daunted, "they found mine here when they comed."

The noble lord felt that he had the worst of it.

GREAT effects from little causes flow, as tall oaks from little acorns grow; but we have rarely heard of a more extraordinary illustration of the fact than is seen in the case of Sir Thomas Colby, an English gentleman. It is stated of him that, waking up in the night, he recollected that he had left the key of his wine cellar on the parlor table, and fearing that his servants would improve the inadvertence, and drink some of his wine, he got up and went down stairs after it. He was in a profuse perspiration, which was suddenly checked as he rose and stepped into the colder halls. The check of perspiration threw him into a fit of sickness, which terminated fatally in a few days. His illness was so brief and severe that he could make no will, and his immense property of six millions of dollars was divided among five or six day-laborers, who were his nearest relatives.

It has cost many a man many a hard sweat to get that amount of money, but few have lost so much by getting out of a sweat.

THE man who wrestled with adversity wore out his silk stockings, and got worsted.

"ON the canal a few miles from our village," says a contributor to the Drawer, "a party of laborers were at work, all green from the greenest isle of the sea. The overseer was a rascally Yankee, who one day found a snapping-turtle; and, knowing that the raw Irishmen had never seen

such a beast before, he took it by the tail, placed | become history and world talk-is nothing to the it on the smooth-graded bank, and put upon its unwritten, untold deeds of darkness that he was back a bit of turf that covered it entirely. As it ever perpetrating. His whole life was intrigue. slowly marched off with its burden, he called the Woman was his spoil. He lived before the world attention of one of the men to the singular fact as an aspirant for power: in social life he lived to that the sod was traveling. triumph over the weakness of the sex. His treachery, his infamous exposure of confidential letters addressed to him by ladies of rank and fashion, his utter heartlessness, are now well known; but the chapters of his love affairs, if published, will make the most extraordinary revelations that have ever yet appeared in connection with the name of this remarkable man.

"With a cry to startle the Seven Sleepers, he called the 'byes' to witness the wonderful spectacle. 'Holy mother of Moses!' said he; 'did ever ye see the likes o' that? Here's a bit o' bog trottin' off for all the world like meself after takin' me third pint!'

"In a moment all hands had dropped shovel and pick, and stood in noisy wonder around the moving turf. At length Mike White, a bolder boy than the rest, stooped slowly, and peeping under, began to feel if the thing had any legs, or what in creation made it go.

Snap! and in an instant Mike's thumb was seized, and the poor fellow howled with pain. The creature clung fast, and Mike brought him up, his legs all spread abroad, and roared out:

"Let go o' that, ye bloody spalpeen! or I'll knock yez out o' that little box ye're sittin' in! Let go!'

"But the more Mike swore the more the beast held on; and not till the overseer 'axed' him would he quit the Paddy's thumb."

BEN BROWN opened a store in Swoptown, and, in order to hook every body in to trade, he offered to treat every one that bought any thing at his store. Money being pretty scarce, there was a good deal of barter going on in those days. So Sam Jones called into the grocery and dry-goods store of Mr. Brown, and asked for a darning-needle, offering in exchange an egg. After receiving the needle, Jones said:

"Come, Sir, ain't you going to treat?" "What! on that trade ?"

"L Certainly—a trade's a trade, let it be big or little."

"Well, what will you take ?" "A glass of wine," said Jones.

The wine was poured out, when the sponge said, "Would it be asking too much to request you to put an egg into this wine? I am very fond of wine and egg."

Appalled by the man's meanness, the storekeeper took the identical egg which he had received for the darning-needle, and handed it to his customer, who, on breaking it into his wine-glass, discovered that it contained a double yolk.

The late honest, but poor Matthew L. Davis, his executor, received from him, while living, trunks full of feminine correspondence, by which Burr sought to make Davis's fortune, but which were generously returned, without fee or reward, to the grateful recipients.

Lobbying-now an anomaly-was then in full force. Several important bills had passed the New York Legislature, and some were so uncharitable as to intimate that improper influences had been resorted to. Davis was accused of being engaged in bringing about a successful result.

A lady of rank and fashion condescended-and ladies rarely condescend to mingle in any thing out of their appropriate sphere, the limits of the domestic circle-to say hard things of Davis; she went so far as to intimate she could calmly look on and see him hung. Davis went to her door, rang the bell, sent up his name, and was promptly answered she was not, and never would be at home to Mr. Davis.

"Pray ask her if she has heard from her husband at Niagara ?"

He was forthwith invited up stairs. The lady entered in trepidation and alarm.

"Has any calamity happened to my beloved husband?" said she.

"This will explain all," said Davis, handing her a letter in her own chirography, addressed to Colonel Aaron Burr.

"Good Heavens, Sir!" said she; "for what purpose is this letter destined to remain in your possession?"

"Ever afterward," said Davis, "she almost “Look here,” said the sponge, "don't you think broke her neck in extending her head out of the you ought to give me another darning-needle? | carriage window to greet me as she passed." This, you see, is a double yolk!"

THE WEDDING-DAY.

I CAN not sleep, I tremble so,
And such a tumult fills my brain;
It must be joy I feel, I know,

But oh, how near it seems to pain!
The wind moans through the old pear-tree;
The morn is cold, and damp, and gray;
Who would have thought the world would be
So sad upon my wedding-day?

No less I love thee, Charlie Ray,
God knows my heart is full of theo-
So full, that if I kneel to pray,
Thine image only can I see.
And I would not exchange this morn-
Its cold, its mist, its hoary rime-
For all the splendors that adorn
The young day in some fairer elime.

EVERY one remembers the story of the contest GOVERNOR CLARK, who was relieved of the between two painters-one of them painted a baskcares of State by the advent of a King last win-et of cherries so naturally that the birds flew down ter, has been ticketed for immortality as the pardoning Governor. If he is forgiven as he forgave others, it will go well with him here and hereafter. Some people are so uncharitable as to think that some of these good deeds of his ought to be repented of. But Governor Clark was fond of quoting a text of Scripture which reads like this: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." He had an eye to the promise when he opened the prison-doors.