AMERICAN LADIES AND THEIR PECULIARITIES. THE Boston ladies are excessively pretty and fascinating, and rather more embonpoint than their New York rivals, and you often meet with a complexion so transparent as to be quite startling. From the intense cold of the winter, they very seldom leave their houses (which are heated with stoves) for months together; and to this circumstance I imagine a good deal of their delicate, interesting appearance is to be attributed. There is great difference between the Boston and New York ladies. The former are inclined to be blue-attend anatomical lectures and dissections-prefer a new theory of geology or religion to a new fashion of dress or crotchet-work. The new York ladies, on the contrary, have no tendency to blue-stocking ism, and quite dread the character, wishing to be supposed capable of no more serious thought than that involved in the last new polka or the last wedding, and professing that there is nothing worth living for but balls and operas! The fair denizens of both cities, however, agree to dress in very good taste and style, and make the most of that fleeting beauty which is so fascinating for a time, but which so soon passes away. They adopt the French fashions completely, but they Americanise them rather too much, sometimes giving them the appearance of being overdressed-a mistake a Frenchwoman never makes-and the habit of wearing short sleeves (or rather no sleeves at all, but only a shoulder-strap) at an early dinner at two o'clock, is very unbecoming. Directly a young lady leaves school, at fourteen or fifteen, she comes out,' and is then a responsible agent, giving and accepting invitations to balls, &c., entirely on her own hook, without consulting mamma, who is only employed to find the ready. It is considered quite correct for a nice young man to call and take a young lady out for a walk, or to the theatre, or to a ball, without any chaperone. The young ladies marry very young, often at fifteen or sixteen, and fade almost before they bloom; at three-and-twenty they look like threeand-thirty, and get very spare. A lady, however handsome, once married, loses her place in society! very little attention is paid to her; all is immediately transferred to the unmarried angels: however, it is not so much the case as it used to be. One charming old lady of about sixty told me that I was the only young man who had honoured her with ten minutes' conversation for the last ten years. The society of Boston is quite literary; as one young lady told me afterwards in the west country, 'In Boston we have an aristocracy of soul; in New York they have an aristocracy of money; in England, of blood-which is most worthy of an enlightened country?' The same young lady (a smart one, and no mistake) told me that Boston was the only place in the world where the feast of reason could be enjoyed in perfection, combined with the proper amount of flow of soul.' In new York and Paris, for instance, you can enjoy the flow of the soul; in Cambridge or Oxford the feast of reason (Is that all you know of it? thought I); but Boston is the only true combination of the two. The young ladies in the northern and eastern states have an extraordinary fashion of visiting every corpse within reach. A gentleman I met, who resided at Boston, told me that his father-in-law had died, and had been laid out, when the next day he was surprised at the arrival of ten or fifteen young ladies at the door, and, on asking their business, they said, 'Oh, they only wanted to see the body;' and when they had gone, many more came. The American ladies are generally possessed with the idea of the great robustness of the English, and ima gine that almost every Englishwoman bunts, shoots, and plays at skittles, a striking contrast to their own fair dames, who are occasionally so die-away and lackadaisical, that they would not walk a hundred yards to pull their husbands or lovers out of the water. A case of the kind really occurred at Boston quite lately, when a lady-like Pelham stood still and screamed for assistance, when, with the slightest exertion, she might have saved her husband a very lengthened immersion.-Rambles and Scrambles in North and South America.

'Tis neither good for man nor beast.' Some people, however, are peculiarly affected by the influence of that wind; and they tell a story of Dr Parrfor the truth of which I will not vouch, but which probably has some foundation in fact. When a young man, he is said to have had an attack of ague, which made him dread the east wind as a pestilence. He had two pupils at the time, gay lads, over whose conduct, as well as whose studies, he exercised a very rigid superintendence. When they went out to walk, Parr was almost sure to be with them, much to their annoyance on many occasions. There were some exceptions, however; and they remarked that || these exceptions occurred when the wind was easterly. Boys are very shrewd, and it did not escape the lads' attention, that every day their tutor walked to the window, and looked up at the weathercock on the steeple of the little parish church. Conferences were held between the young men; and a carpenter consulted. A few days after, the wind was in the east, and the doctor suffered them to go out alone. The following day it was in the east still. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, all easterly wind-if the weathercock might be believed. Sunday, Parr went to church, and shivered all day. The next week it was just the same thing. Never was such a spell of easterly wind. Parr was miserable. But at the end of some five weeks, a friend, and man of the world, came to visit him, with the common salutation of- A fine day, doctor!'

'No day is a fine day, sir, with an easterly wind,' said Parr, with his usual acerbity.

Easterly wind?' said his visiter, walking toward the window; 'I don't think the wind east-yes, it is, indeed.' 'Ay, sir, and has been for these six weeks,' answered Parr, sharply. I could tell it by my own sensations, without looking at the weathercock.'

Why, doctor,' answered the other, 'the wind was west yesterday: that I know; and I thought it was west today.'

Then you thought like a fool, sir,' answered Parr. 'A man who cannot tell when the wind is in the east, has no right to think at all. Let him look at the weathercock.'

But the weathercock may be rusty,' answered the other; and your weathercock must be rusty if it pointed to the east yesterday; for it blew pretty smartly from the west all day.'

'Do you think I am a fool, sir? do you think I am a liar?' asked Parr, angrily.

No; but you may be mistaken, doctor,' replied the other. Even Solomon, as you know, made a mistake sometimes; and you are mistaken now, and the weathercock too. Look at the clouds; they are coming rapidly from the west. If you would take my advice, you would look to our friend there on the top of the steeple.'

'I will, sir—I will this moment,' replied Parr; and ringing the bell violently, he ordered his servant to take the village carpenter and a bottle of oil, and have the weathercock examined and greased. He and his visiter watched the whole proceeding from the window-the bringing forth of the ladders, the making them fast with ropes, the perilous ascent, and then the long operation, which seemed much more complicated than the mere process of greasing the rusty weathercock. What can the fools be about?' said Parr. In the end, however, the deed, what

From An Old Gentleman's Letter' in 'Harper's Magazine,' and attributed to the American novelist Paulding.

cited great interest in the medical profession in Edinburgh, which at that time numbered among its professors the celebrated Cullen, and no less celebrated Gregory. The tale was related to me by one of their pupils, who was present, and who assured me that everything was done that science could suggest, till all the ordinary remedial means were exhausted. The poor woman remained without speech or motion. In whatever position the body was placed, there it remained; and the rigidity of the muscles was such, that when the arm was extended, twenty minutes elapsed before it fell to her side by its own weight. Death was inevitable, unless some means could be devised of rousing the mind to some active operation on the body. From various indications, it was judged that the poor woman was perfectly sensible; and, at a consultation of all the first physicians of the city, the first husband was sent for, and asked if he was willing to co-operate, in order to give his poor wife a chance of life. He replied, with deep feeling, that he was willing to lay down his own life, if it would restore her; that he was perfectly satisfied with her conduct, knew that she had acted in ignorance of his existence, and explained that, having floated to the coast of Africa upon a piece of the wreck, he had been unable for some years to return to his native land, or communicate with any one therein. In these circumstances, it was determined to act immediately. The professors grouped themselves round the poor woman, and the first husband was brought suddenly to the foot of the bed, towards which her eyes were turned, carrying the child by the second husband in his arms. A moment of silence and suspense succeeded; but then, she who had lain for so many days like a living corpse, rose slowly up, and stretched out her hands towards the poor sailor. Her lips moved, and, with a great effort, she exclaimed, 'Oh, John, John, you know it wasna my fault.' The effort was too much for her exhausted frame: she fell back again immediately, and in five minutes was a corpse indeed.

This story may have been told by others before me, for the thing was not done in a corner. But I always repeat it when occasion serves, in order to warn people against an incautious use of means to which we are accustomed to attribute less power than they really possess.

PASCAL.

The last four years of Pascal's life presented an almost unbroken series of bodily suffering. Incapable of mental exertion, his soul was absorbed in devout exercises; and, when his little remaining strength permitted, his delight was to pass from one church to another, to partake of the various religious solemnities, of which the metropolis afforded an uninterrupted succession. He seemed, at those times, almost to realise the fond aspiration of the Psalmist; and, like the bird, of whose privileges he was envious, to make his habitation in the courts of the Lord! It is touching and instructive to contemplate him in these scenes. Who does not follow with interest one, with whose name Europe was resounding, the victorious polemic, the scourge of error-on whose brow literature and science had twined their blended wreath-whom the world, for his genius and his learning, was eager to court and caress;-to see him thus-his days numbered, the unerring premonitions of decay borne within him-pierced by the arrows of the Almighty-stealing, in sickness and solitude, like the stricken deer, from sanctuary to sanctuary; and finding his only remaining comfort in the services of that church, which he had so earnestly sought to purify, but which he yet, perhaps, too fondly, too blindly loved! Was he, in that solitude and amidst those sufferings, really unhappy, and an object of our pity? He himself was, from his inmost heart, pitying the unthinking world, upon which he had turned his back. He possessed, in those moments, 'a peace that passed all understanding,' a joy with which no stranger might intermeddle.' He bore within him a hope full of immortality;' his was a 'sober certainty of bliss.' In those services-alloyed by superstition and error, yet changed by the alchemy of his spiritualised mind into the

sacred nutriment for which alone his soul hungered-he found the foretaste of those pure and stainless adorations on which he was about eternally to enter; and, in the approaching extinction of his earthly hopes, he welcomed the commencement of an existence which was alone commensurate with the large desires of his aspiring spirit!—Pearce's Memoir of Pascal.

PRINCIPLE AND FEELING.

It was once a problem in mechanics, to find a pendulum which should be equally long in all weathers-which should make the same number of vibrations in the sumit out. By a process of compensations, they make the mer's heat and in the winter's cold. They have now found rod lengthen one way as much as it contracts another, so that the centre of motion is always the same-the pendulum swings the same number of beats in a day of January as in a day of June; and the index travels over the dialplate with the same uniformity, whether the heat try to lengthen, or the cold shorten, the regulating power. Now, the moving power in some men's minds is sadly susceptible of surrounding influences. It is not principle, but feeling, which forms their pendulum-rod; and according as this very variable material is affected, their index creeps or gallops, they are swift or slow in the work given them to neither lengthens in the languid heat, nor shortens in the do. But principle is like the compensation-rod, which brisker cold; but does the same work day by day, whether ciples, a high-principled affection to the Saviour is the the ice-winds whistle, or the simoom glows. Of all prinsteadiest and most secure.—Dr Hamilton.

CUSTOM.

Custom has such a happy effect on our nature, that our employments are by it converted into amusements; so that even in those objects which at first were indifferent, or even displeasing to us, the mind not only gradually loses its first aversion, but conceives a certain fondness and affection for them.-Addison.

ANALOGY BETWEEN ALPINE AND ARCTIC VEGETATION.

There is no animal and no plant (says Agassiz), which, in its natural state, is found in every part of the world, but each has assigned to it a situation corresponding with its organisation and character. The cod, the trout, and the sturgeon, are found only in the North, and have no antarctic representatives. The cactus is found only in America, and almost exclusively in the tropical parts. Humboldt, to whom the earliest investigations on this subject are due, extends the principle not only to the distribution of plants according to latitude, but also according to vertical elevation above the surface of the earth in the same latitudes. Thus an elevation of 14,000 feet under the tropics corresponds to 53° N. Lat. in America, and 68° in Europe. The vegetation on the summit of Mount Etna would correspond with that of Mount Washington, and this again with the summits of the Andes, and the level of the sea in the arctic regions. In the ascent of a high mountain, we have, as it were, a vertical section of the strata of vege tation which 'crop out,' or successively appear as we advance towards the north over a wide extent of country. But in dwelling on the resemblances between the plants of high latitudes and those of high mountains, we must not lose sight of their no less constant differences. In the northern regions, in general, we find the number of species comparatively small. Thus, in the region near Lake Superior, which has a northern character, we find vegetation characterised by great vigour; the whole country covered with trees and shrubs, and lichens and mosses in great profusion, but the species few, and the number of handsome, flowering shrubs small. In the Alps, on the other hand, vegetation is characterised by great beauty and variety, and the number of brilliantly flowering plants is very great. The plants, however, are dwarfish, and vegetation comparatively scanty, and lichens and mosses much less abundant. There is, then, not an identity, but an analogy only, and an imperfect though very interesting one, between alpine and arctic vegetation.

in a word, of thought, there is too little. Would that our philanthropists recognised and kept constantly in view the sad fact, that it is extremely possible to

· Skin and film the ulcerous place, While rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen!

We, happily, are not quite without our thinkers, and our practical thinkers. We look with great hope to W. R. Grey, to whose writings we may yet direct attention; and among ourselves we have Sheriff Watson of Aberdeen, of whom we shall say nothing more, than that his performance is, perhaps, when calmly scrutinised, to be pronounced the solidest piece of work philanthropy has performed amongst us.

It may startle some of our readers to say, what we nevertheless say with sufficient confidence, that we recog nise, as a great philanthropic thinker, the great denouncer and overthrower of our age, Mr Carlyle. Yet we think we may say that all who have really understood that extraordinary man, have discovered that the deepest and strongest emotion of his soul is love; and such also will be quick in acknowledging that, if he had done nothing more than proclaim, in words of thunder, the dread necessity that pity walk hand-in-hand with justice, he would have deserved well of the commonwealth.

So much for general principles: we may discover as we proceed, that they are not without a bearing upon our more immediate subject. To this we now address ourselves.

In a late visit to the fair white city of Bon-Accord, which sits so grandly between its rivers and gazes upon the northern main, we had the privilege of visiting and inspecting the Industrial Schools for which it has now become so justly and honourably famous. We first saw the Girls' School of Industry, which owes its existence to the benevolent exertions of Sheriff Watson, and bears his name. The building we found to be one of extreme excellence. By no means palatial, or suggestive in any way of extravagance or ostentation, it was perfectly neat, airy, and ample; it was adjoined by a garden of sufficient extent. On entering, we found the interior to correspond, most fitly, with what had pleased us outside; for the superintendent there was suitable and comfortable accommodation; and the dining-room and class-room were all that could be desired in point of commodiousness and ventilation. We briefly examined the children; to our satisfaction and delight. They were in the reception of a most wholesome and thorough education; their reading, spelling, geography, and Bible knowledge were very creditable, and indicated, perhaps as well as could, in such a short examination, be the case, that everything was in capital working order. By a benign and truly sapient arrangement, the daily occupation of the children, in simple and useful manual labour, we learned to be conjoined with the instillation of knowledge into their minds: so that, if it was within the power of education, we might count on the attainment by the children here of habits of useful and steady application. Comfort breathed in the air; everything seemed wrapped in an atmosphere of comfort; and the children themselves, with their trustful faces, their bright cheerful eyes, their smiles which care had not yet frozen, and their rosy features which health had touched with her brightening finger, filled one with many thoughts. For who were these? They were the absolutely lost, the very dust beneath the feet of society, the dregs, and, we might say, offal of the social system, by whom prim gentility was wont to pass, with averted eye and uplifted skirts; and now they were wrapped in the garments of peace and joy, and in looking upon them one almost wished that he could revisit those happy days of childhood, when joys, like morning dewdrops on the desert, hung about the heart, and the hot winds of life had not yet licked them up.

Of the Boys' School of Industry, called the House of Refuge, which we also visited, or any other of the Aberdeen Ragged Schools, we need not speak; the system is radically the same as that we have described. The boys,

when we saw them, were at work, assiduously picking hair, or making nets-busy, healthy, and extremely hilarious.

It is our object to get at what we may call the philo30phy, or fundamental rationale of these schools; and, to do so, we must investigate their origin.

Philanthropy, gazing upon our streets and squares, upon our quays and alleys, saw multitudes of hungerstricken little beings, prowling, haggard and desolate, in rags; with no food save the precarious crust of miscellaneous charity, and no education, save that valuable sharpening of the faculties which, of necessity, resulted from continual effort to cheat and elude the policeman. For these wretched little boys, there was in store the gallows or the penal chain; for these wretched little girls, there was in store death by starvation, or infamy worse than death. The heart of philanthropy sickened, as, day by day, from judge's or sheriff's bench, she saw such hapless and helpless creatures doomed to the punishment which could neither cure nor improve; which, as experience had manifoldly witnessed, had the simple and sole effect of deepening the twilight of possible hope into the thick night of despair. Had philanthropy a choice in the matter? Was philanthropy wrong in rushing at once to the rescue, and exclaiming, Truly, there may be vice in the question-sorrow never was without sorrow's source; but these young, smitten, harmless things, what have they done? would not the bowels of Rhadamanthus yearn over them, shall I not at once help them?' Philanthropy did help them. In Aberdeen the race of juvenile mendicants may be said to have become extinct: a work of toil and long endeavour it was, doubtless, and one for which, on this earth, there was little in the way of thanks or reward; for, indeed, as we may incidentally remark, it was such work as he had better not set his hand to, whose hope of reward has reference solely, or even materially, to this earth or its inhabitants. But to proceed. From what we have represented, these children of the Aberdeen Ragged Schools became what we have seen: they were uninstructed, uncared for, unfed; they are instructed, cared for, fed. But precisely at this stage, a singular and anomalous phenomenon, as we think we shall discover it to be, presents itself in our social system; at least, in Aberdeen and all localities where industrial schools have been brought into full and efficient operation. On quitting the Girl's School of Industry, we put the question, whether, understanding that these children were the utterly destitute, it were not possible and advisable, as it seemed clearly desirable, to extend the institution so as to admit the children of working-men to share its advantages. That this was desirable, could not be questioned; but the design of the institution had been definite, it was sufficient to accomplish its own ends, it was bound by stipulation to prosecute those ends alone; and, in a word, such extension was out of the question. A moment's reflection will convince the reader that such is the fact. To extend these institutions so as to meet the vast want complained of by working men, were to alter them utterly-to take down every stone, and to construct a totally new edifice on a totally new foundation: the thing is impossible. This fact is to be taken in connection with the two following facts, which rivetted themselves on our heart of hearts, and which we recommend to the most serious consideration of our readers: the first is, that on more occasions than one, working-men have solicited admission for their children into these philanthropic schools, and have been refused; the second is, that when, at the proper age, the children trained in the industrial school, and those reared by the working-man, are respectively brought into the labour market, the former are preferred by the public to the latter-that is, find readier employment. These facts let the reader bear in mind, and, putting pity and philanthropy for a few moments aside, accompany us in our investigation: our view must become again, for a space, retrospective.

Ere philanthropy stretched out her golden sceptre to the destitute of our cities, there were two great classes, in