open-hearted. They have their coffee-houses every night, and their
religious festivities periodically; they play at all sorts of
complicated games, resembling draughts and chess, and find means
ingeniously to vary their sports. If they compromise their dignity, they
succeed in whiling away their leisure time far more successfully than
the pride-stuffed Levantine. One of their amusements--called the game of
plaff--is worth mentioning, especially as it is not only indulged in by
the vulgar, but formed the chief delight of the venerable Moharrem Bey
himself. Two men, often with respectable gray beards, sit on a carpet at
a little distance one from the other. All Easterns are usually dry
smokers; but on this occasion they manage to foment a plentiful supply
of saliva, and the game simply consists in a series of attempts on the
part of the two opponents to spit on the tips of each others noses. At
first, this cleanly interchange of saliva goes on slowly and
deliberately--Socrates never measured the leap of a flea with more
seriousness--but presently one receives a dab in the eye, another in the
mouth. They begin to grow hot and angry. "I hit your nose," cries one.
"No, it was my cheek!" replied the other. They draw a little nearer, in
order to ascertain the truth by feeling; spit, spit, they still go, like
two vicious old cats; their palates grow dry; their throats become
parched; but the contest continues, and they exhaust themselves in
making spittoons of each other's faces and beards. Hamlet and Laertes
were not more eager and desperate. "A hit, a very palpable hit!" they
exclaim, as they hawk up their last supply of ammunition. Each denies
the truth; they mutually proceed to a verification, and the game of
plaff often ends in a regular match of nose-pulling.--_Two Years'
Residence in a Levantine Family._
* * * * *
A MARRIAGE IN AMERICA.--A respectable farmer came in from some distance,
and married the cook. The bridegroom was about fifty, and the bride was
thirty years of age. The landlord and many of his boarders assisted at
the ceremony, which was performed in the evening, and those of the
boarders who had not been present were invited in afterward by the
bridegroom to partake of wine and cake. After all were charged, he gave
this sentiment, "Friendship to all, love to a few, and hatred to none."
So systematically were matters managed, that next morning the bridegroom
was sitting in the stove at the bar at seven o'clock, and at half-past
seven breakfasted as usual at the public table, at which, of course, his
wife, the cook, did not appear, and in the afternoon the happy pair left
for their home. When I asked the landlord what the wife was like, he
answered, "She is as pretty as a picture, and straight as a
candle."--_Sir J. Alexander's "Acadie," just published._
* * * * *
ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS IN OUR OWN TIME.--The Arabs, who have
among them most imaginative and finished _improvisatori_, compare the
elegant movements of a beautiful bride to those of a young camel. The
_Thousand and One Nights_, like most clever fables, have some foundation
in fact, as is well known to the friends of the Arabian man of rank, who
keeps his professed story-teller as an indispensable part of his
establishment. African travelers relate that these friends will assemble
before his tent, or on the platform with which the house of a Moorish
Arab is roofed, and there listen night after night, to a consecutive
history, related for sixty or even one hundred nights in succession. The
listeners on such occasions have all the air of being spell-bound,
especially while hearing some of their native songs, which are
frequently extemporized, full of fire, and appealing with irresistible
force to the passions. "I have seen," says Major Denham, "a circle of
Arabs straining their eyes with a fixed attention at one moment and
bursting with loud laughter; at the next melting into tears and clasping
their hands in all the ecstacy of grief and sympathy."--_Leaves from the
Diary of a Naturalist._
* * * * *
THE LAST YEAR'S LEAF.
The last year's leaf, its time is brief
Upon the beechen spray;
The green bud springs, the young bird sings
Old leaf, make room for May:
Begone, fly away,
Make room for May.
Oh, green bud smile on me awhile,
Oh, young bird, let my stay--
What joy have we, old leaf, in thee?
Make room, make room for May:
Begone, fly away,
Make room for May.--_Philip Taylor_.
* * * * *
DIVINATION BY THE BIBLE AND KEY.--This superstition is very prevalent
amongst the peasantry of this and adjoining parishes. When any article
is suspected to have been stolen, a Bible is procured; and opened at the
1st chapter of Ruth; the stock of a street door key is then laid on the
16th verse of the above chapter, the handle protruding from the edge of
the Bible; and the key is secured in this position by a string, bound
tightly round the book. The person who works the charm then places his
two middle fingers under the handle of the key, and this keeps the Bible
suspended. He then repeats in succession the names of the parties
suspected of theft; repeating at each name a portion of the verse on
which the key is placed, commencing, "Whither thou goest, I will go,"
&c. When the name of the guilty party is pronounced, the key turns off
the fingers, the Bible falls to the ground, and the guilt of the party
is determined. The belief of some of the more ignorant of the lower
orders in this charm is unbounded. I have seen it practiced in other
counties, the key being laid over the 5th verse of the 19th chapter of
Proverbs, instead of the 1st chapter of Ruth.--Godalming, April,
1850.--_Notes and Queries._
* * * * *
SIR THOMAS MORE'S HOUSEHOLD.--The conduct of this great man's house was
a model to all, and as near an approach to his own Utopia as might well
be. Erasmus says, "I should rather call his house a school or university
of Christian religion, for there is none therein but readeth or studieth
the liberal sciences; their special care is piety and virtue; there is
no quarreling or intemperate words heard; none are seen idle; which
household that worthy gentleman doth not govern, but with all courteous
benevolence." The servant men abode on one side of the house, the women
on the other, and met at prayer time or on Church festivals, when More
would read and expound to them. He suffered no cards or dice, but gave
each one his garden-plot for relaxation, or set them to sing or "play
music." He had an affection for all who truly served him, and his
daughters' nurse is as affectionately mentioned in his letters when from
home as they are themselves. "Thomas More sendeth greeting to his most
dear daughters Margaret, Elizabeth and Cecily; and to Margaret Giggs as
dear to him as if she were his own," are his words in one letter; and
his valued and trustworthy domestics appear in the family pictures of
the family by Holbein. They requited his attachment by truest fidelity
and love; and his daughter Margaret, in her last passionate interview
with her father on his way to the Tower, was succeeded by Margaret Giggs
and a maid-servant, who embraced and kissed their condemned master, "of
whom he said after, it was homely but very lovingly done." Of these and
other of his servants, Erasmus remarks, "after Sir Thomas More's death,
none ever was touched with the least suspicion of any evil fame."--_Mrs.
Hall, in the Art Journal._
* * * * *
THE "PASSION PLAY" IN BAVARIA.--This year, the foreign journals state,
is the year of the passion play of the Ammergau in Bavaria. The last
representation took place in the month of July; the spectators were
betwixt eight and nine thousand, collected in an open air theatre; the
corps of actors, three hundred and fifty in number, some of them, says a
French account, men and women as old as eighty years.
The play, which was written in 1633, and which had been recently
retouched, is in twelve acts and eleven _entr'acts_ interspersed with
_tableaux_. The representation lasted from eight o'clock in the morning,
till four in the afternoon, was most elaborately prepared, and perfectly
executed. At its close, the actors fell on their knees and recited
prayers in which they thanked God that their performance had succeeded
so well. They were of the peasant class, and almost all belonged to the
Ammergau. "This same Ammer-valley," says the _Athenæum_, "lies in a most
picturesque country, betwixt Munich and Innspruck--on the road by the
Lake of Staremberg and Partenkirch."
* * * * *
AMBASSADORS.--Holland, Germany, France, America, Spain, send forth their
eminent lawyers, historians, merchants, jurists, and publicists, to fill
embassies and conduct negotiations; while we content ourselves with
recruiting our diplomatic corps from the younger branches of the
aristocracy, or from the sons of men of wealth apeing the manners and
travestying the mode of life of the grand seigneurs, who conceive
themselves made of "the porcelain of earth's clay." The
Schimmelpennicks, the De Serres, the Rushes, the Wheatons, the Clays,
the Adamses, the Jeffersons, the Rufus Kings, the Daniel Websters, the
Dr. Bankses, have all been lawyers; the Washington Irvings, the
Bancrofts, the Guizots, the Bunsens, the Niebuhrs, the Humboldts, the
Ancillons, were men of letters before and during the period they
continued ambassadors.--_Fraser._
* * * * *
M. GUIZOT has been compelled to sell at auction a portion of his
valuable and extensive library, and a London paper describes some of the
more remarkable books, and states the prices for which they were sold.
"Comte Auguste de Bastard, Peintures et Ornemens des Manuscrits Français
depuis le huitième siècle jusqu'à la fin du seizième," 20 parts, all at
present published, in five portfolios, Paris, 1835. This splendid work
was described as the most sumptuous, unique, and costly book that has
ever been produced. Each part contains eight plates, copied from the
most superb examples known to exist; they are colored and finished with
gold and silver equal to the exquisite originals; the whole series
extends to 160 engravings in 20 _livraisons_, each of which was sold to
subscribers only at 1800f., amounting in the whole to 36,000f., or in
our money to 1,500_l._ No perfect copy of this production has been
offered for sale in this country prior to the present time; it was sold
for 200_l._ "Voyage de la Corvette l'Astrolabe pendant les Années, 1826,
1827, 1828, 1829, sous le Commandement de Capitaine d'Urville,"
containing copious descriptions of all the objects in science and
history met with on the voyage, the whole being illustrated by splendid
engravings, 30_l._; "Voyage Pittoresque et Romantique en Bretagne," one
of the most magnificent and extensive works ever published on the
scenery and antiquities of any part of the world; the illustrations to
this were executed in the most superb style of lithography; the stones
were broken as soon as the plates were printed; 26_l._ 5_s._
* * * * *
SIR STRATFORD CANNING.--This eminent civilian and ambassador, whose
former residence in this country is remembered with so much pleasure by
his friends here, is thus referred to in a series of papers on the
Diplomacy, Diplomatists, and Diplomatic Servants of England, now in
course of publication in _Fraser's Magazine_: "He who has been
forty-three years in the public service, who commenced his duties as
precis-writer in the Foreign Office in July 1807, and who, having served
as Secretary of Embassy to the Porte, as Envoy to the Swiss
Confederation, as Minister to the United States, as Plenipotentiary on a
special mission to Russia, as Plenipotentiary on a special mission to
Spain, and as Ambassador three times near the Sublime Porte, is now
serving with credit and advantage in that very Stamboul whose towers and
minarets he first saw in 1808."
* * * * *
THE SEVEN-MILE TUNNEL THROUGH THE ALPS.--Dr. Granville says: "To give at
once some idea of the boldness of Chev. Mons' undertaking, we may, in
the first place, state that in its progress the tunnel must pass under
some of the most elevated crests of Mont Cenis,--one, in particular,
where there will be 4,850 feet of mountain, capped with eternal
glaciers, over head, at the middle of the tunnel, so that not only will
the workmen and machinery in construction, and the passengers and trains
in transit, be buried to that depth in the heart of the mountain, but
all idea of shafts, either to facilitate excavation, or to promote
ventilation, must be out of the question. The breath of life itself must
be respired, from either extremity, with artificial aid, in shape of
currents of fresh air transmitted, and of foul air withdrawn, by
mechanical apparatus ever at work, at least during excavation, which is
also itself to be effected by machinery of a new and simple nature,
worked by water-power of mountain streams whereby the trains are also to
be run through the tunnel, which ascends, from the northern or Savoy
side, at Modane, all the way to its exit at Bardonneche, with a gradient
equal to 19 in 1000. The machine, once presented to the rock, projects
into it simultaneously four horizontal series of sixteen scalpels,
working backward and forward, by means of springs cased in, and put in
motion by the same water power. While these are at work, one vertical
series on each side works simultaneously up and down, so that together
they cut out four blocks, or rather insulate four blocks on all sides,
except on the rock behind, from which they are afterward detached by
hand. It has been already ascertained that each of the two machines, at
the opposite ends of the tunnel, will excavate to the extent of 22 feet
a day, and it is estimated that the whole excavation will be completed
in four years. The gallery to be perforated by the machines will be 13
feet wide by 7 feet high, and this once cut through, the bore will be
enlarged by ordinary means to 25 feet in width and 19 feet in height,
and a double line of rails laid. The estimated cost of this great tunnel
is only 13,804,942f. It is to be immediately commenced at the north
entrance."
* * * * *
Medicine has killed as many people as war. Powder and pills are as fatal
as powder and ball. Be careful, therefore, how you allow people to shoot
them into you.