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The new system of breaking large stones into small pieces, will not do so well in confined streets, where there is much traffick, for the frequency of opening the ground to repar pipes, would always keep the road in a state of old and new, or firm and loose. Not only that, but if not kept wet the dust would be a greater annoyance than the present rough pavement.

What makes the present paved streets the most objectionable, is, that they are continually in a state of hills and holes. The pavement does not become so from wear; the stones have not wore away, for you may invariably see, in every street where there is much traffick, that about a week or two after new pavement is done, it is as uneven as almost any of the old.

Now this I think, may be remedied by a more careful and judicions mode in arranging and squaring of the stones, and in fixing them down. In the first place, the present way of arranging them is, to put together little and big ones, just as may happen; one may be twelve inches in length and the next one only six. The one which stands only upon six inches of ground, will sink further in with a heavy weight that the other, which stands on twelve inches.

In the second place, there is not much attention paid to the squaring of the bottom part, or bed of the stone. Now, suppose two stones to be togethof an equal size, the one quite square, or flat, at the bottom, and the other to be pointed like a wedge, would not an equal weight on the top press one further into the earth than the other? In the third place, the present way of fixing them down is, first, to loosen the ground on which they are to be fixed. If one of them should be much deeper than another, then to scrach away the loose ground, so as the top

of the stone may be fixed even wita the others. If another should happen to be not so deep as the general run, more loose ground is to be added, so as to raise it up to an equal level. Then comes the rammer to beat them down firm: a slight blow sinks the the stone which has the most loose dirt under, and it takes, perhaps, three or four heavy ones to knock down the one which has little or none under it. Now, with an equal weight on these, for instance, a loaded waggon, will not the first stone which has had but a slight ramming sink much more than the other? Why, in fact, the present system of paving is nothing more than putting the ground into a hard and soft, or hills and holes, and placing stones upon it to prevent our seeing or believing that it is so.

Now, the amendments in paving which I suggest, are first, to leave off ramming the stones, and to ram the ground instead on which the stones are to be placed to precisely the same form that you intend the top of the pavement to be; second, to place together all the stones which are exactly of one size; fourth, the bottom, or bed, to be perfectly flat or square; then set them on this hard-rammed ground, and you will seldom see paving in hills and holes.

For example, suppose that such squared stones were placed on the top on any good hard road without at all loosening of it, would not the pave ment be firmer and less likely to sink in holes than if the ground were pecked up and the stone rammed? Recollect, the knocking of them down does not make them harder; it is only done to make the ground harder on which they stand. Surely, then, it would be more effectually done by beating it down hard before the stones are put upon it. Aug. 11, 1824.

ANTI-ANIMAL SOCIETY.

A new society of Christians has been formed at Manchester, one of whose tenets is to abstain entirely from vcery kind of animal food, which they consider themselves bound to do, from their particular interpretation of the command, Thou shalt not kill."

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One curious thing has resulted from this carcinophobia of new Christians, which ought to be recorded. They have all found their health, strength, and intellect improved by the new regimen, which many religious persons have ascribed to the Divine fa

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Mr. Marion has found in the island of Manilla, a species of reptile, of the family of the Agamoides, which has the faculty of changing colour, like the cameleon. 'Its head is triangular, pretty large in proportion to the body; the tail long and slender; along the back, the crest or rid is formed of soft scales, and under the throat is a goitre. The feet have toes detached, and very unequal; the scales are mostly triangular, imbricated and especially those of the tail. The iris is blackish, bordered with a little white circle about the pupil. The animal is very active, and feeds on insects. When the author first came into possession of it its colour, for 24 hours, was a delicate green, whether held in the dark, or exposed to the sun,- no grain of colour was observed.

whether kept motionless, or in a state of agitation: but next morning, on removing it from the inside of a bamboo, where it had been placed, its colour throughout had changed to carmelite; when exposed to the air, this colour gradually disappeared, and the animal resumed its green robe. On this ground, certain brown lines were soon after visible: the animal was then replaced in the bamboo, but, on drawing it out, it had acquired a blueish-green colour, and it was only in the open air that the brownish tints returned; and at length, without any variation of form or position, the brown colour gave place to a uniform green, intermingled, however, with some brownish streaks. When laid on green or red substances,

PASTEBOARD ANATOMICAL FIGURES.

Mr. Auzoux, a young physician of Paris has invented a method of studying the anatomy of the human body superior to that by any imitation with The flexibility of the wax renders it fit to represent the surface of

wax.

objects; but, the interior parts,
which are most wanted for inspection,
cannot be surveyed by it.
Of course,
waxen figures are better adapted to
the museum than the amphitheatre.
Mr. Auzoux, with a composition re-

*This circumstance ought to be known to the new society for preventing cruelty to animals, lately formed in London under the patronage of Mr. Buxton, and who meet regularly at Slaughter's Coffee-House.

sembling pasteboard, can imitate the human frame, including all its organs, its internal and external parts, with exact fidelity. The upper parts are easily displayed, according to the rules adopted in dissection, and the interior are moveable with the like facility. The artificial structure may thus be decomposed into a thousand different pieces, and readily put together again, by means of numerical cyphers attached. The only objection to this process is, that the shades and colouring are not so well shown as on wax, but this it is thought may be surmounted. The most minute organs,

the nerves, muscles, veins, all the vessels, are completely and correctly exhibited. In anatomical pathology, the effects of any malady will not only be visible on the surface, but the ravages made by it in the interior of the body and the alterations thereby effected. With the aid of variable pieces, the accoucheur may contemplate the different stages of pregnancy, &c. Comparative anatomy, veterinary medicine, and many who are not professionally obliged, and from the fetid scent, cannot attend dissections, will derive no small advantage from this invention.

THE PLEASURES OF BRIGHTON. A CIVIC SONG.

HERE'S fine Mrs. Hoggins from Aldgate,
Miss Dobson and Deputy Dump,
Mr. Spriggins has left Norton-Falgate,
And so has Sir Christopher Crump.
From Shoreditch, Whitechapel and Wapping,
Miss Potts, Mr. Grub, Mrs. Keats,

In the waters of Brighton are popping,
Or killing their time in its streets.

And it's O! what will become of us?
Dear! the vapours and Blue-
Devils will seize upon some of us
If we have nothing to do.

This here, ma'am, is Sally, my daughter,
Whose shoulder has taken a start,
And they tell me, a dip in salt water
Will soon make it straight as a dart :-

Mr. Banter assured Mrs. Mumps,

(But he's always a playing his fun,) That the camel that bathes with two humps; Very often comes out with but one. And it's O! &c.

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T'other day, ma'am, I thump'd and I cried,
And my darling roar'd louder than me,
But the beast wouldn't budge till the tide
Had bedraggled me up to the knee!
And it's O! &c.

At Ireland's I just took a twirl in

The swing, and walk'd into the Maze,
And, lauk! in that arm-chair of Merlin
I tumbled all manner of ways.
T'other night Mr. Briggs and his nevy

To Tupper's and Walker's would go,
But I never beheld such a levee,
So monstrously vulgar and low!
And it's O! &c.

On the Downs you are like an old jacket,
Hung up in the sunshine to dry;

In the town you are all in a racket,

With donkey-cart, whiskey, and fly.
We have seen the Chain Peer, Devil's Dyke,
The Chalybeate Spring, Rottingdean,
And the royal Pagoda, how like

Those bedaub'd on a tea-board or screen!.
And it's O! &c.

We have pored on the sea till we're weary, And lounged up and down on the shore Till we find all its gaiety dreary,

And taking our pleasure a bore. There's nothing so charming as Brighton, We cry as we're scampering down, But we look with still greater delight on The day that we go back to town.

For it's O! what will become of us,
Dear! the Vapours and Blue-
Devils will seize upon some of us
If we have nothing to do.

STEAM AND RAILWAYS.

A great social revolution appears to be on the eve of taking place from new application of the powers of steam. Some years since we described in this miscellany the loco-motive steam engines of BLENKINSOP, and

gave a graphic representation of them. Since that time they have been used in all the great collieries to convey coals from the pits to the place of shipment. The principle is an iron railway with pinions, so cast at the

same expense as plain, while the wheels of the engine are cast with teeth to work in the pinions; such wheels being cast at the same expense as plain ones. Wheels thus turned by a ten-horse power, have, like gas-fixing animals working with their feet, purchase sufficient to transport fifty tons of coal, six or eight miles per hour, and to ascend, if necessary, the 100th of the length, or seventeen yards in a mile, while they would move less weights twelve or fourteen miles per hour. The principle is obviously capable of extention; and at length a line of thirty miles in Durham having been prepared in this manner, the idea has been caught by public spirited persons in those focuses of enterprize, Liverpool and Manchester, and a similar road is planned between those towns, in which Manchester will represent the colliery of Liverpool. The Durham engineer, Mr. Stephenson, has made a survey which reduces the turnpike-road distance from thirtysix to thirty-three miles, and the canal

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SIR, I regret that a variety of engagements has prevented me from sending earlier in the present month a communication, invited by one of your respectable correspondents, which is now at your service.

For the satisfaction of your friendly correspondent Investigator, I now transcribe a copy of "the Beggar's

distance from fifty to thirty-three, while the time will be reduced a full half. Such prepared roads seem therefore likely to supersede both canals and turnpike roads between places of great intercourse and definite distance; and already another is suggested from Birminghan to Liverpool! On our part, we would recommend others from London to Brighton, &c. to Holyhead, and through York to Edinburgh, with branches to Glasgow Here is an and all the great towns. opening for the advantageous employment of capital, combined with immense public advantages. Bold as is the project, it is not less so than many other applications of science which we have from time to time suggested and recorded in this miscellany, and which we have had the pleasure to live and see realized. The economy both of time and money would be so great, that all England would soon be united as one great metropolis, and its inhabitants enjoy a sort of personal national obiquity.

THE BEGGAR'S PETITION"?
Yon house, erected on a rising ground,

With tempting aspect, drew me from my road;
For plenty there a residence has found,
And grandeur a magnificent abode.

Hard is the fare of the infirm and poor!
Here craving for a morsel of their bread,
A pamper'd mienial forc'd me from the door,
To seek a shelter in an humbler shed.

Oh take me to your hospitable dome,

Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the oøld!

For I am poor, and miserably old.

Petition," as it was originally written Short is my passage to the friendly tomb, by the Rev. Thomas Moss, from Shaw's "History of Staffordshire," vol. ii. p. 238: a neatly executed engraving, of a decrepit old man leaning Your hands would not withhold the kind relief, upon crutches, is prefixed.

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Should I reveal the source of every grief, If soft humanity e'er touch'd your breast,

And tears of pity could not be represt.

Heaven sends misfortune,-why should we repine ?
'Tis heaven has brought me to the state you see ;·
And your condition may be soon like mine,-
The child of sorrow and of misery.

A little farm was my paternal lot,

Then like the lark I sprightly hail'd the morn; But, ah! oppression forc'd me from my cot, My cattle died, and blighted was my corn. My daughter! once the comfort of my age! Lur'd by a villain from her native home, Is cast abandon'd on the world's wide stage,, And doom'd in scanty poverty to roam.

My tender wife! sweet soother of my care i Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree, Fell,-lingering fell,-a victim to despair,

And left the world to wretchedness and me.

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,

Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span,

Oh! give relief, and heaven will bless your store.

I am not able to communicate any additional information concerning the time when this poem was written. It deserves consideration, however, that the friend of Mr. Moss, whose letter has been quoted in the first page of this volume, and who declared in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxx. p. 41, "that he had authority to state, that he wrote it about the age of twenty-three,"

referred the readers of that article to Mr. Moss himself, who was at that time "Minister of Trentham," for the truth and confirmation of his statement. I judge from personal recollection of him, that he was about seventy years of age at the time of his decease; and have ascertained, by a certificate copied from the register of burials, that the Rev. T. Moss was interred in the cemetery adjoining to the parish church of King's Swinford, in the county of Stafford, on the 11th of December, 1808. It is to be lamented that no memorial distinguishes the spot where he reposes, as he was not only admired as a poet, but also deservedly esteemed as a man of exemplary character, and as an acceptable preacher.

MASTICATION AND DIGESTION.

Discharges of blood from the lungs have lately been prevalent, and have in some instances excited more alarm on the part of the patient and his friends than has been due to the occasion. When the consumptive disposition is not strongly marked, when the hæmorrhage soon subsides, without being followed by hurried pulse or hurried respiration, and when the individual finds himself rather relieved than made worse in his feelings by the occurrence, the accident ought not to be considered, as it is too apt to be, a necessary indication of and prelude to a break-up of constitution, and a coming on of consumption.

Some cases of disturbance in the stomach and bowels, not quite reaching to the height of cholera, have been clearly traced to taking meals with careless and gourmand rapidity. At this season of the year, when the stomach is morbidly alive to excitation, and the biliary secretion has more than usual susceptibility to deranged action, hurried meals, with copious draughts, ought especially to be abstained from. It is a curious fact, that while every one almost is aware

that though mastication is important, very few, indeed, act up to the knowledge which in this particular even feeling imparts. But let it be recollected by the more than commonly careless in this respect,that the inconvenience which the stomach suffers, from being obliged to perform the office of mastication as well as digestion does not end with the moment. Many more die of mere indigestion than is generally imagined; and, where chronic disorganization is the result of even temperate intemperance, you may repent and call for aid as you will, but it will be found that the time for repentance and for succour is gone by. Large draughts at dinner, under the notion of the solvent property of drink, will do more harm than good. The writer does not subscribe to the position that "man is not a drinking animal (a position, by the way, which has been advocated with much ingenuity and eloquence), but he thinks, nay, he knows, that a well-masticated meal requires but little of fluid to aid its solution, and that much drink of any kind rather tends to distention than digestion. Sept. 1, 1824.

CURING OF SAGE FOR THE CHINA MARKET.

The Monthly Review, in reviewing Phillips' History of Vegetables, 1822, respecting Sage, states "that the ATHENEUM VOL. 2. 2d series.

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Dutch have been long in the habit of drying sage leaves to resemble tea, for which they collect not only their own,

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