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morous than the English, and as they of saying odd things which, like common produce these professional humourists, proverbs, embody in a line the experience this want of appreciation of them would of ages or the reasoning of a life. He be hard to understand, or even to admit, can do nothing else. He cannot tell a were it not visible also among the Scotch, story, or write a parody, or teach a lesson half of whom are full of a racy humour in politics, and the one faculty he poswhich the other half seem unable to com- sesses is overlaid, by his own or his oriprehend. We never met a Scotchman ginal publisher's folly, till it is almost inyet and we have tried the experiment visible. Half of the book is rubbish, the several times who fully enjoyed Arte- mere dregs of his better work, cooked up, mus Ward, or understood why the ab- we suppose, for a market which had ensurd incongruity of his sayings with the joyed some of his racier oddities, and has shrewdness embodied in his thought, kept on hoping for some more long after made Englishmen shake with laughter the supply was exhausted. About a tenth such as no English humour seemed in is made up of weak platitudes, and about any equal degree to provoke. There a twentieth of Christian maxims of the must be two publics in America, just as most savagely orthodox type, which seem there are in Scotland, and one of them usually, with an exception or two, wretchdespises the laughter which the other en-edly out of place, though we must add, joys. One cause of the contempt is, we strange as it may be, they appear to have suspect, the artificiality into which all come from the inmost convictions of the humourists who trade on their humour writer, who has covered all alike pious are apt to fall; another, the weariness of advice, common-place rubbish, keen epiAmericans of the shrewd sayings in which grams, and "pawky" proverbs much of their humour is embodied; and impenetrable veil of bad spelling. What a third, the preposterous use some of the the object of this spelling can be we are comic aphorists make of bad spelling. utterly unable to discover. It is not comArtemus Ward made his bad spelling ic, as Artemus Ward's often was. funny, the absolute difference between not intended to express any dialect, as the method of conjugating one expected Leland's was, or if it is, it does not sucand the method he tried, exciting of itself ceed. It is not phonetic, it is not ingenthe sense of incongruity, which is the ious, it is, in fact, a motiveless absurdity, first cause of laughter; but his imitators all the more to be condemned because have lost his art, such as it was, almost such wit as "Josh Billings" possesses is or quite completely. The person who entirely of the sub-allusive kind, which is calls himself "Josh Billings" has entirely. so seldom liked except among the eduChancing to take up the book at a railway-cated. The real man is not "Josh Bilstation, the writer decided during a ten lings," but to compare small things with minutes' run that "Josh Billings's" wit and humour was, on the whole, the most contemptibly vulgar trash he had ever had in his hand, worse by many degrees than the worst failure of the old London Comic School,- quite as bad, in fact, as its cover, which represented a paunchy fool tumbling on his hands, and lifting with his feet a white hat with a mourning crape all round it. Having, however, to travel farther, and no other book being at hand, he tried to read it steadily, and discovered, in a painful half-hour, this curious fact. "Josh Billings" is the nickname of some unknown person, apparently well educated, with the mind, if one could imagine such a mind, of a Dissenting Sydney Smith. He has not, of course, the full power of the witty divine; he has injured such power as he has by using it up, apparently, as we guess from his dedication, to earn his bread, and his topics are usually inferior; but he has in a high degree the power Sydney Smith possessed

great, an American Montaigne. This sentence, for instance, "We have made justice a luxury of civilization," is essentially of the Sydney-Smith type, and is not made more subtle, but only unintelligible, by ridiculous spelling. It would be hardly possible to express the truth that civilization has secured justice, but has not secured it to the poor, in a terser or more biting form, but its pithiness is just of the kind which a reader capable of spelling "is" as "iz " would never comprehend, any more than he would this curious and quite true observation in natural history, "Monkeys never grow any older in expression. A young monkey looks exactly like his grandpapa melted up and born again;" or this, "No man can be a healthy jester unless he has been nursed at the breast of wisdom," a sentence which contains the whole difference between the humour of a man like Sydney Smith or Charles Lamb and the humour of Mr. Lear.

Where, again, is the sense, not to say the taste or the propriety, of misspelling a fine sentence like this? "Humour must fall out of a man's mouth like music out of a bobolink," which is intelligible only to those to whom bad spelling, and especially artificial bad spelling, is a mere cause of disgust. There is a world of wisdom in the saying, "It is easier to be a harmless dove than a decent serpent," - that is, to be a man constitutionally outside temptation, than a man who, keenly feeling temptation, yet resists; but in what way is the wisdom flavoured by spelling a dove a “duv”? The bitter, worldly experience of this remark, which Rochefoucauld might have made, and Prosper Mérimée would have written to l'Inconnue, if he had thought of it, is utterly lost in a cloud of bad spelling: "Some men marry to get rid of themselves, and find that the game is one that two can play at, and neither win." All the following are suggestive shrewdnesses, much better than Franklin's, whose "Poor Richard " Americans are so inclined to praise; but they are not the more biting, or the more popular, or even the more racy of the soil, for being injured by a farcical spelling:

Time is money, and many people pay their debts with it.

Ignorance is the wet-nurse of prejudice. Wit without sense is a razor without a handle.

Half the discomfort of life is the result of getting tired of ourselves.

Benevolence is the cream on the milk of

human kindness.

People of good-sense are those whose opinions agree with ours.

Face all things; even Adversity is polite to a man's face.

Passion always lowers a great man, but sometimes elevates a little one.

Style is everything for a sinner, and a little of it will not hurt a saint.

Men now-a-days are divided into slow Christians and wide-awake sinners.

There are people who expect to escape Hell because of the crowd going there.

Most men are like eggs, too full of themselves to hold anything else.

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increases us in wisdomage rheumatism.

and in

A mule is a bad pun on a horse. Health is a loan at call. Wheat is a serial. I am glad of it. Manner is a great deal more attractive than matter, especially in a monkey.

pugilist. It reduces him to his fighting weight. Adversity to a man is like training to a

Pleasure is like treacle. Too much of it

spoils the taste for everything.

Necessity is the mother of invention, but Patent Right is the father.

Did you ever hear a very rich man sing? Beware of the man with half-shut eyes. He's not dreaming.

Man was built after all other things had been made and pronounced good. If not, he would have insisted on giving his orders as to the rest of the job.

Mice fatten slow in a church. They can't live on religion, any more than ministers can.

Fashion cheats the eccentric with the claptrap of freedom, and makes them serve her in the habiliments of the harlequin.

There are farmers so full of science that they won't set a gate-post till they have had the earth under the gate-post analyzed.

When lambs get through being lambs they become sheep. This takes the sentiment out of them.

Clearly printed, one sees why the cynical, shrewdly observant man became popular among a people who love proverbs, and is still popular among another people who have a yearning for laughter and cannot find the excuse for it, but his work requires clear printing and a good

deal of condensation. We do not advise anybody to read "Josh Billings,” for the plums in his writing are embedded in a great deal too much dough, but still we are glad to find and to show that a book which sells everywhere is not such a mass of folly and vulgarity as at first sight it appears to be. Of vulgarity there is none at all, or none except in a line probably misprinted; it is a keen, clever reporter or minister who has taken, for unintelligible reasons, to tumbling before

Even when the sayings contain an ele- the world.

WE shall certainly have severe measure | bones. We are using all the coal in the earth dealt out to us by posterity, and it is fortunate at an ever-increasing rate, and it now appears that those who come after us will be able to that sulphur, in Europe at least, will not hoid vent their spite only on our memories or our out much longer. It is estimated that the

sulphur in Sicily will be exhausted in from fifty to sixty years. There are about 250 sulphur-mines in the island, producing about 1,800,000 quintals yearly, beside the enormous quantity which is lost through defective methods of working. In 1871, 1,725,000 quintals were exported, of which England took from 500,000 to 600,000, and France about 400,000 quintals. The ore contains from 15 to 40 per cent. of pure sulphur, but the average amount extracted is only 14 per cent. The sulphur fetches at the pit's mouth about 6 fr. 60 c. The estimate of the approaching failure of the supply in Sicily ap; pears to be well-founded, as may be gathered from an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, summarizing a report addressed by Signor

Parodi to the Italian Government.

sighted as they who are old and infirme, yet wee can being of witches, which as it is contrary to law, so not repreive them, without appearing to denye the very think it would be ill for his Maties service, for it may give the faction occasion to set afoot the old trade of witchfinding yt may cost many innocent persons their lives, wh this justice will prevent." Academy.

THE FREEZING OF ALCOHOLIC LIQUIDS. — M. Melsens has made some experiments ("Naturforscher," 1873, No. 39) on the effect of low temperatures on brandy and wine, and his results accord completely with those of Horrath, who noticed an unexpectedly slight degree of sensation of cold in alcohol which had been exposed to a low temperature. Melsens finds that when brandy is cooled Happily, the place of sulphur is in great to 20° and even 30° or 35° below zero, part supplied by pyrites of iron, which is very it can be swallowed without any discomcheap and widely diffused, and 800,000 tons of fort, provided only it be taken from wooden which are used in Europe annually. Pyrites vessels. is used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid, and contains about 50 per cent. of alcohol. At 30° it is viscid and opalescent, and though the iron extracted from it is of At 40° or — 50° the strong alcoholic liquid very inferior quality, it often yields a con- becomes a solid, and if placed in the mouth in siderable quantity of copper, which doubles its this state the pasty mass as it melts on the commercial value. Again, large quantities of tongue appears less cold than ordinary ice. sulphuric acid are used in various manufac- It has to be cooled to -60° to produce any tures, and pass into the refuse; if this refuse impression of cold, and then is but rarely be chemically treated, perhaps as much as accounted very cold. The coldest portion 1,000,000 quintals of pure sulphur might be prepared by Melsens had a temperature of extracted from it. Directly and indirectly, -71°, and this produced in the mouth a sentherefore, pyrites will supply the place of sul-sation resembling that experienced on taking phur, if the latter fail, as fail it undoubtedly a spoonful of hot soup. He also describes the must in Sicily in little more than half a cen- effect of great cold on effervescing wines. tury.

Academy.

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THROUGH the courtesy of Dr. Daniel, we IRONICAL commentators on our progress have lately seen some recipes once in the and civilization are very fond of pointing out possession of Mr. Pepys, all methodically enthat the barbarous laws against conjuration dorsed. Among them are: "Mr. Boyle's and witchcraft were not repealed until the Bitter Drink or Stomachical Tincture," dated reign of George II. A curious illustration of December 8, 1690, and "given mee by Mr. the working of these laws nearly two centuries Evelin," - another, "given mee by my Lord ago is contained in the following extract from Chancellour," -a prescription from Dr. Dicka letter, preserved amongst the unpublished enson, accompanied by a letter addressed "For State papers of Francis North, afterwards my much Houned Friend, Mr. Pepys, at his Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. At the time house in York buildings,"-another is enof writing North was a Lord Chief Justice of dorsed, "Taken from one Clerke, a pretender the Common Pleas; he was at Exeter on cir- and putter forth of Bills for this Cure, living cuit, and writes from there on August 19, upon Fleet Ditch, on ye further side over 1682, to Sir Leoline Jenkins :against Bridewell. I gave him a Guinny for "Here have been 3 old women condemned for witch-it, myselfe being to find and prepare ye medicraft; your curiosity will make you enquire of their circumstances. I shall only tell you, what I had from my Brother Raymond before whom they were tried, that they were the most old decrepid despicable miserable creatures yt he ever saw, a painter would have chosen them out of the whole country for figures of that kind to have drawn by, the evidence against them was very full & fancifull, but their own confessions exceeded itthey appeared not only weary of their lives but to have a great deal of skill to convict themselves; their descriptions of the sucking devills with sawcer eyes was WE understand that the Greek Government so naturall, that the jury could not chuse but beleeve have agreed to build a museum at Athens for them. Sr. I find the countrey so fully possessed the reception of the antiquities lately discov against them, that though some of the virtuosi may ered at Troy by Dr. Schliemann, who has prethink these things the effects of confederacy melancholy or delusion, & that young folkes are altogether as quick-sented them for that purpose.

cine, he only undertaking for ye success thereof." The handwriting of this note seems not to be in Pepys's handwriting; but, apparently, the recipe is. Athenæum.

Athenæum.

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