ditches, that it is a most difficult matter for any body of men to traverse it at other times. About a fortnight elapsed before any of the rebels made their appearance again within view of the settlement, leaving time to finish the construction of substantial inner barricades, and push on the works forming an embankment and ditch for the outer defences.

This providential delay of hostilities was most valuable in allowing time for the arrival of reinforcements. Among the first to make their ap; pearance at this fresh seat of war were the Royal Engineers, under the command of Major Gordon,

who subsequently performed so distinguished a part in crushing this hydra-headed monster of rebellion. These were days of great rejoicing to the inhabitants, both foreign and native, of the beleaguered settlement and city, when they saw regiment after regiment of British soldiers land upon the spacious Bund, or marine parade. As they marched through the streets with bands playing, colours flying in the breeze, and bayonets glittering in the sun, crowds of Chinese, male and female, lined the route, every one grinning and chin-chinning with the greatest satisfaction. It was curious to note their high estimation of the valour of our forces, and the protection of our authorities, as compared with those of their own soldiers and mandarins. In them they had little or no confidence for the protection of their persons and property against the insurgents, and they openly solicited the aid of the British authorities.

Sonnets of the Sacred Pear.

BY THE REV. S. J. STONE, M.A. TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER

TRINITY.

"Ye all are partakers of my grace."-Phil. i. 7.

not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.”

Cf. (v. 29)"Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ,

OVER a Martyr's head the sword of doom

Hangs by so slight a hair a moment's breath
By but a word may bring it down in death,
And crescent darker shadows of the tomb
Seem now to mingle with his prison gloom
Unto despair. Yet on his brows a wreath
of conquest rests, and in his eyes beneath
No shades of terror or of trouble loom;
And to his children, martyrs too, oppressed,
Friendless 'mid foes and fears, of him forlorn,
Their brethren's pity and the whole world's scorn,
He speaks, as one most blest to the most blest!
"Such grace is mine! such grace your sorrows prove!
The gift of suffering for the Lord we love."

*

St. Paul at this time was at the close of his first imprisonment at Rome, waiting the Emperor's verdict. The nature of the "grace" of

Varieties.

As to the Chinese authorities, they were in raptures which he speaks in verse 7 is explained by verse 29. at the arrival of our forces, and did everything in their power to make them comfortable. There being no barracks in the city or settlement, the greater number of the troops were quartered in the Buddhist temples, some of which are spacious buildings, with abundance of accommodation. In these cases the priests were confined to some obscure part of the edifice, or turned out altogether, while all public service in them was suspended. Generally the great central hall was turned into the officers' mess-room, and while the giant images looked down upon the unholy scene at dinner-time, the vaulted chamber reechoed with song and laughter. To realise such a scene in this country, we must suppose some cathedral occupied by a regiment of soldiers, where men and officers bivouacked and had their meals, thereby desecrating the sacred edifice. Yet the Chinese thought it no desecration. On the contrary, the taoutai, or chief magistrate, thought it an honour to have them in these temples, and sent the officers cases of champagne and other wines to regale themselves.

HUMAN FACES IN A NATURAL SUBSTANCE.-A few days

since I visited Canterbury Museum. In a picture-frame close the wings of butterflies or else sections of agates. Each is about to the window under a glass are two objects that look either like the size of a two-shilling piece. The faces portrayed are each about the size of a fourpenny-bit. Each face has a beard and a head-dress not unlike a Persian smoking cap. Under these curious objects are written the following verses:—

to mess.

It was a brilliant sight when the officers sat down Among the recesses hung the regimental colours and trophies the regiment had captured in the campaign. On the altar lay swords and shakos. Before it a long table was improvised, and covered with the mess-plate filled with all the goodly viands that could be had. Each officer sat at table with his Chinese attendant behind him, who changed his plate or filled his wine-glass with an alacrity only exhibited by an experienced waiter. In the verandah at the entrance the band discoursed pleasant music, while the interior was lighted up with gaily-coloured lanterns. As the viands were discussed, and the wine was freely circulated, toasts and songs went round in remembrance of home. Altogether, during the Chinese campaigns, the military had no pleasanter times than when they were quartered in Shanghai.

"Ask you whose curious portraits these?
Moses and Aaron, if you please -
Great prophets, in the days of yore,
Who lived a thousand years before.

"Who formed them, or the colours made,
The features with their proper shade?
Ask Him who made you, He can tell,
Whose works all human arts excel.".

I can just recollect some specimens of this kind elsewhere. It
may have been at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Of course
these faces are produced by natural demarcations in the mate-
rial of whatever it may be.-Frank Buckland, in “Land and
Water."

AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE; AND PROPOSED RAILROAD FROM THE COAST TO LAKE TANGANYIKA.-Captain Cameron, R. N., in a letter to the Foreign Office, from Ujiji, after describing what he saw of the East African slave trade, gives suggestions for its suppression. "Since leaving Unyanyembe I have passed large tracts of country which have been depopulated by this infernal traffic. With regard to its suppression it is and will continue an impossibility until communication with the civilised world is opened up. There are no engineering difficulties in the way of a railroad from Bagomoyo to Ujiji, and a line of single rail 3ft. 6in. gauge ought to be constructed for £1,000 per mile. £800,000 ought to bring it into complete working order. For a large portion of the distance, the sleepers and rails would only have to be laid down and ballasted. The present traffic on this line would pay an interest of 5 per cent., and the increase of import and export would double or treble this in a few years. Now, ivory and slaves are almost the only exports, but if means of transport be provided and culti

vation encouraged we ought to get cotton, indiarubber, semsem, and palm oils, hides, rice, grain, coffee, and spices. I have picked up wild nutmegs. In addition, when the line was completed, branch roads might be made to the Victoria Nyanza and to Urori, and as time went on lines might be carried on on the other side of the Tanganyika. When the trunk line to this place is finished, I would recommend the appointment of European commissioners near Mbumi in Unyanyembe (not at Taborah, which is unhealthy) and here. They should each have at their disposal a force of about 500 or 600 Indian soldiers and a sufficient number of European subordinates, in order to be able to punish any one found engaged in the slave trade, and to prevent the petty wars which foster it. Here should be stationed two or three vessels of about 50 tons each, which might be sent up in pieces, to protect legal trade and put a stop to the transport of slaves. This being a question which affects the whole civilised world, a commission of the different Great Powers might be formed in order to decide as to what means should be taken in order to do away with this curse of Africa. Instead of her being drained of her life blood, she requires a much larger population than she has at present in order to develop her vast resources. At present there is a difficulty as to what to do with the liberated slaves. Why not found colonies with them, which might be protected at first, but would soon become self-supporting and able to govern themselves? In conclusion, I would add that, wherever I have come in contact with Arabs, I have found them most kind, courteous, and hospitable. I do not consider them together, that did not prevent her reaching to her present excepblame as regards the slave trade; they found the existing state of things, and let it remain as they found it. Their slaves are nearly always-the exceptions are only enough to prove the rule-well fed and kindly treated and looked after."

66

AMEN IN CHURCH MUSIC.-The writer deems the remark of Dean Alford, in his preface to "The Year of Praise," against the common practice of concluding every hymn with an Amen," unanswerable. "The tune being complete in itself, no such termination is musically required; and the sense of the concluding verse not always admitting of the addition, incongruities are frequently produced by it." When a hymn closes with a prayer or doxology, "the sense" seems to demand it, and an Amen is admissible; but the fact that organists and choirs are generally capable of transposing and interchanging into the different keys, major and minor, the perfect and plagal cadences

commonly used for the purpose has, in the writer's judgment, rendered it unnecessary to crowd the pages with what the dean says is not "musically required." Two exceptions may be noticed-Euphrates and St. Athenogenes, compositions proper to their respective words, containing each its Amen.-From the Preface to "Common Fraise," by the Rev. S. G. Hatherly.

PAUPER STATISTICS.-The annual return of paupers in Eng. land and Wales receiving relief from the rates on New Year's Day, shows that on the 1st of January, 1874, the number was 832,370, being one in twenty-seven, or 3.7 per cent. on the population, according to the census of 1871, and being also 58,002, or 6.5 per cent. fewer than on New Year's Day, 1873. The indoor paupers showed only a small decrease--from 154,171 in 1873 to 152,279 in 1874; but the outdoor paupers decreased from 736,201 to 680,091. According to the Poor-law returns the number of paupers relieved in the metropolis during the third week of July was 92,259, namely, 33,147 in the workhouses, and 59,112 out of doors. Last year the numbers were respectively 32,955 and 65,717.

LONGEVITY.-Sir Duncan Gibb, M.D., read a paper upon "Longevity at five score eleven years," at the Belfast meeting of the British Association. He said he had brought forward nine examples at previous meetings of the Association of persons who had overstepped the century by several years, and now his tenth Instance was that of a female still living at Tring, in Hertfordshire, who attained her hundred and eleventh birthday in April last. Tables were quoted containing 81 instances of persons whose age extended from 107 to 175; 40 of these were under 130, and 44 above that age, and the author considered that three-fourths of the total number

might be taken as correct. The instance he brought forward was of Mrs. Elizabeth Leatherland, now alive and in her 111th year, her baptism being recorded in the register of the parish of Dover, in Kent. This was confirmed by the record of the drowning of her son and his family, and other persons to the number of 37, at Hadlow, in Kent, in 1853, in the hop country, by a catastrophe mentioned and described in the papers of the time. Her son was then fifty-nine, and if now alive would have been eighty, his birth occurring when his mother was twenty-nine or thirty. Other corroborative circumstances were stated, clearly establishing the great age of the old dame, who was of gipsy descent. The author then described her condition, the result of a careful personal examination at Tring in October, 1873. She walked with the aid of a stick, was short in stature, bent with age, complexion brownish, countenance a series of thick folds, and she had several sound teeth. She chatted away continually in a clear, distinct voice, and was in possession of all her faculties, though somewhat impaired. She was a little deaf, and took snuff; her skin was as soft as velvet, and her hair quite grey. She was thin, and the muscles of her neck stood out in bold relief. All her internal organs were in perfect health, lungs, heart, etc., and her pulse was as regular and soft as in a girl of eighteen. In fact, the changes of old age as met with in persons from seventy to eighty had not taken place in any of the tissues of the body, being thus similar to the nine other cases examined by the author. She was of course feeble; but, taking all things totionally great age. Her age, the author said, taught us two lessons-one was the absence of senile changes for the most part, in centenarians, which was the chief reason of their attaining to such a great age; the other the occurrence now and then of instances wherein even six score years is reached, if not more. To ignore all past cases of extreme ultra-centenarian longevity because we cannot get at their proofs at the present day he considered unphilosophical and unscientific, for there existed as conscientious and painstaking inquirers after truth then as exist now, whose statements and recorded facts must not be wholly ignored.

MR. SUMNER'S CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.-This bill is designed to abolish all distinction arising from colour. The following is the opening clause as adopted :-"Be it enacted, &c., That all citizens within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theatres, and other places of public amusements, and also of common schools and public institutions of learning or benevolence supported in whole or in part by general taxation, and of cemeteries so supported, and also the institutions known as agricultural colleges endowed by the United States, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and colour, regardless of any previous condition of servitude."

MILTON IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.-The chancel of the parish church of Horton, in Buckinghamshire, contains a monument to, as well as the remains of, Sara Milton, the poet's mother, who died 1637. This portion of the edifice is being restored in stone entirely at the expense of the Rector of Horton, the Rev. R. G. Foot. For six years John Milton attended this church, Horton being the residence of his parents. The place has long been celebrated for the nightingale-hence Milton's sonnet to that bird. Near to Horton Church is the site of Milton's house, and an apple-tree in the garden was long preserved. The old tree having perished, the owner of the land has planted a new one on the same spot.

years.

HOSPITAL SUNDAY FUND.-The Committee of the Metropolitan Hospital Fund for 1874, in their official report in relation to the distribution, state that no hospital or dispensary has this year been allowed to participate which could not submit returns of their income and expenditure during the last three The Committee have also been careful in not only calculating for themselves the items of expenditure and income supplied by the authorities of the hospitals and dispensaries, but have also required the secretary of each institution to furnish like statements in duplicate, so as to lessen the possibility of error in calculating the bases of distribution. The total amount of the collections on Hospital Sunday this year, reported at the Mansion House, amounted to nearly £29,500, which is very considerably above that of the first year. Of that sum the Distribution Committee allocated to hospitals £24,727 17s. 6d. in all, and to dispensaries and kindred institutions, £3,172, making together £27,899 17s. 6d. The remainder was required for advertising and various expenses.

LEISURE HOUR

A FAMILY JOURNAL OF INSTRUCTION AND RECREATION.

"BEHOLD IN THESE WHAT LEISURE HOURS DEMAND,-AMUSEMENT AND TRUE KNOWLEDGE HAND IN HAND." Cowper.

letters on his first appearance in the front room. He was weak and nervous, and his kind nurse would not allow him to get up till the middle of the day. She had never invaded his sleeping apartment since his partial convalescence, for, as she remarked to Mrs. Higgins, "Although both she and the abbé were too old for any prudish nonsense, yet there were proprieties in life that ought always to be observed."

So when he called "Mees! Mees!" when he heard her foot on the stairs, as if she were making

for the front door, he meant to summon her to the
crack of the folding-doors that divided, as has been
described, his bedroom from his sitting-room.
Kezia, who half expected the summons, was at her
post by the time she had answered.

"You are dere?" inquired the abbé, from within. "Yes, anything wanted?" asked Kezia, briskly. "Yes, mees; if you will be so good to buy for me some what you call-I cannot say it-oh, dear! what a bad head I have."

"What is it for?" asked Kezia, thinking she might gain thereby some insight into the required article.

"Humph!" cried the abbé, with a guttural emphasis, "it is for-me."

"Is it eggs?" asked Kezia.
"No," said the abbé.
"Coffee?" asked Kezia.

"No, no," said the abbé, "noting of eating at all." "Dear me paper and unvelopes?" inquired Kezia, getting curious as well as interested.

"No, it is not of writing I want," said the abbé. "What can it be?" said Kezia, putting her eye to the crack instead of her ear (forgive her, reader, there was more kindness than curiosity in the act), and there, as the bed was admirably situated for a view, she saw the poor abbé sitting up in it, arrayed in his robe de chambre, with the flaps pinned over his shoulders shawlwise, his nightcap on his head, his spectacles on his nose, darning a hole in a woollen stocking! He had a long thread in his needle, and drew it out to the whole stretch of his arms at every stitch. Kezia did not know whether to laugh or to cry. Fearing he would see her, she retreated, and as if a sudden thought had struck her, cried,

'I suppose it is nothing in the drapery way?" Drape way," exclaimed the abbé, "what is dat?"

these several remarks to the gentleman in the next room, since they were pretty nearly as audible in the one as the other, but she did, and returned to the crack with an answer.

"The gentleman says he's a stranger, sir, and he's come to you on professional business."

"It is new pupil," thought the abbé, at once elated and distressed by the idea. "Tell him I am sorry; if he shall wait, I shall make my toilet and attend him.'

"Please sir," said Mrs. Higgins, returning with fresh instructions, "the gentleman says he can't wait, but if you'd let him see you for a moment, he won't give you the trouble to get up."

"But I cannot,” said the abbé. How can I see strange gentleman in all dis?"

"I beg you will not distress yourself," said a voice through the crack; "I fear I am taking a liberty, but I really haven't a minute to spare, and I am so anxious to obtain your services for a friend of mine, having heard you so very highly spoken of, that I cannot go without seeing you.'

"Saar, I am quite ashame," said the abbé, putting the arm that had the stocking on it under the clothes, and with the other unpinning the flaps of his dressing-gown. "If you will come in, I am sorry I cannot give you a polite reception."

The stranger entered, and seemed to take so little interest in the things around, that the abbé was speedily reassured and reconciled to the visit.

"I have called upon you owing to the accounts I have received of your great success with your pupils. You had one, a Mr. Firebrace, I believe?”

The abbó smiled and laid his hand upon his heart, in acknowledgment of the compliment.

"I believe you were of great service to him in teaching him your language?"

"Aha!" said the abbé, "he has told you so?" "Well, at any rate, he feels under great obligations to you, and regards you in the light of a friend."

"Why, needles and threads, and wool, and-" "It is wools, it is wools, mees; you are ver good. I tank you, I wants it-some wool," said the abbé, and Kezia, having received her commission, went off on her expedition, telling him she hoped to find him up and dressed by her return, and putting a match-but for de French-" to the sitting-room fire as she passed, that it might be ready for him.

"La, la, la, la!" sang the abbé, in somewhat quavering music, a glow of pleasure warming his heart as the thought of Kezia's kindness came over him.

"She is ver good. Pah! what it is to do it in my bed!" he exclaimed, suddenly changing his tone, as his long thread got in a tangle, and he could not pull it through. He was so earnest in overcoming this difficulty, that Mrs. Higgins knocked twice at the folding-doors before he heard her.

"What you want?" he asked, when he did. "What! you have not come back, mees?"

"It's me, sir, Mrs. Higgins. Here's a gentleman wishes particular to see you," she added, speaking. through the crack.

"Shut de door, Madame Higgin," exclaimed the abbé, not at all disposed to exhibit himself under his present circumstances, "I beg of you to shut do door."

"Yes, sir," she replied, opening it a little wider. "Please sir, what shall I say to the gentleman?" "Tell him I am in my bed. I have been very ill; who is he? Has he say his name?"

There was little need for Mrs. Higgins to convey

"Oh, he is my friend, Monsieur Fireplace," cried the abbé, with great animation. "He is ver good

"Dear me! then possibly he flattered himself; but he had great advantages-he lived here with you, I think?"

Oh yes, he has live here."

"Not in the same rooms, I suppose?" said the gentleman, laughing.

"De same room! Oh, no! he have two ver good room upstair; but he is now in France."

"Well, he was very handy for lessons, at all events, while he was here."

"Yes," said the abbé, "I give my lesson in de front room."

"I suppose so; and then you could teach him at night when your other business was over."

"Yes, I teach him many time in de night." "As he was not very ready at it, I'll answer for it, if ever you were interrupted in a lesson, he would make his escape into this room.'

"Dis room? Yes, he has come in dis room. Why you ask?" said the abbé, suddenly, looking curiously at his visitor.

"Oh, I was only thinking how easy it would be. With such a chance of hiding, I shouldn't mind having a lesson myself, old as I am,' "said the stranger, looking towards the corner by the foldingdoors.

"You want lesson?" asked the abbé, quickly; | tain the length and breadth, mental and moral, of "is it for yourself?"