the next happy turn of language, for exam- invalid. "I am convinced," he says, "that ple, in Candide. But we know the sort of there is such a thing as sick whist." If we thing that is coming. In Lamb's best writ- analyze the humor of this, so far as analyings the points take us unawares. We sis of humor can be trusted, we shall probknow that there will be something good, for ably find that it lies in the adherence to the we know that we are reading Lamb, but general comic solemnity with which whist is that which precedes is no guide to what fol- invested, and, at the same time, in the aplows. No quality of wit contributes more parent divergence into an unexpected inconto pepetual freshness than this. To com- gruity. pare generally the wit of Lamb to the wit It is not, however, the form only of Lamb's of Shakspeare in Falstaff would be ridicu- writings that gives him his value to readers lous, but both have this one quality in com- of our time as well as of his own—it is the mon. Specimens of it in Lamb can only be matter also. There is one line of thought given by quoting details, and it is not our which is worked out by him as it is, perhaps, purpose now to offer any criticism on the by no other writer in the English language, details of Lamb's writings. But perhaps except Shakspeare. He represents with an we may presume that most of our readers extraordinary degree of vivacity and force, remember so famous an essay of Elia as the sense of enjoyment in things terrestrial. "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist," suffi- His enjoyment is not of the Bacchanal and ciently to understand allusions to it without Anacreontic sort. He does not wish to quotation being necessary. Almost every defy fate, and crown his head, and pass the paragraph, it may be observed, ends with its bowl. Nor does he merely dwell on the own especial point, although no writing sensuous pleasure of earthly things-of the could be more free from the labored air of roast pig and the brawn and the turkeys a point being written up to. We first learn whose praises he utters so pleasantly-of that Mrs. Battle was not a half-and-half the friendly meetings in his chambers, and player, like those who say they will just take the streets of his favorite London. He a hand. This is slightly enlarged on, and clothes his expression of enjoyment with a then we are told, "These insufferable triflers covering of delicacy and poetical feeling. are the curse of a table. One of these flies This, however, is what many other writers will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be have done. What is peculiar to him is the said that they do not play at cards, but only perpetual contrast-making itself tacitly play at playing at them." It is the sudden felt, if not directly expressed-which he excess of severity in the language that draws between the warmth of earth and life tickles us in the passage. So, in the descrip- and the coldness of death and the grave. tion of Mrs. Battle's behavior during her He describes in the most vivid way the adgames, we are told towards the end that vantages of being alive. He makes us feel "she sat bolt upright, and neither showed how many of the things that seem part of you her cards nor desired to see yours. ourselves we cannot carry into another All people have their superstitions, and I world. But, at the same time, this is rehave heard her declare, under the rose, that deemed from levity by the deep sense of the hearts were her favorite suit." Here the sorrows of life which pervades all he says, comic turn lies in the oddity of admitting and which was awakened and fostered by the that so rigid a lady had a weak side, and sad experience of his household afflictions. the converse oddity of making this weakness He writes as a man who, tried and ennobled touch on her favorite game. The whole by affliction, yet sees the sober happiness essay ends with a sort of excursus, or digres- that life offers to the genial and the brave. sion, which really keeps up the harmony of Southey once, to Lamb's great indignation, the whole, which takes us into a new field, said, in print, that these Essays argued a and yet sustains our interest in the old one. deficiency in sound religious feeling. And From Mrs. Battle's strictly warlike and in one sense Southey was right. If Lamb combative tenet that playing cards for love had attempted to express all the feelings was utterly absurd, the author glides into an with which a Christian ought to regard life apparently conflicting theory that playing and death, what he wrote was very imperfect. cards for love is really very pleasant to an He only expressed one set of feelings which

have a very deep and permanent hold on up in the vagueness of a larger truth. the human mind-feelings which may be Shakspeare abounds with instances of this. counterbalanced or overcome by other feel- Falstaff and Hamlet do not reason like good ings, but which in themselves are natural Christians, but like men with natural and to noble as well as to merely sensual not wholly blamable feelings strongly enterminds. The views he embodied in his Es- tained. It is because Shakspeare could rensays may have been partial, but so far as der these truly human feelings in all their they went, they had a deep and substantial range that he is the poet, not of one age, truth in them. Very often this partial and but of all; and within however much narlimited expression of truth is exactly what rower limits, and in however less a degree, appeals to men in all ages. So long as a Lamb, in depicting the contrast between feeling is genuine and not bad, men are life and death, followed in the path of Shaksgrateful to a writer who puts it strongly be-peare. fore them, and prevents its bring swallowed |

HATCHING YOUNG OSTRICHES.-Since the French occupation of Algeria ostriches have been conveyed thence to France in great numbers; but, until the instance now to be recorded, a brood had never been produced in France. It is very difficult, under the necessary restraint of a zoological garden, to supply the necessary | conditions for bringing about this result. The attempt had been frequently made to do so in the Zoological Gardens of Marseilles, but as frequently failed. Even last year, notwithstanding the care devoted to the ostriches in that establishment, and though eggs were laid in plenty, no young ostriches could be hatched. The director, M. Suquet, however, was not to be foiled. Failing to accomplish what he desired in the gardens, he bethought himself of trying what could be done out of them. In the territory of Montredon he selected a sandy plain, situated between the sea and the mountains which form the south-east of the Gulf of Marseilles. The spot belongs to M. Pastre, who kindly gave the necessary co-operation. There a large secluded valley was fixed upon, sufficiently wooded to afford shelter without intercepting the sunshine necessary for quickening the eggs. After having enclosed a space six hundred metres long by five hundred wide, the birds were conveyed to their hatching-ground on March 2d of this year. For a few days the birds seemed to regard their new quarters with suspicion, and ran anxiously about. Soon, however, they settled themselves and began laying. Their nest was at first a simple excavation in the sand, in the form of a truncated cone. Gradually the borders of this hole were heightened by accumulations of more sand. At this labor the male and female bird worked alternately. A few hours after the completion of the nest, laying began, and was continued every alternate day, until by the 20th of April fifteen eggs had been deposited. Up to this time the hen guarded the nest a few hours before and after incubation, sometimes for a whole day. After April 20, however, the male bird commenced taking his spell of watching, the lady only seeing to the household during

periods when her lord and master was tempora rily absent from home. All seemed to go on satisfactorily. According to observations made by M. Hardy, at Algiers, the time of incubation should be from fifty-six to sixty days. Knowing this, M. Suquet was surprised when, on June 3d, intelligence came that the first young ostrich had opened its eyes to sunshine on French soil. By the evening eleven had been hatched. On the day following the young birds left the nest and began to wander over their enclosure, guided alternately by papa and mamma, who spared no trouble in this their first walking lesson. During these excursions one bird always lingered a little behind. It was weak, and soon died, thus reducing the number of the young family to ten. They went on growing rapidly, so that by the 8th of last month (August) they were as big as young turkeys, giving every promise of arriving in due time at years of discretion, and contributing for many a season to the grande tenue of many a fair Parisienne.-London Review.

THE transparency and evenness of the collodion film when formed on glass is well known to most of our readers. If made from suitable materials it is excessively tough, and can be made of any desired thickness, and by the addition of gutta percha, india rubber, etc., a great range of elasticity, pliability, and hardness may be produced. It has recently been proposed to apply these sheets of dried collodion (which, if made of good pyroxyline, will be colorless and transparent) to several useful purposes. Out of a mass of it, it is easy with proper tools to work any desired form, The dried collodion possesses the physical properties of many of the most valuable materials used in the arts: it may be substituted for ivory, horn, wood, glass, etc., for the manufacture of statuary, buttons, billiard balls, etc., and in many cases possesses a decided advantage over the usual materials.London Review.

From The Saturday Review.

FREE LABOR IN THE WEST INDIES.*

for which, we must say, they furnish a large mass of evidence. But although Mr. Sewell THE experiment, unique of its kind, of declares that he "came to the West Indies stripping our West Indian colonies, first of imbued with the American idea that African slavery, then of monopoly, and substituting freedom had been a curse to every branch of free labor and free trade, might have been agricultural and commercial industry," we expected still to excite deep interest in Eng- still might doubt whether some anti-slavery land, and to be watched with sedulous care. bias had not caused him to "leave them As men of business, we ought to have seen overwhelmed with the very opposite convicto the effect of our expenditure of twenty tion," were it not that the official statistics millions. As friends of freedom and of the in our Parliamentary Blue-books give irreAfrican race, we ought to have asked fragable demonstration that his picture is whether what we had done was turning out not over-colored. Those, for example, who ill or well. But the fact is, that for many imagine that our West Indies are in a state years no British traveller-for Mr. Trollope of ruin, inhabited by a horde of half-savage is scarcely an exception, considering the Quashees, "up to the ears in pumpkin," as shortness of his stay-has thought it worth Mr. Carlyle was pleased to describe them, while to visit those islands, and tell his will be surprised to learn that, in the four countrymen, from actual inquiry on the spot, years ending with 1857, the exports and imwhat has come of that great experiment. ports of these small islands were valued at Meanwhile, however the Americans have £37,000,000, and have greatly increased paid this matter some of the attention it so since; while in that year their total trade well deserves. Twice have highly intelli- was worth nearly eleven millions, the value gent travellers from that country visited the of their sugar alone amounting to no less British West Indies for the purpose of thor- than £5,618,000. This fact might, à priori, oughly investigating how things really stand. have seemed incredible, considering the powAnd it must be satisfactory to us to find erful competition of Cuba, which enjoys a that both Mr. Bigelow in 1850, and Mr. still better climate, and a boundless supply Sewell ten years later, after a diligent and of slaves, fed by the slave-trade, to the candid examination, came to the same con- amount of between thirty and forty thousand clusion; namely, that the calamities which laborers. Nor yet could it have been supbefell the islands in 1847 and the next few posed beforehand that, under that powerful years, were mainly produced by causes in- competition, and with slavery and monopoly dependent of emancipation; especially by swept away, the fourteen West Indian Islands the lack of capital, by absenteeism," which leaving out Jamaica, where exceptional more than aught else has cursed these isl-causes have been at work-would actually ands," by the frightful abuses engendered export more sugar now than in those good during centuries of slavery and monopoly old days. Such, however, is the fact. And combined, and by the sudden loss of that if we add the two exceptional islands, Jamonopoly. They both come to the conclu- maica and Mauritius, we find the still more sion that, although labor has been and is amazing result, that all our sugar islands deficient, it has not been the deficiency of together, West and East, so far from prolabor, but those other causes, that for a time ducing less sugar than in the days of slavery, wrought such ruin. And further, they tell actually produce upwards of 4,000,000 cwt. us that the ground having been cleared by now, against but 3,000,000 cwt. in the days those calamities, as in Ireland by the fam- of forced labor and differential duties. ine, the West Indies are now making astonishing progress in wealth and prosperity, while the negro under freedom is "rising infinitely above his condition when a slave." Such are the conclusions at which these gentlemen have independently arrived, and

* Free Labor in the West Indies. By W. G. Sewall. New York: Harper. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Co. 1861.

No doubt the immigrants from India and elsewhere have helped to bring about this result. In Mauritius, above all, and in Trinidad and Guiana among the West Indies, the immigration has been highly beneficial. In Jamaica it has been so scandaand was scandalously mismanaged in Jalously mismanaged (every thing always is maica), that a quarter of a million was laid

out, and the island oppressed with taxation, | island, he describes the state of the negro with scarcely any result. But the present peasantry. His accounts are fully borne out production of sugar has been mainly due to by the reports of the governors and other the native negroes; and Mr. Sewell demon- authorities; and they are the more striking strates that, but for the folly of the agents when we compare them with the parallel picby whom most of the estates have been mis- ture, drawn with such a master-hand by Mr. managed, a far larger supply of such labor Olmsted, of the condition of the slaves in the would have been at hand. The system pur- Southern States. Touching first at Barbasued has almost universally been that of does, Mr. Sewell is struck by the neatness seeking to force the negro to work below and tidiness of the cottages thickly scattered market rate of wages, by threatening to turn over the island, and by the orderly and inhim out of his cottage and allotment if he dustrious habits of their occupiers. On Sunrefused. In many thousands of cases these days he found them "as respectably dressed threats were at last executed, with the obvi- as any people in the world, and thronging ous and inevitable consequence, that the their churches-intelligent, God-fearing citnegro, driven from his home on the planta- izens, loyal to their faith, loyal to themselves, tion, to which he generally had an almost loyal to the Government" of England: and catlike affection, settled elsewhere, and, hav- their diligence was proved by the almost ing built his cottage, and brought waste garden cultivation of every square yard of land into tillage, was not only lost to the available land, while, despite its high price, estates himself, but acted as a pioneer for the peasant proprietors have increased in fifothers. All writers on the West Indies de- teen years from 1100 to 3537. In St. Lucia, plore this insane system, to which the lack more than two thousand negroes had purof laborers has in a great degree been chased land, while at the same time the exowing; but the fact is that the planters had port of sugar has doubled since emancipasome excuse for it in their utter want of tion. Tobago is a mere speck in the ocean, capital for the payment of wages in cash. but it contains 2500 negro freeholders payWith all this, however, the labor force, at ing direct taxes to the Government. Some least in Jamaica, is strangely frittered away. complaints, however, were made during Mr. Three men will be set to watch one herd of Sewell's visit, by the newspapers, of the cattle. And the hoe being still in use in- "perverse selfishness" of these negroes. stead of the horse-plough, fifteen men are But it turned out that this perverse selfishwasted where one would suffice with the aid ness consisted in their hiring labor to help of the latter implement. But, after all, Mr. | them in the tillage of their freeholds "at Sewell states "most unequivocally," that, higher wages than the estates could afford "after diligent inquiry, I have been unable to pay." Passing on to Granada, we read: to discover a single property abandoned from "If the houses of the ancient aristocracy want of labor alone." Where a great diffi- have fallen into ruin because capital has left culty in procuring it has arisen, it has almost the island, there is some compensation in invariably been owing to the want of capital for the regular payment of wages. On the roads, and in the copper mines, where five men are needed fifteen will apply, and they will work eight hours a day for six days in the week through the year. The question whether labor is deficient or not is vehemently debated even in Jamaica itself; but the clue to the mystery was given in a few words by one of the mining negroes, who was asked by Mr. Sewell why he liked such severe toil underground better than the easy work on the estates. "Massa," was his reply, "Buckra don't pay."

The most interesting part of Mr. Sewell's book is that in which, passing from island to

the fact that the humble dwellings of the peasantry have exceedingly multiplied and improved, and that villages have risen into existence with marvellous rapidity." Nearly 7000 persons are living in villages built since emancipation, of whom over 2000 are owners of land; and in the whole island but sixty paupers are dependent on public charity. In St. Vincent, 8209 persons were living, in 1857, in houses built by themselves since emancipation; and in the last twelve years from ten to twelve thousand acres have been brought into cultivation by small proprietors, who are enjoying unexampled prosperity." No paupers are to be found.

Mr. Sewell took pains to trace the labor

ers of Trinidad from the time of emancipa- | cottages are neat and tidy, and are shrouded tion, "And the great majority of them can, with cocoas and plantains. Most of the inI think, be followed step by step, not down- ferior ones have but a single room. The ward in the path of idleness and poverty, but pitch-pine floor is carefully polished-a bed upwards in the scale of civilization to posi- stands in one corner-a table, bearing all the tions of greater independence." In no colony crockery of the establishment, occupies andid the planters go to greater lengths in the other corner; there are no glass windows, folly of ejecting laborers who would not work but blinds placed cunningly for purposes of for reduced wages; but these men bought ventilation." "These people,” he adds, "who land and built villages, and have made more live comfortably and independently, own rapid progress in intelligence and prosper- houses and stock, pay taxes, poll votes, and ity than their brethren who have remained build churches, are the same people whom on the estates. Land in Antigua fetches we have heard represented as idle, worthless fifty dollars per acre, yet the negroes con- fellows, obstinately opposed to work, and trive to save capital, and become, as else- ready to live on an orange or banana rather where, thriving and industrious proprietors. than earn their daily bread; . . . but any Nor does this discourage trade. Since eman- unprejudiced resident of Jamaica will encipation, the export of sugar has increased dorse the statement here made, that the peasby six million pounds per annum upon twenty antry are as orderly and industrious a people million. The imports are doubled. Instead as may be found in the same latitude throughof an average of three hundred and forty out the world. The present generation of ships, the ports are now entered by nearly Jamaica Creoles are no more to be likened seven hundred ships in the year. In fact, to their slave ancestors than the intelligent taking all the leeward group together, the English laborer of the nineteenth century can export of sugar has largely increased; while be likened to the serfs of Athelstane or Aththe imports are nearly doubled. And "in eling." Mr. Sewell again cannot forbear exall these colonies the condition of the free pressing how "charmed " he was with "the peasant rises infinitely above the condition happy, contented, and independent inhabitof the slave." ants." "I never lived among a more cheerful or a more civil people. Each man, woman, or child that you meet along the road gives a hearty 'Good-mornin', massa,' and a respectful salutation." Finally, he declares that, remembering the disadvantages under which they have labored, "the position of the Jamaica peasants in 1860 is a standing rebuke to those who encourage the vulgar lie that the African cannot be elevated. . . . I am utterly amazed at the progress they have made."

It is from Jamaica that the complaints against the negroes have come which rung through the world. Yet Mr. Sewell confirms the assertion of many other high authorities, that the Creoles display no sloth and no degeneracy when their labor brings them its due return. He found the settlers in the mountains "as independent and well off as one could wish to see any people in the world." In the plain, "all the settlers own a horse and stock of some kind. Their

ASTRONOMICAL INSECTS.-At one of the late meetings of the British Association, a philosopher read a paper "On Geometrical Nets in Space." Another delivered a lecture on the habits of Spiders, of which insects a well-known variety is accustomed to make geometric nets in any convenient space between twigs or in palings. Are the geometrical nets which exist in absolute space constructed by any spiders which exist there, and are those spiders as big as the Scorpion in the Zodiac ?-Punch.

We fear that

INVITA MINERVA.- So Grecce is No Go. An indisputable statement of its finances and no-progress is before Europe, and it is shown that the Hellenic speculation does not answer. What's to be done with Greece? the next European problem will be, "How to take Greece out of maps," and that the receipt will be suggested by that Family Friend, the Pamphleteer of the Tuileries.—Punch.