doubly sure by placing the muzzle of his piece as close as possible to the Governor's head; but, providentially, the gun did not explode, and Colonel D'Arcy, furnished with a rifle by private Hodge, immediately slew his aggressor at a yard's distance! This is the special incident portrayed by Mr. Desanges.

The supports then entered; and, following Colonel D'Arcy and his able assistant, Hodge-who continued to hew down all gates and obstacles in the way the place was carried from east to west at the point of the bayonet; and the enemy, betaking themselves into the open country beyond, were pursued and slaughtered ruthlessly by the allies, under command of Major Primet,

of the Gambia Militia.

Well was it that success had crowned the enterprize; for, on the return of the troops to Bathurst next day, the Governor discovered that 800 Marabouts from Goonjoor had already started to attack the city, under the impression that the defeat of the English at Tubabkolong was absolutely certain; but now they rapidly retraced their steps, and sent in an abject mission of "holy men to treat for peace. That the colonists fully understood the critical nature of the danger that had threatened them on all sides, and were alive to the importance of the prompt action taken by their Governor under the circumstances, may be gathered from the fact that, on his departure from the settlement in 1867, they presented him with an address and a magnificent sword of honour, of the value of two hundred guineas "For devoted bravery at the storming of Tubabkolong, and to mark their appreciation of his administration of the government;" while the shattered remnants of the

weapon shot out of his hand during the fight were preserved by the superstitious

natives as a charm of inestimable value.

Recognition of the service by the home authorities followed in due course; but, unfortunately, the gallant officer was himself ineligible for military distinction, having sold out of the army. Had, however, the action been fought only six months later, when a Royal warrant was issued declaring

colonial militiamen and volunteers to be eligible for the much-coveted Victoria Cross, Colonel D'Arcy would, no doubt, have figured as décoré beside the humble and sturdy pioneer, Samuel Hodge, who so well and bravely seconded his chief's noble ex

ertions; and who, upon his recommendation, received the reward so justly merited "For valour" in Western Africa.*

MY FRIEND MRS. TIMEPIECE.-VI.

MATTERS TRUE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY.

'ONGRATULATIONS are sometimes CON rather sickening things-to the person who offers them, to the person they are offered to, or to both, but they must be made. They are as necessary to be retained in the social code as the damnatory clauses are in the Athanasian Creed. And the reason suggested by the absence of them on certain occasions would be more painful than the operation of delivering them.

You congratulate a person on what ought in itself to be a subject of congratulation, but there are circumstances in its trail that turn all the cream sour. The congratulatee thinks you are entirely ignorant of this circumstance, and it is a great alleviation of his pain to think this. But if you don't congratulate him at all, he is sure to think you know of this circumstance, and his pain is doubled.

We must expect difficulties in this world, and the two great points to be studied and learnt are-first, how to avoid them smoothly; and second, how to extricate yourself nicely from them when you cannot avoid them.

It is possible to conceive that there may be a kind of hypocrisy without sin, like that anger of which the Bible speaks. Like a threepenny piece, it makes things genteel. Imagine the shock to fine feelings from having to put into a collection box three large, staring pennies; but it occasions no shock to put a threepenny piece in. A clergyman was expressing to me the other day the wound which had lately been made in his heart by finding several tailors' silver and gilt buttons in the box. He said he had taken up one first, thinking it to be a half-sovereign; and on finding that in the place of "Victoria Regina" there was the ominous name of "Snip and Son, tailors, &c.," he felt so faint that he had to ask the churchwarden to pour him out a glass of

water. It had never occurred to him that

It may be mentioned that Maba was eventually killed in an engagement with the French, during an expedition instituted against him by the renowned

Faidherbe, then Governor of Senegal.

there was, in the gift of these buttons, merely the mild guilt of gentility. They were given by people who could not afford to give even a threepenny piece, and who were ashamed to give a penny. He was quite relieved when I put this glossing on the affair.

He said it had once occurred to him that these buttons might be a hint that some part of his clothing, ecclesiastical or otherwise, was defective in the particular article supplied.

It seems, on the surface, rather a dreadful thing to say that any kind of hypocrisy is without sin, yet I think even a strict moralist might say so. There are times when kindness and many other considerations urgently demand that our real feelings should not be known, and when a little mild hypocrisy is the only possible veil to them.

I think I hear Mrs. Timepiece answer— "You should be silent on these occasions -that is my way."

But silence is not a veil at such periods, but is a revealer almost as bad as an outand-out expression of your real feelings.

This last was Mrs. Timepiece's way; but perhaps she would do, and was permitted to do, many things that other people could

not.

I may be allowed to give an example or two of the article called "mild hypocrisy."

I am sitting writing, say, with all my heart and soul and strength, and there is a ring at the door bell. My friend Thompson has come in for a bit of chat, and to ask me if I will let him have a setting of ducks' eggs.

Am I to greet him with a disappointed face, and explain literally to him that I am very much engaged, and have a matter in hand very much more interesting to me than his conversation, and that he may have all the ducks in the yard, and their eggs too, if he will take his departure?

A salutation of this kind would certainly leave me with the consciousness that I had sunk below the level of an Ojibbeway Indian; and I should not be able, owing to the sense of degradation upon me, to write another line.

Nor must I give him silent greetings. I must tell him I am glad to see him, and my face must at least not give the lie to these words, if it cannot assume a shape that confirms them.

All I can say is, that if I am a sinner

in doing this, my conscience must be out of order, for it doesn't tell me I am one.

I recollect one day being with a middleaged lady, rather of Mrs. Timepiece's grain. We saw we were about to meet a friend, whose engagement had just been publicly announced.

I immediately turned to my companion, and said—

"You must congratulate Miss her engagement."

on

She replied, petulantly and firmly— "I shall do no such thing," and she stuck to her word.

The excuse was that the other party to the engagement was a very unsteady man.

I, of course, followed out my impulses of politeness, and said something tolerably sweet; but it probably only made my companion's silence more conspicuous. The cry of

sauve qui peut" was in my ears, and I saved myself.

It was in vain that I afterwards attempted to justify my proceedings to my companion, on the ground that the lady most deeply interested was the best judge whether the intended marriage was a cause of congratulation.

An engagement cannot be long kept a secret, especially in a village. Marriage, like many other events, casts its shadows before it; and when a young gentleman visits regularly once or twice a-week at a house where there are young ladies of his own age, it is naturally considered to be one of these shadows.

The village mind, too, is more in need of a stimulant than the town mind. Those green, still ponds-fringed with watercresses -that you see at the roadside, near the public-house, are somewhat indicative or emblematical of other stagnations.

Much of the ale which is drunk at this public-house is taken to avoid stagnation. They must be very much greener than a duck-pond who think these villagers drink this ale only because they like its taste: the effect of it upon their nerves when it has passed the throat is what they most like. It turns them into a land of romance, it awakens their memories, it makes the selfconceit come up in them: they feel brave, they compare themselves with themselves, and at last go home to their half-starved wives, and become bad-tempered because the land of romance has floated away.

Signing the pledge is a very weak weapon

against drunkenness; deliverance from stagnation in some other way is the door of escape which the Good Templars and other teetotal societies should set their calm brains to provide for those who love romance-and their name is legion.

I am just thinking what a queer look would come on Mrs. Timepiece's face to hear the word romance connected with drunkenness. She thinks these village men

busy hum of men, are of interest to my readers, I hope in another series of these papers to introduce to their notice several worthies, who, in our humdrum sphere, revolve as it were round one bright luminary, the centre of our system, my friend Mrs. Timepiece.

TABLE TALK.

drink their beer for the same reason that child sucks its lollypops for the sale that a

taste.

Mrs. Timepiece was not the greatest person in the village, but quite great enough to cause in it a considerable sensation by such an event as the prospective marriage of one of her daughters.

She could not trace her pedigree to the Conqueror, but she was rich; and it is astonishing the awe that such an appendage as gold strikes into the minds of villagers. It seems to them a natural emblem of the favour of Providence. There is in their minds a certain amount and kind of respect for blood; but it is not nearly so well a defined one as that they have for money, and it is a respect which almost fades away if money does not join hands with it. A poor gentleman is, in their eyes, something like what the wreckling of a brood of chickens is. They touched their hats and made their curtseys to the squire's lad with a more subdued feeling than that which was in their same movement to Mrs. Timepiece; but still, they touched their hats.

She was rich, and kept a brougham; and if she was not quite so "gatesome" and finespoken as the lady at the Hall, she had a very thick silk gown upon her back, and a shawl or tippet that must have cost "summat."

She was a bit "ordersome and short spoken," but they had "nought much agin t' woman."

Mrs. Timepiece's ordersomeness and short spokenness were considerably diluted in the minds of those who delivered themselves of this opinion, by the reception daily of a pint or two of skim milk, the half-creamed superfluity of her two excellent short-horns.

I have had occasion to mention, in portraying the character of my old friend, the names of some other people who dwell in our quiet little north-country village. If the sayings and doings of these simple personages, in a spot remote from cities and the

ject which would make an interesting article in itself. Of course, the first use to which they are applied is in the manufacture of paper. For this purpose alone, we import from abroad no less than 15,000 tons of rags every year, besides using 70,000 tons from the waste of our own population. But for paper-making, linen rags are the principal sort used, though rags from woollen materials have an equally valuable, and perhaps more extensive use. We are told that "old clo"" criers first collect them. They are then successively converted into mungo, shoddy, and devil's dust, and reappear as ladies' superfine cloth; they then degenerate into druggets, and are finally used for the manufacture of flock paper. After undergoing all these transformations they are used by the agriculturist as manure, on account of the large amount of nitrogen they contain. The presence of this element makes them of great use also to the chemical manufacturer. He boils them down with pearlash, horns and hoofs of cattle, old iron hoops, blood, chippings of leather, and broken horse-shoes; and produces the beautiful yellow and red salts known as the prussiates of potash. From these, again, the rich and valuable pigments called Prussian blue is made. And thus our despised rags are turned to a hundred and one new and useful purposes.

MR. ANTHONY TROLLOPE, as we recently remarked, is greatest in depicting clerical characters. But we do not remember, in all his novels, any mention of "galloping curates." Forty years ago, says a reviewer, in lately discussing the disestablishment question, there was a staff of "galloping curates" in almost every county town. The smaller parishes had no resident incumbent; and the Sunday "duty" was done, in a most perfunctory manner, by these clerical perambulators, who took two, three, or even four services in as many parishes, but never dreamed

THIS IS WORTH following up by an illustration from the same source. In some parishes there was no service for weeks together. It once happened that a non-resident incumbent came into the neighbourhood, and expressed a wish-perhaps not altogether unreasonably-to perform service in the church of one of his parishes. Word was sent over to the principal farmer, who was also churchwarden. But here a most embarrassing circumstance presented itself. It was at the beginning of harvest; the weather had been showery and uncertain, and the churchwarden was obliged to reply that they would have had much pleasure in seeing their clergyman among them, but unfortunately there had been a deficiency of

barn accommodation, and the church was full of peas.

A GREAT DEAL of virtuous, and at the same time just, indignation has been excited lately among the duly qualified graduates of English universities and medical schools by the unwarrantable assumption by ignorant pretenders of degrees which correspond, in title at least, to the genuine home article, but which are imported at a stipulated sum from Germany and America. We cannot see very well how the evil can be remedied, save by a persistent exposure of the false claims of these charlatans to the title of Ph.D. or M.A. The Fatherland is the greatest sinner in this matter of conferring cheap degrees on the first snob who has a few pounds in his pocket, and wishes to appear learned at an easy rate before his neighbours, who know no better. According to a contemporary, the system is this. In an official document signed by a most eminent Hebrew scholar-namely, Professor Ewald, of Göttingen-any illiterate but ambitious individual-be he cobbler, tailor, or tinker-if only engaged in a school and having £10 55. at command, may, with the help of a friend or hired agent who can write a little Latin, come out as Ph.D. even in the semi-respectable Göttingen, or the non-respectable Marburg and Giessen. In these "seats of learning" and academical larceny, degreegiving is quite an industry, of the kind to which the French prefix "Chevalier." Ph.D. is held to be equivalent to the M.A. of our British universities; and hence it has

ourselves who want to get on "by degrees," to graduate at one or other of the German schools on the above easy terms, and then substitute for the slightly shady Ph.D. the highly respectable English equivalent; or sometimes, indeed, to append both together

to their names.

THE GALLANT British fleet, which has so long been celebrated in nautical ballads, seems to be in a most uncomfortably transitionary state-uncomfortably, at least, as far as we present Britons, with a love of feeling secure in our naval condition, are concerned. A little while ago, we were assured that our new ironclad fleet was able to cope with the whole world in the event of a sea fight. But a new alarm has arisen. A certain lieutenant

of Engineers, who has been "doing" the American governmental ship-building yards, has reported to the Admiralty that improvements are being introduced by our Transatlantic friends, in the way of torpedo vessels and "rams,” far in advance of any we ourselves have at command. The Devastation and the Thunderer-the latest triumphs of ironclad ship-building in this country-were intended to be the models of all future

vessels of the same class. But this new and awkward truth has put a caveat on the resolutions of the naval authorities. No more war vessels are to be built until a council of war has been held, and it is decided whether we must build our fleet all over again, on some new and improved principle. Truly, one is almost inclined to anathematize these new inventions in ship-building altogether, and look lovingly back on the famous old seventy-gun wooden veterans which Nelson and Collingwood knew so well how to advance victoriously into the fight.

A CORRESPONDENT: You had lately an article on bee-keeping which embodied the experiences of an English bee-master. Let me call your attention to some remarks made a few weeks since at the Vermont State Board of Agriculture by Mr. Wait, who has had large experience of bee-keeping in the States. Mr. Wait said honey sells higher than sugar, and costs less. Ten good colonies will earn more than ten good men. Scientific care will tell favourably. Bee-keeping may become as common here as in Prussia, and not only be a great source of revenue, but a common luxury. For 3,800 years the

history of the bee has been intimately associated with that of the human race. Though the bee is not made in God's image, yet many of their habits-neatness, industry, economy, and government-may profitably be imitated by men. It has been supposed that their government is an absolute monarchy; but, on the contrary, it is a more perfect republic than the world has ever seen among men― and the ladies have their equal share. Every fruit-grower and farmer should keep a few colonies of bees, for the more perfect growth of his crops. They carry the pollen from flower to flower; and thus, while gathering honey, they spread the seeds of growth and multiply the fruit. Bee-keeping ought not to be considered insignificant under these circumstances. It is easy, fascinating, and philosophical besides. Mr. Wait extended his figures, and showed by low estimates that it may be made more profitable than any other branch of our industry. These remarks apply with equal force to the rural districts of our own country, where every frugal cottager ought to have his hives of bees in his little plot of garden ground.

WE HAVE BECOME SO much accustomed to stories, unhappily too often well-founded, of the "scientific" modes of adulteration in our daily food, that we get almost tired of inquiring into the matter any further. A horrible whisper was afloat some time ago that a company had been formed for making the best fresh butter from Thames mud. The sensation was, however, too strong even for the greatest of alarmists, and people settled down into the comfortable conviction that the matutinal toast was "buttered," after all, with nothing more deleterious than an elegant preparation of Russian tallow, or lard at the best. But what shall we say when we learn that even lard-the base, as chemists would call it, of our best Devonshire freshis adulterated also? A writer in one of the pharmaceutical journals says that he lately obtained a quantity of lard from a respectable dealer. It was beautifully white. deed, he had never seen an article that looked better. His first trial of it was in preparing ointment of nitrate of mercury. The colour, when the mercurial solution was added, was the reverse of citrine-indeed, decidedly saturine, developing in a short time to a full slate colour. Surprised at this unprecedented result, the usual precautions having been taken as to temperature, &c., the lard

In

was inspected, and on examination was found to contain a large quantity of lime. Some time after, in a conversation with a lard dealer, the secret oozed out confidentially that it was a common practice in the trade to mix from two to five per cent. of milk of lime with the genuine article, which is not only pearly white, but will allow of stirring in during cooling of twenty-five per cent. of water. So much for the last chemical triumph in the art of adulteration.

THERE ARE SOME curious events in all men's lives. I recollect getting an introduction into the best society in the county through a butler. In the spring of the year, I had settled down near to a good trout stream; and returning one evening to my lodgings, after a fair afternoon's sport, I met an old servant of my father's. He immediately recognized me, and informed me he was butler to, Esq., the great man at the Hall. I suppose that whilst waiting on his master that evening at dinner he must have told him of the circumstance; for, sure enough, next morning the genial squire burst into my little room, laughing and panting, and said—almost before I could see his card-"I suppose my old butler was with your father?" I answered in the affirmative, and soon after received an invitation to dinner. This appearance at his table I found to be very soon the parent of many other invitations from other great people in the neighbourhood. I suppose they thought as my father had kept a butler that I must be respectable.

A CORRESPONDENT: Let me add this little anecdote to your stories of Costello:Pierce M., a man of low birth, and fond of vulgarly boasting of high acquaintances who only existed in his own imagination, was one day praising to Paddy Costello the liberality of English Catholics as compared with Irish; and, to illustrate it, he said, "A short time since I was dining at the Earl of Shrewsbury's" an English Catholic-" on a Friday, and so far from dining entirely on fish, as you do, there was none at all at table.” "Oh," said Costello, "you may be sure that is to be accounted for by their having eaten it all in the parlour."

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