information on the subject. He makes seventy-two princes of devils, with 7,405,926 subjects. He may have owed this information to his master, Cornelius Agrippa. Colin de Plancy, in his Dictionnaire Infernal, has given pictorial illustrations to supplement Wier. (The Nineteenth Century).

Curiosities of Animal Punishment (Vol. v, p. 216, etc.).—The Test Act of 1673, and in the famous trial of the Earl of Argyle, accused of not having taken the test properly at Edinburgh in 1681. Lord Halifax having undertaken to intercede with King Charles II, in behalf of the Earl, told His Majesty that "the English law would not have hanged a dog for such a crime."

Sir Walter Scott makes the following note on this point: "Every lawyer of common sense or ordinary conscience will be of the same opinion. Lord Clarendon, when he heard the sentence, blessed God that he lived not in a country where there were such laws but he ought to have said such judges. The very hospital children make a mockery of the reasoning of the Crown lawyers. The boys of Heriot's hospital resolved among themselves that the house-dog belonging to the establishment, held a public office and ought to take the test. The paper being presented to the mastiff, it refused to swallow the same until it was rubbed over with butter. Being a second time tendered but tered (as above mentioned), the dog swallowed it, and it was next accused and condemned for having taken the Test with a qualification as in the case of Argyle."

The Earl took the Test "so far as it is consistent with itself and the Protestant re

ligion." He was sentenced to death December 23d, 1681, but executed June 30th, 1685. In the case of the mastiff, it is to be presumed the sentence was not executed.

was proverbially called Lost-town, for the mean and sad circumstances of it."

A friend tells me that Beverley, Mass., was called Beggarly. Perhaps some of your correspondents can corroborate the statement. J. K.

Old-time Justice (Vol. viii, p. 76, etc.).— A small corner, if you please, for a "gay note" from The Spectator, in this connection:

A farmer was put on trial at the Clonmel Assizes, at the beginning of the present century, before Lord Norbury-then known as the "hanging Judge "-for having killed a man in a faction fight at the fair of Nenagh, by smashing his skull. In the course of the trial, surgical evidence was given that the skull of the deceased was no thicker than an eggshell. However, the accused was found guilty; and when asked by the judge what he had to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon him, he replied that "he had nothing to say, only he thought that a man with a skull no thicker than an eggshell had no business at the fair of Nenagh."

This unexpected answer so tickled the humorous side of the judge that he ordered his discharge, observing that the man's death, according to the doctor's evidence, was purely the result of a natural accident; at the same time he warned the prisoner that, should he ever again engage in a faction fight, he had better make sure that the man he encountered had a skull thicker than an egg-shell.

BRADLEY SIMS.

How Poets Rhyme (Vol. viii, p. 120).—I rather think the enclosed (from The Beacon, this city) will fit the above heading:

"Sir Edwin Arnold remarks in some 'un

Herald:

"Allah's Throne

Shakes to the sigh the orphan breathes alone".

"A footnote stating what the throne does if the orphan does not happen to be alone at

the epoch of that sigh would be gratefully received by an anxious public."

Boston, Mass.

S. W. E.

Isle of Dogs (Vol. viii, p. 34, etc.).— "They could not have expected Bertram to

'mind' at what corner of a street, or in what ditch of the Isle of Dogs. anything had passed directly bearing on his own fate." (Ruskin, "Præterita" ii, p. 301.)

L. T.

Literary Parallel (Vol. viii, p. 8o.)-In his Illustrations of Tennyson, the author, Mr. John Churton Collins, points out the pleasing and unusually interesting coincidence between the Laureate's line,

Consonant chords that shiver to one note.

Princess, l. 74. and the passage from Izaak Watton:"It is most certain that two lutes being both strung and tuned to an equal pitch, and then one being played upon, the other that is not touched, being laid upon a table at fit distance, will, like an echo to a trumpet, warble a faint and audible harmony in answer to the same tune."

Life of Dr. Donne, p. 71.

Is this precisely an instance of parallelism? Both writers, it is true, have employed the same illustration of the "sympathy of souls." The poet has translated into political language the biographer's simple and direct statement of a slight and familiar phenomenon,-dashed, as it were, into a single

line of verse, the essence of poetry diffused throughout the law.

ΜΕΝΟΝΑ,

English as She is Writ (Vol. viii, p. 120). -Medical News records this delightful specimen: "One of our physicians recently received the following letter from a country physician (?): 'Dear dock I hav a pashunt whos phisicol sines shoes that the windpipe was ulcerated of, and his lung have dropped intoo his stumick. He is unabel to swoller and I feer his stumick tube is gon. I hav giv hym evry thing without effeckt. his giv hym evry thing without effeckt. his father is welthy Onerable and influenshial. he is an active membber off the M. E. Chirsch and god nos I dont want to loose hym. what shall I due. ans. buy returne male. yours in neede.'

M.

Patterson, N. J. "The Father of His Country" (Vol. viii, p. 112) and his other names.

The Call, from which I took my query at the above entry, had the following, a few days ago:

Washington was called by many sobriquets. He was first of all " Father of his Country." "Providence left him childless that his country might call him father,"

Sigourney calls him "Pater Patria". Chief Justice Marshall, the "American Fabius". Lord Byron, in his "Ode to Napoleon" calls him the "Cincinnatus of the West". For having a new world on his shoulders he

was called the "Atlas of America". The English soldiery called him by the sarcastic nickname of "Lovely Georgius ". Red Jacket, the Seneca Indian Chief, called him the "Flower of the Forest". The Italian poet, Vittorio Alfieri, called him “Deliverer States he was called the "Savior of his of America". In the Gazette of the United cally called him the "Stepfather of his Country". His bitter opponents sarcastiCountry", during his presidency.

Harrisburg, Pa.

S. R.

packet of papers. These the priest reads. carefully, and being evidently satisfied he gives back the papers and leads the applicant toward the row of girls.

All eyes are fixed more steadfastly than ever on the altar, all their hands are clasped tighter together, their faces turn a shade paler, their hearts beat quicker as the young man walks slowly along the row. At last it stops. His choice is made. He stretches out his hand with a little smile. The girl rises, puts her hand into that of the stranger, and together they disappear into the sacristy. The ice being thus broken, other suitors come forward.-Catholic Union.

"My Mother's Bible," its author's first paid work."On one occasion General Scott asked George P. Morris what circumstances suggested the poem 'My Mother's Bible?' He replied: 'I will tell you in a moment,' and the conversation never flagged, although the poet would write a line now and then. In a little while, he handed the scrap of paper to one of the ladies, saying: 'Read that to the general, it is answer to his question.' The lines, which I believe have never been published, are in the possession of the lady, who values them among her choicest belongings. They were as follows:

Origin of British Columbia Indians.—You will find that seven in ten among the more intelligent British Columbians conclude these Indians to be of Japanese origin. The Japanese current is neighborly to the province, and it has drifted Japanese junks to these shores. When the first traders visited the neighborhood of the mouth of the Columbia they found beeswax in the sand near the vestiges of a wreck, and it is said that one wreck of a junk was met with, and 12,000 pounds of this wax was found on her. Whalers are said to have frequently encountered wrecked and drifting junks in the Eastern Pacific, and a local legend has it that in 1834 remnants of a junk with three Japanese and a cargo of pottery were found on the coast south of Cape Flattery. Nothing less than all this should excuse even a rudderless ethnologist for so cruel a reflection upon the Japanese, for these Indians are so far from pretty that all who see them agree with Captain Butler, the traveler who wrote that "if they are of the Mongolian type, the sooner the Mongolians change their type the better.' (Julian Ralph, in Harper's).

Typesetting by Telephone.-The management of the London Times has utilized the telephone in a unique way. Telephone wires have been laid in the underground railway tunnel between the composing room in Printing House Square and the Parliamentary reporters' gallery in the House of Commons. A copy reader placed at the telephone reads the stenographic "turns" from the note book as fast as it is possible for the compositors to take them on their typesetting machines in the Times building, a mile and a half away. At first, the reporters did not take kindly to the innovation, but when they found that they could dictate their notes direct to the composing room without the trouble of transcribing them, they began to look at the arrangement in an entirely dif ferent light. Proofs, of course, are sent to them for correction. Each machine can produce from five to six columns of solid minion per night. The Times is able to print, in time for the 5 a. m. newspaper trains going to all points of the United Kingdom, the whole of the debates, which are often continued until after 3 a. m. (Scientific American.)