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himself. He answered, that the sheep were not his-they were young Mr. Thomson's, who had left them to his charge; and he was in search of a man to drive them, which made him come off his road.

After this discovery, it was impossible for the poor fellow to get quit of them; so he went down and took possession of the stolen drove once more; carried them on, and disposed of them; and, finally, the transaction cost him his life. The dog, for the last four or five miles that he had brought the sheep, could have no other guide to the road his master had gone but the smell of his pony's feet. I appeal to every unprejudiced person if this was not as like one of the deil's tricks as an honest colley's.

tion, and antithesis, I bent up each corporal agent to the terrible feat, and "would have the honor of waiting upon her ladyship"-in due form.

I went turned my uncle's one-horse chaise into the long old avenue about an hour after the time specified, and perceived by the lights flashing from all the windows, and the crash of chairs and carriages returning from the door, that the room was most punctually full, and the performers most pastorally impatient. The first face I encountered on my entrance was that of my old friend Villars; ' I was delighted to meet him, and expressed my astonishment at finding him in a situation for which his inclination, one would have supposed, was so little adapted.

"By Mercury!" he exclaimed, "I am metamorIt is also well known that there was a notorious phosed, fairly metamorphosed, my good Vyvyan; sheep-stealer in the county of Mid-Lothian, who, I have been detained here three months by a fal had it not been for the skins and sheep's heads, from Sir Peter, and have amused myself most would never have been condemned, as he could, indefatigably by humming tunes and reading newswith the greatest ease, have proved an alibi every papers, winding silk, and guessing conundrums. time on which there were suspicions cherished I have made myself the admiration, the adoration, against him. He always went by one road, call- the very worship of all the coteries in the place; ing on his acquaintances, and taking care to appear am reckoned very clever at cross purposes, and to everybody by whom he was known, while his very apt at what's my thought like!' The dog went by another with the stolen sheep; and 'squires have discovered I can carve, and the mathen, on the two felons meeting again, they had trons hold me indispensable at loo. Come! I am nothing more ado than turn the sheep into an asso- of little service to-night, but my popularity may be ciate's enclosure, in whose house the dog was well of use to you: you don't know a soul!-I thought fed and entertained, and would soon have taken all so ;-read it in your face the moment you came in the fat sheep on the Lothian edges to that house. never saw such a—— -there, Vyvyan, look there! This was likewise a female, a jet-black one, with a deep coat of soft hair, but smooth-headed, and very strong and handsome in her make. On the disappearance of her master, she lay about the hills and the places where he had frequented; but she never attempted to steal a drove by herself, nor yet anything for her own hand. She was kept a while by a relation of her master's; but, never acting heartily in his service, soon came to an untimely end privately. Of this there is little doubt, although some spread the report that one evening, after uttering two or three loud howls, she had vanished! From such dogs as these, good Lord deliver us!

From Knight's Quarterly Magazine.
MY FIRST FOLLY.

[AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN.]
In all the pride and condescension of an inmate
of Grosvenor Square, I looked upon Lady Motley's
"At Home." "Yes," I said, flinging away the
card with a tragedy twist of the fingers-" yes;
I will be there. For one evening I will encounter
the tedium and the taste of a village ball. For
one evening I will doom myself to figures that
are out of date, and fiddles that are out of tune;
dowagers who make embroidery by wholesale, and
demoiselles who make conquests by profession;
for one evening I will endure the inquiries about
Almack's and St. Paul's, the tales of the wed-
dings that have been and the weddings that are to
be, the round of curtsies in the ball-room, and the
round of beef at the supper-table; for one evening
I will not complain of the everlasting hostess and
the everlasting Boulinger, of the double duty and
the double bass, of the great heiress, and the great
plum-pudding:

Come on, come all,

Come dance in Sir Roger's great hall."
And thus, by dint of civility, indolence, quota-

I will introduce you." And so saying, my companion half limped, half danced with me up to Miss Amelia Mesnil, and presented me in due form.

When I look back to any particular scene of my existence, I can never keep the stage clear of second-rate characters. I never think of Mr. Kean's Othello without an intrusive reflection upon the subject of Mr. Cooper's Cassio; I never call to mind a gorgeous scattering forth of roses from Mr. Canning, without a painful idea of some cotemporary effusion of poppies from Mr. Hume. And thus, beautiful Margaret, it is in vain that I endeavor to separate your fascination from the group which was collected around you. Perhaps that dominion, which at this moment I feel almost revived, recurs more vividly to my imagination when the forms and figures of all by whom it was contested are associated in its renewal.

knowledged belle of the county, very stiff and very First comes Amelia the magnificent, the acdumb in her unheeded and uncontested supremacy; and next, the most black-browed of fox-hunters, Augusta, enumerating the names of her father's stud, and dancing as if she imitated them; and then the most accomplished Jane, vowing that for the last month she had endured immense ennui, that she thinks Lady Olivia prodigiously fade, that her cousin Sophy is quite brillante to-night, and that Mr. Peters plays the violin à merveille.

bored! the light is bad and the music abominable! "I am bored, my dear Villars-positively there is no spring in the boards and less in the conversation; it is a lovely moonlight night, and there is nothing worth looking at in the room.

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I shook hands with my friend, bowed to three or

"Don't

"0

four people, and was moving off. As I passed to
the door, I met two ladies in conversation;
you dance any more, Margaret?" said one.
no," replied the other, "I am bored, my dear
Louisa-positively bored; the light is bad and the
music abominable; there is no spring in the boards

and less in the conversation; it is a lovely moonlight night, and there is nothing worth looking at in the room."

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I never was distanced in a jest. I put on the look of a ten years' acquaintance, and commenced parley. 'Surely you are not going away yet; you have not danced with me, Margaret; it is impossible you can be so cruel!" The lady behaved with wonderful intrepidity. "She would allow me the honor—but I was very late ;—really, I had not deserved it;"-and so we stood up together. "Are you not very impertinent?"

"Very; but you are very handsome. Nay; you are not to be angry; it was a fair challenge, and fairly received."

And you

will not even ask my pardon?" "No! it is out of my way! I never do those things; it would embarrass me beyond measure. Pray, let us accomplish an introduction; not altogether an usual one; but that matters little. Vyvyan Joyeuse-rather impertinent, and very fortunate at your service."

"Margaret Orleans-very handsome, and rather foolish at your service!"

Margaret danced like an angel. I knew she would. I could not conceive by what blindness I had passed four hours without being struck. We talked of all things that are, and a few beside. She was something of a botanist, so we began with flowers; a digression upon China roses carried us to China-the mandarins with little brains, and the ladies with little feet-the emperor-the Orphan of China-Voltaire-Zayre-criticismDr. Johnson-the great bear-the system of Copernicus-stars-ribbons-garters-the order of

And thy young forehead's clear expanse,
Where the locks slept, as through the dance,
Dreamlike, I saw thee flit,"

Are far too warm, and far too fair,
To mix with aught of earthly care,
But the vision shall come when my day is done,
A frail, and a fair, and a fleeting one!
And if the many boldly gaze

On that bright brow of thine,
And if thine eye's undying rays,

On countless coxcombs shine,
And if thy wit flings out its mirth,
Which echoes more of air than earth,
For other ears than mine,

I heed not this, ye are fickle things,
And I like your very wanderings;
I gaze, and if thousands share the bliss,
Pretty capricious! I heed not this.

In sooth, I am a wayward youth,
As fickle as the sea,
And very apt to speak the truth,
Unpleasing though it be;

I am no lover, yet, as long
As I have heart for jest or song,

An image, sweet, of thee,

Locked in my heart's remotest treasures,

Shall ever be one of its hoarded pleasures;

This from the scoffer thou hast won,

And more than this he gives to none.

"Are they your own verses?" said my idol at the window.

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They are yours, Margaret! I was only the versifier; you were the muse herself." And now

66

"The muse herself is obliged to you. what is your errand? for it grows late, and you must be sensible-no, that you never will be-but you must be aware that this is very indecorous." "I am come to see you, dear Margaret ;—which the Bath-sea bathing-Dawlish-Sidmouth-I cannot without candles;—to see you, and to tell Lord Sidmouth-Cicero-Rome-Italy-Alfieri- you, that it is impossible I can forget-" Metastasio-fountains-groves-gardens-and so, "Bless me! what a memory you have! But you must take another opportunity for your tale! for-"

as the dancing concluded, we contrived to end as we began, with Margaret Orleans and botany. Margaret talked well on all subjects, and wittily on many. I had expected to find nothing but a romping girl, somewhat amusing, and very vain. But I was out of my latitude in the first five minutes, and out of my senses in the next. She left the room very early, and I drove home, more astonished than I had been for many years.

"Alas! I leave England immediately!"

"A pleasant voyage to you! there, not a word more; I must run down to coffee."

"Now may I never laugh more," I said, "if I am baffled thus;" so I strolled back to the front of the house and proceeded to reconnoitre. A baywindow was half open, and in a small neat drawing-room I perceived a group assembled:—an old lady, with a high muslin cap and red ribbons, was pouring out the coffee;-her nephew, a tall awkward young gentleman, sitting on one chair and resting his legs on another, was occupied in the study of Sir Charles Grandison-and my fair Margaret was leaning on a sofa, and laughing immoderately." Indeed, Miss," said the matron, you should learn to govern your mirth; people will think you came out of Bedlam."

66

Several weeks passed away, and I was about to leave England, to join my sisters on the Continent. I determined to look once more on that enslaving smile, whose recollection had haunted me more than once. I had ascertained that she resided with an old lady who took two pupils, and taught French and Italian, and music and manners, at an establishment called Vine House. Two days before I left the country, I had been till a late hour shooting at a mark with a duelling pistol-an entertainment, of which, perhaps from a lurking presentiment, I was very fond. I was returning alone when I perceived, by the light of an enormous lamp, a board by the way-side bearing the welcome inscription, "Vine House."-" Enough," I exclaimed, "enough! one more scene before the curtain drops -Romeo and Juliet by lamplight!"-I roamed "Mad, madam! very particularly mad! mad as about the dwelling-place of all I held dear, till Ia hare in March, or a Cheapside blood on Sunday saw a figure at one of the windows in the back of the house, which it was quite impossible to doubt. I leaned against a tree in a sentimental position, and began to chant my own rhymes thus :—

Pretty coquette, the ceaseless play
Of the unstudied wit,

And thy dark eye's remembered ray
By buoyant fancy lit,

I lifted the window gently, and stept into the room. "Bedlam, madam!" quoth I, "I bring intelligence from Bedlam; I arrived last week.”

The tall awkward young gentleman stared; and the aunt half said, half shrieked—“ What in the name of wonder are you?"

morning. Look at me! do I not foam? listen to me! do I not rave?-Coffee, my dear madam, coffee; there is no animal so thirsty as your madman in the dog-days."

"Eh! really!" said the tall awkward young gentleman.

"My good sir," I began ;-but my original insanity began to fail me, and I drew forthwith upon

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66

Very well, my dear sir; my instrument is the barrel organ; and I cocked my sweet little pocket companion in his face," Vanish, little Kastril; for by Hannibal, Heliogabalus, and Holophernes, time is valuable; madness is precipitate, and hair-triggers is the word: vanish!"

"Eh! really!" said the tall awkward young gentleman, and performed an entrechat which carried him to the door; the old lady had disappeared at the first note of the barrel organ. I locked the door, and found Margaret in a paroxysm of laughter. "I wish you had shot him," she said, when she recovered, "I wish you had shot him he is a sad fool."

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As the red rays tinged their glowing
Drops, adown the rough rocks flowing;
So, while listening

There, I found a vein of gold.
Not in earth's deep bosom sleeping,
Through her sluggish arteries creeping,
In her heart its tapers burning,
In her gloom its charms inurning;
Not with knife, and spade, and ladle,
Not with miner's pick and cradle,
Did I find this treasure golden,
By the valley green and olden.

In a simple cottage maiden,
With a soft fleeced lambkin laden,
And bare feet

Gleaming on the carpet glossy,
With the fresh young grass-her flossy
Yellow curls, by zephyrs lifted,
Shone like sparkling amber, drifted
From the Baltic, on its snow-white
Banks, that glitter by the moonlight.
In that sweet,
Gentle, loving, happy creature,
Angel-like in form and feature,

SCCV.

I have found a vein of gold.

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"Do not talk of him; I am speaking to you, beautiful Margaret, possibly for the last time! Will you ever think of me? perhaps you will. But let me receive from you some token that I may dote upon in other years; something that may be a hope to me in my happiness, and a consolation in calamity. Something-nay! I never could talk romance; but give me one lock of your hair, and I will leave England with resignation."

"You have earned it like a true knight," said Margaret; and she severed from her head a long glossy ringlet. "Look," she continued, 66 you must to horse; the country has risen for your apprehension." I turned towards the window. The country had indeed risen. Nothing was to be seen but gossoons in the van, and gossips in the rear, red faces and white jackets, gallants in smock frocks, and gay damsels in grogram. Bludgeons were waving, and torches were flashing, as far as the gaze could reach. All the chivalry of the place was arming and chafing, and loading for a volley of pebbles and oaths together.

66

I kneeled down and kissed her hand. It was the happiest moment of my life! Now," said I, au revoir, my sweet Margaret," and in a moment was in the lane.

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I

This was my first folly. I looked at the lock of hair often, but I never saw Margaret again. She has become the wife of a young clergyman, and resides with him on a small living in Staffordshire. I believe she is very happy, and I have forgotten the color of her eyes.

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A person in the streets of Reggio, with his back to the rising sun, and his face toward the Straits of Messina, sees columns, arches, castles, palaces, villages with trees, plains with flocks and herds, armies of horses and foot, passing in rapid succession. When the air is hazy, they are all vividly colored.-Brewster's Optics.

FROM Reggio's streets, when the traveller's eye
Turns to Messina's waves of glass,
The towers and trees, that behind him lie,
In loveliest colors, before him pass.

So from the heights of a green old age,

When we turn to the past, in its haze of tears, e see, in its clear, recording page,

We

The vanishing visions of life's young years. Burlington College, Nov. 29, 1849.

D.

JOHN MILLS, THE MORMON-HIS FIGHT WITH | deed, there was little space allowed for prepara

COL. TURK.

tion. In a few moments a mob numbering hundreds had surrounded the building, and the muzzles of fifty cocked guns and pistols were thrust through the doors and windows. Still none within lifted a finger in defence-fear seemed to have turned them into stone. Persecution had not yet hardened the "Latter Day Saints" into veterans, and the since famous "Mormon Legion" existed then only in the imagination of the Prophet.

Presently the Lynchers, headed by the all-dreaded and gigantic Col. Turk, rushed in, and began to beat the people with the iron ramrods of their guns, with very little distinction of mercy as to age or sex. The cries of the poor sufferers swelled to a wail wilder than the howling of the wind without. At length Col. Turk roared

WHEN the Mormons settled in Missouri, in 1833, an enthusiastic young man named Mills was their most popular and admired preacher. Indeed, so great was his fame, that, whenever he held meetings, a crowd of the saints were sure to be present. A strong and violent mob of Lynchers was about this time organized to put down the Mormons, under the command of Col. Turk-one of the most desperately dangerous men that Missouri, or, in truth, any other country, every produced. Some of the Mormons were tarred and feathered, some were scourged with long, knotty hickories, till they fainted from the excess of torture and the loss of blood; others were forcibly deprived of their property, and reduced in a day to the condition of beggars; while others still shared a doom of more mercy, and were shot down on the prairies like so many wolves. At last Turk resolved to take some of the conceit out of the young preacher, Mills, and he gave notice to his men accordingly. It was a dreadful cold night in mid winter, 1833;ing with the Bible of their prophet in his hand, although the sky was cloudless and the full moon shone out in all her splendor, the earth lay, in all that pearly radiance, chill and dreary as a frozen tomb; for a thick sheet of snow crusted its surface, and the north wind howled over it a dismal dirge. It was a night to drive even thieves and outlaws into barns and stables for shelter, and to keep honest people by the blaze of their own roar-dead!" cried Turk, in a transport of rage, setting ing hearths.

"Turn out the women and seize the men, and let us have the hickory switches and the tar and feathers."

And the drunken men shouted, and hastened to execute the brutal mandate.

Up to this time young Mills had continued stand

but unearthly pale and strangely excited, his teeth clenched and his bright eyes swimming in a halo of fire. Suddenly he made a bound for an adjacent window, and notwithstanding more than twenty endeavored to seize him, he effected his escape from the house.

"Chase him-shoot him-take him alive or

the example by commencing the pursuit himself.

And yet, strange to say, in a large log cabin, The flight of Mills was directed in a straight line within three hundred yards of the Missouri river, for the river, and his marvellous agility, added to then frozen from shore to shore, at least one hun- the start he had first got, soon placed him some disdred people were assembled to hold a religious tance ahead. They fired both rifles and shot guns meeting. They were Mormons, you may be sure. at him as he ran, but happily without effect. No fanatics of an old faith would have turned out When he came to the river side, he stooped down, such a night; they must be fresh zealots, with and hastily fastened on a pair of skates which he some new idea but at its birth in their hearts, and had carried in his pocket for the last few days, to flaming like a meteor in their imaginations, or they be ready for any emergency; and then taking the never could have ventured to face such an icy blast ice, skimmed over the frozen stream with the swiftas that. The congregation included men and wo-ness of the wind. men in about equal numbers, and many of the former carried rifles, which they grasped with one hand even when kneeling down in prayer-such was the imminence of peril, either real or imagined, they deemed pending over them.

"Has nobody a pair of skates?" shouted Turk, striking his forehead with a gesture of wrath and vexation.

"I have," said one, "but I shall certainly not try them on the ice such a night as this!" "Be quick-give them to me!" exclaimed Turk, in a tone of fiery impatience.

The preacher, the enthusiast Mills, had advanced to a thrilling head of his eloquent discourse, and was painting in thrilling language the bitter perse- The skates were produced; the eager colonel cution which has ever followed the footsteps of all tied them on; and swearing a dreadful oath that great reformers, since the beginning of time. he would bring back the preacher's scalp or leave Never before had he been half so animated or half his own, he began the perilous chase. Oh! there so affecting. His blue eye gleamed like a star- is no daring like that inspired by passion for rehis voice pealed like a trumpet, shrill as the wind which whistled over the house-top; and his beardless lip seemed literally loaded with music. Tears, groans, and wild shrieks, from the audience, proved the despotic power of his eloquence.

Suddenly three rifles exploded in quick succession before the door, and three sentinels, shaking with terror, rushed into the room, crying out, "The mob! the mob!-Save yourselves from Colonel Turk's mob!"

venge!

In the mean while, Mills had approached the further shore, when he discovered the startling apparition of armed men on the bank. He knew at a glance what it meant. The mob, to prevent any of the Mormons from escaping, had stationed a guard beyond the river. He instantly turned his course down the stream, when a whole platoon let off their rifles, but the distance was too considerable. A hail of bullets rattled around him on the ice without injury.

No person can depict the scene of dismay and confusion that ensued. The females screamed "I will foil the fiends yet," he said to himself, aloud, as if all hope had departed. Several of the and put forth all his speed. Mills flew away, men sprang out of the windows, as if pursued when he became conscious that some one was by a legion of devils, while most of those that re-pursuing him. He slacked his velocity, and gradmained appeared stupefied and totally powerless ually wheeled about to take a view of his enemy. either to escape or make ready for resistance. In-But the latter was still too remote for an accurate

survey, and the Mormon uttered aloud a mad prayer-"God grant me that it be Colonel Turk, and I am willing to die!"

On rushed the pursuer on, still on, like an avalanche. The noise of the iron skates could be heard above the roar of the northern blast, and his dark form loomed in the glittering moonbeams, large in stature as a giant. As he drew nearer, the young preacher smiled venomously. He recognized the arch-persecutor, Col. Turk, and he laughed outright, a laugh that rung over the frozen river like the wild scoff of some demon, when he saw the other unsheath his gleaming knife. Mills then immediately pulled his own from its scabbard, and started off, to avoid the coming shock, which might otherwise prove fatal, by the mere force of the collision, to both. And then began a series of rapid and cunning evolutions to secure the advantage of this new mode of combat, the most terrific ever conceived. They marked the smooth surface of the ice with circles, ellipses, angles, squares, parallelograms, and almost every possible figure of plane geometry; but each seemed a perfect skater, and could not find the other at fault, or take him unprepared. They passed rapidly within three feet of each other, and made quick thrusts which pierced to the bone. And still the cold grew more intense, and the wrathful wind howled on, while their manœuvres and flights somehow carried them further down the river, where the crusted ice was thinner, and cracked fearfully beneath their tread. Finally, the Mormon took the desperate resolve to terminate the strife by sacrificing his own life to make sure of that of his foe at the same time. In the following rush he no longer turned aside to avoid a direct collision, but frustrated the attempt of the Lyncher to that end by slightly swerving from a right line.

companies are started, and controversies are fluently engaged in, for the purpose of answering the desperate demand. One party is for exhausting the Thames a little more by robbing the hoary father of rivers of the purest of his waters at Henly; another is for draining the Wardle or the Lea; and a third set of advocates are strongly in favor of Artesian wells.

About these last much misapprehension exists; and the opinion of so eminent a geologist and hydrographer as Dean Buckland is of value not only to those who take a side in the dispute, but to those who are interested in the general subject of Artesian wells. At a recent meeting of the Institute of British Architects, the doctor denied a statement which had been put forth, that sufficient water might be obtained in the metropolis by Artesian wells to afford an ample supply to ten such cities as London. He would venture to affirm, that though there were from 250 to 300 so-called Artesian wells in the metropolis, there was not one real Artesian well within three miles of St. Paul's. An Artesian well was a well that was always overflowing, either from its natural source, or from an artificial tube; and when the overflowing ceased, it was no longer an Artesian well. Twenty or thirty years ago there were many Artesian wells in the neighborhood of the metropolis-namely, in the gardens of the Horticultural Society, in the gardens of the Bishop of London at Fulham, and in Brentford and its vicinity; but the wells which were now made by boring through the London clay were merely common wells. He had heard it said that Artesian wells might be made in any part of London, because there was a supply of water which would rise of its own accord; but he could state with regard to the water obtained to supply the fountains in Trafalgar Square, that it did not rise within forty feet of the surface-it was pumped up by means of a steam-engine. No less than £18,000 had been spent upon an Artesian well which had been made on Southampton common, but the

They met at full speed, and the shock was like that of adverse comets. At the moment of their fall, the quaking ice split beneath their weight with a deafening roar, and the wild water, boil-water never had risen within eighty feet of the suring and hissing like a hell, swallowed them forever the persecutor and the victim, both victims

now.

But the river still rolled on its way to the sea; the stars shone as bright and beautiful as of old in the morning of creation, when the angels of God chanted their birth song; and the wrathful wind of winter howled on over the icy grave of the enemies now no more.— Williamsburgh Times.

DR. BUCKLAND ON ARTESIAN WELLS.-London thirsts for water. She is at present the victim of seven monopolist water-companies, who only supply the element to 200,000 out of the 270,000 houses of which she is said to consist. Nor is the fluid so supplied either of the best or the cheapest. After it is drawn from the filthy Thames, it is so infiltered and "purified" that it becomes flat and exhausted, which, with temperance communitieswho are as critical about their water as gourmets are respecting wines-is a serious evil. Even for an ordinary supply of this, a small house of £50 a year rent has to pay about four guineas per annum. The New River is the only other source of supply; and it is not every London parish that can boast of a single pump.

In this truly tantalizing condition, the Londoners are at last opening their parched throats to emit cries for "more water!" Plans are propounded,

face, and never would rise any higher. The supply of water formerly obtained from the so-called Artesian wells in London had been greatly diminished by the sinking of new wells. Many of the large brewers in the metropolis who obtained water from these wells had been greatly inconvenienced by the failure of the supply; and he had received a letter from a gentleman connected with a brewer's establishment, stating that the water in their well was now 188 feet below the surface, while a short time ago it used to rise to within 95 feet. Indeed, the large brewers were actually on the point of bankruptcy with regard to a supply of water.

A gentleman present corroborated the Rev. Dean by stating that certain London brewers, who obtained their supplies of water from what are called Artesian wells, had been forced into a mutual agree ment not to brew on the same days, in order that each might have a sufficient supply of water.

The single example cited by Dr. Buckland as to the expense of these wells can be extensively supported. One lately sunk opposite the fashionable church of St. James has cost, first and last, not far short of £20,000; and another, in which the Hampstead Water-Company have already, it may be said, literally sunk £14,000, at Highgate, has as yet made no sign, not a drop of water having been yet obtained. These facts may serve to moderate the exhortations of the more ardent advocates of Artesian wells.—Chambers.

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