ready for him.' Sir Robert Peel was made ample he holds forth to all honest aspirants, we acquainted with the plot, and adroitly introduced must refer our readers to a volume which will be widely read and often consulted. A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE. the subject of the controversy after dinner. The result was, that in the argument which followed, the man of science was overcome by the man of law; and Sir William Follett had at all points the The man who stands upon his own soil, who mastery over Dr. Buckland.-'What do you feels that by the laws of the land in which he say, Mr. Stephenson?' asked Sir Robert laugh- lives-by the laws of civilized nations-he is ing. Why,' said he, 'I will only say this, that the rightful and exclusive owner of the land of all the powers above and under the earth, which he tills, is, by the constitution of our nathere seems to me to be no power so great as the ture, under a wholesome influence not easily gift of the gab.' One day, at dinner, during imbibed from any other source. He feelsthe same visit, a scientific lady asked him the other things being equal-more strongly than question, Mr. Stephenson, what do you consider another, the character of a man as a lord of an the most powerful force in nature?'-Oh!' said animated world. Of this great and wonderful he, in a gallant spirit, I will soon answer that sphere, which, fashioned by the hand of God, question: it is the eye of a woman for the man and upheld by his power, is rolling through the who loves her; for if a woman look with affection heavens, a part is his-his from the centre to on a young man, and he should go to the utter- the sky. It is a space on which the generation most ends of the earth, the recollection of that before moved in its round of duties, and he feels look will bring him back: there is no other force himself connected by a visible link with those in nature that could do that.' One Sunday, who follow him, and to whom he is to transmit when the party had just returned from church, a home. Perhaps his farm has come down to they were standing together on the terrace near him from his fathers. They have gone to their the hall, and observed in the distance a railway last home; but he can trace their footsteps over train flashing along, throwing behind it a long the scenes of his daily labors. The roof which line of white steam,-Now, Buckland,' said shelters him was reared by those to whom he Mr. Stephenson, 'I have a poser for you. Can owes his being. Some interesting domestic trayou tell me what is the power that is driving that dition is connected with every enclosure. The train?''Well,' said the other, I suppose it is favorite fruit tree was planted by his father's one of your big engines.'-' But what drives the hand. He sported in boyhood beside the brook engine?''Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle which winds through the meadow. Through driver.'—'What do you say to the light of the the field lies the path to the village school of sun?'-'How can that be?' asked the doctor. earlier days. He still hears from the window 'It is nothing else,' said the engineer: it is the voice of the Sabbath bell which called his light bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands father to the house of God; and near at hand is of years,―light, absorbed by plants and vege- the spot where his parents laid down to rest, tables, being necessary for the condensation of and where, when his time has come, he shall be carbon during the process of their growth, if it laid by his children. These are the feelings of be not carbon in another form,-and now, after the owners of the soil. Words cannot paint being buried in the earth for long ages in fields them-gold cannot buy them; they flow out of of coal, that latent light is again brought forth the deepest fountains of the heart; they are the and liberated, made to work, as in that locomo- life-springs of a fresh, healthy and generous tive, for great human purposes.' The idea was national character.-Everett. certainly a most striking and original one: like a flash of light, it illuminated in an instant an entire field of science." TRUE GREATNESS. Three years subsequently, after very gradual Chief Justice Marshall was in the habit of decay, this "Nature's gentleman" was attacked going to market himself and carrying home his by intermittent fever, of which he died, in the purchases. Frequently he would be seen returnsixty-seventh year of his age. We are sure that ing at sunrise, with poultry in one hand and we shall only increase our readers' respect and vegetables in the other. On one occasion a satisfaction when we add that, to poor Robert fashionable young man, who had recently reGray, of Newburn, who acted as his bridesman moved to Richmond, was swearing violently bewhen he married his first love, pretty Fanny cause he could get nobody to carry home his turHenderson, he left a pension for life, which key. continues to be paid him." What Stephenson achieved, and much of what will hereafter be achieved through his invention of the locomotive, is fully treated in the biography. For these, and for an excellent summary on the character of the man, and the ex Marshall stepped up, and asking where he lived, said: "That is on my way; I will take it for you." When they came to his house the young man said: "What shall I pay you?' cargo, and cleared for Norfolk, Virginia, and on his arrival there entered at the custom-house, and deposited his papers. After Capt. Cuffe had settled his out-bound voyage and taken in a cargo, he went to the custom-house for a clearance, and to get his papers; but the collector of the port would neither clear him out, nor give him his papers, and abused him with the most shameful language. Capt. Cuffe had no other redress than to go to Washington; and, after getting the necessary proof as to who he was, where from, &c., repaired thither. Capt. Cuffe was a Quaker, and used their plain language, and on being introduced to President Madison, he said: James, I have been put to much trouble, and have been abused,' and then proceeded to tell the President his story, giving such Why did he bring home my turkey?" "To give you a severe reprimand, and to teach you to mind your own business," was the reply. True greatness never feels above doing any thing that is useful; but, especially, the truly great man will never feel above helping himself. His own independence of character depends on his being able to help himself. Dr. Franklin, when he first established himself in business in Philadelphia, wheeled home the paper which he had purchased for his printing office, on a wheel-proof as was needed in his case; and added, ' I barrow, with his own hands. have come here for thy protection, and have to ask thee to order thy Collector for the port of Norfolk to clear me out for New Bedford, Massachusetts.' "President Madison, after hearing Captain Cuffe's case, promptly ordered the Collector of Norfolk to clear Capt. Cuffe, with his black crew, for the above-named port. After Capt. Cuffe returned to Norfolk, he heard no more abuse from the Collector, but received his papers and his clearance; and although the Collector believed black men had no rights that white men were bound to respect, yet he was bound in this instance to respect the right of Capt. Cuffe. BY THE QUIET FIRESIDE AT HOME, The true mother in the midst of her children, is sowing, as in vases of earth, the seeds of plants that shall some time give Heaven the fragrance of their blossoms, and whose fruit be a rosary of angelic deeds, the noblest offering that she can make through the ever-ascending and ever-expanding souls of her children to her Maker.Every word that she utters goes from heart to heart with a power of which she little dreams. Solemn is the thought, but not more solemn to the Christian mother than the thought that "Thus, President Madison regarded Captain every word that falls from her lips, every ex- Cuffe as a citizen of the United States, and conpression of her countenance, even in the shel-sidered that he had rights which the President tered walk and retirement, may leave an indelible impression upon the young souls around her, and form as it were the underlying strain of that education which peoples heaven with that celestial being, and gives to the white brow of the angel next to the grace of God its crown of glory. PAUL CUFFE AND PRESIDENT MADISON. Many of our readers will remember Paul Cuffe, who formerly transacted business in this city, some account of whom was given in this paper a year or two ago. He was a colored man, but possessed much ability for conducting business, and was highly respected. A correspondent of the Fall River News gives the following incident, which occurred at a time when a white President was not ashamed nor afraid to acknowledge and enforce the rights of his colored fellow men: "Paul was a man of rare ability for a black man; was very active and persevering, of stern integrity, and was respected by all who knew him. He had accumulated some $10,000 or $50,000, a part of which was invested in a vessel, of which he was commander. The vessel was manned by a black crew. Capt. Cuffe took in a of the United States of America was bound to protect and respect."-New Bedford Standard. LITTLE THINGS. She said "That few were too young, and none too humble, to benefit their fellow creatures in some way.' Do something for each other- When friendly hands are rare! And though but little's in our power We know not what the humblest hand, A trifle may relieve; Drag on from day to day; CHARLES SWAIN. OH! WILD BEATS THE HEART. Oh! wild beats the heart in the dawning of life, Oh! then the young spirit with rapture swells high, For now, the staid eye of manhood is turned The thus constructing lateral cesspools, the contents of which permeate the ground and filter into the wells. In making these excavations, moreover, they invariably transfer the earth to the main sewers, and form obstructions to the flow. accumulations of their paw-work have regularly to be removed in small trucks constructed for the purpose, and if this precaution were not taken they would in a few years entirely destroy the vast system of subterranean culverts which have been laboriously constructed at the expense of millions. The pipe drains with smooth barrels, which the rat's tooth cannot touch, alone baffle him; indeed, the rapid flow of water in their narrow channel prevents his even retaining his footing in them. In revenge for thus being circumvented, he has in many cases entirely ruined the newly laid channel of pipes by burrowing under them, and causing them to dip and open at the joints. In France the sewer authorities hold an Has dispelled the false mirage that dazzled his youth, annual hunting match, on which occasion there And the m,sts that deceived him melt at the beam, Next the sunset of age comes peacefully on, And now ransomed and saved, to her view is unfurled. That city whose maker and builder is God. From the Quarterly Review A Treatise on the Nature, Fecundity, and De- [Continued from page 393.] The favorite stronghold of the rat is that portion of the house drain which opens at right angles into the main sewer. Here he sits like a sentinel, and in security watches with his keen but astonished eyes the extraordinary apparition running with a light. It is a remarkable fact that most untrapped house drains are inhabited by their own particular rats, and wo be to the intruder who ventures to interfere with those in possession. The rat as well as the cat may thus be classed among the domestic animals of the household, who acts as a kind of preventive puss in keeping out the whole underground community of vermin, which otherwise would have the run of our basements. These vermin congregate thickest in the neighborhood of slaughter-houses, or, in other words, where food is most plentiful. They are frequently found sitting in clusters on the ledge formed by the invert of the sewers. As the scavengers of drains, they undoubtedly do good service, but it is a poor set-off for the mischief they perpetrate in destroying the brick-work of the sewers-burrowing in every direction, and I is a grand capture of rats; these animals are not destined to afford sport to the "fancy" under the tender manipulations of a dog "Billy;" on the contrary, our neighbors have too much respect for the integrity of its hide. We are informed that they have established a company in Paris, upon the Hudson's Bay principle, to buy up all the rats of the country for the sake of their skin. The soft nap of the fur when dressed is of the most beautiful texture, far exceeding in delicacy that of the beaver, and the hatters consequently use it as a substitute. The hide is employed to make the thumbs of the best gloves, the elasticity and closeness of its texture rendering it preferable to kid. Parent Duchâtelet collected several particulars of the rats which in his day frequented the knacker's yards at Montfaucon. Attracted by the abundance of animal food, they increased so enormously that the surrounding inhabitants, hearing that the government intended to remove these establishments, were seized with apprehension lest the vermin, when deprived of their larder, should spread through the neighborhood, and, like a flight of locusts, swallow up every thing. The alarmists may even have feared lest they should meet with a similar fate to that of the Archbishop of Mayence, who, if old chronicles are to be believed, retired to a tower in one of the isles of the Rhine to escape being devoured by a host of these creatures whose appetites were set upon him, and who, pertinaciously pursuing him to his retreat, succeeded in eating him up at last. The Report of the Commission instituted to inquire into the circumstances of the Montfaucon case showed that the apprehensions of serious damage were by no means unfounded. "If the carcases of dead horses be thrown during the day in a corner, the next morning they will be found stripped of their flesh. An old proprieter of one the slaughter-houses had a certain space of ground entirely surrounded by walls, with holes only large enough for the ingress and egress of rats. Within this inclosure he left the carcases of two or three horses; and when night came, he went quietly with his workmen, stopped up the holes, and then entered into the inclosure, with a stick in one hand, and a lighted torch in the other. The animals covered the ground so thickly that a blow struck anywhere did execution. By repeating the process after intervals of a few days, he killed 16,050 rats in the space of one month, and 2650 in a single night. They have burrowed under all the walls and buildings in the neighborhood, and it is only by such precautions as putting broken glass bottles round the foundation of a house attached to the establishment that the proprietor is able to preserve it. All the neighboring fields are excavated by them; and it is not unusual for the earth to give way and leave these subterraneous works exposed. In severe frost, when it becomes impossible to cut up the bodies of the horses, and when the fragments of flesh are almost too hard for the rats to feed upon, they enter the body and devour the flesh from the inside, so that when the thaw comes the workmen find nothing below the skin but a skeleton, better cleared of its flesh than if it had been done by the most skilful operator. Their ferocity, as well as their voracity, surpasses any thing that can be imagined. M. Majendie placed a dozen rats in a box in order to try some experiments; when he reached home and opened the box, there were but three remaining; these had devoured the rest, and had only left their bones and tails." We have been informed that these rats regularly marched in troops in search of water in the dusk of the evening, and that they have often been met in single file, stealing beside the walls that lined the road to their drinking place. As the pavement in Paris overhangs the gutters, the rats take advantage of this covered way to creep in safety from street to street. Their migratory habits are well known, and every neighborhood has its tale of their travels. Mr. Jesse relates an anecdote, communicated to him by a Sussex clergyman, which tends to prove that the old English rat at least shows a consideration and care for its elders on the march which is worthy of human philanthropy. "Walking out in some meadows one evening, he observed a great number of rats migrating from one place to another. He stood perfectly still, and the whole assemblage passed close to him. His astonishment, however, was great when he saw amongst the number an old blind rat, which held a piece of stick at one end in its mouth, while another had hold of the other end of it, and thus conducted his blind companion." A kindred circumstance was witnessed in 1757 by Mr. Purdew, a surgeon's mate on board the Lancaster. Lying awake one evening in his berth, he saw a rat enter, look cautiously round, and retire. He soon returned leading a second rat, who appeared to be blind, by the ear. A third rat joined them shortly afterwards, and assisted the original conductor in picking up fragments of biscuit, and placing them before their infirm parent, as the old blind patriarch was supposed to be. It is only when tormented by hunger that they appear to lose their fellow-feeling, and to prey upon one another. The sagacity of the rat in the pursuit of food is so great, that we almost wonder at the small amount of the cerebral development. Indeed he is so cunning, and works occasionally with such human ingenuity, that accounts which are perfectly correct are sometimes received as mere fables. Incredible as the story may appear of their removing hens' eggs by one fellow lying on his back and grasping tightly his ovoid burden with his forepaws, whilst his comrades drag him away by the tail, we have no reason to disbelieve it, knowing as we do that they will carry eggs from the bottom to the top of a house, lifting them from stair to stair, the first rat pushing them up on its hind and the second lifting them with its fore legs. They will extract the cotton from a flask of Florence oil, dipping in their long tails, and repeating the manœuvre until they have consumed every drop. We have found lumps of sugar in deep drawers at a distance of thirty feet from the place where the petty-larceny was committed; and a friend saw a rat mount a table on which a drum of figs was placed, and straightway tip it over, scattering its contents on the floor beneath, where a score of his expectant brethren sat watching for the windfall. His instinct is no less shown in the selection of suitable food. He attacks the portion of the elephant's tusks that abound with animal oil, in preference to that which contains phosphate of lime, and the rat-gnawn ivory is selected by the turner as fitted for billiard balls and other articles where the qualities of elasticity and transparency are required. Thus the toothprint of this little animal serves as a distinguishing mark of excellence in a precious material devoted to the decorative arts. The rat does not confine himself to inert substances; when he is hard pressed for food he will attack any thing weaker than himself. Frogs, Goldsmith says, had been introduced into Ireland some considerable time before the brown rat, and had multiplied abundantly, but they were pursued in their marshes by this indefatigable hunter and eaten clean from off the Emerald Isle. He does not scruple to assault domestic poultry; though a rat which attempted to capture the chicken of a game fowl, was killed by the mother with beak and spur in the course of twelve minutes. Th hen seized it by the neck, shook it violently, put out an eye, and plainly showed that the fowl in a conflict would be the more powerful of the two, if he was only equally daring. The number of young ducks which the rats destroyed in the Zoological Gardens rendered it necessary to surround the pools with a wire rat-fencing, which halfway up has a pipe of wire-work, the the circle of which is not complete by several inches in the under part, and the rat, unable to crawl along the concave roof which stops his onward path, is compelled to return discomfited. The rats have been for a long time the pests of these Gardens, attracted by the presence of large quantities of food. The grating under one of the tigers' dens is eaten through by this nimble-toothed burglar, who makes as light of copper-wire as of leaden pipes. Immediately upon the construction of the new monkey-house, they took possession and ate through the floors in every direction to get at poor Jacko's bread. Vigorous measures were taken to exclude them; the floors were filled with concrete, and the open roof was ceiled; but they quietly penetrated through the plaster of the latter, as may be seen by the holes to this day. They burrowed in the old enclosure of the wombat till the ground was quite rotten; and they still march about the den of the rhinoceros, and scamper over his impregnable hide. It is only by constantly hunting them with terriers that they can be kept down, and as many as a hundred in a fortnight are often dispatched, their carcases being handed over to the vultures and eagles. Many of them seek in the day time a securer retreat. They have frequently been seen at evening swimming in companies across the canal to forage in the Gardens through the night, and in the morning they returned to their permanent quarters by the same route. The proprietors of the bonded-wheat warehouses on the banks of the Thames are forced to take the utmost precautions against the entrance of these depredators; otherwise they would troop in myriads from the sewers and water-side premises, and, as they are undoubtedly in the habit of communicating among their friends the whereabouts of any extraordinary supplies, they would go on increasing day by day as the report of the good news spread through rat-land. To repel their attentions, the wooden floors, and the under parts of the doors of the granaries, are lined with sheet-iron, and the foundations are sometimes set in concrete mixed with glass-matters too hard for even their teeth to discuss. Country rats in the summer take to the fields, and create enormous havoc among the standing corn. They nibble off the ears of wheat, and carry them to their runs and burrows, where large stores have been found hoarded up with all the forethought of the dormouse. Farmers are often puzzled to account for the presence of rats in wheat-stacks which have been placed upon the most cunningly-contrived stands. The fact is, these animals are tossed up with the sheaves to the rick, where they increase and multiply at their leisure, and frequently to such an extent that a rick seeming fair on the outside, is little better than a huge rat-pie. The propensity of the rat to gnaw must not be attributed altogether to a reckless determination to overcome impediments. The neverceasing action of his teeth is not a pastime, but a necessity of his existence. The writer of an interesting paper on rats in "Bentley's Miscellany" has explained so clearly the dentistry of the tribe, that we extract his account. (To be continued.) The average of the Temperatures for the Summer months for the past sixty-eight years has been 73.23 deg.; that for the Summer just closed 72.50 deg., and for last year (1856), 75.66 deg. While the highest occurring during the entire period of 68 years occurred in the years 1828 and 1838, 77.66 deg., and the lowest in 1816, only 66 degrees! It will be seen by the above, that the Summer temperature of 1857 was about three degrees lower than that of last year although only about, three-quarters of a degree less than the average for the past sixty-eight years. When we experience (if ever we should) such a Summer as 1816, with the temperature for the three Summer months ranging 64, 66 and 68 degrees respectively, forming an average of only sixty-six degrees for the season, we may then talk about having a cool Summer! The continued healthfulness of our city, with 181 deaths less than last year, (the month of each year registering five entire wecks,) is certainly a subject for congratulation and thankfulness. Phila., 9th month, 1857. J. M. E. |