As the country roads are often bad in To describe the cities and countries passed winter time, you would imagine they would in my travels overland to California, a disget stuck in the mud or ruts, but the light- tance of thirty-three hundred miles from New ness of the entire vehicle and elasticity of the York, also Canada, and the South, including springs, make the carriage bound jauntily Washington, the seat of Government, and over the obstacles and rough places, and right Philadelphia, the Quaker City, twenty miles itself. The wheels are very wide apart and long, and next to New York in population high, so that there is no chance of upsetting. and importance, would require much more Three remarkable men have not long since space than I have at command. So I must died in New York, who, from poverty or in-pass over particular localities and content significence, realized fortunes equal to fifty myself with some general remarks. million dollars, or ten million pounds each. One was John Jacob Astor, who emigrated from Germany with a few flutes to sell. He became a furrier, purchasing furs of the Indians at the close of the last English war with America, at a nominal price, and selling at high prices. After accumulating wealth, he foresaw the extension of New York, and bought up in a panic, large quantities of town lots at trifling prices, and selling them soon after at fancy prices, realized his enormous fortune.

Of course every foreign traveler visits Niagara Falls. We spent ten days there. It is one of the world's natural wonders, and a charming place, 450 miles from New York, in the northwest corner of New York State, and is thus formed; Lake Erie, containing 150,000 square miles, whose waters are on 334 feet higher level than those of Lake Ontario, is separated at its extremity from it, by a neck of land some 30 miles wide; the overflow of Lake Erie finding an outlet to Lake Ontario, by a river called Niagara, an Indian name meaning "Thunder of Waters.

Another man was Commodore Vanderbilt, an American farmer who had a taste for The waters on leaving Erie for some miles shipping, and borrowed money to get a small preserve their level, but about a mile before craft. Perceiving a great future for steam-reaching Niagara Falls, the bed of the river ships, when they were first invented he contracted for them, realizing great gains. Then he speculated in railways, and owned the New York Central, and the Hudson and Harlem Lines, ending as a great millionaire.

The third man was A. T. Stewart, a Scotchman, who, shrewd and industrious, opened a dry goods or drapery store, studied the wants of his customers, kept a good article, had one price only, and would not puff his goods. He bought largely at sales, and sold cheap; succeeding so well that at last he built a new store on Fifth Avenue, without doubt the largest in the world, occupying an entire square block equal to one hundred houses, facing two avenues and two cross streets. He also built himself a private marble mansion, costing two million dollars, besides owning other similar buildings.

As in Vanderbilt's case, after death, relatives fought at law for his wealth; and as a moral and commentary on the vanity of riches, the body-snatchers stole away his earthly remains; and his Drapery store, when he was gone, did not thrive, and was closed while we were in America.

I have dwelt longer on New York than my limited narrative would justify, but being the chief and most interesting city, it deserves special notice; besides which, it is as a representative city of the rest, for there is a greater similarity in American cities than in those of Europe or foreign nations where their history is more ancient. In the States a greater uniformity prevails.

drops some fifty feet, and the waters rushing like a torrent over the rough stone bottom, are called the Rapids. Then a hill beyond, forbidding its straight course, makes it turn a sharp corner, forming a horse-shoe curve, and then drops down some two hundred feet at one fall, into a much narrower channel, at the rate of a hundred million tons an hour, producing these wonderful Falls.

After visiting the lively States, Canada seems rather flat and uninteresting.

We twice visited New England, comprising six States on or near the ocean, viz.: Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire. All put together they would not be so large as some one of the States in the West, but the people are more enterprising there than anywhere. Factories of all descriptions abound, because of the abundant water power they afford, and the convenience of access by waterway.

That the American people are industrious and enterprising beyond all other people in the world I have no doubt. Take as an instance Chicago, a city nearly one thousand miles from New York, in Illinois State, at the corner of Lake Michigan.

In 1830 it had a population of 100 only; thirty years after, it had become the metropolis of the northwest, and the greatest railway centre on the Continent, as also the greatest primary grain market in the world.

Its present population is about half a million. Many of its streets are seven miles long, and it contains over 700. To facilitate

Emigrants arrive in prodigious numbers from Germany, Ireland, Norway, Russia, Holland, and all parts. They are the cream Life and property are more secure at home. skimmed from all countries-the bone and Liberty, all things considered, is equal. Law, muscle, thew and sinew of nations-honest, order, and justice, deficient as we may be, healthy, willing toilers, constituting the wealth are better observed in England. A sovereign energy, vitality, and prosperity of a country will buy more in England than thirty shil--for labor is wealth; money is only its lings in America, while luxuries are as two representative. to one in our favor.

I do not wonder that English farm laborers emigrate there, and do well. They get land for next to nothing. They have worked hard and they mean to work; and it is odd if they cannot cultivate fertile ground and grow crops sufficient for their necessary existence, with a balance to the good besides, in years. They are slaves at home as to work; they are slaves there; yet being vol- They have the power and opportunity of unteers, they are worth three press-men, becoming the great grain producers for the having an eye to emancipation, when after eastern world, and if they are wise and steady years of toil they pay for their land, benevolent enough to encourage free trade, build themselves a farm, and sell their sur-they can give to the whole of their laboring

masses the comforts and luxuries of life, | friendly. The Church of England as a whole,

gathered from all quarters of the globe, at a price well within their means.

(To be concluded.)

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC AND THE CHURCH
OF ENGLAND.

A London Correspondent of the Press of Philadelphia (H. T.) is responsible for a statement bearing on the relation of the Church of England to the liquor traffic which is certainly suggestive, to say the least:

The town of Derby is the scene, and the parties concerned are the landlady of the "White Swan" and the sexton of St. Peter's Church. The public house and the church stand opposite to each other. It is Sunday morning. The service has begun, and at its close the Holy Communion will be administered. The sacred vessels are in their places, but there is no wine in them. What can be done? A happy thought strikes the man in charge. He will slip across to the "Swan" and get a bottle, and, of course, if it is not paid for until Monday no harm will be done. Besides, it is for a good cause. The landlady looks at the matter in the same light, and the transaction is accomplished, the sexton hurrying back to the church. In a few moments the fluid, obtained surreptitiously from the shelves of the convenient public, will be consecrated, and all will be well. But "the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft aglee," and so in this case, for the sexton has proceeded but a few steps when he finds himself in the clutches of an officious policeman, the final result being that both he and the landlady are fined, the one for selling liquor out of hours and the other for buying it. The magistrates were very hard-hearted. It was nothing to them that the wine was needed for the holiest of purposes, nor did the plea of the offenders, that they had innocently done the same thing before, prove of any avail. The bench saw an infraction of a statute and the attending circumstance aggravated, rather than palliated, the case. The whole affair, they said, was "undignified and improper." Such is law in England. "Straining at a gnat," does some one observe? That may be so, but there is no harm in doing this, as Ĭ understand it, unless you have previously swallowed a camel, and the fact is that in administering the laws relating to the retail sale of liquor English justices do not bolt either little insects or big animals but mete out the stipulated penalties for every offense, greater or less, without fear and without partiality.

is the largest landowner in the kingdom, and in this connection it has been frequently charged that she is also, taking the country through, the largest owner of public houses.

If Canon Wilberforce, a distinguished minister of this church, may be believed, the Bishop of London, when he leaves his house in St. James' Square and rides to his palace. at Fulham, passes on his way more than 100 Church. The Canon has also charged that bar-rooms, built on land belonging to the the " Royal Oak," at Notting Hill, is on the land of the Bishop of London, and the "Hero of Waterloo," in another part of the city, on that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the returns of the fomer being not less than $250000 a year, or more than the maintenance of all the places of worship, all the schools and the police force of the district within the diameter of a mile, while the last named | pays a rental quite as large.

An investigation of these charges has proven them to be slightly overdrawn, but the fact is not denied that there are a large number of these places on Church property and that the Church derives a considerable income from them. For the future, however, a policy of retrenchment is to be pursued. The " publics" within the control of the Establishment are to be weeded out, those only being continued which are either absolutely needed for the accommodation of the surrounding neighborhood or are held under conditions that cannot legally be broken. Such a course will do something to redeem this great Church and the religion it represents from a stigma that has hitherto sadly marred its reputation, and, taken in connection with the fact that in its ministry there are now upwards of 3000 abstainers, including not a few bishops, the new departure is certainly one of the most hopeful signs of the times. The other religious bodies in this country are taking a position on the temperance question that will soon entitle them to rank with the most advanced of their brethren in America. The Wesleyan Methodists have about 900 abstaining clergymen, the Congregationalists 800, the Baptists 600, and the remainder, I am assured, in about equal proportion, with teetotal sentiments still extending and new recruits coming in every day.

MEMORY.

It is often urged that learning by heart strengthens the memory. Locke emphatically denies this; and even if accurate learning by Up to quite recent times it is charged of heart does strengthen the memory, the slovthe Church of England, that its attitude to-enly and inaccurate learning by heart cusward the traffic in intoxicants has been tomary in large schools weakens and enfeebles

it. The strength of the memory depends | ences. upon interest. Excite interest, and the thing will be remembered; nay, more, excite interest, and the whole faculties of the learner will be enlisted in the service of securing the utmost degree of accuracy.-Oscar Browning, Eng.

other listeners. They came reverently, and A DESPATCH from San Francisco says it is their voices softened in silence as they listened. stated, on reliable authority, that a regular Hard-visaged men, bare breasted and un-lished at Canton to furnish Chinese with system of fraudulent brokerage has been estabshaven, came and stood as gently as girls; "traders' certificates " at prices ranging from and tears came out upon many a tanned and $10 to $50 each, the cost depending on the sun-blistered cheek, as the little bird warbled standing of the applicant's friends who vouch forth the silvery treble of its song about the for him. The applicant is not brought into contact with the Chinese officials. green hedges, the meadow-streams, the cottage homes, and all the sunny memories of the fatherland. And they came to the lone widow with pebbles of gold in their hands, and asked her to sell them the bird, that it might sing to them while they were bending to the pick and the spade at the diggings. She was poor, and the gold was heavy; yet she could not sell the warbling joy of her life. But she told them that they might come whenever they would to hear it sing. So, on Sabbath days, having no other preacher nor teacher nor sanctuary privilege, they came down in large companies from the gold-pits, and listened to the hymns of the lark, and became better and happier men for its music.-Elihu Burritt.

GROWTH OF TEXAS.-The growth of Texas stands as a miracle. The increase in her taxnearly half the entire taxable property of able property last year was $130,000,000, or Georgia. Last year sixty-eight new counties were organized, giving 200 counties in all. Besides, there is a territory not yet carved into counties twice as large as the State of Georgia. empire. San Francisco Bulletin. In extent, as in resources, Texas is a superb

effective rival of Pennsylvania in the matter COLORADO seems likely to become the first of supplying the world with petroleum. Thus far, the quality of the oil obtained from the region of the Caucasus has been so inferior that it can be sold only by representing it as well flowing freely, another has been found at American. But at Cañon City there is an oil Loveland, and there are indications at other points.

On the evening of the 30th of last month a

WELCOME, Disappointment! Thy hand is cold and hard, but it is the hand of a friend. terrible explosion occurred in London near Thy voice is stern and harsh, but it is the the Praed street underground station on the voice of a friend. Oh, there is something Metropolitan Railway. On the first alarm a sublime in calm endurance, something sub- strong cordon of police was summoned to prelime in the resolute, fixed purpose of suffer- serve order, to keep the way clear, and to coning without complaining, which makes dis-vey wounded people to the hospitals. Passenappointment oftentimes better than success!gers who were on the train at the scene of the -Longfellow.

THE State of North Carolina sold 20,000 acres of land, known as the Big Swamp, in Robeson county, for 273 cents per acre. The buyers intend to clear it for agricultural purposes.

On the 29th of last month a severe shock of earthquake, accompanied by subterranean rumblings, was felt at Kamieniec, the capital of the Government of Podolia, Russia. The shock lasted thirty seconds.

ONE day last week the first bale of cotton ever picked from the field by machinery was shown at the Cotton Exchange at Galveston, S. C. Its condition was pronounced as good as hand-picked cotton of the same grade, and it was conceded that, if placed with others, it could not be distinguished from hand-picked cotton. The machine is operated by one horse and one man, and will harvest 21 to 3 full bales a day.

explosion say that there was suddenly a loud report like that of a cannon, then a sudden darkness, the gaslights from the front to the rear of the train being put out. The glass was broken, and splinters of wood flew about the cars, cutting and wounding many passengers. Above this din were heard the shrieks of the injured and panic-stricken people. All this occurred in a moment, and for awhile confusion reigned supreme. Almost simultaneously with the Praed street affair a violent explosion occurred on the Underground Railway, between Charing Cross and Westminster Stain the tunnel were shattered, and at Charing tions. The windows of the signaling stations Cross the glass roof of the station partly collapsed.

NOTICES.

PEACE MEETING.

A meeting in favor of Peace and Arbitration, and opposed to War, will be held on First-day next, the 11th inst., at 2 P. M., in Friends' Meeting-house, Upper Dublin, Montgomery county, Pa. Speakers from Philadelphia will attend. All are cordially invited.

The Committee of Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting to attend and appoint meetings expect to be at the Valley Meeting on First-day, Eleventh month 28th, at 10 A. M. They also expect to be in attendance at Germantown Meeting, on First-day, Twelfth month 16th, at 101⁄2 A. M.