from the petty malice of subordinates his | with a mere surface difference, are shown to companions in disaster. One of the stories be idle, profligate, drunken, dirty and distold by him of the long march from Moscow honest. The trader of Nishni Novgorod is to Jaloutroffsky is rather droll :not much superior in these respects to the savage of the Steppe. They may be said to be the same in everything except their clothes. If you strip a Russian, you find a Tartar. At the first stage of the journey from Moscow, the sledge drew up for a change of horses. The ostlers of the post were long in coming, and Mr. Atkinson sent his Cossack to stir them up. More time elapsed, when Mr. Atkinson went into the house himself. Every man was lying drunk and asleep on the floor, including his own servant, who had joined the topers, and drunk himself insensible. How are you to deal with such fellows? They know no argument except the knout. Hence the whip is in universal use among the Russians; and there are whipping-houses for servants in every considerable town of Siberia, just as there are whipping-houses for slaves in New Orleans and the cities of Louisiana. The peasants submit to the lash without shame. Mrs. Atkinson never mentions any Cassy-like protests against the rod and the cat. On the contrary, the Muscovite seems to expect his fate. She tells of one fellow who went to the guardhouse for his usual drubbing, and being refused by the officer of the day on the ground that he had no orders to beat him, prayed that he might have his lashes, saying that he had come a long way for them, and would be sure to be sent back should he go home with a whole skin. In short, the genuine Russian adores the Czar and expects the knout.

"The officer in command, after they had reached a certain distance from the capital, relaxed in his treatment, and made associates of them, inviting one or more to partake of the meals prepared for himself. At one little place where they stopped, the officer breakfasted with one of his prisoners; he then stepped out of the room to see that all was in preparation for departure, leaving his companion seated on a bench at a table. The exile was sitting reflecting on his position, when one of the authorities of the village entered the room, the doors of which were so low, that every one had to bend the body to be able to enter. This man came to say that all was ready for starting. He bowed low on perceiving a gentleman sitting, whom he concluded to be the officer. He then entered into conversation which naturally turned upon the scoundrels that were being conveyed into exile, and (continued this man, looking into his face) there is no mistaking they are villains of the blackest dye; indeed, I should not like to be left alone with any one of them, and, if I might presume to offer a little advice, it would be to observe well their movements, as they might slip their chains, and not only murder you and all the escort, but spread themselves over Siberia, where they would commit all kinds of atrocities.' At this point of the conversation, the bell rang to summon them all to depart, whereupon the exile arose, but when the visitor heard the clanking of the chains, the farce was complete. Mouravioff told us, he never saw a man look so aghast; when he saw the object of his terror about to move forward, he made a rush at the door, but, not having bent his head low enough, he received such a blow that it sent him reeling back into the room, and sprawling on the floor."

One is sorry to learn that these poor fellows meet with little or no pity from the inhabitants of the towns through which they have to march. M. Mouravioff said the people in one place wanted to stone them, and their guards had the utmost trouble in saving them from the mob. In Siberia the lower classes are said to adore the emperor: a fact which political men ought never to forget. It is one of the elements of his power.

If our countrywoman's pictures of the Russian people be in the main correct, we have very little room to congratulate the Czar on the virtues of his adorers. High and low,

Men and women are alike described as

wallowing in dirt. Even in places where she found the houses clean, the people were themselves unutterably filthy. No Russian, in his own country, ever washes his skin while on a journey, for he requires, as he alleges, the dirt to keep him warm. This antipathy to soap and water is found, however, in many places to which the argument of frosty air and icy wind would not apply. The Andalusian, the Sicilian, the Levantine, has each the same love of dirt, though he gives the contrary reason, that it helps him to bear without injury the sultry heat. It is a curious fact, that the dirtiest nations in the world are those which have been in fiercest conflict with the scrupulously clean Mohammedans; the bad habit starting, perhaps,

from a religious point. We know how the
Gothic conquerors of Seville and Granada
destroyed the Moorish baths and water-ways;
making soap suspicious and bathing penal.
Under the rule of Mendoza, a Spaniard who
appeared in the street clean was suspected of
having a bath in his house and a recollection
of the crescent in his heart. To wash was to
be as bad as a Moor, while to be unkempt
and dirty was to be orthodox. A traveller
may trace the influence of these ideas and
events in the south of Spain at this very hour.
The same set of ideas must have operated,
more or less powerfully, on every frontier of
Islam, from the Vega of Granada to the Kir-
ghis Steppe. It is certain that if dirt is an
evidence of sound faith, the Russians are
safe. More than once our fastidious coun-
trywoman could not sleep under their roofs
for the stench; more than once she had to
cast away the clothing that should have kept
her warm.
The people in towns were dirtier
than those in the country places. "We in-
variably found the peasants dirtier and poorer
the nearer they are to large towns." The
women she found dirtier than the men.

Dirt, however, is not the only kind of fanaticism in which the Muscovite peasant rivals his fellow-Christian in the south of Spain. He is very solicitous, in his wild fashion, for the salvation of souls. Here is the story of a man who in other circumstances might have become a Russian Torquemada :

turned to the son, who was in a sound sleep, and despatched him likewise. The brutal murderer then returned to his birth and formed the nearest authorities of the two slept till morning, when he went and inmurders he had committed. His object was not plunder, he said, when asked his reason for committing so horrible a deed; he described how he was sleeping, and hearing these two men conversing, he was induced, from what he heard, to watch their actions, and saw them committing the awful sin of eating meat in Lent, how it weighed upon his soul, how he turned away and tried to sleep but could not, how he felt that for the sake of Him who had died to save sinners, he ought to prevent these men from sinning again; he had tried to avoid committing a crime, which he knew it was, but a voice kept continually urging him on, and saying that he was only putting an end to sin.'

Thieving is common among all classes, and is consequently not so disgraceful as in civilized lands. A Russian does not even take the Greek precaution, of not being found out in his offence. The servant robs his master, the master robs his neighbor. Everybody cheats the Czar. Mrs. Atkinson tells us how the tribute furs from Siberia are delivered to the emperor, These tribute furs are of the finest kind, and of very great value, the peasants supposing that his majesty will receive them in person and inquire the names of his tributaries. "These furs pass through the hands of many individuals, and each one substitutes another of an inferior quality; so that when they arrive at their destination they are of a very different value to those given by these simple people, who would scorn to present such miserable articles to his majesty."

"A father and son were travelling together on the same route we intend taking: they stopped one night at a peasant's cottage; it was late, and the inhabitants had retired to rest. Amongst this class of people the top of the stove forms the sleeping apartment of Those who cheat the emperor will not hesas many of the family as can be stowed away itate to rob his people. "I was once told by upon it. The travellers were admitted to the a Cossack officer," says Mrs. Atkinson, "that only room the house contained; and, having their pay was inadequate to their wants,-it been many hours without food, brought forth was really insufficient to purchase a uniform; their provisions and commenced eating their and yet,' said he, we are expected to have supper, which consisted of cold meat, etc. Their supper ended, they lay down on one it always good, and, besides, we must have a of the benches to sleep, which was not long horse; so what are we to do? why, steal one.' in overtaking the weary travellers. They To my knowledge, it is not alone horses, but had been but a short period in the land of other things likewise. At one time we used dreams, when one of the men on the stove to consider their conduct very reprehensible, slid gently down, and, taking in his hand a hatchet (which every peasant carries with him in his belt), with cautious steps approached the sleepers, and, lifting the instrument with both hands, brought it with such tive." force down upon the head of the poor father,

but after becoming acquainted with all their means, we were much more lenient in blaming them; it is the system which is defec

But the soldiers are worse than their offi

that he literally cleft it in two; he then cers. Mrs. Atkinson had two in her service,

"both of them thieves." There is one con- | main. England is not a nation of wife-beatdition, and only one, under which she found ers, though a good many examples of that them honest: when they had charge of the offence may be heard in the police courts. travellers and were responsible for their safety. France is not a country of drunkards, though Their integrity was then like that of José a tipsy man is very often thrust out of the Maria, the famous Alabama bandit. But wine-shops. The American people are not while guarding their particular charge, the Cossack gentleman would steal from others whatever they could lay their hands on. If they discovered that Mrs. Atkinson was carrying a present to some one, they considered that present, as belonging to a third party, lawful spoil. A gun, a tub of honey, a fur cloak-any article which did not actually belong to the traveller they thought they had a right to steal.

Of course, we admit that accusations like these of lying and theft and corruption are very easily made. We admit, too, that even when they are unquestionably true in many particular cases, they may not be true in the

to be fairly described as table-turners, though
they send us a number of mediums. We
must not put a part for the whole, unless we
would fall into the blunder of M. Ledru Rollin
in his "Décadence de l'Angleterre." Were
we inclined to do so, we should be instantly
met by a counterpoint.
A Russian writer
might assert that our clothing colonels take
(or until lately took) bribes from the army
tailors, and thereupon declare that the higher
and more aristocratic grades of our army are
incurably corrupt. We should only smile at
such a statement and such an inference. We
must allow something for custom in the Mus-
covite as in the English case.

of the head of the dynasty; that of Victor is in remembrance of the house of Savoy; Jerome is that of his paternal grandfather; and Frederic was given in compliment to the family of Wurtemberg.-Galignani's Messenger.

THE BONAPARTE FAMILY REGISTER.-The register of the imperial family, on which has been inscribed the proces-verbal of the birth of Prince Napoleon's son, is a large folio volume, bound in red velvet, and having at the corners ornaments of silver gilt, with the family cipher "N" in the centre. It was commenced in 1806, and the first entry made was the adoption of Prince Eugene by the emperor. The second, made the same year, relates to the adoption of the Princess Stephanie de Beauharnais, who recently died Grand Duchess of Baden, and who was cousin of the Empress Josephine. Next comes the marriage of the Emperor Napoleon I.; then several certificates of the birth of princes of the family, and lastly of the King of Rome; which closes the series of the certificates inscribed under the reign of the First Emperor. This register was confided to the care of Count Regnault de Saint Jeand'Angely, Minister and Councillor of State, and Secretary of the imperial family. It was to him, under the First Empire, as it is now to the Minister of State under the Second, that was reserved the duty of drawing up the proces-verbaux of the great acts relative to Napoleon. At the fall of the First Empire, Count Regnault de Saint Jean-d'Angely carefully preserved the book, which at his death passed into the hands of the countess, his widow. That lady handed it over to the President of the Republic when Louis Na- NICEAN BARKS.-Can any of your correspondpoleon was called by universal suffrage to the im- ents favor me with an explanation of the allusion perial throne. In this same register, continued

THE GRACELESS FLORIN AND THE POTATO DISEASE.-The following story was stated the other day at a meeting of some eminent natural historians. When a particular type of florin was coined some time ago, it was found the usual affix to the royal title D. G. had been inadvertently omitted. The coin was called in, and another type issued with the proper connection; the former is of course very scarce, and goes by the name of "the graceless florin." The same year was the first of the potato blight, and it was stated at the meeting alluded to as a fact, that a sermon was preached at the time, in which the calamity was gravely asserted to be a divine judgment on the nation for the omission. Can this be true? And if so, who was the preacher, and to what denomination did he belong? He could not have been an Irishman, as that country suffered most, and must have had least to do with the issuing of the coin. NUMISMATICUS.

by the Second Empire, may be seen the certifi- in these lines of E. A. Poe?-
cates of the marriage of the Emperor Napoleon
III., and of that of the Princess Clotilde; of the
birth of the Prince Imperial; of the death of
Prince Jerome; and, lastly, of the birth of the
Prince Napoleon Victor Jerome Frederic, just
born. The name of Napoleon commemorates that

"Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore." A GALWEGIAN.
-Notes and Queries.

Some of these books may have been noticed to be printed with a painful irregularity; large, bold type, starting abruptly out from a crowd of small verses, sometimes a word, sometimes a line or a stanza. It is disagreeable reading, but is only a rough way of stating a genuine truth. For every line in large type there is a story by which that line has connected itself with a human heart, with its burden, or sorrow, or longing, or sudden light, or eternal peace. It is a rough, ugly way of putting it, and probably, over-hasty; but it indicates where the truest biographi

the difficulty of procuring biographical details. For the hymn is its secret autobiographer, and only by some casual accident is a page of that writing brought to light.

Perhaps every hymn has its history; but it would be cruel to suggest to any possible reader that every hymn should have its biog-cal interest will be found; it suggests also raphy. Some hymns, like some people, have biographies; the rest, like the majority of the world, occupy just so much space and that is all. Some have been mere untimely births; some have died after a year or two Yet even detail is not wanting. There is of struggling infancy, and been buried in the a memoir, now unhappily out of print, deBritish Museum or Stationers' Hall; a vast voted to one hymn, My Mother dear, Jerusanumber are simply labelled hymns, and exist lem! -a hymn that has been a great favorite in hymn-books; of a few it may be said, they by Scottish firesides, and wandered far and have lived. Some, no doubt, live on a pre- wide with Scottish emigrants. Others have carious reputation, an accident of birth, the not been so fortunate. But let any one stand favor of a past generation, an incident in in some old German church-for Germany is which they played an exaggerated part. pre-eminently the land of Christian hymnsSome would not bear a rigid scrutiny into and listen to the hymn that is lifted up with their antecedents; some have won their place such strong and hearty voices, and think how by barefaced impudence and plagiarism; the same words have been sung by perhaps many turn out shallow and commonplace ten generations; how the people have heard and wearisome. But even here their lives them from childhood; how they have been will compare advantageously with other bi- met by them in every conceivable circumographies, and there is not one of them guilty stance of life and in the brightest and darkof having kept a diary. Most of them are est days of Christendom; what struggles of democratic; their story, their power, belong the soul they have roused, and witnessed, to the people. The select aristocracy of and shared; in what strange and often tragic hymns is not fertile in memoirs. They are scenes they have mingled; what they have well dressed, well printed, well bound; they been to successive mourners, to widows and lie on the prettiest tables, and are welcome orphans, and the sick and dying, and hypoin cathedral closes; but they are uninfluen-crites and plotters, to all that shifting group tial; the pleasantest companions, friends of worshippers,-let any one do this, and the even, but treated as such, as a charming ad- hymn seems already to have received its medition and solace to life, and no more. It is moir. A Jew passing by a church with his in the penny hymn-books that the sense of sister, steps in while the people are singing; power is felt. Probably the hymn is essen- he cannot resist the hymn; his sister rouses tially democratic. It must seize the common and scolds him in vain; it goes singing on in thoughts of many, translate the feeling of his heart, though she calls it an abomination some religious movement, meet the deep and of the Gentiles; and in the same church he often but half-conscious craving of the peo- is baptized. Luther writes a hymn, and soon ple. If it appeals to an intellectual audience after a poor cloth-worker walks through the by its thoughts, or images, or play of pious streets of Magdeburg singing it; the mayor fancy, it strips itself of power. And it is in lays hands on him, and throws him into the penny hymn-book that the fact of a biog- prison; but the hymn has done its work, and raphy of hymns has been recently recognized. two hundred sturdy Magdeburghers march up 1002

THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE.

against the mayor and demand their singer. | in vain, the clergyman marched out with It must have been a heroic song, for Luther, twelve boys to the general's tent, and sang shut up among doubts and fears at Coburg, there before him, when, to their amazement, took it for the comfort of his own heroic soul, he fell upon the pastor's neck and embraced saying to his servant, "Come, and let us sing him. He had discovered in him an old stuit against the devil." And the crowd that dent friend, and spared the place, and still followed Luther's body through Halle on the afternoon service at Pegan is commenced its way to Wittenburg, strove to raise the with the memorable hymn that saved it. Of same heroic measure through their tears. another, it is said that a famous robber havOne would like to know more of this noble ing been changed himself, sang it among his paraphrase of the 130th Psalm; but the only men, so that many of them were changed other record seems to be this, that it was the also. Rough hearts, indeed, seem often the last Protestant hymn sung in Strasburg Ca- most susceptible. A major in command of thedral, now well-nigh two hundred years thirty dragoons entered a quiet vicarage, and ago. Another hymn has had a singular fate. demanded within three hours more than the It was a favorite of Luther; entitled by him vicar could give in a year. To cheer her A Song of the Law and of Faith, marvellous father, one of his daughters took her guitar, well furnished with Holy Scripture; and the and sang to it one of Gerhardt's hymns. story goes that a beggar lad from Prussia Presently the door softly opened; the officer sung it one day at Luther's door. Handing stood at it, and motioned her to continue, him a crown of St. George, his last piece of and when the hymn was sung, thanked her money, with the words, "Come here, my St. for the lesson, ordered out the dragoons, and George, the Lord Christ is there," he asked rode off. And another story of the same him to sing it again. And when it was fin- hymn I make no apology for quoting entire. ished he asked him where he had learned it; "In a village near Warsaw there lived a and he said, In Prussia, where they used to pious peasant of German extraction, by name sing it in church; and Luther's eyes filled Dobry. Without his fault he had fallen into with tears of joy that God had spread his arrear with his rent, and the landlord deterword so far. Afterwards the people sung mined to evict him, and it was winter. He mass and priest out of the churches with it went to him three times in vain. It was in many parts of Germany; and now, strange evening, and the next day he was to be turned change of fortune, there are villages in Aus- out with all his family, when, as they sat tria, where it is regularly sung at the close there in sorrow, the church bell pealed for of the Romish worship, a last, and, in the evening prayer, and Dobry kneeled down in circumstances, whimsical relic of the once their midst, and they sangprevalent evangelical faith. Magdeburg is memorable in the story of hymns, for it was at the cruel sacking of it by Tilly that the school-children marched across the marketplace singing, and so enraged him that he bid them all be slain; and from that day, say the chroniclers, the fortune departed from there was a knock at the window. It was an him, nor did he smile again. Other hymns old friend, a raven, that Dobry's grandfather were more fortunate, for we read of a certain had taken out of the nest and tamed, and rough captain who would not bate a crown of the thirty thousand he levied of a captured town, till at last the archdeacon summoned the people together, saying, "Come, my children, we have no more either audience or grace with men; let us plead with God; " and when they had entered the church, and sung a hymn, the fine was remitted to a thousand. The same hymn played as merciful a part in another town which was to be burned for contumacy. When mercy had been asked

"Commit thou all thy grief
And ways into His hands.
And as they came to the last verse-
"When Thou wouldst all our need supply
Who, who shall stay Thy hand? '-

then set at liberty. Dobry opened the window, the raven hopped in, and in his bill there was a ring set with precious stones. Dobry thought he would sell the ring; but he thought again that he would bring it to his minister, and he, who saw at once by the crest that it belonged to King Stanislaus, took it to him, and related the story. And the king sent for Dobry, and rewarded him, so that he was no more in need, and the next year built him a new house, and gave him