be made to explode by a detonating fuse; the shell bursts into small fragments, and thus becomes unusually destructive. The experiments are going on, and we shall hear more about them, for invention can busy itself with schemes for slaughter, as well as with new ploughs or spinning-machines.

Mr W. P. Baker, of Bristol, has described to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers a process for skinning wheat and converting it into flour or semolina. The skin is taken off rapidly by blades rotating in a cylinder. While the blades grow blunt on one side they become sharp on the other: so to speak, they sharpen themselves, and, by rotating in opposite directions on alternate days, are always ready for use. The kernels of the grain are then passed between fluted metal rollers, and are converted at pleasure into flour or semolina of the best quality. Semolina means half-milled or half-ground. The close-fitting skin which has been stripped off contains a chemical principle known as cerealine, said to be noxious. Bread in which there is no cerealine is beautifully light and white; but there is good reason to doubt whether it is as nutritious as brown bread. The question is one which may be left to further experience: meanwhile, it is satisfactory to know that machinery is available for completely separating every particle of the husk from the flour. If the separation is not made before the grinding, it cannot be made afterwards. In the International Exhibition is a machine which shews how the process briefly described above is carried on.

In our record of progress in the arts we have from time to time noticed improvements in implements of agriculture. Further improvements by English manufacturers have now to be mentioned:

-A steam-engine in which straw is to be the fuel; an important consideration in the great wheatgrowing countries of Eastern Europe, where coal and wood are scarce, and straw is superabundant. The straw is cut short, to prepare it for burning, and the silica, which would form clinkers in the furnace, is stripped off. Other engines are to burn peat, a fact interesting to the enterprising people who are now proving that peat can be compressed into a very small bulk. The labour of digging up the beetroots grown for sugar is very great; so a 'grubber' has been invented which steams up and down the fields, and easily shoves out the roots, even from a hard, baked soil. A small horse mowing-machine is so constructed that it can be used for cutting the grass in ditches and in trimming hedges the cutter can be set at any angle to suit the inequalities of the ground. Machines which do their work by vibration are apt to shake themselves to pieces; but ingenuity now steps in, and beds the ends of all the joints in india-rubber, and so the shocks are deadened. Then cranks are apt to break; and this is prevented by boiling them in linseed-oil, which is found to toughen the iron. All these improvements may now be seen in the English machinery department of the Vienna Exhibition, besides implements varied in construction so as to work on hills or in plains, and to suit all kinds of soils.

:

The Statistical Society have had an exposition and discussion of an important question-the buying up of all the railways by the government. There is much to be said for and against. If government managed all the railways as well as it does the post-office and telegraph, the advantage

to the public would be great. First-class fares might then be three-farthings a mile, and the other classes in proportion; and for parcels, there would be uniform moderate rates, as for letters. One of the objections to the scheme, however, is, that when government wishes to buy anything, the seller always makes his price three or four times more than the thing to be sold is worth. From returns lately published, we learn that there are in India 315 different newspapers, of which 68 are English, 36 in the dialect which passes as English among the natives, and 211 are in the native languages. One among them, sold at a pice, or farthing, is perhaps the lowest-priced newspaper in the world. The number of readers in India is very small; and it is the practice for crowds to assemble and listen to one reader, and in this way news is dispersed with remarkable rapidity. At the beginning of the present century, there were not more than five newspapers in India.

line 19 has been transposed from the beginning to the ERRATA. In the Month last issued, the word 'gas' in end of the line; and the first word of line 27 should be gas,' not 'water.'

THE FIRST DAISY.
THOU Note of Praise !-The first I've seen
Above the daily quickened sod;
All hail! among the living green,
Thou little messenger of God!

For why? Because thyself art fair

In Morning's eyes a precious thing;
Burns hymned of thee in music rare;
But most because thou tell'st of Spring.
Nor pansy, violet, yet appear,

Nor many another woodland gem;
Spring's hundred angel touches dear;
But thou art rich with hints of them.
To childhood you transport me back,
And with associations throng;
Then, suddenly grows dim my track,
Before me as I go along.

Till once again I call to mind

That I am still a living thing;
Dear flower! for thoughts of many a kind,
But most because you tell of Spring.

In Spring I think that I could die;

Though life were then-ah, then, most sweet: My spirit would be fit to fly,

And flutter to my Father's feet.

But not before my Spring's return;

Ah, no! or death were death twice o'er; 'Mid orchard-blossom, leaf, and burn, And flushes I should see no more.

Next Saturday, July 5, will be commenced, a Story in Twenty-four Chapters, entitled

HIS OWN EXECUTOR.

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Pater

noster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by all Booksellers.

'Tell him to wait,' cried Procul, and went on with his breakfast.

'Come back to sponge upon his relations, eh! Well, thank Heaven, he'll have no claim upon me ; and if he can get anything out of the maternal side!' Procul laughed lightly. 'Poor beggar!Ah, dear, dear! what sad dogs we were in those days!'

The reminiscence seemed to bring back to Procul a little vigour and cheerfulness. He ate half a bloater and a piece of dry toast, and then rang the bell.

'Antoine, let the youth appear.'

A man entered, at whom Procul glanced with a careless air, that yet concealed a keen and observant scrutiny. He was a fine broad-shouldered, deepchested youth, with a short tawny beard, a goodhumoured, reckless face.

Procul waved him to a seat opposite the window; and Mr Butt flung himself upon the sofa with an easy freedom, that shewed that he wasn't perhaps so much impressed with the immeasurable distance existing between the Honourable Procul Porkington and Henry Butt as perhaps he ought to have been. 'So,' said Procul, as he stood leaning against the marble chimney-piece, with his back to the window, his face in shade, whilst the frank open features of his visitor were in the full glare of the light-so, you are the young man who ran away from his ship!'

'Well, yes, I believe I'm the same,' said Butt with a chuckle.

'It's not a laughing matter,' said Procul seriously; it might be a thing for the magistrates, you know.'

Butt laughed still louder. 'Look here, gaffer,' he said, getting up and striking his breeches-pocket with his hand; 'as long as a fellow has got plenty of the ready, he needn't care about that sort of cattle.'

lad to sea, to be rid of them both, mother and son, what would you say then?'

I should say that you'd better keep his name hid from me; that is, if he's alive. But for all that, I'll find him out; and I'll never rest till I've punished him.'

'What?' said Procul; 'your own father, you unnatural boy! But come; I'm happy to say there's no story of that kind. But before we go any further, pray, what are your reasons for making this inquiry?'

'As I tell you,' said Harry, 'I've got lots of money, and nobody in the world belonging to me; I feel strange and lonely like, and I should like to know I was somebody's son.'

'Ah! very creditable and nice, indeed. But when you've found them out, do you expect them to be people of distinction, who'll make a man of

you?'

'Tell you what, sir,' said Harry, 'I don't want anybody to make a man of me; I've come to be a man without anybody's making. It's just the other way. I've made a pot of money out yonder, more than I know what to do with, hardly. Now, the thought's come over me many and inany a time: Perhaps my father and mother are some poor creatures, toiling and moiling at some hard labour for a bit of bread, not knowing from one day to another how to keep body and soul together. Now, thinks I, if so be that might be the case, I should like to be a kind of Providence to them, to come down upon them unbeknown, and to lift 'em upay, to lift them gradually, so as they shan't know where the help comes from-ay, and to watch 'em, as they grow out of misery and despondency bit by bit into prosperity, health, and comfort. Wouldn't that be grand?'

'A very nice idea,' said Procul; but it would be costly to carry out. Why, you might make a hole in a thousand pounds, carrying out a thing like that.'

'Well, thank Heaven,' said Harry, 'I've made a pretty good pile. But, as you say, it won't do everything; it won't get a man father and mother, and sister and brother. That's what I want; I've come over here to England to track 'em out.'

"Ah!" said Procul, looking narrowly at Harry, 'rather a difficult job that. How will you begin?" Well, to say the truth,' said Harry, laughing lightly again, 'I've come to you for advice on that point. I suppose you know something about me, or you wouldn't have taken the trouble to 'prentice

me out.'

'But suppose I can't help you. Suppose that I was asked to do this by a friend, and that my honour forbade me to reveal his name.'

If your friend hadn't done anything to be ashamed of, why shouldn't you tell his name?' 'But supposing that my friend hadn't acted altogether well, not quite as you might have wished. Suppose that he had deceived a girl, and deserted her, we'll say; and then, after a while, had sent the

Antoine! Soda and seltzer, and cognac.'

'Do you know,' said Harry, after a pause, filling both his cheeks with smoke, and puffing forth a huge volume of it into the air, these aren't half bad weeds!' Here he drained a tall tumbler of soda and brandy. 'You're not half such a bad fellow, either. Thinks I, when I first saw you: "He's one of those Cockney, hands-off sort of chaps."

Procul stood by the fireplace, warming himself, and fidgeting, and wofully at a loss what to do next. Surely this man had come to him for some good purpose! However unfortunate a man may be, and however much he may have deserved his ill-fortune, there is always at the bottom of his heart a feeling that fortune must have in reserve for him some final lucky turn. 'And,' said Porkington to himself, 'here, at the very last moment, is the lucky turn for me! Other men have been dragged down by their vices; mine shall be salvation to me.'

"Then you think,' said Porkington, after a pause

'you think I'm not such a bad sort of fellow after all?' 'You're not, by Jove!' said Harry. "I call this real hospitality to a forlorn, friendless sort of chap.'

Ah, my boy,' said Procul, 'it's nature! It's nature warms our hearts, and brings us nearer together! Why, my dear fellow, when you came into this room, and I saw your face, memories crowded upon my brain.-Your poor unfortunate mother-alas! I see her now-her dear, speaking features! Harry, does your heart warm too? Don't you feel strange thrillings of real joy? Harry, can't you guess? Come, Harry, come-putting out both his hands-'I'm your father!'

"Hands off!' cried Harry, jumping up so that the sofa spun away and banged against the wall behind it-hands off! What!' he cried, 'you my father!--you, with your silver-plate and your grand doings, and your valeys, and your rings, and your jewels! And your son sent away, a poor wretched lad, kicked and cuffed and rope-ended, and half-starved, and all neglected, and wretched to the very dregs! Was it you who 'prenticed me in that hell afloat? And if you're my father, where's my mother? What have you done with her? Man! give me an answer to that, I say!'

'And yet I did it very nicely,' said Procul to himself. I thought it would have fairly melted him; it very nearly melted me. But the youth wants judicious handling.'

'Harry,' he went on, don't reproach me. How wretched I was when I heard that you had run away, and that there was no chance of repairing my neglect! You don't know what misery it has cost me since. But I can't justify myself; I can only ask you to forgive me. But for your mother -no, I can't blame myself there. Everything that loving care could do for her was done. We were privately married, Harry, and lived under an assumed name, to avoid the persecution of my relatives; but, excepting that, your mother had hardly a wish ungratified. But she died when you were a mere infant; and then I-I was poor, dreadfully poor. I'd spent my last coin in procuring for her the little luxuries she required in her illness; and-no, Harry, my boy, I couldn't bear the sight of you!' cried Procul, choking with emotion.

'Come, don't take on, old man,' said Harry. 'Never mind about me; I was young, and it did me good. As long as you was good to the mother, I'll forgive you everything else. Here's flipper on it.'

my

Procul sank into a chair, exhausted with emotion. Harry sprang up, seized a carafe of water, and stood over him.

'No, no; no water; I'm better now,' said Procul; and let me be alone for a while.'

'All right,' said Harry, filling his case from the box of cigars on the chimney-piece. 'I'm going into the City to see about matters, and I'll come back-to dinner, eh ?-perhaps; only, don't wait for me, for I hate to be tied for time.'

CHAPTER II.-ST CUTHBERT'S CHICKS.

There is a thick fog in the City; a yellow, tawny fog, that wraps a man up like a blanket. One may see a bit of brightness at mid-day, just when the sun is a pale, watery blotch right overhead-that

is, from any open part of the City-by the Exchange, we'll say, or from the parapet of London Bridge; but here, in the closely packed parts of the City, there is scarcely any light. It is like plunging into an unknown gulf of lurid gloom, to dive into St Cuthbert's Lane.

"This is worse than the bush,' cried, in a choked voice, a stout young fellow, who was feeling his way from door to door in the lane. And it's no good "cooeying" here, either. Come, this is the right place at last; yes, all right!' He read on a large brass plate the following inscription: 'Vestry Offices. Clerk, Orlando Costicle;' and on another somewhat smaller plate: Costicle and Costicle, Solicitors.'

The fog was thick enough on the stair, and seemed to choke the solitary gas jet that quivered dimly half-way up; it was thick enough in the clerk's office; and it had even crept into the private chamber of the vestry-clerk, where there was a young man sitting with a yellow kind of halo round his head, due to fog and gas-light and sickly daylight intermixed.

'Gentleman here,' said the clerk, 'wants to see. Mr Costicle. Letter of introduction.'

The young man took up the letter and a card. 'Tell him-tell Mr Butt my father's out of town,' he said, after looking at the letter.

'Look here!' said a deep voice from outside; 'it don't matter about your father.' Then a shaggy, bearded head was thrust into the room. 'You're his son, aren't you-William Costicle ?-Ah! I thought so. That letter's from Sam Costicle, your brother, and there's no secrets in it. You open it.'

The young man whom Mr Butt thus addressed was not very prepossessing in appearance. His face was smooth, and without vestige of hair upon it; he had a long nose, with a considerable protuberance at the end of it, like a handle; a large wide mouth, the corners of which were usually drawn down, though, as it seemed, more from anxiety than ill-temper; strongly defined eyebrows, which were generally knitted; eyes of uncertain hue, with large and heavy lids; huge ears, surmounted by a shock head of hair. Mr Butt had rightly guessed his name to be William Costicle.

'Ah, poor Sam!' said he, opening the letter.-'So you're a friend of his,' he cried, after glancing rapidly through it, looking at his visitor rather doubtfully, as though the fact were not a powerful recommendation.

'Sam and I were two of the toughest chums!' 'No doubt. I'm rather busy just now. My father will be glad to see you, no doubt. He's not at home just now. Perhaps you'll look in again -say in a week or two.'

Harry Butt seemed rather staggered at the coolness of his reception. He looked round savagely and contemptuously-at the room, full of dusty yellow papers; at the yellow, pallid youth, who was crouching over his desk.

'I should never have thought you were a brother of Sam's,' he cried involuntarily.

"Ah, poor Sam!' said William again. Sad, sad, to think of a fine career sacrificed like that! Do you know, Mr Butt, that my brother Sam might have had this seat, and occupied my place here, if he had been only reasonably steady!"

'Ha, ha, ha!' shouted Harry, with a jolly laugh, that rang through the room, and made the

fat old spiders in their dark dusty nooks think the end of the world was at hand. That's a good joke! Sam grinding away at these old papers; Sam trying to bury his chin in his breast-bone; Sam drying up his liver, and turning his-self into an old sheepskin! Why, mate, there ain't a sharper lad on Barling Down than Sam Costicle.' 'I'm glad to hear you speak so well of my brother. Is he more successful than he was?'

"I should think he was. Successful! Why, man, Sam-I've known him many a time go down to Melbourne with a thousand dollars of gold in his belt, and he'd spend it all in a week-drink it and game it--and come back with nothing but an old red shirt and a pair of leather breeches; and next month you'd hear he'd got the best claim on the creek, and was piling up as fast as ever. Why, I tell you there wasn't a more successful man on the diggings than Sam.'

Tut, tut, tut,' sighed William; 'reckless, sad, reckless fellow; always the same.'

'But what I want of you,' said Butt, after a pause, 'is this I didn't come here to make friends so much, but just as a matter of business; it's a kind of thing I'm not used to-I want a bit of advice.' 'Oh, certainly,' said William, biting the end of pen; only, I'm very busy just now,'

his

I shan't be long in saying my say. I've got a tidy bit of swag here, of one sort or another. Look! here's gold, about twelve thousand dollars; here's bank bills, another fifty thousand pounds or so; and here's bonds and things worth as much again. Now, I want to know what I'd better do with it?'

'My dear sir,' said William, 'you don't mean to say you go about with all this money upon you! more than a hundred thousand pounds! You must take it to a bank at once.'

'I'm not so fond of your banks,' said Harry; 'but if it's one you can guarantee'

'I think,' said William, that Brown, Glass, and Brown, my bankers, would smile at the idea of my guaranteeing them; but as far as that goes, you are perfectly safe with them."'

'Well, that's right; I'll take your word for it. But how am I to get there? It's about as dark as blazes.'

'So it iss-so it is,' said William thoughtfully. Mr Butt had already assumed different proportions in his eyes. A man who had a hundred thousand pounds wasn't to be knocked down and run over in a London fog as if he were an ordinary mortal; neither was he to be dismissed and lost sight of as a man simply asking for friendship and hospitality. 'I'll go with you myself,' he said after a moment's pause: I could find my way to Lombard Street blindfold; and you must come back with me to dine at Chelsea; mother and Ellen will be delighted to hear news of Sam: he never writes.'

6

I'll come and see you with pleasure,' cried Harry; but I want you to do a job for me first; I want you to make my will.'

'We'll do that after we've been to the bank,' said Williamı.

The two young men went out, and were absent for half an hour. When they returned, they appeared in much better spirits. William was quite genial. Judging from Harry's habits, it is probable they had had a drink.

Now, let us finish this will business,' said William; and then we will have a cab to Chelsea. How do you want to dispose of all this money?'

'First of all, a legacy of five thousand pounds to Sam-to be tied up so as he can't touch the principal. Oh, I know Sam; he'd lose it all at euchre or blind-hooky, give him a chance. I was just as bad as Sam once. Then, after that, I'm in a bit of a fix. You see,' he said, looking a little embarrassed and confused, I am not exactly sure about my own relations.' Then Butt told, the story of his youth, finishing with an account of, the interview he had had that morning with Mr Procul Porkington. 'Now, I'm not so sure of that chap,' he said. He may be all square, or he mayn't. If he's told me the truth, and my mother was his wife, and she's dead, I should wish him to have the money. If not, I should like it to go to her mother, or any of her relations who can be found.' 'I see; you make him residuary legatee, if he can prove that he is your lawful father. We'd better make a trust of it; leave it to trustees to ascertain if Procul Porkington is your lawful father, and if so, to pay over to him; and so on. And if it appears that your father and mother were not lawfully united, then to ascertain who your mother was, and to pay to her, or divide among her next of kin ; and

so on.

That's about it,' said Butt.

'Who shall we make trustees?' cried William. You and your father,' said Harry. I don't know anybody else on this side of the water.'

We shall be very proud of your confidence,' said William. And now, you'll come home with me, and I'll introduce you to my mother and sister. I'll be very glad,' said Harry..

f

That's right. But, in the meantime, I've some things to attend to. How shall we amuse you?"

Oh, I don't want any amusing,' said Harry. 'Give me a good cigar and something to interest me, and I'll be as happy as possible.'

'It wouldn't do to smoke here,' said William, rather alarmed; the vestry wouldn't like it.'

What's the vestry got to do with it?" These are the vestry offices you see. But, look here-are you fond of churches?'

'Not very,' said Harry; they are rather dry sort of places, to my mind.'

But I think you'd like to see our church, Come this way. I'll ask Mrs Budgeon to shew you over. William Costicle leads the way through a number of narrow passages till they reach a small dark vestibule, where there is a pointed arch, which looks strangely ancient and weird, among these modern panels, and mats, and hat-stands,

Here William raps with his knuckles against an ordinary wooden door. It is opened suddenly, and a young girl appears framed in the light that thus bursts out into the darkened vestibule. Her face is hardly distinguishable; but the light streams through the loose, somewhat disordered tresses of hair, and forms a sort of golden aureola round it.

Ís your mother at home, Sally?' said young William.

'No; she ain't, Mr William.' 'Oh, I'm sorry for that; I wanted her to shew this gentleman over the church.'

'Won't I do, Mr William?' said the maid demurely. 'I shew everybody about, and I think I know more about the place than mother does.'

'Yes,' said William, rather doubtfully, as if he didn't quite approve of the arrangement; 'yes, you'll do. This gentleman has come from Australia, Sally.'