sure. lively description of them in 'Recollections of a Blue-coat Boy' will be read with plea"From the Sunday after Christmas till Easter Sunday inclusive, we used to sup in public, on which occasion the hall was lighted up with chandeliers and patent lamps; the floor was spread with sawdust, and the organ, which was in a gallery over the great gates which formed the principal entrance to the hall, was opened, and those boys who were best able to sing were placed in this gallery to conduct the singing of the psalm which always formed part of the worship before supper, but which on these occasions was longer than usual, and accompanied by the organ. Visitors were admitted into the hall formerly by tickets, but of late years by the personal introduction of a governor or some officer or master in the establishment. There were seats at the upper end of the hall raised one above another, and covered with green baize for the accommodation of the visitors. In the centre of the lowest range of seats was placed an arm chair, in which sat the president or treasurer, or some senior governor; the rest of the governors present sitting on either side of the chair. The governors on this, as on most public occasions, were distinguished by slender painted wands. Before supper one of the Grecians mounted a pulpit on one side of the hall, and read out of the New Testament the lesson appointed for the evening service, then a prayer composed for the use of Christ's Hospital by Dr Gibson, formerly Bishop of London; after this a psalm was sung by all the boys accompanied by the organ, then followed grace before supper. The boys next took their seats at the table, their butter and beer served out to them, and the visitors walked about and amused themselves observing the boys. Many of the persons present as visitors were the friends or relatives of the boys, and it was to the boys themselves a kind of holiday, especially to the younger ones. The supper, consisting only of bread and butter, was soon finished. The steward then gave a signal, and the boys left their seats and arranged themselves on either side of the hall; grace was then said by the Grecian as before, and an anthem was sung by some of the best singers among the boys, who were placed in the organ loft; the chorus was performed by the whole number. After this came the ceremony of bowing round before the governors." A DISCOVERY IN ASTRONOMY. One day-I had it from a hasty mouth, Accustom'd to make many blunders daily, And therefore will not name, precisely, South, Herschel, or Baily But one of those great men who watch the skies, With all their rolling, winking eyes, When thus he musing cried, "It's very odd "To wonder so at spots upon the sun! T. HOOD. THE KE-KO-KA-KI, A NEW DOMESTIC ANIMAL.-M. Audubon, in a letter of the 20th of June last, written 110 miles above Port Union, in latitude 49 degrees 10 minutes N., communicates the "discovery of an animal which bids fair to become not only a valuable but a domestic one." He had taken refuge in a wood during a storm, and saw two enormous beasts at play, somewhat resembling kangaroos. A companion shot one of these animals; the other fled. "The buffalo or mountain elk," says M. Audubon, "is nothing in comparison to this animal in the scale of worth. It sits on its hind legs, its front legs or arms are short, but armed with sharp claws, and it bounds or jumps with its hind legs. It has a tail, somewhat like that of a sheep, about ten inches long; and round the middle of the body it has a ring of flesh, about twelve inches wide and eight thick in the middle or centre, which produces a large quantity of oil. On their heads they have two horns very similar to the horns of the deer, but no more than eighteen inches long; the head is also shaped very like that of the deer, and has the same kind of teeth; but what is most remarkable, their coat is of the most beautiful fur I ever beheld, of a dark brown colour. The one we killed weighed, to the best of our calculations, upwards of 600 lbs., and it measured from the top of the head to the end of the tail, nine feet four inches. We had no sooner killed this one, than some Indians joined us; they said that in these woodlands similar animals were in great abundance. They called it in their tongue the ke-ko-ka-ki, or jumper; they feed on grass, herbs, and foliage. Upon observing us take off the skin, the Indians expressed a desire to have some of the flesh, which we gave them. We cooked some, and found it delicious; it was white and tender, and tasted very similar to veal; but the ring on the body was nearly all oil, and the whole upper part will produce a great quantity. The Indians took us to their huts, or village, which consisted of six families; there we saw no less than six of these animals domesticated. Two young ones, male and female, I bought for some beads." ALGIERS AS IT IS IN THE HANDS OF THE FRENCH. BY CAPT. LUCAS. LETTER I. (For the Mirror.) THE entrance to the Bay of Algiers is grand. To the left the Atlas mountains are seen, which extend many hundreds of miles; the Bay is circular, and the scenery, interspersed with villas, is beautiful and picturesque. Looking to the right, the city of Algiers is seen established on a lofty hill, sloping towards the sea. The houses for the most part have flat roofs, and are whitewashed all over. At a distance, as seen from on board ship, they present the aspect of a vast field of snow, which almost dazzles the eye. The plan of the houses strikes a European as curious. Without, nothing is seen but a wall and a door, but when you enter the scene presented is agreeably varied and grotesque. Looking into a court yard, you see fruits and flowers, fountains playing, and such other embellishments as the tastes of individual owners may supply, and galleries run round the court yard, one, two, or three stories high. They are supported by marble pillars elaborately worked. The rooms, corridors, and yards are all paved with marble or glazed tiles. As the tops of the houses are flat, many have gardens there, and neighbours are accustomed to cross a number of these gardens to visit each other, without descending to the court yard. Most of the streets, though certainly now their number is diminishing, are miserably narrow, being only six feet wide. In some instances the opposite houses actually touch each other. The streets are in consequence dark passages, here and there illuminated by a ray of light, admitted through an aperture some two feet square. Scarcely a window is to be seen, but merely a few openings, like pigeon holes, and a door. Still the fashion of the streets is not to be altogether condemned. The heat of the climate is the cause of their not being more spacious, and the European who has in his "mind's eye" the magnificent streets of London and Paris, is well content, when the sun is high in the heavens, to gain shelter from the insufferable ray beneath the overhanging upper stories of the dwellings of the Algerines, which provide him below with a cool and comfortable thoroughfare. Hussein Pacha, the last of the Deys, had two palaces, one at the lower and one at the upper part of the town. They are singularly built, and not easy to describe. It was in the one at the top of the hill that Hussein generally resided. Twice a week he came to the lower part of the town, to superintend ordinarily the decapitating of some of his subjects. He was a violent barbarian, and once chopped off the head of a man with his own hands. It was his uncontrollable violence that caused his fall. Algiers had claims on France for corn which had been supplied by two merchants named Bacry and Busnach, and some demur having been made on the part of the French Government, Hussein demanded that the sum claimed for the merchants just named should be paid to him, and that the French creditors of Bacry and Busnach should be sent to Algiers, there to establish the validity of their claims; and that there should be remitted to him a further sum of 80,000l., which he accused the French consul of having received as the price of certain alleged good offices rendered to Bacry. He also required that an immediate and precise answer should be given. The subject was extremely embarrassing; the accounts were in confusion; and delay unavoidably occurred. Hussein believed himself cheated and insulted, and, in the transports of rage which this feeling excited, broke out against the consul, whom he called the vilest and most immoral of men. Matters were in this state when M. Duval presented himself before the Dey, on the 27th of April, 1827, to compliment him, according to custom, on the occasion of the festivities of the Bairam. "Have you a letter for me from your government ? " demanded Hussein furiously, the instant the consul appeared. M. Duval answered respectfully in the negative; upon which the Dey, overcome by rage, broke out into the most virulent reproaches and menaces, made use of most opprobrious epithets, and finally struck the consul on the face with a fly-fan which he held in his hand. France resented this insult, and blockaded Algiers. She subsequently offered peace upon moderate terms, but it was rejected with insult and defiance. Bitterly must he have lamented his outrageous conduct. In June, 1830, a formidable army from France landed at Algiers. The French were victorious in several battles, and the Dey, completely crest-fallen, was obliged to send a flag of truce to General Bourmont, by his private secretary, Sidi Mustapha. He approached the conqueror, and offered, on the part of his master, the abandonment of all his old claims against France, the reparation which had been demanded of him before the rupture, and the payment of the whole expense of the campaign, provided the French would consent to leave the country. These conditions were proposed with much hesitation by Mustapha, while his features exhibited the liveliest impression of terror. They were sternly rejected. "Tell the Dey," said Bourmont, in reply, "that, master of the fort of the Emperor and of all the commanding positions, I hold in my hand the fate of the city and of the Cassauba. A hundred pieces of artillery, which I have brought from France, and eighty cannons and mortars, found in the Algerine batteries, of which I am already in possession, will be sufficient to destroy, in a few hours, the Cassauba and the walls of Algiers. I consent to spare the lives of the Dey, the Turkish soldiers, and the inhabitants of the town, provided they surrender at discretion, and instantly put the French troops in possession of the gates of the city, the Cassauba, and of all the exterior forts." After some further negotiation it was agreed to respect the personal property of the Dey and the inhabitants, but he and all the Turks were to leave the city without delay. Upon these terms Algiers surrendered. The public property found in it was estimated at 2,227,3811., besides guns, stores, houses, &c., belonging to the government, so that France gained at least 3,000,000l. by the capture. At first the Dey was greatly depressed by his defeat and its conse. quences, but eventually he recovered his composure. The advice which he gave to his conquerors, however, shows, in a striking point of view, the character of the despot. "I recommend to you," said he, "to be on your guard against AbduramanAga, Bey of Tittery; he is a thorough knave. He will come to offer himself; he will swear to be faithful to you; but he will betray you the first opportunity. I had resolved some time ago to cut off his head; your arrival has spared him that ceremony. The Bey of Constantine is less perfidious and less dangerous. Being an able financier, he sweats the people of his province without mercy, and pays his tribute with great punctuality; but he is without courage and without character. Men of this stamp are not suited to trying circumstances, as my sorrowful experience has just proved." Of the French consul, Duval, he added, "I take blame to myself for not having made him expiate by the halter his falsehood, his baseness, and his criminal manœuvres, which have caused my ruin. If I had chopped off his head or strangled him, I should not have been worse than I now am, since I have lost my throne, and life is of little moment to me; I would have had the satisfaction of being avenged." The palaces of Hussein are now converted into barracks for the French soldiers. A great part of the old town, near the harbour, has been pulled down, and splendid houses, hotels, and bazaars have been built, forming a grand square open to the sea, round which orange trees are planted, and forms a beautiful and favourite promenade, especially of an evening, when a military band is generally in attendance. The less happy consequences of the fall of Algiers will furnish matter for another letter. PULPIT COSTUMES. "ST JEROME says, in his book against Pelagius, 'what harm or enmity, I pray, is it against God, if I use a more cleanly garment? If a bishop, presbyter, deacon, or any other of the ecclesiastical order, come forth in a white vestment, when they administer the sacraments?' St Chrysostom also intimates, that the deacons wore a peculiar habit in their ministrations, when he says, 'their honour, crown, and glory, did not consist so much in their walking about the church in a white and shining garment, as in their power to expel unworthy communicants from the Lord's Table.' Nazianzen, in his vision of the Church of Anastasia, represents the deacons standing'in their bright and shining garments.' And in his will he leaves to his deacon Evagrius [Eutropius?] a camasus, and a sticharium, which were then the common names for these surplices, or white garments, used in divine service. The Council of Laodicea has two canons concerning the little habit called the orarium, which was a scarf or tippet, to be worn upon the shoulders, and might be used by bishop, presbyter, and deacon, but not by subdeacons, singers, or readers, who are expressly debarred the use of it in that Council. The fourth Council of Carthage speaks of the alba or surplice, which the deacon is ordered to wear, when the oblation is made or the lessons are read. Council of Narbo mentions the same. The Council of Braga speaks of the tunica and the orarium as both belonging to deacons ; and the third Council of Braga orders priests to wear the orarium on both shoulders, when they ministered at the altar. By which we learn that the tunica or surplice, was common to all the clergy; the orarium on the left shoulder, proper to deacons, and on both shoulders the distinguishing badge of priests. The "Now the Fathers here quoted lived near the end of the fourth century; the earliest of the Councils was held in the third, the latest in the sixth; so that the surplice has, beyond a doubt, been the officiating habit of the clergy for at least sixteen hundred years; while it does not appear that the gown has been adopted as a preaching dress for much more than two hundred. It is very true that the above quotations say nothing about preaching, but it is most probable that the habit then worn was the same as that in which they officiated."-Letter of a Layman. RELICS OF LONDON.-No. XVII. ELY CHAPEL. mind as we look on the relics of the past; FOR THE LADIES' HOOP. SIR,-I am one of those unfortunates, called disappointed women, and the object of this letter is to caution the vain and unwary of my own sex against falling into the same error with myself, by pointing out the cause of my present unhappy situation. Most humbly, gentle reader, I have to crave thy pardon and that of the venerable relic whose name is at the head of the present paper, for passing by Ely chapel without a sign of recognition. What! conclude the series of "Relics" without a notice of the reverend ruin of Ely place! Unpardonable omission! Yet I doubt whether I should have been reminded of my error had I not had recent occasion to pass through the vicinity, and beheld the scattered remains of the Bishop's chapel, with a frown upon its time-worn face, as if, had it been anything but stone, it would have upbraided me for my neglect; and, struck with compunction, I determined to add another paper to my concluded series, that Ely chapel might not be unrecorded. The spot on which the chapel is situated THE NEW STAYS, OR A LAMENT was first distinguished by the residence of the Bishops of Ely in the thirteenth century; but all vestiges of the inn in which those prelates dwelt, and which was the scene of such festivity as made poor Stowe open his eyes with very wonder as he recorded it, have long since vanished; all, save the chapel, which is so defaced and altered-so pulled down here, and rebuilt there, as to be almost undistinguishable. On the left-hand side of Ely place, however, there is the western window, and through the passage annexed to the "Mitre" tavern access may be obtained to the southern side. The relics of the northern exterior of the chapel are distributed among courts and alleys calculated to daunt the most enthusiastic antiquary; and the western end joins the back of the houses in Hatton garden. So much for the exterior-the interior is even still more mutilated. If we could enter the chapel by the porch which yet remains, but is now disused, we should very soon find that that was the only original portion visible, for the stained windows, once the glory of the edifice, are darkened by screens and drapery. There is also in existence a crypt of the Bishop's chapel, but this is used as a cooper's cellar; and, with the exception of a few fragments in Bleeding Heart yard, these are the only traces of the chapel of "Elie's Inn." Malcolm observes of this chapel, that it stands as if designedly hidden from sight, and retiring from public observation; and assuredly, as I looked upon its remains, I could not but remember his trite remark, and mourn over the dilapidation of the fine old chapel, which appeared so ashamed of its wrecked and shattered state as to hide itself behind its upstart neighbours of modern date, in sad and lonely grief. These are odd and unaccountable phantasies, which frequently flit through the However improbable it may at first appear, Mr Editor, I can assure you that the simple fact of my indulging myself with a pair of too easy stays was the primary cause of my falling from that modest and chilling reserve which so efficiently shields the young maiden from the daring approaches and insidious wiles of the other sex. Seeing the newspaper lying on the breakfast table waiting for my father, I was tempted to look into it; and, passing over politics and other subjects which had no interest for me, my eye was attracted to an advertisement, which put forth its most seductive powers of persuasion to purchasers, for stays of a peculiar quality. They would make any shape look elegantwere of the most durable materials, and, what riveted my attention most, "they would yield to the least motion of the body without losing their elasticity or forming a crease.' ""Ah!" said I, "what treasures! would I were possessed of such a pair!" I partook, as many girls do, of that thriftiness and tenderness with respect to my stays, that there was scarcely a whole bone left in them; so loath was I to abandon friends who had been long closely attached. But all at once I became enchanted at the idea of possessing a pair such as those advertised. Every turn I made I had a fault to find with my old ones, and resolved to part with them. Fatal resolution! old though they were, they had protected me hitherto from too easily yielding curtsies to every gentleman who had the boldness to praise my figure or compliment me on my graceful carriage. leave it to the serious consideration of those who rule the female fashions of the present time, whether it would not be better to revert to our former means of security adopted by our grandmothers, than to add another to the fast-increasing list of Flexibles, to which class your unfortunate correspondent belongs. I am, &c. &c. They seemed to be perpetually on the watch to prevent me from offering acknowledgments of insidious compliments, by giving me a dig in the side with one of their broken bones, which were on the alert, whichever way I yielded, to give me such due warning, that, before the curtsey or the graceful bend was half completed, Bendermere, Jan. 31, 1838. I would reassume my wonted air of indifference and impregnability to the attacks of flattery. I parted from them; and now behold me equipped in their dangerous successors. From that day my disposition seemed to have altered. Every one noticed how amiable and compliant I had become. "Would I dance ?" "With pleasure."-" Would I waltz ?" "Not the least objection."My new stays appeared actually to take a part in every conversation addressed to me; for I could feel them gently draw me away from one gallant to receive the homage of another. Till at length, bending to one and bending to another, I too readily yielded to the flattering speeches addressed to me on every side. My affection for the other sex seemed to vacillate and yield in the same proportion with the pliability of my new stays, and I became so completely enamoured of general adulation, that I flew from the flattery of one to compare it with the honied words of another. By degrees my admirers became disgusted with my fickleness, and left me, each declaring that I had become a thorough-paced coquet. I had my day as such, but am now suffering the pangs of that neglect and disappointment which invariably terminate the life of such a character. I am forsaken by all my own sex, from a recollection of my former triumph; and by the other, from a fear of having their best feelings trifled with. Oh, woman! how true it is that thy heart is too compliant and yielding to be trusted without restraint! Our great grandmothers knew their weakness. They encased their charms in walls of whalebone ; and carefully threw out a formidable hoop by way of fortification, which forbad a lady, in those days, to lend her ears to the soft whisperings of a lover, or to the too dangerous propinquity of the waltz or country dance. I feel satisfied, Mr Editor, from my own fatal experience, that stays were first invented for the purpose of restraint instead of support to the bodies of our fair but frail sex. But how these artificial bulwarks have been taken away one by one, and reduced to an article subservient to the body instead of a protection against attacks upon it, I am unable to account, and will MATILDA PLIANT. THE BOCCIUS LIGHT. GREAT exertions are now being made in the scientific world to produce the most brilliant light at the least possible cost. It is our intention to lay before our readers, as soon as we can find space, some of the most important of them. The Boccius holds a high place amongst recent discoveries, and is to be seen every evening burning at Charing cross and on the steam wharf, London bridge. The general arrangement is as follows: The The burner of the Boccius Light may consist of one, or several concentric rings; when more than one is employed, the inner ones are placed to a higher level than the outer, as shown in the annexed engraving (which is a section) of the burners, glass funnel, and metallic chimnies. The burners, B B, are perforated with numerous minute holes, in about the proportion of 60 to a circle of an inch in diameter. inner are supplied with gas from the outer, and to make up for the diminished supply, the holes in the inner are rather larger. Above the burner, at a given distance. two concentric metallic chimnies (D) are placed, whose diameter is regulated, in great measure, by that of the outer ring. The chimnies are supported by three wires (C), upon the glass holders, and surrounding the whole, a glass funnel (F), proceeding from the level of the burners to the top of the metallic chimnies. The upper part of these glass funnels is frosted; the lower is transparent, to emit the light. The glass in the smaller burners is perfectly straight; in the larger ones slightly bell-shaped at the bottom. When the gas is turned on and lighted, the lower part of the burner-that is, the rings (B B), and crutch (A) become to some extent heated, and communicate a portion of their heat to the ascending gas. The amount of heat is, from the construction (accuracy having been attained by experience), so nicely adjusted, that no carbon is deposited in the ring; but the warm gas escapes, ready to deposit its solid matter on a slight increase of temperature; and the cold air, too, in rushing between the crutches and rings, becomes warmed, and the burner is thus supplied with hot air; the chimnies, especially the inner one, rob the ascending |