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said he, as the countess rose to lead the way to supper, "that's just as we do at one of our funeral gatherings. A sort of procession is formed like this, and so we go to an adjoining room and have a last look at the corpse."

MR. BARCLAY, an eminent Scotch artist, was engaged in painting a Highland scene for Lord Breadalbane, in which his lordship's handsome piper was introduced. When the artist was instructing him as to his attitude, and that he must maintain an appearance at once of animation and ease by keeping up a conversation, the latter replied that he would do his best, and commenced as follows:

"Maister Parclay, ye read yer Bible at times, I suppone [suppose], Sir ?"

"Oh yes."

"Weel, Maister Parclay, if ye do tat, Sir, ten you've read te third and fifth verses of te third chapter of Daniel, when te princes, te governors, te captains, te judges, te treasurers, te counselors, te sheriffs, and all te rulers of te provinces were gathered together into te dedication of te image tat Nebuchadnezzar te king had set up, and tey were told tat whenever tey began to hear te sound of te cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, tey were to fall down and worship te golden image tat Nebuchadnezzar te king had set up. I tell ye, Maister Parclay, if tey had had a Hielandman wi' his pipes tere, tat nonsense would not hae happened. Na, na; he would hae sent tem a' fleeing. It would hae been wi' tem as Bobby Burns said, 'Skirl up te Bangor,' for ye maun a' come back to te bagpipe at last."

peated, and after some little talk he drew his chair closer to the widow, and told her in the sweetest language he could command that he would like to marry her. The widow looked at him a moment, and said, "I shall have to take a little time to consider about it, as I have had no idea of taking a child to bring up."

THIS is not bad, of an English gentleman, somewhat bald, who entered a hair-dresser's shop in Paris to be operated upon, and was thunderstruck to find himself charged ten francs. "Ten francs," he exclaimed, "for cutting my hair!" "Oh no, monsieur, not for cotting your hair, but for finding de hair to cot."

CONCERNING the weather and descriptions thereof, the following may just now be considered too highly seasoned:

Dirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
From January up to May,
The rain it raineth every day.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Without a blessed gleam of sun;

And if any of them had two-and-thirty, They'd be just as wet and twice as dirty. The foregoing was written some years since in Maine, probably by one of that class of men who said they were "in favor of the 'Maine Law,' but against its enforcement."

THE following curious epitaph at West Allington, England, is worthy of Drawer record, inasmuch as it appears to be a successful attempt in making a monumental stone both a memorial of the deceased and also a means of reproving the slothfulness of the parish priest:

Here lyeth the Body of
DANIEL JEFFREY the Son of Mion
AEL JEFFREY and JOAN his Wife he
was buried ye 22 day of September
1746 and in ye 18th year of his age.
Did for the minister Send + that he would
This youth when in his sickness lay
Come and With him pray + But he would no atend
But When this young man Buried was
The minister did him admit + he should be
Caried into Church+ that he might money geet
By this you See what man will dwo+to geet
Money if he can + who did refuse to come to
Pray + by the Foresaid young man.

How to forgive the man you have injured has an amusing and thoroughly Irish illustration in the following: The late Mr. Charles Phillips received great notice and attention, when commencing his career at the Irish bar, from O'Connell. Later an accidental discussion arose in Parliament in which Phillips's authority as an Irishman was used in opposition to the views of O'Connell, when the latter indulged in a diatribe against Phillips which entirely estranged him from the idol of the Green Isle. Months passed over without any communication or recognition being exchanged between them; but one day at the club up came the great O' to Phillips, exclaiming, "I'm tired of not speaking to you, Charles. Shake hands; I forgive you, Charles." Charles did not venture to say what was at the top of his tongue-that it was the first instance of an aggressor forgiving the man he had injured. A SIMILAR case to that of the Presbyterian The two were reconciled, and as affectionate as clergyman commemorated in the Editor's Drawer ever. The modus conciliandi was unique. No of the January Harper's occurred in a MassachuEnglishman, no Scotchman, and only one Irish-setts town of high repute quite a number of years man could have achieved a peace by so novel ago. The town, now a city, maintained a high and skillful a contrivance.

ANOTHER epitaph has been sent to us:
Here lies the body of SARAH GRAY,
Who would, if she could, but she couldn't stay;
She'd two sore legs, and a church-yard cough,
But 'twas the legs as carried her off.

school, according to law. A teacher was employed, at a certain salary, by the year. After a while In a neighboring town of New Jersey lived his services were not found satisfactory to the Widow D, aged sixty-five, whose husband school committee, and their chairman, a smoothleft her a handsome fortune. Living in the same spoken member of the legal profession, was deplace was a widower of twenty-nine, whose assets puted to perform the ungracious task of informwere of no value at all, and who occasionally bor- ing the master of the state of the case. After rowed of friends without giving the customary the settlement of preliminaries, the point was collaterals. A year or so after the crushing of reached, and the propriety of the master's resighis heart from the loss of his wife he called on nation was diplomatically and politely suggested. Widow D, who received him with her accus- The incumbent, if not qualified to teach such a tomed courtesy. A week later the call was re-school, was a shrewd Yankee. He expressed his

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Aunt. "MALVINA, I WONDER WHAT WHISTLING THAT IS ?"

Malvina. "I'M SURE I DON'T KNOW, AUNTY." (Aside.) "IT IS SALVATOR! HOW VERY INTRUDENT. IF HE SHOULD BE DISCOVERED, I AM LOST!"

willingness to leave so readily that the committee- | looking. Upon approaching the bedside of our man became uncommonly gracious at the success of his mission. "But," said the worthy pedagogue, "if my services are not satisfactory here, they may be in some other place; and as I must get my living, I presume you will give me a recommendation ?"

"Certainly," replied the committee-man, thinking only of relieving his own town of an inefficient instructor; and accordingly drew up the paper on the spot.

The master read it, and found it highly satisfactory. "And now," said he, glancing keenly at his employer, "upon this recommendation I am so well fitted to teach, I will thank you to pay me the rest of my salary for the unexpired half year." The lawyer was caught, and the money was paid.

NURSING that is, the care of the sick-ought to be an institution. Nothing is more needed than regular establishments in which nurses may be trained to perform their parts. Many persons falling sick are dependent upon the services of others besides the members of their own families. Sairey Gamp is by no means an uncommon illustration of a class of hired attendants upon those who require the most tender and watchful care. For example, a friend of the writer, a lady of considerable distinction, happened to become very ill at a famous Boston hotel. She was not without friends at hand, and much pains was taken to procure her a suitable nurse. She grew rapidly worse, and was not expected to survive from day to day. After trying several unsatisfactory ones, by the recommendation of an eminent physician a woman was sent to take the place of others who had been found incompetent. This nurse was tall, gaunt, and somewhat ghastly-I

friend, she passed her hand gently over the forehead of the patient, and asked, "May I not smooth your pathway to the grave ?" In the middle of the night the lady, awaking, saw the nurse trying on her bonnet, who, being thus detected, turned from the mirror and coolly inquired if it was becoming. The lady told her she might keep it, supposing she had herself no further use for it, especially since it had been thus appropriated, and the nurse was summarily dismissed as soon as morning came. Happily the lady recov ered, in spite of such melancholy and at the same time officious nursing, and now, after some years, is enjoying herself in foreign travel; but she says the memory of that night gives her a chill even now.

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NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. CCCXI.-APRIL, 1876.-VOL. LII.

THE ROMANCE OF THE HUDSON.

[First Paper.]

ANCY and imagination have not

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justly claims a share, for her pencilings are sometimes as brilliant and wonderful as the wildest dream.

Between the time of its discovery and to-day what marvelous scenes have been witnessed upon the bosom and along the borders of the Hudson River! Their

record would fill a hundred volumes, and every incident would be the theme of a romantic story. Almost as wild as a Scandinavian saga, or the later song of the Nibelungen, is the story of Henry Hud

son's fight with the icepack on the dark and

THE DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by Harper and Brothers, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

VOL LII.-No. 311.-41

turbulent sea between the North Cape and
Nova Zembla, his bold and perilous voyage
across the stormy Atlantic, with his prow
turned toward the mysterious west, and his
marvelous passage for about thirty days
over the bosom of the beautiful Ma-hie-can-
i-tuck of the Mohegans, which now bears
his name.
The terrible Thor never fought
more valiantly with the heroes whose com-
bats were sometimes shadowed to the minds
of the Northmen in the pale flames of the
aurora borealis; no old sea-king of the Nor-
wegian coasts ever showed more pluck than
did Hudson with his little yacht of ninety
tons, the Half-Moon, in his fierce conflicts
with Fog and Frost, Wind, Hail, and Snow,
the furious guardians of the open polar sea.
He was vanquished, but not subdued.
withdrew, but did not retreat. He came to
our fair land, and between the fortieth and
forty-third parallels of latitude he won vic-
tories more beneficent in their results than
king or kaiser ever achieved.

covery of the river and the voyage upon it, drawn by the quaint peu of Juet! The navigator and his crew were all alive to impressions of the novelty and beauty, the poetry and the prophecy, of the vision that burst upon them on that fair September day in the year 1609, when they anchored in the bay at the mouth of the great stream. Even the dull chronicler gives us hints of the scene and the emotions it created. Before them stretched into the azure haze far northward the strait of Hudson's dream, through which the Half-Moon should pass from sea to sea, and open a way to long-lost Cathay. Swift cauoes shot out from the shaded shores filled with men clad in gorgeous mantles made of feathers or furs, and with women He beautiful in form and feature, sparkling black eyes, and teeth like purest pearls, who were scantily clothed in colored hempen garments fringed with tinted deer's hair. Bright copper ornaments were on their necks and arms, and braids of glossy black hair spangled with wampum fell gracefully from beneath broad scarlet fillets upon their

With what glowing colors does fancy fill the meagre outline of the picture of the dis

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unconcealed bosoms. These all came with fruit and vegetables, green tobacco, copper pipes, and kindly gestures, to trade and be friends with the strange white men. Hudson first introduced "fire-water" among the savages on the banks of the river.*

There was a tradition a hundred years ago among some of the neighboring tribes, that an old chief said had been handed down from generation to generation, in which it was stated that when the Indians here first

He

saw the ship, which seemed a huge white thing moving up, they thought it was some monstrous fish, but finally concluded it to be the canoe of the great Manitou visiting his children. Runners were immediately sent to the neighboring tribes, who flocked to the place of rendezvous. Sacrifices were prepared, and a grand dance ordered for his reception. Hudson, dressed in scarlet and attended by a portion of his crew, came ashore, and the chiefs, grave and respectful, gathered in a semicircle around him. Hudson, to show his friendly feelings, poured out a glass of brandy, and tasting it himself, handed it to the nearest chief. gravely smelled of it, and handed it to the next one, who did the same, and passed it on. In this way it went the entire circle without being tasted. At last a young brave declared it was an insult to the great Manitou not to drink after he had shown them an example, and if no one else would drink it, he would, let the consequences be what they might. So, bidding them all a solemn farewell, he drained the goblet at a draught. The chiefs watched him with anxiety, wondering what the effect would be. The young brave very soon began to stagger, till at length, overcome by the heavy dose, he sank on the ground in a drunken stupor. The chiefs looked on at first in still terror, and then a low, wild death-wail rose on the air. But after a while the apparently dead man began to rally, and at length jumping on his feet, capered round in the most excited, grotesque manner, declaring he never felt so happy in his life, and asked for more liquor. The other chiefs no longer hesitated, and following his example, the first great tipple on New York Island took place, ending in a scene of beastly intoxication.

Such, then, were the merchant marine and the commerce of the harbor of New York, where now a thousand ships may be daily seen in the service of traffic, bringing and distributing its amazing treasures of necessaries and luxuries for the use of millions of civilized people. This was the pleasant opening chapter in the romance of the Hudson. A darker one followed.

Hudson, trained in the artificialities of civilization, would not trust the savages, and kept them at bay. Suspicion begat suspicion, and led to violence. Under cover of darkness, some of Hudson's men in a boat, returning from an exploration, were attacked by savages in a canoe. After a sharp conflict, one of the English sailors was slain by an arrow that pierced his throat. Sadly his companions buried him in the soft earth at Communipaw the next day, while wondering women and children of the Hackensacks watched them from the neighboring heights. This was the first of many tragedies performed on the borders of the river, in which Europeans played a part, and with which the romance of the Hudson abounds. Its scenes dwelt long in the memories of the Indians. It was the theme of exulting songs among young braves at the war-dance. An aged squaw who came from Hoboken to the

From that time on the name of the island in the Delaware language signified "the place of the big drunk." Many people think it would be a good name for it now, or at least portions of it, not only where the "sachems" do congregate, but other places.-J. T. HEADLEY.

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