coming, he goes to his rival in the local practice to ask if he is threatened with typhus, and being assured that he is not (by the authority which on any other case he rightly considers valueless), goes home and takes no medicine, but waits till the cold is gone - what is it to him, I say, when he issues a pamphlet on cerebral disease for the benefit of the public, that only his initiated can translate him when he says that the "effusion of hæmatin and hæmatosin into the lymphatic sheaths, capillary dilatations, atheroma, and infarctions" (Oh! what can an infarction be?) are the signs of that disease? What sets, what cliques, we all are, and all live in! When we are young, we look on "wellinformed" people with awe and envy. As we grow older, we ask ourselves what on earth we mean by it? - whether to be well-informed is not, in our eyes, to know the things that we know, another version of the "orthodoxy which is my doxy," and if the constant reader of the Thespis or the Pegasus, who can tell you all that is going on, one in every provincial theatre, and the other in every racing-stable in England, has not as much right (and in his heart uses it, too) to look down on Impey, of St. Nil's, for knowing nothing on earth about these things, as Impey has to regard him, as he does, as an altogether inferior being, the nearer to our common ancestor the catarrhine ape in proportion to his ignorance of molecules. If, in grave and thoughtful earnest, some of us come to believe that there is no higher provable purpose in this world than to live straight, and to do our neighbor no harm, rm, while aiding him in the struggle to the best of our little power, which has the better right to laugh at the other, Impey or the constant reader? It is well to have an interest in life; and as the first has his, so too has the second. But Impey's speculations, on what he admits he cannot ten up, many and many an Impey, I take it, will find that, like Lord Dundreary, he only "thank he thunk," after all. It is no bad thing to accept a more modest part, and to rest content with observing. Observation is all the thought that most of us can attain to. But we may decline to accept "thinkers" at their own curious and self-satisfied valuation. How first it dawned upon me that the solution of the information difficulty might be found in the remark of Sir John Vesey lineal descendant of old Solomon "All humbug; humbug, upon my soul!" was in this wise. When a youngster, fresh from college, admiring knowledge and reverent of facts, but better acquainted with tennis and racquets than with less exact sciences, I dined at my father's table with the late Mr. Strap. The party was small, but he was great. There were "ourselves," and with us my keen college friend, Jack Hardhed, of Bluenose, who even then knew more facts than any man else had ever known, and came on purpose to meet the Historian of Civilization. Open-mouthed we sat, and listened to the oracle, my father included, who in his quiet way had, I think, more true knowledge than greater men; but was wont to hold his tongue and listen, with a quaint and courteous smile, which puzzled people till they knew him, and when they did, made them rather uncomfortable. It gave them an uneasy notion that he was finding them out. The oracle had not then so far advanced with him. In the course of a conversation in which Strap laid down the law about everything, - my father smiling, and passing the wine, Hardhed, respectful and reverent at first, scratching his head at last and fidgeting on his chair, as if anxious to "cut in," the rest of us awestruck and admiring, somebody mentioned a new dictionary with approval. "It is a good book," said the know, shake the faith and repose of many oracle. "It is one of the few dictionaries a yearning soul, and therein, be he tenfold right his melancholy creed, they work clear harm in the one world he believes in. If there really prove some day to be another, where the first shall be last and the last first, which will stand best, I wonder, the constant reader, or Impey, of St. Nil's? It is a very curse of the time that half the world must needs "think," which is not so easy as it sounds. When the inevitable "Finis" comes to be writ which I have read through with pleasure." The pause which followed this remark was terrible. The idea at once conjured up by the mind, of a student who was in the habit of reading dictionaries from A to O, all other learning apart, and had liked a few of them, was, to speak with simplicity, tremendous. I have never forgotten the moral they conveyed, and have looked ever since, on all men of information, with a jaundiced eye. TOM BALBUS. From Golden Hours. ON SHAKING HANDS. AMONGST the Romans a hand was the emblem of good faith, and the almost universal adoption of the clasped hands in marriage, and other solemn ceremonies, prove this to have been a custom instinctively considered as emblematic of union and fidelity; unfortunately, just as the kiss, at any rate between women and rela Some bing noses, etc., being common. Pacific islanders who now shake hands used to show their joy at meeting by sniffing at their friends after the fashion of amiable dogs. The Fuegians pat and slap each other. The Polynesian takes his friend's hand or foot, and strokes his own face with it. Amongst the Todas of the Nilgherry hills respect is shown by raising the right hand to the face, and placing the thumb on the bridge of the est and strongest affection, so has the shaking their fist in your face. The cerehand-shake also fallen somewhat from its mony of rubbing or pressing noses is high estate, and become a mere idle cere- common to many countries; Linnæus mony not necessarily conveying an im- found it practised in the Lapland alps, tions, has ceased to be a token of the tru-nose. The people of Iddah greet you by pression of any special interest or regard. In the ancient usage of striking hands as a pledge of fidelity in confirming a bargain, is no doubt to be found the origin of shaking hands. "Who is he that will strike hands with me?" asks Job, when complaining of the unmerited contempt and mistrust to which he was subjected. while Darwin describes the aborigines of Australia as invariably pressing the tips of their noses together on meeting, continuing the process for a space of time somewhat longer than would be required for a cordial shake of the hand, and accompanying it with sundry short grunts of extreme satisfaction. Some of the tribes We also learn that in ancient Rome the in central Africa take one another's hands on meeting, but, considering this insufficient, at the same time testify their regard for a friend by gently rubbing his arm with the other hand. Anything but flattering to one's self-love is the hand-shake perfunctory, in which the performer, first raising your hand, gives it a short, sharp, quick, impressive movement downwards, and then drops it abruptly, as though he hand-shake was utilized in a manner not unfamiliar to the would-be legislators of modern times; that, in fact, it was one of the condescensions practised by those who aspired to a seat in the Senate, to win the goodwill and adherence of their lowborn constituents; for it is said of Scipio Nasica, the enemy of Tiberius Gracchus, that in canvassing for votes he exclaimed, on taking ng the rough hand of a laborer, would say, "There! I have done my "What! Do you walk on your hands?" It is natural that savages in their love of imitation should conform by degrees to the usages of more civilized nations, and in nothing is this more marked than in their adoption of kissing and shaking hands as expressive of love and friendship. A certain facetious ethnologist declares that the existence of savage tribes who do not kiss their women is a conclusive proof of primeval barbarism, since, he says, had they once known the practice, they could not possibly have forgotten it. The Red Indians have certainly learned the habit of shaking hands in wishing one another good-morrow from the Europeans, but for many centuries previously they seem to have clasped hands as a token of fidelity, in ratifying a duty for this time, so far as you are concerned." Then we have also the handshake perpendicular, in which the whole arm is moved energetically up and down with precisely the action of a pump-handle; and the hand-shake horizontal, in which the arm is moved with equal vigor from side to side; representatives of the last two types produce on meeting an admirable illustration of the mechanical combination of forces, the result of their hand-shaking being a curious rotatory motion so embarrassing to the chief actors, so comical to the spectator, that no one who has once witnessed the same is ever likely to forget it. One man at least we know who has the curious habit of embracing his friend's left elbow with his disengaged hand while the right is em bond. Some nations have very eccentric, ployed in the customary greeting, a trick not to say unpleasant, modes of saying, which bears a relationship to the "How do you do?" And the further we arm-rubbing of certain tribes in central descend in the scale of race-development, Africa. The muscular hand-shaker is the more we find the civilities exchanged generally a very good fellow, but the viceby human beings assimilating to those of like pressure of his fist, though it comes the lower animals, such endearments as from the heart, and may be in that sense patting, stroking, sniffing, blowing, rub-pleasing, yet causes his victims nearly as The aged man, who found in sixty years died And died still smiling: Athens vexed him When the dawn First glimmers white o'er Lesser Asia, chill knew And reft of sense; and we who watched him limbs ; much physical discomfort as would the | And risked your own to save him, - Pericles,embrace of a tame bear. A true, warm- I now unfold the manner of his end. hearted friend is a valuable possession, but one would prefer being convinced of his affection in some other way than by "B. is an having one's joints dislocated. excellent fellow," said some one, in speaking of a muscular philanthropist of this type, but I shook hands with him once, and ever since that, whenever I see him, I put my hands in my pocket, and keep them there." It would be impossible to enumerate all the different modes of shaking hands with which one has grown familiar, but it is a subject, the consideration of which, besides affording some amusement for an idle hour, may really be of use to the student of human nature, since, though not an unerring index to a man's character, it gives a clue to it at least as trustworthy as phrenology and physiognomy; for instance, the man of an honest, open nature, is not likely to use habitually the hand-shake secretive, nor will he of modest, kindly disposition, only vouchsafe two fingers to his friends. The languid hand-shake will generally be found peculiar to persons of cold, lymphatic temperament, while the hand-shake retentive shows what may be, in many respects, a fine character marred by a certain self-sufficiency and want of consideration for the feelings of others. The hand-shake muscular generally accompanies warmth and intensity of affection, combined with great strength of will, and a nature good, if somewhat coarse of fibre; and the unpleasantness of this development of our subject being a question not so much of manner as degree, it can easily be modified by culture into the handshake unexceptionable, such as of course distinguishes every reader of this article. CLEON of Lampsacus to Pericles :- And so he dozed, nor dreamed, until the sun Who bless our fruits and vines in Lampsacus. he heard The charm of birds, the social whisper of The ripple of the blue Propontic sea. fallen And never more should know the spring! Confess, You too had grieved to see it, Pericles! But Anaxagoras owned no sense of wrong; On your ungrateful city, he but smiled: Of wisdom and divine astronomy, blame? Had I not slain Apollo? Plucked the beard To you who mourn the master, called him friend, Beat back th' Athenian wolves who fanged his throat, blame? How could they dream or how believe when The sun a red-hot iron ball, in bulk But earth and stones, with caverns, hills and | And now the reverend fathers of our town vales? Poor grasshoppers! who deem the gods absorbed In all their babble, shrilling in the grass, What wonder if they rage, should one but hint That thunder and lightning, born of clashing clouds, • Might happen even with Jove in pleasant mood, Not thinking of Athenians at all!" He paused; and blowing softly from the sea, The fresh wind stirred the ilex, shaking down Through chinks of sunny leaves blue gems of sky; And lying in the shadow, all his mind O'ershadowed by our grief, once more he spoke: "Let not your hearts be troubled! All my days Hath all my care been fixed on this vast blue So still above us; now my days are done, Let it have care of me! Be patient; meek; Not puffed with doctrine! Nothing can be known; Nought grasped for certain; sense is circumscribed; The intellect is weak; and life is short!" Had heard the master's end was very near, Thus wrote to Pericles from Lampsacus For lo! six hundred fateful years have sped, When summer and the sun brought back the day, The lads and lasses, free of task and school, WILLIAM CANTON. CHINESE ARTILLERYMEN. - A good story comes from the north which, if true, forcibly illustrates the rottenness of the official system which in China plays into the hands of Russia, or any other power that meditates hostilities with the Middle Kingdom. The expensive guns which were procured from Europe (Krupp and others) were very soon robbed of their brass sights by certain peculating petty mandarins, and the weapons were of course of no use whatever for actual service. Great was the consternation, therefore, when the 'cute viceroy, Li Hung Chang, gave orders that a review should be held, and that these deadly pieces of artillery should be fired off in his presence. The astute official thieves, however, were equal to the occasion; they speedily improvised pieces of bamboo in shape very nearly resembling the real sights, and gilded over the more thoroughly to hide the deception, placing them in position and firing by rule of thumb as if the finest calculations and sighting had been elaborated. One of the precious guns burst, it may be remembered at this same review, by overcharging or doubleshotting; but the greatest triumph of the military rogues on that day was the sighting of Krupp's guns with pieces of gilt bamboo. Such are the men who would lead the Chinese braves to victory against disciplined Western troops. We fancy that Tso Tung-tung keeps a better run of his artillery than was done on this memorable occasion. It is not, we believe, an uncommon thing to find the most vital part of a machine stolen (if loose) after having been passed into the hands of the Chinese. 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