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Our borough is situated in the very for a moment, and to which "naught but heart of the "Black Country." For itself can be its parallel." miles on all sides the eye rests upon nothing but the picture we have endeavored to represent. A few green fields may be seen here and there, at long intervals, and now and again, on the summit of some rising ground, a little wood or a small clump of trees, but these are rare exceptions. The landscape by which we are surrounded is brick and mortar, with mounds of coal and mountains of "slag," chimneys and furnace-tops its forestry, and its canopy an ever unscrolled vail of leaden-colored smoke. The market-day here, in its early part, is much like other country towns in its aspect. There is a little more bustle in the street, a more perceptible animation in the shops, but nothing more. As the day declines, the market-place, which is an oblong square of considerable dimensions, begins to lose its normal character of dignified inaction, and to start into life and bustle. All round it, closely impinging upon the footways, are rising up long rows of stalls, of every size and dimension, while at right angles across its breadth other rows are being erected, with a rapidity the result of lengthened skill and experience in the architects. Each of these stalls is brilliantly lighted with gas, supplied by the local company. The entire square is permeated with special mains, and each stall being provided with one or two branch pipes, as the case may be, its proprietor screws it on to the opening in the main, and secures a brilliant illumination over his motley wares for the evening. It has now grown dark, and the square becomes peopled-nay, we should rather say choked up with a dense mass of human life. From all the neighboring villages come trooping in, on foot or by rail, droves of men and women, overflowing with pent-up spirits, and determined to "make a night of it." The uproar is deafening. The loud defiant shout of the venders, the shrill treble of the female bargainers, (in nine cases out of ten the wives carry the bag and make the purchases,) the clamorous appeal of the "touters," the prolonged bellow of the Cheap Jack, the wild yell of the peripatetic auctioneer, as he commends the unsurpassable cheapness and excellence of his wares, the hearty, outspoken recognition of mutual friends, and now and then a full-volumed war of words, (but never a fight,) all combine one grand over-pouring diapason that never ceases

Let us take a glimpse at these stallsthis multiform conglomerate of wood and canvas-this_artificial city of evanescent commerce. The central stalls are the most pretentious. They are large and roomy, with four or more streaming gas lights, and, generally speaking, have several attendants at the well-filled counters, if we may so term them. The main street, so to speak, is the bazaar of the fish-dealers, and an extraordinary sight it is. As a rule the miners are fond of fish. In all inland places this is generally the case, but in the mining districts it is especially so, and as long as it can be procured, in season or out, fish forms the staple of many dinners. It is a fact, too, not less noticeable, that inland towns are, for the most part, better supplied in this article than seaports, Birmingham, for instance, having a much better selection than Brighton, and Cheltenham or Manchester than Hull or Plymouth. The reason is explicable enough. In our borough it is only the coarser fish that are to be met with. Turbot and salmon are things unknown, but in their stead plaice and cod, eels, sprats, and herrings abound in shoals. Plaice are the most plentiful, and are most affected. The price at the present season is one and a half pence per pound, and the quantity that changes hands is almost incredible. Cod, somewhat limp and sicklylooking after its long journey, is to be had for three pence; soles, very small, and by no means attractive, are four pence; sprats, of fairish quality, one pence; while herrings in multitudinous array are shouted out at "foive vor thrappence-twenty vor a shillin," and go off with astonishing rapidity. Hillocks of mussels and mountains of whelks are piled up to the extreme right and left of the fishy expanse, and excite juvenile longings to a frantic extent. Scores of coal-begrimed, smock-clad boys, who for five days out of the week never see the face of day, cluster eagerly round the latter dainty, and with sparkling eyes recklessly invest their hard-earned halfpenny in a purchase, stentoriously demanding a pin into the bargain, which useful implement indeed forms a part of the contract, and is instantly supplied from a well-filled paper by the vendor. To each stall is attached an operator, whose special vocation is curious. He is armed with a saber-shaped knife, about

two feet long, sharp in the edge and heavy in the back. So soon as a purchase, say of plaice, has been completed, it is handed over to him. Placing it on the board before him, he makes one keen deep incision above the gills, whips in his fingers, and extracts the entrails. With four rapid and unerring strokes he slices off the head, the fins, and the tail, crimps the fish deftly, from top to bottom, doubles it up neatly, and drops it gently into the expectant basket or handkerchief, in full preparedness for the culinary operation of the morrow. An unaffected fellow he is and takes no pride in his dexterity, though he evidently feels the importance of his mission, and is not to be laughed at with impunity.

dominating,) plates, bowls, jugs, and teapots-most of them of glaring and supernatural gorgeousness of coloring-are here in myriads which might baffle the science of arithmetic to enumerate; and the wonder is, as with the fly in amber, to discover "how they got there." A special goods train would seem inadequate for their conveyance; and we fear the number of killed and wounded in the transport, judging from the pile of breakages deposited out of pure bravado in the midst, is more than a full average. Here is an elderly costermonger, having before him a large barrow or hand-cart, in which reposes an immense lot of amorphous articles, which to the outward vision look not unlike thick pancakes, but from the sauce dealt out Leaving the ichthyological department, with them, vinegar and pepper, we have we find ourselves at a step in another de- our doubts. It is, however, in extensive partment, where pastry and confectionery request by the youngsters, who are as pork pies and polonies, sugar, barley, and greedily attracted by it as rats by rhodium, peppermint candy form the summum bon- and its disappearance is astonishing. On um of enjoyment. A very attractive col- propounding, rather nervously, a query location of saccharine comestibles is here to the benevolent custodian, we found the displayed, and the consumption is enor- edible resolving itself into fried flat fish, mous. Many of these combinations we exuberantly clothed in lard, and plentihave met with before, and appreciate their fully dusted with coarse flour. To us it delectability to the full, while with a host did not seem to be a thing upon which a of others we have never made acquaint- decently organized stomach would care to ance, and eschew them accordingly. They expend its capabilities; but the boys of are odorous of hog's lard, and present an- our borough have no such scruples, and teriorly a sinister aspect; but they are swallow their half-penny supper with an cheap for the money, and their popularity innocent unsuspicion, and a lively appreis unquestionable. There be strong sto- ciation of the condimental vinegar and machs in these parts, and good digestion pepper, which spoke volumes for their waits on appetite. Raw sausages are faith in the salubrity of the morsel and devoured as readily as fried, and "ren- the unsophisticated condition of their didered" lard is not unfrequently gobbled gestive organs. Not far from this fasciup as a delicate tidbit. Passing beyond nating barrow-knight, we light upon the this savory scene, we find ourselves in the universal quack doctor. His stall is ruck of miscellaneous encampments. Here decorated with bottles of all dimensions, there is not a single conceivable thing some containing tape-worms of frightful that the working man requires in the way longitude, "met with, gents, in the course of food, clothing, or lodging, that is not of my practice," other holding suspiciready to his hand. Stalls for hats, stalls ous-looking fluids of twenty different col for shoes and boots, for ready-made rai-ors, some of them prettily enough tinted, ment, for brushes, combs, and such like gear, for beds and bedding, for hardware and ironmongery of every description, for all the innumerable mysteries of the feminine toilette, for bacon and cheese, butter and eggs, poultry dead and alive. Nothing is lacking. Each has its separate department, each its special locality, and each its crowd of shrewd and shrewish customers. Upon the bare pavement are strewed delf and crockery by the half-acre; cups and saucers, (the willow pattern pre

others of so sanguinary an appearance, that even the pangs of gout would vanish at their presence, and the agonies of tic doloureux be clean forgotten. At intervals he regales his open-mouthed audience with a curt but sententious lecture, in which the consummate ignorance and crass stupidity of the licensed practitioner are vehemently denounced, and his own infallibility defiantly proclaimed. He has lots of customers, especially for pills, of which a good-sized bushel-measure stands

upon his board, and as he sells cheap, and hesitates at no lie to enhance the merits of his nostrums, his stock is speedily exhausted, while he chuckles in his sleeve at the gullibility of the simple Simons who do him reverence.

were angrily resisted. In these he meets friends and acquaintances, and there is set forth every appliance to gratify his senses and steep his faculties in forgetfulness. Each of these houses is flashingly decorat ed. Mirrors adorn the walls, and flash But it would be endless to particularize back the gleams of blazing gasaliers and the amazing variety of commodities on gleaming crystal. Gilding and painting show to-night. Mounds of burly potatoes, are lavishly displayed, and sensuous attrac stacks of vegetables from pot-herbs to par- tions reign supreme over all. In most of snips, literally litter the streets, while of the better class-perhaps it might be said oranges and apples their numbers are in all, without exception-music is prolegion, and impel the conviction that the vided as an unerring source of allurement, crops of Sicily, Malta, and Spain must have and it is somewhat remarkable that in been prodigious. Garden-seeds, too, of very many cases, where love of drink or all the commoner sorts, are here in profu- of good company assert no influence, the sion, and the collier and the miner with a popular fondness for harmony presents an poor little patch of ungrateful soil, have irresistible excuse for entrance. Some here full scope for the development of have a regular staff of male and female their amateur tastes. Peas with fifty high-vocalists, many of whom would do no dissounding names allure him to purchase; credit to more ambitious localities; others and what between the merits of "Queen trust to instrumental performances alone. of England," Marvelous," "Ne plus ultra," "Champion," and "Perfection," he ceases to have a choice of his own, and resigns himself in desperation to the dealer, who knows as little about them as himself. Onion seed is in large demand, as are lettuce and parsley; but beans are not much appreciated, neither are carrots nor parsnips. All, however, are more or less bought up, and the stall-keeper's sturdy little pony wends his homeward way light-herculean bellow, and mark their appreciened of the burden with which he plodded so wearily into market.

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The evening is by this time far spent. Sight-seeing and bargain-making are well nigh at an end. Here and there already a stall is closed, and others are about to follow suit. It is high time to be making for home, and "Missis" has now to look for her " Maester," if she would reach her own ingle by midnight. But how is she to pick him up in such a wilderness of people? Never fear, good reader. She knows his favorite haunt, and darts upon her reluctant victim as unerringly as the hawk upon its prey. Our borough is infested with public-houses and beer-shops far more than are good for it in body or soul. To one of these, however, she repairs, and there she captures her man, and leads him triumphantly away, not, indeed, without remonstrance, though neither unkind nor prolonged. A creditable trait this, which it pleases us to record; for these places are very alluring to an over-worked man, and we should hardly wonder if the attempt to ferret him out

In this one we find a fiddle and violoncello, in that a harp and piano; others sport "the musical glasses ;" and in not a few are to be heard the euphonious strains of the Scottish bagpipe. The orchestra is mounted on a low platform in one corner of the room, and there they continue for hours together tickling the ears of the groundlings, while occasionally Jack or Bill, Joe or "Tammas," join in with a

ation by an uncouth jig or an elephantine caper. It is a sad pity to see so many of thesc strongholds of vice and waste in our borough. You meet them at every step, and it is mainly through them that the mining populations have acquired a character for drunken and unthrifty habits. Beer is the staple drink; but rum, gin, and whisky have many admirers, especially on cold or wet nights, when "maester" prescribes for himself two or three strong doses, just, as he says, to warm un."

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It is now verging upon twelve, and all parties set their faces homeward. Our "gudewife" has brought away her man, as have hundreds of others also, and every outlet of the town has its crowd of departing visitors. The broad road leading to the railway station is especially thronged, and the terminal approaches are wellnigh blocked up. Inside all is life and light. Station-masters, ticket-takers, and porters are on the alert. The engine puffs, and pants, and waxes impatient. All drop gradually into their seats, a shrill whistle, and the monster train glides

slowly from out the arched platform into | mains for the solitary spectator only the the night, and is seen no more. The hushed square, the fierce glow of the lights are put out, the weary officials lock heavens overhead reflected from a thouup and proceed not reluctantly to their homes, and the station so lately instinct with life and bustle, is now as still and deserted as a city of the dead. The market-place, too, is voiceless and asleep. Profound darkness, only broken by the hazy glimmer of a gas-lamp, reigns around. The stalls are mostly taken down, and the motley contents removed, and there re

sand furnace-fires, and the memory of the busy scene so lately enacted before him. All else has vanished as a dream; but as he thoughtfully betakes him to his rest, he fails not to dwell upon the varied peculiarities and localized phases of habit and manners which go to illustrate "a Saturday night in the Black Country."

From Chambers's Journal.

SCIENCE

AND

NDARTS.

ment as shall best accomplish the object in view - the diffusion of useful knowledge.

GLORIOUS Summer weather has been favorable to floral exhibitions; and whatever there may be of art or of science in the culture of flowers, has had full exem- Now that Professor Max Müller's Lecplification, during the past few weeks in tures are published as a book, readers at a the Royal Gardens at Kew, the newly- distance, who had not the privilege of opened Gardens of the Horticultural So- hearing them delivered, will be able to acciety, and the Botanic Garden in the Re- quaint themselves with the present congent's Park. Rhododendrons in full bloom dition of the science of language, and a under a tent are very beautiful; but some highly interesting branch of study. Perupeople prefer the display of magnificent sal of the Lectures will discover to many foxgloves in Kensington Gardens. A cu- a significance and importance in words riosity of vegetation was shown at the which they were never before aware of. closing meeting of the Linnæan Society- A professorship of epigraphy and Roman tall tassels of silica growing from a lump antiquities has just been established at the of petrified sponge. The tassels are com- College of France by command of the Emposed of slender thread-like stalks, spring-peror. It is only of late years that the ing from a sheath, beautifully transparent and so light, that they tremble like gossamer at the slightest movement. It is a remarkable instance, so to speak, of mineral vegetation.

The "Surrey side" of London is making a demonstration in favor of establishing a museum within its own limits, as a means of education for that division of the metropolis. Government is to be asked to give ten thousand pounds, and twice as much more is to be raised by contributions. We shall be glad to hear of the success of the project; but let us remind the promoters, that something more is needed besides a proper house, and a collection of noteworthy things, natural or artificial; which is such a spirit of manage

study of inscriptions has become a real science; and if as a science it can be turned to the advancement of knowledge, then the new professor may do some good. The study has now its principles, rules, and methods, as many published works sufficiently testify; among which, Dr. Bruce's volume on The Roman Wall, and the handsomely illustrated books on Roman camps and stations in Northumbria, brought out at the cost of the Duke of Northumberland, are especially remarkable. We know, moreover, what has been accomplished by Rawlinson and Layard, and by Dr. Hincks, of Dublin; and that the subject is not exhausted, is proved by the broad folio volume of cuneiform inscriptions just published by the Trustees

for the "fore-body" of his ship, and the hinder part of the swan for the "afterbody;" and it is found in practice, that while the circular form gives great strength-there being little or none of that creaking noise usual in ships-a vessel built on the improved system will behave better in a gale of wind, and sail faster in any weather, than a vessel built

of the British Museum. The Academy | to get to leeward," Mr. Tovell takes the of Berlin are publishing a collection of the salmon's head and shoulders as the model inscriptions of the Roman empire, going back to the first years of Christianity. The Royal Academy of Sciences at Munich have lately put forth a series of works on the earliest discovery of America, printed from heretofore unnoticed originals, and accompanied by large maps, which curiously exemplify the geographical knowledge of the time in question. And there has been printed in New-York on the ordinary system. When deeply. a translation of a rare and remarkable tract, which first appeared in 1494 or 1495, written by Nicolo Scillacio, a Messinese, on the second voyage of Columbus to America. Little by little our knowledge of that great discovery widens.

Captain Jervois, commandant of the military convalescent establishment at Yarmouth, has delivered a lecture at the United Service Institution, on Recreations as a means of health for the army, showing the deterioration, bodily and mental, brought on by want of sufficient occupa tion, and the benefits arising from rational means of recreation. He advocates the introduction of recreation-rooms in all barracks, hospitals, and camps, with dominoes, draughts, chess, billiards, and other games, excepting cards, and in these rooms he would allow the men to smoke and have tea and coffee. At Hong-kong in 1851, and at Yarmouth in later years, he has found the most favorable results follow from offering to the men a resource which many were prepared to accept at once, and which many others preferred, after a little experience, to their usual dissipations. He would have recreationmarquees for troops in camp at home, or abroad on active service; and argues that though the marquees would be an additional burden, there would be a counterbalancing diminution of hospital baggage. The Captain shows, morever, that it is bad economy to aim at producing cheap soldiers, inasmuch as, like other cheap things, they soon become unserviceable.

laden, the improved vessels sail better than when light, for the reason that they are then longer at the water-line, and that below the water-line, no portion of the timbers is straight. Straightness in the sides of a ship, says Mr. Tovell, “is a hindrance to speed." Moreover, besides first-rate sailing qualities, and ability for scudding or lying-to, and other operations appreciated by mariners, the improved vessels cost less than others to build, because "they require less curb in their timber, less labor to bend the planks into shape, and no steam for the bending." The captain of the Laughing Waters, a swift ship, reports: "I can, now I am used to her, make her do any thing but speak."

Dr. Frankland has been investigating the effects of atmospheric pressure on flame, carrying out a course of experi ments which may be said to have been begun on the top of Mont Blanc in 1859, by observing that a candle burnt at that elevation consumed less of its substance, and was less luminous than when burnt at Chamonix. In his trials with coal-gas, he finds that a quantity of gas which gives a light equal to that of one hundred candles when the barometer marks thirty-one degrees, yields the light of eighty-four candles only when the barometer falls to twenty-eight degrees. Hence we see that ordinary atmospheric fluctuations have a noticeable effect on illumination; and, in so far as experiments have been carried with a higher pressure than that of the atAnother lecture, On an Improved Sys-mosphere, it appears that the same law tem of Ship-building, delivered by Mr. prevails. G. R. Tovell, at the same institution, will commend itself to merchants and persons interested in navigation, for it shows that speed and capacity for stowage are possible, and have been accomplished. Accepting Mr. Scott Russell's proposition, that "a good ship should have the easiest form to go ahead, and the most difficult

Certain medical men of Manchester have been studying the effect of atmos pheric changes in another way-namely, the influence of the changes on disease— and they find a marked relation between. the fluctuations of health in that great town, and the rise and fall of the barometer, and increase or decrease of humidity.

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