filthy hands at table, but, after gulping a mouthful, and using it as a gargle, squirts it into the basin standing before him, and the company, who may see the charybdis or maelstrom he has made in it, and the floating filth he has discharged, and which is now whirling in its vortex. In England this practice is unknown, except to those whose taste and stomach are too strong for offence. It has been stupidly borrowed from the Oriental nations, who use no knives and forks, and where, though it has this apology, it has always excited the disgust of enlightened travellers. When dinner is over, the Englishman's carpet is as clean as before; the Frenchman's bare boards resemble those of a hog-sty. In short, in all that regards the table, the French are some centuries behind the English.—Blackwood's Magazine.

In the last Quarterly Review we find that "the safety of the British empire is now entrusted to 130,000 men. Now France, we believe, maintains about 200,000 soldiers. The forces of Austria and Prussia have always been on a much higher footing than ours. Even the late King of Bavaria kept, we know not how, 70,000 men under arms. Indeed Old England is by nothing more happily distinguished from her neighbours than by the silence of the trumpet and drum. At this moment, moreover, the due level of our peace establishment is but an object of speculative research. No man who looks to the placing of Roumelia, or whose vision reaches even to the palace of Elysée Bourbon, would consent that this country should lose the aid of a single right."

ALI PACHA'S HEAD.

Dr. Walsh tells us that the head of Ali Pacha was sent to Constantinople, and exhibited to the public on a dish. As the name of Ali had made a considerable noise in Europe, and more particularly in England, in consequence of his negociations with Sir Thomas Maitland, and still more, perhaps, the stanzas in Childe Harold, a merchant of Constantinople thought it no bad speculation to purchase the head and dish, and send them to London for exhibition; but a former confidential agent obtained it from the executioner for a higher price than the merchant had offered; and together with the heads of his three sons and grandson, who, according to custom, were all seized and decapitated, had them deposited near one of the city gates, with a tombstone and inscription.

THE GOUT.

Imagine a sensation in the great toe, as if it had been suddenly seized with a pair of red-hot pincers. Whew! There they are at it! nipping and tearing the flesh, and then rubbing the lacerated joint with aquafortis, or a solution of blue vitriol. And now, the pain shoots along the nerves on that side, till my head bumps and bumps as if a legion of imps were playing at leap-frog in it.

AMERICA.

The state of business in the United States is thus described in a letter from Boston, dated the 7th of last July:—"The commercial world over the globe seems paralyzed, and many manufactories on a large scale, with the proprietors and stockholders, have failed, and are utterly ruined. All business is confined to the wants only of the day, teaching a necessary absolute economy, which men of business in times past have not been accustomed to."

Rice Paper is the pith of the Tong-t-sao—a valuable Chinese tree.

THE SELECTOR and LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

EMIGRATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES.

People who are accustomed to sit half the day with their hands folded, over a bright November fire, talking of hard times and other standing grievances, will do well to read "A Letter from Sydney, the principal town of Australasia, edited by Robert Ganger;" and study an annexed system of colonization as a remedy for their distress. The Letter is written by a plain-sailing, plain-dealing man of the world, and though on a foreign topic, is in a homely style. We are therefore persuaded that a few extracts will be useful to the above class of thinkers and readers, as well as to others who do not, like the great man of antiquity, sigh for new worlds.