Stillingia. The processes adopted for abstracting it are of importance, and meet with due consideration in Dr Macgowan's valuable paper. The following clear account is given of the whole process, as practised in China:—'In midwinter, when the nuts are ripe, they are cut off with their twigs by a sharp crescentric knife, attached to the extremity of a long pole, which is held in the hand, and pushed upwards against the twigs, removing at the same time such as are fruitless. The capsules are gently pounded in a mortar, to loosen the seeds from their shells, from which they are separated by sifting. To facilitate the separation of the white sebaceous matter enveloping the seeds, they are steamed in tubs, having convex open wicker bottoms, placed over caldrons of boiling water. When thoroughly heated, they are reduced to a mash in the mortar, and thence transferred to bamboo sieves, kept at a uniform temperature over hot ashes. A single operation does not suffice to deprive them of all their tallow; the steaming and sifting are therefore repeated. The article thus procured becomes a solid mass on falling through the sieve; and to purify it, it is melted and formed into cakes for the press. These receive their form from bamboo hoops, a foot in diameter, and three inches deep, which are laid on the ground over a little straw. On being filled with the hot liquid, the ends of the straw beneath are drawn up and spread over the top; and when of sufficient consistence, are placed with their rings in the press. This apparatus, which is of the rudest description, is constructed of two large beams, placed horizontally so as to form a trough capable of containing about fifty of the rings with their sebaceous cakes; at one end it is closed, and at the other adapted for receiving wedges, which are successively driven into it by ponderous sledge-hammers, wielded by athletic men. The tallow oozes in a melted state into a receptacle below, where it cools. It is again melted, and poured into tubs, smeared with mud, to prevent its adhering. It is now marketable, in masses of about eighty pounds each—hard, brittle, white, opaque, tasteless, and without the odour of animal tallow; under high pressure, it scarcely stains bibulous paper, and it melts at 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It may be regarded as nearly pure stearine.... The seeds yield about 8 per cent. of tallow, which sells for about five cents per pound.'

There is a separate process for pressing the oil, which is carried on at the same time. The kernels yield about 30 per cent. of oil, which answers well for lamps. It is also employed for various purposes in the arts, and has a place in the Chinese pharmacopœia, because of its quality of changing gray hair to black, and other imaginary virtues.

The husks are used to feed the furnaces; the residuary tallow-cakes are also employed for fuel—a small quantity remaining ignited a whole day. The oil-cake forms a valuable manure, and is of course carefully used for this purpose in China, where so very great regard is paid to the collecting of manures. This kind is particularly used for enriching tobacco-fields, its powerful qualities recommending it for such a scourging crop.

With regard to the uses of the vegetable tallow, Dr Macgowan observes: 'Artificial illumination in China is generally procured by vegetable oils, but candles are also employed.... In religious ceremonies, no other material is used. As no one ventures out after dark without a lantern, and as the gods cannot be acceptably worshipped without candles, the quantity consumed is very great. With an unimportant exception, the candles are always made of what I beg to designate as vegetable stearine. When the candles, which are made by dipping, are of the required diameter, they receive a final dip into a mixture of the same material and insect-wax, by which their consistency is preserved in the hottest weather. They are generally coloured red, which is done by throwing a minute quantity of alkanet-root (Anchusa tinctoria), brought from Shan-tung, into the mixture. Verdigris is sometimes employed to dye them green.' We are not aware that the vegetable tallow has as yet been imported into Britain to any extent.

THE TOLLMAN'S STORY.

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Some local travellers of about twenty-five years' practice, may still remember the keeper of a toll-bar on one of the western approaches to Glasgow, known in his neighbourhood as English John. The prefix was given, I believe, in honour of his dialect, which was remarkably pure and polished for one of his station in those days; and the solution of that problem was, that he had been from childhood, till the gray was thickening on his hair, in the service of an English family, who had come into possession, and constantly resided on, a handsome estate in his native parish in Dumbartonshire.

Through their interest, he had been appointed to the office of power and trust in which I made his acquaintance. John was one of my earliest friends, though the remnant of his name was never heard nor inquired after by me. The great town has now grown much nearer his toll-house, which then stood alone on the country road, with no building in sight but the school, at which I, and some two score of the surrounding juveniles, were supposed to be trained in wisdom's ways, by the elder brother of our parish minister. A painstaking, kindly teacher he was; but the toll-house was a haunt more pleasant to our young fancies than his seminary. John was the general friend and confidant of all the boys; he settled our disputes, made the best tops and balls for us, taught us a variety of new tricks in play, and sometimes bestowed upon us good advices, which were much sooner forgotten. John never married. He had a conviction, which was occasionally avowed, that all women were troublesome; and whether this evidence be considered pro or con, he was a man of rough sense and rustic piety, of a most fearless, and, what the Germans call, a self-standing nature—for solitude or society came all alike to John. You would as soon expect a pine-tree to be out of sorts, as his hard, honest face, and muscular frame. John was never sick, or disturbed in any way; he performed his own domestic duties with a neatness and regularity known to few housekeepers, and was a faithful and most uncompromising guardian of the toll-bar. I well remember how our young imaginations were impressed with the fact, that no man could pass, without, as it were, paying tribute to him; and George IV., though he appeared on the coppers with which we bought apples, cast by no means so mighty a shadow on our minds as English John. Before this glory waned, I was removed from his neighbourhood, being sent to cheer the heart and secure the legacy of a certain uncle who was a writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, and believed to be in profitable practice and confirmed bachelorhood. The worthy man has long ago married his landlady's daughter, and been blessed with a family sufficient to fill a church-pew. My own adventures—how I grew from garment to garment, how I became a law-student, and at length a writer myself—have little to do with the present narrative, and are therefore spared the reader in