there are fifty poor workmen, who have only their day's wages to live on, and who is to give them bread to-night, if I play not ?" So he went down, and played the Malade Imaginaire—dying all the while: then home to bed, and died! "passing from the pleasantries of the theatre," says Bossuet, "to the tribunal of that Judge, who hath said, 'Woe unto you who laugh, for ye shall weep."

Transplanting of Full-Grown Trees.-It was long believed next to impossible to remove full-grown trees without destroying them. Sir Henry Steuart has proved the contrary. The art consists in removing the whole of the tree uninjured; the stem, all the limbs, every branch and twig, every root and fibre; and in placing the several parts of this whole in the same relative situation as they occupied before; so that each part shall continue to perform its proper office, the trunk to be nourished by its proper number of mouths above and below; and a due proportion or balance be preserved between the weight of the branches and the strength of the roots, between the action of the roots as well as branches on opposite sides, between the functions of each part and the functions of all the other parts, respectively and together.

Something Unaccountable. — At a tavern billiard-table, one of the guests, turning to the landlord, observed that " the cues were really very bad." The latter replied, with the greatest astonishment, "For sixand-thirty years the cues have been good; and now, all of a sudden, they are found bad!"

Long Reigns.-The three longest reigns in British history are those of the three kings, each the third of their respective names. Henry III reigned fifty-three years, Edward III fifty-one, and George III fifty

nine.

of Adelungen and Clara of Hoheneichen; or, He loves her, and is imprisoned on her account, and she loves him and can't get him,' an original tragedy, in five acts, by Mr Spiess. Dramatis persona: Ursmar, Count Adelungen, the knight-Mr R.; Clara of Hoheneichen, the murdered widow of the deceased Hugo of Hoheneichen, secretly beloved by Ursmar-Mrs S.; Benjamin, her infant son, two years of agethe seven-year-old daughter of the manageress; the Knight Bodo, the envious one, full of knavery, caution, cunning, and evil designs-Mr L.; William, an old page, a drunkard, and quarrelsome Mr F.; Otto, an unknown knight, nevertheless openhearted and friendly-Mr R.; the Gaoler of the Fortress, a vain man, nevertheless interested, but very particular about the locks and bolts-Mr S., sen.; Adeline, Clara's maid, who follows her even unto death, somewhat unwillingly-the elder Master G.; First Page, who has nothing to say-the younger Master G.; Pages, Knights, Servants, and People. Whoever will perform the horseman in the third act may see the fourth for nothing. Com. mences at six o'clock, ends at ten, if full; if not, at eight o'clock."

66

Resurgam. — In the pediment, which crowns the south portico of St Paul's Cathedral, is represented a phoenix rising out of the flames, with the motto Resurgam" underneath it, as an emblem of rebuilding the church. A curious accident is said to have given rise to this device, which was particularly observed by the architect as a favourable omen. When Wren was marking out the dimensions of the building, and had fixed on the centre of the great dome, a common labourer was ordered to bring him a flat stone from among the rubbish, to leave as a direction to the masons. The stone which the man brought happened to be a piece of a gravestone, with nothing remaining of the inscription but this single word, in large capitals, "RESURGAM;" and this circumstance left an impression on Wren's mind that could never afterwards be erased.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We shall be happy to act on the suggestions of various intelligent correspondents. They must, however, be aware that it is no light matter to send a hundred or two hundred miles, in order to meet the wishes of an individual subscriber. The gentleman who, under different signatures, has directed our attention to several objects of interest, had better send us a drawing of one or two of them. We could then judge of their fitness.

LONDON: Published by JOHN MORTIMER, Adelaide Street, Trafalgar Square; and sold by all Booksellers and Newsmen.

Printed by REYNELL and WEIGHT, Little Pulteney street, and at the Royal Polytechnic Institution.

REDCLIFFE STREET, BRISTOL. FROM week to week, from month to month, and from year to year, the sad antiquary of the metropolis has to mourn that the venerable remnants of former ages are rapidly withdrawn from his admiring eye. Within these few years several episcopal palaces have vanished, as also St Stephen's Chapel and London bridge. A single old street scarcely remains. The ancient thoroughfare which bears the name of "Old street," has been almost wholly covered with new houses within the last forty years; and the active operations now going on in all parts of the capital, threaten what yet remains with utter annihilation.

It is to the provinces that the Leland of to-day must repair for consolation; and Bristol, which once formed part of the kingdom of Wessex and Mercia, presents much to gratify the student of the past. Redcliffe street, represented at the head of this article, still presents the pointed roof

No. 1203.]

and all the features of old architecture, against which, in this part of the empire, a war so merciless and so unremitting has been waged. The "gable-ended and windowed fronts of the houses in that narrow and much-thronged thoroughfare," furnish still a fine specimen of an ancient street. "Redclife street," remarks Mr Britton, in his admired Picturesque Antiquities of English Cities," "is noted in the annals of poetry, romance, and commerce as the residence of the Canning family, who built the splendid and highly interesting church which adorns one end of it;" and from the steps of which the above view is taken.

It was here, gazing day after day on the time-worn edifices which form the above-named street, that the ill-fated Chatterton, about the year 1766, learned to muse with a poet's ardour on scenes of the olden time. Here he studied those inventions which deceived the learned and the wise, and here he planned the "description of the Fryar's first passing over the Old Bridge, taken from an Ancient Manuscript," and here he seems to have re[VOL. XLIV.

DURING the experiments in which Dr Serney was engaged while instructing his pupils in the science of electricity, a rat was brought in, which had been trapped; as the machine was in action, a large jar was charged for its destruction; the rat was placed on an insulated stool, and a chain fastened round its neck, a circuit was completed by bringing a discharging rod in contact with the tail, which had been pre viously attached to a chain having a communication with the inside of the jar. The rat, after the shock, was motionless, and apparently killed, indeed it was supposed to have been quite dead. In about ten minutes, it was proposed to pass the contents of another charged jar through the animal, to make certain of his not returning to life; but to the astonishment of all present, he was immediately brought to animation again, and got upon his legs; the shock was over and over again repeated, and it only seemed to increase its vigour. It was finally set at liberty.

The jar was again charged, and its contents were made to pass through a pack of cards bound together with string, and upon examination the cards were found to be perforated on both sides, leaving from six to eight cards whole in the centre of the pack; the holes were conical, the base being at the outside on each side, and the apex towards the centre. This circumstance at once lead Dr Serney to come to a conclu sion that there must be a double current of the electric fluid, for upon what other ground could he suppose the cards to be perforated in opposite directions? The doctor, in furtherance of proof, resorted to the following experiments, which clearly prove there are two currents caused by two different sorts of electricity for the purpose of neutralizing one another, and restoring that equilibrium which Nature so beautifully arranges in all her works. He puts forward this simple experiment, which may be tried by any tyro in the science.

If four electroscopes be excited, first, No. 1, by a piece of sealing-wax rubbed by a piece of silk, the gold leaves of the electroscope will diverge from one another. Let an electroscope, No. 2, be excited in the same manner as the first, and the result will be the same.

Let the electroscopes Nos. 3 and 4 be excited by means of a glass tube rubbed by a piece of silk, the gold leaves will diverge from one another in both of them, as in the other two, there being no apparent difference.

Now, by taking a discharging-rod, opened so that one end shall touch the first, and the other end the second electroscope, the gold leaves of both will remain diverged; and if the same be done to the third and fourth electroscopes, the result will be the

same.

But if the discharging rod (be made to touch with one end the first and third, and then the second and fourth electroscopes, the whole of the gold leaves of the four electroscopes instantaneously collapse, thereby showing that the two electric fluids have neutralized each other in all the four electroscopes by their perfect union.

In many of the experiments performed at the Royal Polytechnic Institution spontaneous discharges take place when charging their powerful battery, and the side of the jars are in a space varying from oneeighth to three-fourths of an inch in diameter in a state nearly pulverized; indeed in some instances, when the fracture is of the smaller size where these two currents met, the glass resembles a mere dust. Had the current been in one direction only this appearance could not take place, the particles would be driven out or the jar broken into pieces, but by their meeting exactly with the same force, and at the same time, nothing is disturbed from its place, the particles are merely crushed.

RIEMBAUER; OR, THE SAINTLY

MURDERER.

ABOUT twenty or twenty-five years ago, the Supreme Court of Justice for the kingdom of Bavaria was occupied with the trial of a wretch named Francois Riembauer. Riembauer was the son of a poor labourer, at Randerstadt, and he became a cow-boy. His thirst for knowledge was excessive, and through the means of a curate in the village he was fitted for the Lyceum at the early age of fourteen years. Here he applied himself to the study of abstruse science, ecclesiastical history, and the subtleties of logic, in all of which he attained unexampled proficiency. In 1810 he was appointed to the curacy of his native village, and was then considered as the "priest par excel lence." His sermons were full of fire-they breathed the purest love of virtue, and the

vices of the age were most eloquently denounced. Such was the person who, a few years afterwards, was accused of the following crimes:-First, of having had a child by the cook of the curate of Hoskirchen, who lay in about the year 1801, of a male child, which died shortly afterwards; secondly, of having had a child by Anne Marie Eichlaetter, the servant of the curate of Hernsheim, and of having assassinated her by cutting her throat with a razor; thirdly, of having had children by a milliner, and another curate's servantmaid; fourthly, of having had a child by Madelaine Fravenkneiht, the daughter of a farmer at Lauterbach, of having swindled her father of 5,000 francs, and of having poisoned the daughter and her mother; fifthly, of having had at different periods three children by Ann Weminger, his last kitchen-maid; sixthly, of having forged a certificate of deposit for the sum of 1,400 francs; and, lastly, of having caused abortion in two cases. The investigation of these charges occupied four years, and disclosed a system of remorseless villany to which the history of crime scarcely affords any parallel. The second victim, Anne Marie Eichlaetter, he killed by cutting her throat with a razor in his own apartment, exclaiming at the instant-"Repent of your sins-you must die." The fact was sworn to by a girl who peeped through the key-hole. The body of the murdered young woman was found where Reimbauer had deposited it-still he denied the charge with the most inflexible pertinacity. The examining judge, unable to reason the prisoner into an acknowledgement of his crime, sought to act upon his imagination. On All Saints' day, the anniversary of the murder of Anne Marie, at four o'clock in the evening, he entered upon the eightyeighth examination. After endeavouring, during eight hours, to wring an avowal from the prisoner by laying before him proofs of his guilt, he gave up the attempt. At that moment it struck the hour of midnight, when the judge suddenly unfolded a black cloth, containing the skull of Anne Marie. At this sight Riembauer started from his seat, opened wide his eyes, and smiled, and yet drew back, as if retreating from the accusing looks of the fleshless skull; but, quickly recovering his selfpossession, he exclaimed, "My conscience is at rest; that head, if it could speak, would say, Riembauer is my lover, and not my murderer.' This is the anniversary of her death." On his hundredth examination he made an avowal of his guilt. Riembauer stated that he had seen, from his dungeon, a Jew who had committed murder going to the scaffold. He was struck with the serenity exhibited by the culprit in his last moments, and, from his gaolers, he learned that it was only

after a full confession of his crime that the culprit, named Lammfromm, had recovered his tranquillity, and from that moment he (Riembauer) resolved to declare the whole truth. "Before doing so I recommend to the care of government my innocent children, and my last cookmaid (ma derniere cuisiniere). Catherine told truth-it was I that murdered Anne Marie Eichlaetter." He also related that, wishing to get rid of a man whom he hated, he had ardently prayed to God to deprive him of life, and that soon after the individual gave up the ghost. He added that, on an innkeeper refusing to lend him a small sum of money, he was seized with the most violent desire of setting fire to his premises. But what is really singular and curious are the sophisms by which the prisoner sought to justify his crimes. "When Anne Marie," said he, "endeavoured to compel me to take her again into my house, I began to reflect upon the consequences, and I said to myself, 'If a priest of such unblemished reputation were found to be a sinner, great would the detriment thereof be to religion;' therefore, as there were no other means of avoiding public scandal but by the death of Anne Marie, and that this death tended to produce a laudable result, I do not think I have acted criminally, for my intentions were pure, ad majorem Dei gloriam. Moreover (added he), before killing Anne Marie I exhorted her to repent of her sins, and I gave her absolution. When she had no longer strength to support herself I very gently stretched her on the floor. I merit the consideration of my judges, because my actions have been always ordered so as to avoid public scandal."

Riembauer, strange to say, never neglected to go through a kind of nuptial ceremony with his mistresses, either for the purpose of tranquillizing his own conscience, or for the better securing their fidelity. Clothed in princely vestments, with tapers lighted, he went through all the ceremonies of marriage, he himself performing the double function of priest and bridegroom, and concluding the ceremony by placing a ring on his mistress's finger. The children resulting from those connexions he regularly baptised, giving them, for father and mother, names taken at hazard.

The Supreme Tribunal condemned the criminal to close confinement in a fortress for an unlimited period.

Cure for Hooping-cough.-It is a common superstition in Cornwall, Devonshire, and some other parts of England, to inquire of any one riding on a piebald horse of a remedy for the hooping-cough, and whatever may be named is regarded as a specific.