THE NUPTIAL KNOTS BETWEEN TWO HEMISPHERES.-The "New York Herald" has paid the Atlantic Telegraph Company about seventy thousand dollars for telegrams transmitted from Europe. Nearly the whole debate on the Alabama question was thus forwarded; and the fact was established that the most important portions of speeches delivered the same night in Westminster and Washington might appear in parallel columns the very next morning in a New York journal. These are the "Nuptial Knots between two Hemispheres."

LANDS TO BE GIVEN AWAY.-A large manufacturer, recently returned from a tour in the Southern States, says that several planters told him that they would give twenty-five per cent. of their land to industrious men who would come and settle down upon them. Such landowners would make money by such a speculation, for the seventy-five per cent. of their estates which they retained would be worth more to them than the whole is now. The South wants population, and could well afford to give 100 acres to every intelligent, industrious man from the Northern States or from Europe.

REVIVAL OF THE PEACE CONGRESS.-We rejoice to learn that an effort is being made to resume these great Parliaments of the Peoples, to discuss measures for lifting from their peeled shoulders the almost crushing burdens of war, and of the armed peace policy which is nearly as bad as war. Twenty years ago the first Peace Congress ever held on the continent of Europe took place at Brussels. It is intended to hold another in that beautiful metropolis the present year, and we hope that these Peace Parliaments will be annual until war is banished for ever from Christendom. LEAFLETS OF THE LAW OF KINDNESS.-It is now sixteen years since these little sweet-breathing leaves were first issued. They number sixty, every one differing from the other in style and subject, as they were written by more than fifty ladies in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Several large editions have been published, but they have been out of print for some time. We therefore intend to bring out a new edition on our own risk, if no other publisher may be found.

Printed by W. M. Watts, 80, Gray's-Inn Road.

THE DRINKING FOUNTAINS OF KNOWLEDGE AND THEIR DRINKERS.

WHAT is true of Shakespeare is proportionately true of all the old masters of English literature in reference to their relations to the whole English-speaking race, and to its labouring masses in both hemispheres. The brilliant and powerful literature they produced was for generations the luxury of the rich and educated classes of their countrymen. In this respect it followed the course of those physical luxuries which were at first, and for a long time, confined to the tables and wardrobes of the wealthy. Tea, coffee, sugar and rice were once the luxuries of the rich. Thousands of that class would have opened their eyes with astonishment at the idea of these articles ever being found on the tables of the poor men of the spade, hammer, spindle and loom. But who are the greatest consumers of these articles at the present day? Why, unquestionably the working-classes; not only because they far out-number all other classes put together, but because their very occupation gives them the hungriest appetite for these productions. Well, there is no characteristic that so marks the present day as these new efforts and institutions to stimulate and elevate, the appetite of working-men for healthy mental exhilaration and recreation, which none can enjoy with more hearty relish. One of the most recent and most effective instrumentalities to this end is that intellectual entertainment called the Penny Readings. These, perhaps, are the very best primary institutions that could be invented for cultivating the mental tastes of the working-classes, and preparing them for higher grades of intellectual enjoyment. One of these Penny Readings, if rightly conducted, embraces all the social elements necessary to make it attractive to them. It is the very cheapest place and the cheapest hour in which so many of them can sit down together to a social entertainment. What would cost them threepence or sixpence in the largest tap-room, costs them here only a penny. Do they enjoy stories and songs in the tap-room? In the Penny-Reading room they may hear the most thrilling and exhilarating stories ever told ;-stories full of startling incident, pathos and humour, some to make them weep, others to make them laugh; scraps of noble and beautiful lives, full of heroism, patience, faith and love; stories of doing, daring and dying for the good of others. Have tap-room songs been enjoyable to them when sung with the rough voices of half-drunken men? Here, interspersed

with the readings, they may listen to the sweetest voices that ever made music for the firesides or drawing-rooms of the rich and educated classes. The very elements of the entertainment, the varieties in the matter said and sung, are social, and gratify the social sentiment. Then the variety of persons who read and sing, in voice, manner and position, adds another attractive feature to the elevating enjoyment provided.

Well, these Penny Readings operate as training schools in which the perceptions and tastes of working-men are educated for higher sources of intellectual improvement. The various descriptive, pathetic and humorous pieces, in prose or poetry, selected and read for their entertain. ment, are taken from books. And these books are accessible to them. A cheap or free library is full of them. If in the Penny-Reading room they have taken sips from the genius of a few authors, in the Free Library they have a Drinking Fountain of living thought as cheap and free as water. If they can read, they may here, as it were, look into the faces and listen to the voices of all the old masters of English literature, and masters older still-the great writers of the classic ages, who wrote a thousand years before the English language was born. Thus the richest luxuries of literature may be brought within their reach and enjoyment. And these they will share with the wealthy and educated classes of the country as soon as their taste for such intellectual luxuries has been cultivated to the requisite perception of their truth and beauty, and of the rich entertainment they afford. A taste, an appetite is only wanting. The drinking fountains of this exhilarating and elevating literature are being opened to them on all the dusty highways of labour; and thousands, as it were, on their way home from the day's toil, are turning aside to drink at these cheap crystal streams of living thought. Why, it took a long time for the common working-men of Christendom to acquire a taste, an appetite for tea, coffee, sugar and rice. These articles, for a century or more, were confined to the tables of the upper classes, not account of their cost, but because the labouring population had not learnt to like them and use them. So it has been with those luxuries which have flowered and fruited from the genius of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spencer, and other old masters of English literature. For two centuries long they have been almost exclusively the luxuries of the rich or educated classes; but now they are not only coming to be brought within the reach of the labouring masses of the people, but their taste for the entertainment is being educated into an appetite for it. And we venture to entertain the hope that the day will come when the Penny