France Hôtels-Dieu, or Maisons-Dieu - houses of God. All the monasteries relieved the sick and poor daily. William the Conqueror lay ill at one of them for a time, and was treated by a bishop and an abbot. The priesthood were frequently united into religious orders, under the name of Hospitallers. Many such societies were founded at Marseilles, in order to be in readiness to receive the pilgrims returning from the Holy Land. These associations were very numerous and active, and form redeeming points in the features of the middle ages. After the eleventh century many women devoted themselves to like offices, under the name of the Gray Sisters, or Sisters of Charity. Some of the Hospitallers were military orders, as the Knights of St. Lazarus, and the wellknown Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The extensive prevalence of leprosy led to the creation of separate edifices. In France these houses were called léproseries and maladreries; in England, leper-houses or lazarhouses; and in Italy, lazzarettos, owing to a fanciful resemblance to the disease with which Lazarus was afflicted; and he was declared to be the tutelary saint of those struck with leprosy. Gregory of Tours mentions a leper hospital as early as the sixth century. Leprosy became much less prevalent during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but even in the seventeenth century leper houses existed on the continent, and were greatly abused by vagrants, who imitated or produced diseases of the skin in order to be permitted to pass their lives in idleness at the hospitals. THUNDER takes a whole second of time to travel three hundred and eighty yards; hence, if the flash be five seconds before the thunder, the cloud is nineteen hundred yards off. Some decide the distance of a storm by counting the pulses. As soon as you see the flash, count how many beats before you hear the thunder. If it beats six times, the storm is one mile off; if twelve, it is two miles off, and so on. THE spirit of the times requires in every man not only knowledge of his profession, but much general knowledge, to enable him to keep pace with the rapid changes taking place around him. Remember this, boys, and learn all you can in early life. THERE is a grave in Westminster AbIT is said that the last image formed on bey over which is a common pavement stone, the retina of the eye of a dying person remains inscribed with the words, "O rare Ben Jonson." | impressed upon it as on a daguerrian plate. I 5 THE ORATOR. DIRECTIONS.-Words in SMALL CAPITALS should be emphasized; words in CAPITALS should be strongly emphasized. The numbers refer to the gestures represented in the margin: and when followed by the sign +, the position should be continued to the next number. The gesture should correspond with the emphasis. The asterisks * indicate the more important rhetorical pauses. I AMBITION." BY HENRY CLAY. HIGHEST. The most 'EXALTED is but a PRISON, in which the incumbent daily receives his COLD, HEARTLESS visitants, MARKS his weary hours, and is CUT OFF from the practical enjoyment of all the blessings of GENUINE freedom. I am no 'CANDIDATE for ANY office in the gift of the people of these states, UNITED or SEPARATED; I never twISH, never 'EXPECT to be. 1+PASS this bill, 'TRANQUILLIZE the country, restore CONFIDENCE and AFFECTION in the Union, and I am willing to go home to "ASHLAND, and renounce public service Forever. I should THERE find, in its GROVES, under its SHADES, on its LAWNS, amid my FLOCKS and HERDS, in the bosom of my FAMILY, SINCERITY and TRUTH, ATTACHMENT and FIDELITY, and GRATITUDE, which I have not always found in the walks of PUBLIC life. Yes, I HAVE * AMBITION; but it is the AMBITION of being the humble INSTRUMENT, in the hands of Providence, to RECONCILE a 'DIVIDED people; once MORE to revive 1CONCORD and 'HARMONY in a distracted land; the pleasing ambition of contemplating the glorious spectacle of a FREE, UNITED, PROSPEROUS, and 3FRATERNAL * people! HAVE been accused of 1AMBITION in presenting this measure INORDINATE ambition! If I had 3 thought of 'MYSELF only, I should have never brought it forward. I know well the 'PERILS to which I expose myself; the risk of ALIENATING faithful and valued friends, with but little prospect of making 4 new ones, if any 'NEW ones could compensate for the loss of those we have long tried and loved; and the honest 'MISCONCEPTION, both of FRIENDS and FOES. 2AMBITION! If I had LISTENED to its soft and seducing whispers, if I had YIELDED myself to the dictates of a 1tcOLD, CALCULATING, and 'PRUDENTIAL policy, I would have [ fold the arms] STOOD STILL; I might have SILENTLY 6 GAZED on the raging storm, enjoyed its loudest thunders, and left those who are charged with the care of the vessel of state to 'CONDUCT it as DANIEL DE FOE, immortal as the authey could. I have been heretofore thor of Robinson Crusoe, was bred a hosier, often unjustly accused of AMBITION. and probably took up his pen to increase his #+Low, 'GrovelLING souls, who are scanty income. He wrote boldly and well utterly incapable of elevating them-upon politics, and his poetry was by no means selves to the HIGHER and NOBLER unworthy. His narrative of the shipwrecked duties of pure PATRIOTISM, * mariner was for some years believed to be a veritable chronicle. 7 8 beings who, forever keeping their own SELFISH aims in view, decide all public measures by their presumed influence on their aggrandizement, judge ME by the venal rule which they prescribe to 'THEMSELVES. I have given to the WINDS those false accusa9 tions, as I consign that which "Now impeaches my motives. I have no desire for OFFICE, not even for the a Extract from a speech before the Senate, in 1833, when there was danger of nullificaIO tion among some of the states; that is, of their not obeying the laws made at Washington. JOHN EVELYN, one of the greatest natural philosophers that England ever produced, caused to be placed on his tombstone an inscription, stating that, "Living in an age of extraordinary events and revolutions, he had learned from thence this truth: That all is vanity which is not honest, and that there is no solid wisdom but in real piety." THE ancient Scythians were greatly extolled by early writers for the innocence and simplicity of their characters. They led a nomadic life, subsisting on milk and honey, and living in supreme indifference to the value of gold and silver. Savages indeed! THE use of a mirror to prove life extinct is an old custom. Shakespeare causes King Lear to say, upon the death of Cordelia, "Lend me a looking-glass; If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, Why, then she lives." แ LACROSSE. Throwing the Ball. IT [CONCLUDED.] T is not a bad throw to end a run-in close to goal. By turning the left side a little to the mark you gain power. Except in throwing from the shoulder, the more you face away from the mark the stronger you will throw. There are various ways of throwing past the side (the left). You turn your back to the mark, but with the left side more or less to it. Raise the right side of the crosse to prevent the ball coming off, and then swing round. In most of these ways you keep the crosse as close in as possible, and jerk the ball off just clear of the left side or shoulder. (It is jerked back over the right shoulder sometimes.) But there is one way in which the crosse is kept out at right angles to the body the whole time of throwing. This is a good throw, but a difficult one. It is performed with a short swing and a half jerk. Of course the left is the natural side to throw past in all these cases, but it is good to practise with the right as a means of balking an opponent by an unexpected throw. A good swinging side-throw along the ground is often effective. There are several fantastic methods of throwing recommended, such as, face the goal and throw overhead from behind your back, or throw past your left side from behind. The latter throw is confusing to an adversary, but only an experienced hand can risk dropping the ball in the attempt to bring it round behind. Throwing between your legs is one elegant method, especially recommended if your enemy also happens to be standing in the same position! Tipping the ball is often done when the player is too hard pressed to be able to take it up. It consists in just getting the ball on to the stick, and tipping it forward before it has time to roll off again. It may be described as a gentle evasion of the rules against hocky. Goal-keeper often "tips" the ball to one side as it comes towards him. There is a way of throwing exactly analogous to throwing by hand. The crosse is raised and drawn back to the right. At the moment of throwing it is turned almost edgewise, but the rapid motion prevents the ball from falling. The arm is moved as in throwing by hand, but the left shoulder must be brought round. This is a quick, useful throw for short distances. And now, young friends, this concludes our little story of lacrosse; and if you, after receiving these instructions in regard to the game, find that you do not comprehend any portion thereof, let us know, and we will er.deavor to explain the same to your entire satisfaction. It must not be supposed that it is as difficult to play lacrosse as it is to describe it clearly. Throwing, for instance, is a simple art enough, difficult as our description of it may seem. Lacrosse is, in fact, a very easy game; any one can join in it without previous training, and there are no troublesome rules to be remembered. On the other hand, expertness with the crosse is the result of practice only. Yet, while the player may go on improving for years by long practice, he will find that he may become a moderately good player by very little indeed. This is just what a field game ought to be simple enough for boys, clever enough for men; and we trust by another season to see the game played in every section of our land as an auxiliary to our national game. BASE BALL. The Lowell Club of Boston. THE Lowells played fifteen match games the past season, winning eleven and losing four. In these games they scored a total of 512 runs to 291 by their opponents, giving an average of thirty runs to a match and two hundred and sixteen over, while the averages over, and three runs to an inning and one of their opponents were nineteen runs to a match and six over, and two runs to an inning with twenty-seven over. Bradbury stands first, as determined by making first base on clean hits, while in the customary average of outs and runs Lovett heads the list. THE silver ball, the late championship emblem of New England, has been melted up. The silver brought but nineteen dollars and forty-six cents. THE National Association of base ball players met at Washington December 9. Massachusetts sent three delegates. CLA form a club for the purpose of uniting the members of the family in Hoboken. He is desirous of seeing chess problems in the playground. Ward, there are many good books on drawing and sketching; inquire of a bookdealer. Bunny is suffering untold torture from an infliction of Greek Grammar. Try and bear it, Bunny; you will feel all the better when you get through with it. One of Hautboy's puzzles is accepted. We are always glad to hear from him. - Gaston, we do not know of any such publication extant, although there are many excellent works on temperance. Stick to the pledge. LARENCE CLAYTON has reappeared again, and his familiar chirography is right welcome. The first symbol of rebus has been too often used. - Downsey, who is proud of the Nutmeg State, is very patriotic, and takes kindly to "demonstrations," as all boys do; but the celebration in honor of the election was too much even for him. The artillery stopped in front of his house, and "sent off such a bang," he says, "that numerous panes of glass went off on their own account," and the candles and Chinese lanterns, with which he had been illuminating, also went off overished cakes to the amount of "dirty cents," chairs, sofas, &c. He wishes the artillery would "let us have peace."- Killington professes to have made four times as many words from "postage as H. H. did. Rebuses are a drug just now, we have such a pile of them. R. C. L., Jr. has made five hundred and forty-seven words from "manufactories," a clear gain of two hundred and twenty-six over O. O. Jr., and Mary R.-C. A. H., we must decline to insert feminine names for correspondence. If sent by boys, all the worse. We fear E. H. R. is threatened with softening of the brain. We would prescribe more base ball and lacrosse, and less croquet and moonshine. In answer to second letter, we do not see the propriety of establishing such a memento of school-boy folly. It has not a dignified appearance. Messrs. Captain Jinks and Horse Marine, our numerous and urgent engagements quite preclude the possibility of publishing your sketch. Licorice John gives a graphic account of his first day's work. He rose at five o'clock, and opened the store; enjoyed his work very well until ten A. M., when the pangs of incipient starvation drove him to desperation and a Dutch baker's shop, where he demol 39 B. Oats thinks it is poor sport to correspond with persons who write so illegibly that no one can read their letters. We sometimes think there is no excuse for our young friends who send such careless letters, especially those who have time enough to do better, and have every advantage necessary to improve their style of writing. Tempest sends acceptable puzzles. Kriss Kringle, Box 380, Springfield, Ohio, desires to exchange autographs with boys twelve or fourteen years old. He sends the following: "What is that I would not have if given to me, and if I had it I would not take a fortune for it? A bald head." according to the dealer's account, - which debt was amply liquidated with three ragged tencent notes. This first day was very long; but he would not give it up, and is now quite content to work for a living. He requests us to say for him, that boys who are nearly discouraged with their first day's work should only persevere, and they will soon conquer such unmanly feelings as he has done. Hoky Poky (dis) honors us in a shocking parody on Mother Goose, or somebody else. Don't do it again. We really can't stand it. Handy Andy finds that the word "uncomplimentary" contains the five vowels alone, in the reverse order. "Uncommiserated" has six vowels. The rebus is hardly up to the mark. ACCEPTED. Transpositions-Rita; sans-têtes - Dictator. DECLINED. Hoky Poky, Tip Top, Um Brella, Rover St. Clair, Knickerbocker, Downsey. WISH CORRESPONDENTS. Philatelist (on stamps), Box 3788, New York, N. Y.; Eque Wality, Lock Box 4 W. Evansville, Ind.; Sam Slick, Box 26, Fisherville, N. H.; Knickerbocker, 39 North Pearl Street, Albany, N. Y.; Lavallette, Box 1, Shelburne Falls, Mass.; Oreola, care J. F. Coffin, 148 Front Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.; Avatea, 100 Willoughby Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.; James H. Munson, 343 East Twentieth Street, New York, N. Y. |