it does seem that Western talent has, thus far, fought an unequal contest with that of the Eastern States, simply from the greater facilities for publishing which the latter has enjoyed.

Said an accomplished lady of Chicago, the other day-who, by the way, was educated at the East and has spent a year and half in Europe; is a writer of some note for Eastern monthlies and a lady of culture-"It is a fact that Western talent is not appreciated at the East as it deserves, and therefore our writers hesitate to throw their productions into Eastern channels, through fear of being overwhelmed by those whose reputation is already established as favorites of Eastern publishers."

The truth of this assertion cannot be successfully controverted; and taking it for granted that Western people will write if Western men will publish, we have commenced the publication of the WESTERN MONTHLY, and herewith submit the first number.

That a magazine having for its object the advancement of the interests of the West ought to be sustained, every one, East and West, is ready to admit, and whether it will be or not depends entirely upon the talent and enterprise of our people. We believe the proverbial go-aheaditiveness of Western people will be demonstrated in literary as well as commercial matters, now that an opportunity is presented. Let us hear from you of the pen who reside in the wide, wide West. Articles used will be liberally paid for, and rejected manuscript returned to the writer, if desired.

EXPLANATORY.-Perhaps an apology is due the public, on account of the late appearance of the January number of the WESTERN MONTHLY. If so, we frankly confess that the time and labor necessarily required in starting a magazine of this size was under-estimated at the outset.

We have labored incessantly, almost,

since December 1st, and expected to have presented No. 1 to the public as early as Christmas at farthest. But Christmas has come and gone, and the opening days of a New Year, even, have passed away ere we are enabled to make our debut.

Again: the pressure of job work at our publishing house preceding and during the holidays has been immense, which has caused some little delay in our appearance.

The patience, also, of some of our writers has been liberally taxed, and the time allotted them in which to prepare their articles been beautifully brief. Had all our matter been received somewhat earlier, a more perfect arrangement of articles might have been effected in the general make-up. Particularly is this true of "Telegraphy," which should have preeeded "Foreign Literature," but came in too late for insertion in its proper place.

We trust, however, that a charitable spirit, pervading the public mind, and the usual generosity of the press, will enable one and all to overlook the incompleteness observable in this number, provided, that improvement is stamped upon all that follows.

NATHAN SHEPPARD, of this city, is soon to start on an extended tour through Europe, and will be gone some time. Our readers will be pleased to learn that his services have been engaged for our MONTHLY. Mr. S. is one of the most talented speakers and writers in the West, and his articles from Europe will be very instructive and entertaining. We wish him a pleasant voyage.

NOW IS THE TIME to subscribe for the WESTERN MONTHLY. The current volume will represent a variety of topics of general interest. The price brings it within the reach of all. In sending subscriptions care should be taken to write the name and address plainly.

CORRECTION.-The Chicago and Northwestern Railway now controls about 1300 miles of road, instead of 700, as stated in the biography of Mr. OGDEN.

THE TONGUE.-The tongue is more powerful than the sceptre and rules where the sword would fail. We are told in sacred language that it is a “little member and boasteth great things." Time has proven the wisdom of the adage.

The ear was made to listen to the music of prattling babes, the anthems of the forests, the eloquence of man and the voice of God. The eye to behold the beauties of the universe, the pathway of life, and finally, with undimned vision, to look upon the crown of immortality resting on the brow of virtue. The tongue was made to utter words of truth and sympathy, to unite the brotherhood of man, and to supplicate the throne of the Eternal One.

It was the tongue which broke the silence of ages and opened to man the gates of Paradise. It was the tongue which made the confession of sin as the flaming sword guarded the way of the tree of life. It was the tongue of the eloquent Greek that calmed the stormy passions of the multitude at Athens and opened the temple of liberty to the sons of Greece. It was the tongue of our great Example that hushed the wild waves and said: "Peace, be still;" that rebuked diseases, and quickened the lifeless form of the dead.

Who can recount its wonders? It is the ever-ready messenger, standing at the portals of thought, to bear the words of grief or joy to anxious hearts. By it the dreary walks of life are cheered into gladness, and the wilderness is made to blossom as the rose.

But alas! it often sends the shafts of pain where life was full of joy. Its

sting is like the touch of the deathangel; it reproaches the Infinite and blasts the hope of man.

It ruins the innocent and dethrones the right, it seals the destiny of the unfortunate and crushes the poor. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing, good and evil. It becomes a fire, burning to the lowest hell, and blackens the face of truth.

The tongue is the wild man of the earth, and cannot be tamed by man alone. It is described as the "pen of a ready writer," and from its hiding place it sends forth the bitter words of wrong.

Who can write its history and recount its deeds of crime? Unsanctified by the principles of justice and truth, it becomes the worst enemy of man; but when restrained by the impulses of a noble heart, it becomes the good angel of our destiny. The heartfountains must be cleaned before it will only speak the words of truth and goodness. He who would utter the voice of right and prove a blessing to man, must develop his moral nature and ennoble his mind by thoughts of purity; then will the tongue bow in humility at the shrine of virtue and its words will be as "apples of gold in pictures of silver."

THERMOMETERS are as much needed in our day to test the moral temperature of men's souls, as they are to read the signs of the weather. Some men rise to blood heat without much effort and it only needs a word to bring them up to the boiling point. On the other hand, there are men who are always below zero, and whenever demands are made upon the pocket for public or benevolent objects, they freeze up.

THE SNOW PROBLEM ON THE AMERICAN PACIFIC RAILROAD.-It was reported last winter that the sheds built by the Pacific Railroad Company to protect their track from the deep snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains were crushed by the weight of snow that fell upon them, and that some other method of protection would have to be devised. It seems, however, by a letter in the San Francisco Bulletin, that this plan of shielding the track has not been abandoned. The Company are now engaged in erecting sheds over the cuttings and the other exposed points. They are of heavy timber frame-work, with pointed gable roofs, and look as if they could withstand almost any pressure of snow. Nearly forty miles of the track will have to be thus covered, and the quantity of timber required will be enormous. Not less than twenty-two saw-mills, most of them worked by steam, are run night and day, employing nearly two thousand men; and yet they do not work up to the needs of the Company. In a few weeks twenty-eight mills will be running. It is estimated that it will require no less than eight hundred thousand feet of lumber to construct a mile of sheds. So great is the demand, that the country on both sides of the track is being rapidly denuded of its forests. Ex. Paper.

A NEW CLAIMANT OF THE FRENCH THRONE.A new pretender to the French Throne, and to the name Napoleon III., has arisen in a poor schoolmaster, living in the small Saxon town of Wermsdorf, who claims to be the legitimate grandson of Napoleon I. If his statements are trustworthy, Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, fell in love with a young Hungarian countess, during a journey which he made in Hungary in the year 1830, and as she sternly refused to become his mistress he finally resolved to marry her. They were married at a village church, near the city of

Debrezyn, by the regular village priest. This marriage, the Saxon pretender asserts, was perfectly legitimate, inasmuch as, according to the laws governing the members of the Imperial House of Austria, the Duke of Reichstadt was already of age at that time, so that no exception whatever could be taken to the union. How he, the heir of an imperial name and of a throne, got to Saxony and became there a poor schoolmaster, the pretender refuses as yet to explain. He only says that the Duke of Reichstadt was compelled to leave his young wife a few days after the wedding had taken place, and that he was unable to take her with him to the Court of Vienna. There are certain circumstances, above all things the strict surveillance which the Court of Vienna kept over the Duke of Reichstadt, that renders the whole story of the pretender somewhat improbable; but several diplomats at the courts of Berlin, Vienna and Dresden, before whom a full statement of the facts has been laid, have stated that, in their opinion, the schoolmaster will succeed in making out his case.

A NOBLE WIFE.-A bankrupt merchant, returning home, one night, said to his noble wife: "My dear, I am ruined; everything we have is in the hands of the sheriff." After a few moments of silence, the wife looked calmly into his face and said: "Will the sheriff sell you?" "Oh, no!" "Will the sheriff

sell me?" "Oh, no!" "Will the sheriff sell the children ?" "Oh, no!" "Then do not say we have lost everything. All that is most valuable remains to usmanhood, womanhood, childhood. We have lost but the results of our skill and industry. We can make another fortune, if our hearts and hands are left

us."

Can we wonder that, encouraged by such a noble wife, he is now on the road to fortune again?

BAD BREATH.-If when the face is brought near another's the lips are kept firmly closed, there is no bad breath, that which comes from the nose being not perceptibly disagreeable.

Much of the disagreeable odor of a late meal may be avoided if the teeth and mouth are well rinsed with warm water, and the tooth-brush is passed across the back part of the tongue.

In some persons, a fetor of breath and of the feet alternate. In others, both are present at the same time.

A fetid effluvia arises usually, if not always, from three causes: first, it is hereditary, being connected with a scrof ulous taint; second, it arises from a want of personal cleanliness; third, it attends a disordered stomach. The second and third suggest their own remedies. The first is a grievous and mortifying misfortune to all sensitive minds, but it may be remedied to a very considerable extent, by persistent habits of strict personal cleanliness, by large outdoor activities, personal regularities, and the temperate use of plain substantial food, carefully avoiding all gross and rancid articles of diet, suet, cheese, pies, puddings, smoked and fried meats, fish and the like, using often and efficiently the vapor or warm bath, with soap and plentiful friction. - Hall's Journal of Health.

THE GRECIAN BEND.-"How can a woman so sensible as you adopt such a piece of affectation as that Grecian Bend style of walking?" asked a gentleman the other evening of an intelligent lady with whom he was familiar. "It is not affectation," was the answer; "look at these heels," she added, extending her foot, "and tell me how I can walk any other way." And sure enough, how could she, poor thing. There, from under her skirts, peeped a foot, naturally pretty, but dreadfully deformed by a high and narrow heel that, with vulgar impertinence, had pushed

itself beyond its proper place, until it rested fairly under the instep, and threw the body inevitably forward in standing. Certainly she must wear such shoes, for are they not the style?— and wearing them, there was no escape from the awkward and constrained manner of walking which is so ridiculed in cartoon and caricature. "I don't bend any more than I can help," she exclaimed, plaintively; “and I am sure I don't carry myself in such an absurd style as many of the ladies you see upon the street." No doubt many are merely imitating the fashionable walk, and like all imitators, overdo; but the origin of the Grecian Bend is in the present style of fashionable shoes. "So this only have I found, that God hath made them upright, but they have sought out many inventions."-Galaxy.

WORK FOR WOMEN.-Ashamed of work! ashamed to have it known that you earn your own living! I tell you, young women, that of all the wicked and contemptible notions society puts into your heads, this is the wickedest and most contemptible. Who sent you into this world to sit in idleness, while all the rest of God's universe are at work? Who authorized you to live at your ease upon the toils of other people? Who gave you permission to suffer those natural powers of yours, which can only be developed by work, to be dwarfed and withered by disuse? Instead of its being a disgrace to you to earn your own living by work, it is a burning shame to you if you do not. You think I use

pretty strong language. Perhaps I do; but I know I only half express myself. For it is impossible for me to find in the English language, or any other language, any words that begin to set forth the contempt I feel for any able-bodied human being, male or female, who attempts to live in this world without earning a living, either by brain or muscle. -GLADDEN.