little girl, with the pearly teeth, and the bright smile, and the almost infantine ringing laugh which was heard not half an hour before in the grounds? Lo! there is a wedding-ring on her finger; and presently she is talking across the table, in a long, nasal whine that tells of Connecticut, of all her pension experiences, and calculating, in the most hideously-practical manner, the profits which the landlady of the pension was enabled to reap from washing the linen of her visitors. This little girl, with the soft brown hair and the pretty face, is able to transmute florins and kreutzers into dollars and cents with a dreadful facility; and as she rattles off her impressions of the various countries she has passed through, they sound like the recital of the dream of an army victualler; while her husband, much older than she is, with a complexion which makes one fancy his veins must run tobaccojuice, sits silent and picks his teeth after every course. If our inquisitive traveller, having acquired sufficient knowledge to enable him to drive a close bargain with the most rapacious pension-keeper in existence, now shuts his left ear and opens his right, he will hear the resident clergyman expatiate. It is not of free-will, or election, or baptism that the reverend gentleman treats; it is not with accounts of benevolent institutions and charities that he graces the chief ceremony of the day; it is with a running commentary on the aristocracy who have visited the place during the past week. Generosity is the virtue which he most delights to laud. He makes great allowances for the necessity under which English people labour of conforming to popular custom abroad. They have not, he argues, the same opportunities that exist at home; and if, when they cannot go to church on a Sunday evening, they go to see a fair or sit in a garden and listen to some music, they are not so much to be blamed. Theatregoing on a Sunday he rather deprecates, so far as an Englishman is concerned; but for the poor foreigners who know no better, one must egret the evil nature of their education rather than accuse themselves. If an Englishman has been so imprudent as to go to a theatre on Sunday, the best thing be can remember is that charity - or, in other words, a subscription covereth a multitude of sins. The resident clergyman is really a valuable person at the table d'hôte; for his white tie lends respectability to the occasion, and his fund of universal information is at everybody's service. Unfortunately the table d'hôte dinner cannot last for ever. By the time that our trav eller has studied the peculiar arrangements of hair and the jewellery of all the ladies present, found reasons for depreciating the personal appearance, intellect, and position of all the men, and succeeded in producing as a net result, a faint glow of personal satisfaction within his own bosom, he finds that he has arrived at the dessert. Fain would he spin out this brief period of happiness. Must he relinquish this beautiful sphere, and return to the cold world without, there to fix glazed eyes once more on contorted rocks, muddy streams, dirty houses, and brown-visaged peasants? The short, stout English lady, with the black satin dress and the thick chain, has gathered her daughters around her, and is sailing downward towards the door. The Italian gentleman, who must have been born in a district where forks are unknown, sets vigorously to work to pick his teeth, confronted by the American husband, who follows his example; while the wife of the latter remarks across the table that "the feeding wasn't bad for five and half francs, but that one never feels filled after a foreign dinner." From giving a young lady a pleasant description of a picnic on the summit of the Righi, the clergyman has diverged into hinting to the young lady's papa of the painful necessity under which he labours of gathering donations for his church. The unhappy Briton knows his time has come; but there is still one refuge. Whatever his family may urge about the advisability of going to "do" any place he has medical authority for insisting on quiet after dinner; and as he sits down under some acacia, to smoke a cigar and watch a feeble fountain unsuccessfully engaged in endeavouring to balance a ball on its summit, there still remain for him the memories of buried joys. He can chew the cud of reflection, and, with the assistance of his wife, go over, seriatim, the incidents of the dinner, the quality of the dishes, and the appearance of the people who were at table. The results of their joint observations are compared; and the nationality, profession, and prospects of every stranger definitely settled. Family likenesses and stray observations become the material out of which Mr. Brown and his wife now proceed to evolve the most delightful fictions; and if there have been two young people seen to exchange a word or hand a bit of pastry down the table, a marriage is at once concluded in Mrs. Brown's ready imagination. It will thus be seen that the five o'clock dinner is of much more value than that of seven o'clock; for the former stretches over the entire evening, while the If latter invades the realm of sleep with ridi- | action abroad stirs up doubt, apprehension, culous dreams in which wild foreigners and and, of course, counter armaments. wilder adventures produce all the horrors France would sit still, and mind her own afof nightmare. The five o'clock dinner kills fairs, her present host of soldiers would more half a day; and there can be no greater than suffice her needs. At this moment recommendation to the miserable English- she can put in the field five armies, each man whom a social custom has banished a hundred thousand strong; but a defensive from his own fireside and sent into a desert attitude does not please her, and so her where he is beset by all the ravenous beasts Government demand the means of putting of fatigue, ennui, discomfort, and general seven hundred thousand men in the field. disgust. Prussia, struggling to maintain her new gains, and found a real German Empire, is actually laying hands upon every effective male within her reach, moved thereto, partly by the influence of custom, chiefly by dread of a coalition. Russia is fanning the fires of insurrection all through the East, and swelling to their full limit the enor mous armies she has on foot. Even Italy, all but bankrupt, chin deep in deficits, maintains a large public force; and Belgium, although styled neutral in the language of diplomacy, feels bound to array scores of thousands more than she would need were it certain her neutrality would be respected. Austria trembles at every breath, runs forth to seek strange alliances, and spends on soldiering sums disproportioned to her means. When the cost of an armed peace is draining every exchequer, it is not surprising that capital should shrink back at the mere mention of loans. From the Economist, Sept. 7. THE COST OF AN ARMED PEACE. WHEN the British capitalist looks askance upon foreign loans and other investments, there must be some reason for a frame of mind to which he is not prone. Russia seeking money in the London market, and not finding it, is a novelty deserving explanation. That the realm of the Czar is flooded with inconvertible paper is not a sufficing, though it is a very considerable, cause of impaired credit. Perpetual deficits and promissory assets do not form attractive securities; still less when the depth of the deficit, when the exact relation between income and expenditure, is unknown. In the middle of the nineteenth century, Nevertheless, we are disposed to think that and at this height of modern civilization, the these phenomena do not alone weigh con- military peace establishment of Europe sciously or unconsciously with the men of consists of 2,800,000 men, while the war money. It is the malaise of Europe which establishment rises to the awful total of makes John Bull button up his pocket. 5,000,000. The cost of the peace array of Looking abroad from this secure island, the European States does not fall far short what does he see except a costly present of 80,000,000 annually-eight hundred and an uncertain future on all sides? The millions (an English National Debt) every flicker of myriads of bayonets, the rumble of ten years. Austria keeps on foot permathousands of gun-carriages, the roar of great nently 278,137 men, at a charge of and small arms on the "experimental 8,876,3001; Spain expends 4,200,000 upon ranges" of every land, are apt to startle 234,426 men; France maintains 404,000 credit, and gladden only the hearts of con- men under arms, and pays 14,000,000! for tractors. Europe is now one vast camp, the luxury; Italy, out of her well-drained and swarms with an expensive soldiery treasury, devotes 6,603,444/ to an army from the Ural Mountains to the capes of 222,321 strong; the peace establishment of the Atlantic and the inlets of the Mediter- North Germany cannot now fall far short of ranean. Not one nation has full confidence 300,000 men, nor the cost fall much below in the friendship-not even in the calcu- 8,000,000l. The huge Russian levy of Late friendship of any other. If there 800,000 men extracts from the national is a State in Europe which, from its posi- chest 15,250,000; while our own regulars, tion, the character of its military geography, militia, and volunteers, are maintained for the strength of its natural and artificial ob- the trifling sum of 14,569,2791. These are stacles, ought to feel the intense satisfaction the principal items in the dread account, of complete security, it is France. Com- and the smaller States complete the full bined Europe would find it almost hopeless tale. Eight nations spend on their soldiers to assail her; yet she thirsts for more soldiers, and establishments 72,000,000l. These more armaments, more fortresses, and her sums, in gross and in detail, represent the annual rate at which we insure an uncertain like agencies. Prussia wishes to consolidate peace a peace interrupted by three great her power, and both Prussia and Austria wars in fifteen years, and now in extreme desire to conciliate their people, and seem peril of a wholesale breaking up. It is a to think huge levies of men and money the charming monument of human" wisdom," best mode of accomplishing the end in view. an excellent testimony to the good govern- The French Revolution bequeathed to Govment of nations, this expenditure upon non- ernments the fatal legacy of the conscripproductive employment. But this does not tion. This ready method of raising large represent the total cost of the warlike ma- armies was speedily adopted, and one great chinery. Five States Austria, Spain, obstacle to the carrying-on of war was France, England, and Italy-employ removed, the difficulty of seizing on men. 213,887 men for sea-service, and spend up- Except in moments of national passion, no wards of seventeen millions on their navies. Government could raise and pay for huge Including Russia and the smaller States, the armies by voluntary enlistment. But now total expenditure for military and naval Prussia has shown that a strong executive purposes in Europe is not less than 100,000- need only consider the effective male pop000l per annum. The worst of it is, that ulation the limit of military enrolments. when this vast outlay has been made, Eu- While the system of conscription exists, rope is not one whit more certain of tran- all proposals for disarming are absurd dequillity, nor is any one of the several States lusions, since a State, under that system, assured that it will not have to fight for its may keep comparatively few men under life. That constitutes the "irony of the arms, and yet be able to lay its hands on situation." triple the number. No doubt there is a great deal to be said for conscription; but it is not the least effective agent in augmenting the vast charges of an armed peace. From the Economist, Sept. 7. THE MONT CENIS RAILWAY. But when we have summed up the actual cost of this array by sea and land, the total falls short of the enormous penalty levied upon the nations. Who can truly estimate the additional loss arising from the forced abstinence of two millions and a half of men in the prime and vigour of life from reproductive labour. Suppose we estimate their probable earnings, if employed, at one shilling per diem, the total loss per week of six days is no less than 750,000 or 39,000,000l per annum. To this we should add the difference between their wages and the value of their productions, and, if we only On the 21st of last month, a train comdouble it, the total exceeds the whole posed of an engine and two carriages made revenue of France. If we were to set the trial-trip over the Summit Railway of down 200,000,000 a year as the total loss Mont Cenis, from St. Michel, in Savoy, to to Europe in hard cash, and as a conse- Susa, in Piedmont, a length of forty-eight quence of compulsory abstinence from la- miles. Since George Stephenson first made bour, we should not be far wrong, especially man and wife," as he called them, of the if we include the evil effect of insecurity locomotive and the iron road in 1828, this upon enterprise. No wonder that Govern- is the greatest achievement that has been ments require loans, that nations should vegetate for want of railways, that capital should be withheld even where it abounds. Here is the French Emperor proposing an elaborate plan for the spending of 8,000,0001 upon parish roads, to be spent in ten years, and be repaid in ever so many more; yet the other day he did not hesitate to spend, it was said, 6,000,000l, but at any rate a sum of enormous magnitude, in less than ten weeks upon warlike preparations, having for their object the eviction of Prussia from Luxemburg. Russia stands as much in need of roads and railways as Spain, yet behold her expenditure on war made in the working of railways; and it is due to an English engineer, Mr. Fell, a member of the firm of Brassey, Fell, & Co. By the ingenious expedient of a central double-headed rail, placed on its side in the middle of the way, fourteen inches above the ordinary rails, and grasped by four horizontal wheels, the engine is able to work up gradients of 1 in 12, and thus to climb with ease the steepest mountains. Not only can this be done easily, but, strange as it may seem, in spite of heavy gradients and sharp curves, Mr. Fell's mountain travelling is safer than ordinary travelling. The central rail and the horizontal wheels with which the car riages as well as the engine are supplied, time. But many travellers would readly afford the means of supplying any amount sacrifice this advantage for the sake of the of break-power for checking the speed, or for glorious scenery through which the Fell Railstopping vehicles which may have become way passes. So striking is the balance of detached from the rest of the train, while considerations in favour of summit railways, they render it almost impossible for engines that, in all probability, before long others or carriages to leave the rails. On ordi- will be constructed over other Alpine nary lines of railway, a curve whose radius is twenty chains is considered a sharp one; but the radius of the smallest curves in the Summit Railway is only two chains. We could hardly have a better illustration of the great security which Mr. Fell's invention gives to railway travelling. The only regret with which we can regard so success ful an invention is that it was not applied earlier. It was in 1864 that Mr. Fell, desirous to prove its value, obtained leave from the French Government to lay down a length of about an English mile and a quarter on a portion of the Mont Cenis road, where the average gradient is 1 in 13, while on half a mile of it the curves vary from 42 to 170 yards radius. He made his trials in the presence of commissioners appointed by the Governments of England, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, and Austria, who were unanimous in favour of the mechanical possibility of his plan, and of its commercial value. There can hardly be a doubt that if this proof had been given ten years earlier, the Mont Cenis tunnel would never have been commenced. But no one, except perhaps Mr. Fell himself, imagined in those days that it would be po-sible to make a locomotive and train climb a mountain 6,700 feet above the sea with apparently impracticable curves, and with gradients of 1 in 12. passes, of which there are ten traversa- We do not, in saying this, wish to disparage so great an engineering undertaking as the tunnel unquestionably is. But when we compare its advantages and its cost in time and money with those of the Fell Railway, the balance of the former in its favour are not to be named in comparison with the balance of the latter against it. It was commenced in 1857; the most sanguine opinion gives 1870 as the date of its completion; and it will not be finished at a less cost than seven millions sterling. The Fell Railway was estimated to cost something less than one million, and it has But has Mr. Fell's ingenious invention been completed in eighteen months, in spite no interest for us at home, or are our lines of the inundations of September, 1866, the of railway already so satisfactory in all most calamitous on record, which injured, respects that his central rail and horizontal and in parts altogether swept away, twenty- wheels are to be dismissed from our considfour miles of the route. In point of dis-eration as only fit for the Continent? tance, the tunnel line will show a gain of Happy would it have been for those who six miles, and of three hours in point of have ventured their money in railway But From Fraser's Magazine. THE DEVIL'S CONFESSION. Miraculis et Visionibus sui temporis. A.D. THROUGH the tall minster windows of Cologne Floating above the sacramental shrine. Of conscience poisoned by the tooth of sin. They bent, and waited their turn of release From horrors haunting the waste soul undertakings if Mr. Fell had followed upon George Stephenson a little earlier. perhaps if he had we should have been none (From CESARIUS HEISTERBACHENSIS, De the better for him. For years he hawked his invention about in England, and has sought patronage in vain. With the name of a well-known doctor he seemed to have inherited his unpopularity, as far as his invention was concerned, though it would not be difficult for those who have endeavoured to keep him out of the field to explain why they do not like him. The grand aim of speculation of any kind, personified in engineers, contractors, promoters, is to bud and blossom into money as quickly as possible, if possible rectè, but if not, then quocunque modo. For such people, the ordinary plant is sufficient. They do not want improvements. Improvements would benefit the shareholders and the public, about whom engineers, contractors, and promoters do not care a fig. They look upon an inventor as their natural enemy, and thus far they have been able to set him at defiance. But will shareholders much longer tolerate a system of administration which has so utterly broken down that some of the most promising of our lines are bankrupt, while others are verging towards a state of bankruptcy? In the backwoods of America, where the first rude but energetic attempts at civilization are being made, and where the moral force of law is by no means so powerful as it is in longsettled communities, lawless acts are habitual. To counteract them, the natural law of self-preservation has set up what is called a "Vigilance Committee." This committee holds its sittings in secret, and its sentences are carried out in a very summary manner. Would it not be well if railway shareholders in England were to imitate this example, with the requisite modifications? We do not wish them to appoint a vigilance committee the result of Whose secret meetings would be that fraudulent contractors and self-interested directors would be found dangling from the lampposts nearest to their board-room. Short of so extreme a measure, a shareholder's vigilance committee would be of great advantage. And surely it is strange that though the railway system has now been established amongst us for nearly forty years, the only committees which have emanated from the body of shareholders have been committees of investigation, -committees appointed to bar the door when the steed has been stolen. Stood a mute stranger in a nook of gloom, And in his bonnet danced a scarlet plume. Pass to their shriving, and come forth again Of angels chanting, And found the coin marked with the im- He thought: If these from chains are sent forth free, been, Can there, oh, can there be a chance for me? And all the passages of gloom have trod, |