"Nellie," she said, smiling, "I am going to turn over a new leaf! It never shall be said of me again, that my life is idle and worthless. I have been looking quite seriously into this problem-the study of human nature, and I shudder when I think how I have trampled under my feet the pearls that God hath given me. I am determined that I will no longer be a mere butterfly of fashion. There is something more to live for, and I shall try to find it, with God's help. Nellie, I have never been very happy. Why, how you open your blue eyes! No; I never have, and I think, sometimes, that they who work for their daily bread are a great deal happier than we who roll in wealth and luxury. But our lives are mostly so hollow and vain. May Heaven help me to make something more noble of mine!" Her face lit up as she spoke, and her eyes glowed with a new and fervent light. Has it ever seemed to you that there would some time come a crisis in your life?—that a day would come when, with every nerve strung and dreaming put aside, you must go forward in the battle? I think such a time had come to her, and I know that once having put her hand to the plow she will never turn back. Years have passed; they have brought their trials with them, and they have taken their record to eternity. My friend-ah, how my heart thrills with pride and affection at the thought, she is still mine! In joy, in sorrow, in temptation, in victory, I have had her sympathy and love. Her life is grand in its duty and endeavor-but the angels know more than the world what glorious results have followed. Her pure, earnest life has left its imprint upon her countenance. More beautiful she is than in those days of careless girlhood; the lips firmer, but bearing still their olden smile. "Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband, also, and he praiseth her." And so it is that some little incident may change the course of a whole life. As I sit in this soft, summer sunshine, and look back to that other June day when we went out for a gay promenade and found that which has made our lives purer and better, I can but murmur, "To God be all the glory!" and on bended knee pray that there may come a crisis in many a life in this great city lest coming years should steal the bloom from beautiful faces, and lips sadly cry, "Oh, what a glorious record had the angels of me kept, Had I done instead of doubted, had I warred instead of wept." GARDENING FOR LADIES.-Make up your beds early in the morning; sew buttons on your husband's shirts; do not rake up any grievances; protect the young and tender branches of your family; plant a smile of good temper in your face; propagate the tendrils of affection wherever they appear; and carefully root out all angry feelings, and expect a good crop of happiness. WHICH IS THE BETTER WOMAN? I AM thinking of two women, Mrs. A. and Mrs. B.; Mrs. A. is amiable, so exceedingly sweet-tempered, that her husband, children, and neighbors unite in pronouncing her a model of excellence. She moves about the house in a quiet and lady-like manner. Every fly is excluded, every particle of dust carefully brushed from the furniture each day; her meals are always well cooked, and at regular hours; her cat is sleek and fat; her chickens know their own territory, and never cackle in the front yard. In short, Mrs. A. does in an orderly and systematic manner all she undertakes. "What a good woman!" "Oh, she is so good!" and a hundred like expressions, are heard from every one of her little circle of acquaintances. Yes, Mrs. A. is a good woman,—that is, she does no harm. She is amiable and obliging,it requires an effort for her to be otherwise. She has not the ability to do a great wrong or a great good. She avoids agitation because of the trouble it brings. The woes and wants of suffering humanity she knows nothing of; the wrongs of woman she does not feel; the chains of old customs do not annoy her. Indeed, she has no appreciation of anything beyond her own womanly sphere. Yet she is good,-so are the snail and the clam, so are the mischievous black-bird and the much-abused crow. Mrs. B. is a rough, angular, daring woman, doing with all her might whatever her hands find to do. She can laugh and weep, get angry and get pleased again. She deals unmercifully with wrong in high places, and takes to her heart and home the child of sin. In the house disorder reigns supreme; her husband has his dinner at twelve, one, or three o'clock, just as it happens. The children are chastised and petted, according to the mother's whims. Mrs. B. is considered a termagant by one half of her acquaintances. Nobody says, in speaking of her, "What a good woman!" She has been called a "a strong-minded woman," but by no other pet name. Naturally sensitive and ill-tempered, she finds a great work to do to govern herself. She tries much harder to be good than does negative Mrs. A., who inherited a mild disposition. The one makes the best preserves and jellies, is uniformly pleasant and devotional, and does few wrongs. The other's inheritance is a bad disposition; she labors to subdue it, speaks and acts from principle, when an occasion demands, even at the risk of offending people of position. Which is more deserving of commendation, Mrs. A. or Mrs. B.? L. H. K. [We should say, give us all the qualities in due proportion. We do not want all sweet, nor all tart, but a combination of both. It is a harmonious character, in which all the human qualities are properly blended, that is the best. Very few men ever render themselves worthy such a piece of wifely perfection.] MARRIAGE vs. CELIBACY. THERE is no room for doubt that the married life is higher than the celibate. Churchmen, for some reasons not easily to be comprehended by those who are not students of theology, exalt the single life, and assert that wedded happiness, as a rule, is incompatible with saintliness. St. Elizabeth of Hungary affords, however, a very sufficient reply to this objection; and the lives of the many hundreds of good women who adorn modern society confirm all that can be advanced by their admirers to the fullest extent. Yet valuable though it undoubtedly is, and high though the aims and aspirations of those who enter upon it may be, it were well that it should not be lightly undertaken. Mr. Kingsley, among some other crotchets, has a fancy that it is the duty of every man to marry as early as he possibly can. Other writers, of possibly greater authority, have taken a different view. Sir Walter Raleigh, for example, expresses an opinion that no man ought to marry before the age of thirty; "for as the younger times are unfit, either to choose or to govern a wife and family, so, if thou stay long thou shalt hardly see the education of thy children." The same view has been taken by a vast number of writers on the subject since Sir Walter's time, and it must be indorsed by every one who reflects on the condition of things in the present day. It is not until about that age that nine men in ten have learned to "know their own minds;" or, what is in some cases of even greater importance, it is not until then that they have the means of properly supporting the wife of their choice. A long engagement is not a matter for much dread. Two young people who love one another are not likely to go very far astray, provided only that their principles are sound, and that their education has been decently cared for. The pause will be well filled up if the expectant bride busies herself in acquiring a knowledge of household matters, in which, to say the truth, women in this nineteenth century of ours are sometimes lamentably deficient. But, after all, a man does not want to marry a cook or a housekeeper. He wants a wife; in which word may be summed up all the perfections of the feminine nature. In the often quoted words of Jeremy Taylor, "A good wife is Heaven's last, best gift to man; his angel and minister of graces innumerable; his gem of many virtues; his casket of jewels. Her voice is sweet music; her smiles his brightest day; her kiss the guardian of his innocence; her arms the pale of his safety, the balm of his health, the balsam of his life; her industry his surest wealth, her economy his safest steward, her lips his faithful counselors, her bosom the softest pillow of his cares, and her prayers the ablest advocate of Heaven's blessing on his head." The words of the good bishop are as true now as ever they were, and to them it is impossible to add anything which will render their teaching plainer or their spirit more impressive. EMERSON ON THE EYE. [WE have heard it said that Emerson, the philosopher, "autocrat," etc., places little reliance in signs of character as analyzed and elucidated by scientific methods. We can scarcely reconcile this rumor with certain Emersoniana which we append. The careful declarations which succeed one another are evidently the product of thought on the subject and a belief in its leading principles. Besides, he writes with the vigor of one who takes more than a passing interest in the matter.] An eye can threaten like the loaded gun, or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness can make the heart dance with joy. The eye obeys exactly the action of the mind. When a thought strikes up, the vision is fixed, and remains looking at a distance; in enumerating names of persons or countries, as France, Spain, Britain, or Germany, the eyes wink at each new name. There is an honesty in the eye which the mouth does not participate in. "The artist," as Michael Angelo said, “must have his measure in his eye." Eyes are bold as lions-bold, running, leaping. They speak all language; they need no encyclopedia to aid in the interpretation of their language; they respect neither rank nor fortune, virtue nor sex, but they go through and through you in a moment of time. You can read in the eyes of your companion, while you talk with him, whether your argument hits, though his tongue will not confess it. There is a look by which a man tells you he is going to say a good thing, and a look which says when he has said it. Vain and forgotten are all the fine offers of hospitality, if there is no holiday in the eye. How many inclinations are avowed by the eye, though the lips dissemble! How often does one come from a company in which it may easily happen he has said nothing; that no important remark has been addressed to him, and yet in his sympathy with the company he seems not to have a sense of this fact, for a stream of light has been flowing into him and out of him through his eyes. As soon as men are off their centers their eyes show it. There are eyes, to be sure, that give no more admission to the man than blue-berries. There are liquid and deep wells that a man might fall into; there are asking eyes, and asserting eyes, and prowling eyes, and eyes full of faith, and some of good and some of sinister omen. The power of eyes to charm down insanity or beasts is a power behind the eyes, that must be a victory achieved in the will before it can be suggested to the organ; but the man at peace or unity with himself would move through men and nature, commanding all things by the eye alone. The reason men don't obey us, is, that they see the mud at the bottom of our eyes. Whoever looked on the hero would consent to his will being served; he would be obeyed. EYES, BLACK AND BLUE. AN Italian poet presents the rival claims of blue eyes and black eyes in a morceau of verse, of which the following translation is furnished by "L. A. C.": In days of old, as poets write, A long and fierce dispute arose, And those which Venus' lids disclose. Black. The fairest on Olympus seen, Has eyes of night—the Cyprian Queen. I claim the eye of either hue WHAT DOES IT MEAN? THE largest-headed physician in Philadelphia wears a hat measuring eight and a half by six and a half inches. He never loses a case. We find this paragraph going the rounds of the press, and copy it because of its very pecu. liar significance. We are told in the first sentence that there is a physician (no hint as to his school) in Philadelphia whose head measures in the neighborhood of twenty-four and a quarter inches-the largest "physical" head in that city. In the second sentence we are informed that he is remarkably successful as a practitioner "never loses a case." This second sentence appears like a sequence or corollary to the first. It can not be an isolated assertion, for it is predicated of the same man who, the first sentence informs us, wears a great hat, and a very large head within it. The connection is obvious, and the logical and scientific construction or interpretation can not be otherwise than as follows: This physician has the largest head in his profession; therefore he has the most brains, the most eminence, the most success. "Brains must tell;" and they do tell in whatever line of life we find them. The menwhether they be mechanics, laborers, storekeepers, teachers, lawyers, physicians, or clergymen-who wear the biggest hats, are the leaders, the authorities in society. Of course we refer to healthy brains; not sap-heads, or beefy leather heads, or pork heads, or to burnt-out hollow heads. Large, well-formed, well-educated, healthy heads, with bodies to match, are supposed to be, all other things being equal, desirable to have. THE GERMAN LYRISTS. -0 UNDER this title we group five eminent poets, all cotemporaries, with the exception of Gellert, who died, however, fully ten years after the birth of Schiller. Their names are comparatively little known to Americans at large; but in Germany they occupy an elevated niche in the popular estimation. The greater part of their compositions consists of songs, ballads, romances, and dramas of character in unison with the sentiments of the masses. The various phases of political and social life among the Germans are photographed in their lyrics with such naturalness that it is not surprising that they continue to stir the national heart. Of the five composing the group, Schiller and Heine are the most familiar to the cultivated class of America, the former taking rank with the foremost lyric poets of modern times, and the greater part of his writings have been translated into English and made a part of our general literature. Let us glean a little from the history of each. SCHILLER. Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, one of the grandest dramatic minds of Germany, was born at Marbach, in Wurtemberg,¦ November 11th, 1759. His father superintended the gardens attached to the country residence of the Duke of Wurtemberg, and was favorably looked upon by the Duke. Schiller very early inclined to the study of theology, a sentiment awakened doubtless by the parish priest, from whom he received his first instruction; but when about fourteen the Duke offered to educate him gratuitously at the military academy he had established. Young Schiller accepted the offer, and entered upon a course of study which he found rigorous and uncongenial. He first tried the study of law, but with no success; and then medicine. He secretly cherished a longing for literature, especially poetry, and read and wrote as he had opportunity in the course of his regular studies. His Die Räubor (The Robbers) is the earliest surviving product of his pen. Published in 1780, it excited great enthusiasm among the young, and considerable indignation among functionaries and dignitaries, whom it treated with ridicule. In 1782 this drama was brought upon the stage at Mannheim, clandestinely, and occasioned the arrest of Schiller for thus disregarding the command of his superiors, not to meddle with poetry. He was so harshly dealt with that he fled from the Duke's control into Franconia, and lived there a year under an assumed name. Here he completed two dramas, and then returned to Mannheim, where he associated intimately with stage life. In 1785, Schiller left Mannheim for Leipsic, where he became acquainted with Huber and Korner, and wrote his charming Lied an die Freude. A few months only detained him in Leipsic, for we find him soon in Dresden, where his romance of" The Ghost-Seer" was composed. In 1787, Weimar became his place of residence, where he enjoyed the friendship of Goethe, Herder, and Wieland. The society of Goethe proved of great value to Schiller's literary life subsequently; for his writings at Weimar took a higher and nobler form than before. His productions there are of a philosophical and esthetical character, and rank high among standard GerPromiman literature. nent among them is his PORTRAITS OF THE GERMAN LYRISTS. "History of the Thirty Years' War," completed in 1793. Schiller's greatest work is the drama "William Tell," produced in 1804. He was a close, assiduous student, and exhausted the powers of a constitution naturally delicate while yet comparatively young. He died May 9th, 1805, aged forty-six years. His portrait shows a strong mental temperament and much susceptibility, both as regards intellect and sentiment, and, at the same time, he possessed an earnest individuality which ill brooked restraint. He was intense as a thinker, yet versatile and sprightly as a writer, capable of addressing the feelings of his readers and stirring their souls. In person, Schiller was tall and spare, with a pale face, a high and impressive forehead, and hair inclined to auburn. CHAMISSO. Louis Charles Adelbert von Chamisso was born at Boncourt, in Champagne, France, Jan. 27, 1781. His parents settled in Berlin when he was about nine years old, and six years afterward he was appointed a page to the Prussian queen. In 1798, a lieutenancy in the army was given him. The wars undertaken by Napoleon, placing Prussia in the coalition against France, Chamisso felt that he could not take up arms against his native country, so he returned to France in 1806, where, being advised to that course by Madame de Stael, with whom he became acquainted, he studied natural history. Subsequently he returned to Berlin, and there continued his scientific researches. In 1814, Chamisso joined an exploring expedition gotten up by Count Rumjanzow, chancellor of the Russian empire, with the view to finding a northeast passage. On his return to Berlin he was appointed to a position in the Botanical Gardens. He prepared several works on botanical subjects, but his fame chiefly rests on his poetical compositions. In 1813 he wrote the singular and amusing novel called "Peter Schlemihl," a man who is represented as having lost his shadow. One of his most known poems is Salas y Gomez. He is also the author of many songs, ballads, romances of a national and political character, which are highly esteemed in continental Europe. The nature of his poetry is wild, rugged, and eccentric. The small portrait indicates a fine order of mentality, with a strong will and an earnest. individuality incorporated. He was doubtless handsome in his youth and somewhat chivalric. His death occurred August 21st, 1838. GELLERT. Christian Furchtegott Gellert, a rhetorician, poet, and moralist, was born at Hayrichen, in the Erzebirge, in Saxony, July 4, 1715. Being the son of a preacher, his attention, while a youth, was naturally directed to theological studies, and he entered the University of Leipsic in 1734 to prosecute them. At Leipsic, however, he became a teacher and a professor. His lectures on poetry, rhetoric, and morals drew large audiences. Goethe in his youth attended Gellert's lectures. Gellert was not a robust, vigorous writer, but rather delicate and womanish. He wrote fables, stories, didactic poems, spiritual songs and odes; his fables and stories became the most popular. To him, as much as to any writer of his age, is due the transition in German literature from its early heaviness and pedantry to that vigor and sprightliness so marked in Goethe and Schiller. His Leben (Life) is one of his more important works. Gellert was a man of quiet disposition and the most earnest piety. His spiritual odes breathe an ardent religious spirit, which contrasts strongly with the liberal philosophy of later writers. UHLAND. Johann Ludwig Uhland, poet, was born at Tubingen on the 26th of April, 1787, and educated at the University of his native place. He applied himself to legal studies, and after becoming an advocate received the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1810. In 1830 he was made Extraordinary Professor of the German Language and Literature in the University where he had passed his student life, but resigned in 1833. For many years he was a representative in the Assembly of Wurtemberg. For several years he continued to publish ballads and other lyrics in various periodicals. These efforts made him immensely popular. As a poet, he is remarkable for spirit and naturalness as well as for a winning romantic sweetness. Several of his poems have been translated by Longfellow. He stands at the head of the Schwabian school of poetry. His chief works are, Ueber den Mythus der nordischen Sagenlehre von Thor (1836), and a collection of popular songs. Alter hoch-und niederdeutscher Volkslieder (1844-5), besides some dramas. From 1848 he remained in retirement, and died on the 14th of August, 1864. From the portrait of Uhland it would be inferred that he possessed a forcible, individual character, with a very strong infusion of the elements of kindness, sympathy, and concession. He was doubtless a superior judge of human nature. HEINE. Heinrich Heine, distinguished as a poet and wit, was born at Dusseldorf on the 1st of January, 1800, of Jewish parents. His first poem was written on the occasion of Napoleon's visit to Dusseldorf in 1810. He attended the Lyceum of Dusseldorf, and in 1815 was sent to Frankfort-on-the-Main to qualify himself for mercantile life. In 1819 he studied in Bonn University; in 1820 he went to Gottingen, where five years later he received the degree of Doctor of Laws. His early poems are singularly affected by a sorrow of his early life, his disappointed love for his cousin Evelina von Geldern. In 1831, because of his violent democratic sentiments and publications, Heine became obnoxious to the Prussian Government, and went to Paris, where he acquired the reputation of being the wittiest writer in France since Voltaire. His public bitterness and literary cruelties, it is said, were in strange contrast with his personal good qualities. He died on the 17th of February, 1856, when, by his own request, all religious rites were omitted at his funeral. His life is a difficult one to understand: "The bold infidelity, the reckless licentiousness, and the un qualified faith in the world and the flesh which characterized Heine's life as well as his writings, were counterbalanced by such sincere belief in his own doctrines, such sympathy for suffering, and such acute perception of the beautiful in every form, that it is difficult for those unfamiliar with the social development of modern continental European life and literature to appreciate his true nature or position. In his later years Heine returned from unbounded skepticism, if not to an evangelical faith, at least to theism, the Bible being constantly read by him, and appearing to him, as he said, like a suddenly discovered treasure." * * * Of his writings, we should notice "Pictures of Travel" and "The Book of Songs," which were received by the German people with almost unbounded enthusiasm, and have been translated into different languages. The great intellectual forces of Heine as evinced in the small profile, mark the man of intense original and accurate thinking. On Physiology. A knowledge of the structure and functions of the human body should guide us in all our investigations of the various phenomena of life.--Cabanis, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.-Hosea iv, 6. RECREATION vs. STIMULATION. FOR THE CLERGY, AND OTHERS. ["THE world moves." Here is the evidence. The Examiner and Chronicle, one of the best of our religious weeklies, is coming over on to our ground and preaching the gospel of science and common sense, as well as that of the Scriptures. Here is an article taken from that paper. We commend it to all "nervous" men, and especially to all women. It is the truth.] The principle we desire to impress upon our readers will be best illustrated by an example. We have the privilege of knowing one of the ablest, hardest working, and most efficient young ministers in the land, and one who, though but a few years in the harness, has already made his name widely familiar. Of a somewhat delicate nervous organization, this young brother at one time found that while his easy sociability and general talent for congeniality (a rare but real thing) enabled him to perform his pastoral duties without sensible fatigue, the excitement of Sunday's preaching and the weekly lecture always left him weak, nerveless, used up. In this condition he found it exceedingly grateful to go, after evening service, and quietly drink a cup of tea; it refreshed him, reinvigorated him, and made him feel bright. Yet, for some reason, he did not sleep readily; and when he did sleep, his slumber was fitful, uneasy, and the morning found him not much rested-while month after month his nervous sensibility increased, his preaching fatigues were constant, and his tea his only physical help. But by the judicious advice of a wise friend he suddenly resolved to forego the very thing he had so leaned upon, and instead of refreshing himself with tea and society, he betook himself to quietude and sleep. After a short time of struggle against the habit and craving which he had unconsciously formed, he accustomed himself to find-not a stimulant, with temporary excitement and subsequent reaction, leaving him always lower and lower in tone-but healthful, restful, recuperative sleep. His health was gradually restored, his general system strengthened, his faintness disappeared, and by pursuing a course of restoration instead of a mere spurring-up of exhausted nature, he has found the secret of making hard work an element of growth instead of decay. Now, the application of the above-mentioned incident is plain enough, to a certain extent; but we wish to make it a little wider. Tea is not the only stimulant that professional men, including ministers, think they find themselves in need of. The use of alcoholic drinks, bitters, tonics, and a thousand-and-one things which disguise the strong spirit under specious names -the habit which for some years past had faded away under the hot denunciations of the great temperance reform and reaction, is now again steadily and swiftly raising its head and spreading its deadly shade over the land. Undoubtedly, the war has had a great deal to do with this: the custom of taking such stimulants after the fatigues of march, battle, or hospital work being one easily fallen into and readily retained. But whatever the cause, the fact is not to be denied, that the reign of wines and liquors is again advancing. Yet it is a sad mistake to suppose that alcohol in any shape is beneficial to the interior economy of man's body. It is supposed to assist digestion, to brace men up, to cool them when hot, to warm them when cold, to do all manner of marvelous things. This is not so. Alcohol is one of the few things that resist all attempts of the body to assimilation. It leaves the body in almost precisely the same condition as it enters it, having on its passage done nothing but inflamed the blood, excited the various functions to unnatural and furious action, stimulated combustion, weakened the brain and nerves, sapped the muscular strength, and done much mischief generally. Physicians who recommend a little whisky, or wine, or other tonic, are responsible for thousands of drunkards not only, but also for enfeebled bodies, which-when the souls that inhabit them pass into some sudden reverse of affliction or disaster, and need their sustaining power the most-are seen to be undermined and worthless. Our inebriate and lunatic asylums keep some dreadful secrets, but the graves of wrecked and disappointed men hold more. The warning is terrible, but the remedy is very simple. Never stimulate: restore. If body and brain are weary with continued effort, seek a brief change of scene, a short exercise of mental and physical powers in some new line, and produce the relief which the archer always gives his bow-unstring, and bend in the other direction. Then rest, and kind nature will care for the remainder. The recuperative power of the body, when it really has a fair chance, is the thing that men always | seem to doubt; and yet year after year finds. that profession which lives by healing more and more discarding the doctrines of forcing nature by the large application of drugs and poisonous medicines. The first result of stimulants is deceptive and apparently helpful; but the last state of the man who uses them is always worse than the first. Nature's laws are such that she is able to recreate as long as her laws are faithfully obeyed. When wearied, seek, then, instead of the false and treacherous aid of stimulants—causing invariable reaction-the wholesome, simple inexpensive cure of Nature. Find health and happiness in that process which is so pleas ant that its very name has come to be the bol of enjoyment-Recreation. sym FOOD MAKES THE MAN. Most people who raise animals believe that the kind and amount of food given them makes a great difference in their growth and quality. In the American Institute Farmers' Club the question of the best food for cows, with a view to the richness of their milk, and the consequent quantity and quality of the butter, came up for discussion, in the course of which one gentleman remarked that though some cows gave twice as rich milk as others, "the food had little to do with it." [We remember that the second day after commencing to give a cow a pint of meal a day, the good woman discovered the cream was twice as thick as before. So the better the food the more and better the cream.] Dr. Hallock, in the course of the discussion referred to, remarked that, " To produce a refined and acute mentality on poor food is impossible. Nature refuses to honor the draft. A few years ago I was connected with the removal of a grave-yard in a rough country, where the labor required to support life from the soil was very great. The bones of the bodies were immense, showing that they had received their development in the struggle for subsistence; but the crania were small, and by holding a candle on the outside and looking in, the light showed a thin place at the base of the skull, where there had been full activity in the devotion required to preserve animal life. In the region of the intellectual and higher qualities all was dark. That gospel written long before, still was read, showing indispu tably that the nature of the soil and the habits of the people will be indicated in their anatomy. Afterward, when the country was improved, and there were manufactures, and when wealth had accumulated, by which means bread was secured with less effort, I had an opportunity to examine the skulls of later generations, when I found that the bones of the body were much smaller and the crania one third larger. Here, on holding a candle and looking in, it was dark at the base of the skull, and light glimmered in the region of the intellectual and moral faculties. The anatomy of man requires the best that the two kingdoms of the animal and vegetable can produce: the choicest of fruit and the very best of meat. He can rise high above the soil on which he stands." TOBACCO vs. BALD HEADS AND GRAY HAIR. D. B. HOFFMAN, M.D., a Californian physician, writes, and the Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal publishes, the following very sensible article: While traveling over the State recently, I noticed almost invariably in every place that I passed through or sojourned in, that a large proportion of the male population, who otherwise appeared to be, and in fact were, young, were either bald-headed or gray-haired. I also noticed that this was not the case with the other sex of the same age. In answer to the question, Why is it that there are so many grayhaired young men in California, I was told by some, perhaps a majority, that it was in consequence of the dry and hot state of the atmosphere; by others, the brain-labor that it took to get along successfully here; others said it was lime in the drinking water, and so on ad infinitum. On looking around I could not see that any of these were good physiological reasons. If they were, both sexes should be affected alike, as they are both exposed to the same causes, While reflecting over this matter, a very singular circumstance occurred in my practice. A gentleman under forty years of age, and a patient of mine, who had been in the habit of using tobacco to excess for many years, and who had been for the last five or six years both bald-headed and gray-haired, found it necessary a few months ago to quit the use of tobacco entirely. It was, of course, a hard struggle at first; for it makes no difference how firm a man may be, if he once becomes a slave to tobacco, whisky, or opium, it is hard, very hard work for him to recover his liberty, to be able to say "I have conquered;" and very few succeed in doing it. However, he finally did it, and since that time has become a changed man in more than one respect. In the first place, he has entirely recovered his health, which was bad while he used tobacco; he also has recovered entirely from his baldness, and his "gray locks" have been replaced by an unusually luxuriant growth of natural hair, of as fine a black hue as one could wish to see; he has also lost that sallow, bees-wax hue of skin and sickly paleness of color which "slaves to the weed" so generally have. All of this might be expected as a very natural result, except the growth of hair and its change of color, which in this case at least has occurred as one of the results of leaving off a noxious habit. The question now occurs, Is this the cause of the prevalence of bald heads and gray hairs on so many men under forty years of age in California? Let us inquire. Tobacco is a sedative narcotic. When used to excess it produces numerous untoward symptoms, among which are debility of the nervous and circulatory functions. On these depend the growth of all animal organisms. If these functions are impaired, so is the growth of the body, and all belonging to it. The hair is only a modification of the epidermis, and consists essentially of the same structure as that membrane. It has root, shaft, and point, and, like all other organs of the body, requires for a natural, healthy, and vigorous growth a healthy state of the nervous and circulatory systems. If tobacco impedes the circulation, and prevents the free and natural supply of healthy nourishment reaching its destination, which it evidently does, it is a cause which results in disease and death of the hair. The yellow and waxy state of the skin, always found in those who use tobacco to excess, is easily accounted for in the same way. The debility which it causes in the nervous and circulatory functions prevents then the organs from being duly nourished, thereby causing their disease and death. If these views should prove correct after further examination, and it becomes generally know to "slaves to the weed" that their gray hairs and bald heads are caused by it, what great baskets full of deep and damning curses will be showered down on the devoted heads of Nicot and Raleigh for introducing and causing to be used this terrible destroyer of health, youth, beauty, wealth, and fame! [We believe that further observation and experience will prove the correctness of Dr. Hoffman's statements. Let the subject be thoroughly ventilated. There of course will be great opposition manifested. Millions of men and millions of money are invested in the tobacco interest. Many will "pooh pooh" and 'puff puff" against this coming man. But he will be backed by fact, philosophy, and nearly all the women. Tobacco makes men bantams, stunts the boys, so that they become only half-grown men. It makes those who use it, prematurely old in mind as well as in body. It paves the way for strong drink and games of chance, excites the passions, and so tends to the perversion of a whole nature.] A MAN FRIGHTENED TO DEATH BY A VISION. A STRANGE and surprising incident occurred last week, in the country some miles north of Corinth. A Mr. Mangrum killed a young man during the war, and a few days since Mr. Mangrum was on a deer drive, and while at one of the stands he saw an object approaching him which so alarmed him that he raised his gun and fired at it. The object, which resembled a man covered with a sheet, continued to advance upon Mr. Mangrum, when he drew his pistols and emptied all his barrels at the ghost. None of the shots seeming to take effect, he climbed a tree to make his escape. By the time he was a short distance up the tree the white object was standing under him, with its eyes fixed upon him, and he declared it was the spirit of the young man whom he had killed. Mangrum was so startled at the steady gaze of the eye that he had been the cause of laying cold in death, that he fainted and fell from the tree. His friends carried him home, the ghost following, and standing before him constantly, the sight of which brought up the recollection of his guilt with such force to his mind, that he died in great agony, after two or three days' suffering. A subscriber sends us the above, and desires us to account for it on scientific principles. We have two theories. The first is, the poor fellow felt the force of that old saying, "A guilty conscience needs no accuser," and that he was simply getting his deserts—justice. The second theory is,-supposing the habits of the man to be those of his class or clan,that he was suffering from the effects of an excited imagination produced by a too copious use of a popular liquid designated by apothecaries and tavern keepers as-Bourbon. The effects of this medicinal" beverage-always injurious-upon one's nervous system is to produce a state of insanity terminating in delirium tremens. This Mississippi man is not the first thus afflicted. There are a great many in New York who "see ghosts" every night; but the poor creatures do not know that it is because they drink, smoke, or chew. A RESURRECTION PLANT.-A very curious plant, called the resurrection plant, is now offered for sale at New York, at from twentyfive to thirty cents. As seen in the baskets of the venders, it resembles a small bunch of brown and curled-up leaves, as it were, curled in upon itself, with a few thread-like roots at the bottom. These plants are brought from the southern part of Mexico. During the rainy season they flourish luxuriantly, but when the dry weather and hot sun scorch the earth, they, too, dry and curl up, and blow about at the mercy of the wind. To all appearances they are as dead as the "brown and sere leaf," but as soon as the rain comes again, the roots suck up the water, the leaves unfold and assume a beautiful emerald-green appearance. No matter where the plant may be, on a rock, a tree, or a house-top, wherever the winds have blown it, there it rests, and being a true temperance plant, it only asks for water, and at once bursts into new life. Having purchased one of these tufts, and placed it in a soup-plate filled with water, the reader will be surprised to see it gradually unfold and take on a deep green. The leaves are arranged spirally, and altogether, the resurrection plant is the latest curiosity. SAW HIS NOSE.-" Well," said a carpenter, "of all the saws I ever saw, I never saw a saw saw as that saw saws." He probably is a cousin to the man who knows his nose. "He knows his nose; I know he knows his nose; he said he knew his nose; and if he said I knew he knew his nose, of course he knows I know he knows his nose." |