directed her to the office for lost packages, and as she turned to go, I caught a glimpse of our perambulating monitor, trying his best to look lamb-like and unconcerned, but his evident struggle betrayed him.

The afternoon of Thursdays is usually the maid-servants' weekly outing time, when they throng the dry goods stores, with their scanty means, and insist upon a very general inspection of the entire stock. If it were not amusing to observe their bungling efforts at gentility, the half day would be void of any enlivening feature.

I have made no allusion to Walter, my steadfast friend, for a considerable time, but it is not because we have not met after the old fashion, and spent many a profitable evening together, with some of the best authors for company. One of our late guests was Dr. Samuel Johnson, who entertained us with his Rasselas, whose opening leaves are said to embrace the very perfection of English composition; but I must confess I did not fully appreciate the descent from Happy Valley to the Sorrows of Werther, the love-lorn hero, who was weak enough to break his heart over another man's wife. Such a sentiment is only fit for idiots. There is no romance in it, and no common sense, and I told Walter plain enough that I didn't care if the story was a classic, and the very finest ever written, the sentiment was abominable, and that if he was silly enough to put himself in Werther's place, I wasn't disposed to play the part of another man's wife. At this Walter laughed outright, and without releasing my hand declared that it was the very last thing he could ever wish, that I should ever be another man's wife. Do you think he meant anything serious by that? PAULINE.

DRAUGHTS AND DEATHS.

Many old people, as well as persons in middle life, are subject to rheumatism, a species of pain or disease, which, like the toothache, meets with little general sympathy, because it is not frequently immediately fatal in its attacks. In the case of many who belong to professions where exposure to atmospheric changes from heat to cold, and dry to wet, necessarily takes place, it is almost impossible to prevent rheumatism occasionally taking effect; but in not a few instances this painful malady might be avoided, simply by being a little more careful of our persons.

There are some people, who, because they are stout and healthy, and have good appetites, and have hardly ever been ill all their days, think

that they may do anything with themselves, and therefore cherish the dangerous idea that "they will not kill." Whenever we see people of this description, we are afraid of them. We know, from experience, that it is they who have the chance of being cut off first among our acquaintances, and so look upon them as persons, who, braving death at every corner, will some day soon be numbered with the dead.

On the other hand, we have never any fears for the man who is always complaining of something trifling being the matter with him; for we know that he takes good care of himself, and, like a creaking hinge, he will endure a great deal before he parts with existence. People of this sort are dreadfully jealous of an open window, or a broken pane of glass, or a door standing ajar, and well they may, for it is at these holes that rheumatisms, colds, coughs, consumptions, and deaths, get admittance and surprise the inmates. There may be often something ludicrous in the fears excited by seeing the openings in windows and doors which we mention; but we would advise all who prefer good to bad health, and a warm bed to a place in the churchyard, to submit to any kind of ridicule, rather than sit down in a room, a church, a coach, or any other place in which there is a draught of air playing about, and seeking whom it may devour. If they be wise, they will either see the opening which causes the said draught, closed, or at once make good their retreat. Better to leave the company, and all its fascinations, sound in lith and limb, than have the chance of retiring with at least a rheumatic pain in the shoulder, which sticks to you for years, and seems as if you were perpetually enduring the cut of an axe or the boring of an awl in your flesh and bones.

We are convinced that many young persons literally kill themselves out of mere carelessness and bravado. We have a distinct remembrance of a fine, tall, stout, gentlemanly man of our acquaintance, thus committing a suicide, He measured six feet, three inches in height, was well built in body; and when he shook any one by the hand, it was like the grip of a vice. He was a true Hercules in frame; and on looking at him as he paced along the pavement with graceful ease and stateliness, you would have been inclined to say, there goes a man who will live many years: death will find it no easy matter to bring him down. Such a fallacy! We saw him one fine sunshiny day walking on Prince's street, and none could be compared with him in point of appearance; people turned about and looked at him as he passed. Six days elapsed, and he was lying in his grave. Some busi

ness or pleasure had called him a short distance into the country. In coming back, he had inissed the stage which he expected would convey him back to town. But this was no disappointment; he was fond of a journey on foot; what was a few miles to him? So he walked home, and overheated himself; took off his shoes and sat for a few minutes in a draught before an open window. In an instant of time he caught his death. A short cough: a creeping cold all over the body: inflammation in the breast, or lungs-it is all one: the doctor: bleeding: high fever death: the undertaker : funeral letters and the churchyard. Such was the routine of destruction in the case of perhaps the handsomest man that ever walked on the streets of Edinburgh. Will his example serve as a warning?

We are ever complaining of being affected with colds, and coughs, and rheumatisms, and other diseases, yet we seem to take little care in preventing their intrusion. One-half of the deaths which occur are brought about by our own follies, or our own carelessness. Because we are well, we think we shall never be ill. We go out to evening parties without great coats, or cloaks, or something warm to wrap around our mouths and necks in coming home. We come out of theatres heated to the suffocating height of eighty and ninety degrees, and plunge into an atmosphere almost at the freezing point, and that without a fear of the consequences. We are also criminally careless about the state of our feet. We walk about in wet weather, and come home with damp shoes or boots-will not be at the least pains to change them for others which are dry and comfortable. Of course, colds and coughs ensue; perhaps, also, we procure ourselves some smart twinges in the stomach, and administering a dram by way of antidote, probably hasten an incipient inflammation to its crisis. There is not one of our readers who cannot recall instances of deaths among his acquaintances, caused in this or a similar manner.-William Chambers.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES.

The nature of the infectious diseases, chief of which are Asiatic cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, typhus fever, typhoid fever, and others, are not generally understood by those who so much dread them. While cholera and yellow fever, when they break out in an epidemic, are the most virulent and deadly for a time, they do not on the average cause as many deaths as diphtheria, which stands at the head of infectious diseases for its fatality.

This disease is especially fatal to children, and is one of the most difficult to prevent from spreading. This disease is carried around easily in clothes, food and air, and its spread is very difficult to stop. It will even spread from corpses, and from burial places where the bodies have not been properly interred.

Next to this disease, typhoid fever stands as the most fatal, and as a rule half as many die from this annually as from diphtheria.

Typhoid is not so infectious, but it is very deadly in its attack. It is communicated more through food and drinking water. Scarlet fever stands pretty close to typhoid fever in its fatality, and their relative death rate is about four to five, In this disease, as well as diphtheria, typhus fever and smallpox, funerals in a church should never be permitted, as this will frequently spread the disease rapidly. The whooping cough comes next in its deadliness, followed closely by measles. Smallpox is really a very rare disease, owing to prevention by vaccination. Its relative death rate is extremely small compared with the other diseases.

Of late, consumption has been placed among infectious diseases, and the death rate from this disease is one and a half times greater than from diphtheria, more than three times as great as typhoid, over four times as great as scarlet fever, ten times as great as whooping cough, thirteen times as great as measles, and thirty-five times as great as smallpox, or nearly equal to all of the other diseases combined.

COLD BATHING.

Cold bathing in the early morning is beneficial only to those persons who have sufficient vital energy and nervous force to insure good reaction with no subsequent languor or lassitude. Many persons who are greatly refreshed by their morning bath feel tired or languid two or three hours after it. When this occurs it is conclusive evidence against the practice. Persons who have an abundance of blood and flesh, who are lymphatic or sluggish in temperament, and whose nervous force is not depleted, can take the cold morning bath to advantage. Others who are inclined to be thin in flesh, whose hands and feet become cold and clammy on slight provocation, who digest food slowly, and assimilate it with difficulty, who are nervous and who carry large mental burdens, should avoid early morning bathing. For all such the bath at noonday or before retiring at night is far more desirable, and it should be followed

by rest of body and brain till equable conditions of circulation are re-established. Some individuals who are weak in nervous power have such excitable peripheral nerves that they get at once a perfect reaction from cold bathing, but lose in after effects more than the value of the bath. This class of persons should not bathe too often, and should always use tepid water, choosing the time preferably before retiring.

WHOOPING COUGH.

This is a disease more for the mother's care than for that of the doctor. Indeed, the latter can do little. The worst part of it is, that for about two weeks you are quite unsuspicious of the fact that it has a hold upon your child, it is so like an ordinary cold. Vapo-cresoline, burned at night and during the day, if the attack is a severe one, and rubbing the chest with Roche's embrocation, are the most potent remedies. Let the diet be light, giving no meat. The severe spasms of coughing, that sometimes result in such a serious matter as rupture, may be largely ameliorated if the child is old enough to be reasoned with. Endeavor to impress upon him the necessity of self control and of expectorating the phlegm raised. The spasms will not be so severe or last so long with a child thus taught self control as with one who is of a nervous, hysterical temperament, who is allowed to give way to his feelings and become frightened with each fit of coughing.

HOT MILK AS A STIMULANT.

No one who, fatigued by over exertion of body and mind, has ever experienced the reviving influence of a tumbler of this beverage, heated as hot as it can be sipped, will willingly forego a resort to it because of its being rendered somewhat less acceptable to the palate. The promptness with which its cordial influence is felt is indeed surprising. Some portion of it seems to be digested and appropriated almost immediately, and many who now fancy they need alcoholic stimulants when exhausted by fatigue, will find in this simple draught an equivalent that will be abundantly satisfying, and far more enduring in its effects.

SHELL-FISH FOR INVALIDS.

Some of the different varieties of shell-fish are considered choice articles of food. They have a nutritive value a little less and somewhat