egg. cu from having heard the cuckoo repeat its cry just so many times, concluded that it was needless for him to pass so long a period in mortification, and resolved to return and lead a jolly life for twenty years, thinking the remaining two quite enough for penitence. From the regularity of the time of his appearance, the cuckoo is probably the bird designated zitvogel in an old proverb, in accordance with the passage of Pliny, Cantus alitis temporarii quem culum vocant.' It is said that he never cries before the 3rd of April, and never after the festival of St. John. But he cannot cry before he has devoured a bird's If you have money in your purse when he first cries, all will go well during the year; and if you were fasting, you will be hungry the whole year. The Slavonians do not attribute anything bad or devilish to this bird, which they alZezhulice, ways represent as a female. sitting on an oak, bewails the transitoriness of spring. The Servian kukavitza was a maiden who long bewailed her brother's death, until she was changed into the bird, 'Sinja kukavitza' (the gray): so also in Russian songs it is a bird of mourning and melancholy; and Russian traditions speak of her as a young maiden changed by an enchantress."-Annals and Magazine of Natural History. The Gatherer. Birth-place of Erasmus.-A house in Rotterdam claims to be that in which Erasmus was born, and exhibits the following inscription in Latin: "This is the small house in which the great Erasmus was born. Go Railway Reform.-A reform in the railway system is loudly called for. It must, however, be admitted, that we hear of but few fatal accidents on them now, in comparison with the number forced on our attention twe or three years ago. Mr. Galt read, on this subject, last week, at the Society of Arts, in which we find it estimated that the total value of all the railwap property in the United Kingdom is £93,000,000; and the price at which it could be purchased would pay £4 7s. per cent. vernment could borrow money at little more than £3 per cent., and it is, therefore, contended there would be a clear profit of £1,150,000, per annum, to meet the loss by the reduction of charges. The following are among the advantages to be derived from Mr. Galt's plan:-1. A reduction of charges on transit by railways of £80 per cent.; 2. A reduction in the prices of the necessaries of life; 3. A saving to the public of £5,000,000 sterling in direct taxation; 4. That of enabling the government to carry out Mr. Rowland Hill's plan of Post Office reform to its fullest extent; 5. The advantage to the poorest class of people of being enabled to travel by railway owing to the reduced fares (as in Belgium). Strange Opiates.-The power of habit has been seldom more strikingly illustrated than by Mr. Kendall, in the following sentences:-"From the 15th of September to the 21st of April," he says, "I had been a prisoner-I had performed a toilsome and painful march exceeding two thousand miles-I had seen my comrades inhumanly butchered around me, had seen them die from exposure, from hardship, and from sickness-I had passed through an endless variety of scenes the most exciting; yet, all this time I had slept well, except when illness or severe inclemency of weather prevented it. Now I had liberty and every comfort at my command, but sleep would not visit my eyelids. The very quiet around me, instead of being a provocative of slumber, seemed to keep me awake. I missed the hard stone or earthern floors, the knowledge that comrades were strewn close around me, the clanking of chainsthe very groans of the unfortunate lazarinos were wanting. I missed, too, the eternal cries of our guard-the 'ventinela alertar the quien vive?' and 'que gente!" which had rung in our ears until the grating sounds had fairly become so many lullabies." Genuine Port Wine.-Port wine is adulterated at Oporto to an extent scarcely credible-that what is called "rich wine" receives from twenty to twenty-five gallons per pipe of brandy! and from six to eighteen gallons of Jernpiga, a compound of elderberry juice, brown sugar, and unfermented grape juice.-A word or two on Port Wine. March of Language.-Villain meant, originally, a country fellow; and knave, harlot, and varlet, were simply designations of serving-men. CORRESPONDENTS. "B." Mr. Page's Embankment of the Thames will be without doubt a work of national importance. The article shall appear in our next, with an explanatory illustration and a sketch of the New Palace at Westminster. "Y. Z.'s" wish, we are sorry to say, cannot be complied with. "Alpha's" communications never reached us. All communications should be sent to the Mirror Office, 2, Tavistock street, Covent-garden. "D." It is our intention to give an account of the ancient buildings and public resorts in and near London. Information respecting them will be received with thanks. LONDON Printed and Published by AIRD and BURSTALL, 2, Tavistock street, Covent-garden; and sold by all Booksellers and Newsmen. 6. Proposed Embankment, with Gardens, Queen's Landing, &c. AAA, &c., Flood Gates for retaining the water within the side channel if required and for cleaning the shores, and over these Gates, Lever Bridges to be provided for the passage of sailing barges at certain hours. All the sewers to be continued to the outside of the Terrace, and there discharged at low water mark. BBB, &c., Floating Landing Piers for Steamers. 66 Original Communications. health, or to pleasant recreation. The great THE EMBANKMENT OF THE THAMES. THE English are so very practical that they rarely go out of their way to prevent, but only to cure. For centuries the good people of London have been complaining of certain nuisances and dangerous encroachments on the banks and in the bed of the Thames, and report after report of various public bodies has urged that" something should be done." It now appears that if something" be longer delayed, Westminster Bridge, and perhaps Somerset House, may some fine morning find themselves slipping from their foundations into the river; and so we must at length do that which, if effected in due time, would have saved much money, and not a little inconvenience. The great ancient embankments of the Thames, and other large rivers of England, which have stood the brunt of wind and wave for hundreds of years, were the work of the Romans and the ancient Britons, whose engineers were appointed to attend to that department which modern legislation has delegated to the respectable fishmongers and other members of the London Corporation. For it must always be remembered that, unlike the soldiers of these days, the warriors of Rome "never laid down the javelin and the sword, but to take up the spade and the pickaxe." They made war upon all obstacles which nature cast in the way of art and physical improvement. In the year 1842, Mr. James Walker, one of the most accomplished of modern civil engineers, furnished a report to the Navigation and Port of London Committee, in which the importance and absolute necessity of a more efficient conservancy of the Thames was ably set forth. It is there affirmed that the subject is full of momentous interest," whether considered in reference to the commerce and shipping of London, with its extensive docks, and the country around and above it, or as the great drain of a very extensive district, calculated at about 6,000 square miles, including the first city in the world; and therefore affecting the health, wealth, and comfort of millions of human beings." The modern embankments, or rather encroachments, on the Thames, have been constructed on the "voluntary principle;" that is, to suit the interests and convenience of sundry individuals who happen to make soap, or to deal in salt fish, or coals, or potatoes, at various localities on the banks. The consequence has been almost unmitigated evil to the general interests of the millions of London's citizens who unhappily have been supposed to possess no vested claim to fresh air, to the means of fire of 1666 mercifully destroyed many of the abounding nuisances and eyesores of old London, and afforded an opportunity for a recast; and as respects the subject under review, Sir Christopher Wren ac tually submitted a plan for a continuous quay or "forty-foot way," to form which an act of parliament was passed. But spite of all acts, encroachment succeeded encroachment, until the act to prevent encroachment was repealed in 1821. In 1767, an embankment at right angles to London Bridge was erected from Paul's Wharf to Temple Gardens; and towards the end of that century, the embankments at the Adelphi, and those pertaining to the various docks below London Bridge, were constructed. These solid embankments, all of unequal breadth, and unequally affecting the width of the Thames, abstracted much of the tidal waters of the river, and caused depositions of mud, and various shoals and obstructions. Add to all this, that from the twelfth cen tury a clumsy erection, under the name of the London Bridge, of eighteen piers, with starlings, each 30 to 50 feet thick, reduced the width of the water way from 920 down to 300 feet, this small water way being still further interrupted by nine of the openings having the whole of the London Bridge water-works before them. The result was not surprising, viz. that, in consequence of the diminution of tidal current, the bed of the river above the bridge was raised from 8 to 10 feet higher than that below it. In 1831, the new London Bridge of Sir John Rennie was substituted, with a water way of 690 feet, and since then the channel above bridge has been gradually lowering. Hence, says Mr. Walker, already has it been found requisite to support, by piling round, the piers of Blackfriars Bridge, and the like operation is in progress at Westminster Bridge. When it is considered that the bed of the river at London is generally gravel, with a large mixture of fine sand, for a depth of from ten to fourteen feet under low water, where the London clay is reached; the danger in which Westminster Bridge and some of the buildings on the Thames are placed, will appear to be very imminent: but, as Mr. Walker observes, this point will probably not receive much attention till its effects become visible upon some public or other important building. The piers of Vauxhall Bridge (the work of Mr. Walker) are fixed in the lower stratum of London clay, and are therefore safe; but the evidence of Mr. Page, in his letter to Lord Lincoln (Appendix XV. to the First Report of the Commissioners of Metropolitan Improvements; perhaps the best practical treatise on estuaries in the lan guage) states that the operation of gradually deepening the river will add to the insecurity of Westminster Bridge, and long before the river can attain the depth that has been assigned to it, namely, the depth corresponding with that below bridge, it is evident that Westminster Bridge cannot be maintained. Enough has been said to show that, independently of the desirableness of a terrace embankment in a sanatory and commercial point of view, some means for improving the navigation of the Thames is absolutely requisite. But it is, at the same time, to be noted that a solid embankment even of a regular and systematic construction, must injuriously affect the navigation, by abstracting from the volume of tidal waters an amount equal to the cubic contents of such embankment; and this objection applies to all the plans, except one, submitted by modern engineers and other public men, among whom Sir Frederick Trench, Mr. Martin, Mr. Walker, and Mr. Barry deserve honourable mention. The plan which we have reason to regard in the light of an exception to this one objec. tion, besides possessing many intrinsic and peculiar advantages, is that originated and submitted to the Improvement Commission by Mr. Thomas Page, the acting engineer of the Thames Tunnel. A sketch of this plan is presented in the wood-cut which illustrates the present number of the Mirror, and the following particulars which we glean and abridge from the detailed descriptions and evidence in the report will sufficiently familiarise our readers with the peculiar nature and merits of the design. The plan embraces the formation of terraces and side channels, and has special reference in its construction to the requirements of the navigation, to the vested interests on the banks, and to the health and convenience of the public. Mr. Page, as above incidentally mentioned, proceeds on the assumption that any abstraction of the tidal waters from a navigable river by embanking or otherwise, must injure that river to a certain extent below the site of the embankment, and deprive the river of its scour. Thus, the effect of the ugly embankments at Hungerford and Millbank is shown by the accumulation of mud banks below them. Again, with regard to vested interests, Mr. Page's plan is devised to protect those interests by leaving all wharfs and warehouses in their present state, at the same time that the public are to be provided with increased facilities of inter-communication, and with extensive and agreeable promenades by the river side. With these views, it is proposed to construct terraces on both sides from Millbank to Queenhithe, the width between the terraces varying from 650 to 750 feet, and leaving side channels between the terraces and the wharfs varying from 150 to 300 feet in width: the entrance to the side channels to be by openings as conveniently situated for the admission of barges as circumstances will admit: and it appears, indeed, that by openings of forty feet in width, capable of admitting two barges abreast, and of a proper height, the craft would have even increased facilities of lading and unlading, as by means of the quantity of water which must be retained in the openings by flood gates after high water, it appears they would be less dependent on the tides than heretofore. The height of the terrace will probably be ten feet above Trinity high-water mark, and it is intended that communications for the public should be opened from various points in the Strand, and reservation will also be made for pleasure grounds in front of Whitehall Gardens and the Temple. And the cost of such a national work is truly beneath regard. Three hundred thousand pounds, or little more, would cover all, and Mr. Cubitt even suggests that more economical processes than brick and mortar, and not less efficient, might be devised. Perhaps the adoption of that process we have described at some length in our last, we refer to the payneisation or ironisation of wood, would effectually meet this desideratum, and take away the last excuse from our grumbling fellow-citizens, who are so frightened with an additional penny on their coal tax. There are several incidental considerations connected with this great work, and ulterior objects to be served by its adoption. One of these regards the supply of pure water by means of a continuous reservoir within the terrace, and we may therefore state generally that, instead of filling up the contents of the terrace with solid matter, it is under consideration to form such a reservoir, equal to a circle of twenty-eight feet in diameter, into which the pure water of the Wandle may be conveyed to supply the various water companies, which now provide their respective districts with the anything but pure water of the Thames. Another important point is the conversion of the sewerage to valuable agricultural purposes. When it is remembered that in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and other cities where the sewerage has been made use of as a fertiliser, the value of land has increased many hundred-fold, it appears to us fearful waste of the very means of national wealth, to allow the sewerage of this immense metropolis, to the public detriment, to find its way through the channel of the Thames to the ocean. The valuable suggestions of Mr. Martin, the eminent artist, on this a score, in his evidence before the commission, are well worthy the serious attention of Mr. Page. We shall return to this subject. We do not exaggerate when we say that the systematic fertilisation of the soil by such means as these is a matter fraught with deeper and more immediate consequences to the interests of the millions of England than the question of the Corn Laws, or a Ten Hours' Factory Bill. worst. The unhappy manufacturer perceived the parties were on excellent terms, and while unseen by them he eagerly watched their every movement, awful to relate, he saw (and the spectacle made him almost sink into the earth) the Dead Guest kneel and press the fair hand of his daugh ter to his lips! "What," cried he furiously to his wife, who came to meet him as the door opened, "what could be your motive for permitting that fiend to be alone with Frederica? is LAISSEZ FAIRE AND YOUNG ENG- nature dead in your bosom? have you no LAND. LAISSEZ FAIRE. Reduce the time-we must reduce the wages- THE DEAD GUEST. (Continued from page 308.) Bantes thought it but prudent to take time to consider of this very friendly and very sensible hint. He determined on returning home without delay, and on some pretext to postpone, at least for the present, (till he had heard from his friend the bank er, at all events), the interview which the Dead Guest had so earnestly craved with his daughter. A brief delay, if it did no good, could do no harm. While these thoughts were revolving in his mind, he drew near his own house. He quickened his steps to reach the door, where, glancing at the window of his draw ing-room, he beheld, to his unspeakable horror and confusion, the tall stranger in black, in conversation with his daughter! This was alarming, but this was not the feeling-no pity for your own child?" "It is all right," she cheerfully exclaimed; give yourself no trouble about him; it is young Hahn." So he says." "Nay, but he has brought letters which prove the fact, and offers numerous references, all of the highest respectability." "As did the Count de Graves. Does it not stand to reason, that the Dead Guest, to act his part, must always have been plausible and specious, and duly provided with every proof and reference that under ordinary circumstances could not be doubted.". "But he is what he describes himself to be. A letter received this morning from the senior Hahn proves it." While thus speaking, Madam Bantes put a paper into his hand, which she thought would at once remove all doubt. 66 This," said he, looking at it, "is not Hahn's writing." "He says he has the gout in his hand." "No bad excuse that." "But the signature?" "That is his, or a very good imitation, but it may be a forgery. The body of this letter being written by some other person is a very suspicious circumstance. Besides, the writer only says his son has set out for Herbesheim. Does that prove this devil, or whoever he is, to be that son? I see nothing to alter the conviction forced on me by so many startling facts, that we are really entertaining the Dead Guest." He had delivered himself of this soberly formed and zealously maintained opinion, when Frederica entered, laughing. "I have seen him, sir," she said, “and a most affable, worthy, kind-hearted creature he seems. Really at first sight I am half in love with him: sorry I am he could not stay, but I have made him promise to return to dinner." "To dinner! what, the Dead Guest?" "No, young Hahn, the son of your old friend; he is a truly amiable man.' ""Tis all too plain," sighed the manufacturer; " already he has got hold of her affections. I see my wretched fate. The rest must follow. There's another knock; he is come back already." He turned to the door, which now opened |