about 4,938; 6,081 in 1835; 6,354 in 1840; 5,655 in 1841; 5,627 in 1842; 4,907 in 1843; 5,436 in 1844; 4,256 in 1845 ; 4,124 in 1846; 3,508 in 1847; 3,694 in 1848; 6,804 in 1849. The number of visits made to the print-room, was 4,400 in 1832; 1,065 in 1835; 6,717 in 1840; 7,744 in 1841; 8,781 in 1842; 8,162 in 1843; 8,998 in 1844; 5,904 in 1845; 4,390 in 1846; 4,572 in 1847; 5,813 in 1848; 5,970 in 1849. The - number of persons admitted to view the general collections in the year 1843-4 was 575,758; in 1844-5 the number was 685,614; in 1845-6, it was 750,601; in 1846-7, 820,965; in 1847-8, 897,985; in 1848-9, 979,073. THE MORTALITY OF YOUTH. WHERE twenty persons die at sixty years of age, thirty die at fifty, forty at forty, fifty at thirty, and sixty at twenty. So little reason have youth to boast in calculations made on the principles of chance. The aged, it is true, stand foremost in the ranks of time; but the lines are thin, and the arrows of death are continually passing between them, to strike the thicker ranks of the athletic and the young. "Life speeds away From point to point, though seeming to stand still. The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth. Too subtle is the movement to be seen; But soon man's hour is up, and we are gone!" CHINESE BARBARISM. THE Secretary (of the Asiatic Society) read a paper by T. T. Meadows, Esq., Translator to H. B. M. Consulate in China, descriptive of the execution of thirty-four rebels, or bandits, which took place in Canton, on the 30th of July last. After a description of the place of execution, which was secured by a stronglyguarded door; and after stating that more than four hundred human beings had been put to death in the same place within the past eight months; Mr. Meadows states that he entered the place accompanied by two English residents at Canton, and found there a few of the lower officials. The only preparation visible was a cross, fixed up for the infliction of the highest legal punishment practised in China,-cutting up alive. There was a fire of fragrant sandal-wood burning before the shed where the Mandarins sit to superintend the executions, in order to conceal the horrid stench arising from the decomposed heads remaining there. After waiting a considerable time, all the criminals were introduced, most of them walking to their places, but many carried in baskets, and tumbled out on the spot appointed for them, where they lay powerless, either from excess of fear or from treatment inflicted during trial and imprisonment. A man stood behind each criminal, and placed him in a kneeling posture, with his face towards the ground, holding him in this position by grasping his hands, which were bound behind his back. In case of resistance, which happens very rarely, the criminal's queue is held by a second assistant, and dragged forward by force, so as to keep the neck extended. When all the criminals were placed in the required positions, the executioner seized a sabre with both hands, and proceeded to his work. In the present instance, the man was a mild-looking soldier, selected from the ranks of the army. The sword was a common sabre, of three feet in length; and one of those employed on the occasion was laid on the Society's table. It appears that there is no official weapon required; for the officers of the army, anxious to "flesh their swords," send them for the purpose to the executioner, who has thus a sufficient supply for his most extensive operations. The number decapitated on the occasion described was thirty-three; and the executioner took up a fresh sword as soon as he felt the edge of the one employed becoming dull, which was usually the case after cutting off two or three heads. When all was ready, the man stood firm, with his legs somewhat apart. On hearing the word "pan pronounced by the officer superintending, and after a sharp order to the criminal, "Don't move !" he raised his sword straight up, and brought it rapidly down with the full strength of both arms, giving additional force to the blow by dropping his body perpendicularly to a sitting posture. The horrid task was soon done after cutting off the head of one victim, the man threw himself, by a bound, into position by the side of the next; and in somewhat less than three minutes, the whole thirty-three were headless; the head, in every case but the 19 first, being completely severed at one blow. In three or four cases, where the criminals retained their full strength, the bodies, after decapitation, rose quite upright; and Mr. Meadows is satisfied that unless restrained by the man behind they would have sprung into the air. When this part of the tragedy was over, the more horrible work of slow death was carried into effect upon the remaining criminal, who was bound to the cross mentioned above. He was a strongly built man, apparently forty years old, who had escaped in the first instance, but who had voluntarily surrendered himself to certain death, in order to save from torture his wife and family, who had been seized by the Chinese Government with the cruel policy usual on such occasions. In this instance, the flesh was cut from the forehead, breast, and extremities of the sufferer with a short knife, which was on the table before the meeting; the body was immediately taken from the cross, and the head cut off. The duration of the punishment was about four or five minutes. The bodies were then packed up in coffins, and carried away. A more significant proof of a low state of feeling among the Chinese is shown in the fact, that a man came coolly in to dip rushes into the blood of the decapitated criminals, to be used as a medicine; and that, on a former visit, the writer had found human bodies lying in the place, with pigs feeding in the pools of blood around, while a woman was affectionately feeding a child within a few yards; both staring with much interest at the strange foreigner, but utterly regardless of the disgusting exhibition before their eyes!— Athenæum. VARIETIES. THE ruins of Pompeii and Hercu- | cifixion, executed by Benevuto Cellini laneum reappear at Berlin in a mag- when confined in that state-prison, nificent collection of eight thousand by order of Pope Paul III., in the casts. Professor Zahn, after a labour year 1539.-The Council General of of twenty years, has been rewarded Genoa contributes fifteen thousand by the King of Naples with permis- francs towards the erection of a sion to take these casts out of the monument to Columbus in that city. country, the classic land of ruin, A colossal statue of the great disand exhibit them in the northern coverer is to be erected on the coast capital. A glance into one of the of Spain. cells of the Castle of St. Angelo has discovered, as is believed, a drawing in charcoal and brickdust, of the cru Passing over a multitude of incidents of lesser value, we may notice that an Egyptian traveller has discovered more rock-inscriptions and sculptures in a ridge of hills west of the Nile, near Ramâdeh. The sculptures appear to be very ancient, and include armed horsemen, bulls, and the cartouche of a King. The immense quantity of hieroglyphic now brought to light, in addition to the monumental stores already accessible, invites renewed attention to these materials, for the revival of a lost history that has yet to be transcribed from the rocks of Egypt and Arabia. Extensive improvements are contemplated in the metropolis of England, which will soon impart a new character to the more central parts. Smithfield, and the neighbourhood towards Holborn, is likely to be entirely transformed, and a multitude of grand constructions are projected. But the vast idea of centralisation, with easy communications, and almost instantaneous intelligence, sometimes swells beyond its natural bounds. Time and space are closely united, it is true; and it is the terrestrial revolution, and progression of our globe through space, that produce that which we call time. But time cannot be swallowed up in space; and the zealous advocacy of some persons for a universal time, a notation of time dependent upon Lothbury and the electric wires, must be baffled so long as the sun persists in his tardier advance over the meri dians. Noon-day in London and Bristol cannot be simultaneous, ply electricity as you please; and Bristol must be permitted to bide its moment, although noon visit St. Paul's a trifle earlier than Redcliffe. The same variation of time must be submitted to all over the surface of this globe; and whatever may be said in favour of one European time for purposes of electric telegraph and comparative railway-tables, the rising and the setting sun will carry morning, noon, and night along with them, so long as the world lasts. This alleged improvement, therefore, may be mentioned in passing, just as a variety; but the unvarying course and ever-flowing stream of hours refuses to be diverted, driven back, or stayed. Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum. The "Pantheon" at Paris, a building erected for a church, but dedicated, in the year 1789, to the memory of dead heroes, has been restored to its original destination. At the restoration of the Bourbons, it was first re-converted into a church. On the revolution of 1831, it became a mausoleum, or burial-place, once more. Now it is again restored to its original use; and is placed, as they say, under the advocacy of Ste. Geneviève, Protectress of Paris. The event is understood to signify national homage to the Church of Rome. POETRY. "MORE GRACE." "He giveth more grace." THE morn's first purple radiance streams Increasing as it stealeth o'er What else were dark, unblest before; Then ask,-He giveth "more!" The world hath shadows dense and deep, Her children sigh, and watch, and weep; A breath that in a breath may pass Aid for the sorrowful, the lone, Then ask,-He giveth "more!" More! and the trembling soul doth rise More! and on that low couch of death, Through grace the parting spirit soars, For ever saved by grace! ADELINE. ANIMATED AND VEGETABLE NATURE. FEBRUARY. THE days have already begun to show a considerable prolongation on the 1st of February; and, as the month advances, the rate of increase becomes rapid-from the Sun's altitude and his time of setting in the length and strength of daylight. This short month (having twenty-nine days, however, in the present bissextile, 1852) intervenes between winter and spring, which now struggle for the mastery. Sometimes the weather is severe, and at other times |