The

Singular Phenomenon in a Speech.-An officer of artillery was seized with paralysis of the tongue, hands, and feet, in consequence of violent cold. Dr. Hertz thus describes his state-"I found him so much recovered as to have the complete use of his feet; his hands also were stronger; but in regard to his speech, the following very remarkable circumstance was to be observed. He was able to articulate distinctly any words which either occurred to him spontaneously, or when they were slowly and loudly repeated to him. He strenuously exerted himself to speak, but an unintelligible kind of murmur was all that could be heard. efort he made was violent, and terminated in a deep sigh. On the other hand, he could read aloud with facility. If a book or any written paper was held before his eyes, he read so quickly and distinct that it was impossible to observe that there was the slightest fault in his organs of speech; but if the book or paper was withdrawn, he was then totally incapable of pronouncing one of the words which he had read the instant before. I tried this experiment with him repeatedly, not only in the presence of his wife, but many other people. The effect was uniformly the same."-Vide Crichton's work, 2nd. volume, p. 85.

Discovery of a mine of Diamonds—The French Consul at Bahia has addressed a report to the Minister of Foreign Affairs at home, announcing the discovery, at th distance of 80 leagues from that capital, of an abundant mine of diamonds-a sourc of incalculable wealth to the province. It lies in a desert place, uninhabited, and scarcely accessible, and was disoovered by mere accident. The head of a rich En. glish company has already exported, it is sid, nearly $200,000 worth of its produce; and, as the working of the mine is left to any one who will, there is a race at present for its treasures. Eight or nine thousand emi rants, from all parts of Brazil have already pitched their tents on the savage and unwholesome spot, and to the inhabitants of a crowded European state, the very thought of a jewell mine to be ransacked at pleasure-diamonds to be had for the fetching is a temptation likely, we should think, to attract adventurers, even if the Upas tree stood In the way. Athenenm.

A SMART DOG.-A man down East had been exceedingly annoyed by wolves, which destroyed his sheep. In the course of time a dog fancier offered to sell him a dog. A very no'able dog he was, too. The catalogue of his merits was a very long onethere was not a dog virtue in the catalogue for which he was not distinguished-but if there was any one thing in which he particu

larly excelled, it was his prowess as a wolf hunter. This was touching our friend on the right spot. The bargain was closed, and he only waited an opportunity to test his merits. At length there came a light snow. just the kind of a snow for wolf-hunting, and he took his dog and gun and sallied out. He soon crossed the track of a varmint'-the dog took the scent and bounded off in pursuit. On followed our friend. up hili and down dale," thorough brush and thorough brier," for two hours, when he came across a Yankee chopping wood and the following satisfactory dialogue took place:

"Did you see a wolf and a dog pass by here ?"

Well, I guess I did."

"How long ago?"

"Well, I guess about half an hour." "How was it with 'em ?"

"Well, just abeout nip and tuck-but the dog had the advantage, for he was a leetle ahead."-Nashua Telegraph.

HEIRS WANTED.-A Mr. Bradley Pease died some months since in Louisiana, leaving about $4000, for which there is no claimant. He is said to have been from Vermont, and has a sister living near Lake Champlain. If the heirs don't get the money the State will.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The 64 Scholar's Figure Book" and the "Scholar's Capital Book, by a Teacher," are neat, cheap and useful copy-books, which we can recommend, after expe ience in the family, for the use of children learning to write with either pen or pencil. A page of copy is laid under a blank page, and the pupil traces with a pen or pencil. This is one of the modes of practice which are important in acquiring the art of writing. Children are at once amused and instructed by them. The author of this very convenient form of applying it, we know, and he is an old and excelJent teacher. These books are published by Mr. E. French, of this city.

The "New York Farmer and Mechanic is a valuable weekly paper, published at Clinton Hall, and edited by Samuel Fleet, whose practicable agricultural science and skill are well known. Such useful matter as this publication contains, we consider it a duty to recommend.

Receipt No. 2 of the Cook of the late Sir Joseph Banks:-Mr. Henry Osborne.

NOTTINGHAM PUDDING.

Peel six good apples: take out the cores with the point of a small knife, (or an applecorer if you have one,) but be sure to leave the apples whole; fill up where you took the corer from with sugar; place them in a piedish, and pour over them a nice light batter prepared as batter for pudding, and bake an hour in a moderate oven.

POETRY.

"MR. DWIGHT-By publishing the following lines you will gratily many of the friends of Mr. Bacon, who may not have seen them in the Litchfield (Con.) paper, in which they were originally published. They were sent anonymously, but are supposed to have been written by a lady, whose diffidence of her own uncommon talents prevented her affixing her name to a dirge which does them so much credit. That the subject deserved all its praise, no one who knew him will question."

On the death of E. Champion Bacon, of Litchfield, Connecticut, who died in Seville, Spain.

Add to the list another,

Gone to the silent dead;
Mourn for a son and brother,
For a noble spirit fled.

Look on that grief-bow'd father, That mother wild with woe; On a brother's silent anguish

For a cherish'd one laid low.

In the midst of life and promise,

He strove with death in vai;

For the shaft was sped which laid him low

'Neath the sunny skies of Spain.

What, tho' no friend stood watening
Beside his dying bed;
His slightest whisper catching
Before the spirit fled ?

What, tho' his grave is lowly,
In lands beyond the sea?

The spot to us is holy,

And evermore shall be.

The murm'ring of the river
Shall be his reguiem:
The storied Guadelquiver,

With its "low, perpetual hymn."

And the stars, that know no country,
Bend o'er his grave at night;
And only cease their vigils

With the dawning of the light.

A pale, pure moonbeam lingers,
Lovingly round the spot;
Like soft caressing fingers,

That would not be forgot.

And the sun, that lights us daily, Shines on the emerald sod, That shrouds his manly features, Till he awakes with God.

Sweet flowers shall spring above him,
And, clustering round his tomb,

Shall image those who lov'd him,
And who mourn his early doom.

He was noble in his beauty,

And noble in his mind; With talents of the rarest worth, And intellect refined.

And in hearts whose love is worship,
His name shall ever be

Twin'd with the thought of home and heaven,

Deep in our memory.

From Mitchell's "Notes from over Sea."
NAPLES.

This government, besides other forms of oppressive taxation, assumes to itself various monopolies. The impost on salt is spoken of as particularly vexatious-not as being simply more exorbitant than any other, nor because salt is one of the commonest necessaries of life, and not a luxury but because of circumstances which give it a more odious appearance of arbitrary power. There are within the kingdom, beds of salt a little below the surface, and easily accessible; there are streams of salt-water which deposit it upon their banks; and the sea, on all sides, in this hot climate incrusts the shore with it. Salt ought, the efore, to be cheap. I am told the duty on it is three dollars a bushel. And to prevent injury to this species of the royal revenue, the people are prohibited from taking water from the sea, lest they should evaporate it in pans. Guards are stationed along the coast to enforce this interdict. To take a pail of water from the sea to your dwelling would be smuggling. Of course the poor can have no salt.

Another royal monopoly is snow. It is collected and deposited in a natural ice-house on the top of St. Angelo, a neighboring moun tain, and in summer brought to market. Some ice having formed during a winter night in Naples, the people began to collect it, tak. ing up pieces of it in their hands, more from curiosity than as a luxury, when the police interfered and put an end to such an encroachment on the king's right. The ice and snow are his, and are not to be used tribute free.

The 14th of January, on an average of years is the coldest day in the year.

Having already given our readers a description of the Silver Fir, and minute directions for its propagation and culture, (see the American Penny Magazine, No. 39, page 615,) we will add here a few remarks of a more general nature.

When we consider the utility and beauty of trees, it seems unaccountable that we We know and care no more about them. look with pleasure on the fresh foliage of spring, and joyfully seek the shade of the grove in summer; the falling leaf, in autumn, carries its solemn lesson to our hearts, and the leafless branches of winter, add their own feature to the scene of desolation, or, when invested with ice, dazzle us with their splendor, while the blazing fragments of the oak or walnut, collect us at evening at the cheerful fireside. The artizan becomes acquainted with the different qualities of woods most appropriate to his use; and the ship builder, as well as the navigator, and all "who go down to the sea in ships," are often led, by their employments or exposures, to observe and enquire on their strength and durability. But how few of us have ever made the study of trees a particular object, and how many of us are liable to the charge of having destroyed. some fine or useful one, which should have been preserved, or at least of having neglected to protect, or to plant such as might now have been beneficial or ornamental!

We have made remarks on this subject before, (see page 559, of this Magazine, No. 33;) and our interest in it has rather increased since we began to do something to promote the propagation of useful and ornamental trees by something more than words. In our 36th number, (page 576,) we gave a brief history and description of the Ailanthus ; and we have since addressed circulars, containing the same information, with directions for planting and rearing that tree, to numerous gentlemen in different parts of the country, accompanied with about fifty thousand of the seeds in small parcels, but so distributed, that, if they should be attended to, several thousand of

our villages will be furnished with that peculiar, favorite and thrifty plant in a few months. About as many more may be had in the Western and Southern States in a very short time. When we reflect on the delay and expense which in most places would otherwise have attended its introduction, and the encouragement given us by some of those public spirited gentlemen with whom we have thus taken the liberty to open a correspondence, we feel gratified and encouraged; and we indulge our feelings in the anticipated pleasure of witnessing the improvements they are thus permitting us to aid in promoting, among the sea-ports and cities, the inland villages, hamlets and roads, which may be in the routes of our future journies.

If the editor of this Magazine may be allowed to make a few further remarks of a more personal character than he often likes to indulge in, he would say:-I was a traveller in Europe in my youth, and came back to my native land, my friends and countrymen, with a warm and prevailing desire to do something for a country, to which I owed, under God, ten thousand blessings. And this desire still exists. We have opportunities and means for improving ourselves, and the condition and prospects of our children, in various respects and in different ways. The present facilities of transmission and communication present us now new opportunities; and if the first experiment should prove encouraging, the friends of cheap and easy improvements may hereafter receive publications, seeds, prints, and other objects from New York, of immediate and practical value, of such descriptions and at such small prices, as they can have but little idea of at present. It may be sufficient to add here, that the names of persons disposed to cooperate for such purposes, so far as the plans and means may appear good and wise, will be received with much pleasure, it being understood that no one need apprehend being taxed in any case without his consent, beyond the payment of a letter at single postage.

LIVING SKETCHES OF ITALY.-No. 13. THE IMPOSTURES OF ST. FILUMENA. [CONTINUED.]

"Third Series of Miracles," entitled, "Miraculous Multiplications of Saint Filumena.”

The first miracle of this class given is briefly this:-The ghost of a dead mother ap. peared to one of her three daughters, who were worshippers of Filumena, and had consecrated themselves to a single life, and told her to keep a lamp burning before the picture of the saint. Her confessor advised her to obey; and she put into it all the oil she could afford to buy, which was only enough for a few hours, telling the saint she must replenish it herself if she wished to have it burn longer. It continued to burn about two years. The greatest miracle, we should think, was that the confessor was not suspected of having any thing to do with it. A similar won. der was observed at Lucera, on the 19th of January, 1833; and again, at Mugnano, on another occasion, a poor woman was seen by a crowd in the church, pouring out a cupfull of blessed oil from the Saint's lamp, when the lamp had just been found entirely empty.

[The Bishop of Lucera, who had received forty pictures of Filumena from Naples, had them miraculously multiplied to three hundred, "an unexpected, but precious gift, which the saint wished to make to the zealous prelate." He displayed them at the episcopal palace and published the miracle to his people, selling the pictures too, (if we understand the book,) at an advanced price. The books published by Don Francisco have been often multiplied in as remarkable a manner, and, doubtless, with as favorable an influence on the market. The second addition appears to have met a dull sale until he proclaimed the number was growing on his hands, and showed how the saint had balanced some of the miraculous volumes on the backs and rounds of the chairs in his shop. They then went off even faster than they had

come.

The new books had no dust upon them, and that satisfied spectators that they had just come from heaven. There was something peculiarly "graceful and amiable" in the appearance presented by the books, as ranged in disorder by the saint; indeed, "when any body has the honor to be acquainted with her, it is very difficult to keep

from loving her." (p. 91. Two other persons had some of that edition multiplied on their hands.]

[In 1829, the fifth edition appeared; and, after returning from a journey, in which he appears to have peddled them with success, he gave out that he had sold 156 more than he had printed, and had 80 on hand. The remainder, notwithstanding, were left long on the shelves to collect the dust, but this was not through the want of a demand; for "the number of his orders amounted in a year to several hundred volumes," and yet "the stock was still left! Such," exclaims the author, "are the wondertul works of God to glorify his saints!"]

The fourth Series of Miracles.-Those wrought in favor of little children [Rosa de Lucia, a cousin of Don Francisco, was restored to life by St. Filumena.]

A child, twelve years old, named James d' Elia, son of a surgeon of Visciano, had one of her feet crushed by a cart wheel, and was carried home insensible. Mortification set in, amputation would have been resorted to, but for the extreme debility of the patient. At this juncture, Don Sabbatino Nappo, a priest, arrived from Naples with an image of St. Filumena, which he presented, inviting the family to worship it, and promising to intercede in their favor. They accordingly knelt down and repeated in concert the litanies of the very holy virgin; when the ecclesiastic, approaching the little patient, whom he roused from his lethargy and showed him St. Filumena. He began to talk, and rose and walked-his foot was entirely cured, and no signs of injury rema ined except thathe had lost one toe.

There was a little girl named Filumena Canonico, for whom the saint showed a peculiar regard, doubtless on account of her name. She had a fall, and the fourth toe of one of her feet cut off, which was taken and buried in the cemetery. At night, while others were asleep, she had a vision, as she declared. The saint appeared to her, gave her some sugar plums and said:-" My little Filumena, don't be afraid. Tell your mamma not to cry, and that 1 will cure you." So saying she disappeared. The next morning the wound had healed, but the toe was gone. She afterwards received other visits from the saint, who always brought her sugar things: and finally a new toe was fastened to her foot,