guage of their own, and their own way of writing it. But they often use Chinese characters in writing and on their money. Two things have always struck me when looking at these Japanese tungtseen; the first is that the copper they are made of is much purer and better than that of the Chinese money; and the second is, that the workmanship, i. e., the engraving of the letters and the casting of the coins is much better than the Chinese. One might infer from this that Japan, though much smaller, is a richer. country than China in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, and that the arts are in a higher state of cultivation than here, and I believe that this is really the case.

Among the coins of former dynasties that one meets with now, some are so much worn by long use that one cannot read the letters, but others are still quite legible. A few of them have figures of birds, tortoises, men, dragons, and other animals, but these are rare. Most of them have only the names of the emperor, and when once you have read the name, all you have to do is to look in some Chinese history and find when he reigned, and then you know how old they are. I am picking up some of these coins occasionally, and when I get a good many I shall send them to the Missionary House in New York, and if you ever go there, you will perhaps see them.

Formerly the Chinese had much larger coins than they have now, and of different shapes. One that I have is much larger than an English penny, and has the word ten on the back, which probably means that it is worth ten of the small ones. Another is in the shape of a sword, or knife; and if it is a genuine one, it must be two thousand years old, for no money of that kind has been coined since the time our Saviour came into the world. I have seen some, nearly in the shape of a man, which are said to have been cast in the time of Shun, nearly four thousand years ago: but I do not think they are genuine, and even the Chinese books on coins, say that they must have been made long after his time.

A common workman, such as a carpenter, mason, tailor, house-builder, and the like, will come and work for a whole day for one hundred and sixty tungtseen, which is about thirteen cents. (This is just about the amount that was given in

the time of our Saviour in Judea, for we know that our Lord, in one of his parables, speaks of hiring men "at a penny a day." The penny which our Lord speaks of here, was the Roman 'denarius,' which was worth about fourteen cents.) Out of this sum he pays sixty for his daily food, and thinks he is living well when he has so much. He buys a sing of rice, (i. e., about a quart of unboiled rice,) for thirty, some fish or pork and vegetables for twenty, and wood enough to cook it for ten; in this way a man spends about a dollar and a half a month for what he eats, but I am afraid there are multitudes who do not get so much for food and clothing and house rent altogether. With the other hundred cash, the workman buys his clothes, rents his house, and supports his wife and children; and it takes no little economy and all the help he can get from his wife and children, to make both ends meet. Very few of the common people are able to lay up anything; and as the saying is," they live from hand to mouth." If they get sick, or if there is a famine, or if rice is scarce and dear, their sufferings are often very great, for the country is so full of people that there is nothing to spare, and often a great many people die of actual starvation.

In the United States one hardly ever thinks of buying less than a cent's worth of anything, but here there are a great many things that may be bought for one tungtseen, or the twelfth part of a cent. A man may buy as many onions as he wants to eat with his rice in two or three days, for one tungtseen; and as they are in the habit of buying what they want on the day when they eat it, they seldom spend more than a few coins for each article. I saw a boy once who had been buying things, and he had sixteen little parcels, all wrapped up in papers, containing sugar, salt, flour, and other things, which together would not have filled a quart, and in the other hand he carried a little cup about half as large as a teacup, about half full of vinegar. You can go across the ferry for two tungtseen, and a little boy is charged half price. If a beg gar comes to the door it is not the custom to send him away without anything, but if you give him one copper he must go. The people who live on one hundred and sixty tungtseen a day, have nothing but earthen floors in their houses."

Travels in New Brunswick.

I have recently performed a pilgrimage along the valley of the Lower St. John, and as I am about to leave the river, it is meet that I should give yon a record of my observations. The distance from the Falls of St. John to the city of that name, is two hundred and twenty miles. The width varies from a quarter of a mile to nearly two miles, and the depth from two to forty feet. That portion lying north of Frederickton, abounds in rapids and shallows, and is navigated only by flatbottomed boats, which are taken up stream by horse power, but descend with the current. Here, for the most part, the shores are mountainous, and only partly cultivated, with high and picturesque banks; the lowest portion, however, is of a level character, and presents the appearance of an ancient and highly cultivated country, and is navigated by steamboats, and the common sail craft of the country. The soil, all along the shores, is good, but seems better adapted for grass than wheat, and I can see no good reason for its not becoming greatly distinguished as a grazing country.

The river is not distinguished for any pictorial feature, (though it abounds in beautiful landscapes,) excepting a place called the Narrows, situated at the southern extremity. At this point the stream is not more than five hundred yards wide, and as it is bounded on either side by a high, rocky barrier, the current, ordinarily passes through with great rapidity. The tides of the ocean ascend about thirty miles, and it is only when the tide is high that the point in question can be navigated. Though these Narrows are a great annoyance to the navigator, by the lover of the picturesque they are highly esteemed. Not only are they beautiful in themselves, but, owing to the peculi arity of the place, it is frequently the case that the expanse of water above it is covered with a fleet of sloops, schooners, steamboats, towboats, and timber craft, which present a peculiar and agreeable panorama. The river abounds with salmon and shad, the former of which, though rather small, may be taken by the angler in the principal tributaries They are not sufficiently abundant, however, to constitute an arti cle of commerce, and the common modes for taking them are with the spear, and the drift net.

The principal towns on the St. John are, Woodstock, French Village, Frederickton and St. John. The first of these is one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth, and though a ragged, and uninteresting village, it is one that I shall ever remember with pleasure. And why? Because it is the most convenient doorway which will soon, I trust, take me out of New Brunswick into the United States. So far as its natural productions are concerned, I am disposed to compliment this Province in the highest terms, but I must say that the ignorance, idleness and grasping character of many, have made me exceedingly anxious to escape from the Province. The expenses of travelling are perfectly outrageous. Stage fares average about twelve cents per mile, and if you happen to spend a week at a miserable country tavern, you will have to pay $2 per day for board. With a few exceptions, there is hardly a country tavern in the province, where the traveller is not in danger of difficulty. It was my good fortune to be robbed only twice, but I was particularly fortunate.

The stage route from the grand Falls to St. John passes through Woodstock, but the distance from this place to the American town of Houghton, is ten miles, and in this direction there is also an established stage route to Bangor.

The next place on the St. John of any note is French village. It usually contains a thousand souls-most of them Indians. They live in frame and log houses, and though they pretend to do some farming, they are chiefly engaged in hunting and fishing. They are a good looking race, speak English fluently, and are the followers of a Catholic priest, who lives among them, and officiates in a small chapel, which was built by the Jesuits at an early day. This society is said to be one of the most wealthy in the Province. The chief of the village is one Louis Beir. He lives in a very comfortable, and well furnished house, is rather a handsome man, dresses in a halfsavage manner, and while he offers his visitor a comfortable chair, he invariably seats himself upon the floor in the true Indian fashion.

Frederickton is at the head of steamboat navigation, and distant from St. John eighty miles. Between these two places there runs a morning and evening boat, and the summer travel quite extensive.

Frederickton contains about eight thousand inhabitants, composed, principally, of Irish, Scotch and English. It contains three principal streets, running north and south, and some half dozen handsome public buildings, including an Episcopal church after the Tuscan order, a Courthouse and a College. The town is situated on a level plain, and its suburbs are made exceedingly beautiful by the number of rural residences which attract the eye, in every direction. The elm and poplar both seem to flourish here, and add much to the picturesqueness of the place and vicinity. The business of Frederickton is only of a second-rate character, and it has become what it is merely from the fact that it has heretofore been the seat of Government. This fact has also had a tendency to collect a good society in the place, and its "ton," though in a small way, have been disposed to cut quite a dash. The 'mother Parliament,' I believe, have recently removed the seat of government to St. John, and the lovers of Frederickton are sorry, and a little angry.

The city of St. John stands at the mouth of the river of that name, and is also laved by the water of the Bay of Fundy. I dislike cities, but suppose that I must stop a moment in the one alluded to. It is a business place, planted among rocks, contains some twenty thousand inhabitants, (two-thirds of whom are Irish), and in its port, at the present time, is moored a fleet of two hundred ships. Its public buildings are numerous, the finest of which are the Court House, an Episcopal church, of the Doric order, another after the Gothic, and a Presbyterian church, after the Corinthian order. The city is defended by a fortress, which presents a handsome appearance as you approach the port. The merchants of the place are chiefly employed in the square timber trade, and have heretofore done an extensive business. This trade, however, I am inclined to believe, is rapidly running out. On the opposite side of the St. John's river is a picturesque point, or hill, which is called Carlton Hill. It is surmounted by a massive block house, and commands an extensive prospect of the Bay of Fundy, the spring tides of which rise to the height of sixty feet, and when coming in, make a terrible roar.

My tour through New Brunswick has impressed me with the idea that the time is approaching when the people of this

province will declare themselves independent of England, and perhaps express themselves in favor of becoming identified with the United States.

The only obstacle which I conceive to be in the way of this event is the prevailing opinion that the Catholic religion is not tolerated in the United States. Of course, this opinion is founded in ignorance, but while our Government allows its citizens the utmost freedom of opinion, it is gratifying to know that the majority of our people are not Roman Catholics.-N. Y. Express.

THE CHINESE JUNK.-She had a passage of two hundred and twelve days from Canton-touching at St. Helena on the 23d of April. She has come in ballast, consigned to the master, but has on board a host of Chinese curiosities. She is built of teak wood, one hundred and fifty feet long, twenty-five feet beam, and twelve feet depth of hold. Her cabin is thirty feet long, ten and a half high, and twenty-three feet wide. Her rudder is not hung on pintles, but suspended in a curious fashion by two cables, made of rattan or bamboo. It weighs seven tons, and is hoisted and lowered as occasion requires its immersion being twentythree feet when down and twelve when up. Her anchors are made of teak wood. The cabin is decorated with a host of painted birds, tigers, and other animals. She has an idol set up on board, representing a woman having ten pair of arms, and ornamented with flowers, beads, rings, and a variety of trinkets.

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Her crew consists of 40 Chinamen and 20 Europeans. She has three upright masts with latteen sails. Her stern is 5 feet higher than that of a 74. She is built in the form of a whale boat, and there are two great eyes in her bows. The captain represents her to be a fine sea boat, sustaining herself well through

some severe weather.

The Keying is painted white with a black waist as far as the foremast; then red to the stern. She has nine ports on each side, which are painted white, red and black.-N. Y. Commercial.

We should take all the care imaginable how we create enemies, it being one of the hardest things in the Christian religion, to behave ourselves as we ought to do towards them.-Palmer.

Gen. Washington's last Levee. "Just before his final retirement, Washington held his last formal levee. An occasion more respectable in simplicity, more imposing in dignity, more affecting in the sensations which it awakened, the ceremonials of rulers never exhibited. There were the great chiefs of the Republic, of all parties and opinions; veterans of the war of Independence, weather-stained and scarred; white-haired statesmen, who, in retirement, were enjoying the fruits of former toil; there were his executive counsellors and pri vate friends; ministers of foreign governments, whose veneration approached that of his countrymen; citizens who came to offer the tribute of a respect, sincere and disinterested. Little was there of the pageantry of courts, little of the glitter which attends the receptions of royalty; yet in the grave assemblage that stood in that unadorned chamber there was a majesty which these knew not. The dignitaries of a nation had come to. gether to bid farewell to one, who, at their own free call, by their own willing trust --not as an honor to be coveted, but as a duty to be discharged-had in turn led their armies and executed their laws; one who now, his last task worthily fulfilled, was to take his place among them, readier to relinquish than he had been to undertake power; a soldier without stain upon his arms; a ruler, without personal ambition; a wise and upright statesman; a citizen of self-sacrificing patriotism; a man pure, unblemished and true in every relation he had filled; one to whom all ages should point as the testimony that virtue and greatness had been, and could be united.

"And he who was the object of this gathering--what thoughts crowded upon his mind, what recollections filled the vista of the sixty odd years which had passed over him, what changes of men, opinions, society, had he seen! Great changes, indeed, in the world and its old notions, the growling dissatisfaction of certain English emigrants at customary tyrannies and new intended ones, had taken form and shape; embodied itself into principles, and vindicated them; blazed up an alarming beacon to the world's eyes as the Sacred Right of Rebellion: fought battles; asserted independence and maintained it at much cost of bloodshed; made governments after its own

new fangled fashion; impressed a most unwilling idea on history-the doctrine of popular sovereignty; one which had proved contagious and had been adopted elsewhere, running riot indeed in its novelty. And out of all this confusion there had arisen the nation which he had presided over, already become great and factious in its greatness, with a noble birthright, noble virtues, energies and intellect; with great faults and passions, that unchecked, would as in lusty individual manhood, lead to its ruin.

"What was to be the future of that nation? Dark clouds hung over it, dangers threatened it, enemies frowned upon itthe worst enemy was within. License might blast in a few hours the growth of years; faction destroy the careful work of the founders. On this he had left his great solemn charge, like the last warning of a father to his children.

"The men who stood round him, the men who had passed away; and whose forms were there in his mind's eye only -Franklin, Morris, the two Adamses, Hancock, Greene, Jay, and that host of compatriots living and dead, honored already as of remote and ancient days canonized in men's minds, the ancestry of the virtuous of all times, the objects of 'hero worship' even in their own generation: "Himself-uneducated son of a farmer in the provinces of a distant empire; wandering surveyor of the Alleghany forests; partisan officer; representative of some revolted colonists in a congress of other like-outlaws; leader of an army of half-armed rebels; general, victorious over the tried veterans of Europe; statesman, who had helped to solve the vast problem of government; ruler by acclamation of the youngest-born of nations, treating with kings and princes as their equal; now sinking back into the great mass of three million individuals, to be no more among them in the eye of the law than any other.

What strifes had he gone through, not least with himself! How had he made passion bend to principle, impulse yield to will; how had he borne misunderstanding, calumny, desertion, withstood temptations; refrained from vengeance; how had he trod firmly the road he had marked out, or which destiny assigned, sustained by courage, faith, conscience.

Was it strange that there were few smiles at the last reception day of Wash

ington, or that tears fell from eyes un used to them, upon the hand that many pressed for the last time ?-Gibb's Mem.

The Sancy Diamond.

Charles, Duke of Burgundy, was possessed of a most costly and splendid diamond, which he wore on his hat at the battle of Nanei. This valuable jewel was found amongst the spoil by a Swiss soldier, who sold it to a French gentleman of the name of Sancy. In his family it remained above a hundred years, until a descendant of the family, who was captain of the Swiss soldiers in the service of Henry III., was employed by that monarch to procure him a re-inforcement of soldiers from Switzerland. The King, being driven from his throne by a league which was formed against him by his subjects, was so totally without resources that he was unable to send any money for the payment of his troops. He therefore borrowed Sancy's family jewel, which was to be sent into Switzerland as a pledge. Sancy sent the diamond by one of his own servants. But he and the diamond both disappeared. The King reproached Sancy for his credulity in trusting so valuable a treasure to a menial; and he, piqued for his own credit and that of his servant, in whose fidelity he had implicit reliance, set out in search of him. He found that he had been way. laid and murdered, and that his body was concealed in the forest. Sancy, still confident in the poor fellow's zeal and integrity, caused the body to be disinterred and opened, when it was found that, to preserve the jewel from the robbers, he had swallowed it. This diamond, which went by the name of the Sancy, afterwards became the property of the crown, but was stolen in the general wreck of French royalty during the revolution.

INTERESTING FACT.-In reference to the day set apart by the Constitution for the inauguration of the President of the United States, viz: the 4th of March, it was supposed by some that that day might come on a Sunday, and therefore the ceremony should be postponed till the following day. By referring to the debates of the Convention that formed the Constitution, it was found that the 4th of March, in every fourth year, would not fall on Sunday, for the period of three hundred years.-SEL.

BOTANICAL DEPARTMENT.

CULTIVATION OF HOUSE PLANTS.

The cultivation of plants in the house has become so universal in our community, and an object of so much interest to the fairer half of creation, that I have ventured to send you a few ideas, (drawn from my own experience,) upon the manner of cultivating and preserving them, in the hope of contributing something to promote this simple and beautiful taste.

Nothing is more common than to see windows filled with drawn up and weakly plants-denuded of their foliage, and looking as if they were maintaining, with the adverse circumstances in which they are placed, a desperate struggle for existence. To remedy this evil, to put the lovers of plants in a way to procure a vigorous growth and free bloom, is the object of this communication; for, if the view of a fine plant in winter, well clothed with green and graceful foliage, and loaded with flowers, gratifies our love of the beautiful, reminding us of "verdant spring and summer redolent of sweets," so also doth the defoliated and withered plant give us only pain, reminding us of sere and yellow" autumn, and the biting frosts of winter.

Any effort which tends to promote the love of the beautiful, to embellish the home of the humble and the poor, as well as the proud and the affluent, thereby contributing to the sum of human happiness, and adding one more link to the golden chain which binds the various classes of the great human family together, is not unworthy the lover of his kind, nor the philosopher who aims at their improvement: for this must come through the subjection of unnatural, false, and selfish tastes, and supplying in their stead, the natural, the true, and beautiful. It is said of the ancient Romans that they cared not for fine furniture, but embellished their houses with flowers. The effect of this on the public mind could not but have been good; and the Romans only degenerated when luxury crept in, perverting simple and true taste, and enervating that character which we stantly refer to as the type of all that is valorous and great.

con

Most plants have roots and stems, bark and leaves-the roots terminate in minute rootlets or spongioles, whose office is to take up the food of the plant in a liquid