ANTIDOTE FOR FLEAS. THE following recipe from the writings of Miss Hannah More, may be found useful to your readers: In a climate where the attacks of fleas are a constant source of annoyance, any method which will alleviate them becomes a desideratum. It is, therefore, with pleasure I make known the following recipe, which I am assured has been tried with efficacy. Boil a quart of tar until it becomes quite thin. Remove the clothing, and before the tar becomes perfectly cool, with a broad flat brush, apply a thin, smooth coating to the entire surface of the body and limbs. While the tar remains soft, the flea becomes entangled in its tenacious folds, and is rendered perfectly harmless; but it will soon form a hard, smooth coating, entirely impervious to his bite. Should the coating crack at the knee or elbow joints, it is merely necessary to retouch it slightly at those places. The whole coat should be renewed every three or four weeks. This remedy is sure, and having the advantage of simplicity and economy, should be generally known. So much for Miss More. A still simpler method of preventing the attacks of these little pests, is one which I have lately discovered myself;-in theory only-I have not yet put it into practice. On feeling the bite of a flea, thrust the part bitten immediately into boiling water. The heat of the water destroys the insect and instantly removes the pain of the bite. You have probably heard of old Parry Dox. I met him here a few days since, in a sadly seedy condition. He told me that he was still extravagantly fond of whisky, though he was constantly "running it down." I inquired after his wife. "She is dead, poor creature," said he, " and is probably far better off than ever she was here. She was a seamstress, and her greatest enjoyment of happiness in this world was only so, so." PHOENIX AT THE MISSION DOLORES. MISSION OF DOLORES, 15th January, 1855. It was my intention to furnish you, this month, with an elaborate article on a deeply interesting subject, but a serious domestic calamity has prevented. I allude to the loss of my stove-pipe, in the terrific gale of the 31st December. There are few residents of this city whose business or inclination has called them to the Mission of Dolores, that have not seen and admired that stove-pipe. Rising above the kitchen chimney to the noble altitude of nearly twelve feet, it pointed to a better world, and was pleasantly suggestive of hot cakes for breakfast. From the window of my back porch, I have gazed for hours upon that noble structure; and watching its rotary cap, shifting with every breeze, and pouring forth clouds of gas and vapor, I have mused on politics, and fancied myself a Politician. It was an accomplished stove-pipe. The melody accompanying its movements, inaptly termed creaking by the soulless, gave evidence of its taste for Music, and its proficiency in Drawing was the wonder and delight of our family circle. It had no bad habits-it did not even smoke. I fondly hoped to enjoy its society for years, but one by one our dearest treasures are snatched from us: the soot fell, and the stove-pipe has followed soot. On the night of the 31st of Dec., a gale arose, perfectly unexampled in its terrific violence. Houses shook as with tertian ague, trees were uprooted, roofs blown off, and ships foundered at the docks. A stove-pipe is not a pyramid-what resistance could mine oppose to such a storm? One by one its protecting wires were severed; and as it bowed its devoted head to the fury of the blast, shrieks of more than mortal agony attested the desperate nature of its situation. At length the Storm Spirit fell upon the feeble and reeling structure in its wrath, and whirling it madly in the air with resistless force, breaking several tenpenny nails, and loosening many of the upper bricks of the chimney, dashed it down to earth. But why harrow up the feelings of your readers by a continuation of the distressing narrative. The suffering that we have endured, the tears that have been shed since this loss will be understood, and commiserated, when I add-the next morning the kitchen chimney smoked, and has been doing it intermittently ever since! Since my last, scarcely a gleam of fun has come to illumine the usual dull monotony of the Mission of Dolores,— "The days have been dark and dreary It rains, and the wind is never weary." A little occurrence at the toll-gate, the other day, is worthy of notice, perhaps, as betokening "the good time a-coming." A well-known gentleman of your city, who frequently drives forth on the Plank Road, perched on one of those little gigs that somebody compares to a tea-tray on wheels, with the reins hanging down behind, like unfastened suspenders, in an absent frame of mind, drove slowly past the Rubicon without bifurcating the customary half-dollar. Out rushed the enthusiastic toll-gatherers, shouting, "Toll, sir, toll! you've forgot the toll!" "Oh! don't bother me, gentlemen," replied the absent one, in a lachrymose tone, and with a most woful expression, "I'm an orphan boy!" This appeal to the sympathies of the toll-men was effective; their hearts were touched, and the orphan went on his way rejoicing. It is amusing to observe the shifts a maker of Poetry will resort to, when compelled to make use of an irrelevant subject to eke out his rhyme to convince himself and his readers that the faux pas was quite intentional, the result of study, and should be admired rather than criticised. In a poem called "Al Aaraaf," by Edgar A. Poe, who, when living, thought himself, in all seriousness, the only living original Poet, and that all other manufacturers of Poetry were mere copyists, continually infringing on his patent-occurs the following passage, in which may be found a singular instance of the kind alluded to: "Ligeia! Ligeia ! Will to melody run: |