The politicians are just now exercised over the Bennett law and similar State legislation, in which the compulsory education in English is the disputed point. But why make all this fuss about a language so few of us seem willing to use, and which is rapidly being supplanted by slang. It seems a sad commentary on the public schools, that cost $115,000,000 a year, to be told by some of our distinguished educators that we are ceasing to speak English, and by a small coterie of enthusiasts that we do not know how to spell.

Here is a field that offers a most excellent opportunity for the labors of these spelling "reformers." It will be useless to inaugurate the new spelling so long as we persist in using slang. Why need we worry over the ue in "pedagogue," when, if a woman, we call her a "schoolmarm," and, if a

man, "his nibs?" What difference does it make whether we use f or ph for physician, when we dub him "old bolus" or "sawbones?” Or why trouble about the te in "coquette, when she would usually be termed a "masher?"

We have no doubt a systematized effort might be made productive of very considerable benefit to the language, especially if the reformers could eliminate from the vernacular all the words now misused as slang. The subsequent task of respelling the few that remained would be greatly simplified; and as most of us would have to attend school again to acquire the knowledge of framing sentences in the reconstructed English language, we could concurrently take a course in spelling under the "reform" dispensation.

LIGHT-HOUSES are of very ancient origin; it is claimed by some that the Colossus of Rhodes held a signal lamp in its uplifted hands; this was erected about 300 years B. C. The famous Pharos of Alexandria, built by Ptolemy Philadelphus about 285 B. C., is the first light of undoubted record. Other ancient lights shown from towers are mentioned by Pliny, Suetonius, and Byzantinus, at Ostia, Ravenna, and Apamea. The light-house of Corunna, Spain, is believed to be the oldest existing light-tower. This was built during the reign of Trajan, and rebuilt in 1634.

The finest light-house in the world is the Cordouan tower, at the mouth of

the river Gironde in the Bay of Biscay. It was built by Louis de Foix in 1811, having been twenty-six years in course of erection. It is 197 feet high and is rich in architectural ornamentation. A circular building 134 feet in diameter surrounds the base. in which are the keeper's apartments, and which also serves as a defense to break the force of the waves against the main building. The tower itself contains a chapel and numerous apartments. It has been adapted to the modern system of lighting, and after a lapse of more than two hundred and fifty years it is still considered the finest light-house in the world. England and France each have towers built by their

Roman conquerors, which were used as light-houses.

Examples of modern light-houses which have been erected at great expense, and in spite of natural obstacles, are the Eddystone light-house, celebrated in song and story, and situated off the coast of England near Plymouth; the Bell Rock light-house, also on the English coast; the light-house on the Skerryvore Rock on the coast of Scotland; and the light-house at Wolf Rock off Land's End, Cornwall, Wales. The latter is a comparatively new structure and cost $313.613. The Eddystone light-house was once totally destroyed, and the present structure replaces a former one rendered unsafe by the undermining of the rock on which it stood. In modern stone light-houses, subject to the action of the waves, the courses of stone are dovetailed into each other, both horizontally and vertically, making the stones, when cemented together, almost equal to the solid rock. A peculiar cutting of the outer joints also makes the joints impervious to the action of the waves.

The whole number of light-stations in the world is about 6,000 of which some 250 are shown from light ships. Of these light-stations Europe has 3,309, North America 1,329, Asia 476, and the rest of the world about 811. The United States has within her boundaries an eighth part of all the lights of the world. The cost of maintaining these lights, including beacons, buoys, etc., is sustained by the Government, the Secretary of the Treasury being ex-officio president of the LightHouse Board, the other members being officers of the Navy and of the Engineer Corps of the Army. The idea of the Government is that light should be as free as air; that the lights

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and other aids to navigation are not only for interests of commerce, but for the benefit of science and humanity, as are the sister institutions of the Coast Survey and the Life-Saving Service.

Great Britain imposes a tax, called light-dues, on the commerce of the world. These dues differ with the importance of the lights passed, the size of the passing vessel, and the nature of the cargo. Payment of these dues is made to and enforced by the revenue officers. The light-dues paid by American vessels in the year 1856 amounted to $160,000. In the same year the United States Government maintained on its 64.000 miles of coast-line (including bays and inlets) 700 light-houses, 238 fog-signals, 388 day-beacons, and some 4,300 buoys besides 250 lights on the great lakes. Great Britain stands almost alone among the great nations of the world in the imposition of this tax on commerce for coast lighting. Austria, Mexico, and most of the South American states, also collect light dues; but the general tendency, particularly on the part of Great Britian, is toward a reduction, and ultimately the total abolition, of this tax. The stand was taken in early days, that civilization required that the United States by her lighthouse establishment, her harbor improvements, her Coast Survey, and her Life-Saving Service should do what she could as a duty to humanity at large, to insure safety to those who sought her shores. France and Spain, both of which countries have ever been foremost in the lighting of their coasts, stand with our country in charging no light-dues. Belgium, while charging light-dues on the shipping of other countries, by treaty exempts the United States.

DECEMBER, 1890.

MANY Christmas things, besides plum-cake and mince-meat, are made long before Christmas. We can speak positively for periodicals, some of which are in course of preparation all the year, and the number for '92 is actually entered upon before the number for '91 has been distributed. Much of the work done upon Christmas numbers and Christmas books is executed in the hottest days of July and August, when the people who are going to buy them are in the country.

Even the flowers that bloom on Christmas tables are gathered many days before the happy morning. Some of them are put away in layers between flannel in dark drawers, while others are placed in cold rooms or refrigerators. In this way it is made. possible for the florists to supply a large part of the demand for flowers on Christmas Day.

We now require a million or two of young evergreens for Christmas trees, and these, too, are cut and stored away in good time, the choppers often going into the woods soon after the first of November. A fall of snow in

November or December greatly increaseses the difficulty, because the snow is apt to melt and freeze, rendering the branches too brittle for transportation. The woodmen therefore like to get their work forward, and pile their trees in the woods alongside the road, where they will keep fresh and green for six weeks.

The largest market for Christmastrees is Philadelphia, whence they are distributed to all parts of the country within a thousand miles. The woodmen get from six to eight dollars a hundred for their trees, which sell in the cities at prices ranging from fifty cents to three dollars.

As for Christmas presents. they give employment to many important trades, the work upon which is continuous from the first of January to the last of December. Some knowing grandmothers and ingenious aunts. to say nothing of uncles and grand fathers, are on the lookout all the year for Christmas surprises, which they hide away in unfathomable recesses, sometimes forgotten by themselves.

AT THE Rural Exhibition recently held at Palermo, near Buenos Ayres, a wonderful exhibition was given of salt from the Rio Negro salinas, or vast salt lakes. There were large

blocks composed of big crystals taken in the rough from the saltinas; barrels of natural brine; compressed cakes for cattle; coarse salt for hides and meat curing; ground salt for kitchen use; and

refined salt, dazzling as snow, for use at the domestic table; in short, salt in every form that can be desired either for practical wants or the dainty demands of luxury. It is said that a calculation has been made that in a given year it would be possible to take from the Rio Negro lakes, occupying an extension of about nine square leagues, upwards of two millions of tons, and that in the ensuing season an equal quantity of salt would be found, owing to the fact that every winter the lakes become filled with a brine of a density of from 25° to 32°, which in due time becomes a solid cake of salt.

Medicine has a strange fascination for the youth of the United States. Whereas Germany, with a population of 45.000,000, can do with 30,000 doctors, or one to 1,500 of the popuation, graduating 935 annually, and France, with a population of 38,000,000, with 11.995, or one to 3,167, graduating 624 annually, the United States, with a population of 62,000,000, has 100,000 doctors, and graduates 3.740 annually.

The body of every spider contains four little masses, pierced with a multitude of holes (imperceptible to the naked eye), each hole permitting the passage of a single thread; all the threads, to the amount of one thousand to each mass, join together when

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they come out, and make the single thread with which the spider spins its web, so that what we call a spider's thread consists of more than four thousand threads united.

The electric spark has been photographed by a special camera, in which the sensitive plate rotated 2,500 times a minute.

It takes about three seconds for a message to go from one end of the Atlantic cable to the other; this is about seven hundred miles a second.

The smallest known insect, the Pteratomus Putnamii, a parasite of the ichneumon, is but one-ninetieth of an inch in length.

The Church of England, as shown. by incomplete returns of the revenue report by order of Parliament, is the wealthiest church in Christendom. The income of the ecclesiastic commissioners is about $5.750,000, nearly one-fourth of which is derived from tithes. The Welsh tithes yield about $20,000. $20,000. The gross annual values of benefices for twenty-one counties is $10,000,000, which is distributed among 6,600 clergymen, giving them an average of a little over $1,500 a year. There are parsonages, however, and other items to be added, which bring up the annual average to about $2,000 a year from endowments alone. Of the $10,000,000 three-fourths are derived from tithes.

THERE is no wrong, by any one committed, But will recoil;

Its sure return, with double ill repeated, No skill can foil.

As on the earth the mists it yields to heaven Descends in rain,

So on his head who e'er has evil given,

It falls again.

It is the law of life that retribution
Shall follow wrong;

It never fails, although the execution
May tarry long.

Then let us be, with unrelaxed endeavor,

Just, true, and right; That the great law of recompense may ever Our hearts delight.

HANG UP THE BABY'S STOCKING. HANG up the baby's stocking. Be sure you don't forget. The dear little dimpled darling, she never saw Christmas yet! But I've told her all about it, and she opened her big blue eyes, and I'm sure she understood it; she looked so funny and wise ** Dear, what a tiny stocking! It doesn't take much to hold, such pink little toes as baby's away from the frost and cold. But then for the baby's Christmas, it will never do at all. Why! Santa wouldn't be looking for anything half so small. ** I know what will do for the baby. I've thought of the very best plan. I'll borrow a stocking of Grandma's the longest that ever I can. And you'll hang it by mine, dear mother, right here in the corner, so! And leave a letter to Santa, and fasten it on to the Write-this

toe.

followed by two lean rats, the rear rat being blind. The dreamer was greatly perplexed as to what evil might follow, as it has been understood that to dream of rats denotes coming calamity. He appealed to his wife concerning this. but she, poor woman, could not help him. His son, a sharp lad, who heard his father tell the story, volunteered to be the interpreter. "The fat rat," he said, "is the man who keeps the public house, that ye gang till sae often, and the twa lean anes are me and my mither, and the blind ane is yerself, father."

A BRAVE WOMAN.

MRS. LIVERMORE, in her book entitled "My Story of the War," gives a very interesting sketch of "Mother Bickerdyke," a famous character in those times. She was an energetic, sympathetic woman, of slight education, who had a natural aptitude for nursing. and an unfailing love of "her boys,' as she called the soldiers. Mother Bickerdyke was always to the fore when there was work to be done, and no trials or difficulties ever daunted her. After the battle of Chattanooga, she was for weeks the only woman with the 1800 wounded. The weather was bitterly cold, and the sick were nearly frozen to death in spite of big fires. At last the wood gave out one awful night, and it seemed, indeed, as it those who could not move about would perish of the cold. Mother Bickerdyke had the utmost scorn for red tape, and a mind equal to all emergencies. She called on a few of her faitnful boys' to follow her, and, armed with an axe, proceeded to make firewood of the palisades. Soon an officer came along, and looked on with