ever, that those Europeans who wish to be held in any estimation by the Hindoos, or who are likely to be visited by persons belonging to the higher castes, should beware of taking Parias into their service. The Pooleahs are in a state of still greater degradation than the Parias; they nearly approach, perhaps, the most abject degree of wretchedness to which man can be reduced. They are to be found only on the coast of Malabar, In that country, where monkeys are worshipped and pampered with sacrifices, the unhappy Pooleahs are so completely banished from human society, that they have neither houses nor lands; but retiring into solitary places, hide themselves in ditches, and clime into trees for shelter. They are slaves to the Nairs who employ them in the cultivation of the ground. They are not permitted to breathe the same air with the other castes, nor to travel on the public road. If, by accident, they should be there, and perceive a Bramin or Nair at a distance, they must howl aloud to warn him from approaching, till they have retired or climbed the nearest tree. If a Nair meets a Pooleah on the highway, he cuts him down like a noxious animal, In Travancore, also, they live in absolute exclusion from the rest of society, amidst marshy rice fields, crowded in miserable huts, like brute animals, and treated as such. They must never appear in the presence of their master, but shut themselves up in their hut, to receive his orders, and answer him without quitting their retreat, As they are not allowed to enter the public markets, when hunger compels them to approach the villages to exchange what they have collected for other necessaries, they call out to the peasants-tell what they want leave their articles of barter on the ground-and then return to take what the villagers may please to deposit in exchange for them. Some of these wretches, called Niadees, live in the mountains and on the trees of the forests. When they are hungry, they howl like wild beasts, and strike their bellies with both their hands, to excite the compassion of passengers; and if any benevolent traveller lays down some rice or other food for them, they never come forward to take it till the donor is at a certain distance, lest he should be contaminated by their approach. Constant fear and misery have given them a squalid and savage appearance, and entirely debased the human form. The Pooleahs, like the Parias, are not allowed to enter the temples. They marry but one wife, and have a kind of priests who officiate at their marriages, and in small chapels set apart for their use. When a Pooleah dies in a town or village inhabited by castes to whom it is unlawful to touch him, his body is left unburied, and is preyed upon by the ravens and the vultures, till some individual or other of his tribe, who may inter him, happens to pass that way. Miscellanies. LIBERTY.-What strange notions of liberty some people have! I remember being at an inn where a French gentleman and his wife arrived in a post chaise-all the horses were engaged-and Monsieur, anxious to proceed on his journey, wished the same boy to carry him on-his poor beasts were fatigued, and he declined. Monsieur, much irritated, insisted that he should-but Jeheu was inflexible. "How! how! cried the disappointed Frenchman," do they dare to call dis a land of liberty, when I cannot compel dat man to go on wid me >" CHOICE OF COLOURS IN DRESS.-Green, though a colour exceedingly pleasing and refreshing in itself, may jaundice the complexion of a pale woman to such a degree, as to excite little other sensations in the beholder than compassion for the poor invalid. Such females should in general choose their robes of an entire colour; and when they wear white garments, they should animate them with draperies, mantles, scarfs, ribbons, &c. of pale pink, blossom-colour, celestial blue, lilac, dove colour, and primrose; leaving full green, deep blue, and purple, to the florid; and amber, scarlet, orange, flame colour, and deep rose, to the brunette. PICTURESQUE FUNERAL.-KAUFFMAN, the celebrated female artist, died at Rome, in 1808. Her funeral obsequies were performed with decorous pomp, and with more than usual solemnity. Several of the nobility, more than one hundred ecclesiastics, in the habits of their several orders, and the members of all the Literary Societies at Rome, walked in the procession. The pall was supported by young ladies, dressed in white; and immediately after the body, some of her best pictures were displayed, borne on the shoulders of the mourners. MR. ISAAC FELL, damask weaver, at Upperby, is now working some stay napkins for a nobleman's family, in Westmoreland, with this inscription wove in them-" Spun by Mary Noble, in the 106th year of her age."-Lancaster Gazette. DISTRESSING CIRCUMSTANCE.-A short time since, a poor man in the employ of Messrs. Ball and Co. Old Jewry, named Thomas Stewart, on going to work in the morning, discovered a strange cat in the warehouse, and on being told to remove her, he attempted so to do, when the cat seized hold of one of his fingers, which it in a trifling degree lacerated, but the injury being so trivial, he took no notice of it, till the Friday following, when the poor fellow was visited with violent vomitings. He became alarmingly worse in the course of Friday night, and next morning having betrayed strong symptoms of hydrophobia, he was taken to St. Thomas's Hospital, where he was attended by Dr. Travers, and other medical gentlemen, who used every art human skill could devise, but all efforts proved abortive, aud he died about two o'clock the same day. The poor fellow had been fifteen years with Messrs. Ball and Co. and has left a pregnant wife and four small children to bewail his loss. SAD NEWS FOR THE FAIR.-By the late returns it appears that in England there are 294,088 females more than males-in Wales, 16,464-in Scotland, 126,352-making a total in Great Britain of 434,904-almost half a million ladies fair, doomed by the unlucky course of nature to single blessedness-which is rendered worse by the waste occasioned by at least 150,000 inflexible bachelors. How it is in Ireland, we have no means of ascertaining; but we hope affairs are more prosperous. Tom Clarke, of St. John's, desired a fellow of the same college to lend him Bishop Barnet's History of the Reformation; the other told him he could not possibly spare it out of his chambers, but if he pleased he might come there and read it all day long. Some time after, the same gentleman sent to Tom to borrow his bellows; Tom sent him word, he could not possibly spare them out of his chamber, but he might come there and blow them all day long. A lady's age happening to be questioned, she affirmed it was but forty, and called a gentleman who was in company to deliver his opinion. "Cousin, said she, do you believe I am right when I say I am but forty?' "I am sure Madam," said he, "I ought not to dispute it; for I have constantly heard you say so, for these ten years. DOMESTIC TELEGRAPH.-This is a very superior invention to bells. It is intended to convey orders to servants, which they can instantly execute without the usual loss of time in going to receive a verbal command. Mr. Pearson, the inventor (a resident at Boston, in America), conceived the possibility of surmounting the difficulties that walls and distance oppposed to his success, and of preventing the necessity of speech. The master is obeyed as promptly as possible, and the servant, certain of understanding his orders, need not fear the effects of want of memory. Mr. Pearson's telegraph consists of two dials, divided in the same manner; each of the needles is subject to the same movement at the same time, and over the same space. The communication of the movement from one needle to the other was the only difficulty in this mechanical problem; this obstacle has been ingeniously surmounted. One of the dials is placed in the master's room, and can be made an elegant decoration; the other in any situation most convenient to servants. Every one of the divisions, which can be multiplied at pleasure, represents an order by an understood sign or figure; the master points the needle of his dial to the sign or command he wishes to be obeyed, and that instant the signal is repeated on the dial fixed up for the servants' use. This telegraph is easily constructed, and of very trifling expence. The custom of having a "roast goose" for dinner (seasoned with sage and onions and port wine) on Michaelmas Day, is of very ancient standing; yet, the cause why, remains yet unexplained; though, as Beckwith remarks, in his new edition of Blount's Jocular Tenures, it was probably for no other reason but that Michaelmas Day was a great festival, and geese at that time most plentiful. Poor Robin, in his Almanack for 1695, has the following lines: "Geese now in their prime season are, Old Sheridan once made his appearance in a new pair of boots, which attracting the notice of some of his friends, he said"Now guess how I came by these boots." They guessed many very probable guesses, but "No," said old Sherry, no, you've not hit it-nor you never will, therefore I may as well tell you I bought 'em, and paid for 'em." 66 CONSCIENTIOUS COURIER. By a singular regulation, the government couriers in Austria are ordered, when they are charged with dispatches, sealed with only one seal, to go at a walking pace; if with two seals, to trot; and if with three, to gallopA courier, bearing a dispatch with three seals, passing lately through a garrison town, was requested by the commandant to take a dispatch to the next town, to which he willingly agreed; but perceiving, when he received it, that it had but one seal, he refused to take charge of it, saying, "that the regulation ordered him to walk his horse with such a dispatch; and as he had another with which he was ordered to gallop, he could not possibly take them both." HOME BREWED BEER.-A lady, residing at Greenford, in Middlesex, whose penuriousness was proverbial, but who prided herself upon the excellence of her home-brewery, not only in every description of English wines, but also in the real barleycorn, as she termed it, received a load of furniture from London, and requested the assistance of a neighbouring hind to unload the waggon; which having performed, he was surprised at the old lady's liberality, in asking him to take a draught of her best ale. John smack'd his lips-"Thank'ee, Ma'am, I don't care if I do." The ale was brought, which he having drank, she said, “ Aye, I see you like it-its genuine stuff-nothing but malt and hops." "Oh! yes, there is, Ma'am," replied John, "Indeed!" said the old lady, "What?" "Water, Ma'am, water; you know you couldn't make it without water." "Ah! true, John, I forgot the water.”—“No, Ma'am," retorted the labourer, "I'll be d-d you did." if In an assault case, at York Assizes, a witness, named John Labron, was thus cross examined by Mr. Brougham :-What are you?—I am a farmer, and melt a little. Do yo know Dick Strother?-No. Upon your oath, Sir, are you not generally known by the name of Dick Strother ?—(much confused.) That has nothing to do with this business! I insist upon having an answer; have you not, from the notoriety of your character as a liar, obtained that name ?—(very reluctantly,) I am sometimes called so-(laughter.) Now, Dick! as you admit you are called so, do you know the story of the hare and the ball of wax ?-I have heard of it? Then pray have the goodness to relate it to his Lordship and the Jury.-I do not exactly remember it. Then I will refresh your memory by relating it myself. Dick Strother was a cobbler, and being in want of a hare for a friend, he put into his pocket a ball of wax and took a walk into the fields, where he soon espied one. Dick then very dexterously threw the hall of wax at her head, where it stuck, which so alarmed poor puss, that in the violence of her haste to escape, she ran in contact with the head of another-both stuck fast together, and Dick! lucky Dick! caught both.-(Reiterated laughter.) Diek obtained great celebrity by telling of this wondrous feat, which he always affirmed as a truth, and from that time every notorious liar in Thorner bears the title of Dick Strothcr. Now, Dick-I mean John-is not that the reason why you are called Dick Strother ?-It may be so! Then you may go. When the Ukase of the late Emperor of Russia appeared concerning the form of the hat, the son of an English merchant, with a view to baffle the police, appeared in the streets of Petersburgh, having on his head an English hunting-cap, at sight of which the police officers were puzzled. "It was not a cocked hat," they said, "neither was it a round hat." In this embarrassment they reported the affair to the Emperor. An Ukase was accordingly promulgated, and levelled at the hunting-cap; but not knowing how to describe the anomaly, the Emperor ordained-that "No person should appear in public with the thing on his head worn by the merchant's son. |