et thoro, or if the unfaithfulness was coupled with desertion without reasonable excuse for two years or upwards; and the petition must state as distinctly as possible the facts on which the claim to have the marriage dissolved is founded. The alleged offender. is to be made a correspondent-that is, made to answer the petition along with the husband or wifeunless excused by the court. Upon every petition for dissolution of marriage, the court is to be satisfied that there is no collusion between the parties, and if the fact is not fully proved, the petition is to be dismissed. If, on the other hand, the court finds that the case of the petitioner is fully proved, a decree is to be pronounced dissolving the marriage; but if the court finds that the petitioner has, during the marriage, been guilty of unfaithfulness, or of unreasonable delay in presenting the petition, or of cruelty towards the other party to the marriage, or of having deserted or wilfully separated himself or herself from the other before the infidelity complained of, and without reasonable excuse, the court is not bound to pronounce a decree for dissolution of the marriage. On making a decree dissolving the marriage, the court has power to order that the husband shall secure to the wife a gross sum of money, or an annual sum of money, for any term not exceeding her own life, proportioned to her fortune (if any), to the ability of the husband, and the conduct of the parties. And the court has power to direct to whom this sum shall be paid; whether to the wife herself, or to trustees on her behalf, and may impose other restrictions on it. Also, in any suit or other proceeding for obtaining a judicial separation or a decree of nullity of marriage, and on any petition for dissolving a marriage, the court may either by any interim orders, or by the final decree, make such provision as may be deemed just and proper with respect to the custody, maintenance, and education of the children, and may also give directions for placing them under the protection of the Court of Chancery. And in any case in which the court pronounces a sentence of divorce or judicial separation for unfaithfulness of the wife, and the wife is entitled to property either in possession or reversion, the court has power to order such settlement as it thinks reasonable to be made of such property, or any part of it, for the benefit of the husband or the children of the marriage.

A power of appeal is given from the judge-ordinary of the court to the full court, whose decision is final, unless the petition was presented for a dissolution of marriage, in which latter case, there is an appeal from the decision of the full court to the House of Lords.

If no appeal is made from the decree dissolving the marriage, within three months from the date of the decree, or if an appeal is made, and such appeal is dismissed, the parties may then, and not before, marry again, as if the prior marriage had been dissolved by death. But no clergyman in holy orders of the united church of England and Ireland can be compelled to solemnise the marriage of any person whose former marriage may have been dissolved on the ground of his or her culpability, or is liable to any suit, penalty, or censure for solemnising, or refusing to solemnise, the marriage of such person. But if the minister refuses to perform the marriage-service, he is to permit any other minister in holy orders of the united church, entitled to officiate within the diocese in which the church or chapel is situated, to perform there the marriage-service.

The reader has now a general view of the new law of divorce: there are, however, many other provisions in the act, but as they relate merely to the mode of procedure and the practice of the court, they have been omitted. It is hoped and believed that the law, as amended, will have a very beneficial effect, as ample provision is made for relieving and aiding the

oppressed, and punishing the guilty. We will, however, make no further remarks upon it, but allow the reader to form his or her own opinion, and leave it to time to shew its good or bad effects.

THE REAPING-MACHINE VERSUS THE

SICKLE.

THE Scottish farmers, as a class, have suffered severely during the past season from a want of harvest-labour. The demands of the travelling shearers and mowers were for the most part so exorbitant, that the farmer, rather than submit to them, preferred contenting himself with such assistance as he could command at his own door, although, by doing so, he should leave no small portion of his crop at the mercy of the weather. The weather throughout September proved extremely checkered, and considerable loss undoubtedly ensued, although the drying winds which followed the frequent and heavy rains enabled the farm employés, during the intervals, to carry on their harvesting operations. Under such circumstances, the insensibility of the Scottish agriculturists to the advantages of the reaping-machine assumes quite a suicidal aspect. It is now exactly thirty years since the Rev. Patrick Bell, the son of a tenant-farmer on the Panmure estates, invented the reaper which bears his name. He had, it seems, been shewn, when a boy, a drawing of a machine constructed by Smith of Deanston, on a principle apparently somewhat analogous to that which, according to a Roman writer, was used by the ancient Gauls. Walking one evening in his father's garden-it is Mr Loudon who tells the story in his Encyclopædia of Agriculture-young Bell observed sticking in the hedge a pair of gardener's shears, which he took up, and began idly to prune some projecting twigs. With the idea of his projected reaper still working in his mind, the thought soon flashed upon him that the principle of the gardener's shears was precisely that which ought to be employed in cutting corn. A model on this plan, therefore, was soon constructed, and after a time, a machine of much larger dimensions. To give an idea of the labour which the adjustment of the latter entailed on the young inventor, it is only necessary to mention that, in order to preserve his secret, he thought it expedient to prepare with his own hands patterns in wood of all the pieces which required to be of metal, and send them one by one to the blacksmith to be copied. When returned, the iron fittings were carefully ground or filed as the perfect adjustment of their various parts required.

Mr Bell's first experiment with his new machine was made in one of his father's outhouses. Having covered the floor to the depth of six inches with a layer of earth, which he afterwards carefully trod down, he planted in the mould a quantity of oaten stalks abstracted from a sheaf in the barn yard. He then fastened the door of the outhouse, and placing himself in the shafts of the machine, began slowly to push it through the crop he had so ingeniously improvised. So far as the mere reaping was concerned, his machine succeeded to his satisfaction; but in order to deliver the corn in regular swathes, he discovered that an apparatus was wanted to act as a distributer.

A sheet stretched on rollers was found, after many trials, to answer this purpose; and, before the autumn of 1838, he had further improved his invention by adding to it a reel, for the purpose of collecting the corn against the cutter.

One night before the crops that year were thoroughly ripe, and when all was quiet on and around the farm, Mr Bell, accompanied by his brother, proceeded in deep silence with his machine, harnessed this time to a favourite pony, to a field of wheat. great joy of the adventurers, the experiment proved

To the

successful, and when it got wind, which it soon did, was repeated, not only at Inchmichael, but also at Pourie, near Dundee, in presence of a party of Forfarshire farmers; but although a copy of the invention, manufactured at Dundee, received the same year the Highland Society's premium, neither it, nor several others constructed on its model, could be made to work; most probably, as the inventor supposed, from a want of care in fitting the mechanical details.

An offer by the late Lord Panmure to provide the necessary funds for patenting the invention was declined by Mr Bell, on the ground that he was unwilling to retain any exclusive right over, or to reap any pecuniary advantage from, an agricultural improvement.

The invention, therefore, went to sleep, and was forgotten by all but the family at Inchmichael, till the year 1851 brought round the Exhibition at Hyde Park. Two American reaping-machines-Hussey's and M'Cormick's-which were there exhibited, and which were said to have been in general use throughout the Union during more than fifteen years, fairly startled the British farmers. Mr Crosskill, the well-known English agricultural machinist, now purchased from Mr Bell of Inchmichael his brother's reaper, and, after substituting for the shears of the Bell invention the tooth-edged knife employed by M'Cormick, carried off with it, in August 1856, the highest premium given by the Royal Agricultural Society at their Essex meeting. Three acres of land in four hours was the rate at which the competing machines-Bell's, M'Cormick's, Burgess's, and Dray's Hussey-did their work; and the performance of each machine was estimated to be equal to that of nearly thirty mowers, the labour of nearly as many binders being necessary to keep pace with them in action.

The experience of the English farmer has, since the Essex meeting, fairly determined the great advantages which the reaping-machine has over the scythe and the sickle. The reaping-machine is not now liable to any serious derangement. It may be wrought by the regular servants on the farm alone, and, with the assistance of an extra horse or two, can make as long hours as may be needed. It requires neither meat nor wages like the mower or the reaper; and, above all, it insures greater regularity in all the harvest operations. Its first expense, no doubt, is considerable; but there is no reason why the itinerant principle might not as advantageously be applied to it as to the thrashing-machine and its steam-engine, which are now everywhere to be met with plying for hire in the agricultural districts of the south. The thing has been found to answer admirably there: why should not the Scottish farmer go and do likewise?

LITERARY NUGÆ.

I have somewhere heard, read, or dreamed of a work called Adventures of a Poet in Search of a Subject, and when I take the sage advice recorded on a great man's tomb-circumspice'-I can well imagine that poets must be sometimes put to great straits. Homer must have been badly off when he did not consider it infra dig. to discourse of the hostile encounters of frogs and mice; and Virgil, likewise, who exerted his poetical powers on a gnat. The race of insects has afforded patronage also to Lucian, who wrote on a fly; and to Daniel Heinsius, Burns, and Peter Pindar, who sang of an animal the very name of which it is a sin to mention to ears polite-a louse. Among beasts, that patient and ill-used animal, the ass, has exercised the pens of Apuleius, Agrippa, and Heinsius; and an ox and a dog were the respective themes of Libanius and Sextus Empiricus; while Burns wrote upon twa dogs, a mouse, and a calf; Ovid tries his pen on a stork; Julius Scaliger, on a goose; Favorinus, on the praise of injustice. Polycrates wrote the commendation of a tyrant, and Cardan praised the Emperor Nero.

Boileau wrote a poem on his reading-desk; Tasso, on a bucket; and Antonius Majoragius, on clay; while Janus Dousa the younger delivered himself of a panegyric on a shadow. Favorinus wrote on a quartan ague, and Synesius on baldness; on which polished subject, moreover, one Waldus, a Benedictine, in the reign of Charles the Bald, produced a long Latin poem, every word of which commences with the letter c. Even he, however, was outdone by Christian Pierius, the author of a poem consisting of 1200 lines on our Saviour in the same tautogrammatic style. In the middle of the sixteenth century appeared that 'famous dish of P's,' as a facetious writer Poetam, which is in Latin, and every word beginning calls it, the Pugna Porcorum, per Petrum Porcium with p. Pope exerted all his powers of mind and body to praise a lock of hair; Prennius invoked his muse and pruned his pen to write upon a beard; and to break off, for the catalogue has no end, Erasmus wrote a poem called Moria, in praise of folly, which, for the sake of a pun, and on the principle of the lucus a non lucendo principle, he dedicated to Sir Thomas More.

Having noticed many years since, and again lately, the injury caused to magnificent books of plates by the flimsy wire-marked tissue-paper used, I beg, through N. and Q., to make the same known. The books I remember to have seen injured are The Musée Napoléon, Egypt, and other large works of the Empire; also, I think, some English books of the period; for instance, the Stafford Gallery— from the silver-paper and slight damp, resembling ironthe plates becoming spotted from some chemical action mould. Such paper ought to be removed. The best plate-paper to place between type and engravings ought in the volume without falling into the back, rumpling, or to be highly milled,' and not too thin; being able to stand protruding at the fore-edge. If tissue-paper be not of the best quality, a volume is better without it, after the ink is once dry. Notes and Queries.

Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 23 Upper Sackville Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers.

In the midst of that busy town rises a large Grecian building entirely isolated, and containing little besides one highly decorated hall designed for the public meetings of the citizens, of whom it is said upwards of two thousand can sit within its walls. Here, on the evening of the above-mentioned day, a miscellaneous assemblage was gathered together, filling every available space excepting only an ascending platform at the upper end. By and by, a number of gentlemen, mostly of middle-aged appearance, began to enter by sidedoors and take seats on the platform, but still leaving some of the front seats vacant. During a delay which took place, one might have heard individuals in the body of the hall pointing out to their friends persons of note upon the platform whom they recognised. At length, a larger than usual group entered, including a gentleman of advanced age and slightly bent figure, who took the principal chair, while his companions sat down on each side. The aforesaid individuals had of course no need to indicate to their friends that this central figure was the president of the newly born association, Lord Brougham. Entered upon his eightieth winter, yet unbroken in physical force-as his voice presently shewed-undecayed in intellect, and unflagging in the native energy towards useful objects, for which his whole life has been remarkable, there he sat, while acclamation after acclamation acknowledged what men feel when they think of Henry Brougham. Near him were Lord John Russell, Lord Stanley, the Honourable Mr Cowper, Sir John Pakington, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Mr Monckton Milnes, Colonel Sykes, and many other persons eminent in public life. It was interesting at such a moment to mark one veteran head, that of Professor Pillans of Edinburgh, and to consider that Lord Brougham and he had been brothercontributors to the Edinburgh Review fully fifty years

The immediate business of the president was to read an address on the objects of the Association now about to be inaugurated. He commenced by distinguishing the objects of social science, and placing them under their several heads of jurisprudence, the repression of crime, education, sanitary arrangements, and social economy. There must be benefits, he contended, from bringing together those who chiefly devote themselves to promote the inquiries and the measures connected with social improvement.' It would enable them to give mutual help in a common cause. 'The increased efficacy thus given to the efforts of each; the lights struck out by full discussion with the valuable suggestions thus produced, the experience, the reflections of each being made, as it were, common to all; the security against error by timely examination of each plan before its author's prepossessions have become too deeply rooted, and before he has been committed to its details; the authority given to proposals ultimately, and after mature deliberation persevered in, even if not sanctioned by the assent of others; the influence which may be acquired in various ways when that sanction has been declared-these advantages attend all such unions, and may be cited in favour of any combined operations, whatever be the nature of the subject.' dissent. We have classical authority,' he went on to say, 'for observing that, however unduly soever men may differ in their reasonings upon human conduct, it is singular how seldom they differ much in the judgments which they form respecting it. We may go further, and affirm that there is less diversity of opinion than might be supposed, even upon general subjects, and that ignorance, or misinformation, or inattentive, and therefore inaccurate observation, or careless reflection, is the cause of most of those differences.'

Discussion, too, might remove grounds of

As illustrations of the use of united action in accomplishing desirable reforms, Lord Brougham referred to the history of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which had had the effect of stimulating a cheap and healthful literature, and that of the Society for the Amendment of the Law, which for the last twelve years has been prompting the legislature to many important measures. He further referred to the

could ward off preventable disease from the naturally healthy, ought to be a part of the education of every person. This knowledge ought to be diffused, because in matters which concerned the public in its collective capacity, such as the cleansing of rivers, the drainage of towns, the exclusion from populous districts of noxious employments, and the like, those by whom sanitary reforms were imperfectly appreciated would be found hostile to them on the ground of expense, and because a large proportion of those remedial sanitary measures which it was in the power of society to apply to physical ills, were of such a nature that no police regulation, no Board of Health, no legislative enactments, could successfully interfere to enforce them without the co-operation of the parties concerned, such as the cleansing and ventilation of private dwellings.' Inquiry fully brought out the proofs that circumstances under human control greatly affected human life. For example, the mortality of our troops in barrack-life at home was as 17.8 (nearly 18) per 1000 annually; in the Guards in London, no less than 20 per 1000; while in general society, at the same period of life, it was a little under 12 per 1000. [Strange to say, the mortality of the inmates of our jails is below that of the soldiery.] It was calculated that in England and Wales there were 115,000 deaths from preventable causes. [This infers a great loss of capital to the community, for every useful man in middle life represents a considerable sum of money-namely, that which has been laid out in rearing and educating him.] It had been shewn how much evil the community incurred through the widowhood and orphanage arising from premature deaths. In Manchester, in 1842, there were 27,000 cases of premature widowhood, and 100,000 orphans thrown upon the poorrates, creating a yearly loss of L.2,000,000, and leading to a deterioration of the people, as the destitute children grew up in unfavourable circumstances. Glancing at the visitation of cholera in 1854, his lordship stated that in one district, where the population was 915 to the square mile, the deaths averaged 65 to each 10,000 persons living; while in another district with 234 to the square mile, they averaged only 7 to the 10,000; and in other districts of only 122 to the square mile, there were no deaths from this cause at all. His lordship adverted to noxious trades, close work-rooms, ill-ventilated houses, and deficient sewerage or drainage as causes of disease and premature death, and likewise to intemperate habits, which, there was reason to suppose, often arose from those very conditions. It became a most important question, how far the state could interfere to protect and improve the public health; important not merely for each individual life, but for the general interest of the community. Dry and unattractive,' said his lordship, as sanitary studies may appear, they belong to the patriot no less than the philanthropist : they touch very nearly the future prosperity and the national greatness of England. Do not fancy that the mischief done by disease spreading through the community is to be measured by the number of deaths which ensue. That is the least part of the result, as in a battle, the killed bear but a small proportion to the wounded. It is not merely by the crowded hospitals, the frequent funerals, the destitution of families, or the increased pressure of public burdens, that you may test the sufferings of a nation over which sickness has passed. The real and lasting injury lies in the deterioration of race, in the seeds of disease transmitted to future generations, in the degeneracy and decay which are never detected till the evil is irreparable, and of which, even then, the cause remains often undiscovered. It concerns us if the work of England be that of colonisation and dominion abroad-if wild hordes and savage races are to be brought by our agency under the influence of civilised man-if we are to maintain

peace, to extend commerce, to hold our own among many rivals, alike by arts and arms-it concerns us, I say, that strong hands shall be forthcoming to wield either sword or spade-that vigorous constitutions be not wanting to endure the vicissitudes of climate, and the labours of a settler in a new country. I believe that, whatever exceptions may be found in individual instances, when you come to deal with men in the mass, physical and moral decay necessarily go together; and it would be small satisfaction to know that we had, through a series of ages, successfully resisted every external agency if we learned too late that that vigour and energy for which ours stands confessedly pre-eminent among the races of the world, were being undermined by a secret but irresistible agency, the offspring of our own neglect, against which science and humanity had warned us in vain.' The sections set to work that afternoon in their several rooms in the Queen's College, and renewed their meetings during each of the two ensuing days. They were well attended, and it was gratifying to observe the quality of the men present. We had not previously any conception of there being so many men of rank, of professional eminence and intelligencemagistrates, clergymen, engineers, architects, physicians, teachers-having these benefits for their fellow-countrymen at heart, and willing to take so much trouble with a view to their being realised. The difficulty was, not to get able and useful papers to be read, but to get time in which to read them. There was something novel and striking in seeing an ex-premier and an ex-chancellor at the head of a little preliminary parliament, as it might be called, shaping out work for the actual legislature. It is admitted that in this department practical progress was made in regard to one branch of law, that relating to bankruptcy. There were also important matters under consideration in the section on criminal reformatories. Mr M. D. Hill, the president, recorder of Birmingham, gave a most interesting account, from his own recent observation, of the progress of a system in Ireland for turning convicts to use in public works, while at the same time giving them such motives to good conduct that they do reform, and are either enabled to emigrate hopefully, or are taken into respectable employmentthe crucial test, as he well remarked, of such a scheme. There was also a paper by the benevolent Miss Carpenter on girls' reformatories, treating the whole matter in a most cautious and discriminating manner, and shewing how much good might be done in this department by the females of the leisurely classes.

In the Sanitary Section, there was a great amount of excellent observation brought forward, on the various subjects of improved dwellings for the working-classes, ventilation, increased space for population, and drainage of towns. The Rev. C. Hartshorne gave an interesting description of the houses lately built by the Duke of Bedford, Earl Spencer, and the Duke of Northumberland, for the labourers on their estates, exhibiting a large outlay, and perhaps too fine a style of building, as we thought, so that the rents paid give a return in no case reaching 3 per cent., yet pleasing in the main, as shewing that these benevolent nobles contemplated a better return in the health, contentment, and moral improvement of their people. At the same time, a gentleman explained that improved cottages might be built for L.70, with a third apartment in the attic for L.5 additional. The views of the section seemed greatly turned towards the erection of groups of dwellings for the town-working populations, in rural situations, accessible at a cheap rate by railways. Here, however, the unfortunate fact presents itself, that all new dwellings built for town-workers become occupied solely by the superior individuals of their class, leaving the old dwellings as densely peopled as ever by a comparatively refuse population, and