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where plans and sections of the excavations have also been deposited.

Siamese property. The greater part of the trade is conducted with the British ports of Hong Kong and Singapore, but there is a little also with the Dutch ports of Java. Besides the shipping thus named there are no fewer than twenty steamers navigating the safe and commodious river Menam. The exports are well known to consist of rice, oil, teak-wood, sugar, tin, etc., and of late years, of raw silk. So much for the progress of Siam. Long be its continuance, and long the life of its enlight-mains of the citadel belonged to the second Marened king.-Examiner.

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The Bookseller gives the statistics of London newspapers thus: Daily newspapers, 248,000-the total annual issue, 77,376,000; weekly, 2,263,200— in the year, 117,686,400; the weekly issue of religious journals is 183,700. The total is 195,062,- | 400. There has been an increase of 76,263,200 in two years. Some 400 country newspapers average 800 each. Of weekly magazines, there are 489,600 of religious literature; 734,000 of useful and entertaining; 195,000 romantic tales; 9000 immoral publications (in 1860, 52,500-a large decrease); 5005 free-thinking. Of monthly journals, 1,869,500 are religious; 703,250 temperance; 338,500 educational and useful. Great Britain pays for education, by public acts, £706,000; science and art, £135,600; education in Ireland, £307,000; in Scotland, £14,700.

An Interesting Relic.-It is in contemplation to pull down the only piece of the ballium wall of the ancient citadel of Southampton remaining. It was built in King Stephen's time. The document in which the citadel was intrusted to a knight by Edward the Black Prince while he went to fight in the battle of Cressy, is in existence. The re

quis of Lansdowne, who included it in a castle which he built, and while he resided in it Pether, the famous moonlight painter, and the Margravine of Anspach were his neighbors. The owner of the ballium wall has offered to let it stand for £100, and the Rev. Mr. Kell and Dr. Bond are trying to raise the money by subscription. Mr. Pettigrew, of the British Archæological Association, has written to the Southampton corporation, imploring them to save the relic. The Lansdowne Castle was sold and pulled down at the marquis's death.

Nine cardinals' hats are at the disposal of Pius IX., who has in the course of his reign created forty-five cardinals and outlived sixty-five. Among the cardinals there are four who number more than 80 years, twelve who are upward of 70, and twenty-nine who are above 60. Cardinal Antonio Tosti, who is 90, is the oldest.

"Lives" of Bank Notes.-The average period which each denomination of London notes remains in circulation has been calculated, as is shown by the following authentic account of the number of ⚫days a bank note issued in London remains in circulation: £5 note, 72.7 days; £10, 77.0; £20, 57.4; £30, 18.9; £40, 13.7; £50, 38.8; £100, 28.4; £200, 12.7; £300, 10.6; £500, 11.8; £1000, 11.1. The exceptions to these averages are few, and therefore remarkable. The time during which some notes remain unpresented is reckoned by the cen-pliance with some technical points. tury. On the 27th of September, 1846, a £50 note was presented, bearing date 20th of January, 1743. Another for £10, issued on the 12th of November, 1762, was not paid till the 28th of April, 1845. Stolen and lost notes are generally long absentees. The former usually make their appearance soon after a great horse-race or other sporting event, altered or disguised so as to deceive bankers, to whom the bank furnishes a list of the numbers and dates of all stolen notes. Carelessness or accidents give the bank enormous profits. In the forty years between 1792 and 1832 there were outstanding notes of the Bank of England-presumed to have been lost or destroyed-amounting to £1,330,000 odd, every shilling of which was clear profit to the bank.-Cyclopedia of Commercial Anecdotes.

The Chancery Suit between Sampson, Low & Co. and Messrs. Routledge, which turned on the point whether an alien, living in a British colony, and there publishing a book, could secure for himself the benefit of the English Act of Copyright, has been decided by Vice-Chancellor Kindersley. The judge decided that, on principle, a foreigner publishing under the circumstances stated was entitled to the benefit of the act; but in the particular case before the court the benefit was lost, from non-com

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Buddhist Relics-A very interesting collection of ancient Buddhist remains, discovered by Mr. E. Harris at Sultangunge, on the Ganges, while engaged in some engineering operations, has just arrived in England. Among the objects of interest discovered in the ruins excavated (supposed to be a Vibár, or Buddhist monastery) is a colossal image of copper, seven feet six inches in height, weighing upward of a ton, and supposed to be upward of two thousand years old. There are also several smaller figures, both in stone and in copper, the letters on some of which show that they must have belonged to the second or third century, some coins, a copper vase, the metal of which has quite decayed, some baked clay slabs thickly covered with writing, etc. The collection is at present placed in the museum of the Royal Asiatic Society,

Salisbury Cathedral.-This noble edifice-perhaps the most gracefully symmetrical of all the English cathedrals-is in imminent danger of falling. Mr. G. G. Scott, the celebrated architect, who has for five years past been engaged in every cathedral restoration in the kingdom, says that there is nothing to prevent the spire falling at any day, like that of Chichester Cathedral. Such a calamity has been feared since 1837, and efforts have been made to avert the threatened destruction of the fabric. The tower is held together only by iron bands, and Wren, who examined them in 1688, said that if they were removed the spire would spread open the walls and cause its instant destruction. £40,000 are required to preserve the building, of which £6000 are subscribed.

-Amongst the property of the late Miss Katherine Southey, which was sold at Keswick lately, were the original manuscripts of her father's Life of Nelson, Life of Cowper, and other works, and numerous letters of eminent literary men, particularly of Scott, Lamb, and Southey.

-Among the books of interest announced in England may be mentioned Mr. Grote's work on Grecian Philosophy, Plato, and the other Companions of Socrates. This, it will be remembered, was promised in his history, to the intellectual portion of which it will form the necessary complement. Lives of the Warriors of the Seventeenth Century who have Commanded Fleets and Armies before the Enemy, by Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Cust. This will be a companion to the Military Annals of the

last two centuries, that form so valuable a manual
for students of the art of war, by the same author.
Physical Geography of the Holy Land-by Dr. Ed-
ward Robinson-a Supplement to Biblical Re
searches. This is the unfinished work that engaged
Dr. Robinson's attention at the time of his death
a portion has been found sufficiently matured to be
made public. The above will all be issued by Mr.
Murray..

-An autograph of Tasso's was sold lately in Paris. It bears the date March 2, 1570, when the poet was twenty-six years old, and is simply a pawnbroker's pledge, worded as follows: "I, the undersigned, acknowledge to have received from Abraham Levy twenty-five livres, for which sum I have pledged a sword of my father's, six shirts, and two silver spoons."

-Bunyan is becoming popular in Germany. Several German versions of The Pilgrim's Progress already exist; and now The Holy War has also been translated and published at Eisleben by the

Christliche Verein.

-A new work on Palestine, being an historical, topographical, and archæological description, has been published in Paris. It is from the pen of the Abbé Laurent de Saint Agnaw.

!

Mail Day in Melbourne, and What They Read.About two days, or rather less, as a general rule, after the steamer has been telegraphed, she herself arrives in Hobson's Bay, at the head of which is Sandridge, the port of, and two and a half miles distant from, Melbourne. A small steamer goes alongside the Peninsular and Oriental vessel, and receives the mail-boxes. She takes them to Sandridge, and there they are placed in carts, and driven up to the General Post-office in Melbourne There is a railway from Sandridge to Melbourne, but it is found more convenient and expeditious to put the boxes in spring-carts, and send them by road. I believe the average number of boxes containing the letters and papers is three hundred. Extra hands are taken on at the post-office to assist in bringing in and opening the boxes; and the regular clerks sort the letters and papers with wonderful quickness. A notice is placed outside the postoffice, intimating to the public when the letters, etc.; will be delivered. Boys from the different news-venders and booksellers attend for their parcels of the Home News, which arrive in great quantities. This paper is also carried about Melbourne and the suburbs by the unwashed children of the street, and soon bought up. Published in London for ninepence, it is sold in Melbourne sometimes for eighteenpence, and sometimes for a shilling. The unwashed usually proclaim it under the name of the Ome Noos. It is an invaluable paper to Australians, as it treats of every subject that pos sesses the slightest interest for Englishmen abroad. Its price, however, in the colony prevents not a few from buying it. Some little time after the Home News has been out, the other papers, maga zines, and periodicals make their appearance at the different book-shops. The Illustrated News is in great request; Punch, sold at two shillings the -Among the forthcoming works announced in four numbers, soon goes off; then London Society England, the Longmans promise Tuscan Sculptors, and the Cornhill Magazine, sold at eighteenpence their Lives, Works, and Times, with Illustrations each, find many purchasers. Chambers's Journal, from Original Drawings and Photographs, by Charles Once a Week, All the Year Round, come in for C. Perkins, in two volumes; Rome, Ancient and many buyers; and then perhaps the Illustrated Mediaval, being a History of the City from its Foun-Times, Leisure Hour, News of the World, Lloyd's dation to the Sixteenth Century, by T. H. Dyer; Last Winter in Rome and other Italian Cities, by C. R. Weld; The Autumn Holidays of a Country Par son, and Explorations in Southwest Africa, by Thomas Baines, with a map and illustrations.

--The recent Prussian expedition to China and Japan will soon result in an elegant work, illustrated with chromo-lithographs from drawings by native artists. The work will be published in Berlin.

-The Memoirs of Barras are announced for speedy publication in Paris. Barras was chief of the Directory, belonged to an illustrious family of Provence, was an officer before 1789, and died in 1829 in Paris.

-A Dictionary of Slang Words is to be soon published in London. The author has devoted ten years to the task, and has collected ten thousand slang words and phrases.

-A work has been published in Germany, by Dr. Hugo Schrann, on Roger Bacon. It is entitled The Six Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of Roger Bacon's Birth (zum 650sten Geburtsjahr Roger Bacons).

-A Paris letter states that "the heirs of Silvio Pellico have brought a suit against the heirs of the Marchioness de Barolo (in whose mansion Pellico passed the last twenty years of his life) to recover his manuscripts, that they may publish them. It is believed these manuscripts contain a complete autobiography of Pellico, several sacred dramas and tragedies, and the whole correspondence and several unpublished poems of Ugo Foscolo."

Newspaper, Fun, and others. Good Words sells well also; and there being many in Melbourne to whom tales of pistols and virtue are acceptable, I have no doubt the London Journal and its companions in price do not hang long upon the booksellers' hands. Victoria being a sporting colony, and containing many lovers of the " Fancy," largely patronizes Bell's Life. New books generally arrive by sailing ships, as the overland freight takes too much of the profit off. Victorians have but little time for study: it does not bring in any money. Bishop Colenso was regularly preached at for many Sundays, but very few of his books were sold. So Essays and Reviews found few purchasers; and of Kinglake's Crimea, I should say scarcely any copies were sold. Novels are extensively read, but they are usually procured from the libraries, of which there are two very good ones in Melbourne.-Vide Chambers's Journal.

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