492 NOTES FROM THE DIARY OF A SUB-EDITOR. 



O'Sullivan and the Exeter-Hall-ites have been firing away in different 

 parts of the country at the heresies of Dens, with a vehemence befitting 

 their charitable cause ; and if all they say be true, his holiness the Pope 

 may be soon expected to take up his residence at Westminster, ousting 

 King William from his royal chair with as much ease, and as little 

 reluctance, as a cuckoo displaces a sparrow from her nest. His Grace 

 of Wellington, on the other hand, has been inspecting the indigenous 

 military with the critical eye of a commander just on the eve of a great 

 passage of arms ; lauding the institution of such forces as an especial 

 preservative of peace, and commending with sweet praise their effective 

 condition ! Here, then, behold several master energies all at once 

 engaged upon the three most portentous questions which can agitate a 

 people's mind theology, politics, and war : O'Connell taking a^ re- 

 view of the state of the nation ; the Reverend Disputers (without dis- 

 putants), of the state of the church ; and the duke, of the yokel yeomanry 

 in the provinces ! With these mighty spirits stalking about the land, 

 to say nothing of the comet just now hanging over our heads with such 

 an angry aspect what terrible trouble is about to happen ? Time, alas ! 

 the revealer of all doubts, can alone disclose ! 



LADIES' BOARDING-SCHOOLS. Now that legislative influence has 

 been extended to national education, we are surprised it has not been 

 applied to the system of female education, as adopted in boarding- 

 schools. An ably-written review of Dr. Riofrey's " Education Phy- 

 sique," which appeared in the Athenaum of Oct. 10, directs attention to 

 this subject in an ably-penned article : 



" Of the moral and intellectual deficiency of schools for young women," says 

 the writer, or, to employ the accredited jargon of 'seminaries for young ladies' 

 it is not our cue at present to speak ; and the necessity is the less, because they 

 are matters of sufficient notoriety. But of the injuries inflicted on health, and the 

 total want of common sense, in almost all the arrangements of these establishments, 

 by the utter ignorance of schoolmistresses (the exceptions being too few to merit 

 notice) concerning all that belongs to the living mechanism of their victims, the 

 public requires to be instructed." 



We have heard of a foreigner who entered a " Seminary for Young 

 Ladies," somewhere in the vicinity of London : and, on seeing those 

 implements of torture : backboards, steel stays, and feet stocks, lying 

 about the apartment, compared it to the ante-room of the Hall of Inqui- 

 sition. Every sacrifice seems to be made for the falsely-estimated 

 advantages of personal appearance; while the first cause of beauty, 

 health, is not only neglected, but forced, and too often perverted. 



NEWSPAPER ABUSE. It hath been propounded by that exemplar of 

 truth-telling travellers, Baron Humboldt, that in the absence of other 

 food, hyaenas are marvellously given to picking their own flesh from 

 their own bones ! A propensity not very dissimilar seems to have seized 

 the London papers during the last month. From the dearth of editorial 

 sustenance usually supplied from the imaginations- of those whom 

 Mr. E. L. Bulwer " delighteth to honour" with the appellation of 



