POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



569 



many distinct peoples ; and, in respect to 

 arts, there is much diversity, though arts 

 travel from people to people with the great- 

 est ease. At the present time we can not 

 have fewer than seventy distinct peoples 

 among the tribes of North America, and 

 in antiquity the number may have been 

 greater." 



Savage Sharp - Shooting. Concerning 

 the manners and customs of the savages of 

 Mount Sylvia, Formosa, Mr. E. Colborne 

 Baber related in the Royal Geographical 

 Society : " A party of English officers from 

 a man-of-war landed on the island, and, 

 meeting a company of natives armed with 

 matchlocks, challenged them to a trial of 

 skill in shooting. Affixing a mark to a tree 

 about a hundred yards distant, the officers 

 made what they considered pretty fair prac- 

 tice, without, however, astonishing the na- 

 tives, who, when it came their turn to fire, dis- 

 appeared into the jungle like one man, and 

 crawled on their bellies through the under- 

 growth to about three yards from the tar- 

 get, which, of course, they all hit exactly 

 in the center. When the Englishmen pro- 

 tested that such a method of conducting the 

 competition was hardly fair, the natives re- 

 plied, ' We do not understand what you 

 mean by fair, but, anyhow, that is the way 

 we shoot Chinamen.' " 



Emigration from the Old World. The 



migrations of European population, says 

 " The Spectator," were never so general, 

 so extensive, and so complex as they are 

 at present. By reason of railways and the 

 cheapening of travel, movements that in 

 any former age would have occupied years 

 are now accomplished in a twelvemonth. 

 The greatest wanderers are perhaps Italians, 

 for the struggle for existence is keener in 

 Italy than in any other European land ; the 

 working-classes there have to labor more 

 hours and for less pay than anywhere else. 

 The natural result is an enormous migra- 

 tion of Italian artisans and laborers into 

 neighboring countries ; and with them nei- 

 ther Germans, Austrians, nor Swiss can 

 compete. "They are better skilled in their 

 calling and more sober in their habits ; and, 

 though they begin by working for lower 

 pay, many of them earn, because they de- 



serve, higher wages than their native com- 

 petitors. They excel in all sorts of stone- 

 work ; and at Zurich and some other places 

 architects are in the habit of stipulating 

 that none but Italian masons shall be em- 

 ployed on a job. They built the St. Gothard 

 Railway. They are found as far north as 

 Dresden and Berlin, and the greater part of 

 the engineering work in France is performed 

 by Italian navvies. The Germans, Austri- 

 ans, and Swiss, displaced by the Italians, push 

 north and west. Many come to England, 

 more go to the United States. ... It is 

 found in Austria that emigration is most 

 rife in districts where two races are in con- 

 flict, and that those most prone to emigrate 

 are of the German race. This is especially 

 the case in Bohemia and Moravia, where the 

 Slav and Teutonic elements are struggling 

 for supremacy ; in the north of Hungary, 

 where the Germans have the upper hand ; 

 and in Galicia, where the population is 

 Polish and German, and the Jewish element 

 is being increased by immigration from Rus- 

 sia. It would, however, be unsafe to lay 

 down any general law on the subject." It is 

 not probable, for instance, that the Ger- 

 mans emigrate because they are worsted in 

 the struggle for existence, but perhaps be- 

 cause they are more enterprising and far- 

 seeing than their Slavic neighbors and are 

 better able to go. In some instances, the 

 emigration is by masses, as in the district 

 of Wisowitz, in Moravia, which has lost 

 nearly half its population, and in the re- 

 gions of Tabor and Kuttenberg, where " a 

 veritable emigration fever has prevailed." 

 Austria is making a use of the wandering 

 disposition of its discontented subjects some- 

 what to its own advantage, by inducing 

 them to colonize in the annexed district of 

 Bosnia. 



The Mystery of Eels. Naturalists are 

 generally agreed that at least three distinct 

 sorts of eels are indigenous to British wa- 

 ters : the silver-bellied or sharp-nosed eel 

 the one that migrates in the fall a firm, 

 fine-flavored fish, with an almost black back, 

 a silvery belly, and a fine, sharp head ; the 

 grig or snig, a yellowish eel, with a project- 

 ing under jaw ; and the broad-nosed eel, an 

 uglier-looking animal with a broader head, 

 fierce and voracious in its habits, and of 



