1856.] Tact and Talent 445 



tact is fitted for it. It has a knack of slipping into places with a sweet, 

 silent and glibness of movement, as a billiard ball insinuates itself in 

 the pockets. It seems to know every thing without learning any thing. 

 Talent is certainly a fine thing to talk about, a very good thing to be 

 proud of, a very glorious eminence to look down from; but tact is use- 

 ful, portable, applicable, always alert, always marketable ; it is the 

 talent of talents, the availableness of resources, the applicability of 

 power, the eye of discrimination, the right hand of intellect. 



Lord Rosse's Telescope. — This magnificent instrument is made 

 of speculum metal, which, while it is as hard as steel, is yet so brittle 

 that a slight blow would shiver it to atoms, and so sensitive to the 

 changes of temperature that the effusion of a little warm water over 

 its surface — not too warm to be disagreeable to the touch — would 

 crack it in every direction. The plan proposed by Mr. Potter, and 

 now claimed as originating the entire improvements, was tried and 

 found utterly unfit for producing the proper surface. A deviation of 

 the speculum from the parabolic form at its outside circumference, 

 which should then amount to the 1-100,000 part of an inch, would 

 render it optically imperfect, and a deviation from the proper focal 

 length of any part to the amount of the l-l,000,000th part of an inch 

 can be detected. Sirius, when seen in it through the light, is utterly 

 insupportable to the unprotected eye; yet, when properly viewed, it is a 

 beautiful sharp head of intense light. 



Up at Manchester the other day, a party from Boston were examin- 

 ing the factory facilities and buildings, and among the rest the force 

 pumps that threw water all over the premises. This was just as the 

 girls were leaving work, and some of them got pretty wet. " You are 

 washing your girls, colonel ? " said one of the party to the master 

 of ceremonies. " Yes," said he quickly, as the bell sounded for 

 closing the work for the day; " yes, and we are now ringing them out." 



A lady said to a gentleman, who had accompanied her and her sister 

 to church, "Why, it rains; send and get an umbrella.'^ 



''Why," said the beau, you are neither sugar nor salt, rain will not 

 hurt you. 



*'No," said the lady, "but we are lasses.'* 



He sent for one immediately. 



