92 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Illlsrrllaivrous, 



Authors and Circulating Libraribs. — Writing a 

 .booic, as we may believe, was once a serious undertaking, 

 and 11 man iinxiously counted its cost before he toolvthe 

 plunge. He bud to satisfy himself that be had some- 

 thing to say which had not been said before; or, if it had 

 been said before, that he could say it in a wiser and 

 better manner. The few who read in those days read 

 slowly and carefully, and no book could hope to secure 

 their attention without some originality of thought or 

 information. But all this is past and gone, and a new 

 order of things reigns in its stead. Men and women now 

 rush into print as ducklings take to water, for all the 

 world reads and reads vei-y rajudly. The appetite of the 

 public for food of the lightest kind, which may be easily 

 bolted, is enormous, and the commissariat service for tTie 

 supply of this want is carried on by the circulating libra- 

 ries. Everywhere they have sprung up, and their 

 organization embraces the remotest pait of the kingdom. 

 On that day, however, when the great account shall be 

 .closed, and every child of Adam be debited with what is 

 bis a terrible store in fear of "vocations" missed, and 

 wasted hours will have been recorded against Mr. Mudie* 

 and the class of which be is the most conspicuous mem- 

 ber. Were it not for them, how many a man and woman 

 now desperately working the present line of sentiment, 

 or painfully bringing into a hard world the tiniest of 

 little joke.<, would have been doing simple addition sums 

 at a desk, or mending a baby's stocking, with profit and 

 comfort to all concerned therein. The book-maker is the 

 child and darling of the circulating library, and a dnti- 

 ful child it 's. The entire surface of the earth is searched 

 by the little creature in quest of sustenance for the 

 author of its being. — London Beview. 



JoBBPHiNB. — If the Duke of Leuchtenberg should ulti- 

 mately be chosen to occupy the vacant throne of Otho, it 

 wil! add to the singularity of the fortunes, which, since 

 the fall of Napoleon have attended the descendants of 

 Josephine, as the star of Napoleon's destiny. No royalty 

 is now to be found among the relations of Napoleon, ex- 

 cept in the descendants of the discarded wife. The 

 grandson of Jo.iephine is Emperor of France. Another 

 of her descendants was married to the Queen of Portugal. 

 Of Iier granddaughters one was Queen of Sweden, an- 

 other still lives as Empress Dowager of Brazil. The 

 great-grandson may be King of Greece. 



; ■ fcl 



A Coupi.iHEXT. — An old minister of the Church of 

 Scotland was often obliged to einplov assistants during 

 the latter part of his life. One of those was vaic of his 

 qualifications as a preacher, but aflected to be quite em- 

 barrsAsed by any compliment on that score. The old 

 divine, after the sermon, went up to the probationer and 

 wfl* going to shnke hands with him. Anticipating noth- 

 ing short of high-flown praise, the young man exclaimed, 

 •*My good sir, no compliments, no com()liinent8." "Na, 

 na," replied the pastor, " now-a-days I am glad o' auy- 

 bodr " 



—•Mr Miiilie han In I/ondnn tlio moul cxt«>n«lve rirrulatlng 

 Library w (lie world, lie leu'U book* in mil puria of EugUind. 



Dkpths op Minks in Enolani).— An English journnl, 

 after valuing the total product of the mines "of Great 

 Britain at £il,4;il,102 per annum, and computing that 

 England's supply of coal will last at least seven hundied 

 years longer, at the present rates of consumption, give< 

 the depth to which the bowels of the earth have been 

 pierced in England. The coal-pit at Dunkenficid, in 

 Cheshire, is 1,004 feet below the surface to the point 

 where it intersects the "Black Mine Coal," a seam that is 

 four feet six inches thick, and of the best quality for do- 

 mestic and manufacturing purposes ; from this point a 

 further depth of TtOQ feet has been attained by means of 

 an engine plane in a bed of coal, so great that a great 

 portion of the coal is raised trom the enormous depth of 

 2,504 feet. 



At Pendleton, near Manchester, coal is daily worked 

 from the enormous depth of 2,. 504 feet ; and the coal of 

 Wigan is brought from 1,773 feet below the surface. 

 Many of the Durham colleries are equally deep and far 

 more extended in their subterranean labyiinths. Some 

 of those, and others in Cumberland, are worked far out 

 under the bed of the sea. 



Dolcoath tin mine, in Cornwall, is now working at 

 1,800 feet Irom the surface, and is rapidly sinking deeper. 

 The depth of Tresvean, a copper mine, is 1,180 feet. Many 

 other tin and copper mines are approaching these depths; 

 and, under the Atlantic waves, man is pursuing his labors 

 daily at half a mile from the surface. 



"Don't Bother Mk." — A certaia old lady called May 

 Shaw, who had been dumb for fifty or sixty years, w«»s 

 one day moved to wrath by being told to go on an 

 err.ind. Indigniition brought back ber faculty of nttcr- 

 auce, and she exclaimed, " Don't bother me!" Mr. 

 Punch thinks that the statues of a good many deceu>ed 

 celebrities whose silence has been genuine, but to who^e 

 supposed beliefs, opinions, prophesies and sentiments 

 reference is pressingly made by their descendents, would, 

 if " stones were know to speak," open their mouths to 

 much the same effect as May Shaw in answer to the 

 majority of appeals now made to them. 



Fartwfll, IDY ».>ti : Oil l>|pB«ecl thought, 



He run noi go wliere Ooil is ni>i — 



Anil where lie is ilicre goodness reigns, 



And L"ve fulfils what I-ove ivrdiiins. 



On Niiflliprn hill*, oii S"iilhem plains, 



In winirv chill.", in siiiiimer riiins — 



In (IfH.nV confl oi— l.lra^ed Ihunght, 



He con ii"t be where God is not. [Trantoript, 



AGRICULTURAL CnRRKNCY.— A gentleman in nn inland 

 town tendered a dollar bill to pay a chnrge of sixty 

 cents, and was gravely offered forty squash seeds to rep- 

 re."<ent the balance due him. 



Master Jones, can you tell me what the dark ages 

 were? I guess they were the ages before spectacles were 

 invented. ^^ 



Your goodness orerpowers me, hs the gentlMnan mur- 

 mured to the champaigne when he couldn't rise from 



his chair. 



, ^•■•^ 



I SHALL never be able to make this passage out, as Sir 

 John Ross said when he couldn't Knd his way to the 

 North Pole. 



