! THE DEATH OF SAMSON. Greenblades and Lawrence, the keeper, and Drift Daggs was sentenced to pass other eight days in Brindleton Prison, seeing that there was some mitigation in his case, from his being stranger and a seaman. HE Samson is not destitute of the Dagas had remained silent up to this point, but now the Tele scriptural history of Samad that this is the case is smouldering hate which was burning in his heart, burst forth in a torrent of unmitigated abuse. "Off with him!" said Mr. Ilbert, with stern determination. evidenced in the suggestion it made to Milton's mind, in his dramatic poem of Samson Agonistes; the following passage of which is illustrated by our accompanying engraving: "Off with me!" cried Daggs, as his envenomed eyes fixed themselves upon the face of the Magistrate. "Off with me! You know me not, or such a command would not come from your lips. Look at me, sir!" he cried, as he tore open his waistcoat and wrung the neckcloth from his throat, "Look at me, sir," as he spread down his shirt collar, and discovered the bovine fullness of his grizzly neck, and exposed the horrid front of his wrathful countenance. "Look at me! I say-Can you read in these features no other person than Drift Daggs? Look at me, I say! Has your memory so failed-Ay, ay, ay! grow pale, old man! look, look, and grow paler still-Ah! ah! ah!' (To be continued in our next.) At length, for intermission sake they led him Now of my own accord such other trial I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater; He tugg'd, he shook, till down they came and drew www THE TIMES. LORD RUSSELL.-Lord John Russell has left Florence for England. INCOME-TAX.-The income-tax agitation continues with unabated vigour in nearly every town in the kingdom. THE PERSIAN CLIMATE.-A correspondent of Galignani, well acquainted with the Persian Gulf, says that the climate is the worst in the world. PERSIA. The Times announces that the British expedition to Persia has for its object "the conquest and annexation of that ancient dominion!" ROYAL PALACES AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS.-The repairs of the royal palaces and public buildings in the year ended March, 1856, amounted to £170,780. THE AFFAIR AT CANTON.-It is asserted that Yeh, the Governor-General of Canton, has in the short time during which he has been in office, beheaded no less than 70,000 human beings. THE PRINCESS TRUBETZKOI.--The young Princess Trubetzkoi, who has bestowed her hand on the Count de Morny, has received from the Emperor Napoleon a casket of valuable jewels, valued at 150,000 francs. THE SHIP "RESOLUTE."-The Resolute Arctic exploring ship, has had a few of her dockyard stores removed. She is to accompany the exploring squadron to the Polar Regions. She will be stripped and again refitted for that service. NEW ARMS. From a circular issued from the Horse Guards, it appears that the smooth bore arms now in possession of the cavalry will eventually be superseded by breech loading carbines and rifled pistols. REPEOPLING OF SEBASTOPOL.-A letter from Sebastopol states that the city is gradually becoming repeopled. It now contains about 7,000 inhabitants; Kamicsch, 2,000. Three hundred houses partly destroyed during the siege have been rebuilt, and eighty new ones constructed. DEGRADATION OF GOVERNOR YEH.-The Court of Pekin has sentenced the Viceroy Yeh to degradation for having illdefended the town of Canton against the English attack. This fact seems to prove that the Chinese Government will not yield unless a demonstration be made against the heart of the empire. THE NEUFCHATEL QUESTION.-The belief in the best quarters in Berlin is, that Prussia and Switzerland will arrange the further points of the Neufchatel question between themselves, and that a Conference will then be assembled simply to sanction what the two Powers have agreed on. Switzerland is understood to be anxious that London should be the place of meeting of this Conference. NEW CLOTHING FOR THE NAVY.-It is said to be the intention of the Lords of the Admiralty to issue one uniform clothing to the seamen of the royal navy, which will be the property of the crown, under the same regulations as "military necessaries," purchasers of which are liable to fine and imprisonment. By this arrangement it is hoped to deprive the thoughtless of the means of obtaining spirits on shore by the sale of their clothing. VERGER'S BROTHER.-We are assured, says the Assemblée Nationale, that the brother of Verger, the Assassin, went to the Conciergerie with an artist, and requested the director of the prison to allow him to have the portrait of the assassin taken. The permission was justly refused, on which he cried out that since the portrait of the Archbishop was sold everywhere, he could not understand why he should be refused permission to sell that of his brother! DEATH THROUGH TIGHT LACING.-An inquest has been held at Leeds, on Ann Eliza Durham, aged twenty-six. The surgeon who made a post-mortem examination of the body found the waist exceedingly small, the lungs much congested, the heart much larger than natural, and the cavities full of blood. He considered death to have arisen from smallness of the chest, caused probably by tight lacing, disease of the valves of the heart, and depression of spirits. The verdict returned was, "Died from disease of the heart." UNEMPLOYED WORKMEN IN LONDON.-The number of unemployed in London belonging to the principal building trades is at present as follows: Carpenters Plasterers.. Painters Stonemasons 9,000 1,000 15,000 2,000 35,000 A STRIKE OF CHORISTERS.-A strike of a rather novel character has just occurred in the parish of St. George's, Somersetshire. It appears that the vicar's lady, by way of inducing some of the children to lend their choral aid in the service of the Church, has been in the habit of rewarding their diligence and attention by an annual gift of one shilling each, payable at the commencement of the year. From some circumstance which had transpired, the usual shilling this year was withheld, the result of which was that on Sunday morning five of the youthful choir "struck" their singing. By evening service the number of malcontents was increased to seven, and the church being consequently left almost voiceless, a promise was made that the shilling should be forthcoming. Even, then, however, the youthful rebels, practically mindful of some such maxim as "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," remained obdurate until they should be actually put in possession of that which they considered to be their due. THE REGISTRAR'S METROPOLITAN RETURNS FOR 1856.In the 52 weeks ending December 27th, 1856, the number of children born in London was 86,833. According to a rule which holds in this large population, the number of males exceeded that of females, for the births consisted of 44,159 boys and 42,674 | girls. In the same period 57,786 persons died, namely 28,894 males and 27,892 females. The births increase more or less rapidly with the population, and under a reduced rate of mortality the number of deaths in 1856 was less than that of any previous year since 1852; and the result is an excess greater than was obtained in any former year of births over deaths. The excess is 30,047. Soldiers and seamen have returned from the seat of war; persons engaged in peaceful pursuits have arrived in the capital from other parts of the United Kingdom and from abroad, and though many have left it for other homes, it may be assumed that sustenance, clothing, and house accommodation must now be found in London for about 60,000 inhabitants more than it contained at the end of 1855. Last year the public health was unusually good. During the last ten years the annual deaths in London have been on the average 25 to 1000 of the population; in 1856 the proportion was 22 to 1000. The mortality was lower than in any year within the limits of this comparison, except 1850, when it was slightly less than 21 in 1000, a reduction which, it is probable, was partly the consequence of the premature destruction of infirm persons by the cholera of the previous year. That improved state of health which last year prevailed in London as a whole was in various degrees enjoyed by each of the five great divisions of which it is composed. The mortality ranged from twenty-one in the Western and Northern divisions to twenty-three in the Eastern. The population of 1,390,702; total, 2,616,248. London last year was as follows-males, 1,225,546; females, THE HOW TO BEAUTIFY LIFE. HERE is no more marked phase of the prevailing prodigality than the extravagance of the female toilet. That the rich should spend their wealth is naturally to be expected, but it would be well if it were spent in such a way as not to vulgarise the tastes and demoralise the cha racter of their fellow-citizens. The expenditure of the opulent, particularly that of woman, is too personal in its character, and necessarily leads to imitation. If the wealthy dame will persist in making a show of her riches upon her person, her less opulent rival will not be outdone in expense even if she should break her back or her husband's credit by its weight. There is such a spirit of intense competition in the female heart that no consequences will deter a woman from an effort to equal a rival in personal attractions, which the female sex will persist in thinking depend upon the richness of their adornments. If, however, women dressed to please their male admirers, they would remember that it is the universal sentiment of mankind that "beauty when unadorned is adorned the most," and that even homeliness gains nothing by being richly set. There is not one man out of a hundred who has not dealt in the article" who is conscious of the difference between Brussels and cotton lace, or silk and calico. All that the most fastidious male admirer will insist upon is, that propriety of female dress which comes from suitableness and harmony of colour, neatness of fit and perfectness of detail. There is nothing so charming to a cultivated man as the exhibition on a woman's dress of a refiued taste, exercised in the simplest materials. A plain calico neatly made and cunningly trimmed, with the nice proprieties of a pure white collar, a hand well gloved, and a foot bien chausée, is the drapery the most provocative of admiration the male observer is conscious of. Women, however, do not dress to attract the opposite sex, but their own. Men admire in female attire the becoming, but women the costly. It is to catch the knowing woman's eye, which can tell at a glance the difference between the cheap and expensive, that our Junos spread out their fine feathers. Cheap calicoes are eschewed for moire antiques, cotton for Valenciennes lace, and French shawls for Cashmeres, and for no better reason than because cheap is cheap, and dear is dear, and sharp-sighted woman is conscious of the difference, and admires the wearer accordingly. It is astonishing to what an extent this passion for expense in female dress is carried. Let us count the items. There is the jewelry, which may amount to any sum from one to thousands of pounds. There are the laces, with the multiple varieties of Valenciennes, Chantilly, points d'Alençon, and appliqué, enveloping, under the forms of veils, collars, sleeves, handkerchiefs, flounces, and insertions, the fluttering insect of fashion in a web that would have puzzled the skill of Arachne to have woven. A single veil often costs £20, and a pocket handkerchief half that amount. As for the dresses, since they go on increasing in expansiveness, until they bid fair to outswell the dome of St. Paul's, it is difficult to embrace them within an estimate, or, in fact, within any thing of fixed proportions, Say, however, that there are ten-each containing at least twenty yards of stuff-some of moire antique or stamped velvet, and others of the simplest material, the most expensive of which may have cost the yearly salary of many a respectable hard-working man. To love such a woman may not be, as Steele said of a charming person of his day, a liberal education, but to possess her is undoubtedly a very pretty little fortune. We have taken, perhaps, an extreme case, but it is a genuine one, derived from real life, and will serve to show the standard of female expense, which, if not always reached, is more or less approximated, and universally aspired to. Examples of prodigality are found every where, but we conscientiously believe they are getting more frequent now than ever they were in female dress. Such examples should be avoided by the rich for their vulgarity, and by the poor for their danger. If happiness consists in dressing extravagantly, it admits of many diversities. There is, however, one beauty of the, willow, another of the magnolia, another of the live-oak ; and so the elements of happiness, like those of beauty, vary in different organisations. The plan of happiness we would recommend is, not to force ourselves into other people's ways , and imitate their modes, but to believe in our own nature, and make the best of that we can. Of all the abuses of what phrenology calls imitativenes, that is the most ridicu lous which follows others in their particular channels of happiness. If our object is to beautify life, let us see where it is best to begin. The best point to start from is simplicity. It is a great intellectual quality; it is a grand moral virtue. To be simple-minded is to be in a position to learn, and to be simple-hearted is to have access to all the love in the universe. This simplicity keeps alive the childhood of the soul, and makes every day a fresh gift from heaven. How the senses live in it! How the spirit cherishing its glad freedom, and content with its abounding consciousness, has a patrimony of blessedness in its infinite joy! Now, this simplicity is just what we need. For we act as if we believed that a man must own a little of everything to be rich, and enjoy a share of everything before he can be respectably happy. We are idolaters of the much. Far wiser would it be to cultivate the simplicity which expands the little within easy reach into a great deal, and by having a big heart, enlarges all that comes into it to the measure of its own capacity. Intelligent and living simplicity would cure half of our follies. It would convert our fops into gentlemen, and our fashionable belles into well-behaved women. It would build us such houses as had ideas in them as well as bricks. It would give us social festivities that would look higher than the cork of a wine-bottle. Above all else, a genuine simplicity would tend to diminish that excessive regard for circumstances, which so often occupies the mind to the exclusion of veneration for character. Acting thus on us, it would soon show itself in outward life, breathing the spirit of Art beyond the immediate sphere of Art itself, and exalting us to the enjoyment of such pleasures as Nature offers to those who, by refinement and purity, are capable of appreciating her as the work of infinite beauty. Life may be beautified by well-directed efforts to improve the society of home. We say well-directed efforts, for few there are among parents who have just that peculiar wisdom and temper which give the right tone to domestic character. Sympathy with children is a great means of cultivating the sense of moral and social beauty; it is such a pure and unmixed emotion, so singularly free from fictitious elements, so spontaneous in its lightsome activity, that generous nature has ample scope in it for her best instincts. The happiness of childhood is born within itself, and by entering into its gladness we learn the lesson which age is so apt to forget, that the mere consciousness of existence is a fruitful source of pleasure. Then, too, the various offices of home, while they exert a potent influence by the duties springing from such intimate relationship, are yet more effective in the higher culture of character by the outgoings of that delicate, quiet, appreciative spirit, which seeks to adjust look, tone, and manner to the aspects of the family circle. Then, too, the calm of home, what a mighty power! We lose the inspirations of nature for want of tranquillity. Out into the fields and beneath the skies we carry eager, restless, turbulent thoughts; but the fire side breathes repose, and because of this, images of beauty and love rise from its hours of stillness and charm us heavenward. Is not this a kind of beauty and a kind of happiness, which the most costly lavishment in dress can never give? brick walls. To this park he added a chase, which he threw THE HORSE-GUARDS AND ST. JAMES'S out like a wide open noose, from his palace at Westminster, PARK. THOSE resident in London, and those who have ever our accompanying representation of the Horse-Guards. The building itself has nothing very attractive in it; but the associations connected with it bring to mind a multitude of circumstances more or less connected with the regulations and discipline of our military establishment. It is still fresh in the recollection of the people of England how frequently the wisdom and policy of the Horse-Guards were called in question during the sufferings of our army in the late war. Since the peace, as a matter of course, there have been few opportunities to bring it before the public; as forming a great engine in the machinery which governs a great nation; however, it will always, more or less, stand as a prominent object connected with the military affairs of this nation. every were and where the line fell it formed the circle which ran from St. Giles's-in-the-fields, up by Islington, round Highgate and Hornsey, Hampstead Heath, and back again to St. Giles bidden either to hawk or hunt within these boundaries. What a change since then! Could this wilful Tudor rise from his grave now, how might we expect his eyes to dilate with amazement on seeing to what purposes the march of "a nation of shopkeepers," as Napoleon called us, has converted his hunting grounds. There are many pretty little prospects about St. James's Park, as you look up towards where the pale marble arch formerly stood, on which the royal banner of England, that threw out its golden lions upon the breeze, was wont to float; THE HORSE-GUARDS. Guards, and visit the Parks. Here all the array of rank and fashion and aristocratic beauty congregate, under the open eye of heaven; mounted on splendid horses, or seated in richly ornamented chariots, and arrayed in the most costly apparel, they confer a pleasure upon all, by issuing forth to see and to be seen. Here,-from the humble pedestrian, the nursery-maid and her children walking within the enclosure, the man-about-town, fashionably dressed, and who may either be taken for a marquis or a member of the swell-mob-the ranks ascend to celebrated statesmen, soldiers of renown, and lords and ladies, whose titles have figured for centuries in the pages of history, and who will appear to have no other object than that of inhaling the fresh air and enjoying the beauty of the scenery; for in these places, although not at this season, the leaves wave and the flowers blow, and the waters run, as green and sweetly and freshly, as if the huge city, with its millions of murmuring voices, had been removed miles away. Yet all is London; only a wider space in that great unbroken chain of streets and houses, whose squares are but the openings in the links that are locked together in and out, and under and over, to the very ending. St. James's Park is the one we enter upon from the HorseGuards. In the reign of Henry VIII. it appears to have been nothing more than a wide space of open fields, formerly occupied by an hospital; on the site of which bluff Hal erected a palace and formed a park, which he enclosed with when seen thro' the opening green of the foliage, it seemed to carry back the imagination into the land of old romance and chivalry. Nor is the Palace in the neighbourhood much less pleasing; for, although in many parts deficient in architectural beauty, it throws the old blackbricked gloomy pile of St. James's altoge ther into the shade. But the most beautiful walks lie beside the canal, or sheet of ornamental water, which is fairly alive with waterfowl, brought from almost every portion of the globe. Around are many fine trees, which throw their green shadows into the water, broken at times by a hundred living ripples, which have been raised by the paddles of some strange looking duck, or thrown up by the silver-breasted swans. We have some little morsels mirrored in these cool translucent waves of the richest colour and beauty; the drooping gold of the laburnum, and the pearly white of the hawthorn, dangles amid moving shadows of green; while deep down, the blue sky lies sleeping, like another heaven, motionless and without a cloud. This is the favourite haunt of children in the sunny season of the year, and few fowls are better fed in summertime than those which skim about the water in the Park, for the handfuls of bread and biscuit which they throw in to them would almost feed the inhabitants of a workhouse. This Park has been a celebrated spot for love-making ever since the days of Charles II., and is frequently mentioned in the works of the dramatists who wrote at that period. Since then it has continued to preserve this character. Of all the retreats that may be said to be in the midst of London, it is the one to which those who delight in the beauty and sweetness of flowers love to resort, and the old and young at all seasons of the year will there be found enjoying the various objects which art and nature have brought together to give them gratification. In the very centre of a large and crowded population, such an opening is invaluable, and its value cannot be over-estimated. ST. GILES'S. THE ROOKERY OF ST. GILES's." THE Rookery of St. Giles's no longer exists; hence we wish to preserve a memorial of it in our pages, so that on turning them over at some distant day we may recall the strange contrasts which," once upon a time," almost jostled each other in this great and growing metropolis of England. The poetry of our picture strikes every mind, save such as may have tasted the sad reality of figuring in the Rookery, or places of similar description. Dogs and dirt; pigs and boys; every species of British quadruped might have been found, at some time or other, an inhabitant of this singular conglomeration of all that is calculated to revolt humanity. And yet we say that there is poetry in the picture! And so there is: the most pathetic and tragic that is to be found in the whole theatre of human life. There is not a being here but has a tale of struggle, want, and misery to tell. The very dog is squalid, and forms a striking contrast to the only animal that fattens upon the offal and garbage of such a place. How much of sadness, sickness, and sullen adversity is associated with these ruined walls-walls that are now happily swept away in the progress and development of a better and more enlightened order of things. "We well remember," says a picturesque writer, "passing through the Rookery of St. Giles's when the work of demolition first commenced; when those who had found no other residence were allowed to remain until the workmen began to pull the houses down. Many of the inhabitants, who |