As ill luck would have it, he entered into partnership with a certain Adam Jellicoe, then deputy-paymaster Jellicoe was considered a man of sub

of the navy.

stance, and a "thoroughly respectable" character. He was to advance the ready money, and to receive in return half of the profits of the trade, Cort assigning to him, by way of collateral security, his patent rights. For a year or two all went well. The patent was everywhere adopted, and Cort's own iron works drove a lucrative and growing trade. He seemed in a fair way of getting back the fortune he had spent in bringing out the inventions, doubled or trebled, as he well deserved. The respectable Jellicoe was seized with a mortal sickness at his death his desk was filled by another, his books were examined, and it turned out that he had been robbing the government for many a year back, and was a large defaulter. Cort, of course, had nothing to do with this villany, but he had to pay the penalty of it. As Jellicoe's partner he was responsible, in those days of unlimited liability, for all Jellicoe's debts; but that was not the worst of it. The treasurer of the navy was not content to exact only the payment of Jellicoe's defalcations, as he had no doubt a right to do, but confiscated the whole of Cort's patent rights, business, and property, which would have paid the debt seven or eight times over, had it been fairly valued.

This incident has never been properly cleared up,

but what glimpses of its secret passages have been obtained, seem to indicate clearly enough that poor Cort was the victim, not of one, but of two or more swindlers. To the day of his death he never could obtain a distinct account of the proceedings; and when, after his death, a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the matter, the treasurer of the navy and his deputy took care, a week or two before the Commission met, to indemnify each other by a joint release, and to burn their accounts for upwards of a million and a half of public money, for the application of which they were responsible, as well as all papers relating to Cort's case. When the Commission met, and the treasurer and his deputy were called before it, they refused to answer questions which would criminate themselves.

His connection with Jellicoe was. of course, the ruin of Henry Cort. He had no means of re-establishing himself in business; he was robbed of all income from his patents; and he died ruined and "broken-hearted ten years after, leaving a family of nine children, without a sixpence in the world. Four of these children now survive-old, infirm, and indigent-only saved from being dependent upon parish bounty by pensions, amounting in the aggregate to £90 per annum. Well may it be said, "There should be more gratitude in our Iron Age to the children of HENRY CORT."

Of all the marvels of our time, the most marvellous is the subjugation of the electric fluid, that potent elemental force,-twin brother of the fatal lightning,— to be our submissive courier, to bear our messages from land to land, and "put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes." The Prospero that tamed this Ariel was no individual genius, but "two single gentlemen rolled into one." The idea of employing the electric current for the conveyance of signals between distant points, can be traced pretty far back in date; but to Mr. Cooke and Professor Wheatstone is undoubtedly due the credit of having made the electric telegraph an actual and accomplished fact, and rendered it practicable for everyday uses.

Having served for a number of years as an officer in our Indian army, Mr. Cooke came back to Europe to recruit his health in the beginning of 1836, and took up his abode at Heidelberg. He found agree