manes, it is conceived, demand to be propitiated by such an offering. That in such cases slaves are often sacrificed in New Zealand, we have abundant evidence. Captain Cruise even informs us, that when a son of one of the chiefs died in Mr. Marsden's house, in New South Wales, it required the interposition of that gentleman's authority to prevent some of the boy's countrymen, who were with him, from killing a few of their slaves, in honor of their deceased friend. On other occasions, it is likely that the life of the slave can only be taken when he has been convicted of some delinquency; although, as the chief is the sole judge of his criminality, he will find this, it may be thought, but a slight protection. The domestic slaves of the chiefs, however, it is quite possible, and even likely, are much more completely at the mercy of their caprice and passion, than the general body of the common people, whose vassalage may, after all, consist in little more than the obligation of following them to their wars, and rendering them obedience in such other matters of public concern.

Use of Forks.-A foreigner remarks, in his work on Great Britain, that an Englishman may be discovered anywhere if he be observed at table, because he places his fork upon the left side of his plate; a Frenchman by using the fork alone without the knife; and a German by planting it perpendicularly into his plate; and a Russian by using it as a toothpick. Holding the fork is a national custom, and nations are characterized by their peculiarities in the use of the fork at table. An affectation of the French usages in this respect seems now to be gaining ground in this country.

Whenever you speak any thing, think well, and look narrowly what you speak; of whom you speak; and to whom you speak, lest you bring yourself into great trouble.

M

DUBLIN.

The city of Dublin, the metropolis of Ireland, is the capital of the county of the same name. It is about three miles in length, and two in breadth; and is seated at the head of a spacious bay, seven miles from the Irish sea. It has two cathedrals, nineteen parish churches, twenty-seven Roman Catholic chapels, numerous meeting-houses for sects of various denominations, four foreign churches, and a synagogue. Among the principal public buildings are the castle, (the residence of the viceroy,) the National Bank, (formerly the Parliament House,) Trinity College, the Law Courts, the Royal Exchange, the Čustom House, the Royal Hospital of Kilmainham for invalids, the Linen Hall, the Theatre Royal, and the Royal Barracks; also, Carlisle, Essex, and Sarah bridges, three of the seven over the Liffey. The Phenix Park, at the west end of the city, is a royal enclosure, seven miles in circuit; it includes the villa of the viceroy, the seat of the principal secretary, and a few others; also, the Hibernian schools, a salute battery; and the ammunition magazine. Besides the silk, woollen, and cotton manufactories, carried on in the suburbs, there are other branches of useful traffic in different parts of the metropolis; and its foreign trade is considerable. The harbor is obstructed by two banks of sand, which prevent vessels of large burden from going over the bar; it has a mole nearly four miles in length, with a lighthouse at the extremity, and another on the promontory opposite, called the Hill of Howth; on the northwest side of which is an extensive pier, enclosing a spacious harbor. Three miles below the city is a fortress, called the Pigeon House; and here, also, is a commodious dock. The Liffey divides the city almost

into two equal parts, and has extensive and noble quays on both sides. Two canals pass from the Liffey, named the Royal and the Grand: the latter extends upwards of forty miles to the Barrow navigation, and a branch is carried in a west direction to the Shannon, below Banagher; the former communicates with that great river above Lanesborough, and by a lateral cut, unites with the Boyne.

HINTS TO TALKERS.

I was once walking along one of the long and empty streets in the west end of London, along with a young friend, who, like myself, generally resided in Edinburgh, but now was just returned from an extensive tour in the United States of America. Suddenly, my companion started, and seemed greatly alarmed, saying, hurriedly, " For God's sake, let us go down this side street!" I accompanied him in the direction he indicated, though I could see nothing in front to alarm him, nor indeed any object at all, except a well-dressed middle-aged looking man, who was advancing from the opposite direction, and was still at a considerable distance. When we had reached a place of safety, as my friend called it, he gave the explanation, which he saw from my looks was required. "That gentleman," said he, "whom we were just now about to meet, is a valetudinarian whom I had the misfortune to encounter in a coffee-house when I was last in London. I do not think he is really very ill: only, like the most of Englishmen, he has perhaps been all his life in the habit of every now and then taking what they call a little medicine, and may have thus, perhaps, made himself ill in spite of himself.

However, having fallen into conversation with the old gentleman one evening in the public room at our hotel, he began to give me such a recital of his many and complicated disorders, and of his various attempts to get quit of them, as made me almost as ill as he represented himself to be. I tried many expedients to cut him short, but was at length fairly obliged to take refuge in my bedroom. Nothing else would do. Now, the man would not perhaps be so very tiresome as he is, if it depended solely on what he has to say. But besides the tedium of his endless recital of clinical miseries, there is an unhappy dulness in his very voice, which proves by far the severest part of the affliction. If a sloth, for instance, were a beast of prey, which fastened upon you as a spider does upon a fly, and if it emitted a humming self-satisfied sound while sucking your blood, like a schoolboy at his bread and butter, your circumstances and sensations would, I dare say, exactly resemble mine when this man was pouring his prosey stream into my ears. I positively had to go to the opera next night, in order to restore my nerves to their wonted tone. Before that time, however, you may be sure I had taken care to shift my quarters, to prevent the possibility of falling in with the same man again. I did not see him any more, sir, till about a twelvemonth after, when, in turning the corner of a street in New-York, 1 met him full in the face, and, of course, fell plump into his toils. After the slightest possible recognition, "Oh, by the way," said he, laying, at the same time, a finger like a grappling-iron aboard of my button-hole, as I was saying when I saw you last, I got no good of Lignum's scorbutic drops. All stuff, sir. The irritation continued as bad as ever” -and so on he went, with his monotonous gummy

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