THE GERMAN "HELLS."

I pass by the grand red granite building, of a rich handsome stone. It is in the centre of the town in the street, but has a garden in front; with a row of orange trees, considered the noblest in the world. There is really something grand in the air of these magnificent strangers, each in his vast green box, and standing, I suppose, thirty feet high. The greatest and most tender care is taken of them: men are watering, washing, cleaning, coifféing these aristocrats, morning, noon, and night. They are allowed to appear abroad during the hot months only, and when the cooler period sets in, they are tenderly moved to a vast palace far off in the woods, built expressly for them, where they live together all the winter, with fires, and blanketing, and matting, and everything luxurious. The story runs that they were lost, one by one, by a certain landgrave, or elector, or grand duke, who staked them against a hundred pounds apiece; and now that brings me to what I have been indirectly fencing off, and which fills me with a certain dread, as I think of it. I never felt such a sensation, as when, after passing through the noble passage floored with marble, three or four hundred feet long, where a whole town might promenade, I found myself in a vast cool shaded hall that seemed like the banqueting-room of a palace. It was of noble proportions, a carved ceiling, and literally one mass of gorgeous fresco painting and gold. Noble chandeliers of the most elegant design hang down the middle, the arches in the ceiling are animated with figures of nymphs and cupids, with gardens and terraces, and the portico furnishing is rich and solid, and in the most exquisite taste. From these open other rooms, seen through arches and beyond the folds of lace curtains, and each decorated in a different taste-one snowy white and gold, another pale pink and gold. The floors are parquet in the prettiest patterns. Servants in rich green and gold liveries glide about, and the most luxurious soft couches in crimson velvet line the walls. What art has done is indeed perfect and most innoeent; but where nature and humanity gathers round, standing in two long groups down the room, it almost appals. For I hear the music, the faint, prolonged "a-a-a-rr.” Then the clatter and sudden rattle and chinking of silver on silver, of gold on gold, and the low short sentences of those who preside over the rite, and-silence again. As I join the group and look over shoulders, then I see that strange human amphitheatre, that oval of eager and yet impassive faces, all looking down on the bright green field-the cloth of gold, indeed. What a sight! the four magicians, with their sceptres raised. The piles of gold, the rouleaux, the rich coils of dollars like glittering silver snakes, and more dangerous than a snake -the fluttering notes nestling in little velvet-lined recesses, and peeping out through the gilt bars of their little cages. There is something awful in this spectacle, and yet there is a silent fascination-something, I suppose, that must be akin to the spectacle of an execution.

The preparation, the prompt covering of the green ground in those fatal divisions, the notes here, the little glittering pile of yellow pieces,

the solid handsome dollars, whose clinking seems music, the lighter florins, the double Fredericks, and the fat, sausage-like rouleaux, which these wonderful and dexterous rakes adjust so delicately! Now the cards are being dealt slowly, while the most perfect stillness reigns, and every eye is bent on those hands. I hear him at the end of the first row give a sort of grunt, ung!" then begin his second, and end with a judgment or verdict. There is a general rustle and turning away of faces, stooping forward, a marking of paper, and the four fatal rakes begin sweeping in greedily gold and notes and silver-all in confusion, a perfect rabble-while, this fatal work over, two skilful hands begin to spout money, as it were, to the ends of the earth. On thefortunate heaps left undisturbed come pouring down whole Danae showers of silver and gold; and to the rouleaux come rolling over softly companion rouleaux. Now do eager fingers stretch out and clutch their prize. Other faces, yellow and contorted, their fingers to their lips, look on dismally. Then it begins again; figures are stooping forward to lay on; and so the wretched formula goes on, repeated -for I made the calculation-some seven hundred times that day. But it never seems to flag, and every time has the air of fresh, and fresher, novelty. It begins to sicken me, and that air of stern, concentrated attention, of sacrifice even, depresses me; and when I think that if a return could be got of the agitation, palpitations, hopes, fears, despair, exultation, going on during these seven hundred operations, it would represent a total of human agony inconceivable. Then I see how it can be again multiplied through the twelve months of this wicked year. Then I think of the prospective miseries to others at a distance, to wives and to children-lives wretched, lives unsettledmiserable deaths. I say, I think of all this, and ask, is it too much to call these men special ministers of Mephistopheles-a band under the decent respectable name of a Bank, organized to destroy souls by a machinery, the like of which for completeness exists not on this earth? I say, there is nothing on earth approaching this company, whose men and emissaries ought to wear cock's feathers and red and black dresses, for their complete and successful exertions for destruction and corruption. They distil their poison over that green board, and it is carried away to all countries-to England, France, America, Belgium, Germany, whence the victims return again and again, bringing fresh ones, like true decoys. They hang men; they punish and imprison for far less crimes; but on the heads of these wretches is the ruin of thousands of bodies and souls, the spiritual death, and the actual corporeal death of thousands more, who have hung themselves to the fair trees planted in sweet bowers by the "administration," or stifled themselves with charcoal in front of this fatal palace, and who have actually dabbled with their brains over the vile green table on which they have lost all. A banking company! all fair, give and take, and such phrases! Satan says the same in his dealings.

And here is this functionary in the trim suit-a pink-faced, hard, cat-eyed sinner, who steals about, and watches everybody, and his own agents also more than any one else. A capital officer they tell me, skilful and wary at the accounts. To him the shareholders will one day present a piece of plate, or hard cash, which he would prefer, in acknowledgment of his exertions in their interest. Oh, that some

fitting punishment could be devised for those who thus fatten on the blood of the innocent! I should not come here. I should not breathe this tainted air-look on this painted vice, and their wretched shabby baits, to win the approbation of the decent and the moral, like myself. Here are your English newspapers of every kind and degree. Pray read all day long in these charming rooms, and sit on those soft couches, or out here in these charming gardens while our music plays for you. Do understand, nothing is expected from you in return. You, charming English ladies, so fair and pretty, you can work with those innocent fingers; and your nice high spirited brothers, they would like to get up cricket, would they? Here is a nice field; we shall have it mowed and got ready, and to-morrow shall come from Frankfort the finest bats, stumps, balls-everything complete. Do you give the order; get them from London, if you like. We shall pay. There is shooting, too-quite of the best. We shall be proud to find the guns and dogs, and even the powder. It will do us an honour. Get up a little fête; a dance in the Salons des Princes. We shall light it up for you, and find the servants. So do these tricksters try to impose on us, with their sham presents, for which our Toms and Charleses-good-natured elder brothers-must pay, and pay secretly, in many a visit to these tables. They have built us a superb theatre-one of the handsomest of its size in Europe. How kind, how considerate! yet they charge us a napoleon for a stall, if there is any one worth hearing. Presents, indeed! we know the poor relative who comes with a twopennyhalfpenny pot of jam, and expects to get a handsome testimonial in return. Everything about our "administration" is in keeping; and I almost grieve that I should have come to such a place. This resolution, at least, I can make: Never to let the light of an honest man's face beam on their evil doings.

I feel I am rather warm on this matter, but it does seem to me that the whole has been too gently dealt with hitherto, and treated too indulgently. Even these conquerors, who, we are told, have given them notice that they are to be chasséd, have shown too much respect. They talk of equities-a lease. Do we hold to leases with pirates? Do we make treaties with Bill Sykes? Had I been the king, I would have marched two regiments into their glittering halls, seized their infamous tools, broken the rakes across the soldiers' knees, torn up their cards, smashed into firewood the roulette-board and its numbers, impounded their gold and silver and sent it to the hospitals, and, locking the doors, and leaving sentries, have marched off M.A. and M.B., the admirable men of business, in a file of soldiers. I should have these fellows tried, and put to hard labour for the rest of their lives.

SUNDAY.-How strange is a Sunday in this place! There is an English church, a chaplain, and a regular round of duty; but I think there would be less affectation in ignoring altogether such religious machinery. It is at variance with the place, quite an anachronism. For even in the relation of religion to the state-I mean to the " administration "there used to enter something grotesque and curious. When the use of the Lutheran church was graciously conceded to English worshippers, it was an article strictly insisted on, "that there should be no preaching against going to the Bank "-pleasant euphuism

for gambling. This was a serious warr.ing. Later on, as the church and chaplain had to be kept up by voluntary contributions and “a book," which was sent round to the visitors, the company found that this was telling a little indirectly on their interests. Testy fathers grew impatient at these applications: "infernal begging place,' "have to pay my own man at home"-complaints which were, of course, nothing to the Bank. But when it was added, "I shall take care not to come back here again," it took another shape. Like the "refait" at their own game, it told, on the whole, against the player. So it was conveyed to the chaplain that in their zeal for the advancement of religion the administration would be happy to pay him his salary, and a handsome one too; the collecting by a book was scarcely dignified, &c. This tempting offer had to be declined, possibly with reluctance; but was a little too strong. The wages of preaching to be furnished by the wages of sin! By-and-by, too, it might have been required that a word or two should be delicately insinuated in favour of the harmlessness of the game.-All the Year Round.

LITERATURE.

"SCENES AND STUDIES OF SAVAGE LIFE." By Gilbert Malcolm Sproat. London; Smith, Elder, and Co., 1868.

The position of the author, both in his private and official capacities on the west coast of Vancouver's Island, gave him peculiar opportunities and advantages for studying the natives, their language, manners, customs, and ways of life, which he tells us he used to jot down with pencil from time to time wherever he was. Mr. Sproat also availed himself of the knowledge obtained from others, and which he duly recognizes, the volume demanding especial notice from the fresh ground brought to the attention of sportsmen, many of whom may be glad to seek adventure in a place so newly acquired.

Of animals, the common black bear is frequently met with. He sometimes reaches three feet high at the shoulder, and is six feet long, not including the tail. The hunters carry lances and guns, and with half-a-dozen dogs search the woods for their game; a whoop is sounded when a bear is seen, and hunters and dogs follow, the animal apparently being more afraid of the men than the dogs. Hardly pressed, Bruin will climb a tree, commonly a cedar, as the branches come low down the trunk, and the foliage affords cover, though he will, when necessity urges, casily climb a pine-tree which has no branches for a considerable distance from the ground.

A bear even desperately wounded will not relinquish his position as long as he has power to support himself, hanging sometimes by one paw only, until at last, weak and dizzy, he falls to the ground, and is then despatched by a lance thrust. The bear is a great fisher, and at night will patiently sit on his haunches by the bank of a shallow river or stream, and there peer downwards until the rippling of the water indicates an approaching victim, and then by a scoop of his large