electrify the audience, was suddenly stopped short at the sion from a book professing to present to us the end of the fourth act, and meeting with Mr. Bunn, he was 'Living Authors of England." What though compelled by the necessity of his case, and unable longer he draws occasionally upon an old and forgotten to contain the supprest energy, to discharge the entire fifth act of Richard III. on the unfortunate head of Mr. Bunn. author, one Solomon, for his proverbs and upon "I feel quite sure that you will not punish my friend later and better-remembered essayists for his Mr. Macready for the wonderful power which the immor- philosophy-what though he tal Shakspere has over his votaries and admirers.' "He then closed his speech, and the actor got off with tolerable damages." Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke We come now to notice what strikes us as quite the most remarkable piece of cockney im- we say, what of all this-is he not a “living aupudence we have seen for a long time. Mr. thor" of England? Where too is Thackeray, bePowell gives a few pages under the caption of yond all question, next to Dickens, the first masJohn Forster. We were naturally eager to learn ter of pathos in the English tongue? Where is something more than we already knew of this Professor Aytoun, the Bon Gaultier of the monthly acute and philosophical writer. He enjoys a magazines? Where is Elliott, the artisan-poet, high and well-deserved reputation wherever his whose rhymes convey to the stern, sad heart of "Lives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth" English toil the sense, the dream, the hope has reached. Thinking that we should be fur- of a larger and better liberty, of a new and nished with some pleasant memoranda of his enduring social reform? Where are the Howitts, private history, we turned to that part of the man and wife, whose efforts, though sometimes book at once. Judge our surprise and mortifi- misdirected, are always exerted in behalf of hucation to find instead an attack of a most vitupe- manity? They may perhaps move in a less shirative character on Washington Irving who is ning orbit than many of Mr. Powell's celebrities, charged with having stolen the whole of his they go not to dine in Belgravia, and their names "Life of Oliver Goldsmith" from the English are never seen in La Belle Assemblée, but Biographer. Not content with this, our author are they not authors of England, aye, and livassails the long established fame of Geoffrey ing authors in the fullest sense of the word? Crayon, who occupies "a false position in Amer- Some too are omitted, among the privileged ican literature" and we are told that it is "fal- few whose volumes glitter on the rosewood lacy" to consider him "any thing beyond an tables of "the twice three hundred for whom agreeable essayist, and a very successful imita- earth was made." Lady Georgiana Fullertor of the level style of Addison and Pope." ton has claims to be ranked among English His volume on Goldsmith is asserted to be a authors, and what shall we say for the negcompend of "faded piracy, tame sentimentalism, lect of the "wondrous boy that wrote Alroy" and common-place suavity." Oh, cruel Mr. and Mr. G. P. R. James? We might multiply Powell! Oh, luckless Mr. Irving! How facile is examples of Mr. Powell's sins of omission, we the destruction of fame! Conjured up by petty might refer to D. M. Moir, the “A” of Blackmalice, how easily a cloud envelops Sunnyside wood (who, we think, is still alive) and Simand shuts out forever the author of the Sketch-mons, his successor in lyric effusions, and the Book. Bells of Jane Eyre notoriety, and others, to the We have not yet done with Mr. Powell; for extent of a page. But we have said enough. there are sins of omission as well as of com- Our author promises a companion to the present mission, and he has fallen upon them. Henry volume in the "Living Authors of America," Taylor and Philip J. Bailey are men of whom shortly to be published in which we shall probawe would fain know something, and yet Mr. bly see Mr. Cornelius Mathews magnified into Powell mentions them only to introduce flat the great Mogul of western literature. critiques on "Philip Van Arteveldt" and Feswork we wait with exemplary patience. tus." One would suppose too that a work which gives a niche to writers as little known as Ernest Jones, Coventry Patmore, Thomas Burbidge and Arthur A. Clough might mention, if only in a single paragraph, the names of other authors whose works are familiar to the American reader. Where is Martin Farquhar Tupper whose Proverbial Philosophy has passed through one hundred editions in the United States? The admirers of that writer (we confess we are not of the number) may justly complain of his exclu 66 EPIGRAM. To Flavia's shrine two suitors run How, thus twin-courted, she'll behave If she's a fool she'll wed the knave For that FROM OUR PARIS CORRESPONDENT. PARIS, October, 1849. and more especially with the bisulphite of lime. The abundant sulphurous acid which these bodies contain prevents all fermentation while their base neutralizes the sulphuric acid, as soon as it produced. It remained to be proved whether by In one of my late letters I spoke of a recent themselves, or by their very abundant sulphudiscovery of M. Melsens, Professor of Agricul- rous acid, they did or did not affect, and how, the ture and Veterinary Medicine at Brussels, which sugar in process of manufacture. To this end at the time was attracting much attention, and various experiments were made, in all of which was supposed to interest, in the highest degree, it was observed that the sugar crystallized toall who were concerned, here or elsewhere, in tally, readily and without any appearance of mo the production of sugar. The discovery was lasses. "I was allowed then to hope," said M. then known only by its marvellous effects. The Melsens, "that the bisulphite of lime employed as product was to be doubled, and the manufac-a prompt absorbent of oxygen, and as an antiture simplified, expedited, and cheapened in an septic, exerted no deleterious action upon the equal degree. The scientific and practical ex-sugar, if it were poured cold upon the rasping periments which were officially ordered to test the machine of the beetroot, or the rolling mill of value of the discovery have taken place. The the cane, so as to mix immediately with the juice results have not been so favorable as was hoped; but were far from being decisive against the discoverer. It is admitted that before the value of the new procedures can be authoritatively pronounced upon, their application to the coming crop must be witnessed. In the mean time M. Melsens has himself torn off the veil of secresy and published a work, in which his discovery is freely given to the world with scientific and practical instructions for its application. I must redeem my promise by giving a short account of it. which may prove sufficient for the information of the generality of readers. Such as would have a more intimate knowledge must apply to the original work of M. Melsens. It will probably soon be translated in the United States. at the very moment of the rupture of the cells containing it. I was allowed to hope that the sugar would undergo, in its presence, and without injury, the action of the heat indispensable in the process of refining. In this operation, supposing it to be conducted in the usual manner, the lime employed would neutralize the bisulphite, and would leave the juice prepared for evaporation without loss of sugar, purified from the ferments and from all matters capable of producing them." M. Melsens soon perceived that the bisulphite of lime was possessed of other properties of great value in the manufacture of sugar. It was a powerful clarifier. Experiments had established the fact that the substance in question separates all Neither the cane nor the beet root, said M. the azotic matter existing in the cane and beetMelsens, contains any sugar that is not capable root, with a loss of sugar estimated at about one of crystallization. The formation of molasses, or two hundredth parts of the mass. The bisulor treacle, is caused by the ferments which they phite of lime removes too almost completely, contain, and which are developed upon coming and promptly, the colored matters existing in in contact with air and water, in the course of the cane and beet root; and it prevents the forthe operations necessary in the manufacture of mation of such other colored matters as are prosugar by the usual mode. To be sure, by the use duced by the contact of the air with the pulp of alcohol instead of water, as a dissolving agent, and during evaporation; and especially of such the sugar is separated from the ferments and pro- as require the concurrence of air and a free altected from all alteration. But alcohol is too kali. To sum up in the words of M. Melsens costly to be generally used with advantage, and himself-the bisulphite of lime is useful in the the employment greatly increases the danger from fire. M. Melsens therefore directed his researches to the discovery of some cheap and convenient substitute for alcohol-a liquid which rapidly absorbing oxygen, would form with it an acid, which without injuring the sugar, would precipitate the ferments and the substances which pro- 3rd. As a purifying agent, which at 100 deduce them. He subjected to a variety of expe-grees, clarifies the juices and rids them of all alriments three substances known to possess the buminous and coagulable matter. properties desired, binoxide of azote, sulphurous "4th. As a substance removing pre-existing acid, and aldehyde. For different reasons, these colors. were successively abandoned, and a course of manufacture of sugar, 1st. As eminently antiseptic, preventing the production and the action of all ferments. "2nd. As an absorbent of oxygen, preventing those changes in the juices which the presence of oxygen would otherwise produce. แ “5th. As an anti-colorant eminently efficient experiments commenced with the acid sulphites, in preventing the formation of colored matter. "6th. As an agent neutralizing all injurious solution of bisulphite of lime, applied to the juice acids which may exist, or be produced in the alone, is to increase this yield to about 12 lbs. juices, by substituting an acid almost inert, sul-white sugar: and if applied to both juice and phurous acid, in their place." In what quantities, in what manner, is the bisulphite of lime to be applied to the cane and beetroot in the manufacture of sugar? What are the disadvantages or inconveniences accompanying the application of the new processes? M. Dumas, the celebrated Parisian chemist, procured from the sugar plantations of Murcia, in Spain, several hundred weight of sugar-cane and handed them over to M. Melsens to be made the subject of his experiments. He proceeded thus: pulp the yield will be 17 or 18 per cent. The late experiments signalize an unpleasant sulphurous taste in the sugar manufactured after the Melsens method. The discoverer replies to this objection, that the taste of sulphur may be made to disappear from the sugar in three ways. 1st. Break up the sugar and leave it for a while exposed to the air. The sulphite is converted into a tasteless sulphate. 2nd. Exposed to the action of an ammoniacal atmosphere the sugar loses the savour of sulphur and acquires a highly agreeable vanilla flavor. But in this case it is sometimes colored a little. The cane was broken up by means of a beet- 3rd. If the sugar is subjected to the process of root rasping machine: the pulp resulting from clarification (la clairce) so that it be made to lose the operation, being sprinkled with a solution of about 10 per cent. of its weight, the result will the bisulphite of lime. The pulp was then sub- be a sugar comparable with the purest and whijected to a press and the juice extracted. This test made by the ordinary methods. This opejuice was boiled, filtered, placed in pans over a ration regenerates, by means of evaporation, fire and evaporated to a density of about one- such sugars as the above. third for the cold syrup. Filtered again and left| for slow crystallization, this syrup, in a few days, gave a mass of candy from which it was impossible to extract any molasses. cane. The pulp, moistened with water, and subjected to another pressure, furnished a second juice equally rich. It was treated like the first, and yielded the same results. If need be, this operation may be again repeated. M. Melsens employed of a bisulphite of lime, marking 10 degrees of the areometer of Baumé, a quantity equal to about one per cent. of the weight of the The whole of the sugar had been extracted and was there before him in solid form. All this, says M. Melsens, is effected without the exaction of any special attention or study. The workmen employed in the operation are not hurried and pressed. So long as an appreciable amount of the bisulphite exists in the liquid it prevents alteration. This discovery will, it is hoped by M. Melsens, facilitate the domestic manufacture of sugar in large quantities for family use. Powerful rolling mills to crush the cane are by no means necessary. A root-cutter, a rasp suffice; for nothing hinders the operation by washing. The use of bisulphite of lime rendering all fermentation impossible, the direct washing of the cane cut into small pieces, or rudely torn and broken up, suffices for its exhaustion. So much for the sugar cane. As for the beet-root its manufacture into sugar is much more advanced than that of the cane. It is nearly perfect. Science, it is well established, cannot do much more for it. The beetroot contains sugar to the amount of 10 per 100 of its weight. By the methods already in use an average of 6 per 100 is actually obtained. M. Melsens anticipates from the adoption of his improvement, an average yield of 8 per 100. The remaining 2 per 100 may be set down as unattainable; the juice of the beet-root containing many salts opposing the crystallization of sugar and which the bisulphite of lime is powerless to counteract. In his experiments, M. Melsens sprinkled the beet-root, at the moment of rasping it, with his solution of the bisulphite of lime. The solution used, marked, as in the case of the cane, 10 degrees by the areometer of Baumé : but the quantity employed, instead of being 1 per 100 of the weight of the root, was now equal to 24 per 100. On watering the pulp from which the juices had been extracted, adding a little of the bisulphite, the crystallized masses which were the result always contained unaltered sugar to the amount indicated by previous analysis. At the same time it is admitted that the product was not so beautiful as in the experiments on the cane, and the crystallization was often confused. If the statements of the discoverer are to be "If," says M. Melsens, the employment of relied upon, the application of his new process the bisulphite of lime is adopted, the new condiwill be attended with the most brilliant results. tions which it will introduce will open a large The average yield, he says, with the methods field for invention, which I am quite unable to hitherto employed, is from 6 to 7 lbs. brown scan. But it appears to me that the use of the sugar, (raw or muscovado,) for 100 lbs. cane. His rasping machines will be necessary until pro found study and observation shall have de- crops: and the laborer himself will reap the hymonstrated the effects produced by the bisul-gienic advantages, hitherto unknown to him, of phite upon the slices produced by the root-cutter an increased consumption of sugar. While in and subjected to systematic washing. It has ap- England the consumption of sugar amounts to peared to me that the saccharine liquids obtained an average of 22 lbs. per head per annum, upon by maceration or levigation are operated upon the continent the average consumption of each with more facility than the natural juices derived individual does not reach 54 lbs. per annum." directly from the action of the rasping machine I have had occasion, I think, in former letters to and rolling mill. allude to the backwardness of the French Government, not less evinced under the republican than under the monarchical regime, to frankly adopt the grand invention of the nineteenth century, the electric telegraph, and submit to the new conditions of social, commercial and political progress which that invention imposes. A nation daily boasting, with more or less reason, to be at the head of civilization, to be the greatest, the most enlightened, the most generous peo "I dare not assert that the presses now in use will be retained even if rasps should be. They are constructed with a special view to a quick despatch of work. But under the new system, the pulp once rendered unalterable, presses of slow action, operating upon large masses, economizing labor, dispensing with the bags and hurdles, may offer certain advantages and justly obtain the preference. "Boilers of the kind now in use will be indis-ple on the face of the earth, the most progressive pensable in the process of refining the sugar. "Taylor's filters, or others similar to them, will be employed under the new as under the old system; unless, which is quite probable, it may be deemed preferable to operate by deposition. too, (God save the mark!) and yet materially and intellectually so far behindhand as not to need the electric telegraph! as not to see and comprehend its sublime results, its beneficent uses! as to shrink with fear from its application! "The apparatus for evaporation by fire cannot Glory to the Anglo-Saxon who invented, combe used in the beginning of the concentration of prehends, and dares to apply the electric telethe juices: but towards the end recourse must be graph-fearlessly accepting all its consequences. had either to rapid evaporation in boilers heated Glory to the Anglo-Saxon which alone among by steam, or to a slow crystallization effected in nations is socially and politically up to the electric stoves. I have ascertained that in this operation telegraph! If France were, as she claims to be, one may employ at pleasure vessels made of at the head of nations, the steamboat, the locosheet-iron, cast-iron, tinned copper, and very motive, and the electric telegraph might perhaps probably of wood or of bricks cemented. The be in existence, but the world, the living, moving, use of animal charcoal may be retained, dimin-active world would know nothing of them. They ished, or quite suppressed, according to the qual- would not have told upon humanity as they have ity of the sugar, raw or refined, which it is in tended to manufacture." M. Melsens thus concludes the valuable and interesting work of the contents of which I have given only a concise summary. told, and are every day telling. Beautiful miniature models might be seen, however, at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, No.- rue St. Martin. Once a month, in summer, the boat would be exhibited to the admiration of the public upon the grand basin in the garden of the Tuileries: the locomotive would occasionally make the tour of the Louvre before a select com "If, contrary to all expectation, the manufacturers of indigenous sugar should not find it to their advantage to adopt my process, I cannot believe but that it is still destined to exert a great pany of distinguished strangers and invited guests. influence upon the production of the sugar proper As for the electric telegraph it would be estabto our climates. When nothing but a root-cutter, lished in one of the longest salles at the Garden one or two casks, a washer-woman's boiling ket- of Plants. Periodically like the great watertle, and a few earthen vessels are all that is ne- works at Versailles and St. Cloud, and like them cessary to conveniently extract the sugar from a advertised in the papers four or five days in adcouple of thousand lbs. of beet-root, obtaining it vance, the marvellous telegraph would be made by the very first operation whiter than the most to play. "On nous annonce que le telegraphe beautiful muscovado brought from the colonies, électrique ce saississant et merveilleux produit de la may we not hope that the demands of a con- science Francaise, jouera dimanche prochain, à stantly increasing consumption of this article trois heures précises." A Savant would be at will henceforth render its manufacture popular hand to explain to the curious spectators how throughout the country, making general the ben- there was no doubt that if the wires were exefits which belong to the cultivation of the beet-tended across the city of Paris, from the Arch of root? Agriculture will be benefitted by the de- Triumph to the Barrière du Trone, the commusirable facilities it will afford for the rotation of nication would be equally prompt and sure as VOL. XV-95 across the room. Indeed it was almost certain, | a finger in the pie, nor a whole hand, but both that the most distant extremities of France might hands)-government seems now to be seriously by possibility be thus brought into instant com- taking hold of the matter. Three new lines it munication with each other! Perhaps if left to is now ordered shall be added to the two already herself France might, about the year 1949, after existing. 1st. From Rouen to Havre about 57 amusing herself for a century with the scientific miles, thus completing the line from Paris to play-thing, and glorifying herself for its invention, Havre-estimated cost $23.205. 2nd. From actually put Marseilles and Paris in instant Paris to Tonnerre, on the Marseilles rail-road, communication with each other by this means. 60 miles-at an estimated cost of $40.152. 3rd. Thanks, however, to the United States and Eng- From Paris to Angers on the road to Bordeauxland leading the way, France is already conside- to cost $73.776. These telegraphic lines, put rably advanced in the practical application of up at government expense and controlled by steamboats and locomotives. Thanks to Eng-government exclusively, will prove of but very land and the United States pushing, shaming, little service to the public generally. They are almost kicking her on, she is about to venture, not meant to serve the public but to serve the nearly a century before her time, upon some prac- government. They will put the minister of the tical experiment of the electric telegraph. See interior within a few hours of the most distant how timidly she talks even with the example of prefects-they will maintain-they are meant to Eugland and the United States before her eyes, maintain-the curse of France-centralization, of establishing two or three lines radiating from the predominance of Paris over the departments, Paris and delivering them to the use of the rail the pernicious rule of the capital, the subjection road companies and the public. It is the repub- of thirty-four millions to one million. lican minister of the interior, in the year 1849, who thus expresses himself in an exposé recently published. W. W. M. NERVOUS FEARS; OR, "We believe that the inconveniences apprehended from the delivering to public use the electric telegraphs have been much exaggerated; and we think that with all the guaranties which the administration will take care to establish, reserving to itself for instance the exclusive privilege of transmitting despatches, and the right of A NIGHT IN THE HAUNTED CHAMBER. even totally suspending the use of the telegraph under circumstances when its use would seem to jeopard the public order and security, the admission of private persons to the use of the electric telegraph will not be attended with greater danger than the admission of the same persons to the use of rail-roads and the other means and instruments of progress in general. We will add that the transmission of all despatches will be subjected to tariffs which will, we hope, produce sums sufficiently important to compensate the state at least in part for the outlays it will make for the construction of these lines and keeping them in repair.” There exist at present in France two lines of telegraphic communication; one from Paris to Rouen, the other from Paris to Valenciennes and Lille composing an aggregate length of 310 miles. The public has never been admitted to the use of them at all, and the rail-road companies under such embarrassing restrictions that the use was abandoned by them. They are of but little service to government itself, and much of the time are out of repair. But government—(yes, there's the clog and the curse to Industry and Enterprise in France! the government must have not merely A LESSON FOR THE CREDULOUS. It was past midnight, and a taper light Gleamed fitfully on the hearth, And roared like the sea in its wrath. 'Twas an awful gale! and at times would wail Like a mourner o'er the dead, In this trying state, at an hour so late, Alone in the haunted room? I had made to brave its gloom. At length the wind ceased,—my terror decreased, Feeling so dreary, restless and weary, Oh, how I wished for the dawn! The lamp would glimmer,-burn dimmer and dimmer, |