to be unfounded until it shall be satisfactorily proved in the case of any left-handed man or woman, that the action of his or her heart has been injuriously affected by his or her ambi-dexterity.

Of course all argument is vain on this subject. The old cannot learn, and the young will not. Besides, it may be replied that, all things considered, the world gets on very well as it is, although it only uses one half of the manual skill with which Nature has endowed the lordly race that has subdued and replenished it. All this is true. Yet did not the world get on very well with oil-lamps, stagecoaches, Margate hoys, and the semaphore, and without gas, railways, steam-ships, and the electric telegraph? Let us be contented, however, and let us rejoice that fashion and prejudice have not done to the left eye, the left ear, the left nostril, the left leg, and the left foot, the injustice they have done to the left hand.

And, after all, the whirligig of fashion and prejudice has its revenge as well as the whirligig of Time. If the male half of the world does such injustice to itself as to sacrifice fifty per cent. of its working power, the female half of the world takes up the co-equal limb that has been scorned, and makes it a beauty and a joy for ever. On the fourth finger of the hand which is not so greatly in

danger of collision with the hard facts and hard implements of toil, as the hand that does the daily work of the world, the woman places the symbol of marriage, the plain gold ring, which it is the glory of a true woman to be privileged to wear; happiest of all the happy she, if conjugal love on her part, and that of her husband, be as unalloyed with falsehood and change as the pure gold is with dross ; and if the circle of their mutual confidence and affection be as complete, and without a break in its continuity, as the little circle which on the long wished-for bridal morn her spouse placed upon her finger. It is a variety of the same old medical superstition, that has so largely helped to bring the left hand into disuse among mankind, that has helped the better and fairer half of mankind to make amends for the injustice done it. "The wedding ring," says an ancient author, "is worn on the fourth finger of the left hand, because it was formerly believed that a small artery ran from this finger to the heart. This," he adds, "is contradicted by experience; but several eminent authors, as well Gentiles as Christians, as well physicians as divines, were formerly of this opinion; and, therefore, they thought this finger the properest to bear this pledge of love, that from thence it might be conveyed, as it were, to the heart. Levinus Lemnius, speaking of the ring finger, says that a small

branch of the artery and not of the nerve, as Gellius thought, is stretched forth from the heart to this finger, the motion whereof, you may perceive, evidently in all this affects the heart in woman by the touch of your fore-finger. I used to raise such as were fallen in a swoon by pinching this joint, and by rubbing the ring of gold with a little saffron, for by this a restoring force passeth to the heart, and refresheth the fountain of life with which the finger is joined. Wherefore antiquity thought fit to compass it about with gold."

In our day the rubbing of the gold ring with a new dress, or with a set of diamonds, might possibly be more effective than the rubbing with saffron. But let that pass. The right hand may be given in marriage, but as far as the ladies are concerned, it is the left hand that confirms and seals the bargain.

A GREAT AND A MIGHTY CITY.

|HE great and mighty city of which I am about to narrate a few particulars is neither London nor Paris, nor New York, nor Pekin, but a far more populous city than any of them. of them. London and its suburbs may contain between three and four millions of people, Paris half the number, New York about a third, and Pekin about as many as London, perhaps a million or two more, for we can never tell how the Orientals reckon, or whether a million in their fervent imaginations may not sometimes do duty for a tenth part of the number. But my city, considering the size of its inhabitants, is relatively larger, and positively more populous than any of them, or perhaps the whole of them combined. Its inhabitants are industrious and intelligent, and not only know how to build cities, but how to govern them. My city stands upon the top of a hill, within twenty-five miles to the south west of

London.

Geographers make no

mention of it.

The county historians know it not.

In vain would the eye of a traveller seek to obtain a glimpse of it from afar. Not a trace of it is to be seen from the railway station that stands within a mile of its multitudinous domes (towers and steeples it has none), and he who wants to pay it a visit must look very carefully about him before he can discover it. Around it are thick woods and plantations of box, juniper, and beech, and on the comparatively bare summit of the hill on which it stands are acres of fern and bracken, mingled with patches of purple heather that would do no discredit to the breezy slopes of Ben Lomond. The domes constructed by the inhabitants range from one to two feet in height, and look like diminutive wigwams. Some of them are of fresh earth, recently turned up, and others are old and overgrown with the short grass and moss of many summers. Not a sound audible to human ears is heard in these populous parishes, for each dome may be considered a parish, or a borough, of this very great city; and during the winter months, from November to April, not only is there no sound, but no motion, or sign of life. Within it all the busy millions compose themselves for hybernation when the leaves begin to fall from the trees, and sleep snugly and comfortably, without waking or even turning in their beds. But though