George Yates. Paine himself died at Greenwich, drink, and other lusts, that his very infidel compaequally abandoned by the whole world except W. nions used to shun him as they would the very Morton and T. A. E. Other celebrated free think-plague. ers of that time were not only abandoned, but even forgotten, before their bodies had mouldered in the graves."

And you, German people of America! see that it is not only the Jesuits who seek to deceive you; but you would fare even worse, if it be possible, from the secularists and the "free men:" for if there ever was such a thing as "humbug" in the world, it is in the enlogising and deification of such a man as Tom Paine. It is an insult to your understanding for the Jesuits to offer to you, as saints, their half-crazed Ignatius Loyola, or the Liguorians their Alfonsus Liguori; but what a piece of insanity it is for the "free German women and maidens" of Cincinnati, together with the free men," to celebrate with flags and banners the birthday of Tom Paine as the defender of the Rights of Man!" A pretty defender of the rights of man this, who so shamefully used his wife that she was obliged to separate from him, and who was so degraded by drunkenness

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Gentlemen of infidel principles! Here is food for you. Here you have something to take hold of and contradict if you can, and what may be matter for wholesome contemplation for you if you cannot. No mere opinions and conjectures are put before you, but hard facts; not the mere empty declamation of a man who knows not what he is speaking of, but the credible testimony of a man who yet lives, and who will give you his honourable name. Would you know what that name is? It is Grant Thorburn; and the man who bears it is now an octogenarian, and still in possession of youthful vigour and vivacity. On his head are the silver locks of honour: give him the lie if you can! The bible he took with him from his native home in Scotland in 1794, this was the most pre-and filth that no woman of any respectability cious treasure he possessed, and to its teachings he continued to submit with hearty fidelity, notwithstanding his long intercourse with infidels, into which he was brought by peculiar circumstances. These infidels are all dead, having prematurely sunk into their graves, either through drunkenness or the devouring might of lustful passions. He however still lives; to his faith he owes his excellent health, his advanced age, his domestic happiness, and the fortune and honour which to this day he retains. Thorburn sees the words in the Proverbs fulfilled in himself, "My son, forget not my law; but let thy heart keep my commandments: for length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee."

To this man we are indebted for the foregoing communication, written by his own hand. The editor knows him personally, and has heard from his own lips most of the facts here mentioned; and if you are desirous of hearing them too, you may do so. He is certainly not a gloomy, reserved kind of man, but one exceedingly clear and affable, and who would be pleased to tell you his experiences of the world; and if you only look upon the blue eyes which beam forth from his fresh, rosy countenance, so certainly will you be convinced that he is not the man to utter slander. You may easily light upon him in the lower or businesspart of the city of New York, as he frequently saunters about there, visiting his old friends; or you may see him at his residence in Astoria, a small town on the East river but a few miles from New York.

You will ask, perhaps, how came this man, holding such principles, to be so intimate with Paine. Here is the answer: in early life he was a black smith, and worked in the same shop with William Carver; and as Paine came from the same place as Carver and resided with him, it was but natural that Thorburn should often converse with him. And as he was a young man at that time, he was often interested in listening to Paine's discourses, who he cheerfully allows used frequently to speak with much reason and great good sense on worldly matters. At the same time he unhesitatingly affirms (with no other object than to state what he has seen) that Paine was so given up to filthiness,

would even look on him! From our hearts we wish the "free women and maidens" of Cincinnati husbands and admirers of a different stamp from Tom Paine: should the contrary be the case, they will find all freedom at an end. And you, Germans of America! tell the disciples of Loyola and of Tom Paine, both of them alike, that for the future they may desist from attempting to impose on you-you know enough of them already.*

MOUNTAIN MEAL AND FOSSIL FLOUR. IT was formerly proposed by naturalists to classify mankind according to the nature of the diet upon which they subsisted. Adopting this arrangement, men have been distinguished as carnivorous, or flesheaters; ichthyophagists, or fish-eaters; frugivorous, or fruit and corn-eaters; acridophagists, or locust-eaters; geophagists, or earth-eaters; anthropophagists, or man-eaters; and omnivorous, or devourers of everything. But there are no tribes exclusively belonging to any one of these feeding classes, though each is to be found upon the surface of our globe, if we properly qualify the omnivorous division. The human stomach is a very pliable instrument, and has an endless variety of articles put into it to undergo the process of digestion. Unctuous blubber rejoices the heart of the Esquimaux; train-oil is swallowed by the subjects of Russia; and the damsels of the Tuski esteem a tallow candle as highly as we do a pine-apple. Huge lumbering creatures, like giant beetles and corpulent maggots, are greedily consumed by the aborigines of Australia, who make a sumptuous feast whenever a dead whale is cast ashore, eating their way into the animal, and getting out of him by the same process. But amid the varieties of human diet, not the least strange and singular are mountain meal and fossil flour, literally earthy minerals. "Clay soup, just ready," " haunch of chalk to follow,' gravel pie," and "blue marl pasty," would read curiously enough in a bill of fare.

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periodical circulating among the Germans of America. June, 1853.

* Translated from the "Amerikonischer Botschafter," a

It is not uncommon in Persia to speak of eating dirt, using the phrase in a metaphorical sense. The process is said to be performed even in our country, when unhappy orators, after making statements criminatory of others and of some advantage to themselves, are compelled to retract them as untrue, with humble apologies for abusing liberty of speech. But there are literal "earth-eaters," who occasionally cut a rasher out of their own pathways for consumption, and convert the ground into a kind of hasty pudding. The Otomacs on the banks of the Orinoco, one of the rudest indigenous tribes of South America, were found by Humboldt addicted to this usage. When the waters are low, they live on fish and turtles; but when the river swells, and it becomes difficult to procure that food, they eat daily a large portion of clay. It was seen in their huts, heaps of it in the form of balls, piled up in pyramids three or four feet high. These balls are probably not subject to the tasting process, but are small enough to be bolted or swallowed whole like huge pills or boluses. It need hardly be remarked, that this kind of breakfast or dinner is resorted to simply to allay appetite and deaden the sense of hunger. The Otomacs are also snuff-takers as well as dirt-eaters, accustomed to inhale at the nose the powder obtained from the pods of the Acacia niopo, which throws them into a state of intoxication bordering on madness, and lasting several days, during which, if the cares of existence are forgotten, dreadful crimes are perpetrated.

has the appearance and consistency of friable chalk. This infusorial earth occurs near Egra in Bohemia; and the town of Richmond in Virginia is built on similar strata. Germany and the United States are the two countries where it has been met with in the greatest abundance.

There is an earthy mineral called Fossil-flour by the Chinese, which is made use of in times of scarcity or famine as an ingredient in the food of the poor in certain provinces. It appears to be of similar composition to the substance already referred to, for M. Peltier, at the request of M. Arago, microscopically examined a portion obtained from China, and distinguished with precision the remains of the silicious infusoria described by Ehrenberg. The earth is found only in uncultivated situations, and is represented as altogether contrary to or at variance with vegetation. One of the localities mentioned is near the two great towns of Lin-Kiang-foo and Foo-choo-foo. In using the mineral for food, it is first bruised into a very fine powder, then mixed with a proportion of ground rice, and made into small cakes, which are seasoned with salt or sugar. Families will subsist on these mixed materials for two months, who would only have food sufficient for one, without the earth. But recourse is only had to this means of supply in times of great want; and when the emergency is over, the fossil-flour is left to repose quietly in its native bed. It may be needful to remark that, in the case of fossil animalculites, only the silicious shields, or skeletons which protect the softer parts, are recognised, other traces of or

The earthy substance thus applied to an edible purpose is described as fine and unctuous, of a yel-ganization having been destroyed by the agencies lowish-gray colour, containing silica and alumina, with three or four per cent. of lime. If not identical, it is evidently closely allied to the silicious marl, which has received the name of Bergh-mehl, or Mountain Meal, from its appearance. This was first noticed in a bed at Santa Fiora, in Tuscany, where it is manufactured into bricks, which are so light as to swim on water. It consists, according to Klaproth's analysis, of 79 of silica, 5 of alumina, 3 of oxide of iron, and 12 of water. A similar earth is found in Lapland; and in that naturally poor country, it is mixed by the inhabitants with the ground bark of trees, for food in times of scarcity. Mr. Laing brought samples of it home from Swedish Lapland in 1838, taken from beneath a bed of decayed mosses.

It is remarkable that Bergh-mehl, as far as it has hitherto been examined, is little else than an entire mass of organic matter, consisting of the silicious skeletons of infusoria, or animalculites, of various families. Other constituents occur in such inferior quantity as to be non-essential. This curious fact, discovered by professor Ehrenberg, has been repeatedly verified by microscopic observers. So excessively minute are the forms, that a cubic inch is estimated to contain forty-one thousand millions, weighing only two hundred and twenty grains, the weight of a single skeleton being about the 187millionth part of a grain! Yet they actually constitute beds several feet in thickness, extending over areas of many acres. The substance is often found in peat-bogs and swanips, or in places which have been the sites of ponds, in which the organisms lived and died. In such situations, it resembles a white marly paste; but when dry, it

to which they have been submitted; though in the instance of the living forms, the microscope reveals muscles, nerves, eyes, mouths, teeth, stomachs, and the apparatus of high organic structure. Hence there is little to support the statement that, as a mixture with food, the quantity of organic matter in the infusorial earth gives it a preference over simple clays and marls. That certain mineral substances are resorted to as food in times of famine, in preference to others, is more on account of their harmless property than of any nutritious quality. In fact, the mineral flour of China does not seem to be even harmless, however it may contribute to appease appetite. Those who partake much of it speedily complain of illness, and those who use it without mixture with a vegetable substance are said seldom to escape death. The heavier straits of others read a lesson of contentment to the more lightly straitened. Hard as is the struggle for existence in our own country, and pinched as the poorer classes occasionally are for food, they have not yet had to take the slice of a mountain for a meal, or grind down fossiliferous soil into powder for flour.

AN AMERICAN ANECDOTE. SOME thirty years ago," says a correspondent of the "American Episcopal Recorder," "my father, who was a country clergyman, lived in a small village which was a great thoroughfare from the four cardinal points. At that period a large portion of the public travel was by private conveyances, and from this cause, if no other, ministerial intercourse was much more frequent than at the present day.

It was generally understood that my father's house was a 'minister's tavern;' seldom a week passed without a call from a stranger if not an acquaintance, and I well recollect, that while impositions were occasionally practised on the hospitality of our home, we frequently found that we had entertained angels unawares.

"One evening, an old man with a son, a lad about twelve years of age, called at our door, and although not professing to be one of the cloth,' my father being favourably impressed with his appearance, invited him to spend the night. At evening worship, the reading of the scriptures being finished, the stranger asked permission to sing a hymn, which he did, accompanied by his little son, with an effect upon the whole family which I cannot attempt to describe, but which I can never forget to my dying day. The next morning it was repeated, by request, with the same deep impression upon us all, and the stranger took his departure. Whence he came, and whither he went, or who he was, I have no recollection; but the following is the hymn, which, though now common, may be interesting to your readers, as it was deeply so to us, from the circumstances detailed." If we are not mistaken, it is the pro

duction of James Montgomery.

"A poor, wayfaring man of grief

Hath often cross'd me on my way,
Who sued so humbly for relief,

That I could never answer Nay.
I had not power to ask his name,
Whither lie went, or whence he came;
Yet there was something in his eye
That won my love, I knew not why.

Once, when my scanty meal was spread,
He enter'd; not a word he spake;
Just perishing for want of bread,

I gave him all; he bless'd it, brake,
And ate, but gave me part again.
Mine was an angel's portion then;
And while I fed with eager haste,
The crust was manna to my taste.

"I spied him where a fountain burst

Clear from the rock; his strength was gone;
The heedless water mock'd his thirst;

He heard it, saw it hurrying on.
I ran and raised the sufferer up;
Thrice from the stream he drain'd my cup;
Dipp'd, and return'd it running o'er;
I drank, and never thirsted more.

""Twas night; the floods were out; it blew
A wintry hurricane aloof;

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I heard his voice abroad, and flew
To bid him welcome to my roof.
I warm'd, I clothed, I cheer'd my guest;
Laid him on mine own couch to rest;
Then made the earth my bed, and seem'd
In Eden's garden while I dream'd.

Stripp'd, wounded, beaten nigh to death,

I found him by the highway side;

I roused his pulse, brought back his breath,
Revived his spirit, and supplied
Wine, oil, refreshment; he was heal'd.
I had, myself, a wound conceal'd ;
But, from that hour, forgot the smart,
And peace bound up my broken heart.

"In prison I saw him next, condemn'd
To meet a traitor's doom at morn.
The tide of lying tongues I stemm'd,

And honour'd him 'mid shame and scorn.

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My friendship's utmost zeal to try,
He ask'd if I for him would die;
The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill,
But the free spirit cried, 'I will!'

Then, in a moment, to my view
The stranger started from disguise;
The tokens of his bands I knew:

My Saviour stood before my eyes!
He spake, and my poor name he named;
'Of me thou hast not been ashamed
These deeds shall thy memorial be;
Fear not; thou didst them unto me.""

HANDWRITING INDICATIVE OF CHARACTER. A CORRESPONDENT, writing to the "Literary Gazette" on the "Art of judging the Characters of Men by their Handwriting," contends that it is not all absurdity and folly, as some individuals, who have given no attention to the matter, are disposed to pronounce it. "Assuredly," he says, "nature would prompt every individual to have a distinct sort of writing, as it has given a countenance, a voice, a manner. The flexibility of the muscles differs with every individual, and the handwriting will follow the direction of the thoughts, phlegmatic will portray his words, while the wilful the emotions, and the habit of the writers. The

haste of the volatile will scarcely sketch them; the slovenly will blot, and efface, and scrawl, while the neat and orderly-minded will view themselves in the paper before their eyes. The merchant's clerk will not write like the lawyer or the poet. Even nations are distinguished by their writing: the vivacity and variableness of the Frenchman, and the delicacy and suppleness of the Italian, are perceptibly distinct from the slowness and length of the pen discoverable in the phlegmatic style of the German, Dane, and Swede. When we are in grief we do not write as when we are in joy. The elegant and correct mind, which has acquired the fortunate habit of fixity of attention, will write without an erasure on the page, as Fenelon, Gray, and Gibbon; while we find in Pope's manuscripts the perpetual struggles of correction, and the eager and rapid interlineations struck off' in heat. The vital principle, then, must be true, that the handwriting bears an analogy to the character, as all voluntary actions are characteristics of the individual; but many causes operate to counteract or obstruct this result. I am personally acquainted with the handwriting of five of our greatest poets. The first, in early life, acquired among Scottish advocates a handwriting which cannot be distinguished from his ordinary brothers; the second, educated at a public school where writing is shamefully neglected, composed his sublime and sportive verses in a schoolboy's scrawl, as if he had never finished his task with the writingmaster; the third writes his highly-wrought poetry in the common hand of a merchant's clerk, from early commercial associations; the fourth has all the finished neatness which polish his verses; the fifth is a specimen of a full mind, not in the habit of correction or alteration, so that he appears to print down his thoughts without a single erasure. The handwriting of the first and third, not indicative of their character, we have accounted for; the others are specimens of their character. I will now only give one more example to prove the argument. Our Eighth Henry wrote a strong hand, as if he had seldom a good pen; the vehemence of his character conveyed itself into his writing-bold, hasty, and commanding. I have no doubt the assertor of the Pope's supremacy and its triumphant destroyer split many a good quill."

Barieties.

EPHRAIM, THE PORTER, RECOGNIZES AN OLD FACE.