United States or Israel ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


There is no bustle and throng of carriages, as in London; but you pass by numerous rows of neat houses, fronted with gardens, and adorned with all sorts of gay-looking creepers. Pretty market-gardens, with trim beds of plants and shining glass-houses, give the suburbs a riante and cheerful look; and, passing under the arch of the railway, we are in the city itself.

It is to be hoped that, at this moment, and specifically for this offence, some scores of Exchequer men, chancellors and other rubbish, are in purgatory, and perhaps working, with shirt-sleeves tucked up, in purgatorial glass-houses, with very small allowances of beer, to defray the cost of perspiration. But why trouble a festal remembrance with commemorations of crimes or criminals?

It is to be hoped that, at this moment, and specifically for this offence, some scores of Exchequer men, chancellors and other rubbish, are in purgatory, and perhaps working, with shirt-sleeves tucked up, in purgatorial glass-houses, with very small allowances of beer, to defray the cost of perspiration. But why trouble a festal remembrance with commemorations of crimes or criminals?

The days glided by and John Grange's powers developed in a wonderful way. He busied himself about the glass-houses from morning to night, but he did not return to the bothy in the grounds, preferring to go on lodging with old Hannah and her husband.

Old Brownsmith saw my looks, and he said: "You will run over now and then to see me and tell me how you get on. Brother Solomon here never likes to leave his glass-houses, but you can get away now and then. Eh, Solomon?" "P'r'aps," said Brother Solomon, looking right away from us. "We shall see." My heart sank as I saw how cold and unsympathetic he seemed.

The pole splintered off at the top and the French flag fluttered to the ground. "There's for you you Frenchies!" he shouted. "See the old rag tumble!" 'Twas the only time M. Radisson gave vent to wrath. "Dog!" he ground out, wrenching the gun from Gillam's hands. "Avast! Avast!" cries Ben. "He who lives in glass-houses needs not to throw stones! Mind that, ye pirate!"

We then inquired of the doctor, what progress he had made in the experiment of distilling tinder-water; and he told us he had been at all the glass-houses about town, but could find nobody who would undertake to blow a retort large enough to hold the third part of the quantity prescribed; but he intended to try the process on as much as would produce five drops, which would be sufficient to prove the specific, and then he would make it a parliamentary affair; that he had already purchased a considerable weight of rags, in reducing which to tinder, he had met with a misfortune, which had obliged him to change his lodgings; for he had gathered them in a heap on the floor, and set fire to them with a candle, on the supposition that the boards would sustain no damage, because it is the nature of flame to ascend; but, by some very extraordinary accident, the wood was invaded, and began to blaze with great violence, which disordered him so much, that he had not the presence of mind enough to call for assistance, and the whole house must have been consumed with him in the midst of it, had not the smoke that rolled out of the windows in clouds alarmed the neighbourhood, and brought people to his succour: that he had lost a pair of black velvet breeches and a tie-wig in the hurry, besides the expense of the rags, which were rendered useless by the water used to quench the flame, and the damage of the floor, which he was compelled to repair; that his landlord, believing him distracted, had insisted on his quitting his apartment at a minute's warning, and he was put to incredible inconvenience; but now he was settled in a very comfortable house, and had the use of a large paved yard for preparing his tinder; so that he hoped in a very short time to reap the fruits of his labour.

Often when I went into the houses I found the pipes nearly cold. I got tired of this, and I paid a man out of my own pocket to keep the furnaces properly stoked, and would you believe it? my father actually raised objections objected to my paying a man to look after his glass-houses as they should be looked after.

It had been a risk to raise certain people's expectations and then bring them into Tochty garden, for they can be satisfied with no place that has not a clean-shaven lawn and beds of unvarying circles, pyrethrum, calceolaria, and geranium, and brakes of rare roses, and glass-houses with orchids worth fifty pound each, which is a garden in high life, full of luxury, extravagance, weariness.

The sand of this remarkable stream confirmed for ages to supply, not only the manufactories of Sidon, but all other places, with materials for that beautiful production. Vessels from Italy were employed to remove it for the glass-houses of Venice and Genoa so late as the middle of the seventeenth century.