and die as beseemed the doll of a young | thought it well to pursue the same method lady in Virgil. With some lead-pencils, as previously. He did so, but with what her four-post bed, her dresses, which were results! Certainly, he obtained kilts, with many, a few sticks of cinnamon, and a nutmeg, she built the doll a funeral pile, and poured over it all some sort of perfume. Then the doll, being seated upon her four-post bed, recited, with her judge's aid, the last speech of Dido, stabbed herself with a penknife, and perished there nobly. But, alas! the student of Virgil had miscalculated her own callousness. As the flames hungrily licked up the second Dido and her stuffing of bran, poor little "Jeanie's" affection all came back, and she would have saved her doll when it was too late; and when she could not, burst into such cries of anguish as brought out her alarmed friends, who carried her forcibly into the house. It seemed a sort of portent of what her life was to be, poor little woman - a life of sacrifices, sometimes needless ones too, and sacrifices which would have been better left unmade; a life in which she tried to do away with the fact that she could love as few people can, and tried to take life as a Stoic would, or as did the little Spartan boy who would not complain even when his very heart was being gnawed away. a sporran, velvet jacket, and everything complete. But the kind friend who donated the costume, thinking it would be a pleasant surprise for his owner if she altered Franky's complexion for the better, bestowed upon him a new face of an unhealthy (white-kid-glove) hue, and very correct features, with the most inane expression imaginable. Alas for Franky! from that day his doom was sealed. At first, his owner disowned him; and it was only after she had made a careful scrutiny of his limbs, hair, and pedal extremities, that she would acknowledge in this horribly vapid Highlander her own beloved but strangely transmogrified Franky. Almost immediately, Franky took scarlet fever, and had to be isolated in a disused cradle in the lumber-room. Of course, having other children to look after, it would not have been right for his owner to run the risk of nursing him, and so she allowed him to be tended by three (imaginary) hospital nurses. One day, her maternal affection overcame her fear of contagion, and she penetrated the sick-room, caught him up from his cradle, and kissed him With ordinary children, a doll plays passionately; but the sight of his sickly many parts, and, curiously enough, a face and idiotic expression was too much child's doll always seems to bear a strong for her, and, with a sudden revulsion of resemblance to the child in constitution feeling, she cast him away with loathing and disposition, if not in appearance. A and disgust. That is many years ago; selfish child has always a selfish doll; and but we believe the hapless Franky, still a delicate child's doll is always ill. A doll we once knew was passionately fond of preserved ginger; and as sure as there was any ginger in the house, so sure was that brazen-faced doll to demand some, and force its owner, with much reluctance and many apologies, to beg for just a tiny bit in order to satisfy its cravings. Curiously enough, if that doll's owner had a weakness, it was a weakness for preserved ginger. -a Another doll of our acquaintance very dear friend of ours in days gone by -a doll named Franky, of a dark (tanglove) complexion, utterly without backbone, and who always wore a Norfolk jacket and suit of red flannel, once expressed-after seeing an officer of the Black Watch a wild desire to possess a complete Highland costume. He had once before wanted a popgun, and had, through persistently asking for one-always through the medium of his much embarrassed proprietor, of course got three popguns of various sizes presented to him by friends of the family; and so he attired in full Highland costume, lies in that lumber-room, suffering from a longprotracted attack of scarlet fever, and without even the imaginary hospital nurses to tend his sick-bed. Poor Franky! he is not alone in his misfortune. We wonder how many like cases would be revealed to the public, were all the lumber-rooms and old "doll closets" in the United Kingdom to undergo strict investigation. What startling revelations and harrowing details there would be, and what a fearful list of mutilated and disfigured bodies, and unrecognizable remains, we should have to make! Perhaps, like Maggie Tulliver's unfortunate doll, some of the harmless victims might have been used as substitutes for some real offender, and been hammered and hacked and knocked about in an unjust and brutal manner. Perhaps still more might have fallen victims to a younger generation than their owners, possessed of much curiosity and a genius for dissecting; while more still might be only the victims of neglect - once idolized and honored members of society, but now despised, unloved, and stowed away in odd corners, while their once devoted friends amuse themselves with the big world's playthings; or have stopped playing altogether, said good-night, and gone to sleep forever. Poor old "puppets and babies," what happiness you have given ! How many memories, happy and sad, how many days of sunshine and of rain, you bring back to us! How can we, though our playground be wider, and our plays bigger and more complex, yet not so happy, keep from having a warm little corner in our hearts for what we once loved so much - our dolls ! From Public Opinion. CROWN WINDFALLS, 1887. TO THE EDITOR OF PUBLIC OPINION. SIR, - Last year the crown came into a "windfall" of £200,000 by reason of the death in 1884, of Mr. William Heathcote, a lunatic, without known heirs. It may, W. F. J. Bage (Chester). Clara Hudson (Middlesex). William Kayes (Stafford). William Worledge (Middlesex). The amount of each individual "windfall" rarely oozes out except when litigation arises, but they are often of very considerable value, and one of them (the ManginBrown estate), amounting to £200,000, was recouped by the crown a few years since after much litigation. Parliamentary returns show that during the past ten years estates of the value of nearly £1,000,000 have fallen to the crown by reason of the intestacy, illegitimacy, lunacy, etc., of the owners. I would, therefore, venture to suggest that instead of the vague advertisements at present issued they should in future be published in the following form: JEWS IN MOROCCO. - The anti-Jewish prej-latter made them run the gauntlet of an in udices which prevail in Morocco, and which, it is feared, will take a disagreeably active form if consular protection is abolished, are illustrated by a fresh outrage chronicled in the last number of the Réveil du Maroc. A new cadi having been appointed at Fez, a deputation of leading Jews waited on him with their congratulations and a present of poultry and eggs. The new functionary, whose name is Sid Mohamed Scali, placed the deputation under arrest, and sent them to the governor of the city, El Chergni. The flamed mob, and then had them mercilessly bastinadoed. The leader of the deputation, Jacob Benoliel, is in a very critical condition, and his life is despaired of. No reason is assigned for the outrage. It is to be hoped that it will be taken note of by the powers as an illustration of the insecurity of the Jews in Morocco. It is said that, in view of the probable abolition of protection, the Moors are openly boasting that they they will soon pay off old scores on the Jews. Jewish World. IV. THE WAITING SUPPER. By Thomas Hardy, Murray's Magazine, Westminster Review, 643 English Illustrated Magazine, 649 Contemporary Review, 655 669 For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. Which tell me where the lord of day is dying: So darkness points to light I cannot see. My soul, of late in drearier depths repining, The emblem takes, and hopes for liberty: Let Doubt become a vassal to thy shining, shore, Dear swallows, from the purple east fly fast! Darkness and doubt and winter are no more The eternal youth of hope is mine at last! AMELIA B. EDWARDS. Academy. COMPANIONSHIP. And lead my wandering steps, O Truth, to AFTER some thought that leaped life's bound thee! From The Westminster Review. clergy, it met with the persistent antagonism of the Liberal elements in the counTHE Swiss Constitution, in its present try; but it was only after a protracted form, is the product of two tendencies. period of bitterness and strife, culminating The first has helped to subordinate the in the Sonderbund war, that the Constitumaintenance of cantonal rights to the at- tion of 1848 established upon a satisfactory tainment of federal unity; the second has basis the relation of the cantons to the had the effect of giving almost universal Confederation. In order to satisfy the practical expression, alike in the cantons new wants and the new conditions that and in the Confederation, to the principle have arisen since that day, it has become of the sovereignty of the people. It is necessary to draw still closer the bond of mainly in consequence of the operation union, and to increase yet further the of those two tendencies that the political power of the central government. Armed system of Switzerland, reconciling as it discord, however, has long since given does the welfare and security of the whole way to peaceful agitation, and the Constiwith the local claims and diversified insti- tution of 1874, carried by the votes of tutions of the component parts, and blend- three hundred and forty thousand citizens, ing harmoniously the parliamentary and opposed only by one hundred and ninetythe democratic form of government, pre-eight thousand, has done little more than sents to the observer a spectacle of deep work out in a more complete and logical and unique interest. form the principles laid down in 1848. The essential characteristic of federal government is that each of the States which combine to form a union retains in its own hands, in its individual capacity, the management of its own affairs, whilst authority over matters common to all is exercised by the States in their collective and corporate capacity. It is evident that serious differences of opinion may arise with regard to the respective prerogatives of the two sovereignties which are thus brought into existence, and the delimitation of their respective spheres of action. More than ten years elapsed before the loose and imperfect connection which had been formed between the American States by the Articles of Confederation was exchanged for a real and effective union by the great settlement of which the hundredth anniversary has just been celebrated at Philadelphia. A similar transition from a Staatenbund to a Bundesstaat was effected in Switzerland during the first half of the present century. The Federal Pact of 1815, itself the result of a reaction against the excessive unification introduced at the time of the revolutionary wars, contained in itself the seeds of its own dissolution; imposed as it was by the aristocratic families, which, like the Bourbons, had "learned nothing and forgotten nothing," and maintained, in a great measure, through the efforts of the Catholic Under the existing arrangement the cantons are still declared to be sovereign in so far as their rights have not been delegated to the federal authority. They are bound, however, to refrain from inserting in their constitutions provisions at variance with the express enactments of the Federal Constitution; so that it would be impossible, for instance, for the government of a canton to abolish the liberty of the press, or the right of public meeting, or the equality of citizens before the law. The conduct of foreign affairs is delegated, as a matter of course, to the Confederation, though the cantons retain the right, under special circumstances and subject to federal revision, of concluding extradition treaties and other arrangements of minor importance with foreign powers. The same is the case with regard to the organization of the army; though it is upon the cantons that devolves, in part, the duty of carrying the military law into execution. They have to appoint all officers below the rank of colonel; they keep the military registers, and provide the necessary stores and equipment for the troops. All expenses thus incurred are subsequently reimbursed by the Confederation. Some cantons, however, notably Berne, are manifesting at the present time a natural anxiety to be relieved from what is to them an irksome and unprofit |