ERRATA No. VII. Page 293, Line 36.-For “into fathers," read "into my fathers." 23. For "house," read "horse." 11.-For "hand," read "head." 5.-For "number," read "murder." 31.-For " my my father," read " dear father." 38.-Dele" Edw."-Lines 37, 38, 39 and 40 are spoken by 6. Read as follows : Rückenmark. Car.-"Oh yes we have often sung it together." No. VIII. W. HARRISON AINSWORTH, of Newgate-novel notoriety, has at length put the finishing touch to his "Tower of London," and in good Booth the managers of the London minor Theanes should present the author with a mark of their gratitude, -a golden dagger or a silver skull to wit,-for having furnished them with materials for at least a score of good legitimate melo-dramatic spectacles of the Victor Hugo school. Those who have read Jack Sheppard and wish to peruse a second edition with a few regal actors in it, with more of historical associations, but less of historical truth about it-whose sole delight is in scaffolds, trap-doors, racks, thumbscrews, draw-bridges, daggers and darkness, should take this novel addition to our National Literature and study its pleasing contents under the cool shade of the Penitentiary walls, in the dusk of evening, and if they do not rise from their task with a sufficient quantum of gloomy, murderous satisfaction, why then they must blame their want of taste and not the author's lack of zeal in their service. In sober earnest, though, it is truly lamentable to see a writer of Mr. A.'s acknowledged cleverness (we cannot say talent) engaged in thus pampering the already vitiated taste of a low, but we fear a numerous class of readers: equally to be lamented is it that there are so many who delight in the vile excitement of these intellectual opiates,--this drunken, dungeon literature. The admirers of Jack Sheppard must not condemn the plea sures of the gin-drinker, the opium-eater, or the spectator of exe cutions they all alike seek a depraved excitement, their food is the same though served up under different guises and in different dishes. Like regrets attend the present state of the British Stage, where Nature gives way to monstrosities, wit to buffoonery: the author's pen is too often secondary to the painter's brush, and a new play a mere vehicle for scenic effect. If an allegory were required to depict the condition of our Drama, we should represent Melpomene in chains and trampled on by a grinning, grisly monster, half libbertygibbet, half Frankenstein: the Graces flying from the spot, and the remaining eight Muses weeping, at a distance, over the lot of their sister. Speaking of Ainsworth's novels brought us to gin-drinkers and opium-eaters, from which subject it is an easy transition to the engrossing topic of Temperance, and that reminds us of Father Mathew, the Catholic Water Prophet of Ireland. It is a remarkable fact in the history of temperance, and one worthy of being recorded, that the cause has progressed most rapidly and extensively in those countries where dram-drinking was most firmly and universally established, namely, in America and Ireland. In spite of the Yankee sneer that "water is very good for navigation," spirit drinking has been, and still is, most rapidly declining amongst that people, and particularly with those engaged in "Navigation." There are now but few American ships that carry spirit-rations, and if they have not taken to water, they at any rate use only tea and coffee which are found from experience to fit the sailor far better for bard work and hard weather than rum or brandy. It will be a novel and pleasing sight to witness a Donnybrook Fair without a single drunken fight or quarrel in it,-to see whiskey-booths supplanted by coffee-stalls, and the peasants trudging home at dusk, with new garments and smiling faces, instead of wallowing hog-like, under the hedges till day-break, with tatter'd clothes and broken heads. Will it be nothing for one man to have accomplished all this? Does he not deserve a niche in green Erin's temple of Fame Most assuredly Father Thomas has, in spite of the sneers and ridicule of a great part of the English press, done more for Ireland's happiness than any single name on the long muster-roll of her departed pa triots. We attribute the comparitive ill-success of Temperance in England to the "Tea-totallers," whose ultra ideas have disgusted the sensible portion of society. The cheap diffusion of sound, useful knowledge, and the great reduction in the taxes on such articles as coffee, cocoa, sugar, &c., have done more for the cause at home, than ten thousand lectures or volumes. It is a rather curious spectacle in these present days, when Temperance is advocated by every statesman and minister, to see a Christian government consenting to derive a revenue of £40,000 a-year from a very trifling tax on the sale of Arack, in one of her colonies, where the use of spirits must, from the nature of the climate, be for the mere purpose of administering to the brute-like appetites of a heathen, ignotant people, and where Salt is taxed at about the rate of 1,000 per cent. The Cinghalese arrack-drinker has not the excuse of cold and hunger which is put forth by the European tippler. And is it not an anomaly to see portions of that same vice-got revenue employed in endeavours to civilize and polish those lightly taxed spirit-drinkers ! The railway accidents at home, so frequent of late, have engaged the attention of the public, and many deodands, one of £2,000, bave been levied upon railway carriages, Still fatalities do occur, and scientific men are busy in devising means for preventing them in fu We have read an account of aningenious system of night-signals for trains, invented by R. Hall, Esq. of the Eastern Counties Railway. The signals consist of two very strong lights, blue and red, (the former calling for caution, the latter indicating danger,) one of which is to be ignited by the guards on the trains, as requir ed, and being thrown upon a powerful reflector so placed on the engine chimney as to concentrate the light upon the engineer, it immediately makes him aware of it, as the reflection is sufficiently intense to wake him if asleep. The light may be seen for twelve miles round. This is well. It is right that those who are the means of the loss of life should be at the pains and cost of prevention. But we agree with the "Times" in thinking there are other accidents accompanied by sacrifice of human life, which should also have the attention of the humane. We allude to the many dreadful, though little talked of, accidents in Factories, by which numberless young children are killed and which yet pass unheeded because they seldom, if ever, appear in any but obscure country prints. The railways, on the contrary, are before our eyes, and those who use them are of a respectable class,- far too respecta ble to be maimed and smashed with impunity by careless engine men so heavy decdands must be levied on the carriages. But the sufferers by the Factory Engines are "the children of the poor," and who cares for them? "Not we, faith," say the col ton-spinners and paper makers. "Not we," repeat the careful pubpaper-makers. lic. And "not we," echo the Legislature. So these slayers of the poor are suffered to go on in reckless indifference, with no ver dicts and deodands to check them, their only care being that their costly engines are not injured by the accidents, or their paper or cotton soiled with the blood of their infant victims. The new penny stamps of the London Post Office have been the subject of much criticism both with regard to the cleverness of their design and execution, and also to the protection they are likely to afford against forgery. These penny stamps receive a defacing mark when passing through the post offices to prevent their use for other letters. Our London correspondent makes us acquain ted with a discovery by a friend, Mr. T. Watson, of a means of taking out the post office defacement and consequently leaving the stamp fit for re-use. The discoverer submitted this to the Lords of the Treasury together with a new ink for detacing, which could not by any possibility be obliterated without destroying the stamp : their Lordships awarded him one hundred guineas, but declined the adoption of his ink on the plea that they were introducing a red stamp into use, and that the red being a vegetable color, would fly if any attempt were made to extract the post office defacement. In a few days Mr. Watson again attended at the Treasury, and informed their Lordships that he had found a very simple method of fixing the vegetable color whilst the defacing maik could be easily taken out. We have reason to believe that Mr. W.'s very useful ink will eventually be brought into general use by the authorities. Our neighbours of the Rhine and the Black Forest are not one whit behind us in the lighter branches of literature,-annuals and almanacs for example,-just as they outshine us in the number of |