CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,

THREADNEEDLE STREET.

THE very spacious structure represented upon the preceding page, is now in progress, on the site of what was the French Protestant Church, in Threadneedle-street. In clearing away the old foundations, a fine Roman tesselated pavement was discovered, which is now deposited in the British Museum. The new building is set back about ten feet, which may add, in the course of time, to the widening throughout of this now inconveniently confined thoroughfare.

The front is ninety-two feet in length, and fifty-four feet high, has neither columns nor pilasters of any kind, and contains only five openings, viz. a doorway, and two windows on each side of it; nevertheless, it will be one of the most striking and costly decorated specimens of architecture in the metropolis; and the upper part of the front will be enriched with a bas-relief, seventy-three feet in length, with figures the size of life. This piece of sculpture, designed and now in course of being executed by Mr. M. L. Watson, is intended to illustrate Commerce, (the centre figure of the composition, and represented under the form of a genius, with outspread wings and hands, to denote its extensive influence,) and the Fine Arts, as encouraged and fostered by it. There is nothing remarkable in the design of the door and windows; the former of which is nine feet wide, by twenty-four feet high; the latter six feet nine inches by sixteen feet; and nine feet above the level of the pavement. The interior will consist of two very spacious apartments, or halls, with some rooms (lighted from above) over that on the west side, which is twenty feet less lofty than the other. Both these halls are entered from a vestibule, (sixteen feet by twenty-two,) the larger one, or that on the east side, through a square recess at its south end, in which is one of the windows towards the street. This room will be altogether about one hundred feet in length, by forty-four in its average breadth, and fifty in height, and will be lighted principally by three spacious lanterns. The sides of the room will be adorned by scagliola pilasters, forming an order whose cornice will be forty feet from the floor, leaving a space of ten feet for a richly-decorated cove between it and the ceiling. At the north end, there is to be a semicircular recess with columns, lighted from above through a semi-dome. The other, or west hall, will have a similar recess at its north end, but with a large painted window behind the columns. Though much less in size than the other, its dimensions not exceeding sixty by forty feet, and thirty high, it will be a very noble apartment. In short, when the building shall have been fully completed, it will, both internally and externally, eclipse most others within the City, and not a few out of it.* It is the undertaking of a private gentleman, Mr. Moxhay, who is chiefly, if not entirely, his own architect. All we can learn of its destination is, that it is to be a "Chamber of Commerce."+

LENT IS DEAD.

IT is the custom for the boys and girls in country schools, in several parts of Oxfordshire, (as Blechington, Weston, Charlton, &c.) at their breaking up in the week

Abridged from the Companion to the Almanac for 1842. The Chamber of Commerce held at the Hôtel de Ville, at Paris, consists of fifteen respectable bankers or merchants, who are charged to present to the Government, their views upon the means of ameliorating commerce. They also superintend the construction of public buildings connected with commerce. We have a Chamber of Commerce at Manchester.

"On an Ash Wednesday,

When thou didst stand six weeks the Jack a'Lent, For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee." In the introduction to the second volume of “ Kinder und Haus Märchen" of the Brothers Grimm, we are told, that in the "Neckarthal," it is the custom for the boys to dress themselves with paper caps, wooden swords, and sham mustachios, and go from house to house singing, "Eier 'raus, Eier 'raus,

Der Marder ist im Hühnerhaus!" Eggs out! eggs out! the polecat's in the hen-house! until they receive some eggs, which at night they either eat or sell.-Anecdotes and Traditions; printed for the Camden Society.

THE THREE SISTERS. Translated from the German of Adelbert von Chamisso.

BY THOMAS GRIMES.
First Sister.
"WE sisters three have had our share of woe,
Too young, indeed, all grey with grief to grow,

Inured to mourn, albeit, and stern denials;
And each thinks hers the most afflictive part;-
Approach, a poet knows the human heart,

Thou shalt be judge of our respective trials.
Hear first the sufferings that my lot regard;
Waking from childhood's sleep with struggles hard,
The bud swell'd forth, I felt a perturbation.
Love's gentle breath brought out the opening blossom,
A man and hero plucked me to his bosom,

And hopeful grew I on to life's full station.
Now myrtle-decked, I waited for my friend,
While joy and terror 'mid my feelings blend,

As in him I had lost myself and found.
Around the nuptial tapers cast their sheen;
When lo! a corpse they bear him ghastly in,

His heart's blood gushing from a sevenfold wound.

The dreadful deed scarce could I then sustain,
Whose image since floats ever through my brain;
And day and night my heart is sorely shaken.
I do not live, to death I'm rightly due,
Yet cannot die! oh, this I cannot do!

When shall my pangs compassion cease to waken ?''
Her sister here did on the strain encroach :-
Second Sister.

"That image is of blood, not of reproach,

Which waking, sleeping, ever haunts her fancy. Me hath the self-same balmy breath enticed Forth to my fate,-I've mourn'd and I've rejoiced,— The cup of love hath also foam'd to Nancy. But dubious rays my lov'd one's head embrace, With selfish fear I witness'd his disgrace;

And yet, ah me !-his memory I cherish.
If at his shame the lip of scorn rests curl'd,
Or 'wildering madness drives him through the world,
I know not, still with agony I perish."

The third now took the word, and briefly spoke :
Third Sister.

"Thou ponderest doubting which the heaviest stroke
Of these two maids, or how to give decision.
Belov'd and liv'd,-a common lot of man;
And disappointment broke them to her plan,-
-To drink the cup of grief their early mission.
I know, in short, too well what evils blend
In human hardship, not to comprehend

Thou must not judge this question without knowing
My piteous case, which briefly is best prov'd
By five sad words:-I never yet was lov'd:—

-Give me the palm of suffering-thy bestowing."

THE MISSOURI LEVIATHAN. PROFESSOR OWEN has reported to the Geological Society, the results of his examination of the great Skeleton, exhibiting at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, and engraved in the London Saturday Journal, No. 54. Having alluded to the manner in which the skeleton is put together, the Professor entered upon the important question-What is the species of animal to which it is to be referred ? It is, he says, a mammiferous animal, and the bones of the anterior extremities prove it to be a member of the great primary group of ungulata, (hoofed animals); while the enormous tusks of the upper jaw show that it belonged to the group of Pachydermata, (thick-skinned animals, as the elephant, hippopotamus, &c.); and the molar teeth that it was identical with the Tetracaulodon, or Mastodon giganteum. With respect to the position of the tusks, Professor Owen explained, that in consequence of the mode of insertion in the sockets, the tusks of the Mastodon, like those of the elephant, can be turned in any direction, when the natural attachments are destroyed by decomposition; and that, consequently, superincumbent pressure may have bent the tusks in "the Missouri Leviathan " into their present horizontal position. The author next considered the relation which the Tetracaulodon and the Mastodon bear to each other, and whether they ought to be regarded as distinct genera; he first alluded to the researches of those anatomists who had preceded him in the inquiry. Dr. Godman, of Philadelphia, founded the former genus upon a fossil lower jaw, which contained molar teeth agreeing with those of the Mastodon, but which possessed two tusks, projecting from the symphysical* extremity. Mr. W. Cooper, of New York, suggested that the Tetracaulodon was the young of the Mastodon giganteum, and that the tusks were merely milk-teeth,

From symphysis-bones which in young animals are distinct, but afterwards unite into one bone.

which were lost as the animal became adult. This latter opinion, advocated by some zoologists, but not illustrated by analogies, was opposed by Dr. Hayes, who adduced, in an elaborate memoir, what he considered sufficient evidence to prove that Dr. Godman had not committed the error of describing as a new animal, the young of a known species; and he adds, with reference to the suggestion of Mr. T. R. Peale, that the tusks in the lower jaw might be only a sexual distinction, and that the then existing state of knowledge was not sufficient either to confirm or refute the suggestion. An attentive examination of several lower jaws in Mr. Koch's collection, at the Egyptian Hall, containing molar teeth of the Mastodon giganteum, has enabled Professor Owen to establish the important fact, that an animal of the same size and molar dentition as the Mastodon, was characterized in the adult state, by a single tusk or incisor projecting from the symphysical extremity of the right ramus of the lower jaw; and that the assumed peculiarity of the Tetracaulodon, namely, the two inferior tusks, one in each ramus, is manifested only by immature animals. There are also in the collection several lower jaws, without any trace of tusks; and agreeing, therefore, with the old character of the genus Mastodon. In all these specimens, the molar teeth present the forms and proportions which distinguish the Mastodon giganteum. Professor Owen then detailed the series of comparisons by which he had arrived at the conclusion, that the Tetracaulodon of Dr. Godman is the immature state of both sexes of the Mastodon giganteum ; and that it loses those distinctions in the mature state of both sexes, by the loss of one tusk in the male, and by the loss of both in the female.

Tetracaulodons appear, from Mr. Koch's collection, to be as numerous as Mastodons; yet as little do we perceive or hear of two forms of humeri, ulnæ, radii, femora, or tibiæ, as of lower jaws; while the femora of the Elephas primigenius associated with them, are at once recognizable by modifications, which might be expected to accompany true generic differences in the rest of the organization. Mammoth, Professor Owen refers all the other remains of With the exception, therefore, of a few bones of the Proboscidian Pachyderms in Mr. Koch's important collection, to the Mastodon giganteum of Cuvier: they illustrate, he says, the true and very remarkable characters of that extinct animal in a more complete manner than has ever before been done, and clear up the doubts which the inspection of solitary specimens had occasioned. The height of the skeleton, taken at the withers, or dorsal observed, Professor Owen estimates at ten feet, and the spines, provided the collocation of bones be correctly length, from the inter-maxillary bones to the end of the sacrum, at sixteen feet, or four feet more than that of the large Asiatic elephant in the Hunterian Museum. Such are the leading results arrived at by Professor Owen; proving, in the main, the Tetracaulodon and the Mastodon to be one animal. Further details of this interesting and important inquiry will be found reported in the Athenæum,

No. 748.

spoke, and one of them proceeded to divest him of his upper garments. Perinet offered no opposition, but pale with rage and emotion, remained fixed as a statue, and biting his under lip until the blood trickled down his chin. At a word from the constable, two men placed themselves on either side of the armourer, and prepared to strike him alternately on his naked shoulders, with their scabbards. D'Armagnac gave a sign, and the punishment commenced. At the first blow, a convulsive tremor ran over Perinet's frame; but it was not that of suffering. Although a crimson stripe across his back followed every blow, he started not, but with dilated nostril and knitted brows, kept his keen eye fixed upon D'Armagnac, gleaming with the fire of vengeance, until the account was completed; when his head sank upon his breast, and he faintly ejaculated, " I am degraded !" "Let him go, now,' ," cried the constable, as the eighth blow was struck. "It is the soldier I have punished, not the citizen. And be mindful, my masters," he added, turning to the bourgeois, "whichever of you shall thus quit his post, I will mark upon his shoulders the most noble red cross of Burgundy he can conceive, as I have done upon this man.'

"

"I swear to God," muttered Perinet between his teeth, "that you shall bear the sign also, and I never yet was known to break my word!"

The threat passed unheeded by the constable; the archers, throwing the armourer's garments carelessly at his feet, again formed into rank, and D'Armagnac left the Place, followed by the citizens, except Bourdichon, who remained on duty.

For some time after their departure, Perinet continued standing with his arms folded in the same fixed attitude. Aroused, at length, by the pain which the cold air caused to his wounds, he gathered up his vest and pourpoint, and threw them carelessly over his bleeding shoulders. In so doing, his dagger fell from one of the pockets upon the ground. He picked it up eagerly, and examined the point. My tried companion!" he ejaculated; "they did not then seize thee! Thou hast now one more service than before to render me!"

Not caring to attract the attention of Bourdichon, who was keeping guard at his former post upon the bridge, Perinet silently resumed his old station behind the barrier, which had served to break the pressure of the crowd during the day. Again all was quiet in the Place. A few stars were twinkling in the heavens, but not sufficient to afford any light; whilst the few scattered lamps which the wind permitted to remain unextinguished, were too far distant to be of the least service. Thus screened from observation, the armourer once more awaited the tidings he might hear of Bourdon's fate.

As the last stroke of ten died away in echoes amongst the pointed towers of the Palais de Justice, the portal of the Grand Châtelet slowly opened, and three soldiers appeared on the threshold. The first of these carried a torch; and by its glare he directed the steps of the other two, who were staggering under the weight of a large burthen which they carried between them. From his ambush Perinet could observe all that passed, and he was horrified at perceiving the envelope stained with large clots of blood. The men passed slowly across the Place, and then, halting at the very barrier behind which Perinet was concealed, sent their torch-bearer forward to exchange the pass-word with Bourdichon, who still remained on the bridge. As they dropped their load with some force upon the ground, a deep low groan issued from the sack. Perinet heard it, and it struck in icy terror to his soul. Firmly grasping his dagger, he glided noiselessly round the barrier, unseen in the obscurity that prevailed, and stood close to the two soldiers.

The archer who advanced upon the Pont aux Meuniers had dismissed Bourdichon; and now prepared to return to his fellows, with the information that the coast was clear. The men stooped to resume their burthen, when, swift as thought, Perinet buried his dagger in the side of one, and before the other could discern the accident, he had shared the same fate, and fell to the ground. The torchbearer, alarmed at the rapidity of the attack, and thinking that a larger number of persons were engaged in the assault, from seeing his companions both struck down so suddenly, flew towards the châtelet with cries for assistance, dropping his flambeau, which Perinet directly seized.

In an instant, the armourer ripped up the sack with his dagger, and the unfortunate Bourdon-pale, bleeding, and almost inanimate, rolled from its crimson folds.

“Fly, messire,” cried Perinet hastily, “you have not a second to lose! Fly to Saint Jacques la Boucherie-it is a sanctuary, and I will meet you there." Then darting to the Quai, as more soldiers issued from the châtelet, he exclaimed: "Gervais! here is the cross-Gloire à Dieu! I have kept my word.”

The faithful boatman was waiting, and he caught the precious signal as it fell. Perinet saw him cut the rope that held his boat, and push from the shore; then turning along the Quai, he fled precipitately.

Meanwhile, the expiring Bourdon had raised himself on his hands, and feebly endeavoured to move. But Perinet was ignorant that, although he had liberated him, the torture had crushed and mangled his limbs; and that the blood was still flowing from his wounds, as it clotted on the hard ground. Nevertheless, he contrived to drag himself towards the centre of the Place; and then fell insensible, as the reinforcement advanced from the châtelet with numerous torches.

66

They have escaped us!" cried a soldier, as he lifted his flambeau above his head, and gazed about the area. "But they have left our prisoner," returned a man, in a close red hood, as he discovered Bourdon. "Let us finish our work."

At his signal, the others raised the chevalier, and bearing him in their arms advanced upon the bridge. One of them then mounted the parapet, and aided by his companions, drew up the body after him. The next moment there was a heavy plunge below, and the Seine received its victim.

The sun rose brightly the next morning, and the river, sparkling in his beams, continued its rapid course, offering no trace of the foul deed which it concealed. But at evening, when the green expanse of the Pré aux Clercs resounded with the joyous merriment of the happy crowds assembled on it for their usual pastimes-when the clerks of the Bazoche and the students of Cluny mingled gaily in the dance with the grisettes of the city-the attention of the multitude was drawn away from their revelry by the report, that a fisherman had discovered a body enveloped in a sack, below the Tour du Bois, on the opposite side of the Seine. The corpse was carried to the Grêve, but its envelope remained in the possession of the boatman, bearing a motto which he was unable to decipher. The more learned of the bystanders traced this inscription in rude letters upon the crimsoned canvas

"Laissez passer la justice du Roi!"* ALBERT. "TIME AND TIME-KEEPERS."+

CURIOUS CLOCKS AND WATCHES.

and entertaining little volume, in which every member of AN eminent horologist has just put forth a very useful the community must take a lively interest. It is not, as

* The incidents of this chapter are purely historical. By Adam Thomson.

some readers may imagine, merely the history of horology, or a sort of cyclopædian treatise, with details of the inventions and improvements in the art, for these are the illustrations of the subject; the author's aim being to put the public so far in possession of the theory as well as practice of measuring time, as may enable them to judge of good time-keepers. This object is now a more important one than ever; for, we agree with Mr. Thomson, that " attention to time has never been so necessary as it is at present. The rapidity of transit by railroad, and the increased speed which we may not unreasonably expect, will, in proportion as it annihilates distance, make punctuality indispensable; while its influence is felt in all great commercial transactions, it in some degree affects domestic arrangements; and the few minutes which were formerly unattended to, will shortly become valuable portions of time."

This is practical truth; for, attention to time is the true 66 economy of human life." To paraphrase another moralist, take care of the minutes, and the hours and days will take care of themselves; whilst, for want of a minute, the object of the hour is often lost, and for want of an hour, that of the day frequently sacrificed. What, then, can be more important than this nice attention to time? and, as the first step to it, what is more essential than choosing a good time-keeper, and what more vexatious than an ill-going clock or watch? The Chinese shrewdly called a stopped watch dead; and it is a discredit to its maker or wearer. Often has our bile been stirred by a public clock at a stand-still, completely neutralizing the maxim "de mortuis nil nisi bonum." How often a lazy parish-clock, or a lazier clockmaker, excites the vexation of a newspaper correspondent, who condemns the defunct dial as a 66 perfect nuisance." Again, some public clocks keep little better time than did king Alfred's dialled candles, irregular as they must have been from the agitation of the air. Watching a public clock has been a source of amusement: a boy left in charge of the chambers of a briefless barrister, in one of the iuns of court, on being asked how he got rid of his time, replied, that now and then he went to the window, and looked at the large hall-clock; now, had this stopped, how it would have aggravated the poor fellow's misery, and dead-alive, donothing existence! Then, the street-passengers: how naturally they look up at the public clock, and how blank they appear if it has stopped; or what a nervous twitch of vexation agitates their entire features, as they treat Time's representative with unutterable contempt. Here and there, in a shop, is a clock that is "never right;" it betrays the irregular habits of the shopkeeper, who might, from this outward and visible sign of his course of life, he refused credit with more show of reason, than was the City banker condemned by the irregularity of his clerks.* But the social evil comes home to every man's mouth: only think of your grandmother's kitchen clock going wrongthe dinner is spoiled-the meat is" done to death"-your wife scolds, the children cry, and matters are at that ne plus ultra of misery, when "every thing goes wrong." Whenever we see a house without the intellectual furniture of clocks, books, or writing materials, we consider the upper stories of the inmates to be but proportionally illfurnished, and are at a loss to guess how such persons

* One fine bright morning, a churlish old fellow, in passing his banker's door (not then opened), saw there a pile of publican's pewter pots, which so alarmed the depositor, that he drew out his account from the bank during the day, observing that such extravagance rendered the house unworthy of credit. The clerks had been supping together the night before, and had drunk sundry pots of porter.

while away their existence. A watch, too, is an object of interest, from our infancy to our death; and to be ignorant of the flight of time is to be "sans every thing." To the infant in its nurse's arms, to the child learning to run alone, to the boy leaving school,* and just going out into the world-what an object of attraction, delight, and utility, is a watch! There is some popular notion of the construction of the watch-works being taken from a minute observance of the structure of the human body; and though this be but the belief of vulgar physiologists, it bespeaks the importance attached to the invention. It is, then, the toy of our earliest years, and the monitor of our every succeeding stage of our existence, even to our last moments, when life's poor play is o'er. Never shall we forget the single stroke of a clock breaking upon our ear, a few minutes after a friend had passed from a life of suf fering; how solemnly did it proclaim the solitude occasioned by such a loss!

"For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock;
My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
Their watches on to mine eyes, the outward watch
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,

Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now, Sir, the sound that tells what hour it is,
Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: So sighs, and tears, and groans,
Show minutes, times, and hours."

Richard II.-Shakspeare. Perchance, the solemn tick reminds you of the time when you could not sleep with a watch in your room, from its superstitious association with the beatings of a harmless insect, vulgarly termed the death-watch; or, you recollect some beautiful lines, as those addressed by Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, to his watch: "Incessant minutes, whilst you move you tell

The time that tells our life, which though it run
Never so fast or far, your new begun
Short steps shall overtake; for though life well
May 'scape its own account, it shall not yours.
You are death's auditors, that both decide
And scan whate'er that life inspired endures,
Past a beginning; and through you we 'bide
The doom of fate, whose unrecalled decree

You date, bring, execute; making what's new,
Ill; and good, old; for as we die in you,
You die in time, time in ETERNITY!"

But, sentiment must not be the staple of life; and so, to

return to the nice little hand-book on "Time and Time

keepers," into which we have penetrated little beyond its cover, with its mystic embellishment of the serpent encircling a figure of Time in flight, a broken column, &c. The work is dedicated to the Duke of Sussex, who pos Harrison's first clock, the forerunner of that invaluable sesses a very fine collection of clocks, and has "preserved machine without which the compass itself would be but an imperfect guide to the mariner." The subject is then treated in sections-as the nature of Time, and its several divisions; all which abound with valuable facts, lucidly placed before the reader. Thus, as 15 degrees of longi tude mark one hour of time, and "as Berlin is nearly 15 degrees to the east of London, it is almost one o'clock there when it is twelve in London:" " if it were possible for a man in the latitude of London, to travel due west at the rate of one geographical mile every six seconds and

* At Christ's Hospital, each of the Royal boys of the Mathematical School, having passed his Trinity House examination, and received testimonials of good conduct, is presented with a watch, as a reward, worth from 91. to 131., in addition to an outfit of clothes, books, mathematical instruments, a Gunter's scale, quadrant, and sea-chest.