gathered. With the best-constructed houses, and other things well managed, over-cropped vines, or weakly ones in illdrained borders, never carry their late crops well; the least touch or speck, and away they go, and you cannot help it. Look, again, at a healthy, vigorous, young or old vine, under opposite circumstances, and you could hardly damp or injure its fruit, if you wished. If the sashes of the early vineries are off, no time should now be lost in getting them on, as, if we should get cold rains, the borders inside would be chilled too much, and thus put you under disadvantages when you begin to force. All vines that are forced should be pruned as soon as the wood is ripe.

Out-door Department.

The change of weather impels us to have all our crops and plants secured and well provided for against the winter long before real danger is at hand. You must have your mats at hand, ready to cover up in case of frost.

CAULIFLOWER.-In a short time this will be the best flower in the garden; and who would not prolong its succession? Nothing is easier than to do so with cauliflowers; "pull up a quantity of them that are now fit, or nearly fit for use, and lay them in by the heels in some moist earth in a dry shed or out-house-it is too soon yet to put them down in the cellar. Look about for a dry, well-sheltered border, dung and dig it, and the first mild day plant it all over with good cauliflower plants, ready to be sheltered with hand-glasses.

CABBAGES.-If any failures have happened in the rows already planted the spaces should now be filled up with the strongest plants you have on hand.

LETTUCE and ENDIVE PLANTS may still be planted in cold frames, but the sooner the better.

ORCHARD.-Pruning may now be commenced in earnest, beginning first with the currants, then the gooseberries and raspberries; this will clear a good deal of ground to be dressed and dug in fine weather. After that apple and pear trees, &c. Look over the walls and cut away useless laterals and late growths on the peach trees; indeed, any shoot you think will not be wanted in spring, and let in the sun and air to ripen the bearing wood for next year; the leaves of peach trees are of very little use after this time, and they do much harm by shading the wood; therefore cut them off, but do not strip them off, for fear of injuring the buds. No author has recommended this, but many of the best gardeners practise it regularly. II.-FLOWER-GARDEN AND SHRUBBERY. In-door Department. STOVE.-There are no plants more easy to manage in winter than stove-plants, and yet an inexperienced person may injure

them at this time sooner than any other tribe. 609 is about the lowest temperature they ought to have this month, with rather a dry atmosphere and air on all fine days, if only to sweeten the houses now that they are so full.

GREENHOUSE.-Those who have not the advantage of cold turf-pits must have crowded their greenhouses on the approach of the late frosts. Let a place be ever so small there ought to be some contrivance for sheltering half-hardy greenhouse plants late in the autumn, without crowding them into houses thus early. The Chrysanthemums and Pelargoniums ought now to occupy the best places here, and more hardy plants would be much better in pits, where rain and frost could be kept from them till the Chrysanthemums are nearly over, to make room for them in-doors.

CONSERVATORY.-From this time till next March a conservatory must be kept close, more or less, to suit forced plants, &c., while a greenhouse cannot have too much air whenever the weather is fine.

PITS AND FRAMES.-Now is the time to pot all the Cape Iridaceae, with others from Mexico, Chili, &c. &c.; the whole order delights in light, open soil. The stronger Gladioli, and the like, are much benefited by the addition of one-third rotten leafmould, the rest peat and light loam, in equal portions, with a little sand; and the more delicate sorts do better in two-thirds sandy-peat, the rest of loam and sand in equal proportions. Mrs Loudon's beautiful book, treating on these bulbs, is indispensable to those who would excel in the cultivation of these charming plants. Tropæolums, Hyacinths, Tulips, Narcissi, to flower late in the spring, may now be potted, and those first potted of these will now have the pots pretty well filled with roots, and may therefore be brought to a glass frame, to get up the foliage and flower-stems slowly, when a smart forcing will not much injure the bulbs.

FLOWER-GARDEN.-Take up such flowergardening plants as you may want another year.

those countries, sunk in the most abject ignorance, placed implicit faith in such wonders. A vampyre haunted and tormented almost every village. Deceased fathers and mothers, who had reposed for years in their graves, appeared again at their dwellings-knocked at the doors, sat down to table in silence, ate little or nothing, sometimes nodded significantly at some unfortunate relation in token of their approaching death, struck them on the back, or sprang on their bellies or throats, and sucked draughts of blood from their veins. In general, however, this last consummation of vampyrism was left as an inference from the other facts and the statement was, that certain men or women of the village grew pale, and gradually wasted away-blooming girls in the flower of health lost the roses from their cheeks, and sank into rapid and premature decay then an apparition of some deceased individual was seen, and suspicion instantly fixed on him or her as the cause. The grave of the apparition was resorted to where the corpse was invariably found fresh and well-preserved-the eyes open, or only half-closed-the face vermilioncoloured-the hair and nails long-the limbs supple and unstiffened-and the heart beating. Nothing more was necessary to fix on the body the crime of vampyrism, and to attach to it the guilt of having drained the streams of life from all the pale youths and hectic maidens in the vicinity. Some judicial forms of proceeding were, however, often observed before proceeding to inflict the last penalty of justice on the offender. Witnesses were examined as to the facts alleged-the corpse was drawn from its grave, and handled and inspected; and if the blood was found fluid in the veins, the members supple, and the flesh free from putrescence, a conviction of vampyrism passed-the executioner proceeded to amputate the head, extract the heart, or sometimes to drive a stake through it, or a nail through the temples, and then the body was burnt, and its ashes dispersed to the winds. Burning was found the only infallible mode of divorcing the spirit from the frame of these pertinacious corpses. Impalement of the heart, which had been long considered to be the means of fixing evil and vagrant spirits to the tomb, was often ineffectual. A herdsman of Blow, near Kadam, in Bohemia, on undergoing this ceremony, laughed at the executioners, and returned them many thanks for giving him a stake to defend himself against the dogs. The same night he arose to his nocturnal meal, and suffocated more persons than he had ever attacked before his impalement. He was at last exhumed and carried out of the village. On being again pierced with stakes he cried

out most lustily-sent forth blood of a brilliant erubescence and was at last finally quelled by being burnt to cinders. This fact, with many other similar narratives, is related in a work called 'Magia Posthuma,' by Charles Ferdinand Schertz, dedicated to Prince Charles of Lorraine, Bishop of Olmutz, and printed at Olmutz in 1706. The Rev. Pere Dom. Augustin Calmet, Abbé de Senones (Abbey, as Voltaire insinuates, of 100,000 livres de rente) quotes, in his grand treatise on apparitions and vampyres, an extraordinary case of vampyrism detailed in the Glaneur Hollandois, No. XVIII.

In a certain half-peopled canton of Hungary, near the famous Tockay, and between the river Teisse and Transylvania, the people called the Heiduques were possessed by a firm conviction of the powers of vampyres, About 1727 a certain Heiduque, an inhabitant of Medreiga, named Arnold Paul, was crushed to death under a load of hay. Thirty days afterwards four persons of the village died suddenly with all the symptoms indicative of death by vampyrism. The people, puzzled and eager to discover the vampyre delinquent, at last recollected that Arnold Paul had often related how, in the environs of Cassova, on the frontiers of Turkish Servia, he had been tormented and worried by a Turkish vampyre. This, according to the fundamental laws of vampyrism, should have converted Arnold into a vampyre in his grave; for all those who are passive vampyres on earth, invariably become vampyres active when they descend to the tomb. Arnold Paul had, however, always stated that he had preserved himself from contagion from the attacks of the Turkish vampyre by eating some of the earth of his grave and by embrocating himself with his blood. All precautions appeared, however, to be fruitless, for the inhabitants of Medreiga, on opening his tomb forty days after his death, found upon him all the undoubted indices of an arch-vampyre-his corpse ruddy, his nails elongated, his veins swelling with a sanguinary tide which oozed from his pores and covered his shroud and winding-sheet. The hadagni or bailiff of the place, "qui etoit un homme expert dans le vampirisme," proceeded to impale Vampyre Arnold through the heart; on which he sent forth horrid cries with all the energy of a living subject. His head was then cut off and his body burnt. Similar execution was then performed on the four deceased persons, the supposed victims of Vampyre Arnold's attacks, and the Heiduques fancied themselves in safety from these terrific persecutors. afterwards, we read, the same fatal prodigies reappeared. During the space of three months, seventeen persons of different ages

Five years

and sexes died with all the old diagnostics -some without any visible malady-others after several days of languor and atrophy. Amongst others a girl named Stanoska, daughter of the Heiduque Stotuitzo, went one night to rest in perfect health, but woke in the middle of the night shrieking and trembling violently-she asserted that the son of the Heiduque Millo, who had died nine weeks before, had attacked her in her sleep and had nearly strangled her with his grasp. Heiduque Millo's son was instantly charged with vampyrism. The magistrates, physicians, and surgeons of the commune repaired to his grave, and found his body with all the usual characteristics of animation and imputrescence, but they were at a loss to understand from what channel he had derived his faculties. At last it was discovered that the exhausted vampyre Arnold Paul had strangled, not only the four deceased persons, but also a number of cattle, whose flesh had been plentifully eaten by Millo's son and other villagers. This discovery threw the Heiduques into fresh consternation, and afforded a horrid prospect of an indefinite renewal of the horrors of vampyrism. It was resolved to open the tombs of all those who had been buried since the flesh of the cattle had been consumed. Among forty corpses, seventeen were found with all the indubitable characteristics of confirmed vampyres. The bodies were speedily decapitated, the hearts impaled, and the members burnt, and their ashes cast into the river Teisse. The Abbé Dom. Calmet inquired into these facts, and found them all judicially authenticated by local authorities, and attested by the officers of the Imperial garrisons, the surgeon-majors of the regiments, and the principal inhabitants of the district. The proces verbal of the whole proceedings was sent, in January 1735, to the Imperial Council of War at Vienna, who had established a military commission to inquire into the facts. "Proces verbaux" and "juridical authen. tications" certainly are high-sounding things-but a sceptical critic has pretended that his Imperial Majesty's surgeonsmajor and counsellors of war might perchance be deceived in some respects; and admitting a great deal of what they attest to be true, that vampyrism is not a necesary inference from it-that Miss Stanoska was only a young lady of weak health and head, and strong imagination, who dreamt that young Mr Millo appeared to her in the night, and laid hold on her more rudely than was becoming in a deceased person, which frightened her into fits, and occasioned her death in a few days-that though she professed to be sucked, yet she could not show the wound, or the dente labris notam of the vampyre that no person ever caught a vampyre in the fact of his sanguinary

osculations—and that, in this case, no purple aperture was exhibited on any of the individual throats, which the connoisseurs assert is the sure trace of the vampyre's embrace-that as for the fresh and vermilion corpses, allowing for the common exaggeration of two-thirds in the length of the period since their burial, their preservation might be easily accounted for, by certain antiseptic qualities in the soil, similar to those in the abbatial vaults at Toulouse and other places.

Reasonings of this sort by no means either satisfied the poor Hungarians and Poles, or the physicians and metaphysicians of Germany and Sclavonia. The universities rang with the names of Stanoska and Arnold Paul; and while the book-stalls every day sent forth 'Cogitationes de Vampiriis,' 'Dissertationes de masticatione mortuorum,' &c. the churchyards of Sclavonia every day vomited forth fresh bloodsuckers to confound or support their theories. At Warsaw, a priest having ordered a bridle of a saddler, died before it was completed. A few days afterwards he appeared on horseback, clad in the costume in which priests are buried, and demanded his bridle of the saddler. "But you are dead, Monsieur le Curé," said the man. "I shall soon let you know the contrary," replied the reverend father, striking him a slight blow. The priest rode home to his grave, and in a few days the poor saddler was a corpse. Sometimes the people ate bread steeped in the blood of a vampyre; and at the impalement a white handkerchief was dipped in his blood, and handed round to the multitude to suck as a preservative against future attacks. A device resorted to in Walachia, in order to detect suspected vampyres, has something in it singularly wild and poetical. The people would place a virgin youth, about the age of puberty, on a horse as yet insolitus blando labori, of a jet black colour, without a speck of white. The boy rode the horse about a suspected burying-ground, and over all the graves; and when the animal stopped short, and snorted, and refused, in spite of whip and spur, to set foot on any particular grave, it was an unerring indication that a vampyre lay within. The people immediately opened the tomb, and in general found it occupied by a fresh and well-fed corpse, stretched out like a person in a blooming and profound sleep. The Abbé Dom. Calmet, after a diligent inquiry into the subject, satisfied himself on every point, except the manner in which the vampyre escapes from his tomb without deranging the soil, and enters through doors and windows without opening or breaking them. Either the resuscitation of these bodies, says the Abbé, must be the work of the Deity, of the angels, of the soul of

the deceased, or of the evil demon. That the Deity cannot be the instrument is proved by the horrid purposes for which the vampyre appears-and how can the angels, or the soul, or the demon, rarefy and subtilize gross corporeal substances, so as to make them penetrate the earth like air or water, pass through keyholes, stone walls, and casements?-even taking it for granted that their power would extend to make the corpse walk, speak, eat with a good appetite, and preserve its fresh looks. The only instance directly against Dom. Calmet, where the vampyre has been caught in articulo resurgendi, is one stated before one of the many vampyre special commissions appointed by the Bishop of Olmutz, at the beginning of the last century._The_village of Liebava being infested, an Hungarian placed himself on the top of the church tower, and just before midnight (from midday to mid. night are the vampyres' ordinary dinnerhours) saw the well-known vampyre issue from a tomb, and, leaving his windingsheet, proceed on his rounds. The Hungarian descended and took away the linen -which threw the vampyre into great fury on his return, and the Hungarian told him to ascend the tower and recover it. The vampyre mounted the ladderbut the Hungarian gave him a blow on the head which hurled him down to the church-yard, and descended and cut of his head with a hatchet; and although he was neither burnt nor impaled, the vampyre seems to have retired from practice, and was never more heard of.

WICKEDNESS OF CARD PLAYING. THAT cards are the devil's books is a common saying among serious people. How they were thought of two hundred and twenty years ago, by at least one reverend gentleman, will be seen in the following paragraphs taken from A Treatise against Dicing, Dancing, Plays, and Interludes,' by John Northbrooke, Minister, in which the writer gives a dialogue between Youth and Age:

"Youth. What say you to carde playing? is that to be vsed and allowed among men?

66

Age. I tell you plainly, it is euen almost as badde as the other: there is neuer a barrell better herring (as the prouerbe is); yet of the two euils it is somewhat the lesse, for that therein wit is more vsed, and lesse trust in chance and fortune (as they term it), and yet I say, therein is no laudable studie or good exercise. Dice playing is the mother, and carde playing is the daughter, for they draw both with one string all the followers thereof vnto ydlenesse, loytering, blaspheming, miserie, infamie, shame, penurie, and confusion.

"Youth. Is there as much craft and deceit at carde playing as there is at dice playing?

"Age. Almost none; I will not giue a straw to choose; they have such sleightes in sorting and shuffling of the cardes, play at what game ye will, all is lost aforehand, especially if two be confederate to cousin the thirde.

"Youth. As how, I pray you?

"Age. Eyther by pricking of a carde, or pinching of it, cutting at the nicke; eyther by a bumbe carde finely vnder, ouer, or in the middes, &c., and what not to deceyue? And therefore to conclude, I say with that good father, St Cyprian, the playe at cardes is an inuention of the deuill, which he found out that he might the easier bring in ydolatrie amongst men. For the kings and coate cardes that we vse nowe were in olde times the images of idols and false gods which, since they that would seem Christians, haue changed into Charlemaine, Launcelot, Hector, and such lyke names, bicause they would not seem to imitate their idolatrie therein, and yet maintaine the play it self, the very inuention of Satan, the deuill, and woulde so disguise this mischeife vnder the cloake of such gaye names."

He

RUSSIAN MILITARY COLONIES. THE military colonies of Russia are but little known in this country. Léon Renouard de Bussiére has written the best description we have seen of them. makes the total of infantry and cavalry amount to 46,000 men, with a reserve of half that number, and supplies the following details, which more particularly apply to the infantry.

"The colonization of a regiment consists in placing it in perpetual cantonments in a territory which it never quits except for a campaign; and the other inhabitants are attached to the land of the colony, with an obligation to lodge and feed the soldiers, and successively furnish recruits. Everything in the colony receives a military stamp. The farmers or tenants are obliged to wear the uniform, are placed under the orders of old officers, and form what is called the colonised battalion. During their whole lives they remain subject to severe discipline, which extends to the direction of their agricultural labours. Their children are born soldiers; from the age of twelve they receive the musket and cartouch box. Afterwards they enter into the reserve, and are subsequently placed in the active battalions. Fifteen years' service completed, they return for five years into the reserve, and terminate their days as invalids of the colony, unless the inheritance of their fathers, or some new distribution of the land, cause them to become

cultivators or farmers. The male population of a colony is therefore composed of the following elements:

“1. The farmers or cultivators properly so called.

"2. The cantonists. The male children of a military colony are thus called. They receive gratuitous instruction in the schools established by the government; at the same time they are taught one or more trades, and are exercised in the use of arms. At eighteen the strongest are placed in the reserve, after having undergone an exami

nation.

"3. The soldiers of the reserve. Each colonised regiment has a battalion of reserve, one half of which, in the event of war, is united with the active battalions, to enter upon service along with them. The cantonists terminate their military education in the reserve. They remain for two years, and, at the age of twenty, they enter the active battalions, and are fitted to be led at once to the field of battle. 4. The soldiers of the active battalions. These are ready to march at the first signal. Their long term of service, and the education they have received as cantonists, make them from habit excellent soldiers. Their pay does not exceed eleven roubles a year; but they are clothed by the state, and the cultivators feed and lodge them. If they are the eldest sons of farmers, and their father dies, or if in any other regular way they are called to the succession of a tenant, they are entitled to their discharge, and enter immediately into possession of their farm. As long as they remain under their colours, and no war keeps them out of the territory of the colony, they serve as farm-servants to the tenants, and their labour repays the expense of their main

tenance.

"5. The invalids. This denomination is bestowed on the old soldiers who have completed their service. They enjoy, to the exclusion of the other individuals of the colony, the privilege of allowing their beards to grow. Being lodged among their relations or the other farmers, they share their labours, and when age or infirmities have weakened their strength, the government provides for their maintenance.

"Finally, 6. A last class, without any particular denomination, comprises the old cantonists who have performed no military service on account of the weakness of their constitution or a superabundance of recruits. These people, thrown upon their own resources, work as farm servants, or gain their livelihood by the trades which the government has taught them. The lot of the colonised troops appears far preferable to that of the other Russian soldiers. These last, from the time they are enrolled, are in some sort dead to their family; the soldiers of the colonies are not

torn from their domestic ties; they remain children, fathers of families, even citizens to a certain degree.

"As to the ancient serfs of the crown, who have been transformed into farmers or military cultivators, they have not been able as yet to accommodate themselves to their new position. With their affections. crushed, these poor creatures grieve in silence. Ignorant simplicity made them value their former existence, and the recollection of this relative happiness, which was founded upon habit, never leaves them. Besides, they were subjected to the most severe labours during the first years; they cleared the ungrateful soil which was assigned to them, built villages, constructed bridges, roads, and canals. But these motives for regret and suffering will not exist for a second generation, whose lot will be less hard than that of the serfs of the crown. The farmers receive the title of free men, and this denomination, if it be ill suited to cultivators bowed down by military despotism, proves at least on the part of the government an intention rather to raise than to depress this class. The state supplies the farmers with a furnished habitation, six or eight hectares (from fifteen to twenty English acres) of land, cattle, and agricultural implements; and they pay neither property tax, nor capitation, nor rent. All that they acquire becomes at their death the property of their natural heirs; the farm which is intrusted to them may in some degree be considered as their patrimony. When age no longer allows them to superintend its labours, or when they feel their end approaching, they themselves nominate their successor. In this manner the possession of a farm may be perpetuated in the same family as a genuine property, and it is only in extreme cases, in consequence of a judicial sentence, that a tenant can be expelled from it,

"In general the power to which the cultivators are subjected is not arbitrary, as in the other villages of Russia. Thus, for example, none of them can be subjected to corporal punishment without legal forms being gone through, and in each locality the primary jurisdiction is intrusted to an elective magistracy, which exercises at the same time certain functions of police as well as of administration.

"Philanthropic precautions are taken to prevent indigence and misfortune. A magazine of wheat, maintained by the inhabitants at large, removes all danger of famine. The sick are taken care of gratuitously in a central hospital; orphans become the adoptive children of the colony, and the maintenance of the widows and the aged is provided for. A savings and trading bank ensures for the farmers the preservation of their gains, and in times of distress even advances money to them,