THE ORATORY OF ANGLO-SAXON COUNTRIES By Edward A. Allen, Professor of Anglo-Saxon and English Literature in the University of Missouri English-speaking people have always been the freest people, the greatest lovers of liberty, the world has ever seen. Long before English history properly begins, the pen of Tacitus reveals to us our forefathers in their old home-land in North Germany beating back the... more...

When Sir Henry Bessemer, in 1856, made public his great invention, and announced to the world that he was able to produce malleable steel from cast iron without the expenditure of any fuel except that which already existed in the fluid metal imparted to it in the blast furnace, his statement was received with doubt and surprise. If he at that time had been able to add that it was also possible to roll... more...

CLIFTON. Clifton is the Montpellier of England, and is associated with all that is delightful in nature: of this, the Engraving before us is a true picture, whether we contemplate the winding Avon; the sublime beauty of its rocks— Clifton's airy rocks, (as Mr. Bowles poetically calls them), the picturesque scenery of the opposite shore; or the abodes of cottage comforts which cluster into a... more...

FINANCIAL. THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY presents its greetings for the month of May. Six months of our fiscal year are now in the past. The half year which we anticipate includes the summer time, when many of the friends of the ignorant millions to whom we are sent, are absent from their churches. The months of May and June ought to swell the stream of love and service against the season when the demand... more...

EVICTED. (A common scandal, inviting the attention of the Government.) I was amazed the other day to hear that my landlord had called to see me. Hitherto our intercourse had been by letter and we had had heated differences on the subject of repairs. His standpoint seemed to be that landlords were responsible for repairs only to lightning conductors and weathercocks. My house possesses neither of these... more...

One day a paragraph appears in the papers that a new piece will shortly be produced at such and such a theatre. Paterfamilias lays down the paper and placidly observes that it may be worth while getting seats. Then he goes down to the theatre, books seats, and troubles himself no more about the matter until the first night of the play in question. The world behind the curtain is one with which he is... more...

GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL. We have here a capital portrait of the editor in chief of the New Orleans Picayune, George W. Kendall, who, as an editor, author, traveller, or bon garçon, is world-famous, and every where entitled to be chairman in assemblies of these several necessary classes of people. Take him for all in all, he may be described as a new Chevalier Bayard, baptized in the spirit of fun, and... more...

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY OF IT. If you would teach your child to read in the easiest, quickest, and most practicable way, easiest both to the child and the teacher, put "The Nursery" in its hands every month. Our word for it, you will be surprised at the result. "The Nursery" will be found a primer, a reading-book, drawing-book, story-book, and lesson-book, all in one.—Boston Transcript.... more...

PERSIAN BATH. The luxurious indulgence of baths in the East is generally known to the reader of travels, so as to render acceptable the following details. They are extracted from Mr. Buckingham's Travels, and bear all the graphic minuteness of his entertaining pen. The Bath is one of the principal ones of Kermanshah, an important frontier town of Persia. "It was entered by a porch, extremely... more...

THE YORK COLUMN. Five years have now elapsed since the improvements in St. James's Park were commenced, by order of Government, for the gratification of the people. We were early in our congratulation, as well as illustration, of the prospective advantages of these plans for the public enjoyment, as will be seen on reference to our tenth volume; and, with respect to the re-disposal of St.... more...