OBSERVATIONS ON THE CRUSADE WAR.

THE Crusaders had no right to attack the Infidels. It was, to say the least of it, a mad and unjust war. It appears throughout the whole history of the crusades, that though God, for his own inscrutable purposes, had determined to punish the infidels, he did not choose to extirpate them. He seems to have pronounced on the Christian arms, as on the waves of the sea, "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther" for the Christians never could gain any advantage beyond a certain point; and all their victories only brought greater sufferings and disasters on themselves. Its a wonder how people were ever brought to undertake them. Enthusiasm, to be sure, can make people undertake anything. The taking up the cross was considered highly honourable; and the vow was often made in public, in a very solemn and imposing manner, and with a great many ceremonies, the meaning of which we are now at a loss to comprehend. We remember to have read of a very odd one in the account of a great banquet given by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, preparatory to his taking the cross. A roasted pheasant was brought in, and was carried round to each person of the company. The duke first, with the most solemn oaths, vowed by the pheasant to combat with the infidels until death; and him and all the other persons present made vows to the same effect, though with different conditions, according to their different feelings and circumstances. In some instances a live peacock was introduced, and answered the same purpose as the pheasant. Before the crusades, every knight adopted what crest on his helmet, and device on his shield, he liked best; but the sons of those who had fought in the Holy Land had a pride in adopting the devices their fathers had worn there; and thus coats of arms, as they were called, became hereditary in the family of the Crusaders, Coats of arms, or armorial bearings, as they are called, have long ceased to be confined to the descendants of Crusaders; and what was, at that time, an honourable distinction, is, at the present, little more than an unmeaning ornament, having become general without merit.

LADIES..

Be to their faults a little blind
And to their virtues very kind.

A WORD spoken pleasantly is a large spot of sunshine on the sad heart-and who has not seen its effects? A smile is like the bursting out of the sun from behind a cloud to him who thinks he has no friend in the world.

DEATH is like thunder in two particulars: we are alarmed at the sound of it, and it is formidable only from that which preceded it.

ORIGIN OF "THE TRUE BLUE."

EVERYBODY has heard, and made use of the phrase, "true blue," but everybody does not know that its first assumption was by the Covenanters, in opposition to the scarlet badge of Charles I., and hence it was taken by the troops of Lesley and Montrose, in 1639. The adoption of the colour was one of those religious pedantaries in which the Covenanters affected a pharisaical observance of the Scriptural letter, and the usages of the Hebrews; 'and thus as they named their children, Habakkuk and Zerubbabel; and their Chapels, Zion and Ebenezer; they decorated their persons with blue ribbons, because the following sumptuary precept was given in the Law of Moses :- -"Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue."—(Num. xv., 38.)

SENTIMENTS.

"BEHOLD, Miss Flora, how glorious nature looks in all her bloom! The trees are filled with blossoms, the wood is dressed in its green livery, and the plain is carpeted with grass and flowers!" Yes, Charles, I was thinking of the same thing. These flowers are dandelions, and when they are gathered and put in a pot with a a piece of good fat pork, they make the best greens in the world!"

GEORGE STEPHENSON, THE ENGINEER. SOME months ago, being on a visit to the North, he sent for a comrade of his early years, that they might dine together, at the Queen's Head Hotel, Newcastle, and revive old stories. "Do you remember, George," asked his friend, after dinner," when you got your wages raised ?" "Well," said Mr. Stephenson, "what about that ?" "You came out of the office all smiles, and told us you had got your wages raised to twelve shillings a-week, and you were a man for life! I suppose you'd have some difficulty to tell what you have a-week now?" "Yes," replied the deceased, laughing, "I dare say I should."

THE Dutch have a proverb that, "when the French are asleep, the devil rocks the cradle." They are quiet for the present, but what devil rocks the cradle, future events must shew.

"SAMBO, why is a chimley sweep one ob de happiest men alibe ?" "I s'pose kase he knows de joys ob de fireside!" "No! dat 'aint it. Do you gub it up? Well, den, kase he's always suited (sooted)."

AN Irishman being asked on a rainy day, what he would take to carry a message from Drummond's, at Charing Cross, to the Bank, answered, "Faith I'd take a threepenny buss."

VOL. II.

K

RUSTIC ELOQUENCE.

A FARMER'S labourer, speaking of the hard toil, the small pay, and consequent bad living, of the men engaged in thrashing, during the winter, brought his description of their sufferings to a climax thus:-"They work till they are as thin as hurdles, as weak as water, and till they tremble like a leaf."

EPITAPH ON A LOCOMOTIVE.

Collision four

Or five she bore,

The signals wor in vain;

Grown old and rusted,

Her biler busted,

And smash'd the Excursion Train.

Her end was pieces.

PARTNERSHIPS.

I THINK it a very foolish thing for any man to become a sleeping partner, because he may awake, and find himself in the Gazette. During the joint stock mania, of 1824, a wag advertised a company for draining the Red Sea, and recovering the valuables dropped therein, by the Children of Israel, in their passage, and the Egyptians in their pursuit.

PUZZLING ANNOUNCEMENT. WANTED a few healthy members to complete a sick society.

In a neighbouring town, a short time ago, a bacchanalian, from the country, expressing a determination to become a teetotaler, consulted a wag as to the mode of procedure, when he was jocularly recommended to go to the office of the (we wont say the Whittle Dean) Water Company. When the rustic called, the clerks were seated at their desks, but the manager was absent. Being anxious for information, he asked if many were joining it just now? He was answered "Oh, yes." He farther enquired "Do you not tak a drap yourselves occasionally ?" "What do you mean, sir ?" 66 Now," rejoined the would-be-water votary," tell me honestly, do you not tak a spark a whisky ava ?" "Oh, certainly," was the answer, "I was just thinkin' as muckle," quoth he. One clerk asked another, "What does the old quiz mean," when the manager made his appearance. Bumpkin was then politely shewn into the manager's room, upon which he expressed his wish to join his society. "Well, sir," said the manager, "it's twenty-five pounds a share." "Twenty-five pounds, sir ?" exclaimed the would-be-water bibber in amazement." "What for?" "6 Oh, for the water, sir." "Twenty-five pounds for water!" "Saul, I'll stick to the whisky yet!" said he emphatically; and bolted out of the office.

FACTS RELATING TO NAVIGATION.

WHEN any of our merchants wish to know the state of the foreign market, they had better go to sea. It will not be necessary for them to forego business transactions, while on their voyage, for they will find an abundance of stores and sails on board. If they have occasion to communicate with correspondents, they will easily find means to drop a line. If they are fond of amusement, they can roll and pitch as much as they please. they please. For food, they will be likely always to find plenty of chickens in the main hatch, especially in fowl weather. They can always get a couple of eggs. when the vessel lays two. Gentlemen of low descent, by going to sea, will readily obtain a good berth, provided they can put up with a few squalls. Ladies who are fond of knitting when at sea, need never be in want of materials for work, for any sailor will be always ready to spin them a yarn. They will find, however, much cruelty practised on board. In a storm they generally, if possible, heave two; and if they see a buoy floating, they never pick him up, but always avoid him.

SEPARATION.

A COUPLE very well known in Paris, are at present arranging terms of separation to avoid the scandal of a judicial divorce. A friend has been employed by the husband to negociate the matter. The latest mission was in reference to a valuable ring, given to the husband by one of the Sovereigns of Europe, and which he wished to retain. For this he would make a certain much desired concession. The friend made the demand. "What!" said the indignant wife," do you venture to charge yourself with such a mission to me? Can you believe that I could tear myself from a gift which alone recalls to me the days when my husband loved me? No! this ring is my souvenier of happiness departed. 'Tis all (and here she wept) that I now possess of a once fond husband." The friend insisted; the lady supplicated, grew desperate-threatened to submit to a public divorce as a lesser evil than parting with this cherished ring, and at last confessed that "she had sold it six months before !"

LORD ERSKINE always directed his tiger to knock at the house where he intended to call, with a postman's knock; his lordship remarking, that he had long observed servants always more punctually answer knocks of that kind than any other.

A FRENCHMAN who left London for the country, having changed horses at Uxbridge, got hurriedly into his postchaise and called to the driver "Allons donc." The postillion, unfortunately, not understanding French, and supposing he meant to say a London" carried the astonished traveller back to town.

THE RAILWAY NURSERY RHYMER.

Now that it has become proverbial that accidents will happen on the best regulated railways, we consider that a salutary dread of them ought early to be implanted in the minds of our rising generation. The infantine "hobgoblin" should, in future, be the Railway Engine, and our children should be legendarily warned of this, as of a lawyer's bill, or any other sometimes necessary evil. Instead of the bloody deeds mythic Jack the Giant Killer, we would have our nurse maids tell the horrors of a Railway journey. Railways are Dangerous, should be the earliest round hand text; and one of the first chapters in the spelling book, the Chapter of Accidents. Our "Nursery Rhymes," too, might be similarly amended. We have long been nationally ashamed of those senseless " hush-a-by-baby's," with which the British fancy has, for ages, been the impressive lesson. And we, therefore, feel we shall be doing the infant state some service, by furnishing at once a specimen page of The Railway Nursery Rhymer :

AIR-" Ride a Cock Horse."

Fly by steam force the country across
Faster than jockey outside a race-horse,

With time bills mismanaged, fast trains after slow,
You shall have danger wherever you go.

"WHAT shall I do," said a liquor-seller to a temperance lecturer, "if I quit selling rum ?” "Go into the poor-house," said the lecturer," and be supported there, and let the poor you have made paupers come out.'

"MOLLY," said Joe Kelly's ghost to his wife, "I'm in purgatory at this present," says he. "And what sort of a place is it?" says she. "Faix," says he, "its a sort of half-way house between you and heaven," says Joe," and I stand it mighty aisy after leaving you," says he.