firearms is known to have existed during the early part of the reign of King Henry VIII.

The Alpenstock is of modern use, although of great antiquity. It is a stout pole about six feet in length, provided with an iron spike at the lower end, and surmounted with a chamois-horn as an ornament. This is a staff almost indispensable to tourists when journeying in a mountainous district. It is used by travellers in ascending the Alps, and can be purchased throughout Switzerland for about two francs.

hand.

There is another description of walking-sticks which comprises those light wands to which the name is now almost exclusively attributed, and these are The stem of the giant-fennel, the Ferula of Pliny, is descended from a period of considerable antiquity. the chief progenitor of this order, and he derives the name from fero, to bear or carry, because of the stalk being used in walking; or from ferio, to strike or hit, as schoolmasters used it for striking boys on the The latter interpretation appears to have been acknowledged, in preference to the former, at Martial, termed the ferula sceptrum pedagogorum; a very early period, as that distinguished poet, and even to the present day that is the popular meaning conveyed by the word. As a support to aged persons, the tough-lightness of the fennel-wood rendered it especially fitted for them; whilst the imposing length of the staff gave an air of importance and authority to those who carried it; hence have continued as the sign of seniority or gentility to it became the prototype of those lighter canes which the present time.

was a strong and stout stick, about five feet in length, armed at the lower end with an iron spike, and evidently intended as a balance and support to the body when climbing up steep acclivities. About twelve inches from the top of the staff was generally a large protuberance, on which the hand of the pilgrim rested, without danger of sliding downwards. The upper part of the staff was hollow, and capable of holding small articles; but the lower portion was entirely solid. It is very probable that in the cavity of the upper part they originally kept reliques of saints, or, as those emblematical figures were then called, signs, which were sold at the tombs to which the pilgrims travelled, and were considered as satisfactory proofs that the pilgrims had been to the spots indicated. In the later ages of pilgrimage, however, this part of the staff was converted into a kind of pipe or musical instrument, such as sticks have frequently contained in more modern times. Above the tube, the staff was surmounted by a small hollow globe; and it was also furnished near the top with a kind of crook, for the purpose of sustaining a gourd-bottle of water. When the traveller had completed his journey, and returned from the Holy Land, he generally brought with him a branch of palm, fastened into the top of his staff, as a proof of his travel into Palestine or Egypt. It is, however, unquestionable that the receptacle at the top of a pilgrim's staff was frequently used for secular purposes. It is recorded In oriental countries where the ferula could not be by Holinshed in his Chronicles of England, that in the obtained, they found a substitute in some kind hollow of a pilgrim's staff, the first head of saffron of native reed; and the employment of such a plant was secretly brought from Greece, at a period when as a support, and also as an emblem of Egypt, is it was a capital crime to take the living plant out of noticed, most probably in a proverbial form, by the the country. The plant was taken to Waldenburg, in Assyrian general Rabshakeh, in a speech to the Essex, where it was extensively and successfullyNow, behold,' says he, 'thou trustest upon the staff servants of Hezekiah, in the eighth century B. C. cultivated; and ever afterwards, the town was called of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a Saffron-Walden. man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it'

The silkworm was also introduced into Europe in the hollow of a pilgrim's staff. Two monks who resided in China as missionaries imagined that in the eggs a numerous progeny might be preserved and propagated. Having acquainted the Roman emperor at Constantinople with their design, they, according to Professor Partington, travelled back to China, and by concealing the eggs of the silkworm in a hollow cane, deceived a people ever jealous of its commerce, and returned in triumph to Constantinople with the spoils of the East, having made a greater conquest than either Justinian or his celebrated general, Belisarius, had ever achieved.' So late also as the time of Cervantes, some Spanish pilgrims existed, who, having collected about one hundred crowns in alms, changed them into gold, and then concealed the money in the upper part of their staves. That ancient contrivance of making a repository in the hollow of a walking-stick is not yet obsolete; in the Great Exhibition of 1851, Dr Gray of Perth displayed a medical walking-stick which contained an assortment of instruments and medicines; and the same principle has been employed for the portable conveyance of telescopes, instantaneouslight apparatus, and many other important articles. There were also exhibited in the Exhibition of 1851 several varieties of sticks enclosing in them swords, dirks, and spring-spears, the principle of their construction being, that they required a heavy blow to be given with the armed end before the strong spring could be overcome which held back the spear-head. Sword-sticks and dagger or tuck sticks are of a more recent period than the spring-spears; but this last kind of walking-staves is not of later invention than the last century, although that which contained

Kings, xviii. 21). The supposition that in various regions local plants supplied the absence of the ferula is undoubtedly true, especially in those districts where In all probability, the bamboo-cane is indigenous. this was the first kind of cane introduced into Europe, as the very word, in its original form, was intended to express a hollow tube or channel, for which purpose the bamboo is now frequently used.

In the Egyptian sculptures, persons of official rank are represented walking with tall and slender staves, having the lotus-flower on the top. Baxter, in his Illustration of the Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman Costume, says of an Egyptian sculpture, from Denon : "The figure holding a staff, terminated by the flower of the lotus, is a priest in an embroidered garment, a cap, and linen shoes.' Several very ancient specimens of these sticks have been discovered in Egypt, which have been from three to four feet in length, some surmounted with a lotus-flower, and others by a carved projection standing out on one side, like a boar's tusk, as if it had been intended for the hand to rest upon.

If we refer to sacred history, we shall there find, at an early period, the distinctive character of the staff clearly indicated by the immediate recognition of an individual simply by the production of it, with his signet and bracelets (Genesis, xxxviii. 18-25). In Esther, iv. 11, we read as follows: All the king's servants, and the people of the king's provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live.' Thus we see that the golden sceptre' was the emblem of forgiveness. Homer, also, has commemorated the 'sceptre-bearing

་

it

princes' of the classic Greeks, and especially the
sceptre-staff of Achilles, adorned with golden studs.
'I will swear a great oath,' said the hero, even by
this sceptre, which shall never again bear leaves or
shoots, nor will bud again from the time it left its
trunk upon the mountains, where the axe stripped
of all its leaves and bark.' These sceptres, although
they were indisputably the insignia of rank and
authority, were also evidently the usual walking-sticks
of persons of the highest class. Xenophon, in his
Cyropædia, stated that the kings of Persia generally
carried golden sceptres. It is also reported of
Agamemnon that he never went forth without bear-
ing with him the paternal staff of royalty.

Returning to our own country, however, we perceive
in the portraits of many of the eminent personages
of English history, painted in the sixteenth century,
numerous instances of the richness of the walk-
ing-sticks carried at that time, which appear to
have been tall, stout, and mounted and adorned with
gold. In 1531, a cane-staff and a stone-bow were
presented by a fletcher, or arrow-maker, to Henry
VIII., and the sovereign rewarded him with forty
shillings. Fairholt, in his Costume in England,
mentions some curious instances of canes belong
ing to the same king, which are described in the
manuscript inventory of the contents of the royal
palace at Greenwich, in the following entries: A
cane garnished with sylver and gilte, with astronomie
upon it.
A cane garnished with golde, having a per-
fume in the toppe; under that a diall, with a pair of
twitchers, and a pair of compasses of golde; and a
foot-rule of golde, a knife and a file of golde, with a
whetstone tipped with golde.'

From the middle of the seventeenth century, walking-staves appear to have increased in luxury, both in respect to the mountings and the matériel of which they were made, the improvements being principally derived from France. In the early portion of the following century, the most fashionable kinds were made of fine marbles and agates, exhibiting either a fine variety of colour, or a rich semi-opaque tint, which was most expressively described by the English word 'clouded.' These sticks were of slender proportions, but often richly mounted with gold, silver, amber, or precious stones. Such were the 'clouded canes' of the time of Pope, which were so greatly valued as often to be preserved in cases of shagreen, or sheaths of leather. Pope in his poem, The Rape of the Lock, mentions this kind.

Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,

found to be good, received their licences upon paying
the usual fees. Many of the petitions were exceed-
ingly grotesque and ludicrous. The following is a
copy of one taken from the Tatler:
To ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQUIRE, CENSOR OF GREAT
BRITAIN,

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF SIMON TRIPPIT;
Sheweth-That your petitioner having been bred up
to a cane from his youth, it is now become as neces-
sary to him as any other of his limbs: That a great
part of his behaviour depending upon it, he should be
reduced to the utmost necessities if he should lose
the use of it: That the knocking of it upon his shoe,
leaning one leg upon it, or whistling with it on his
mouth, are such great reliefs to him in conversation,
that he does not know how to be good company
without it: That he is at present engaged in an
amour, and must despair of success if it be taken
from him. Your petitioner therefore hopes that,
the premises tenderly considered, your worship will
not deprive him of so useful and so necessary a
support. And your petitioner will ever, &c.'
Upon hearing this case, Bickerstaff was touched
with compassion, and desired him to bring his cane
into court. He did so, and it was very curiously
clouded, with a transparent amber head, and a blue
ribbon to hang upon his wrist.' Bickerstaff then
ordered his clerk to lay it up, and deliver out to him
a plain joint, headed with walnut.' These clouded
canes were considered as the ultimatum of perfection,
and in No. 142 of the Tatler we read: 'Indeed, his
[Charles Lillie's] canes are so finely clouded, and so
well made up, either with gold or amber heads, that
I am of the opinion it is impossible for a gentleman
to walk, talk, sit, or stand as he should do without
one of them.' Gay mentions them in The Van, as
follows:

Here clouded canes, 'midst heaps of toys are found, And inlaid tweezer-cases strew the ground. During the second half of the last century, there was one particular kind of walking-sticks which was generally used by females in an advanced stage of life. They were between five and six feet in length, of a taper and slender make, shaped at the upper end in the manner of a shepherd's crook, and twisted throughout the whole extent of the wand. The materials were either ivory, wood, or whalebone, and mounted with silver or gold. The length of the most fashionable sticks called forth the following And the nice conduct of a clouded cane. satire from The London Chronicle, published in 1762: 'Do not some of us strut about with walking-sticks There is an interesting account of the walking- as long as hickory-poles, or else with a yard of varsticks of this period in the Tatler, No. 103, written by nished cane, scraped taper, and bound at one end Addison and Steele, and published on Tuesday, 6th with waxed thread, and the other tipped with a neat December 1709. In that paper, Isaac Bickerstaff ivory head as big as a silver penny.' There were also represents himself as issuing licences for the beaux of two other kinds of staves, which were commonly carthe time. He says: It is some time since I set apart ried by the gay young men; one was a very short and that day [Saturday] for examining the pretensions of strong bamboo-cane, and the other a stout knotted several who had applied to me for canes, perspective-stick, in which the natural growth of the wood was glasses, snuff-boxes, orange-flower waters, and the like ornaments of life. In order to adjust this matter, I had before directed Charles Lillie, of Beauford Buildings, to prepare a great bundle of blank licences in the following words: "You are hereby required to permit the bearer of this cane to pass and repass through the streets and suburbs of London, or any place within ten miles of it, without let or molestation; provided that he does not walk with it under his arm, brandish it in the air, or hang it on a button, in which case it shall be forfeited; and I hereby declare it forfeited to any one who shall think it safe to take it from him.-ISAAC BICKERSTAFF.”’

He received numerous petitions from the élite of the city, requesting permission to use canes, nearly all giving different reasons, each of which were severely criticised, and those whose pretensions were

regarded as its greatest excellence.

There were also certain grotesque staves adopted by individual eccentricity. The peculiarity of these sticks consisted in an ingenious adaptation of the excrescences of the wood into curious and humorous heads and faces. It is conjectured that the original of this kind of staff may be referred to the baubles of the fools and jesters who were retained by our English monarchs until the seventeenth century. About 1730, The Universal Spectator states, that at the court-end of the town, instead of swords, many polite young gentlemen carry large oak-sticks, with great heads and ugly faces carved thereon.' In the biographical sketches attached to Kay's Edinburgh Por traits, it is asserted of James Robertson of Kincraigie, otherwise the daft Highland laird,' that during the later years of his life, he adopted the amusement of

carving, for which he had talent, and sculptured in wood the effigies of such persons as attracted his attention, whether friends or enemies; the latter, however, being caricatures. These small figures he mounted on the upper end of his staff, sometimes one above another; and as it was reported that he produced a new one every day, he was generally accosted with the inquiry: Wha hae ye up the day, laird?' to which he would readily answer by naming the individual, and the reason for selecting him.

Many persons carry walking-sticks because of their utility as supports, which is undoubtedly the best and most valid of reasons, but the majority carry them merely for ornament. Every cane commands its own class of customers. The farmer looks with pride upon the most crooked oak or blackthorn stick that can be found, whilst gentlemen of more fastidious taste affect those that have grown in sultry India. It is remarkable that almost all police inspectors carry mahogany sticks, which, when knocked upon the ground, answer as a summons to the policemen within hearing.

in intensity during the different hours of the day. The complete expansion seldom exceeds an hour in duration-most frequently not so long; the petals then begin to close, at first slowly, but afterwards more rapidly, as they become more folded together, and in this closed condition the flower continues until the time of opening again returns.

Most flowers open during the first hour after sunrise, and close in the afternoon. Mid-day is therefore the culminating point of floral awakening, and midnight of floral sleeping.

Even the ordinary green leaves or vegetative organs are affected by sleep as well as the organs of reproduction. This is particularly visible in those plants which possess compound leaves, and which belong to the natural order Leguminosa or the Pea tribe. Thus the compound leaves of the American Senna (Cassia Marilandica) and the locust-tree droop at sunset, and continue in that state through the night, but with approach of morning they again elevate themselves to their usual position. In the THE SLEEP OF PLANTS. sensitive plant, the leaflets fold together, and the EVERYBODY knows that flowers open in the morning leaf-stalk supporting them sinks down as soon as the and close in the evening. Their petals, in fact, close evening shades prevail. The change of position in up in the same folds, and return to the same position the leaves of these plants is so well marked, that which they originally occupied in the bud. This they present, with their drooping foliage, a totally phenomenon was called by Linnæus the Somnus different aspect in the evening to what they do in the plantarum, or sleep of plants. The investigations of morning. A little girl, who had observed the phenobotanists since the time of Linnæus have brought to menon of sleep in a locust-tree that grew before her light several interesting physical truths explanatory nursery window, upon being required to go to bed a of this vegetable sleep. little earlier than usual, replied with much acuteness: mother, it is not yet time to go to bed; the locusttree has not yet begun to say its prayers.' exercises the highest influence in the production of There can be no doubt but that temperature these diurnal changes. The higher the degree of heat which is necessary to the germination of a plant and its subsequent growth, so much the higher is the warmth required to awaken its flowers and cause them to expand. If this temperature is not reached during the day, the flowers will not open, as is the case with many composite whose florets close in that the flowers which are the first to open in the cloudy weather. Hence it is also a law of nature morning, when the sun is low in the heavens, and the earth does not receive much heat from him, belong to plants which will germinate at low temperatures. Consequently, when the daily temperature ascends above a certain point, these flowers close themselves.

According to Carl Fritsch, the duration of this plant-sleep, which is the same condition of rest as that of animal-sleep, varies in different species from ten to eighteen hours; its average duration is about

fourteen hours.

Some flowers require a greater amount of light and heat than others to enable them to open. Hence the hours of the day are to some extent indicated by the opening and closing of certain flowers, so that Linnæus was enabled to construct what he fancifully called a ‘horologium floræ,' or flower-clock. Thus, Common Morning Glory (Convolvulus purpureus) opens at dawn; the Star of Bethlehem, a little after ten o'clock; the Ice Plant, at twelve o'clock at noon. On the contrary, the Goat's-beard, which opens its flowers at sunrise, closes them at mid-day, and for that reason is called 'Go-to-bed-at-noon;' the Four o'Clock opens about that time in the afternoon; the flowers of the Evening Primrose and of the Thorn Apple open at sunset; and those of the night-flowering Cereus, when it is dark.

Aquatic flowers open and close with the greatest regularity. The white water-lily closes its flowers at sunset, and sinks below the water for the night, and in the morning is buoyed up by the expansion of its petals, and again floats on the surface as before. The Victoria regia expands for the first time about six o'clock in the evening, and closes in a few hours; it then opens again at six the next morning, remains so till the afternoon, when it closes and sinks below the water.

Some flowers, such as the gentian and crocus, after they have closed, may be made to open by exposure to strong artificial light; but on others, such as the convolvulus, it has no effect whatever.

The phenomenon of the opening and closing of flowers is not a momentary movement, but a slow and continuous process, which is continually varying

So long as the corolla is open, and the flower awake, it proves that the plant is active; but this vegetable activity is the result of the amount of heat and light received from the sun, and that is always directly in proportion to the angular elevation of the sun above the horizon. This is proved by the slumbering of flowers in polar countries, even when the sun never sets below the horizon, but approaches its margin at midnight without sinking below its surface; the flowers thus continuously illuminated go to sleep, and open at certain hours with as much regularity as during the temporary absence and appearance of the sun in lower latitudes. Man has invented instruments to guide him back to more southern lands when he wanders to polar countries, but nature has anticipated all his care; for the slumbering flowers around him tell him that it is night, that the sun is in the north, and rapidly approaching his lowest point above the horizon. This wonderful midnight sun has a peculiar effect on the polar vegetation. Although the foliage of ligneous plants, such as shrubs and trees,

which here sink down to the condition of dwarfs, is tough and coriaceous, and of a dark and sombre green, gloomy as the long night of the polar world, yet in the steady light which comes from the sun as

BACK AGAIN.

PRICE 14d.

My last resting-place was one of the large establishments in the Italian lake district. The low hills round Como and Maggiore were powdered with snow; the chesnuts were all beaten down and housed; the paths which in the height of summer were checkered with the shade of interlacing boughs, now rustled with withered leaves; the winter service of diligences, &c., was begun; guides had no one to follow them: but the scenery of the lake district was far more lovely than in the full-blooded autumn, with its heat and dust.

occasions at the breakfast-hour in the largest hotels, and took our meal in a corner of a huge apartment, BACK again to dear, old, misty, grumbling England-like two mice in a barn. Most of the waiters who back again to London fog and mud, and sturdy snob- are hired for the summer had left; the small remnant bishness, from the glittering Alpine snow, and the deep-read the papers openly in the salon, or smoked withblue Italian lake, and the bowing, close-cropped out rebuke at the door of the inn. Monsieur. Hurrah! for home, after a summer away on the paper-sanded, flimsy-journaled, many-hatted, harness-roped, table-d'hôted continent. The run back was delicious. I had had some business to do abroad, and therefore could not return directly the whim took me. I was bound to remain up to a certain date, whether I grew tired of foreign scenery and cooks or not. But directly the term of my engagement was up, I hastened back, partly because I had pressing business at home, partly because I was getting rather bored by Monsieur. Excellent fellow; we English owe him more than we can repay; we give him a change, no doubt, when he visits us, but small entertainment. We are too glum to be immediately ridiculous, and too expensive to permit economy. Monsieur begins to spend more, and laugh less, directly he crosses the Channel. One thing, however, we do for him-we whet the love of home; in that we mutually interchange good offices.

When I sat down in the great salle-à-manger at Belladogana for the last time, and for the last time the waiter skated up, and said, X, which I gratified him every day by understanding as an inquiry whether I would have eggs for breakfast-when, as I say, I sat there for the last time, and thought that the wheels of the diligence were probably being already greased, preparatory to its carrying me away at eleven o'clock A. M. that very day, I was glad. I had seen the season begin and end; I had chatted with the early tourists, and bon-voyaged the late; I had seen them come pale and dapper, and go away sunburned and travel-stained; I had watched the transition from a modest spirit of inexperience to one of insolent cynicism; and now they had all gone. The small Swiss inns were shut up, the big ones in the towns nearly empty. The bustling crowd had melted down to a few loiterers working their way homewards, or now and then a family passing into Italy for the winter, before the snow got too deep on the passes for Paterfamilias. There were but a few trickling drops in the channel of the great summer-touring stream. My wife and I found ourselves alone on several

It was very lovely, but we were glad to be gone; and the nearer we got to England, the faster we went. It seemed as if the speed was accelerated as we approached the busiest metropolis of Europe. At first, we crunched slowly up the old familiar Alpine road, now white with snow, and hedged with icicles, the hoar-frost dusting our shaggy horses as we crossed the summit. The trot down the other side was followed by a passage in a lake steamer, whence, again, the pace was increased on a Swiss railway. A long express took us with more safety than swiftness to Paris, and a shorter one whisked us at very tolerable speed to our port of departure. Once at Dover, however, and seated in the carriage, we were reminded of English expedition by our tickets being immediately collected; and then, phit! the engine screamed, and we ran smack into London without a pause, the Sydenham Palace having apparently been moved to the entrance of the tunnel under Shakspeare's Cliff.

Perhaps the first sensation of surprise on a return to England, after even a few months' absence, is caused by the great proficiency in the English language exhibited by illiterate people. Railway guards, cabmen, and little rude street-boys converse in it without hesitation; it is most remarkable.

But let us to our retrospect-back again. Now that I have kicked the carpet-bag into a corner, and tasted the first returning sense of possession, let me think what contrasts strike me with the freshest force.

Imprimis, London is the cleanest town I know; yes, in fog, mud, or thaw. Think of its smells-what are they? Have they any peculiar edge or striking