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198 timacv with Plato ; and he is, when he will, one oi his bright Republicans. In lighter, gay er moments, German makes him the rollick ing co-mate of Faust or Wallenstein. And j this, too, for life! OUR OWN LITTLE RAILWAY ONCE, MORE ! The half-yearly meeting of shareholders in our pet Railway at Kensington, has just taken place, and the usual clamour was got up for the working of the line. Not satisfied with the Great Western having bought it, the shareholders call upon that Company to work ; it. But Messrs. Glyn, Brunei., and Saun ders, think they have done quite enough in setting a couple of creepers to run upon the Line. We think so too: for we do not quite see the use of re-establishing the communi cation between the Scrubs of Wormwood, j and the shrubs of Warwick Square, or send ing a lot of guards and policemen rattling backwards and forwards between Shepherd's Bush and the Hand and Flower, bringing nothing but misery in their train. We understood that there was some talk ’ of an extension branch; but we found on in quiry, that the rumour arose from the old el- ! der at one of the stations, who has been send ing forth several new T branches from his trunk line. We believe the Electric Telegraph is let out for the purpose of drying clothes : and an Act will be applied for, to give the con cern the name of the Great Kensington Clothes ! Line, in the next Session of Parliament. 1 mm > LOST, A PLANET, Oh, yes! Oh, yes ! This is to give notice, that the Planet called Neptune has abscond ed, and it is not known where. He went out one night last month, and has not been seen since. It is supposed he has gone to meet the Comet, or that the vagabond is busy star-ga- ; zing. In either case, any astronomer who meets him in his walks is requested to keep I his eye upon him, as the said Planet is ab- j sent without leave, and has no right to be awav sky-larking. All letters to be sent (pre-paid,) to Mon sieur Leverrier, at the Observatoire, Paris. The said Planet answers to the name of Nep tune, winks very much, and never keeps long in the same place. Long live the Zodiac! THE VEGETARIANS. w e see by the papers that there is a socie ty existing in Manchester, that devotes its entire energies to the eating of vegetables, and the members meet occasionally for the purpose of masticating mashed potatoes, and munching cabbage-leaves. “ Sweets to the sweet,” is a popular maxim, and “Greens to the green,” may fairly be applied to the Vege tarians. At one of their recent banquets, a party of 232 satdown to a couple of courses, in which sage and onions, beet-root, mush rooms and parsley, were the principal luxu ries, Joseph Brotherton, Esq., M. P., the gentleman who is always wanting to get the House of Commons to bed by 12 o’clock, was in the chair, and proposed a series of toasts, which were drunk in plain water, and as several odd fish were present, they no doubt felt themselves quite in their element. We do not quite understand the principle up on which these gentlemen object to animal food; but if health is their object, we do not think that will be promoted bv the mixture of messes they sat down to the other day at Manchester. In addition to their sage and onions, they disposed of several dishes of plumb-pudding, in itself as heavy as plumbago—almonds and raisins, cheesecakes, custards, grapes, goose berries, sago, figs, and flummery. There is something very infantine in the pretended simplicity of this fare, for none but a parcel of overgrown children would sit down se riously to make a meal upon sweet stuff.— We look upon the vegetarian humbug as a mere pretext for indulging a juvenile appetite for something nice, and we are really asham ed of these old boys who continue, at their time of life, to display a puerile partiality for pies and puddings. ■i i Write and Wrong.— There is to be a Grand Lottery of Books at Paris, at which the grand prize is to be 10,000 Limes de Ren tes. This may be all very well for the Pub lishers, but we do not see* what the Authors are to get by it. We suppose the Publishers will pocket the Rentes , and the Authors-will be left to fall upon their Livres! It scarcely required a lottery to prove this. ■— 1 ■ > Qiert.—Are not the French going to the d---l fast enough, without calling a cab—eh ? ( Cabei!) s®nn?ffinnßKi a* a f.s ie && v ©assitir©* £l)c tDorking jKan. THE ARTIZAN. RY william and. Gallagher. The (lay is past; —‘the quiet night Toward its midhour weareth on ; His work-shop has been closed for hours— A good day’s labor done. The toil is hard that brings him bread, And sometimes scant supply— When drops awhile his manly head, And glistens his full eye. Yet from the trial shrinks he not, For he lias youth, and strength, arid Will ; And though his toil is ill repaid, Bends daily to it still, lie sometimes nittrmurS —but his pride Checks his expression at its birth— That blessings, to his class denied, Surround the drones of earth. Ills calling sometimes takes him where Wealth, worth, grace, beauty, all unite; And lovely tones arrest his ear, And lovely looks his sight; Ar.d much he thinks—and half he sighs— Yet ere his welcome work is done, lie longs for home, and Mary’s eyes, And for his prattling son. His labor hath been slight, to-day, And wife and child before him sleep; And he had passed the half-spent night In study close and deep. The lamp burns dim—the fire is low, The book is closed wherein he read ; But wildly swell the streams of Thought, Its fountain-pages fed. With eyes fixed calmly on the floor, But varying and expressive face, lie cons the lesson o’er and o’er— The history of his race: And much lie finds of word and deed, Whose virtue is example now; But more that makes his bosom bleed, .. And darkens o’er his brow: But chiefly this it is that fills The swelling volume of his mind ; The countless wrongs and cruelties That have oppressed his kind: But as he reads Life’s riddle still, He feels, with sudden change of mood, The stern, the indomitable will, That never was subdued. The will, not to destroy, but build ! Nor the blind Might, of old renown, Which took the pillars in its grasp, And shook the temple down; But that whose patient energy Works ever upwards, without rest, Until the pierced and parted sea Bolls from its coral breast. In the dim fire-light, for awhile, ilis tall form moveth to and fro ; Then b} r the couch of those he loves, lie stops, and bendeth low. Oh, holy love ! oh, blessed kiss ! Ye ask not splendor—bide not power — But in an humble home like this, Ye have your triumph-hour! PERPETUAL MOTION A PERPETUAL NOTION. Mechanics seem to be as far from solv ing the question relative to a perpetual mo tion, as they were two thousand years ago ; and yet many of them are still troubled with the old mania. No reasoning will deter them from the pursuit. I suppose the rea son why those that know better do not en deavor io stop this kind of speculation is, that they think as Bishop Wilkins did two hundred years ago, when he compared them to the man who dug the vineyard for a hid treasure, who, although he did not find it, yet made the ground more fruitful. But working at models of this kind is certainly a very expensive and tedious way of study ing the science of mechanics. Reading and attending lectures with experiments, are much better. The Academy of Sciences in Paris have resolved that they will have nothing to do with pretended discoveries of a perpetual motion. They have decided that the inven tion is impossible, and that all attempts at the discoveey of it are a mere waste of time. The quadrature of the circle, and the trisec tion of an angle, are also, in their opinion, problems impossible of solution. There is a wide difference between a per petual motion and a self-mover, which latter is, indeed, what the former term is used to signify.. Jffie former moves perpetually, and may be any human contrivance put in mo tion by the ebbing and flowing of the tides, the waters of a never failing cataract,, varia tions of the atmospheric pressure,.the expan sion and contraction of. metals and other bo dies; in fact, any motion that the great Au thor of. nature has- made, will,, if we can hook our machine to it, serve this purpose. But the latter—a selfimover—-show me one, if you can? I will enclose-it in a box ; and ask this question—Does this machine move without the aid of any cause beyond the lim its of this box, and vet, aftes it has moved for a definite length of time, \till it appear as likely to continue as it did rtt first ? There tire only t\to kinds of motion with which we are and chemical. In dll mechanical operations, there is a loss of power. In the steam engine, it is common to allow one third of the power of the steam for the friction of the engine.—*- One pound of power applied to any machine whatever, will not raise a pound Weight through as much space as itself descended. Motion occasioned by chemical action must come to a stand; for the materials acted up-, on are continually undergoing decomposition, or are altered in such a manner that they do not return to their former state, and in. the same place. In illustration of this, take the steam en gine for an example. The luel of the fire is acted upon chemically, and is decomposed ; and no art can return it to its former state. So of the water in the boiler : although the steam will return to the state of water, yet some of it will he decomposed, and form an oxide on the sides of the heated metal; and another portion will escape beyond our reach. Gunpowder is a source of great power, but the materials of its composition are dissolved in one discharge. For fear of being tedious, I will conclude with a brief quotation from Mr. Banks:—“ When a man tells me he can construct a water wheel in such a manner that, when once put in motion, it shall raise water to keep itself moving, or that he has constructed a pump in such a manner that one man may do the work of ten, I pay the same attention to him as if he told me he could create a system of worlds, and com mand them to move.” — Claxton. Newspaper Analects. EXPANDING THE CHEST. Those in easy circumstances, or who pursue sedentary employments within doors general ly use their lungs but little—breathe but lit tle air into the chest, and thus, independently of positions, contract a wretchedly narrow small chest, and lay the foundation for the loss of health and beauty. All this can be perfectly obviated by a little attention to the manner of breathing. Recollect the lungs are like a bladder in their structure and can be stretched open to double their ordinary size, with perfect safety, giving a noble chest, and perfect immunity from consumption.— The agent, and the only agent required, is the common air we breathe, supposing however, that no obstacle exist, external to the chest, such as lacing or tying it around with stays, or tight dresses, or having shoulders lie upon it. On rising from the bed in the morning, place yourself in an erect posture, your chest thrown hack, and shoulders entirely oft the chest; now inhale or suck in all the air you can, so as to fill the chest to the very bottom of it, so that no more air can he got in ; now hold your breath and throw your arms off’be hind, holding in your breath as long as possi ble. Repeat these long breaths as many times as you please. Done in a cold room it is much better, because the air is much denser and will act much more powerfully in expan ding the chest. Exercising the chest in this manner, it \vill*become very flexible and ex pansible, and will enlaige the capacity and size of the lungs.— Sci. American. 1 i YANKEE ACCOMMODATIONS. On the first evening of the recent Conven tion, a teamster drove up to the door of one or the principal taverns, and asked for “lodging for himself and horse.” The landlord said that he could not accommodate him, every bed in the house being taken up. “Well,” said the teamster, “ I am not at all particular, I will put up with part of a bed,” “ Part of a bed, replied our host, “oh, why, my dear sir, there is not a bed in the inn that has not two in it already, and some three and four.” “Well can’t you let me sleep in that are parlor ?” “ No, we are a going to make up seventeen beds there to-night, and they are all engag ed.” v “ Well, now, that is curious. Can't you give me a buffalo skin and let; me lay down here in the entry? We shall, be up all night, and I don't want any folks, cluttering and sprawling about tlie floor where people are passing all the time.” “Well, you are an accommodating fellow, any how, I don’t think,’’ said the teamster. “ Wonder if you've got a tavern license ! Tell, you what, mister,, you.have got no beds, no buffalo skins, no nothing? Well, that aint your fault just. now,.exactly: but,” con tinued, he, looking at the rack where a mul titude-of cloaks and surtou.ts were suspended “ wboj will you take to let me hang on one of them are pegs ?“ The laugh was fairly thrnfed against the landlord, —the company present interceded and the teamstdr ivas entertained for the llight. EDITOR’S DEPARTMENT. ATHENS, SATURDAY, OCT. 28, 1848. VMTMIBM IPM3IBB ? The Editor of the Southern Literary Gazette, be ing desirous of developing and encouraging Literarv Talent in the South, has resolved to offer the sum of One Hundred Dollars, in prizes, as exhibited in the annexed schedule : THE FIRST PRIZE For the best Tale of the South, . . Fifty Dollars. THE SECOND PRIZE For the second best Tale, . . . Twenty Dollars. THE FIRST PRIZE For the best Poem, Twenty Dollars, Oil A COFY OF harper’s SPLENDID PICTORIAL BIBLE. THE SECOND PRIZE For the second best Poem, Ten Dollars, All competitors must send in their MSS. before the 15th day of December ensuing, and they must come, if by post, pre-paid. They should be legibly written on one side of a sheet only. The authors’ names must be sent in separate sealed envelopes, which will not be opened until the prizes have been selected—when the successful competitors will he an nounced. The articles will be submitted to the ex amination and decision of a Committee, composed of several gentlemen of distinguished character, whose names will be announced in due time. The award of prizes may be expected to be made known in the last number for the present year, and the publication of the First Prize Tale will be commenced with the New Year. The articles offered in competition will become the property of the Editor, and those which are deemed worthy will appear in the Gazette. All communicatious relating to the prizes must be addressed, post-paid, to the Editor. OCr* Committee announced in our next. Special Notice. We are not given to dunning, and intend todo as little of it as any contemporary; but we have a word to many of our Subscribers, as much for their ad vantage as for ours. It is this: On the 4th day of next month, the six months will have expired, du ring which Two Dollars will be received in full for the first year’s subscription, beginning with No 1. By our published terms, all subscriptions unpaid after six months of the year will be raised to Two Dollars and Fifty Cents. Now we assure our kind friends and patrons, that all we want for our paper is Two Dollars from every one; but we must insist on receiving that amount within the six months, or thereafter the ex tra half dollar will be charged. Need we say to the true and generous friends of Literature in the South, that our’s is a task hard enough, in all conscience, under the best auspices, but doubly hard and unthankful when the poor pit tance we require from each one is withheld for months after it is due. We would never ask for our dues at all, if we could get along without them.— But wo cannot, and we expect every S. L. G. — which may bo interpreted Subscriber to the Litera ry Gazette—to do bis duty. We claim no more and no less. We beg of each one as a favor , however, that he will endeavor to add to the stability of our enter prize by increasing its. circulation. Subscribers in the country and in village* where there is no Agent, will'please remit by mail- The payment to local or travelling Agents within the limits, will bo sufficient-. We beg leave tonnrae the following gentlemen as local Agents: Savannah—George C. Griffen and Mr. Ilarmon. Augusta—Eli Mustin. Mneon—J. J. & S. P. Richards. Charleston, S C.—John Russell. Beaufort, S. C.—T. J. Wells. Milledgeville—Otis Childs. New York City—C. M. Saxton, 205 Broadway. Philadelphia—-Caroy & Hart. Boston—Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. Sparta—C. W. Dußose. Atlanta—.las. McPherson & Cos. Darien—James E. Townsend. Dalton—W. L. High. Marietta—A. J. Ilansell.