54 PURITY OF WATER, & c.
but, being his friends, how could they do otherwise than praise the book?
A man grows rich, and rises in the world. Thereupon all his neighbours and acquaintance congratulate him upon his fortune, and are ready, in the plentitude of their wisdom, to teach him how to spend his newly acquired wealth. And he, who before his prosperity, scarcely knew that he had a friend in the world, is now informed how delighted his countless friends are to hear of his
success.
A man grows poor, and sinks in the world. Forthwith he hears, or he may hear, if he have patience to listen to them, sage lectures upon prudence, and many edifying dissertations upon discretion. He receives many a humiliating lesson, and observes many an altered look; he has a great deal of pity, and very little help; and he is recommended, in the most delicate manner imaginable, not to spoil the pleasures of his prosperous acquaintancé, by his unprosperous presence; and, while he fancies that he has not a friend in the world, he is given to understand that his friends are very sorry for him, and his friends, as all his friends say, ought to do something for him; but, unfortunately, he has tired his friends all out.
A man, just beginning life, marries a woman whose family is not so good as his own. Thereupon father and mother, and uncles and aunts, and brothers and sisters, and cousins, first, second, third, and fourth, put themselves into a unanimous passion; co operate in a system of unanimous sulkiness; insult the young woman, and eschew the young man, more especially if the newly married couple are in need of any assistance or countenance. And then, when the persecuted couple are suffering under the pangs of poverty, and the mortifications of desertion and solitude, the world saith, with a most edifying gravity, “The young gentleman's friends did not approve of the match. "
A young man comes to his fortune as soon as he becomes of age. He buys horses and dogs, and runs races, and lays bets, and plays at cards, and sometimes wins and sometimes loses; he gets into scrapes, and fights duels; he finds himself none the richer for his winnings, and much the poorer for his losings; and if he cannot spend or lose his money fast enough himself, he has myriads of friends who will borrow it of him, and do their best to assist him in dispersing it. Then at last he smashes, or is done up; and then all the world, with its long, moral phiz, says “What a pity it is that his friends led him into such extravagance! "
At midnight there is a noise in the streetswomen are shrieking, and men are hallooing, and some are calling for help; and there is a welldressed man swearing at a constable who attempts to hold him, which well dressed man has obviously been rolled in the dirt; his hat is as flat as a pancake, his eyes are as red as herrings, his tongue is like a weathercock in a whirlwind, and he must be trussed like a boiled rabbit before he can be managed; and all the account he can
give of himself the next morning is, that he had been dining with a few friends.
Warwick, in his “Spare Minutes, “thus describes common friendship: “When I see leaves drop from their trees in the beginning of autumn, just such, thinke I, is the friendship of the world. Whiles the cap of maintenance lasts, my friends swarme in abundance; but, in the winter of my neede, they leave me naked. He is a happy man that hath a true friend at his need; but he is more truly happy that hath no need of his friends. "
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PURITY OF WATER.
THE purity of water is indicated by its specific gravity. By a late act of parliament it is defined that a cubic inch of water purified by distillation weighs, at the temperature of 62 degrees, barometer 30 inches, exactly 252,458 grains. An imperial pint of perfectly pure water weighs precisely 20 avoirdupoise ounces at 62 deg. Any water heavier than this must be less pure. That the lightest water is the best, is an old and true principle. Pliny says that some judge of the wholesomeness of waters by contrasting their weights. Celsus alludes to the same practicenam levis pondere apparet. “Hippocrates thought that the best water is that which heats and cools in the shortest time; and his echo and expositor, Celsus, affirms the same thing. Hoffman informs us that rivers of a rapid current, or which fall down mountains, afford a purer water than those that are more slow; and hence, he says, that ships coming out of the river Maine into the Rhine draw more water, and sink deeper in the latter, because the waters of the Rhine fall from the highest mountains of the Grison country.-Dr. Lardner's Treatise on Domestic Economy.
GOOD OLD TIMES.
THE ensuing year (1581, during the reign of good Queen Bess, ) commenced with a series of tortures, the recital of which is calculated to excite both pity and disgust. Some persons were confined in a dungeon twenty feet below the surface of the earth; others in the “Litel Ease, “where they had neither room to stand upright nor lay down at full length. Some were put to the rack or placed in “Scavenger's Daughter, “(Scavengeri Filiam, ) an iron instrument, by which their heads, hands, and feet were bound together. Many were chained and fettered; the still more unfortunate had their hands forced into iron gloves, which were much too small, or were subjected to the horrid torture of the boot. [ The persons so treated were all Catholics. ] In addition to these severities, Sir Owen Hupton, the lieutenant of the Tower, compelled them, by military force, to attend divine service in the chapel of that fortress, and then said in derision, “That he had no one under his custody who would not willingly enter a Protestant church. “-Memoirs of the Tower of London, by John Britton and E. W. Bayley.
