was something very cabalistic, very strong of | of which all our lights did not serve to define. enchantment, in the word Konhauserankehr- The boat reached the place for embarcation, schachtricht, the name given to the portion and we, wandering ghosts, half walked and of the mine which we were then descending. were half carried into its broad clumsy hulk, Konhauser-return-shaft is, I think, however, and took each his allotted seat in ghostly about the meaning of that compound word. silence. There was something really terrible So far I had felt nothing like real cold, in it all; in the slow funereal pace at which although I had been promised a wintry we floated across the subterranean lake; in atmosphere. Possibly with a miner's dress the dead quiet among us, only interrupted by over my ordinary clothing, and with plenty the slow plunge of the oar into the sickly of exercise, there was enough to counteract waters. In spite of all the lights that had the effects of the chill air. But our eyes began been kindled we were still in a thick vapor to ache at the uncertain light, and we all of darkness, and could form but a dreamy straggled irregularly along the smooth cut notion of the beauty and the grandeur of the shaft level for another sixty feet, and so crystal dome within which we men from the reached the Konhauser-rolle, the fourth slide upper earth were hidden from our fellows. we had encountered in our progress. The lights were flared aloft as we crept slugThat, cheered us up a little, as it shot us gishly across the lake, and now and then were down another one hundred and eight feet flashed back from a hanging stalactite, but perpendicular depth to the Soolererzeugungs- that was all. The misty darkness about us werk-Konhauser-surely a place nearer than brought to the fancy at the same time fearful ever to the magic regions of Abracadabra. images, and none of us were sorry when we If not Aladdin's garden, something wonderful reached the other shore in safety. There a ought surely by this time to have been rich glow of light awaited us, and there we reached. I was alive to any sight or sound, were told a famous tale about the last archand was excited by the earnest whispering of ducal visit to these salt mines, when some thoumy fellow-adventurers, and the careful direc-sands of lighted tapers glittered and flashed tions as to our progress given by the guides and light-bearers.

With eager rapidity we flitted among the black shadows of the cavern, till we reached a winding flight of giant steps. We mounted them with desperate excitement, and at the summit halted, for we felt that there was space before our faces, and had been told that those stairs led to a mid-mountain lake, nine hundred and sixty feet below the mountain's top; two hundred and forty feet above its base. Presently, through the darkness, we perceived at an apparently interminable distance a few dots of light, that shed no lustre, and could help us in no way to pierce the pitchy gloom of the great cavern. The lights were not interminably distant, for they were upon the other shore, and this gnome lake is but a mere drop of water in the mountain mass, its length being three hundred and thirty, and its breadth one hundred and sixty feet.

Our guides lighted more candles, and we began to see their rays reflected from the water; we could hear too the dull splashing of the boat, which we could not see, as old Charon slowly ferried to our shore. More lights were used; they flashed and flickered from the opposite ferry station, and we began to have an indistinct sense of a spangled dome, and of an undulating surface of thick, black water, through which the coming boat loomed darkly. More candles were lighted on both sides of the Konhauser lake, a very Styx, defying all the illuminating force of candles, dead and dark in its dim cave, even the limits

about him, and exhibited the vaulted roof and spangled lake in all their beauty. As we were not archdukes, we had our Hades lighted only by a pound of short sixteens.

We left the lake behind us, and then, trayersing a further distance of seventy feet along the Wehrschachtricht, arrived at the mouth of the Konhauser Stiege: Another rapid descent of forty-five feet at an angle of fifty degrees, and we then reached Rupert schachtricht, a long cavern of the extent of five hundred and sixty feet, through which we toiled with a growing sense of weariness. We had now come to the top of the last and longest "slide" in the whole Dürrnberg. It is called the Wolfdietrichderg-rolle, and is four hundred and sixty-eight feet long, carrying us two hundred and forty feet lower down into the mountain. We went down this "slide" with the alacrity of school-boys, one after another keeping the pot boiling, and all regulating our movements with great circumspection, for we knew that we had far to go and we could never see more than a few yards before us.

Having gained the ground beneath in safety, our attention was drawn to a fresh water well or spring, sunk in this spot at great cost by order of the archduke, and blessed among miners. Amid all the stone and salt and brine, a gush of pure fresh water at our feet was very welcome to us all. The well was sunk, however, to get water that was necessary for the mining operations. Wo did not see any of these operations underground, for they are not exhibited; the show

The reverberation and the want of light were nothing, but we were disagreeably sensible of a cloud of fine stone dust, and knew well that we should come out not only stone deaf, but as white as millers. Clinging to our seats with a cowardly instinct, down wo went through a hurricane of sound and dust. At length we were sensible of a diminution in our speed, and the confusion of noises 80 fur ceased, that we could hear the panting of our biped cattle. Then, straight before us, shining in the centre of the pitchy darkness, there was a bright blue star suddenly apparent.

tion, and between his broken pantings for breath, told us that they always know when they have got half way by the blue star, for that is the daylight shining in.

trip underground is only among the ventilat-promised us a rapid journey. In another ing shafts and galleries. Through the dark ininute, and we were whirring down an incline openings by which we had passed, we should with a rush and a rattle, through the subterhave found our way (had we been permitted)ranean passage tunnelled into solid limestone to the miners. I have seen them working in which runs to the outer edge of the Dürrnthe Tyrol, and their labors are extremely berg. The length of this tunnel is considersimple. Some of the rock-salt is quarried in ably more than an English mile. transparent crystals, that undergo only the process of crushing before they are sent into the market as an article of commerce. Very little of this grain salt is seen in England, but on the continent it may be found in some of the first hotels, and on the tables of most families. It is cheaper than the loaf salt, and is known in Germany under the title of salzkorn, and in France, as selle de cuisine. In order to obtain a finer grained and better salt, it is necessary that the original salt-crystals should be dissolved, and for this purpose parallel galleries are run into the rock, and there is dug in each of them a dyke or cistern. One of the poor lads in the whisper of exhausThese dykes are then flushed with water, which is allowed to remain in them undisturbed for the space of from five to twelve months, according to to the richness of the soil; and, being then thoroughly saturated A little necessary rest, and we were off with the salt that it has taken up, the brine is again, the blue star before us growing graddrawn off through wooden pipes from Hallein ually paler, and expanding and still growing over hill and dale into the evaporating pans. whiter, till with an uncontrollable dash, and We had traversed the last level, and had a concussion, we are thrown within a few feet reached what is generally called the end of of the broad incomparable daylight. With the salt-mine; but we were still a long way how much contempt of candles did I look up distant from the pure air and the sunshine. at the noonday sun! The two lads, streamWe had travelled through seven galleries of ing with perspiration, who had dragged us an aggregate length of nearly two miles: we down the long incline were made happy by had floated across an earthy piece of water; the payment we all gladly offered for their had followed one another down six slides, and services. Then, as we passed out of the had penetrated to the depth of twelve hundred mouth of the shaft, by a rude chamber cut out feet into the substance of the mountain lime- of the rock, we were induced to pause and stone, gypsum, and marl. Having done all purchase from a family of miners who reside this, there we were in the very heart of the there a little box of salt crystals, as a memenDürrnberg, left by our guides, and entrusted to of our visit. Truly we must have been to the care of two lank lads with haggard among the gnomes, for when I had reached faces. We stood together in a spacious the inn I spread the brilliant crystals I had cavern, poorly lighted by our candles: there brought home with me on my bedroom winwas a line of tram-rail running through the dow sill, and there they sparkled in the sun middle of it and we soon saw the carriage and twinkled rainbows, changing and shifting that was to take us out of the mountain emerg- their bright colors as though there were a living from a dark nook in the distance. It was ing imp at work within. But when I got up a truck with seats upon it, economically ar- next morning and looked for my crystals, in ranged after the fashion of an Irish jaunting the place where each had stood, I found only ear. The two lads were to be our horses, a little slop of brine. That fact may, I have and our way lay through a black hollow in no doubt, be accounted for by the philosoone side of the cavern, into which the tram-phers; but I prefer to think that it was somerail ran.

thing wondrous strange, and that I fared marvellously like people of whom I had rend in German tales, how they received gifts from the good people who live in the bowels of the earth, and what became of them. I have had my experiences, and I do not choose to be sure whether those tales are altogether founded

We took our seats, instructed to sit perfectly still, and to restrain our legs and arms from any straggling. There was no room to spare in the shaft we were about to traverse. Our car was run on to the tram-line, and the two lads, with a sickly smile, and a broad hint at their expected gratuity, began to pull, and lupon fancy.

THE LAW ABOUT BETTING ON PUBLIC | ing, a soldier of high rank in the service has

AFFAIRS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

SIR,- Will you allow me to draw the attention of your readers and yourselves to a few evidences that show how careful our law has ever been to discountenance such silly and mischievous wagers as that which Mr. Cobden is making with General Brotherton?

Before quoting a case, I may mention that in the seventh year of Queen Anne's reign, so general do wagers of this kind appear to have become, and the mischief of them so apparent, that an act was passed actually prohibiting them under a penalty.

in some measure in his own power means of provocation and opportunities of giving of fence, which might be made matters of excuse for that very attempt at an invasion which is the subject of his bet. He has no right to put himself before the public in such a position as to make it possible that the faintest shade of such a suspicion should attach to him; and however upright, highminded, and honorable (as, thank God, we know them to be) our soldiers are, it is not the less public policy and public duty to restrain them from placing themselves wantonly in the way of temptation. It is not to the public advantage that any subject, be he civil or military, should have a large direct pecuniary interest in the invasion of his country being attempted.

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This act, it appears, only applied to the then existing war, and, after reciting that "Whereas several persons have of late years There is another case of still closer analolaid wagers and executed policies for payment gy, in which, although no judgment was of great sums of money upon contingencies given, the majority of the judges were against relating to the present war, which practice the validity of the wager. It is that of Forshas been found inconvenient to the public," it ter v. Thackeray," cited in "Allen v. Hearn, was enacted that after a certain day in 1709, 1 Term Reports. That was a wager that all wagers relating to the war, and all policies war would be declared against France within of assurance for payment thereof, should be three months. The opinion of the twelve void, and all persons making such wagers judges was taken on the point whether the should forfeit double the sum of such wager, wager were void. The Courts of B. R. and one half to the Queen, the other to the prose-C. P. were of opinion that it was, and the cutor. This act expired with the war. Court of Exchequer contra. No judgment was given."

I am, Sir,

yours,
A BARRISTER.

Perhaps the best known case in which a gambling agreement of the present kind was Such wagers, then, appear to have been at held void as contrary to sound public policy one time prohibited by a penalty, and if, when is the case of "Gilbert v. Sykes." This case occurring after that prohibition was removed, is to be found in the 16th volume of East's they were not always put a stop to, they were, Reports, and bears the following marginal at least, always questioned, and mostly disnote-"A wager by which the defendant re-couraged. ceived from the plaintiff 100 guineas on the 31st of May, 1802, in consideration of paying the plaintiff a guinea a day as long as Napoleon Bonaparte (then First Consul of the Republic) should live, which bet arose out of a conversation upon the probability of his coming to a violent death by assassination or otherwise, is void on the grounds of immorality and impolicy.'

A CORRESPONDENT of the New York Observer objects to the title Reverend being applied to women. He says:

can find no authority or warrant for any such order of ministers or bishops; and, as far as I have examined ecclesiastical history, I still remain in the dark. I need more information, tiates, ministers, or bishops. It causes me to before I can fellowship any such order of licenfeel very unpleasant when I meet with such char

"Where is the scriptural or ecclesiastical authority for licensing and ordaining women to Lord Ellenborough, in his judgment, com- preach the gospel? I have endeavored to exments, on the one hand, on the adverso in-amine the Bible prayerfully on this subject; I terest which the loss of an annuity of 365 guinoas a year, dependent upon the French ruler's life, might arouse in the mind of a subject of this country to the performance of his duty in case of an invasion by that ruler; and, on the other hand, upon the temptation to encourage so foul a crime as assassination, or, at all events, to countenance the idea of it. And he says, "Is it to be allowed to a subject to say that the moral duties which bind man to man are in no hazard of being neglected when put in competition with individual interest?",

acters.

The Observer adds: "We are not enough in tion. But there is one of the qualifications of the advance of our friend to give him any informaapproved bishop, enumerated by Paul, which we do not see how these feminine licentiates are to acquire viz., that a bishop must be the This general objection, sir, I think, may husband of one wife.'" We fear this text was well be applied to the case before us. As I not duly considered by the association that lithink you said in your article of this morn-censed the candidates referred to. — Ev. Posi.

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