THE ITALIAN ORGAN BOYS.-Jean Baptiste Bara- and under surface of the atmosphere is not unaptly coli, a wretched-looking little Italian boy, was charged, represented to us by the state of the two surfaces of at the Thames police court, with stealing an "up- the fathomless ocean, only that the situation of their right piano-forte," (hurdy-gurdy,) the property of great disturbances is reversed. The currents of the John Buelzein, of Saffron-hill. great deep flow in opposite compensating streams, The prisoner was one of a number of boys em-like those of the atmosphere. The hot water of the ployed by Buelzein to play instrumental music in the equatorial regions flows with various deflections street, and about a fortnight ago absented himself towards the poles, and is replaced by an underwith the instrument that had been entrusted to him. stream of cooled water from the polar regions. The He was found at his mother's house with the hurdy- disturbing forces which are pepetually acting upon gurdy in his possession. The prosecutor wished to the surface often mask this movement; but they forego the charge, and take the boy back, but the extend not to the lower current, which flows on unlatter insisted on being taken before a magistrate. disturbed by the most furious storms, and the mighty billows which oscillate above.-Daniell's Meteorology. The prisoner said, in a voice stifled with sobs, that he took the instrument home, not with the intention of stealing it, but because he was afraid to go back to his master's house, not having obtained the amount of money usually expected. The practice was for the boys to go out at nine o'clock in the morning, but as he had been severely punished on the 13th ult., and kept without food, he got up at five o'clock on the ensuing day to try and mend his fortune. Though travelling about the town until a late hour of the night, he was only able to procure twopence, and, being apprehensive of similar maltreatment, he was afraid to go back. ITALIAN WOMEN US. TIGHT-LACING.-It is astonish ing that our ladies should persist in that ridiculous The magistrate said that he fully believed the correctness of the little fellow's statement, and the case was one which ought never to have been brought be-sume to make a statue with the shape that seems to fore him. There was not the slightest ground for proportion, he would be laughed out of the city. It be regarded with us as the perfection of harmonious the charge of felony, and the prisoner was more an is a standing objection against the taste of our object of pity than of punishment. women the world over, that they will practically assert that a French milliner understands how they should be made better than nature herself.-Letters from Italy. The case was discharged. THE ARRACACHA PLANT.-A report was lately read to the Paris Academy, by M. Boussaingault, in the name of a committee appointed to examine a paper by M. Goudot, on the nature of the plant arracacha, and the possibility of introducing it into Europe. It appears from the report that this plant comes to maturity under the same conditions of climate in South America, as the potato, and therefore M. Goudot infers that it might be cultivated in Europe. In good soil, it produces a root that weighs from four to six pounds; and an acre of land will yield, with good culture, sixteen or seventeen tons, which is one half more than the average yield of the potato. The root is said to have a fine flavor, and to be exceedingly nutritious. PRICE OF LAND IN GERMANY.-The pride of the German peasant is to be a small land-owner. The sacrifices made to gratify this longing are incredible, as is the tenacity with which he clings to his land in all changes of fortune. The price paid for small lots of land in the valley of the Wupper and the adjoining districts would frighten an English farmer. From 500 to 700 dollars per morgen, or £117 to £150 per acre, is no unusual price for arable and meadow land. What interest he gets for his investment seems never to cross a peasant's mind. The rent of small patches adjoining these houses is not proportionately high, although dear enough; ten or is constantly paid in situations remote from the influtwelve dollars per morgen (£2 10s., or £3 per acre) favorable for trade or manufactures, sell also as high Building sites, especially those as in England. The sum of 3000 dollars was paid a few years back for about an acre and a half of ground, on which some zinc works now stand, at Duisburg. This was equal to £500 per acre.-Banfield's Industry of the Rhine. ence of towns. UPWARDS of seven thousand tons of white gravel, says a New York paper, have been shipped from this city to London since the 15th of September, 1845. It is taken from the beach at Long Island, and used to beautify the parks and gardens of London! CURRENTS OF THE AIR AND OCEAN. We are too apt, perhaps, to form our notions of the great atmospheric currents from the character of the winds to which we are exposed upon the surface of the earth; but a little consideration and observation will enable us to correct this prejudice. The lower strata of the inferior currents are perpetually opposed by fixed obstacles-mountains, hills, rocks, forests, and the works even of man-against which they expend most of their force, and by which they are deflected and reflected, and broken into whirls and eddies, producing, by their momentum, fitful rarefactions and expansions, which impress us with their character of unsteadiness and irregularity. But it is not so with the upper strata or with the superior current. Even MASSES of iron and nickel, having all the appearin stormy weather, the eye can often penetrate ance of aerolites or meteoric stones, have been disthrough breaks in the canopy of clouds, when it may covered in Siberia, at a depth of ten metres below be observed that the wind aloft is blowing with such the surface of the earth. From the fact, however, steadiness and smoothness, as not to break the form that no meteoric stones are found in the seconof the lightest cur-cloud that floats in its bosom, and dary and tertiary formations, it would seem to follow indicates the velocity of its course. The passage of balloons invariably indicates the same steadiness of course; and the experience of every aeronaut confirms the fact, that whatever may have been the ve- IN the duchy of Luxemburg a well is being sunk, locity of his passage, in the upper regions of the air the depth of which surpasses all others of the kind. all around him was perfectly calm. A conflict Its present depth is 2336 feet-nearly 984 feet more indeed appears to take place at times at the junction than that of La Grenelle, near Paris. It is said that of two opposing currents; but these are rare excep- this immense work has been undertaken for working tions to the general rule. This state of the upper that the phenomena of falling stones did not take place till the earth assumed its present condition. a large stratum of rock-salt. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 129.-31 OCTOBER, 1846. From Chambers' Journal. GERMAN EMIGRATION. but the number is inconsiderable. New Zealand has also been tried; but with no great promise of success. Perhaps the greatest number of Germans collected in any one place out of their own Frw subjects are more interesting, and none more important, than the process by which the sur-country is at Paris, where, among other trades, plus population of Europe is every day being there are two thousand boot and shoemakers alone, poured into the unpeopled districts of the old and and, at the lowest computation, four thousand masnew world, forming there the framework of future ter tailors and journeymen. It is curious that the nations, which are doubtless destined to carry our Germans, to whom we certainly attach no disknowledge and the traditions of our society to a tinguishing ideas of elegance, should have so comperiod when we ourselves may no longer exist as pletely absorbed the business of adorning the outer nations. Hitherto the stream has flowed princi- man in the city which prides itself, above all pally from the United Kingdom, particularly Ire- others, on its taste. So far is this carried at presland, which the difficulty of obtaining subsistence ent, that the native French aspirants for custom must, for many years to come, make an emigrating are in the habit of appending to their names a Gercountry. An unexampled peace of thirty-one man suffix. Pierre becomes Pierremann; Lenoir, years' duration has likewise had its natural effect Lenoirmann; Paul, Paullmann, &c.; just as many on the continent, by the immense increase of popu- a tyro in the musical world among us ends his lation, to stimulate emigration; but more slowly | name in ti and tini, without having a drop of and partially than among us; and it is only with- Italian blood in his veins. But these Germans at in the last ten years that it has grown to an Paris can hardly be classed as emigrants, since amount, and assumed a direction, which promises serious results. France has not for the last century been an emigrating country, which may mainly be accounted for by the less independent and energetic character of the people; the greater comfort of the peasantry, who are almost all small proprietors, farming their own lands; and, above all, the enormous chasm in the population left by the revolutionary wars, which alone are computed to have swept away thirteen millions of Frenchmen. Even in Algeria, which, from its nearness to France, and from the constant premiums, in the shape of land for nothing, held out by the government, was most likely to attract native emigration, the number of French is considerably inferior to that of the other settlers. The majority are Spaniards or Maltese. Belgium has twofold resources in its manufactures and admirable agriculture, which have hitherto sufficed for the employment and support of its dense population; and the other European states contain in themselves, for the most part, large tracts of thinly-peopled or unoccupied land, sufficient to sustain the surplus mouths for a number of years to come. Germany is the only other country, besides Great Britain, from which emigration takes place on a great scale, and is likely to lead to important results. Since the year 1840, she has sent out annually 60,000 settlers; about our own average. In the present year, the number is stated in the English papers at 80,000. It is very probable that this number will continue for the future, and even increase, as the predisposing causes are not occasional, but permanent, in the subsisting state of the country. The reasons which are all-powerful there, are not the same as actuate us. The results, too, are very different; and their great extent, with the little attention hitherto bestowed on the subject, will be our best apology for considering it a little more in detail. One great peculiarity in German emigration is, that it is directed exclusively to the United States of America. Some have been tempted to settle at the Cape of Good Hope, in Brazil, or in Algeria; most of them are young unmarried men, who merely go to France to accumulate, in the least possible time, as much as will set them up in business at home. The chief emigration to America at present is from the Upper and Middle Rhine, the Grand Duchy of Baden, Wurtemburg, the two Hesses, and Bavaria. In Bavaria especially, whole village communities sell their property for whatever they can get, and set out, with their clergyman at their head. "It is a lamentable sight," says a French writer, "when you are travelling in the spring or autumn on the Strasburg road, to see the long files of carts that meet you every mile, carrying the whole property of the poor wretches, who are about to cross the Atlantic on the faith of a lying prospectus. There they go slowly along; their miserable tumbrils-drawn by such starved, drooping beasts, that your only wonder is, how they can possibly hope to reach Havre alive-piled with the scanty boxes containing their few effects, and on the top of all, the women and children, the sick and bedridden, and all who are too exhausted with the journey to walk. One might take it for a convoy of wounded, the relics of a battle-field, but for the rows of little white heads peeping from beneath the ragged hood." These are the emigrants from Bavaria and the Upper Rhine, who have no seaport nearer than Havre. Those from the north of Germany, who are comparatively few in number, sail mostly from Bremen. The number of these likewise is increasing. From 1832 to 1835 inclusive, 9000 embarked every year from Bremen; from 1839 to 1842, the average number was 13,000; which increased to 19,000 in the year 1844. Society in Germany is so much more rudimentary than in England, that it is remarkable to see this same tendency exhibiting itself in the two nations. In Germany population is comparatively sparse, in Great Britain it is dense; in the one there is great wealth and profound poverty, in the other the extremes of property rarely exist; the one has a large and dominant town population, the other has fewer towns in proportion than any country in Europe; the one teems with political |