POWER OF ATTORNEY, to sell or transfer stock, bonds, or scrip; to collect dividends, interest, or rent, .25; to vote by proxy at any election for officers of any incorporated company or society, except charitable, religious, or literary societies or public cemeteries, .10; to sell and convey or to rent or lease real estate, $1.00; for any other purpose, .50.

All official instruments, documents, and papers

or by the officers of any State, county, town, or other municipal corporation, in the exercise of their ordinary governmental and municipal functious, are exempt.

PENALTIES.

MORTGAGE OR PERSONAL BONDS, given as security for the payment of any definite issued by officers of the United States government, sum, from $100 to $500, .50; from $500 to $1000, $1.00; for every additional $500, or fraction, .50. Assignment or transfer of mortgage, saine stamp as mortgage for amount unpaid. PASSAGE TICKET, by any vessel to a foreign port, if of less price than $35, .50; from $35 to $50, Penalty for making, signing, or issuing any $1.00; and for every additional $50, or fraction, instrument, or paper of any kind whatsoever, or for $1.00. (To Brit. No. Am., exempt.) accepting, negotiating, or paying, or causing to be PAWNBROKER'S CERTIFICATE, .05. accepted, negotiated, or paid, any bill of exchange, draft or order, or promissory note, for the payPLAYING CARDS, for and upon every pack, ment of money, without the same being duly not exceeding fifty-two cards in number, irre-stamped, and the stamp duly cancelled, with intent spective of price or value, .05. to evade the law, $50; and the instrument shall be deemed invalid and of no effect. For paying, negotiating, or offering in payment, or for receiving or taking in paynient any bill of exchange or order for the payment of any sum of money, drawn or purporting to be drawn in a foreign country, but payable in the U. S., without proper stamp, $200. For selling proprietary medicines, cosmetics, &c., matches, &c., fish, sauces, jellies, &c., without proper stamps, $50 for each ofience. For forging of stamps or dies, or for using or selling forged or counterfeiting stamps or dies, or the impressions lently removing a revenue stamp from a stamped stamps, dies, or impressions of such, or for frauduinstrument or writing, or for fraudulently removing the cancelling marks from a revenue stamp which has been used, or for fraudulently using, selling, or having in one's possession stamps which have been used, forfeiture of the counterfeit stamps and the PROPRIETARY MEDICINES, Hair-Oils, articles on which they are placed, and punish&c., Perfumery, Cosmetics, &c., eachment by fine not exceeding $1000, or imprisonment packet, bottle, or other enclosure, not over 25 cents not exceeding five years, or both. retail price or value, .01; not over 50 cents, .02; not over 75 cents, .03; not over one dollar, .04; for every additional 50 cents, or fraction, .02. QUIT-CLAIM DEED, to be stamped as a conveyance, except when given as a release of a mortgage by the mortgagee to the mortgagor, in which case it is exempt; but if it contains covenants, it may be subject as an agreement or contract.

PROBATE OF WILL, or Letters of Administration, where the estate, undiminished by the debts, does not exceed the value of $1000, exempt; not exceeding $2000, $1.00; for every additional $1000, or fraction, .50.

PROTEST OF NOTE, DRAFT, &c., or marine protest, .25.

GENERAL REMARKS.

Instruments are not to be recorded unless properly stamped and cancelled.

No instrument is invalid for the want of the particular kind of stamps designated, provided a legal stamp of equal amount (except stamps appropriat. d to denote duty on proprietary medicines. &c., cigar lights, &c., canned fish, &c., and playing cards) is duly affixed.

Postage stamps cannot be used as revenue stamps.

In cases where an adhesive stamp shall be used for denoting any duty imposed by this act the person using or affixing the same shall write or imprint thereon the initials of his name, and date, (year, month, and day.) upon which the same shell be attached or used, so that the same may not again be used.

RECEIPT.-Receipts for the payment of any sum of money, or for the payment of any debt due, exceeding $20, (not being for satisfaction of any mortgage or judgment, or decree of a court, or by endorsement on any stamp obligation in acknowledgment of its fulfilment, all which are exempt,) for each receipt, .02. Prorided, That when more than one signature is affixed to the same paper, one or more stamps may be affixed thereto, representing the whole amount of stamps required for such signatures. (The term money includes drafts and other instruments given for No deed, instrument, document, writing, or the payment of money.) Receipts for the deliv-paper, required by law to be stamped, which has ery of property, exempt. been signed or issued without being duly stamped, or with a deficient stamp, nor any copy thereof, shall be recorded or admitted, or used as evidence in any court, until the proper stamp or stamps shall have been affixed thereto and cancelled.

SALES.-Bill or memorandum of sale, or contract for sale of stocks, bonds, gold or silver bullion, coin, promissory notes or other securities, when made by brokers, banks, or bankers, requires stamps equal to one cent on every $100, or fraction of $100, of the amount of such sale or contract; when made by a person, firm, or corporation not paying special tax as broker, bank, or banker, and when property is not his or their own, for every $100 of value, .05. A memorandum of sale or contract must be made by the seller to the buyer, and the stamps affixed thereto.

EXEMPTIONS.

The party to whom a document is issued from a foreign country, or by whom it is to be used, shall, before using the same, affix thereon the stamp or stamps indicating the duty required.

Proprietors of cosmetics, medicines, or proprietary articles, may furnish private dies, and are allowed five per cent. on all purchases of from $50 to $500; over $500, ten per cent.

A waiver of protest or of demand and notice written upon negotiable paper, and signed by the endorser, is an agreement, and requires a five-cent stamp.

No stamp duty shall be required on powers of A mere copy of an instrument is not subject to attorney or any other paper relating to application stamp duty unless it is a certified one-in which for bounties, arrearages of pay, or pensions, or case the certificate should have a five-cent stamp: to the receipt thereof from time to time; nor on but when an instrument is executed and issued in deposit notes to mutual insurance companies, for duplicate, triplicate, &c., as in the case of a lease of the insurance upon which policies subject to stamp two or more parts, each part has the same legal duties have been or are to be issued; nor on any effect as the other, and each should be stamped as warrant of attorney accompanying a bond or note, an original.

when such bond or note shall have been duly A marriage certificate issued by the officiating stamped: and whenever any bond or note shall be clergyman or magistrate to be returned to any offi secured by a mortgage, but one stamp duty shall cer of a state, county, city, town, or other municipal be required to be placed on such papers, provided corporation, to constitute part of a public record, that the stamp duty placed thereon shall be the requires no stamp; but if it is to be retained by the highest rate required for said instruments, or parties, a five-cent stamp should be affixed. either of them: nor to any endorsement of a nego- Written or printed assignments of agreements, tiable instrument. bonds, notes not negotiable, and of all other instruReceipts by express companies for the delivery ments the assignments of which are not particularly of any property for transportation are exempt from specified in the foregoing table, should be stamped stamp duty.

las agreements.

BIRDS AND INSECTS.

The attention of the agricultural world has of late been called to the dangers which threaten it from the unchecked development of certain kinds of destructive insects. In this country to a limited extent, in Europe to a far greater one, the losses in crops have been so serious as to create an anxious solicitude, both as to their cause and the remedy. The canker-worm ravages the orchards of New England, New York, and Michigan. Cotton-worms, army-worms, and other forms of destructive caterpillars, inflict great injury upon the crops in the Southern States. The grasshoppers, and the Colorado potato-bug at the West, are already evils of portentous magnitude, and threaten worse results in the not distant future.

In Europe the losses occasioned by different insects, in different countries, are, not unfrequently, national calamities. The cockchafer occurs in such formidable numbers in Central Europe, as to destroy the entire crops over large extents of country, involving losses to the extent of millions of dollars. The losses occa sioned in the years 1852, 1853, 1854, and 1855, in the Rothebude forests of eastern Prussia, by the ravages of the larvae of the nonne, a white nocturnal butterfly, are said to have exceeded eighty millions of thalers. Thousands upon thousands of acres of the best timber land in Europe were utterly ruined, and the loss was nearly total. The cabbage-butterfly of northern Europe is a source of serious injury to a large variety of esculent vegetables. Several varieties of caterpillars ravage the foliage of vineyards and orchard trees, often causing very serious injuries. It is as important for our farmers, as for those of Europe, to investigate these phenomena. The hidden causes of these occasional excessive swarms of destructive insects, and the means of prevention, are of the deepest interest to all agriculturists. The calamities that now befall Europe may be repeated here. The light, which science is now seeking to open upon these remarkable occurrences, is as full of suggestions to us, as to the tiller of the soil of Europe.

One of the principal causes of this great increase of insects, has been the great decrease in the number of those birds that are the natural enemies of these kinds of insects. The investigations in France, made with special reference to the value of birds as insect destroyers, demonstrate several very important natural laws, which, when allowed full and harmonious action, preserve an equipoise between the insect and the vegetable world. They show that, during the season of reproduction, all land birds are, without exception, insect eaters; that their young require to be fed with animal food, and that this is almost entirely insects; that the season of reproduction is always coincident with the great abundance and increase of insects; and that our most destructive insects are those which usually have the greatest number of enemies, who, if unmolested, would effectually keep them in check, which man is unable to do. Many birds whose natural food at other times seems to be seeds, at this critical period, unite in a universal warfare upon insects. Thus it appears that the whole feathered tribe becomes the great natural counterpoise between the vegetable and the insect world, protecting the former from the excessive increase of the latter. Where man destroys or diminishes the numbers of certain kinds of birds, the wise equilibrium of nature is overturned. The check upon the development of those kinds of destructive insects upon which those birds feed is removed, and is followed by their great increase.

The destruction of sparrows by the royal edict of the great Frederic of Prussia, and the immediate increase of caterpillars to so great an extent as for two years to destroy the entire crops of small fruit in that kingdom, is a case in point, pertinent and historical, of cause and effect. Our most effectual destroyers of the canker-worm are grakles, cedar-birds, wild pigeons, and other birds of that style; tame doves and domestic fowl, where we can have their services, are of the highest value. Blue jays, golden robins, and cuckoos destroy our tent caterpillars, the first named making a clean sweep of this pest where they can have unrestricted liberty. So too our American crow, who so annoys us in our early corn-planting, is our only effectual friend in resisting the increase of our cockchafers, the pestilent, copperheaded muckworm. Gulls keep in subjection the grasshoppers of Utah, where, but for them, crops would be an impossibility. The yellow-headed black bird does the same service to the farmers of Kansas, sweeping them off in their spring immigrations. The Bob-o-link, said to do so much mischief in the Carolina rice fields, is the deadly foe of their cotton-worm, and has been known to render signal services at a critical time, saving the crop where human aid was powerless to avert the impending calamity. In view of the fact that the researches of the French commission have led M. Provost, who has been its guiding spirit, to the conclusion that all birds have their mission of good to agriculture, that none can be spared without just so much loss to the farmer, we of America should be slow to condemn any bird, without positive evidence that it has a record of unmixed evil. We certainly ought not to destroy those birds known to render invaluable services by destroying our worst insect-pests, where the harm they occasionally do us may be prevented without much expense, and without taking their lives.

It is quite time that our more intelligent farmers awake to their own interests. They have much good to hope for from the services of our native birds, and but little to apprehend; birds are the farmer's best friends; treat them as such; do not persecute them, and thus favor the increase of your worst enemies. Remember that every insect-eating bird whose life you take is equivalent to half a million

THE NEW GAME LAW OF MASSACHUSETTS.

(Approved, May 10, 1869.)

SECT. 1. Whoever, between the first day of January and the fifteenth day of August, takes or kills any woodcock, or between the first day of February and the first day of September, takes any ruffed grouse or partridges, or within the respective times aforesaid, sells, buys, or has in his possession, any of said birds so taken or killed in this Commonwealth or elsewhere, shall forfeit for every such bird twentyfive dollars.

SECT. 2. Whoever, between the first day of April, eighteen hundred and sixtynine, and the first day of November, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, takes or kills any of the birds known as quail, or Virginia partridge, in any way whatsoever, shall forfeit for every such bird the sum of twenty-five dollars. And whoever shall, after the first day of November, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, take or kill any of said birds, except in the months of November and December annually, shall forfeit for every such bird the sum of twenty-five dollars.

SECT. 3. Whoever, at any season of the year, within this State, takes or kills any of the birds called pinnated grouse or heath hens, or sells, buys, or has in his possession any of said birds so killed or taken, shall forfeit for every such bird twenty-five dollars.

SECT. 4. Whoever, between the first day of March and the first day of July, takes or kills any marsh birds or upland plover within this State, shall forfeit for every such bird twenty-five dollars.

SECT. 5. Whoever, between the first day of March and the first day of September, takes or kills any fresh water fowl, shall forfeit for every such bird twenty-five dollars.

SECT. 6. Whoever, at any season of the year, within this State, kills any fresh water fowl or sea fowl, either upon the feeding or roosting grounds of said fowl, shooting from any vessel, boat, or craft, or chases or pursues and captures said fowl upon or from their feeding or roosting grounds in any boat or vessel of any kind whatever, shall forfeit for every such bird so taken or killed, twenty-five dollars. SECT. 7. Whoever, at any season of the year, takes or kills any undomesticated bird not heretofore mentioned in this act, except snipe, hawks, owls, crows, jays, and gulls, or destroys, or disturbs the eggs or nests of such undomesticated birds, except the nests or eggs of snipe, hawks, owls, crows, jays, and gulls, shall forfeit twenty-five dollars for each offence; provided, that any person, having first obtained the written consent of the mayor and aldermen of any city, or selectmen of any town, may, in such city or town, take or destroy, for scientific purposes only, such birds and eggs as said written consent may specify.

SECT. 8. Whoever, between the first day of April, eighteen hundred and sixtynine, and the fifteenth day of December, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, and thereafter between the fifteenth day of December and the first day of September, takes or kills any deer, except his own tame deer kept on his own grounds, shall forfeit for every such offence twenty-five dollars.

SECT. 9. The mayor and aldermen and selectmen of the several cities and towns of this Commonwealth shall cause the provisions of the preceding sections to be enforced in their respective places; and all forfeitures accruing under these sections shall be paid, two thirds to the informant or prosecutor, and one third to the city or town where the offence is committed.

THE PUBLIC CREDIT.

From the Providence Journal.

The Public Credit is the strength of the Government. It is army and navy, for it is that without which an army cannot be put on foot or a navy afloat. It is the highest economy, for the public credit, maintained intact, enables the Government to borrow money at low rates, for all needful purposes. It is the public defence, for high public credit so strengthens a nation, that other powers are slow to infringe upon her interests or to insult her honor. It is what Burke called chivalry, "the cheap defence of nations." To assail it is to assail the Government in its tenderest and most vital part. The money which the Government owes to its bondholders, was loaned to it in its greatest extremity. It was not the contributions of the rich alone. It was largely the savings of the poor and the blood of the brave. Nothing can be more sacred.

Leaving out of consideration all questions of honesty and good faith, it would be the worst possible policy to defraud the men who thus came to the rescue of the imperilled Government. It would add greatly to the danger of future wars, and would make them doubly expensive. Why is it that our bonds to-day, bearing six per cent. interest in gold, sell in the London market for less than the English bonds, which bear three per cent.? Simply, because the purchaser feels certain that the English interest will be paid, and he is alarmed by the mutterings of repudiation, and is afraid that we will not "protect the Government debt." This it is which makes our debt just twice as burdensome as that of England. If, by one act of stupendous fraud, the Government could repudiate its debt, and relieve itself of all its obligations, it would be the most expensive measure that a government ever adopted; it would expose us to all the dangers of a feeble power, as well as to the reproach of a dishonest one.

DRY EARTH CLOSETS.

The value of human excrement, or night-soil, as a fertilizer, has long been known to every farmer, and especially to every market gardener; but hitherto the methods adopted for economizing it have been rude and imperfect. No proper and adequate means have been employed to render it inoffensive and easy to handle in its application to the soil for the cultivation of crops. Even in China and Japan, where it is saved and applied with the most scrupulous care, no pains are taken to modify or avoid its offensiveness.

The absorptive power of common dry earth, though it had been known, perhaps, for some years to scientific men, was only recently explained by Prof. Way, the chemist of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, who, by a series of careful experiments, demonstrated it beyond all doubt, and reported its results to the society for publication in its journal. This power consists not only in the absorption of moisture of decaying substances, and of all animal excrement, but likewise of their odor and offensiveness. It is due in part to the clay in its composition, and to decomposed organic matter in soils, especially when dried and sifted, or otherwise rendered fine.

It is a somewhat curious fact that this characteristic of the earth was recognized in the old Mosaic law, as we see in the 12th and 13th verses of the xxiii. Chap. of Deuteronomy, and it is a matter of common observation that instinct teaches animals of the feline race to bury all offensive excrementitious substances.

Now the results of scientific investigation, and a knowledge of this power of absorbing odors, have led to the adoption of what is called the dry earth system in the arrangement of closets, after a plan invented by the Rev. Henry Moule, vicar of Fordington, England. The plan is capable of a variety of modifications, but the idea is in the main due to him. It has been tried in numerous instances, not only in isolated cottages and country houses, but in public barracks and other places much frequented, and has given such satisfaction that it will come into pretty general use in England, and eventually, we hope, in this country.

The apparatus consists of a kind of hopper-shaped reservoir, behind and above the ordinary water-closet seat, for holding a supply of earth, and forming a back; a water-tight vault under the scat, and a mechanical arrangement designed to measure out the requisite amount of dry earth, a pint and a half, and throwing it forward, on pulling a crank not very unlike that of the common water closet, to cover the material and absorb the moisture and odor. It is simple, not expensive, and little liable to get out of order or to be affected by the frost. A common tub or box full of dry earth, and standing by the side of the seat, with a scoop to be used in throwing the earth upon the deposit, would, of course, be a cheap and effective modification of the system, and attended with only trifling expense. This, indeed, is often adopted in prisons and workhouses in England. It may be used in the sick room, to mitigate, if not to overcome entirely, one of the most offensive accompaniments of sickness. It is easy to see the agricultural importance of this simple system, for by it we might economize and save without inconvenience the most valuable materials on the farm. We might remove the objection to its more frequent use, since the mixed earth and soil, when dried and pulverized, is free from any unpleasant smell, while every particle of fertilizing matter has been retained in a perfectly available form.

It has been found by repeated experiment and by actual experience, that the same earth, after the "soil" has become decomposed, may, by sifting, be used over again, and that it acts as a deodorizer, like any other organic matter, up to the eighth or tenth time of using. The quantity, therefore, which it would be necessary to dry and store away for use, is not large, and by repeated usage it will become equal to the best Peruvian guano.

The advantage of this system to the health of the community would be great, as the exhalations and drainage from common privies are a fertile source of disease, and we hope it will be generally adopted.

STATEMENT OF THE PUBLIC DEBT, SEPT. 1, 1869.

Amount in the treasury (cash, sinking fund, purchased bonds and accrued interest thereon).

Total debt, less amount in treasury, Sept. 1

4,648,486 64 38,814,790 30 410,474,293 37

$2,626,653,870 31

150,691,368 81

$2,475,962,501 50

TIDE TABLE.

(Corrected 1869.)

The Tides given in the Calendar pages are for the Port of Boston.

The following table contains the difference between the time of High Water at Boston and several other places in Massachusetts Bay. The tides of places outside of Massachusetts Bay cannot be referred with any accuracy to the tides of Boston, as the difference in time varies from day to day.

prefixed to the minutes in the table, denotes, that they must be sub

When this article meets the eye of our readers the Pacific Railroad will have become an old story, and to cross the continent of America in seven days will be a thing so common, as to be little thought of. Yet the opening of this road in May, 1869, was an event of great moment. Other roads will follow, and the great interior of the continent, with its vast mineral and agricultural resources, will be thrown open to the thronging hosts of Europe, Asia, and America, and the wilderness will become a garden. Our public lands still unsold are of vast extent. The building.of these roads will bring millions of acres of them into the market, stimulating immigration from Europe, and thus building up great States, which will help pay interest and principal of the public debt.

Three great trunk roads are planned, and have been chartered and endowed with lands by Congress. These are the Northern, the Central, and the Southern. But one is as yet built. This, as our readers well know, is the Central road, running near the 41st parallel, and owned by two great corporations. The Union Pacific runs 1084 miles from Omaha, on the Missouri river, to Promontory in Utah, near the Great Salt Lake; and the Central Pacific owns from there to Sacramento, 690 miles. Sacramento is on a navigable river, and communicates both by steamers alone, and by a railroad and steamers, with San Francisco. The highest point of the road is at the summit of the Black Hills, 8240 feet above the sea, eight hundred miles from Omaha. About 150 miles farther, at Bridger's Pass, the road goes through the Rocky Mountains, 7534 feet above the sea. In California it crosses the Sierra Nevadas at the height of 7042 feet, 105 miles this side of Sacramento. The distance by this route from Boston to San Francisco is as follows:- Boston to Chicago, 1017 miles; Chicago to Omaha, 493 miles; Omaha to San Francisco, 1900 miles; in all, 3410 miles,which is passed over in 7 days.

Some four hundred miles north of the Central road, near the 46th parallel, is to run the Northern road, chartered by Congress in 1864. This road will strike across from Lake Superior to Puget's Sound, Washington Territory, with a branch to Portland, in Oregon. When built, it will give access to upper Minnesota, Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, thus opening a great mining and agricultural region to the settler.

The proposed Southern road was chartered by Congress in 1866, and is to run near the 35th parallel. It begins in South-west Missouri, to be connected by rail with St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans, and will cross the Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, to Southern California, where it will turn northward to San Francisco. Work is already begun on this road, both on the California side and in Missouri, and its managers confidently anticipate its early completion. Both the Northern and the Southern roads will pass through or near more fertile regions than the Central, and it is thought that all three lines are necessary to the proper development of our vast interior country, as well as for our commerce with the Pacific coast. The building of the Northern road will make the adjacent regions of British America gravitate towards our alliance, while the Southern road will unite Northern Mexico to us more closely, and all three will serve to bind together the distant members of the Great Republic.