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cord is pulled, a bow-shaped net swings up from the ground, and the passage-hawk is secured. The bird-catcher may now at last issue from his place of concealment. He makes up to the net, seizes his victim with well-gloved hands, puts a ball of worsted under its talons, which are soon buried viciously in its soft mass, claps a hood on its head, and draws a sock over its body, which holds the still struggling and ferocious creature as in a strait waistcoat, and enables it to be laid down quietly on its back in the hut, while the falconer hurries back to prepare his tackle for effecting a fresh capture.

So.

From The Jewish Chronicle. THE TALMUD AND THE BIBLE. THE work of the Talmud has been to make the Bible really operative on the Jewish nation. If the Jews are what the genius of Mahomet declared them to be "the people of the Book"-it is because the Talmud has enabled them to be It is practically an application of the legal element of the Pentateuch to the affairs of life. The "Priestly Codex" of the middle books of the Pentateuch is the statute law on which the Talmud gives the judicial decisions. It is therefore utterly misleading, and a direct inversion of the real facts, to assert that the written and the oral law are antagonistic. As in every legislative system, reference is more frequently made to previous decisions than to the words of the act. But it is clearly the statute law which gives authority to legal decisions, and in the final resort it is the Bible that gives force to the dinim of the Talmud. It must be granted that at times the doctors of Talmudic law during the Middle Ages paid too exclusive attention to the decisions of the Talmudic doctors rather than to the Biblical law whence they were derived. Abraham Ibn Ezra says once of a rabbi he met on his travels, "He reads in Tabaroth [the final order of the Mishna] and does not know his Bible." But such cases were rare, and do not nullify the general principle that the Talmud is but the legislation of the Bible in practical operation. It is due to this legislation

that the Jews have been able to preserve their individuality as a nation. Scattered apart in many lands, they required a comman bond of custom to preserve their identity with their distant brethren. This was afforded by the Talmud. Without such distinctive customs it would have been impossible to resist the influence of the surrounding peoples. Thus the Talmud has formed at once a link with fellow-Jews all over the world and a barrier against the customs of the nations. It has consequently contributed to form the Jewish exclusiveness, and brought upon us the mistrust that follows exclusiveness. It was by a sure instinct that the enemies of the Jews always attempted to destroy the copies of the Talmud during periods of persecution. The dietary regulations and the restrictions against intermarriage are direct injunctions against submersion into the "customs of the nations." Much has been urged against this exclusiveness, but it will be sufficiently justified if it can be shown to have resulted in special excellences in the national character. Further, the injunctions of the Talmud have tended to make the Jew more healthy than his neighbors. The habits of cleanliness and of pure diet have had momentous effects on the lives of Jews.

When we remember the utter neglect of the simplest hygienic laws displayed during the Middle Ages we can quite understand how the sanitary principles of the Talmud have given hereditary healthfulness to the Jews. To give but one point, for two thousand years Jews have always lived on healthy meat, whereas their neighbors, up to the present day, have had no check against the use of diseased food. The remarkable statistics published a short time since, and showing that the Jewish side of Whitechapel had only half the death rate of the non-Jewish, were a direct result of the Talmudic injunctions with regard to diet. during the Middle Ages the equally noteworthy immunity of the Jews from pestilence, while it brought upon them popular odium and persecution, was a convincing testimony to the dietary principles of the Talmud. Indirectly, the Talmud, by thus giving the corpus sanum, aided in giving the Jew the mens sana, which is one of his chief characteristics.

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For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co.

Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents.

A THRUSH'S SONG.

THE fire burned low, the day was nearly ended, And I was sad at heart and all alone;

My thoughts with pain and sorrow so were blended,

I turned impatient with a heart-wrung groan To the wide window, where, through small soft rain,

A sweet thrush raised its lovely liquid strain.

So am I, said I, vainly ever trying

To sing my songs through rain that always falls,

Through night winds bleak that never stay their sighing,

Through such a strife that all my soul appals;

There is no room for me; why should I try
To sing at all, when surely I must die?

Cheep and twitter from out the warmth of the nest,

For the joy of the young plumes' growth and of life's surprise.

O rose-lipt Jenny of mine, in those big books Whose pictures are worth your crowings and happy looks,

The books I must suffer your fingers to crumple

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or tear,

There is many a beautiful poem, but none so

rare

As you, my poem, when, catching sight of me, Your whole little body thrills and leaps with glee.

The greatest men for writing have written ne'er

A better thing than the thought a-dawn in your eye,

And the musing strange and vague of one who

scans

The bird sang on, and through his stream of The earth and man with an angel's ignorance.

singing

I seemed to hear him tell of summer-time; The summer that pale spring is surely bringing To bless us with its rosy perfumed clime, And so I did forget my present woe, In thinking that this cold grey time will go.

The bird was silent, and no more forever

Could I distinguish him from all the rest; Such birds are all alike; how could I sever This one wild songster, with the speckled breast,

From that vast tribe whose songs are sung at

eve,

When daylight dies, and mourners sadly grieve?

What did it matter? 'tis the song that lingers Hid in the place that memory claims as his, And none may tell when Time's cold withered fingers

May ope the shrine where that song surely is.

The singer dies, but leaves behind the song,
The only thing that to him doth belong.

And so, oh, heart! when thou art sad and tired, Still sing thy songs. Perchance when thou art dead

One little word of hope, one thought inspired,
May still live on, e'en though thyself art fled.
And if all dies, yet hast thou done thy best,
And so hast earned an everlasting rest.
All The Year Round.

TO JENNY.

FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO.

My darling! yesterday just a twelvemonth old! Happy you babble as, under the manifold Delicate leafage that lies on the dear Spring's breast,

The year's new birdlets, opening their strange, wide eyes,

Ay, Jenny, God's not far off when you are E. H. HICKEY.

nigh. Academy.

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From The Westminster Review.
THE PROGRESS OF SHIPBUILDING IN
ENGLAND.*

reasons for the superiority of the foreign models could not be ascertained. British war ships were designed in accordance AT the close of the great French war with certain "established dimensions" the supremacy of the naval force of En- which were little varied from 1680 to 1810. gland was unquestioned. All rivals had According to these "dimensions," a ship been swept from the seas; our war fleet carrying a certain number of guns must was numerically stronger than it had ever not exceed a certain "tonnage," which been, and our mercantile marine almost tonnage was measured by an objectionamonopolized the carrying trade of the ble rule, based on no sound principle, and world. Yet, strange to say, this period calculated to hamper progress. Had of unrivalled supremacy was also the pe- there been worthy successors in England riod when English shipbuilding occupied of the men who reconstructed the royal its lowest position relatively to that of navy in the seventeenth century, such a other nations. Not merely France and system could not have so long survived. Spain, but Sweden, Denmark, and the But no such successors were found, and United States then produced ships which the highest professional officers in the were superior in speed and good qualities service of the crown at the beginning of to the best English ships. Our naval the present century were "ship-carpencommanders were constantly complaining ters" in all but name. Probably they of the inferiority of their vessels to those were somewhat superior to the master of the enemy; and when prizes were shipwright of Deptford dockyard in 1668, taken, our shipbuilders felt no shame in described by Evelyn as "Old Shish, a using them as models for new construc-plaine, honeste carpenter . . . hardly cations. In form, structure, and propulsive pable of reading, yet of great ability in arrangements, British ships in the earlier his calling." But of their imperfect proyears of this century were not widely fessional education good evidence is given dissimilar from those of the seventeenth in the "Report of the Commission of century. And it may be questioned whether British shipbuilders at the later date were equal in ability or culture to the Petts and Deane whose reputation attracted Peter the Great to this country, as the fittest school in which to study shipbuilding.

Naval Revision, 1806," which says, "In the whole course [of training and promotion] no opportunity will be found of acquiring even the common education given to men of their rank of life; and they rise to the complete direction of the construction of ships on which the safety of Seventy years ago the designing of the empire depends, without any care or English ships was in the hands of men provision having been taken on the part entirely ignorant of the first principles of of the public that they should have any naval architecture. Precedent and expe- instruction in mathematics, mechanics, or rience were all-powerful; wide departures in the science and theory of marine arfrom previous practice were feared. Even chitecture." Another competent authorwhen foreign ships, which had been de-ity, speaking of the same period, says, signed by more competent men, were cop- "Scarcely a single individual in the counied, no real advance was made; for the

*

1. Papers on Naval Architecture. (1827-33.)
2. Transactions of the Institution of Naval Archi-
tects. (1860-80.)

try knew correctly even the first element of the displacement of one of our numerous ships." And he might have added that, in this particular, a distinct retro

3. The Modern System of Naval Architecture.gression had been made from the prac By JOHN SCOTT RUSSELL, F.R.Ş. 1865.

4. Shipbuilding in Iron and Steel. By Sir E. J. REED. K.C.B. 1869.

5. Shipbuilding, Theoretical and Practical. By Professor RANKINE, and others.

1866.

6. A Manual of Naval Architecture. By W. H.

WHITE. 1877.

7. Yacht Designing. By DIXON KEMP. 1876.

tice of Deane and other naval architects of the seventeenth century. Documents are still extant showing that at the earlier the tabulation of exact data, were by no, period calculations of displacement, and means uncommon performances.

While this was the condition of affairs | ing fifty or sixty per cent. more than the in the royal navy, as great, if not greater legal tonnage by "builders' old measureignorance prevailed in the British mer- ment." But the gain in carrying power cantile marine. Our ships had no virtues as compared with tonnage thus secured, except their strong structures and large had to be paid for in decreased safety, carrying power. They were made deep speed, and seaworthiness. Losses of life and narrow in order to evade the unsci- and property became much more frequent, entific tonnage law then in force; but and were clearly traceable to the influwhile they could carry large cargoes on a ence of the tonnage law. During the small nominal tonnage, they were dull French war, when merchantmen sailed sailors and often proved dangerously un- under convoy, these faults were less apsafe in heavy weather. This tonnage parent than they became after peace was law, known still as "builders' old meas- proclaimed. Our ships then had to comurement," was enacted in 1773, and ap- pete, on their merits, with ships built in plied to all seagoing British ships. Long America, or the north of Europe, under before it was made a legal measurement no similar temptations to sacrifice effisome such rule had been in use among ciency to carrying power; their inferiority shipbuilders, and it undoubtedly was soon became manifest, and the reasons intended to express approximately the were obvious enough. An agitation beweight of cargo which a ship could carry. gan for the repeal of the tonnage law, and It was purely empirical, however, and a commission reported against it in 1821; tacitly assumed that certain modes of but it continued in force fifteen years longconstruction, as well as certain ratios of er, when a second commission succeeded length to breadth, or breadth to depth, in substituting for builders' old measurewould continue in use. Two or three ment a less objectionable, but still an external measurements were made from imperfect law, that gave place, in its turn, a ship, and on these as data the estimate to the system still in force, to which refof tonnage was based. In these meas-erence will be made hereafter. urements no account was taken of the The study of scientific naval architecdepth of ships; but it was assumed that ture, while thus neglected in England, the draught of water in well-formed ships was prosecuted with ardor on the Contiwould be about one-half of the extreme nent, and especially in France. When breadth. Nor was there any accurate Louis XIV. determined to create a fleet, determination of the form of the im- his able minister, Colbert, gave all possimersed part of a ship. Consequently, so ble encouragement to mathematicians and long as the length and breadth remained scientists, in order that the fundamental unaltered, the nominal tonnage of a ship principles of ship construction might be was unchanged, although the depth might established and made to govern practice. be made greater, and the immersed part This procedure was doubtless influenced made more and more burdensome, or by the successes that had been already "box-shaped," in order that a much heav- achieved by the Petts, Deane, and other ier cargo might be carried without the educated English shipbuilders; and its necessity of paying higher dues to har- results were so satisfactory, that the sysbors, docks, and lights. In other words, tem originated by Colbert, and embodied whereas the intention of the tonnage law in several ordonnances de la marine, datwas to assess those dues on the weight ing from 1689 onwards, has been continof cargo which a ship could carry, and ued in operation until the present time. that intention was fairly realized in the A considerable period elapsed, it is true, vessels existing when the act of 1773 was before the foundations of the modern passed, it was entirely defeated in ships science of ship construction were satisbuilt subsequently. Builders and owners factorily laid; but even the preliminary combined to produce unduly deep ships, work had its value, and gave to the French of extremely "full" form, some of which ships of the seventeenth century a high were capable of carrying a cargo weigh-character for speed and good behavior.

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