The pigs which produce pigskins and bristles
are as different externally from our domestic
pigs as a buffalo is from a Short-horn; large
red or black brutes, active as wild calves. We
have seen one leap, standing, a barrier three
feet high. They are fed on the wastes in Russia
and Hungary without care or cost. In
Hungary the Szalanta is as big as a Welsh cow, and
as lean—richly endowed with material for the
largest hairbrushes. But on the arable farms
of Germany and Hungary English crosses are
making a rapid conquest, exterminating and
intermingling with the native. In France, the
government has done much, but the prejudices
against anything English prevails with the
peasantry. In conclusion, the pig may seem a
vulgar subject, but the progress of the principles
of modern agriculture may be more easily traced
in Pig history than in the finer Southdown, or
nobler Short-horn.

          GLASS POINTS TO STORMY.

METEOROLOGY is, comparatively, a new
science. Before Reid published his great work
on storms, the world in general was pretty much
in the dark as to the laws regulating those
natural disturbers of the natural serenities:
indeed, the world is still pretty much in the dark
as to those laws, and not at all likely to be
speedily enlightened. For though philosophic
men have been diligently collecting data,
comparing notes, inquiring into causes, and examining
effects, with the view of creating a new positive
and practical science, the public, for the
most part, is stupidly indifferent or superstitiously
careless, and lets itself be blown out of
the sea by a cyclone, or becalmed in the wind-
less latitudes while folding its silly hands, and
calling that Divine Will which is simply human
ignorance. "It is of no use praying for rain
while the wind is in the north-east," said the old
Scotch clerk; and he was more right than most
of his Calvinistic brethren. Until we thoroughly
learn the great laws which rule and govern
physical nature, and thoroughly understand that
those great laws are not interrupted for any
selfish wish of man, we shall go on committing
all the superstitious follies of old, as putting to
sea when tempests are brewing, or counting on
rain when the wind is in the north-east, or
forgetting that the gulf-stream brings both storms
and genial airs, or failing to protect the crops
when the signs of the times point to frost and
ice-bound weather. Yet it would be greatly to
our advantage if meteorology were understood
as a real, positive, and practical science, and if,
as was suggested the other day by the Times,
small instruments were put up in public places,
whereby men's undertakings might be wisely
regulated in the matter of wind and weather,
and the atmosphere be made to register its
coming states.

Storms and tempests, though bad enough
now, are not, in general, so bad as they were.
We hear of a few branches broken off in Hyde
Park and Kensington Gardens, of a woman in
crinoline being blown off a narrow ledge into the
water or the ditch, of a conservatory or two with
their glass roofs fractured, and of half a dozen
windows smashed in; but we do not often hear
now of the excessive damage which was
characteristic of the storms of earlier date. For
instance, in 944 there was a storm which raged all
through England, and which, in London alone,
unroofed and destroyed above fifteen hundred
houses. Why that was almost the whole city!
This was just before the murder of Edmund,
father of Edgar and Edwy, and husband to the
great abolitionist of the day, Elfgiva. His
murder gives one such a graphic sketch of the
times, that we cannot pass it by. It was in this
wise: Leof, an outlaw, came into the king's
palace at meal time, and sat himself down
impudently at the king's table. The royal cup-bearer
bade him, in the vernacular of the period, to get
out of that; but the outlaw refused, whereupon
Edmund, in a towering rage, rushed towards
him, intending to kick him out; but Leof was
too quick for him, and, pulling out a dagger,
stabbed the monarch to the heart. A storm that
destroyed fifteen hundred houses in a night was
in keeping with the rough usages of a time that
allowed of royal assassinations in rush-covered
banqueting halls by outlaws who carried knives
at their girdles, and sat down at kings' tables
unbidden.

In 1091, when William Rufus and Robert,
his brother, were by chance not wrangling quite
so much as usual, a storm broke out that terrified
people out of their senses, and did
incalculable damage. The wind blew strongly from
the south-west, the sky was dark for many days,
five hundred houses in this devoted London
again were unroofed, and the whole of England
shook under the tempest. People believed that
the last day had come, and the monks and friars
drove a thriving trade. More bequests were
made, more candles lighted, glebes given, and
offerings vowed then than we can relate. In
1215, when John was reluctantly spelling
the first letters of Magna Charta, and laying
the foundations of that great edifice, the
British Constitution, a tremendous storm
destroyed Hugh de Beauvais and his army at
Calais, where they had assembled for a descent
on England to aid King John against his barons.
There were not wanting many who believed that
this storm was a direct act of Divine Providence,
and that Heaven itself was on the side of the
barons, and against the crown. In 1233, in the
time of Henry the Third, there was another
awful storm. It rained and thundered for fifteen
days without intermission, and much damage
was done everywhere. In 1285, a year after
the birth of the first Prince of Wales, a storm
burst out over the island and the principality
such as the oldest inhabitant had never seen,
and a flash of lightning passed through the room
where Edward and his queen were conversing,
leaving them untouched, but killing two of their
attendants on the spot. In 1339, a hailstorm
at Chartres did so much harm to the invading
English army, that Edward the Third made peace,