and the like, so long as they are honestly devised
for an honest purpose, are to be regarded as
property. Under the new law, all forgeries or
infringements of such symbols are punishable by
fine or forfeiture. For some reason or other,
the hop trade seems to be difficult to shield from
roguery. Acts have from time to time been
passed to protect the marks on bags or pockets
of hops; and the protection now is very
complicated. Strict rules are laid down as to the
inscribing, on the bags and pockets, of such
particulars as will identify or associate the
grower unmistakably with them. The truth is,
that the growers of fine hops are sensitive both
in fame and in purse. There are rogues in hops
as well as rogues in grain, in steel, in blacking,
in pills, in Cough-no-more drops.

        A QUEEN'S CONFESSION.

          I AM failing, wasting, dying,
             Without plaint or moan,
          Life's enchantments all around me,
             And the world my own.

          Throned aloft in regal splendours,
             Should not life be sweet?
          With a crown upon my forehead,
             Kingdom at my feet?

          Every day, adoring suppliants
             In my presence bend;
          Every day, fresh throng of suitors
             For my grace contend.

          "Wondrous fair" they call me, "fairest;"
             "Envy of all eyes;"
           I am sick at heart with listening
             To their flatteries.

          What avail the pomp and lustre
             Of my grand estate,
          When my woman's heart amidst it
             Dwelleth desolate?

          All men's love to me is worthless,
             Save the love of one!
          Who could see the stars with vision,
             Dazzled by the sun?

          Night and day his image haunts me,
             While I sleep or wake;
          Little deems he of the anguish
             Suffer'd for his sake.

          From his sires no borrow'd glory
             Blending with his own,
          All unrivall'd, 'mid the famous
             He stands first—alone!

          His the greatness of a spirit
             Gentle, firm, and free:
          Grace and goodness are his titles,
             Manhood his degree.

          Were I but the lowliest maiden,
             Loveliest in my land,
          But to do him daily service—
             Stoop to kiss his hand!

          Sunder'd are we, by the false world,
             Far as east from west.
          Woman's heart what dost thou, beating
             In a royal breast?

          And of me he thinks not—dreams not—
             While mine eyes grow dim,
          And my spirit slowly wasteth,
             For the love of him.

          And so far I seem above him,
             While so low I lie,
          In the dust—the merest abject—
             Mock'd with majesty.

          Oh, the cruel weight of glory,
             Crushing out my life;
          The fair semblance glozing over
             The fierce inward strife!

          Scarce the first peal shall have sounded
             Of his bridal bell,
          Than its merry tones shall mingle
             With my funeral knell.

          Woman's life is love. A woman,
             If of love denied,
          Found a kingdom all too narrow
             For my heart—and died!

            OLD STORIES RE-TOLD.
                   THE LUDDITES.

THE Luddite rioters of Nottinghamshire and
Yorkshire derived their name from General
Lud, their mythical leader, that awe-striking
name and title being, however, borne by several
of their chiefs at different times and in different
districts. The deplorable outrages committed
by these men—the breaking into houses to
seize fire-arms and obtain money for the
purposes of their mischievous and dangerous
association—lasted for nearly forty years, during
which time, with the exception of a few lulls,
the great manufacturing districts were in as
disturbed and lawless a state as the Border
country when such marauders as Hard-Riding
Dick and William of Deloraine drove honest
men's cattle, burned keep-towers, and harried
farm-houses.

All social diseases have their climax. The
night, they say, is darkest just before daybreak.
To all miseries and misfortunes there is a
culminating period. It was in 1812 that the
Luddists were fiercest, maddest, and most
desperate, deriding all philosophy and forgetting
all the tenets of political economy in the
fierceness of their indignation. Their object
was to destroy the new frames which about the
end of the last century were introduced ("with
power") to finish woollen goods. Up to this
time, cloth had been finished by a tedious and
costly process, a man being required to each
machine, and three times the expense being
incurred. The machine was a ponderous
unsightly instrument, square at the extremity of
the blade, but otherwise not unlike the shears
used by sheep-shearers. One blade was passed
under the balk cloth to be finished, and the other
over it, the latter cropping off the nap of the
wool as the blades were dexterously pushed
backwards and forwards by the workmen. The
men engaged in this primitive occupation were
known by the name of Croppers. The process
was as much behind the age as the Hottentot