other things, she said that a Jewish lady of
extraordinary beauty, built a house close to
the northern side, leaving only a narrow
passage between. It was determined to throw
back the colonnade in that direction, such
room being wanted for the increasing crowd
of worshippers; and, accordingly (property
being held, it appears, on a different tenure
then to what it is now), application was made
to the lady to sell her house. She refused,
and the improvement was delayed for a year,
when its urgency increasing, a new demand
produced a new and decided refusal. Then
the Governor of Egypt, in a moment of
passion, ordered the house to be forcibly
entered, and its owner expelled. She would
not give up the point, but travelled all the
way to Bagdad to lay her complaint before the
Caliph. A simple statement was sufficient,
and an order was immediately issued that the
property should not only be restored, but a
heavy indemnity paid. But the heart of the
Jewish lady was touched by the eloquence of
the Lord of the Faithful, or by divine interposition,
and she suddenly, not only declared
herself willing to give the house in dispute as a
present, but embraced Islam, and—so the story
goes—became one of the favourite wives of the
Caliph himself. In the midst of much
extravagance, there is often a hidden purpose in
these Arab tales; and I am inclined to think
this one was a correct mode of satirising the
manner in which, of late years, Government
has interfered with private property.

I went away much pleased with this my
first visit to the Mosque of Old Cairo, and
was glad to find that, in accordance with
former experience in other places, every one
about was quite tolerant in demeanour, and
that the usual present, instead of being
enacted with rudeness, was gently solicited,
and received with gratitude. It must not be
supposed, however, that we paid for admission
to the Mosque. There the door stood open
for us and the winds to enter; but we made
a voluntary donation, in accordance with the
custom of a country in which charity degrades
neither the giver nor the receiver. I tried to
avoid drawing mental comparisons with home;
but could not help thinking that, at least in
Egypt, places of public worship were not put
on a level with theatres.

CHIPS.

GAS PERFUMERY.

A CORRESPONDENT, while assuring us that
the Imperial Gas Company does not drain
all its refuse, directly or indirectly, into the
Thames, (as the complaint of the "Dirty little
Town," in No. 61 of "Household Words,"
imputed to it,) sets forth some curious facts
respecting the ultimate destiny of the noxious
refuse of gas, which will startle some of
our female readers. They are just as
much prepared to learn that sugar can be
obtained from verjuice, or that champagne
can be produced from that inestimable
composition which is manufactured by the
Messrs. Day and Martin of High Holborn,
London, as that the most offensive residuum
of coal, after the gas has been extracted from
it, can be transformed by the magic still of
the chemist into perfumes.

The residual products of the coal used in
gas-making, he says, consist of coke, tar, and
ammoniacal liquor ; the latter the most
offensive of known fluids. To those must be
added the lime used in the purification of gas,
which, becoming strongly impregnated with
ammonia, is also very disgusting; and it is
carried away in carts by night, to be used for
agricultural purposes. The coke and tar, of
course, meet a ready sale; the former being
much used in greenhouses and conservatories,
and also by the poor, as fuel. Lastly, the
ammoniacal liquor is actually sold by contract
to persons engaged in chemical works,
who carry it away by night, in barges ; and
convert it, by concentration, into smelling
salts, and to other chemical purposes.

Thus, this offensive product becomes the
reviving essence which the delicate young
lady "ever and anon gives her nose :" And,
to show still further how nearly extremes
meet, the chemists succeed in extracting
also from this same unsavoury liquor, a
delicate perfume like violets, which is used for
scenting soap.

THE HISTORY OF A ROSE.

THE moral of the following trait of Royal
life in France lies in the illustration it affords
of "the good old times." It is abridged from
the French of Eugene de Mirecourt.

The gallery parallel to the course of the
Seine, and which joins the Palace of the
Tuileries to the Louvre, was designed by
Philibert de l'Orme, and finished towards the
end of 1663. On the 15th of January, 1664,
Louis the Fourteenth descended into the vast
greenhouses, where his gardener, Le Nôtre,
had collected from all parts of the world
the rarest and most beautiful plants and
flowers.

The air was soft and balmy as that of
spring-time in the south. At the right of the
great Monarch stood Colbert, silently
revolving gigantic projects of state ; at the left
was Lauzun, that ambitious courtier, who,
not possessing sufficient tact to discern royal
hatred under the mask of court favour, was
afterwards destined to expiate, at Pignerol,
the crime of being more amiable and
handsomer than the king.

"Messieurs," said Louis, showing to his
companions a long and richly-laden avenue of
orange-trees, "are not these a noble present
from our ancient enemy, Philip the Fourth,
now our father-in-law? He has rifled his
own gardens to deck the Tuileries ; and the