any indulgences they please; among which
nothing is so highly prized or eagerly coveted
as a pinch of snuff.

In the dormitories on the first-floor, some
lie bed-ridden. Gentler still, if possible, is
now the Sister's voice. The rooms throughout
the house are airy, with large windows,
and those inhabited by the Sisters are
distinguished from the rest by no mark of
indulgence or superiority.

We descend now into the old men's department;
and enter a warm room, with a stove in
the centre. One old fellow has his feet upon a
little foot-warmer, and thinly pipes out, that
he is very comfortable now, for he is always
warm. The chills of age, and the chills of
the cold pavement, remain together in his
memory; but he is very comfortable now,
—very comfortable. Another decrepit man,
with white hair and bowed back—who may
have been proud, in his youth, of a rich
voice for love-song talks of music to the
Sister; and, on being asked to sing, blazes
out with joyous gestures, and strikes up a
song of Beranger's in a cracked, shaggy voice,
which sometimes—like a river given to flow
under-ground—is lost entirely, and then
bubbles up again, quite thick with mud.

We go into a little oratory, where all pray
together nightly before they retire to rest.
Thence we descend into a garden for the
men; and pass thence by a door into the
women's court. The chapel bell invites us
to witness the assembly of the Sisters for the
repetition of their psalms and litanies. From
the chapel we return into the court, and
enter a large room, where the women are all
busy with their spinning-wheels. One old
soul immediately totters to the Sister (not
the same Sister with whom we set out), and
insists on welcoming her daughter with a kiss.
We are informed that it is a delusion of her
age to recognise in this Sister really her own
child, who is certainly far away, and may
possibly be dead. The Sister embraces her
affectionately, and does nothing to disturb
the pleasant thought.

And now we go into the kitchen. Preparation
for coffee is in progress. The dregs
of coffee that have been collected from the
houses of the affluent in the neighbourhood,
are stewed for a long time with great care.
The Sisters say that they produce a very
tolerable result; and, at any rate, every
inmate is thus enabled to have a cup of coffee
every morning, to which love is able to
administer the finest Mocha flavour. A Sister
enters from her rounds out of doors with two
cans full of broken victuals. She is a healthy,
and, I think, a handsome woman. Her daily
work is to go out with the cans directly
after she has had her morning coffee, and
to collect food for the ninety old people that
are in the house. As fast as she fills her
cans, she brings them to the kitchen, and
goes out again; continuing in this work daily
till four o'clock.

You do not like this begging? What are
the advertisements on behalf of our own
hospitals ? what are the collectors? what are
the dinners, the speeches, the charity
sermons? A few weak women, strong in heart,
without advertisement, or dinners, or charity
sermons; without urgent appeals to a
sympathising public; who have no occasion to
exercitate charity, by enticing it to balls and
to theatrical benefits; patiently collect waste
food from house to house, and feed the poor
with it, humbly and tenderly.

The cans are now to be emptied; the
contents being divided into four compartments,
according to their nature—broken
meat, vegetables, slices of pudding, fish, &c.
Each is afterwards submitted to the best
cookery that can be contrived. The choicest
things are set aside;—these, said a Sister,
with a look of satisfaction, will be for our
poor dear sick.

The number of Sisters altogether in this
house engaged in attendance on the ninety
infirm paupers, is fourteen. They divide
the duties of the house among themselves.
Two serve in the kitchen, two in the laundry;
one begs, one devotes herself to constant
personal attendance on the wants of the old
men, and so on with the others, each having
her special department. The whole sentiment
of the household is that of a very
large and very amiable family. To feel that
they console the last days of the infirm and
aged poor, is all the Little Sisters get for their
hard work.

PICTURE ADVERTISING IN SOUTH
AMERICA.

THE concentrated wisdom of nations used
formerly to be sought for in their proverbs;
we look for it now-a-days in their newspapers.
Whether we always find what we seek, in this
respect, may be a question; but something is
sure to turn up in them that will repay the
search, though the leading article, the records
of Parliament and of law, or even the letters
of "our own correspondent," may fail to
disclose it.

The "intelligent" reader will at once see
that we point to the advertising columns, but
we are not going to inflict an epitome of the
first and second pages of the Times, or present
an abstract of its Supplement, characteristic
of our country as the result might prove.
We purpose to go somewhat further afield,
and tread upon ground hitherto unbroken.
A file of South American newspapers has
suggested to us that it might prove amusing,
if not instructive, to describe the wants and
wishes, the habits of life, and something of the
pervading tone of society, in certain parts of
that hemisphere, as shown in the advertisements
of the periodical journals.

We have selected the city of Buenos Ayres
for this illustration, and turn at once to our
file.