applied to the throat, the victim is brought
to the ground, and held in that position
until murdered. In the third group the
villainous Thugs are mutilating the faces
of murdered travellers to prevent identification,
and then digging pits for them.
In a fourth group a rascally fellow is
attempting to induce the victim to look up
at the stars; while a confederate prepares
to throw the fatal handkerchief round the
bared throat at the right moment. Another
group shows these precious scoundrels
dividing the spoil which has resulted from the
murderous doings. Fearful dolls, indeed, are
these; and there are—scattered around the
Ethnographical Room at the Museum—many
other Hindoo figures of doll-like size and
materials, destitute of all the prettinesses and
amenities which belong to a true-born, well-
conducted British doll.

Is Count Durin's model man to be called a
doll? Some people call it a tailor's model;
while he himself gives it the name of a
mechanical figure. Be it named what it may,
the Count has here patented an apparatus
on which a wonderful amount of patience
and ingenuity must have been bestowed.
This well-shaped gentleman consists of a
series of steel and copper plates sliding upon
each other, and kept in contact by screws,
nuts, and spiral springs; and there are such
pins, slides, grooves, wheels, springs, tubes,
racks, pinions, and screws within the figure,
as to enable the steel and copper plates to be
separated or brought closer together. Now,
ail this complexity is to afford means for
enlarging or diminishing the figure; for
making him either a nice little man or a
great Herculean fellow, but well-shaped in
either case. A handle being turned round,
the whole of the various pieces of metal are
set into movement; they move in proper ratio
all over the figure, so that every part may
either increase or diminish in due proportion.
So prodigiously intricate is the mechanism
necessary to effect all this, that the figure
comprises no less than seven thousand
separate pieces of steel, iron, brass, and copper.
The inventor thinks that his model man
might be useful to the artist or the sculptor;
but he seems to attach more importance to
it as a tailor's measure or model, for shaping
clothes to suit all sizes of men. With a dress
of elastic material what a splendid expansible
doll we might here have! From Tom Thumb
up to Apollo, and from Apollo up to Hercules
—quite a series.

But of all the big dolls we have seen, commend
us to Gulliver— Lemuel Gulliver—who
attracted so many eager eyes two years ago.
Although Herr Fleischmann is a Prussian,
living at Sonnenberg, and might, consequently
be supposed to be less familiar with Swift's
hero, he has, nevertheless, worked out the
incidents of the story with singular skill.
Gulliver, as we all know, woke one fine
morning in the country of Lilliput, and
found that he could not stir. "As I
happened," he says, "to lie on my back, I
found my arms and legs were strongly
fastened on each side to the ground, and my
hair, which was long and thick, tied down in
the same manner. I likewise felt several
slender ligatures across the body, from my
armpits to my thighs." Here he lies, with
his black small-clothes, his neat stockings,
and his buckled shoes; and around him
hover the Lilliputians, who exhibit a set
purpose above all praise. They have mounted
on his prostrate body, and are triumphing in
various ways, over the captured giant. One
is trying to peer into the formidable waist-
coat pocket; some are climbing up to his legs
by ladders or ropes, while others are sliding
down again from that giddy height; some
have climbed trees and are looking on at a
safe distance; and all exhibit a life-like
appreciation of the Great Fact, highly creditable
to the ingenuity of the artist Fleischmann.

CHIPS.

MAGAZINES OF MEAT.

NOT very long ago, the English public heard
with pain that it had been found necessary
to throw overboard at Behring's Straits the
whole store of preserved meat supplied to a
vessel sent in search of Sir John Franklin.
Still more recently the newspapers have been
informing us that fresh inquiries have been
made at home into the Admiralty stores, and
that the contents of Goldner's canisters have
again suffered condemnation. The details of
a previous inquiry are too horrible to have
escaped the memory of any one who read
them. A large number of canisters were then
found to have been fraudulently filled with
offal and improper matter. There had been
a great neglect of duty on the part of the
contractor, and the consequences of it are more
serious than might at first sight appear. The
use of preserved meat on a large scale is
checked, when faith in it is shaken by the
constant news that it is being thrown away
as filth out of the public stores. Because
one or two traders could not resist the
temptation to acquire immediate gains in
selling articles that must be bought unseen
within sealed canisters, an invention of the
first importance to society is kept too long out
of its due place in the world's esteem.

That it is possible, and far from difficult, so
to prepare meat and other articles of food
that they shall preserve their qualities
unchanged for a great number of years, all
people know; but some perhaps are not aware
how simple and when carefully and honestly
performed how certain the whole process is.
Three conditions are essential to decay, the
presence of air, heat, and moisture. Exclude air
from an organic mass, freeze it, or dry it
perfectly, and it can never decompose. Fishes, it
is well known, are stored in Russia as hard