the hair, and the manner in which it is
implanted, do not leave anything to be desired
by the most experienced hairdresser. For
instance, we begin with a large assortment of
wax foreheads; for fixing curls; and these
we can have at half-a-crown a piece. But,
when we arrive at the higher products of
art — the wax arms, the ladies' busts, the
gentlemen's busts, the ditto with beard
implanted, the Renaissant model of Diana de
Poitiers, with a bare head, the equally bare-
headed Françoise de Foix the same Françoise
with most exquisitely implanted hair, three
quarters of a yard in length —when we come
info this higher region, we must be prepared
with guineas, and many of them.

We went a little farther, until we came to
writing implements for invalids: the pen-
holder for enfeebled hands! Nerves are
to be thrown out of fashion now; we are
not to have shaking or trembling hands;
or, at any rate, we are not thereby to be
debarred from the pleasures and advantages
of writing. It may appear clumsy to hold
this little apparatus; but let those laugh that
win; if the pen writes well, the looker-on
may criticise the position if he so please.
The writer grasps the pen like a dagger,
holding it firmly in the clenched hand. The
shaft or stem of the instrument is held down
vertically upon the paper; the socket that
receives the pen or nib, is jointed to this
vertical shaft at an angle of about forty-five
degrees, and is pressed on the paper by a
feeble spring, so as to assimilate, as nearly as
may be, to the action of the ordinary quill-
pen. When out of use, the whole affair shuts
up like a pencil-case. To whatever extent a
facility of writing may be afforded by this
little contrivance it will help those whose
hands have become tremulous or weak
through age, gout, rheumatism, paralysis, or
other of the ills of life.

We went a little farther, and found that
when you have used up your pencil in the
solid form, you must then use the dust.
This is the aphorism of Mr. Brockedon,
who out of mere dust makes most excellent
blacklead pencils. It may be all
very well to cut up Borrowdale black-
lead into long slender square sticks, and to
insert these square sticks into handles; but
when the Borrowdale blacklead is all gone,
exhausted and used up, what is to be done?
Matters have not actually arrived at this stage
yet; but they are approaching so near to
it, that pencil-makers are looking about them
somewhat anxiously. Compositions have
been devised, possessing qualities more or
less fitted for pencils; but, Mr. Brockedon
bethought himself of trying whether he could
make use of the dust which gradually
accumulates from working pure blacklead. Of
course it is easy to cement the dust into a
mass, but the substance employed as a
cement would inevitably deteriorate the
quality. Hence Mr. Brockedon. thought of
compressing the dust with such immense
force that the particles should be pressed
into close companionship, and made to form a
solid. It was found extremely difficult to effect
this without breaking the tools employed;
until at length the happy thought suggested
itself of removing the air by means of an
air-pump, and allowing the pressure to be
more easily carried on. The powder is
pressed into really solid blocks, whence
pencil pieces are afterwards cut.

That sweet bit of laziness, the Iris, has a
name that does not very significantly denote
its use. You recline upon a sofa; you wish
to read, but you do not wish to have the trouble
of holding your book. You are sitting at your
table, in drawing-room, or library, or school-
room, or office; and your two hands are so
busy that you require a third to hold up
your book, or pattern, or model. You are an
invalid; you can recline and read, but have
no strength to hold your book. In all such
cases, the Iris is your friend. There
is a small desk, or framework, with tongues
to keep the page of a book open, and a stand
or support, varying in shape according as it
is to be adjusted to a bed, sofa, chair, or
table. The genius who presides over the Iris
tells you that, when reading history or travels,
you can have your book held up by the Iris,
while your map or atlas is comfortably lying
on the table; that, when studying a foreign,
language, the Iris will hold your text-book,
while your hands are busy with the dictionary
and grammar; that, when copying — whether
you be author, student, or clerk — the Iris will
kindly hold what you copy. One more use
we must give in the very words of the
genius himself; for they are rich and rare
in quality. "That savage animal the
solitary bachelor, or his sister the lone
Unprotected Female, at last have the power of
continuing their book or newspaper at
breakfast or dinner, without suspending their
meal for a single instant."

Now that everybody is teaching everybody
else how to draw and engrave, by
photography and electricity and other scientific
means, it is pleasant to think that the old-
fashioned way of seeing plainly with our
natural eyes, and working simply with our
natural hands, is not wholly forgotten.
There are certain folding drawing models,
which are intended to aid in imparting a
knowledge of perspective, somewhat on the
same principle that an object-lesson is often
useful in elementary instruction. If you
copy from a print or drawing of a church,
you see the church only under one aspect;
but, if you have a complete though tiny
church, a model that you can place upon a
stand before you, you may select any one of
a hundred different aspects or points of view,
and thus accustom the eye to the fore-
shortened effect of perspective lines. To
lend such aid, is the object of these very
pretty drawing models. A model may be