appeared. The wandering minstrels wailed
their last notes as they departed, and the
quiet city was left to its students and the
pigeons.

So much for my experiences of Protestant
Germany as regards Sunday occupation. I
have, however, said nothing of museums or
picture galleries. I should be sorry to
misrepresent the kindred commercial cities of
Hamburgh and Leipsic; but I think they
may shake hands on this question, seeing
that, at the period of my visit, they possessed
neither the one nor the other. I do not say
that there were no stored-up curiosities,
dignified with the title of museums. But, as
far as the public instruction was concerned,
they were nearly useless, being little known
and less visited, and certainly not accessible
on the Sunday. Schwerin, in Mecklenburgh
possesses a noble ducal museum of arts
and sciences, but this also was closed on the
weekly holiday ; and in Berlin, where the
museum, par excellence, may vie with any in
Europe, and which city is otherwise rich in
natural and art collections, the doors of all such
places were, on the Sunday, strictly closed
against the people. Of the good taste which
authorises the display of stage scenery and
decorations (and that not of the best), and
yet forbids the inspection of the masterpieces
of painting ; of the judgment which patronises
beer and tobacco, yet virtually condemns as
unholy the sight of the best evidences of
nature's grandeur, and the beautiful results
of human efforts in art ; it is not necessary to
treat here.

CHIPS.

SICK RAILWAY CLERKS.

AMONG the hard-working classes in this
country there is scarcely any body of men
whose duties, in proportion to the recompense
they derive from them, are so incessant
and responsible as those of railway clerks.
These men must have been moderately well
educated, and possess an accurate knowledge
of accounts. They must be unfailing in official
attendance, which in extreme cases extends,
with short intervals for meals, from seven in
the morning till eleven at night of each
working day, with occasional Sunday duty.
They must be ready and civil in answering
all questions put to them by the public. They
must be respectful to their superiors and
firm with their inferiors. They must, at
country stations, attend to the passenger
goods and parcel traffic ; and send up to the
chief office as many as eight or ten intricate
returns every day.

There are in England twelve thousand
railway clerks, each of whose average salary
amounts to no more than eighty pounds
per annum ; and on this small income they
must dress well and appear like gentlemen.
To do this and to maintain himself,
the railway clerk must exercise much
self-denial and economy, even if single; but
how is it with him if he have a wife and
family to support, and what chance has he
of laying by anything for sickness or old
age?

We understand that, amongst this numerous-
body there is not on any of the railways in.
England, any fund or club by which provision
can be secured against sickness or
disability. Mechanics and labouring men
generally provide for themselves some such
security against the evil day; but railway clerks
have not united to form such a society; which
would assure them of help when health or
strength deserts them. It is true that their
earnings scarcely allow of their allotting
more than a trifle for such a purpose; but a
trifle from each of the twelve thousand clerks
employed throughout England would amount
to a considerable fund; and thus, if properly
kept up and administered by their own body
gratuitously, would be the means of saving
an immense amount of misery and degradation
amongst a class of men whose services
we all value, and whose exertions we all
respect.

HORNET ARCHITECTURE.

WE strike off the following Chip from the
letter of a correspondent in Adelaide,
Australia:—I secured a curiosity yesterday in
the shape of a hornet's-nest that has been
built in my bedroom. It is built of clay, and
was stuck against the wall at the back of the
room, and is about the size of a breakfast-cup.
A single hornet was the artificer, and he
seemed to work at it very hard. He was
nearly a couple of inches long, but very slim,
the thin centre of his body being nearly a
quarter of an inch long, which made him
look as if he had met with an accident, and
had had the tail-end of his body pulled nearly
off. He was a formidable-looking fellow, but
did not seem at all inclined to molest us, and
we did not meddle with him or his nest till
the nest was apparently finished. The nest
consists of several cells about an inch long
and three-eighths of an inch wide, in which
the hornet lays her eggs, and into which
she stores spiders and moths to serve as food
for the grubs. The cells are completely
built up, and the whole was covered over
with little excrescences, for the purpose, as I
suppose, of deception, that the nest might
look like a mere clod of clay.

We have here several varieties of insects
similar to wasps and hornets, but they all
appear to be solitary in their habits, and do
not trouble us either by their stings or by
eating our fruit. They are particularly
troublesome, however, in consequence of their
building their nests in all sorts of places
where they are not wanted. They are very
partial to key-holes, the little hollow places