skins are so intricate that I give up the task
of unravelling them; ditto for all sorts of
fur and peltry. Dyed wools, of any kind,
pay more than three hundred francs the
hundred kilos. Quills pay ten francs; cut
pens, two hundred and forty for the same
weight; feathers for beds, sixty francs;
feathers for adornment, from one hundred to
four hundred francs. Fish-oil, spemaceti,
and whalebone pay an infinitesimal duty if
caught by the French, a considerable duty if
caught by the stranger. At the head of the
substances proper for medicine and perfumery,
stand—What?—Vipers, which are
taxed ten francs per hundred in number, or
a penny a piece for the charming creatures.
Musk pays a hundred francs the single
kilo; civet, a hundred and twenty-three;
musk-rats' tails twenty-five, if coming by
French ships; otherwise, more. Amongst
these articles we find dried he-goat's blood,
bezoars, castoreum, the eyes of crayfish, the
bones of stags' hearts, and the feet of the elk;
the last, probably, intended to be used as an
antidote to epileptic fits. Sponge ranges
from sixty to upwards of two hundred and
twelve francs the hundred kilos. Five francs
is the gentle tax on the same weight of the
scales of the bleak, for making false pearls.
Mother-of-pearl oscillates between five, and
seventy francs; wolfs' teeth, between five
and five-and-a-half. On these there is an
export duty of twenty-five centimes.

Here we will hold; enough of complexity
worse complicated. Yet there are people
living who esteem it patriotism to maintain
the now existing Tarif as a protection to
national productions. If they prefer bad and
dear iron, dear cotton goods, dear indifferent
flannel, dear sugar, to good and cheap, let
them have them, by all means; but they
might clear away a few score items which
are only a subject of ridicule.

                   THREE MASTERS.

I WAS never anything but a fine, old country
gentleman, living upon my property, and
passing the whole of my days in the sports of
the field. The gun or the fishing-rod was
seldom out of my hands, except when a
scarlet coat was on my back, and I was on
the back of my favourite steed. I was the
steady, persevering amateur-butcher of my
county, known and dreaded by the brute
creation for miles and miles, and no huntsman's
dinner—no angler's festival was considered
complete unless I consented to grace
the board, either as the president or the
honoured guest. No one ever thought me
cruel, no one ever called me a brute; on the
contrary, I was looked upon as a manly
representative of a manly race, whose gradual
decline and probable extinction was a great
and irreparable loss to the country.

One day I went wild-duck shooting. My
water-boots were out of order—in fact, I
wanted a new pair; but the weather was so
favourable for the sport, and I was so eager,
that I could not wait until a proper equipment
arrived from London. I knew I was
flying in the face of danger—my old house-keeper
(I have neither wife nor children) told
me so; and when I came back at night, wet
through to the legs, with very strong symptoms
of inflammatory cold, no one in the
house expressed any surprise, unless it was at
my obstinate folly.

The sequel is soon told; a high fever
followed, and as I had always been very free
with brandy and old port wine, I was peculiarly
open to an attack of this kind, and in a
few days I gave up the ghost.

On knocking for admission, in the usual
way, at the door of Elysium, I met with
a very cold reception at the hands of the
porter.

"I think, sir," he said, "you're a little
afore your time?"

"How can that be?" I asked, "I died
in the regular way."

"Not exactly in the regular way," he replied,
"as far as I understand it; howsomdever,
it's nothing to do with me; I've only
got to obey orders, and to tell you that your
little place inside is not half ready, and
won't be finished for some years."

"Come," I said, getting indignant, "enough
of this nonsense, open the gate."

"Oh," he returned sneeringly, handing me
a written paper, "this game won't do with
me; I've seen too much of it."

"You rascal," I shouted, now fully enraged,
"this impertinence shall be reported to your
employers."

"Report away!" he replied, laughing,
"two can play at that. If a gent goes and
commits sooicide, or the next thing to it,
he must take the consequences, that's all."

Before I could turn and strike him to the
ground for this insult, he had closed the
wicket, and I was left to grope my way once
more in the outer darkness.

It was some time before I again reached
daylight, and was able to read my paper. It
fully authorised the remarks of the surly
porter, by reproving me for the manner in
which I had prematurely, and almost knowingly,
put an end to a not very valuable or
wisely spent existence. It showed me how
very closely such a piece of folly as I
had been guilty of, in standing up to my
waist in water half a-day in leaky boots,
bordered upon the prohibited crime of self-destruction.
My place in Elysium was not
prepared for my reception, as I was not
due for the next five and twenty years;
and I was ordered to fill up the remainder of
my allotted time on earth in the disagreeable
condition of the metempsychosis.

Scarcely had I got to the end of his mandate,
when I was felled to the ground; a
darkness come over my eyes, which seemed
to me to last for many hours; and when it