men are more prone than women to fall into this habit of mechanical reading. A man goes to his business at ten o'clock in the morning, and is closely occupied by it till six or seven in the evening. What he reads he reads, when he is more or less tired with the day's work. A woman, who is often able to sit down to a book for an hour or two before or after luncheon, reads with a comparatively fresh mind. But a busy man who is fond of reading, and anxious to keep up with current literature, finds that, six days out of the seven, he has to contend with a condition of mental, if not of bodily, fatigue. In this condition he is naturally disposed to pass over anything that requires thought or sustained attention, and to select what may be read with the least effort. And a very little yielding to this disposition will produce, even in cultivated men, a habit which may almost be said to be worse from an intellectual point of view than the habit of not reading at all. A man who is not reading may possibly be thinking. But a man who reads nothing but newspapers is exercising his mind in no greater degree than he is when occupied in putting on his clothes. The greatest safeguard perhaps against the temptation to fall into this habit is an acquaintance with one or two foreign languages. The man who is tolerably well acquainted with French and German is comparatively safe from the allurements of the daily papers; or, at any rate, if he finds he is becoming a slave to them, is better able to emancipate himself. He may determine to go without his newspaper studies for a time, or at least to cut them down to the lowest possible proportions, and to read something in German as a change. It is almost impossible, for most Englishmen at any rate, to read in a foreign language in the same unintel igent, mechanical manner that they can in their own. Unfortunately the number of Englishmen who, before being plunged into the rush of business, have acquired, in the course of a public school or University career, a tolerable facility of reading in any foreign language is comparatively small. And the notion of beginning to acquire such a language in leisure hours is probably too distasteful to the majority of inen over twenty-one years of age to be worth consideration. Yet the difficulty of acquiring, even without any aid from a teacher, such a language as German, for example, is just one of those difficulties which lose half their proportions when fairly faced. And one thing at any rate is quite certain; that no man who has overcome such a difficulty has ever been known to regret the time and labour bestowed on the process. Of how many things for which men make efforts can the same be truly declared? NOTES ABOUT COTTON. Cotton owes its rica, and Livingstone found it in the interior of kingship quite as much to the tenacity with that country along the banks of all the rivers. which its fibres adhere to one another, as to The ancient Egyptians doubtless imported from their length or fineness; and were it not that Abyssinia their cotton cloth for mummy-wrapthe fibre produced by the bombax, or silk-cotton pings and for the garments of priests and notree, is too smooth, cotton would find in it a bles, and from them the Jews inherited the empowerful rival. Cotton-wool is the downy bed ployment of that texture for the robes of their in which the seeds of the cotton-plant are en- priests; for, where the Bible makes mention of veloped, and is the product of hot countries. fine linen, we must read cotton, as flax does It has several varieties, that cultivated in Al-not grow in hot climates. From Africa cottongeria and in Southern Europe seldom attaining a height of over twelve inches, while at the equator the plant grows as high as an appletree, and bears a fruit twice as large as that of the Algerian species. The cotton grown in the East Indies is of very inferior quality, its fibre being short and hard; yet it was largely used in manufacture, during the war in the United States. Chinese cotton is yellow, and hence the pecular color of the fabric called nankeen. culture passed into Persia and Georgia; then into India, and from India to China. In the latter empire all the clothing of the poorer classes is of cotton, of extremely firm texture. Indeed, so strong is the cotton manufactured by the Chinese, that it is impossible for a man to tear a piece of it across; and the people of China and India refuse to buy European cotton manufactures, calling them mere spiders' webs. DR. SACC, in Popular Science Monthly for The cotton-plant is probably a native of Af-December. HERALD OF HEALTH FOR 1873. October, November and December Numbers FREE TO NEW SUBSCRIBERS. A SPLENDID NEW PREMIUM. Every subsoriber for the HERALD OF HEALTH for 1873, who sends to the Publishers direct $2.00, (with 12 cents extra for postage,) will be entitled to the beautiful Chromo, CHARITY, Those who may desire to club with other mag azines without premiums can send the following amounts: An Original Picture of a young girl, beautiful | physical improvement of the race. Send in form and face, on a mission of love to the cents extra for postage on premiums." cottage of a poor family. She stands with her supplies of good things knocking at the door, clad in a handsome costume, with a face expressive of the highest qualities the heart possesses: the perfect picture of health and beauty. This chromo is handsomely colored with many colors and will please and delight all who possess it. 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