them looking down at you from a bal-The time-honored superstition of the cony. The pigs appear to be the play-" evil eye" is still so widely spread mates and companions of the baby throughout the island, even among the Sicilians. On every other doorstep one upper classes, that no one who does not sees the two rolling about together in wear a charm is considered safe. the dust.

66

From The Month.

SOME IRISH SUPERSTITIONS ABOUT BIRDS.
FURTHER and further westward and

soon

In some parts of the island the advent of a baby girl is looked upon as such a misfortune that a small black flag is hung out of the window to proclaim the sad event. The reason is not far to seek. Having to be main- southward recedes each year the dotained by the household as long as they minion of the fairies in Ireland are unmarried, and having to dower to disappear entirely. Old customs, their bridegrooms with a dot," girls whose origin is lost in the mists of are unprofitable. Boys, on the other hand, are soon self-supporting, and they increase the family wealth, when the time comes to bring home a wife by the amount of the young lady's fortune. Nevertheless, the girls, although kept in such strict seclusion that one hardly ever meets them walking about, are said to be kindly treated. At the age of fifteen, or sixteen, they are disposed of in marriage according to an arrangement, purely financial, between the families concerned.

pagan times, are falling into disuse, old superstitions are being forgotten. Almost anywhere in Ireland you will be told that "The robin and the wren are God's two holy men." Or, "are God's cock and hen." The red-breast is treated accordingly, and elders in Ireland, as indeed in most other countries, would on no account harm it, while youngsters look upon it as almost a sin to rob its nest. And good title, according to legend, has the bird to the best treatment that man can give it. Once, the story goes, when the Jews were following our Lord with cruel intent, the robin covered him with moss and would have successfully concealed him from his enemies, had not a waterwagtail—ever after considered a bird of evil, and called the devil's bird plucked the moss away and discovered our Redeemer to his persecutors. The usual account of the tradition, however, is that as our Lord hung on the

Judging by appearance, one would think that the Sicilian peasantry are in the last stage of poverty. That is to a great extent the case; but one must not be altogether guided by outward signs, for, howsoever well off they may be, they seldom make any change in their way of living. They all live by preference in the towns. Even those that are employed in the country during the week build mud hovels for that time, and flock back to the towns on Satur-cross a robin, touched with sympathy, day. The women have no national hopped on the crown of thorns and dress, and no distinctive characteristic there earned his scarlet breast. Though beyond the love of bright colors which the wren is held to be a holy bird, like seems inborn in all southern natures. the robin, she by no means enjoys in The men, on the contrary, are pictur- Ireland the same freedom from care.. esquely clad in black and white black | On one day of the year she is the object trousers to the knee, slit some twelve of universal persecution. This is on St. inches up the outside seam, to let out a Stephen's day, when village lads make bulging white linen undergarment; sheep-skin leggings strapped on with thongs, and moccasins; a white shirt, open at the neck, with full white sleeves gathered in at the wrist, and over this a black sleeveless vest; a black cloth cap hanging over the ear.

sure to kill a wren, and then, dressing themselves. in fantastic costumes, if such are to be had, go in procession from house to house, carrying a bush with the dead bird tied to it, and singing songs, one of which-the wren song proper - contains the following

lines with their eminently practical con- | warned St. Peter of his fall" can play

the part of a prophet. If he crows with his head turned towards the fire, hope of recovery may be entertained; if he crows facing the door, death is to be expected.

From The Economist.

The

Why the wren is hunted on St. Stephen's day is more than any man can THE SPONGE INDUSTRY OF ASIA MINOR. tell. The usual account of the origin WRITING from Rhodes, in the Smyrna of the custom is this: Once upon a district, Mr. Vice-Consul Jones says time, when the English and the Irish that the value of the sponge trade durwere at war, the invaders had gone ing the year 1891 is stated to have quietly to sleep in their camp, sentry diminished from twenty to twenty-five and all presumably, and the Irish, learn- per cent., as compared with that of the ing this, determined to attack them preceding year, and this statement is thus off their guard. The natives had borne out by the diminution in the all but reached the Saxon quarters, amount of the "charitable dues " levied when lo! a number of wrens flew from by the communities of the various a bush into the tents and awakened the islands interested in the trade, viz., slumberers. An old chronicler, who Symi, Calymnos, and Halki. wrote two hundred years ago, names amount of sponges of the best quality the battlefield on which this little in- was less than that obtained during the cident occurred, and in truly realistic season of 1890; but very high prices fashion mentions, as a further detail, were given by merchants for those of that it was by pecking at the drums the finest quality, especially for those the wrens aroused the English. The taken at Mandruha and Crete, where archæologist will not receive this expla- the average size of the finest sponges nation, knowing as he does that the exceeded that of those fished during custom is a Celtic one, and that in times the previous season. Sponges of infegone by the Manx and Welsh went rior quality, especially those taken at hunting the wren on St. Stephen's feast Zohara, were sold at very low rates. like their Irish brethren. The custom While the districts in which the spongedates, it is considered, from pagan fishing industry is carried on are showtimes, and is supposed to have been ing signs of exhaustion, on the other connected with a change of the seasons. | hand new fields are discovered from It was probably celebrated on the short-time to time, but it is to be feared that est day of the year-the death of the wren being symbolic of the death of the year and was transferred in Christian times to the feast of the proto-martyr. If a cock crows before daybreak it is a sign that mischievous fairies are about. A young man living near friends of mine in a southern country died suddenly some time ago. The neighbors deplored his sudden end, but, shaking their heads, said: “Well, he got a warning; a cock was lately heard crowing in the night near his house." When a person is sick, the "bird that

the increase in the produce of the season afforded by the discovery of new fields does not altogether compensate for the loss occasioned by the exhaustion of districts which have long been in use. With regard, however, to the number of men employed in the industry a considerable increase is recorded. It appears that whereas some years ago to each boat using the diving apparatus four divers were allotted out of a crew of fifteen, now six, and even as many as eight, divers are employed, the crew often numbering twenty all told.

For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage,

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & CO.

Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents.

From The Nineteenth Century.

ASPECTS OF TENNYSON.

.

II.

A PERSONAL REMINISCENCE.

his architect for the new house he proposed to build near Haslemere (“ Aldworth "" as it was finally called), and the consultations and calculations which naturally followed as to his way of livIF in the following pages I can con- ing, the plans, and the cost of building, tribute a few touches to the portrait of led to much business confidence. This Lord Tennyson which his contempo-presently extended to the field of his raries alone can paint, my object in own business transactions with his writing them will be accomplished. Of publishers, and from these in time to Tennyson the poet his poems will re- confidences about his work and art; main a 66 monument more lasting than until at length he came to tell me of brass" to the remotest future. But of poems not yet in being, but contemthe man himself "in his habit as he plated, and to talk about them and show lived" the likeness can only be por- me their progress. trayed by those who knew him person- Then, and for many years after, unally, and only now, while their memory der his roof or under mine, it was my of him is fresh, and before it passes great privilege to see and know himn away with them into oblivion. What intimately; and the more he was known would the world not give for such a the more impressive were his greatness, picture of Shakespeare by his friends as may now be made of Tennyson?

In a letter of his which lies before me he draws a distinction between personal things which may be told of a man before and after his death, and complains of the neglect of that distinction during his life. He recognized that after death a memoir of him was inevitable, and left the charge of it in its fulness to his son. What follow are but slight contributions towards any such complete biography, for only upon the few occasions which are here recorded did I make any note in writing of all Tennyson's talk heard and enjoyed for nearly thirty years.

More than thirty years ago I had the happiness of making his acquaintance. I was about to publish a little book on King Arthur, chiefly compiled from Sir Thomas Malory, and, as a stranger, had written to ask leave to dedicate it to him a leave which was directly granted.

For some time afterwards I knew him merely by correspondence, but being in the Isle of Wight one autumn I called to thank him personally for what he had written to me, and then first saw him face to face. I found him even kinder than his letters, and from that time our acquaintance grew gradually closer until it became intimate.

Before long he asked me to become

tenderness, and truth. The simplicity, sensitiveness, freshness, and almost divine insight of a child were joined in him, as in no other man, to the dignity, sagacity, humor, and knowledge of age at its noblest. An immense sanity underlay the whole-the perfection of common sense-and over all was the perpetual glamour of supreme genius."

Affectation was so alien from him that he spoke and acted exactly as he felt and thought everywhere and about everything. This at times would perplex and bewilder strangers. The shy were frightened at it; the affected took it for affectation (for, as he was fond of saying, "every man imputes himself "), the rough for roughness, the bears for bearishness; whereas it was but simple straightforward honesty, and as such of the deepest interest to all who could watch and learn in it the ways of nature with her greatest men.

The little affectatious and insincerities of life so troubled him, and his natural shyness, increased by his disabling short sight, so fought with his innate courtesy to all, that general society was always an effort and a burden to him. His fame increased the trouble, and he often told me how he wished he could have had all the money which his books had made without the notoriety. Even a single stranger was, as such and at first, always a trial to him,