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that upon this occasion the officers of the 4. On another occasion Lamb was ob- army should take the oath of fidelity to served to enter the office hastily and in an the Republic. It is therefore probable excited manner, assumed no doubt for the that we shall witness here next June a occasion, and to leave by an opposite door. ceremony like that of the Federation held He appeared no more that day. He stated on the Champ de Mars on the first annithe next morning, in explanation, that as versary of the fall of the Bastille, when he was passing through Leadenhall Mar- Louis XVI. accepted the tricolor on the ket on his way to the office he accidentally altar of the country, Monsignor de Talleytrod on a butcher's heel. "I apologized," rand, Bishop of Autun, officiating. On said Lamb, "to the butcher, but the latter the same Champ de Mars, fifteen years retorted: 'Yes, but your excuses won't afterwards December 5, 1805 there cure my broken heel, and me,' said was a grand distribution of eagles by Nahe, seizing his knife, I'll have it out of poleon. Lamb fled from the butcher and you.'" The question of the flag has on several in dread of his pursuit dared not remain occasions been a serious one. Not to go for the rest of the day at the India House. back to the cowl of St. Martin in the fifth This story was accepted as a humorous nor to the oriflamme of the seventh cenexcuse for taking a holiday without leave.tury, I may remind you that in the days of 5. An unpopular head of a department Louis XIV. the marshals who held high came to Lamb one day and inquired, "Pray, Mr. Lamb, what are you about?" "Forty, next birthday," said Lamb. "I don't like your answer," said his chief. "Nor I your question," was Lamb's reply.

ALGERNON BLACK.

From The Pall Mall Gazette.
THE FRENCH FLAG.

PARIS, March 11.

A COUPLE of months ago orders for French colors were given - one hundred and fifty-nine flags and one hundred and nineteen standards for the active army, and one hundred and forty-five flags for the territorial army; for since the FrancoGerman war the troops have only had temporary colors made of ordinary bunting instead of silk. The red, white, and blue will naturally remain, but the staff will be surmounted by a lance-head, a laurel wreath, and the letters R. F., standing for République Française," and the device will be " Country and Honor." The tricolor has the advantage of being the emblem of the Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republicans; but the Orleanist staff was surmounted by a cock, and that of the empire by an eagle, and the devices have also varied. The device adopted in the days of the First Revolution was, "Discipline and Obedience to the Law;" under Louis Philippe it was "Liberty and Public Order;" and under the empire, as now, "Country and Honor." It appears that the new colors are to be handed to the troops on the eighth of June, which, being Trinity Sunday, is a great holiday here;

command, like those of the army corps to-day, had for their emblem the white flag. The king, jealous of the power of these officers, deprived them of their emblem, and adopted it himself. Hence the white flag became definitively the standard of the monarchy. After the First Empire the white flag was naturally restored, but it was never popular; and so great was the irritation of the court when Béranger published his "Vieux Drapeau" that the songster was prosecuted and sent to prison for nine months. In the following lines he had ventured to foretell the reappear. ance of the tricolor :

Leipsic hath seen our eagles fall,

Drunk with renown, worn out with glory;
But with the emblem of old Gaul
Crowning our standards, we'll recall

The brightest days of Valmy's story.

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And Béranger had hardly regained his freedom when Charles X. was driven from Paris, and the tricolor was once more unfurled "with the emblem of old Gaul,' or the cock, to crown it. The short and spirited proclamation drawn up by M. Thiers on behalf of Louis Philippe, and placarded through Paris, ran thus: "Charles X. cannot return to Paris; he has caused the blood of the people to flow. The Republic would expose us to fearful divisions, and would get us into trouble with Europe. The Duke of Orleans is a prince devoted to the cause of the Revolution. The Duke of Orleans never fought against us. The Duke of Orleans was at Jemmapes. The Duke of Orleans carried the tricolor under fire; the Duke of Or leans can alone carry it again; we will have no one else. The Duke of Orleans

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has accepted the Charter. It is for the generals have written in high-flowing terms French people to offer him the crown." of the flag, which, according to Marshal In 1848 the flag question gave rise to a Saxe, was more than an emblemvery animated debate in the Republican religion. Napoleon declared that where Chamber, in consequence of the adoption the flag was France was; but in a celeof the red flag having been proposed. In brated order of the day he wrote: On the the end it was determined to stick to the principle that the flag is France, soldiers tricolor, but to change the device to "Lib-get married by the corporal; this scandal erty, Fraternity, and Equality." Under must be put a stop to." i may add a word the Second Empire the eagles naturally with regard to the captured flags which returned; and it may be remembered that used to be hung in the Cathedral, and nothing told more against Marshal Bazaine hung so thickly by some commanders that on his trial than the fact of his not having Marshal Luxemburg was nicknamed the destroyed his colors before capitulating at upholsterer of Notre Dame. The trophies Metz. In 1873 the flag question once were afterwards removed to the Invalides, more assumed great importance; and it is where they were all burned by Marshal probable that Henri V. might now be sit- Serrurier in 1814, lest they should fall into ting on the throne of France had he not the hands of the Allies. In 1851, at the insisted on the restoration of the white funeral of Marshal Sebastiani, two hunflag. It is curious to remark that during dred and thirty-four more flags were acthe time the tricolor was absent from cidentally burned. Among the trophies France that is to say, from 1815 to 1830 which were rescued on that occasion was it floated in India, where it was adopted a union-jack, captured on board an English by the king of Lahore, Runjeet Singh, brig in 1813; eight pashas' tails, taken in whose troops were being organized by Egypt by General Bonaparte; and a few General Allard. A great many illustrious other interesting relics.

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agent at Asaba into a country hitherto unvis. ited, lying between the Niger and Yoruba. We are also informed that the Rev. G. M. Gordon has gone to Quettah with General Biddulph, and hopes to be able to penetrate into the interior of Afghanistan.

LORD AUGUSTUS LOFTUS has recently for- THE January number of the Church Missionwarded to the Foreign Office, from St. Peters-ary Intelligencer contains a paper, entitled burg, a translation of a Russian letter from "Our Mission to the Afghans," which furCabul, descriptive of the journey of General nishes much matter of present interest regardStoletoff's mission from Samarcand, which ing Afghanistan and the manners and customs supplies some notes of interest respecting the of the people. This is followed by an article country traversed. The road selected for on the rediscovery and discovery of Africa. reaching the Oxus was through Huzar, Shira- From the "Notes of the Month we learn bad, and Chushkogosar, which was traversed that Bishop Crowther, of the Niger mission, in five days. On this route the mission passed is about to form a new station at Shonga, through the famous defile known in ancient eighty miles higher up the Kworra than Egan, times under the name of the "Iron Gates," the present furthest station, and that an imand now called Burghasse Khana. The mis-portant journey has been made by a native sion crossed the Oxus in very primitive boats, and marching by night, passed over a sandy arid steppe, and next morning reached Kurshiak settlement, situated in a cultivated country. They made three stages before reaching Mizar and Sheriff, where great crowds thronged the streets, and gazed with curiosity on the people from the distant north. After leaving Tashurgan, the party reached the spurs of the Hindu Kush, and journeyed to Cabul during twenty days. Ascending at first in gentle slopes, the Hindu Kush gradually rises higher and higher, forming, amidst its frequent passes, terraces of increasing height. After traversing a series of such terraces, the mission reached the elevated Barian Valley (8,500 feet), near which are the Kalu and Great Tran_Passes (13,000 feet). Passing the famous Bamian idols, chiselled on the face of the rock, they emerged from the last-named pass, and then descended from the Ugly Pass into the Cabul Darya Valley, at a place three days' journey from the capital of Afghanistan.

IN the Colonies and India we find a note respecting the employment of sheep as beasts of burden. In eastern Turkistan and Thibet, for instance, borax is borne on the backs of sheep over the mountains to Leh, Kangra, and Rampur on the Sutlej. Borax is found at Rudok, in Changthan, of such excellent quality that only twenty-five per cent. is lost in the process of refining. The Rudok borax is carried on sheep to Rampur, which travel at the rate of two miles a day; but, notwithstanding the superior quality and the demand for it in Europe, the expenses attending its transport seriously hamper the trade, which, but for the sheep, would hardly exist at all.

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II. SARAH DE BERENGER. By Jean Ingelow, Advance Sheets,
III. BOURBON,

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Fraser's Magazine,

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Gardener's Magazine,

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

An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. 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.

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From Macmillan's Magazine.
THE PROGRESS OF GREECE.

"Modern Greece." Lastly, Mr. Lewis Sergeant, in his "New Greece," has essayed a double task — to show statistically how far Greece has advanced, and to show historically why it has advanced no further. Detailed criticism would be out of place here. Mr. Sergeant's book cannot fail to be useful in making the broad facts concerning Greece better known to the British public. It is the only compendium of recent information on Greece which exists in English; and we welcome it accordingly.

In the following pages only a few of the salient points in the condition of modern Greece can be noticed. The facts and views presented here are derived both from study and from personal observation. They are offered merely in the hope that some readers may be induced to seek fuller sources of knowledge regarding a people who, by general consent, are destined to play a part of increasing importance in the East.

"A STRUGGLE, equal in duration to the war which Homer sung, and in individual valor not perhaps inferior, has at last drawn to a glorious close; and Greece, though her future destiny be as yet obscure, has emerged from the trial regenerate and free. Like the star of Merope, all sad and lustreless, her darkness has at length disappeared, and her European sisters haste to greet the returning brightness of the beautiful and long-lost Pleiad." These are the closing words of a book which, since the appearance of Finlay's work, has probably had few English readers, Emerson's "History of Modern Greece;" when they were written in 1830 Capodistria was still president of the new State, and three years were yet to pass before King Otho should arrive at Nauplia. During the half century which has nearly elapsed since then, "the European sisters" have not always been so gracious to "the long-lost Pleiad;" indeed they have sometimes been on the verge of hinting that the constellation which they adorn would have been nearly as brilliant without her. But at least there can no longer be any excuse for alleging that Greece has been a failure without examining the facts. Her record is before the world. The necessary statistics are easy of access to any one who may desire to form an independent judgment. The last few years have been especially fertile in works replete with information on the political, social, and economic condition of the country. Amongst these may be mentioned the work of M. Moraitinis, "La Grèce telle qu'elle est," the work of M. Mansolas, "La Grèce à l'Exposition Universelle de Paris en 1878; " the essay of M. | members. The Greek peasantry was too Tombasis, “La Grèce sous le point de vue poor and too wretched to aim at more than agricole," and an interesting little book, a bare subsistence by the rudest methods full of information and of acute criticism, of husbandry. It should never be forgotby Mr. Tuckerman, formerly minister of ten in estimating what Greece has done in the United States at Athens," The Greeks this department, as in others during the of To-day." It is often instructive to com- last forty years, that in the earlier part of pare Mr. Tuckerman's observations with this period progress was necessarily very those made more than twenty years ago by slow. The first workers had to construct his countryman, Mr. H. M. Baird, who, everything for themselves, or even to undo after residing for a year at Athens and the work of the past before they could get travelling both in northern Greece and in a clear start. Hence, when the rate of the Morea, embodied the results in his recent progress is found to have been

The prosperity of Greece must always depend mainly on agriculture. No question is more vital for Greece at this moment than that of recognizing the causes which have checked progress in this direction, and doing what can be done to remove them. It was with agriculture as with every other form of national effort in the newly established kingdom: it had to begin almost at the beginning. The Turks had left the land a wilderness. The Egyptian troops in the Peloponnesus, after burning the olives and other inflammable trees, had cut down those which, like the fig-trees, could less easily be destroyed by fire. There was scarcely a family in the country which had not lost some of its

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