One day the poor woman and her idiot boy were missed from the market-place, and the charity of some of the neighbours induced them to visit her hovel.  They found her dead on her sorry couch, and the boy sitting beside her, holding her hand, swinging and singing his pitiful lay more sorrowfully than he had ever done before.  He could not speak, but only utter a brutish gabble! sometimes, however, he looked as if he comprehended something of what was said.  On this occasion, when the neighbours spoke to him, he looked up with the tear in his eye, and clasping the cold hand more tenderly, sank the strain of his mournful “pal-lal” into a softer and sadder key.

The spectators, deeply affected, raised him from the body, and he surrendered his hold of the earthy hand without resistance, retiring in silence to an obscure corner of the room.  One of them, looking towards the others, said to them, “Poor wretch! what shall we do with him?” At that moment he resumed his chant, and lifting two handfuls of dust from the floor, sprinkled it on his head, and sang with a wild and clear heart-piercing pathos, “pal-lal—­pal-lal.”—­Blackwood’s Magazine.

* * * * *

ENGLISH HEADS.

Comparative estimate respecting the dimensions of the head of the inhabitants in several counties of England.

The male head in England, at maturity, averages from 6-1/2 to 7-5/8 in diameter; the medium and most general size being 7 inches.  The female head is smaller, varying from 6-3/8 to 7, or 7-1/2, the medium male size.  Fixing the medium of the English head at 7 inches, there can be no difficulty in distinguishing the portions of society above from those below that measurement.

London.—­The majority of the higher classes are above the medium, while amongst the lower it is very rare to find a large head.

Spitalfields Weavers have extremely small heads, 6-1/2, 6-5/8, 6-3/4, being the prevailing admeasurement.

Coventry.—­Almost exclusively peopled by weavers, the same facts are peculiarly observed.

Hertfordshire, Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, contain a larger proportion of small heads than any part of the empire; Essex and Hertfordshire, particularly.  Seven inches in diameter is here, as in Spitalfields and Coventry, quite unusual—­6-5/8 and 6-1/2 are more general; and 6-3/8, the usual size for a boy of six years of age, is frequently to be met with here in the full maturity of manhood.

Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.—­An increase of size of the usual average is observed; and the inland counties, in general, are nearly upon the same scale.

Devonshire and Cornwall.—­The heads of full sizes.

Herefordshire.—­Superior to the London average.

Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cumberland, and Northumberland, have more large heads, in proportion, than any part of the country.