of cooks, packs of dogs of various kinds, and above 200 led horses.  Mezeray says that he encouraged and maintained sorcerers to discover hidden treasures, and corrupted young persons of both sexes, that he might attach them to him; and afterwards killed them for the sake of their blood, which was necessary to form his charms and incantations.  Such horrid excesses are credible when we recollect the age of ignorance and barbarity in which they were practised.  He was at length (for some state crime against the Duke of Brittany) sentenced to be burnt alive in a field at Nantes, in 1440; but the Duke, who witnessed the execution, so far mitigated the sentence, that he was first strangled, then burnt, and his ashes interred.  He confessed, before his death, “that all his excesses were derived from his wretched education,” though descended from one of the most illustrious families in the kingdom.

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EFFECT OF STEAM-COACHES.

In a recent No. of the Voice of Humanity, (already noticed in the Mirror,) occurs the following: 

We doubt whether our labours to accomplish either of the objects of this publication, if ever so successful, could produce such complete mitigation (rather abolition) of animal suffering as the substitution of locomotive machinery for the inhuman, merciless treatment of horses in our stage-coaches.  The man who started the first steam-carriage was the greatest benefactor to the cause of humanity the world ever had.  But in a political view the subject is very important.  We have a superabundant population with a very limited territory, while each horse requires a greater quantity of land than would be sufficient to support a man.  How extensive then would be the beneficial effect of withdrawing two-thirds of the horses and appropriating the land required for them to the rearing of cattle and to agricultural produce?  The Liverpool and Manchester steam-coaches have driven fourteen horse-coaches off the road.  Each of the horse-coaches employed twelve horses—­there being three stages, and a change of four horses each stage.  The total horses employed by these coaches was therefore 168.  Now each horse consumes, on an average, in pasture, hay, and corn, annually, the produce of one and a half acre.  The whole would thus consume the produce of 252 acres.  Suppose, therefore, “every man had his acre” upon which to rear his family, which some politicians have deemed sufficient, the maintenance of 252 families is gained to the country by these steam-coaches.  The average number in families is six, that is, four children, besides the father and mother.—­The subsistence of 1,512 individuals is thus attained.

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[Illustration:  DIALLING.]

(For the Mirror.)

The following method of constructing a dial, may be novel and interesting to many of those readers of the Mirror who are fond of that ancient art; whilst its simplicity and the great ease with which it may be constructed, will render it acceptable to all.