reads how thoroughly a century ago the entire theory of the modern electric telegraph was comprehended; for a most remarkable premonition, so to speak, of this great device is contained in a letter recently brought to public notice, written by the abbe Barthelemy (the once famous author of the Voyage of Anacharsis) to the marchioness du Deffand.  “I often think,” says the abbe, writing under date of Chanteloup, 8th August, 1772, “of an experiment which would be a very happy one for us.  They say that if two clocks have their hands equally magnetized, you need only to move the hands of one to make those of the other revolve in the same direction; so that, for example, when one strikes twelve, the other will denote the same hour.  Now, suppose that artificial magnets can some day be so improved as to communicate their power from here to Paris:  you shall procure one of these clocks, and we will have another.  Instead of the hours, we will mark on the two dials the letters of the alphabet.  Every day at a certain hour we will turn the hands.  M. Wiart will put the letters together, and will read them thus:  ’Good-morning, dear little girl!  I love you more tenderly than ever.’  That will be grandmother’s turn at the clock.  When my turn comes, I shall say about the same thing.  Besides, we could arrange to have the first motion of the hand strike a bell, to give warning that the oracle is about to speak.  The fancy pleases me wonderfully.  It would soon become corrupted, to be sure, by being applied to spying in war and in politics; but it would still be very pleasant in the intercourse of friendship.”  In 1774—­that is, two years after Barthelemy’s letter—­Lesage, a Genevese professor of physics, guardedly intimated that an apparatus could be constructed to fulfill these vague suggestions.  There were a few experiments in electro-magnetism during the succeeding half century.  It was reserved for our own Morse to put into practical application the grand system which the abbe Barthelemy had so curiously foreshadowed in a freak of fancy.

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Endless are the blandishments and the seductive devices of trade.  A famous dry-goods store lately startled the shopping community of Paris by opening a free restaurant, a billiard-hall and a reading-room for the use and behoof of its customers.  When ladies go to purchase at this place, while preparing their lists a polite clerk escorts them to the buffet, which is set out with ices, cakes, madeira wine, and so forth; and, having ended their repast, they are again escorted to the counter at which they desire to buy.  But sometimes ladies bring their escorts—­husbands, brothers or other useful bankers and purveyors of lucre—­and the question arises, therefore, how to provide for them.  The device of the reading-room and the billiard-table is interposed for this purpose, and a servant in livery informs them when the buying is completed, and when their own duties—­namely,