those portions of their wilds which, on to reassure ourselves, by the appreciation account of their barrenness, are useless we feel for his speeches, that we have at to the white men as pasture-grounds; and least enough common sense left to recogthe principle we go on is to make a tribe nize it, when we see it incarnate in him. responsible for the behavior of its individ- And yet it is very doubtful how far the ual members. In truth, their almost com- quality is in its highest degrees an attracmunistic style of living utterly precludes tive or repulsive quality. Lord Derby the idea that any of their number could himself has made more speeches characundertake any enterprise against the terized by the very genius of common whites unknown to the others. The sense than all his contemporaries put tosquatter and native police officer there-gether, but is he really as popular as many fore condemn the whole." "I should think," remarked John, "that under this system tribes are being gradually annihilated." "Oh, not so much so as you would think," broke in Thompson. "The niggers are so active and cunning in making use of trees, rocks, long grass, etc. etc., as shelter, that very many escape altogether, after which the tribe remains quiet, probably for a considerable time." "Are they very savage in their natural state?" "They are; and yet when the humor seizes them they can be kind enough," returned the cattle-buyer, who had large experience on the outside country. "I've known men who were well treated when found by them utterly exhausted from want of food and water. I myself," he continued, "have reason to speak well of their kindness, for some of them suffered me to escape once I got among them, and showed me all the attention which lay in their power." "Give us the yarn, Thompson," urged Fitzgerald; "here's West dying to hear some romantic adventures." "All right," said the other; "it will give him an idea of what may happen to himself some of these days." So saying, be filled his pipe and began his tale. From The Spectator. HOW FAR IS COMMON SENSE ATTRACTIVE? LORD DERBY'S Speech at Liverpool on thrift was, like most of his speeches, a sort of concentrated essence of common sense, rising almost to genius. If administered in judicious instalments, like Liebig's extract of meat, an ordinary moral constitution might live upon it for many months; and that, we may say, is the prevailing character of Lord Derby's speeches. They give the impression of the common sense of the world having been, in some mysterious way, boiled down into Lord Derby, so that we have statesmen of very inferior lucidity? Is not common sense in its higher forms very like the admirable beef-tea lozenges which are made for invalids, or those who cannot wait for their regular meals,recognized as most valuable, but as too meaty? Look through English literature, and you can hardly find a general favorite anywhere whose common sense is his chief recommendation. Cobbett, perhaps, was popular in his time, with those for whom he wrote, but it was more his strong, coarse way of saying things than his common sense which made him so. De Foe, considering the astonishing force of his imagination, should have been twenty times as popular as he is, and would have been, we suspect, if the overpowering and obtrusive common sense of his writings had not almost concealed the force of his imagination from the general reader. The "pets" of English literature are never remarkable for common sense, very often for a certain whimsicality which is clearly inconsistent with the highest common sense. Charles Lamb, for instance, is loved by those who love him as De Foe has never been loved by any literary man. But Charles Lamb, without his whims, would have been hardly loved at all. Who ever heard of devotion to Benjamin Franklin or Joseph Hume? Dickens, who, with all his wonderful humor, shared almost every middle-class English taste, never once makes much of a man of sterling good sense in all his novels, unless it were Sam Weller, and that was for his jokes. He chooses something approaching to deficiency to make a fuss about, — Tom Pinch's dreamy unworldliness, or Little Nell's enthusiastic devotedness, or Mr. Toots's idiotic good-nature. We do not say that his choice of his favorites was good, we do not think so. But we do say that it reflected the English feeling, that, on the whole, common sense, though an admirable quality for ourselves, may easily be found in excess in our neighbors. No one ever heard of any one's saying that he loved a man for his common sense, though we have heard of loving a man for | even cloud it, while Mr. Cobden had no the oddest qualities, for his simplicity, such faculties. helplessness or helpfulness, for his fancy or imaginativeness, for his gaiety or melancholy, for his vividness or need of your vividness, for his frankness or for his reserve. All these qualities are the grounds of strong attraction often enough in life. And a certain class of authors have even taken great pains to paint the lovableness of positive deficiency in women,-i.e., of such deficiency as is not inconsistent with the awakening of new life under the spell of new affections. But we never but once met with a hero or heroine who was chiefly recommended for common sense; nor is the one exception, Miss Austen's Eleanor, in "Sense and Sensibility," at all a success, for so far as Eleanor is ostentatiously sensible we do not like her, and certainly like her best where she is least so. Indeed, in Miss Austen's effort to make sense charming, she does not succeed, though she did succeed eminently in making sensibility vexatious. But to go back to the field where, if anywhere, common sense of a high order is almost more than valuable, -priceless, the field of public life, is it really sense that attracts people the most? What has made Lord Beaconsfield so popular? Certainly not his common sense. Partly, perhaps, his want of it, partly his contemptuous daring, partly his glimmering of imagination, partly his wit. What has made Mr. Gladstone so popular? Chiefly his courage, his enthusiasm, his overflowing energy, his eager humanity. His incidental remark, during the Reform debates, that it was not right to be so panic-struck about admitting "our own flesh and blood" to the franchise, though it was never advanced as an argument, but only as a reply to the argumentation of panic, probably won Mr. Gladstone more followers than the ablest reasoning of his ablest speech. Again, what made Lord Palmerston popular, in a sense in which you could never have applied the term to either Lord John Russell or Sir Robert Peel? Certainly not his common sense chiefly, which, though real, was not unfrequently narrow; but his self-confidence, his ease, his humor. Mr. Bright, even in Mr. Cobden's lifetime, had certainly a far higher popularity than that lucidest and greatest of the politicians of common sense; and the reason was that though, on the whole, his common sense is vigorous enough, Mr. Bright has great faculties which throw his common sense into the shade, and sometimes The fact is that common sense, as such, is not essentially attractive, though a marked want of it may very often indeed be essentially repulsive, unless it is compensated by that attitude of dependence, that attitude of appeal for help, which often has a greater attraction for the strong, than any kind of positive gift. Common sense, even when it approaches genius, casts no brilliance over anything; but the light which is to fascinate human nature must have some brilliance or other of its own. Nothing, indeed,. can be more helpful than common sense, and all helpfulness is attractive; but then it is not the common sense which is attractive, but rather the helpfulness, which could not indeed exist without it, but need not be found with it. Common sense, therefore, is rather the condition of much that is attractive, than attractive itself. Taken without that passion of sympathy or serviceableness which transforms common sense into an instrument of healing, it is like common daylight when the sun is overclouded, which throws no charm over anything, but simply shows you what is there. Need or suffering may kindle a profound compassion. Power or grace may cast a spell over those who feel the presence of either. Sensibility may touch new chords of feeling. Audacity may stir the deepest delight. Docility and just self-confidence each of them has great attractive qualities. But sheer common sense, while it often dissipates illusions which people would gladly retain, has no glory of its own. It does not repel, except when it robs a man of a confidence of feeling which he ought never to have indulged; and then sometimes it does, for very few are grateful for having the film removed from their eyes. But taken alone, and without the moral qualities which give it a new significance, it does not attract. It performs the usual function of diminishing the errors and collisions of life; but without something more than itself, it earns no gratitude for doing so. It makes the vision of the world more just, but it does not, for the most part, make the scenery of the world more interesting; for, after all, men are so far idealists that they always imagine things somewhat brighter than they are, and it is common sense which undeceives them. On the other hand, taken in combination with any kind of marked power for making the world brighter than it was, good common sense is a condition of vast attractiveness, for then it guards the cre- | left Tobolsk with only a rouble (which ative power of genius from disastrous varies in value with the exchange, but blunders into which it would otherwise seldom exceeds half-a-crown) in her fall, and ensures to the idealizing mind a rare freedom of action. But even in this case, it is not the common sense which constitutes the spell, but only the common sense which saves the spell from being broken by collision with the world. It is always that which makes you conscious of new life which most attracts you. And common sense, without some greater moral quality as an ally, hardly ever effects this. It keeps you from expending yourself in futile efforts, but it does not renovate the springs of life. From The Argosy. THE EXILES OF SIBERIA. MANY years ago there appeared a book under the title of "Elizabeth; or, the Exiles of Siberia." For long it retained its popularity, and even in this day is still read. It is possible that some of our readers have shed tears over the sorrows of the heroic Elizabeth; and to such the following facts on which Madame Cottin founded her story may not be uninteresting. They are authentic, and extracted from letters written at the time from St. Petersburg. pocket, and very thinly clad, as the climate is much warmer than ours. She suffered exceedingly from cold as well as hunger; but God, she said, raised her up many kind friends, which gave her courage to pursue her journey, though it could not flatter her hopes of success, for she knew not the extent of her father's crimes for which he was banished. She never walked less than twenty-five, but oftener thirty miles a day, without meeting with any particular adventure on the road. She began each day's journey with the rising sun, and sought any shelter Providence might offer for the approaching night; she was frequently obliged to stop two or three days on account of her feet swelling through fatigue. Within a few versts of Moscow, she was received at a convent and kindly taken care of for a month. From that place she dated the end of her journey, as she obtained a conveyance from thence to St. Petersburg in a kabitky. She completed her journey in nine months. The ladies of the convent became so interested in her that they recommended her to the Princess Torrubetskoy, a lady famed for humanity, and to whom the poor girl told her wishes, hopes and fears. The princess, ever delighted with an opportunity to exercise her benevolence, now had a glorious one. "March, 1805. Such an instance of filial piety and affec"I dined on the 26th March at the tion in a person of her youth and sex, she Princess Torrubetskoy's, and there saw a thought so sublime that she determined most interesting young woman, not long to use every exertion in her power to since arrived from Siberia, which tremen- accomplish the wished-for object of her dous journey of four thousand versts journey. She therefore immediately wrote (miles) she performed on foot, quite alone, a letter and petition to the emperor, and begging her bread all the way. She which was presented by Mr. Novasilgoff. came here with the laudable intention of The emperor, who is all goodness, delayed throwing herself at the emperor's feet not a moment in sending for the young and petitioning him to show mercy to her woman, who appeared before him, tremaged father, who was banished during the bling with weakness and anxiety. From reign of Catherine. She had formed the this she was soon relieved by the emresolution when only sixteen years old, peror, who, in the kindest manner told but her parents protesting against it, she her, without enquiring the crime of the was obliged to submit, though without parent, he pardoned it, be it what it might, abandoning her project, for she never for the sake of such a daughter. ceased to supplicate their permission, un- then gave her two thousand roubles, and til, wearied with her unceasing prayers, presented her to the empress, who gave they at last consented. At the age of her three hundred roubles, and settled twenty-two she commenced her arduous two hundred roubles a year pension on undertaking; they gave her their bless- her for life, with permission for herself ing, and all the money they possessed, which amounted to ten copecks; and soliciting a few copecks more from their equally poor but charitable neighbors — for there are no rich people there she LETTER THe first. He and family to live where they pleased. The dowager empress has ordered her picture to be taken, which will soon get into the print-shops. I will take care to get you a good copy. Her name is Praskovy Gre gorioa Lupulova, which in English means | state of health, the effects of her sufferPauline, daughter of Gregory Lupulova.ings. A very large subscription has She had on a grey calico gown, with long been collected for her, but I fear she will sleeves, and full tops, like the English, a not long enjoy it. She has sent for her large black crape handkerchief on her parents, and intends meeting them at neck, with a chaplet of beads and cross Catherinburg, and retiring to a convent. - all of which were given her at the con- I enquired if she meant to embrace a vent near Moscow. On her head was a religious life. She smiled and said, white muslin handkerchief, twisted care-No; her gratitude to God and the lessly round, and the ends tied under the emperor was unbounded, and would be as chin. She has a very soft pleasing coun- long as she lived. There was no necestenance, but not handsome. So much sity for her to be a nun, to pray at stated interest has her story excited in St. Peters- times; her heart was in constant volunburg, and the particular notice taken of tary prayer, and God knew with what sinher by the imperial family, it is become cerity.' quite the rage to entertain her. The poor girl's head will be turned; she goes from one nobleman's house to another, staying a week, or sometimes longer, at each. General Koutousoff has bespoken her, and she comes to us in about a month." LETTER THE SECOND. "PAULINE is with us. I find her very amiable, and much better informed than LETTER THE THIRD. "I AM quite vexed to find the dowager empress has strictly forbidden Pauline's picture to be made public. She has had one placed in her own cabinet, and a copy sent to each of the imperial family; but I am determined you shall have a likeness of her, as on her return she has promised we shall see her again before she finally settles; and a friend who visits here, a will take it for me." very eminent artist, has assured me he could be supposed possible in one born LETTER THE FOURTH. "I AM happy in the opportunity of Mr. Gordon's return to England, to send you the promised sketch of the interesting Pauline. It is an excellent likeness, and Ï hope you will receive it safely. You will see by her dress she is now in a convent. It is situated in lower Novogorod. Her father and mother are pensioners with her, in the same house. She says she feels herself the happiest creature in the world." "She is since dead; supposed to have entirely broken her constitution by fatigue and anxiety, at the early age of twenty ORIGIN OF PLANTS. Cabbage grew wild in Siberia; buckwheat originated in Siberia; celery originated in Germany; the potato is a native of Peru; the onion originated in Egypt; tobacco is a native of South America; millet was first discovered in India; the nettle is a native of Europe; the citron is a native of Asia; oats originated in north Africa; rye came originally from Siberia; parsley was first discovered in Sardinia; the parsnip is a native of Arabia; the sunflower was brought from Peru; spinach was first cultivated in Arabia; the apple is from Europe; the horse-chestnut is a native of Thibet; the quince came from the island of Crete; the radish is a native of China and Japan; the pear is supposed to be of Egyptian origin; the horse-radish came from the south of Europe. Chicago Medical Journal. 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