A

A RAILWAY PANIC.

N adventure like the one here graphically related could not occur in one of our large American cars. Two persons only in a carriage on a railroad are not frequently found in this country. In England the case is different. The writer begins her story with this apt quotation :

"If this were played upon a stage, now, I conld condemn it as an improbable fiction."Twelfth Night.

"Do you think I look like a madman?" I was falling into a train of pleasant thought when these words, uttered in a clear, steady voice by my opposite neighbor, fell upon my ear. I started and looked him in the face. He was a small, sallow, intelligent-looking man, muffled from head to foot in a superb Spanish cloak lined with sables. His tone of voice was perfectly composed and matter-of-fact.

"Indeed, sir," I replied, with some surprise, "no such idea occurred to me.' "But I am mad, though!" he retorted in the same quiet, confidential way.

I was in no humor for levity just then, and as this was so evidently an attempt at practical joking, I made a brief reply to that effect, and looked out of the window. It was an express train, going at the rate of fifty miles an hour; every moment bore me further from one who was inexpressibly dear to me, and I felt that I never wished for silence and solitude more than at that moment. The worst of it was that, if this man had made up his mind to talk, I could not help hearing him, and there was no one else for him to address, since we were alone together in the carriage.

"Yes," he continued, "I really am mad. I have just escaped-just escaped -not an hour ago. Shall I tell you how I did it?"

I continued to look out at the landscape flying past, and feigned not to hear him.

"I was not always mad; O, dear, no! I do not exactly remember now what it was that drove me to it, but I think it was something connected with Lord Palmerston and the ace of clubs. No-yes-0, yes! the ace of clubs had certainly something to do with it. However, that is of no consequence now. I had a fine house, and gardens, and horses, and servants, and a wife-aha! such a pretty, gentle, loving little wife! And I loved her, too

—nobody knows how I loved her—only I wanted to murder her. I loved her so that I wanted to murder her! Wasn't that a rare joke, eh?"

I began by this time to feel seriously uncomfortable. It was getting slowly dusk, and my companion's face, composed as it was, wore an odd expression that I did not quite like.

“Pray, sir,” I said, with affected carelessness, "let us change the subject. If you insist on conversing with me, we may as well choose a more agreeable theme."

"Agreeable! Why, could anything be more agreeable? Well, I will continue It was a long time before they found it out, I hid it so well; but I knew it well enough, for I used to see faces everywhere, in the furniture, up in the trees, in the bushes; and I knew they could not really be there, and that I was mad at last; for I had always expected it, ay, ever since I was a boy at school! Somehow they did find it out, though, in spite of all my caution, and I was so cautious, so cautious! They found it out, and one day two men came and seized me in my garden-my own garden! and took me to the mad-house! O, it was a dreary place, that mad-house! They shut me up by myself in a bare, cold room, with never a fire to warm me, though it was bitter winter. The windows were barred across with iron, through which the daylight shone, as if through the ribs of a skeleton; and every night-would you believe it?-every night there came a fearful shape and sat there, mocking and mowing at me in the moonbeams! That was a hell indeed! One night, when I could bear it no longer, I rushed upon the shape, and fought and struggled with it, and dashed it up against the hard walls-and then the keepers came and tore me from it, and bound me down with cords upon my bed. I heard them say to one another that I had tried to destroy myself; but I knew better; it was the shape I struggled with-it was the shape I tried to kill! Only they could not see it. Yet there it still sat, mocking, mocking, mocking, all the long night through; and they watching in my room, and yet so blind that they could not perceive it! I do not know how long this fury of mine lasted, but I think it must have been a weary time. At last, one night, I woke from a troubled sleep, and lo! the shape was gone! Ah, then I

part of the house, and that I required air, or I should never recover. And then did I not laugh, even though I was so ill, to think how I had outwitted him. My new room was pleasant, and looked over a garden. At the end of the garden was a railway. By this railway I made up my mind to escape. Aha! what joy to be flying along behind that eager engineflying away, away, and never stopping! Soh! I knew well that I must have money to do this. Money! where, how could I get money? You will see presently. I did not mean to die, you know, so I ate more now, and got better. It is not every one, let me tell you, that is brave enough to endure starvation as I did. Madmen are no cowards! Well, they used to let me walk in the garden after awhile, but with the keeper always beside me. By and by the doctor began to speak of my release as of a thing that might be in time

wept for joy that I was free from it, and then I was proud, very proud, for it was gone, and I had conquered it at last! Well, time went on, and I resolved I would escape. How do you suppose I went to work? Why, I pretended to be cured of my madness. Every day the doctor came to see me. But not me alone; I could hear him going to every room all along the corridor, and so I knew when he was coming long before he got to my door. I must deceive him, I knew, as well as everybody else. O, it was a hard task, but I did it! The worst of my madness was, that I could not help thinking of the oddest things, and when I talked my tongue would utter them. However, I schooled myself to talk to him. I practiced speaking in a calm, low voice; I studied what I should say; I accustomed myself to rise and bow, as if he were entering the room. I did not speak tnuch, but what I said was reasonable-I knew it was reasonable. I used to say that I felt better; that I was tired of the confinement; that I hoped shortly to be permitted to return home, and sometimes (that was a clever thought) I asked anxiously after my wife. One day she came to see me. You cannot think what an effort her visit cost me. She looked so pale, and timid, and pretty that day-and I forced myself to sit down by her; to say to her all the things I had learned to say to the doctor; to take her hand in mine; and-0, I longed to kill her so the whole time! But I did not. Ah, no! I even kissed her cheek at parting, though I could have yelled aloud for rage as I bent over her. I don't know whether they still suspected me, but I was not released, for all my pains. So I determined to be ill. I knew the doctor would find me out if I only pretended; therefore, I starved myself. Ha ha! wasn't that fine! This is how I did it. Every day, instead of eating the food they brought to me, I put half of it under a loose board in the floor, and half I left, saying that I felt ill and could eat no more. Each day I left more and more, so that it should seem as if my appetite grew constantly worse. And then I got ill—only I did eat just a morsel now and then to keep me from dying. I suffered fearfully, but still I played my part out, and met the doctor's eye with one as quiet as his own. At last he said that I must be removed to another

and then-then, although the end for which I had been working was almost within my grasp, I felt an irresistible power compelling me to escape, and not to wait for their tame deliverance. Day and night I waited and watched to do it.

"The opportunity came soon. One morning when I was walking with the keeper in the garden, who should come out but the doctor, and what should he do

the senseless fool! - but order the keeper to go in, saying that he would walk with me this time! O, how my heart leaped and danced within me when he said it! But I kept very still-very still and calm, listening to the man's footsteps on the gravel walk till he was quite, quite gone. I have told you that the railway crossed the bottom of the garden. Well, toward this spot I went, (carelessly, as if by accident, you know,) and he with

me.

Could he but have seen them for an instant, he would have read my purpose. Just then we reached the extremity of the garden, and stood looking down from the high bank upon the level train-lines below. There was nothing but a low hedge between us and the road; in an instant turned upon him.

"Die!' I shrieked. 'Die now! am mad, I am mad; and I have sworn to do it!'

"I had the strength of ten in my arms. I seized and closed with him, and dashed his skull against the tree-trunk by which we were standing. O, it was a glorious vengeance! I beat the smooth smile out of his face till his own children would not have known him, and then I stamped and danced upon him and laughed loudly, loudly! Suddenly I heard the distant whistle of the train at the village station far away. There was not a moment to be lost! I tore the watch from his pocket, and I took the purse with the gold! and then, ha! ha ha! I flung the body over upon the lines, and the train came swiftly on and on, and crushed him as he lay! Was not that a revenge, and would any but a madman have thought of it? Tell me that! tell me that!"

I was so frozen with horror that I sat as if petrified, and could not utter a word.

"Now you want to know how I came here," continued the maniac more quietly, after a momentary pause. "Well, he had this cloak on before the struggle. I wrapped it round me and went straight through the gardens and out of the gate, past his very lodge-keeper; and, thanks to the high collar, none of them knew me -for we were much of a height, the doctor and me. Once out of sight of the house-the dreary, cruel house!--I seemed as if I had wings upon my feet, I fled away so fast. The people in the streets of the town stared at me, but what matter? I did not care for that. I mingled with the crowd at the station and paid my fare like the rest with-ha! ha!-with the doctor's money! But there was blood on the gold. I tried to rub it off, but I could not. It came again as fast as I removed it, and I thought they would see it when I put the money down; they did not, though, and here I am free, free! Now, answer me, do you really believe that I'm a madman ?"

He put his face quite close to mine as

Well, yes," I said at last, with quivering lips; "I-I think you must be mad."

"I'll prove it to you," he whispered, bending still closer to me. "How do you think I'll prove it, now ?" I shook my head.

"I cannot tell," I said, faintly.

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By murdering you as I murdered him! What! did you think I meant to let you live, when I told you all about it? Live to betray me, and take me back to the No, no! Madmen are brave, madmen are cunning, madmen are strong!"

-.

I saw that force could avail me nothing here. In great emergencies I always regain my presence of mind. This time it did not fail me, and I was cool in an instant.

"Stop," I said calmly, fixing my eyes full upon him. "You have not told me all yet. If you are determined to have my life, it's only fair that you should finish your story first."

"That's true," said the madman, with an appearance of curiosity. "What have I left out?"

"You have not explained to me about Lord Palmerston and the ace of clubs."

"I did n't think you'd care to hear that," said he, doubtfully.

"I'd rather hear that than any other part."

It was so dark now that nothing of the country beyond was visible, and the lamp cast a sickly glare through the carriage. I knew that we must be within a short distance of the London terminus. If I could only divert his attention for a little while longer, I was saved! I determined to keep him in conversation if possible.

"Lord Palmerston began it, you must know," he continued, "and the ace of clubs finished it."

"Did you know Lord Palmerston ?" I asked.

"We're waitin' for him. It's been telegraphed along the line that he 's murdered some one down at H- and he's awful dangerous."

He had ventured out by this time, and was standing irresolutely beside the carriage door, as if not knowing where to

turn.

As for me, I could only point to him, the power of speech was gone; and just as they had captured him, I fell senseless to the ground.

NEW METALS.

times been linked with superstitious associations in the minds of men. The one pursuing his search in the depths of the earth, in darkness and uncertainty, only ministers to the demands of the other for a perpetual supply of those strange stony masses out of which the living metal is drawn ; and before chemistry had explained every change which the ore underwent, from its first appearance on the dressing floor to its fabrication in the hand of the artisan, where, in all the range of art, were transformations to be found so complete, mysterious, and astonishing as these? Let any one stand before a blast-furnace ; let him wonder at the amount of mingled ore and limestone and coal that are poured into it by the wagon-load in a constant stream sixty feet above his head; let him watch the perpetual overflow of slag, a veritable lava, which slowly emerges from the bottom of the furnace at his side; and let him await the moment when the rough molds are ready, and the channel cleared, and the arm of the foreman is bared to give the final blow that is to pierce the wall of clay that supports the molten metal within; then let him stand by as the luminous flood of iron pours down, true to the channel cut for it, yet, as it were, resenting the restraint, and momentarily flinging from its surface a myriad stars of fire, until it flows tranquilly into each trough impressed in the sand for its reception, and lies in a series of furrows to cool into its well-known form of "pig" iron. And this process has been repeated each day without one day's intermission, for it may be thirty years, from that one furnace; and the flames have risen for that period from its mouth, rendering

as

the ore, scrutinize it with the microscope, it is still a stone, no particle of metal can you find there. Examine the metal on the other hand; it has nothing of the earthy in it. Resonant, and bright, and flexible, and strong; whence come these newly gotten powers? They do not reside in the ore, but seem impressed upon its transfigured substance by the will of the operator; now as "soft-iron," pure and malleable, tough, infusible, bending without fracture, fibrous, and capable of being welded bit to bit, like sealing-wax, at a sufficient temperature; now "cast iron," less pure in its chemical nature from containing carbon (the chemist's charcoal) as a constituent, brittle, sharp in its outline, crystalline in its structure, readily melted and cast in molds, breaking, but never bending. How opposite are its characters. Yet we may see it again, in the form of steel, assuming nearly all these characters, or surrendering any one of them once more at a moment's notice: for now it shall exhibit, in the most exalted degree, brittleness or toughness, a brittleness unbending or an elasticity unrivaled, a hardness adamantine or a softness which

yields like brass to the engraver, according as the cunning workman shall impose the one or the other "temper" on its docile substance. And so iron becomes the ready servant that is to work out the vast demands of commerce; it is now the mainspring of our time-pieces, and the exquisitely delicate regulator of their every vibration it is no less the sinew and the bone of the iron horse, and the rein that guides him; the skeleton of the bridge with its untiring span, and of the ship whose keel can never strain; at once