"What madness is this?" cried the magistrate, irritated by the reports he received. Have the panguls, from being religious disciplinarians, come to hatch plots against the State ?

"Yes, it seems to be madness with a method now,” replied his deputy. "They are propagating widely that the British Government is drawing to a close, and that Teepoo Fakir has been chosen by God to be his especial vicegerent in the district of Sherepore and the hills; and bands of armed panguls are parading through the district in every direction, exciting the rest of the ryots to rebellion."

"We must lose no time, then, to bring them to reason. I never expected that they would become so troublesome and turbulent, and had hitherto looked upon them rather with compassion than anger; but the excitement has now reached a height that makes further forbearance criminal."

Constrained to take prompt measures to put down the disturbance, the magistrate marched against the panguls at the head of a military party, the result of which was the loss of several lives and the destruction of some seventy-six villages, followed by the apprehension of the principal offenders, which at once restored tranquillity to the district.

"Now, Teepoo, what did you mean by this pitiful game you

started?"

"What game, sir? I don't understand you."

"The game of treason and rebellion, man, with which you stand charged !"

"I am guilty of neither, sir. I am possessor of a fakir's durgah, the same which had belonged to my father. The people who visit me there offer Srini as to a saint, and I confess that there were some very large gatherings there lately, but only to obtain my blessings that their hearts' wishes might be fulfilled."

"What was the burden of their wishes? Were they not particularly anxious to overturn the Company's raj?"

"Certainly not, sir, nor would I have blessed such wishes if I had suspected that they were ever entertained."

"Then how do you account for the rough treatment which some of the Zemindars have received at the hand of their ryots?"

"I am quite unable to account for that, sir. Doubtless the Zemindars and their ryots had differences of their own to settle. I know nothing about these secular matters, sir."

"But you have yourself been seen roving about the district with armed men: what was that, sir?"

“Oh, sir, I cannot prevent myself from being followed by several men wherever I go; and owing to the disturbed state of the district some of these people did carry with them both swords and

fire arms.

But I had no hand in arming them, and I believe that they were not armed with any criminal intent."

"Do you mean to say that you never said or did anything to excite the ryots against constituted authority?

"I never did neither, sir."

Nothing very atrocious was proved against the prisoner, but it was clearly established that he had dissuaded the ryots from work. ing on the woods and from paying rents to their Zemindars, and that he had also assured them that he would soon become their king. As this, however, did not constitute treason, he was simply convicted of seditious practices and of disturbing the peace, for which he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment with labour.

THE TWO BROTHERS.

HOLAS KULWAR and his wife were both old people, who had led an honest and industrious life, and lived latterly in retirement in the village of Beecheea, in the district of Shahabad. Almost all the savings of the old man had been converted into ornaments for his wife, and these the old lady always carried about her person as memorials of her husband's love. They had no children, and no near relatives, but were friendly with all their neighbours, who were constant in their inquiries after them.

One day the neighbours of Holas saw a young man of about five-and-twenty come to his house, and they observed that he was known to the old people, and was well-received by them. Holas's wife gave him water to wash his feet, and some sweetmeats to eat, and they heard the stranger say to her: "Oh, aunt, I have brought the medicine you asked for. It will cure you of your pain in the loins; but don't be afraid if it stupifies you." After this, they saw him sit down in the house to cook some rice and dàl, and then they went to their work in the field.

When the neighbours returned home in the evening there was consternation and dismay among them, for they found both Holas and his wife dead in their house, and that the stranger was gone.

The alarm was instantly given, and the police inquiry, which followed, discovered that the ornaments which the old wife was in the habit of wearing, and other valuables, which were known to be in the house, had disappeared.

The description given of the stranger by the neighbours was so precise that the police had no difficulty in apprehending him; and he evidence of the witnesses clearly identified the man, one named Toolsee Kulwar, who was produced before them as the person they had seen in Holas's house in the morning. But this was stoutly

denied by Toolsee himself, and he produced evidence equally good and satisfactory that he was at work the whole day at a different place, which he had not left even for a moment till he was sought for by the police.

"This is really very strange!" said the magistrate. "I don't know what to think of this matter. But the alibi has been so clearly established that I must discharge the prisoner.'

The prisoner thanked the magistrate, but before withdrawing from the Court said, that it was, perhaps, in his power to clear up the mystery.

"In the name of goodness, then, speak out like an honest man. This is a most serious case, and I would not have discharged you but for the very clear and direct evidence given in your favour." May it please your worship, I have a brother who very greatly resembles me, and he has not led a good life of late, and has been absent from home for some days."

66

Ah! this is speaking to some purpose," said the magistrate; and the police, thus guided, were not long in arresting the brother.

The person now brought forward was named Hurkoo, and was characterised by the police as an old bird, that is, an arrant rogue. He made a confession; but it was only a partial one. He admitted having mixed certain intoxicating drugs with the rice and dàl he prepared for the old people, which stupified them; but he strongly maintained that on becoming insensible they were strangled, not by him, but by a female named Sookputtea, and that the trinkets and other property belonging to them were then carried off by him and Sookputtea together. This, Sookputtea affirmed, was a most impudent assertion and untrue. What was true was, that he had lodged the property he carried off from Holas's house with her for a time, she being ignorant then as to the manner in which it had been acquired; and, as there was no evidence to criminate Sookputtea, she was released.

"Now, what evidence is there against this man besides his own confession?" demanded the magistrate. "Will the neighbours identify him as the party they saw with Holas and his wife on the day on which they were murdered?"

The prisoner stood forth, and the neighbours were brought forward to recognise him; but, with one exception, they all main. tained that, though the resemblance between the two brothers was very great, they saw no reason for changing the testimony they had given before. They laboured apparently under the idea that it was necessary to adhere to their former evidence for consistency's sake, and conveniently forgot that Toolsee had established an alibi in the clearest manner possible.

One of the neighbours only deposed that on closer examination

he perceived that his former evidence was inaccurate, and that Hurkoo, not Toolsee, was the man he had really seen at the house of Holas; and, on this corroborative testimony Hurkoo was sent up to the sessions for trial. He was there convicted, but was allowed the benefit of the doubt arising from the evidence of the other neighbours to this extent, that an irrevocable sentence was not passed on him. He was punished as an accomplice in murder, with transportation for life.

WHAT THE ANGEL SAID.

-OH! come with me: for gloomy is thy brow,
The noisy city is both dark and drear :

'It is not meet that thou shouldst linger here;
But come and wander 'neath the greenwood bɔugh,
Where rest and peace are found, for wearied hearts enow!

Oh! come with me: dim is thine azure eye,
The morn of youth tints not thy youthful cheek,
Not, as of yore, I hear thee laugh and speak;
Not, as of old, I see thee seldom sigh:

Quit, then, this spot for one beneath a bluer sky!

'Tis love surrounds thee with its magic power!
Yet, oh to loving, put not faith in man,

He loves life's rose to leave it lone and wan:
'But come with me, where never fades a flower,
And poet birds" sing round an ever-blooming bower!

Come, then, to where a bridegroom waits for thee!
Unknown to man is His celestial love,

That love that never did inconstant prove!
Come "sister spirit!" come to Heaven with me,
Ou seraph wings arise, immortal bride to be!

CECIL MAXWELL-LYTE.

"For we have to solve the uncertain problem of selecting from those most multifarious papers what is worthiest and most important, so that it be grateful to thinking and cultivated minds, and refresh and forward them in many a province of life. GOETHE.

"These are the ways to thrive, And the means not cursed."

The Beggars' Bush, BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. BUSINESS is the child of Poverty. It begins by deeming all it is, and all it possesses, as nothing: that all that can make it a something has yet to be gained. Even as Maximin in the menial exercise and exhibition of his powers. "Thracian," said Severus, with astonishment, "art thou disposed to wrestle after thy race." "Most willingly," replied the unwearied youth, and almost, in a breath, overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers of the army, The hero performed his wonderful feats before an emperor, prostrated his large ability, as though he knew as well as our laureate's anonymous bard,

"That men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things;"

for on this he made his own first advance towards the imperial purple. Business in its origin never forgets the spirit or the practice of such acts: its condition is Servitude, its very religion is that of Saadi, Make thyself dust to do anything well: obedience ensures greatness.

It meditates upon and inures itself in the earliest dawn of its actions, before the hosts are formed for the battle, to what heroes have shown in the golden hours of success,-self-imposed, perfect Humility. Dentatus, though he was the greatest man in Rome, had subdued the most warlike nations, and driven Pyrrhus out of Italy, cultivated a little spot of ground with his own hands, and after three triumphs lived in a cottage. But Dentatus in his glory was not more meek than the business man in his obscure begin-. ning. He is ever ready to stoop, to bow the knee, to kneel low.