"As something definite is necessary to stimulate exertion, I beg to propose that the collection be begun on 14th February next, and that an appeal should be made through the service, which I only wait the result of this suggestion to prepare.

"I have no doubt the navy agents, if solicited, would kindly consent to be treasurers pro tem., as I have always found them most willing to help forward any object likely to be useful to the service. Committing it to Him who has the hearts of all in His hands, and One who has promised to be a Father to the fatherless,

"I now subscribe myself, Sir,

"Your most obedient,

"A SAILOR'S WIDOW-without daughters." This appeal of Mrs. Skyring's (for we presume it is now no breach of confidence to give the writer's name) being most cheerfully responded to by the readers of that magazine, a meeting of ladies was held at Somerset House on 21st of February, 1850, in order to consider the various points brought forward in the letter already quoted-when it was unanimously resolved,

"That the lamented death of her late Majesty the Queen Dowager, and the subsequent withdrawal from the benevolent institutions of this country (more especially those connected with the naval service) of her powerful patronage and liberal support, will be severely felt by many widows and orphans of naval officers.

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"That the purpose of this fund be, to provide for the orphan daughters of naval and marine officers the means of obtaining a suitable education, and of establishing themselves in such positions in life as may enable them to secure a respectable maintenance.

"That its aid be extended, according to the comparative necessities of the applicants, either by special grants to meet special circumstances, or by annual grants to be continued so long as the recipients may need assistance; but in all cases to cease on marriage.

"That the eminent virtues of the late Queen Adelaide, and the affectionate remembrance in which she is held by all classes, will commend this 'Memorial' to general attention, and that it is therefore expedient that a public subscription be opened, and that all persons be invited to contribute.

"That collecting books and cards be issued, under the direction of a committee, and that the navy agents and bankers be solicited to receive the amount of the contributions so raised.

"That Thomas Stilwell, Esq., be requested to become the treasurer of the fund.

“That should the amount collected unhappily prove insufficient for the object, it be given to the 'Royal Naval Female School,' to form a fund for the gratuitous education of one or more pupils.

“That the patronage of benevolent and influential persons be solicited, and that a committee be formed to carry out these designs." Ultimately, a very influential committee was formed, and a public meeting held at 32, Sackville Street, under the able presidency of

Admiral Sir Charles Adam, K.C.B., Governor of Greenwich Hospital, when the Society was formed and officers appointed. At a subsequent meeting it was deemed advisable to state more distinctly the objects contemplated, and in particular to declare that it formed no part of the plan of the promoters to establish a female school.

The following are the modes in which the annual proceeds are applied.

1. To grant aid towards the education of orphans not in the "Royal Naval Female School."

2. To appropriate sums not exceeding £12 to a certain number of pupils of the Royal Naval Female School. The pupils to whom such grants are made to be those who stand first in the list of elected candidates, and the grant to be continued while they remain at the school. These pupils to be styled Adelaide Scholars.

3. To assist orphans in establishing themselves in any respectable situation in this, or other countries.

4. To afford casual relief, taking into consideration the whole circumstances of the family, to such orphans as shall be above the age when they cease to receive grants from the "Compassionate Fund."

The working expenses of the Society (which are very small, as we have already stated, there being neither salaried officers nor hired rooms) are paid out of the donations, and the balance is invested from time to time in the public funds; the dividends arising therefrom, and the annual subscriptions, being appropriated for the relief of the applicants as above described; and they think the fact that the Society was in the second year of its existence able to relieve no less than fourteen most distressing cases, speaks volumes in its favor. The circumstance also that most of the applicants are personally visited, and their position investigated by members of the ladies' committee, spares the candidates the expense and the annoyance of a tedious and perhaps useless canvass, while subscribers have the best possible guarantee for the proper disposal of their benefactions. This custom has also been indirectly productive of great benefit, as the ladies' committee have frequently been able to find employment for those whom they have visited, and to assist them in other ways.

In 1856 the Society had so far advanced that £136 was distributed in grants to the applicants during that year; but with an increase at the same time of £50 added to the permanent capital of the Society, the secretary was obliged to acknowledge that the fund was far from sufficient to meet the requirements of those whom it seeks to benefit; and an appeal was then made for additional help in order that the Society might be more worthy of a great maritime nation. Nor was the appeal in vain, the donations received being twice the amount of those of the previous year, and the annual subscription much in excess of every former year, besides which, upwards of £445 was handed over to the treasurer

as the result of a bazaar held in the June of that year at the Crystal Palace. In consequence of this the treasurer added no less than £600 stock to the permanent capital, and at the same time paid through the committee £169 for the relief of necessitous orphans; but even this sum, exceeding though it did by £43 any grant of any previous year, was very inadequate to the distresses of the applicants.

And so, year by year, the good work went on growing, and the battle bravely fought, though £200 (for that is the largest sum the committee have ever felt justified in giving away during any year) does not appear to be a large sum when compared with the grants made by other institutions, yet those who are acquainted with the circumstances in which the orphans of naval and marine officers are too often placed, know well that such a sum, judiciously apportioned, may be the means of relieving very great distress, and of gladdening many hearts.

After carefully examining the various cases reported as relieved since the establishment of the Society, it is impossible not to be most strongly impressed with the truth of the assertion so continually made in this Journal, viz., that the present education received by middle class girls is most signally inappropriate, and absolutely worthless for any of the practical purposes of life; and the description of the applicants for the relief of this charity only affords another evidence to the fact that mantua-making, with its sixteen hours a day, and governessing, with all its evils and ill pay, are the only means by which such women can by any possibility earn a livelihood. In this same list we also find the halt, the sick, and the blind, the fatherless and the widow, a huge company too crippled, too aged, or too diseased, to attempt even to follow the example of their younger companions in sorrow, but who lie there, impotent folk, helpless and expectant, waiting for such bounty as you, the benevolent and the tender-hearted, may be able and willing to bestow.

We are sorry to see by the annual balance-sheet for this year that the amount of donations has lately been falling off; this seems scarcely credible or creditable to a maritime nation like this, a country calling herself so proudly the mistress of the seas; surely a land that can produce a Camperdown, a St. Vincent, a Howe, and a Nelson, ought never to forget the claims of the destitute children of men by whose strength, and through whose blood, the supremacy of this kingdom has been for so many generations maintained.

We find that many applicants not specially mentioned would be thankful for employment as governesses or companions, some as needlewomen or otherwise; and to many more, left off clothes would be very acceptable. The ladies of the committee are generally able to point out some such cases to those friends who may be willing to give assistance, and we are sure that Mrs. Skyring, of the Admiralty, Somerset House, to whose untiring zeal and exertions this

Society owes its very existence and success, will receive with gratitude any subscriptions that this appeal may elicit, and also answer with pleasure any further inquiries that may seem desirable.

M. S. R.

XXXIX.-FRUITS IN THEIR SEASON.

III.-NUTS TO CRACK.

The

PLEASANT are the fresh fruits that deck our Christmas dessert: the golden-juiced orange, the late lingering pear, and the sturdy apple with its glowing cheek. Pleasant too are those of which art has preserved the flavor, though she has failed to retain their beauty: the dried fig, the raisin, or the date; but who would not forego them all rather than spare the standard, but ever welcome, dish of nuts; welcome at all seasons, but most of all at this. former are procured so easily and disposed of so quickly that they afford but a momentary pleasure; but these cost time and trouble to obtain, must be wooed ere they are won, and earned ere they are eaten; and therefore when, in Homer's favorite phrase, "the rage of hunger is appeased," and only something is wanted as a pretext for protracting a little longer the rites of hospitality, is their aid so gladly evoked to fill up the pauses of conversation, to cover the silence of the dull, and enhance the merriment of the lively, as they crack their jokes and their nuts together. Genial nuts! whether

it be the husk-hid filbert or bare brown barcelona; the eye-shaped almond, enshrined in yellow walls of soft porous sand-stone, or the sterner brazil in its granite fortress; the kingly walnut in its coat of mail, or the glossy chestnut in smooth shining suit; we love ye all, and would fain linger awhile to gather up some fragments of your history.

First and foremost, because commonest and most popular, attention is claimed by what are usually called "Nuts" par eminence, i.e., the various members of the hazel tribe rejoicing together in the gentle name of Avellana, or Avelan, which, as Evelyn informs us, was the ancient orthography of his name also, and was originally derived from Avellano, a city of Naples, where this fruit was very largely cultivated. The poetical Northern mind devised a more descriptive name, the word hasil in Anglo-Saxon signifying a headdress, in allusion to the covering with which all of the family are more or less capped, such of them as have a short calyx being generally called nuts, while those with long enveloping husks are termed filberts. To the former class of course belong those wildings of the wood, connected with so many tender reminiscences of youthful years, when the most delightful of all holidays was that which was spent in "going a nutting." Does not the very naming of them recall the setting forth on some joyous autumn morning—

We

girls with baskets on their arms, boys with bags slung round their necks; the preliminary search for fit branches to afford hooked sticks, and the careful cutting and preparing of these by the way; and then on arriving at the scene of action, the glad shout of some open-hearted boy on coming first to a well-laden bush, or the cunning silence of the selfish one, who only gathered on all the more quickly, in order to secure as many as possible before his comrades arrived to share the spoil. And what perilous stretching was there over deep ditches to reach an opposite hedge, and what an anxious upward strain after those particularly fine clusters, growing so very high up as to be almost beyond even the hook's attainment. little thought, by the way, with what magic might we were trifling when using such a hooked stick merely as a means to get at our nuts more easily; all ignorant how, in other days, it was deemed that "for divinatory rods, for the detecting and finding out of minerals (at least, if that tradition be no imposture) it is very wonderful; by whatever occult virtue the forked stick so cut and skilfully held becomes impregnated with those invisible steams and exhalations, as by its spontaneous bending from a horizontal position to discover not only mines and subterraneous treasure and springs of water, but criminals guilty of murder, &c., made out so solemnly and the effects thereof, by the attestation of magistrates, and divers other learned and credible persons, who have critically examined matters of fact." Well may the author of "Sylva," who tells us all this, add, that it is "next to a miracle and requires a strong faith," yet it seems to have been very generally believed in his day. Possibly the extraordinary result said to have been attained by the patriarch Jacob by means of the use of hazel rods may have tended to invest the twigs of this tree, in the popular opinion, with special and mysterious virtues. Sometimes however a reason could be assigned for their producing more effect than the similar branches of other trees, as, for instance, when Parkinson informs us that "if a snake be stroke with an hazel wand, it doth sooner stunne it than with any other strike; because it is so pliant that it will winde closer about it, so that being deprived of their motion they must needs dye with paine and want; and it is no hard matter in like manner, saith Tragus, to kill a mad dog that shall be strook with an hazel sticke, such as men use to walk or ride withal." So then, though it be proverbially easy to "find a stick to strike a dog with," it seems that the stick for the purpose may yet be matter of selection.

Whatever dispute there may be as to their special adaptation for some of the uses to which they have been assigned, it is unquestionably a fact that rods of hazel are handsomer, and more durable than those of any other wood for such purposes as the construction of rustic houses, garden seats, &c., and when dyed and well arranged may be formed into very varied patterns; a Berkshire carpenter having even so combined them as to form a landscape, in a sort of mosaic, the effect of which was very striking. In Staffordshire they