honor of being translated into Italian, in this very apotheosis of apples thus exalts this idol of the day : "Let every tree in every garden own The Redstreak as supreme, whose pulpous fruit Easy, whilst cheer'd with her nectareous juice Alas for the power of fashion, even in the matter of apples-the redstreak is now held but in slight esteem! After this period, pomology declined, until some years ago a new impetus was given to it by the first President of the London Horticultural Society, T. A. Knight, Esq., who first practically and systematically applied the discovery of the sexes of plants, and by hybridization, or transferring the pollen of one kind of blossom to the stigmas of another, was the means of producing many new and valuable varieties. It is a singular fact, however, that all attempts have failed to fecundate an apple by a pear tree, it being found that they will not produce a hybrid. Perhaps the best known of all our apples at the present day is the universally admired Ribstone Pippin, the genealogy of which has been a subject of much discussion. In an interesting statement furnished to the Horticultural Society by Sir H. Goodriche, on whose estate at Ribstone, in Yorkshire, the original tree was discovered growing, he states, that "traditionary accounts are all we have to guide us in the history of this tree. It is said that some apple pips were brought from Rouen, in Normandy, about 130 years ago; that they were sown at Ribstone; that five of the pips grew, two of them proving crabs and the other three apples. One of these latter was the now famous Ribstone Pippin. It had been suspected that the fruits might after all have been produced by grafting (though the name would then have been a misnomer, the word pippin implying that the tree has grown from a seed or pip); and to determine this, some suckers were taken from the old root and planted in the gardens at Chiswick, when all doubts were dissipated, by their growing and producing fruit exactly similar to that of the parent tree. That nothing like it has ever been discovered among all the foreign specimens of apples received by the Society also tends to prove that the variety is of native growth. The original tree, supposed to have been planted in 1688, stood till 1810, when it was blown down by a violent gale of wind, but, being supported by stakes in a horizontal position, continued to produce fruits until 1835, when it lingered and died." "Since then," says Mr. Hogg, writing in 1851, "a young shoot has been produced about four inches below the surface of the ground, which with proper care may become a tree, and thereby preserve the original of this favorite old dessert apple." Another variety which has been very popular of late years is the pretty little Lady Apple, or Api, which is usually seen in Covent Garden tricked out in a gay vestment of colored tissue paper. Of very ancient family are these little Ladies, for it is said that they were brought from Peloponnesus to Rome by Appius Claudius, and they are mentioned by the oldest writers on such subjects as well-known fruits. Worlidge, in 1676, notices "the Pomme Appease, a curious apple lately propagated; the fruit is small and pleasant, which the Madams of France carry in their pockets, by reason they yield no unpleasant scent." Lister, in 1698, speaking of its being served up in a dessert at Paris, describes it as very beautiful, and very red on one side, and pale or white on the other, and may serve the ladies at their toilets as a pattern to paint by;" a remark worthy to have been inspired by a Parisian atmosphere. The susceptibility to light and shade, shown by this contrasted complexion, may be taken advantage of to form devices on the fruit before it has attained its full depth of rosiness, by affixing pieces of paper, cut in the form required, to the side exposed to the sun, when the parts thus covered will remain of a pale tint. It is grown now to a large extent in the United States, and imported here with much profit to those concerned, as it always bears a higher price than any other fancy apple in the market, justifying the title bestowed on it by De Quintinye, of the "Pomme des Damoiselles et de bonne compagnie." It should be eaten without paring, as it is in the skin that the perfume resides. Wholesome and pleasant as is the apple in its natural state, the field of its usefulness becomes greatly enlarged when it is subjected to the processes of cookery. Ellis, in the "Modern Husbandman," particularizes the Catshead as " a very useful apple to the farmer, because one of them pared and wrapped up in dough, serves, with little trouble, for making an apple dumpling, so much in request with the Kentish farmer, for being part of a ready meal that in the cheapest manner satiates the keen appetite of the hungry ploughman, both in the field and at home, and therefore has now got into such reputation in Hertfordshire and some other counties, that it is become the most common food, with a piece of bacon, or pickled pork, for families." Dr. Johnson mentions having known a clergyman of small income who brought up a family very respectably, which he chiefly fed upon apple dumplings; and it is to be hoped they kept some relish for the fare in after days, if there be any truth in the dictum of Coleridge, that "no man has lost all simplicity of character who retains a fondness for apple dumplings." Our forefathers, however, believed that the fruit was good for something more than either to fill hungry stomachs or to please the palate. "Being roasted and eaten with rose-water and sugar," saith Coles, in his " Adam in Eden," published in 1657, "those 66 of the pleasanter kinds, as pippins and pearmaines, are helpful to dissolve melancholly humours, and to expel heaviness and promote mirth." It is less remarkable that, as he further observes, The distilled water of good sound apples is of speciall good use to expell melancholly," since distillation is a process very apt to educe potency of this kind. While the dumpling is the staple form of apple cookery in this land of solids, on the other side of the Channel our lighter neighbors delight in a peculiar preparation called Raisiné, consisting of apples boiled in grape juice or new wine, which is much used by all classes, and is indeed in France what marmalade is in Scotland. The fruit is also dried whole, in the form so familiar to us under the name of Normandy Pippins, while in America it is yet more used in the dried state; there, however, being first pared and cut into quarters. It is, however, when it appears as a drink that the apple reaches its climax of celebrity, and is more largely consumed perhaps than even as food, at least in England, for though cyder was made in Normandy before it was known in our own country, that is the only part of the Continent where it is now a staple article of commerce. It is supposed to have been known to the Hebrews, the strong drink from which the Nazarite was to abstain being expressed by a word which, according to St. Jerome, signified inebriating liquor of any kind, whether made of corn, the juice of apples, or any other fruit; and in Wickliffe's translation of the Bible it is said of John the Baptist, that "he schal not drinke wyn ne sydyr." It is mentioned by Virgil in the Georgics, and is thought to have been made in Africa and introduced by the Carthaginians into Biscay, which was long celebrated for its production. It was thence received by the Normans, who in turn taught the manufacture to the English, with whom in the course of time it has found such acceptance that throughout a large tract of this country it is the ordinary beverage of the whole population, and the manufacture, though almost entirely in the hands of farmers, unaided by the refinements of machinery, has reached such perfection that whereas the inferior sort of French cider requires to be drunk as soon as it is made, and the strongest keeps good but for five or six years, the best Herefordshire may be kept for twenty or thirty years, and a single glass of it will almost suffice to intoxicate. This quality is mainly derived from the source from which it might least have been expected, for an experiment having been made in order to ascertain which part of the fruit contributed most to the goodness of cyder, one hogshead being manufactured entirely from the cores and parings of apples and another entirely from the pulp, "the first was found of extraordinary strengeth and flavor, while the latter was sweet and insipid." This being the case, small apples are of course preferable to large ones for pressing. In Ireland, where much cider is drunk, the popular taste approves of an unusual degree of acidity, and crabs are therefore largely intermixed with the fruit of which it is made. In these days of abolition of Custom-house duties, when the only invasion to which we agree to submit is that of French wines, and when so much is hoped for from the introduction of the produce of foreign vineyards to replace native drinks, it is curious to read how seventeenth-century enthusiasm once prognosticated that— "Wher'er the British spread Triumphant banners, or their fame has reached, Shall please all tastes, and triumph o'er the vine." XIV. IVY LEAVES. I GATHERED from a grave Where, plucked from mine, death cast Had healed the pain at last,— Two dark and glossy ivy leaves, that grew I set their slender stalks Renewed, and for the love I bore to them, I looked that they should die, And with a gladdened thrill This faultless freshness; still A little paler grew the glossy green, And light threads floating from each stem were seen. And as the filmy threads To rootlets spread, I knew My ivy leaves would live, Since severed still they grew. From life's sweet workings thus rebuke I got For loveless heart and long-lamented lot. ISA CRAIG. XV.-SOCIETY IN ALGIERS. SECOND ARTICLE. ATTEMPTS against person and property have been as common in Algeria as in California and Australia, but the facts have been less known than in the American and English colonies, because the press has never been free in Africa, and everything which was disagreeable to the Government has been hidden with the greatest care, whether crimes committed by the military authorities against the Arabs, or dangers run by European colonists coming to Algeria. There is something in the air of Africa which excites the nervous system and predisposes to deeds of violence. Perhaps, too, the intermingling of so many different races is the cause of frequent quarrels and assassinations. Each of these nations has its particular manner of killing, and an experienced physician can tell by inspecting the wound by what hands it was probably inflicted, without asking any questions whatever. The Italians habitually use the stiletto, or a poignard with a straight sharp blade; the Spaniards the common knife, rarely ever fire-arms; the Arabs use guns, knives, but chiefly a large stick, which they handle with amazing dexterity. The number of suicides in Algiers has been prodigious, sometimes two or three in one day. I have remarked that when the wind blows from the south, which wind is here called the sirocco, the increase in the number of crimes is very remarkable; not only are men inclined to commit suicide, but all animals are also more irritable and more inclined to acts of violence. The most usual motive for suicide is disappointment in love; and it is a curious fact, that women rarely commit the crime from this motive; in twenty-five years of experience we have only known of two cases. One of the most curious characteristics of the European population is the great delight which the people seem to take in inventing and spreading abroad false news. If a vessel is delayed, and does not arrive at the time expected, it will certainly be said that the vessel has been lost, and all its passengers have perished. It is very common to hear that the commander-in-chief has been assassinated, and that the Arab tribes have risen, or that there is a revolution in France and a new government proclaimed, or that a European village has been attacked and destroyed by the Arabs, or that the cholera has killed half the troops stationed at such or such a place. The tendency to lieing and exaggeration is one of the attributes of the people of the South, and from the peculiar circumstances of the climate and life in Algiers, this disposition has increased; the people see with their minds rather than with their eyes, and by thinking aloud give vent in words to every caprice of the imagination, founded sometimes upon an almost invisible atom of reality. A great proportion of the population of a new country is always made up of those who are not wanted in the old countries, and this has been par excellence the case with Algeria. An immense number of people usurping false titles and qualifications have made their appearance in the colony, and generally have been very successful, and have often been appointed by Government to posts of responsibility. Some were convicts who had escaped from the French galleys, and a great many from the Spanish and Italian prisons. We remember one who pretended to be a professor from a university, when he had only been the porter; another, who proclaimed himself a physican, having only been a student for some months; another offered himself as a captain, only having served as a common soldier; another proclaimed himself as |