it; time did the rest. Inside the enclosure the construction of houses is under police regulations. Thatched roofs are forbidden, tiles required, &c. All this annoys the Hindoo, who prefers to live on the other side of the Circular Road; thus the suburbs were formed. The European city increases from day to day. Five years ago, our college was at the extremity of the town; it is now nearly in the centre; the new houses have occupied all the free space, and in some places have crossed the Circular Road. A year and a half ago a patch of Hindoo houses disappeared to make room for a fine tank which furnishes us with water. The transformation is slow but sure. This is English tact; they have made of Calcutta a city of palaces, and this is the name it bears. It is an immense town; the streets are of fabulous length, thanks to the way of building here. I really think that if Paris were built on the same system, it would extend to the natural frontiers.

From the month of November to the month of March the Indians have a season which they call winter. With the thermometer at 68° they are cold, at 59° they shiver, and at 53° or 54° they are frozen. You should see the masons, carpenters, and other workmen, who generally live in the country, come into the town in the morning, wrapped up in one or two additional sheets, mouth and nose completely hidden, and suceeeding so well in looking cold, that after some years the Europeans themselves (unhappy effect of bad example) end by persuading themselves that it is cold here in winter, and even now and then manage to catch a little cold.

But here is the palanquin waiting at the door. It is a wooden box about six feet long. The other two dimensions are each a little more than three feet. Two poles, both slightly bent, and fashioned one in front and the other behind, appear to be the continuation of the axis of the parallelopiped. (Pardon this word, I teach geometry.) Two persons in no clothes beyond what is simply necessary, place themselves under the pole in front, so as to let it rest on the right shoulder of the one and the left of the other; they press against each other, because union makes strength. Two other similar Indians do the same with the pole at the back; the palanquin is lifted up, I push aside the doors, and seat myself on the edge, and with all the elegance obtained from a habit of gymnastic exercises, I throw myself inside backwards. On the bottom is a kind of mattress on which you recline at full length, the shoulders are rested on a cushion behind, and the feet are in front; you cry Djao! and the four palki bearers set off. Generally to mark the time, the cleverest of the bearers throws out some little sentence of four or six syllables, in a very monotonous manner, quite unknown in Europe; the others answer by repeating the phrase in the same tone. In the town they walk at the rate of at least six miles an hour; on larger journeys they go slower.

NEW CHRISTMAS BOOKS AND OTHER BOOKS.

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1. Five Little Farmers. By ROSA MULHOLLAND, Author of "Eldergowan,' Hester's History," &c. (London: Marcus Ward & Co., 6, Chandos-street, and Royal Ulster Works, Belfast. 1876.) THE little people of these realms will soon be able to urge vested interests, prescriptive rights, and several other learned pleas, in support of their eager demand for a new Christmas Story each new Christmas from the Author of the "Little Flower Seekers." For some winters past she has given them just in time for Christmas a pretty book, bright within and without, full of rich-coloured thoughts and rich-coloured pictures, and printed and bound in such fashion as to make the perusal of the pages very pleasant in every way. If we are not greatly mistaken, the Christmas books in question form a climax, growing with each successive Christmas more interesting and more thoroughly acceptable to the proper judges. The proper judges in this case are not those dry old bespectacled fogies, the critics. No, the verdict should be left to a jury of children; and we are sure that such a jury, whether packed or not, would decide unanimously that the Five Little Farmers" is the pleasantest of the series. Grown-up folk, especially poets and such like, may be more charmed by the exquisite fancy and poetic feeling running through the Adventures of Trot and Daisy in a Wonderful Garden by Moonlight. But children would find the dealings of Puck and Blossom with the fairies more credible and life-like, and would take a more human interest in them. In this respect the new candidate for Christmas popularity beats all its predecessors; for the "Five Little Farmers" are real human children, and they talk and ramble about, not with flowers and fairies, but with each other and their mother and the servants and countryfolk.

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Though we have not the slightest notion of giving a sketch of the story, we may say that the Farmers are Eily, Cyril, Sylvia, Frank, and May Hawthorne. Though the last is only Baby," a year and a-half old, she has a little character of her own, almost as well brought out as that of her big sister Eily, aged twelve or thereabouts. Frank and Cyril are fine sturdy little men, whose example will, we have no doubt, affect favourably the behaviour of sundry youths who will make their acquaintance during the next month or two. But poor Ms. Hawthorne is specially to be congratulated on having for her eldest daughter such a wise, cheerful, motherly "wee body" as Eily, who, however, is by no means one of those insufferable paragons of perfection, but

A creature not too bright or good

For human nature's daily food.

And indeed her thoughtful arrangements about " daily food" and similar matters, before her mother's arrival at Hillandale, are among

the most edifying incidents recorded concerning her. That is a good touch, by the way, when Bessie's mother proposes something in the shape of that same daily food"—"We have had our breakfast, though,' said Frank, looking at her at the same time as if he thought her a perfect angel for mentioning the subject."

Sylvia is the least satisfactory member of the little company; but the good feeling she displayed during the visit to the Children's Hospital makes us hope that she will grow more and more unlike those little Wiltons who "could not take an interest in anything that did not concern themselves," and more and more like her own sister Eily, whom they accused of a fondness for talking "about stupid things-poor people, and books, and things like that." We may here interject a suggestion to the compilers of the next Report of St. Joseph's Infirmary for Sick Children in Buckingham-street, that they would do well to extract the account of the visit which these children in the story book paid to a remarkably similar institution-which visit is very well described in the last ten pages of the second chapter. We ourselves must be content with a much briefer specimen. The servant, who is conducting the three eldest of the children to their new and humbler home in the country, proposes to take a short cut by the fields

"And so they did, walking across a green hill, and down into a woody hollow, and then coming down a winding, sweetbriery path to the back door of the farmhouse. Well, it was a queer old place, I can tell you. It was two stories high, with very low ceilings, and was built of extremely old dark-red bricks, and roofed with a brown thatch. You could step on the gravel out of the lower windows, and the upper ones were pushed up into the thatch, and winking out of it like owls' faces locking out of a tree. A rose-bush spread all over one side of the house, and a passionflower over the other, and a long garden ran climbing up a hill behind, with a row of bee-hives at the top of it. In this great garden were crowds of apple-trees, and beds of strawberries, and a good quantity of other fruit besides; and there was also a fine supply of homely flowers-hollyhocks, cabbage-roses, tall lilies. gillyflowers, wallflowers, and a great many more which I cannot remember. There was a gravelled space in front, and then a great large field surrounded by trees; and at one side was a very ancient sun-dial, while at the other side was a nice little woody place, which wandered away, and straggled about, and still kept near the old house, as if to keep it warm.”

Though this bright little quarto is made brighter with very prettily coloured pictures of May and the Lambs, Sylvia and the Kittens, Frank and his Chickens, and Mrs. Growler and her Pups, it nevertheless belongs to Messrs. Ward & Co.'s Two Shilling Series. At no season is the difference between a crown and a florin felt more keenly than at Christmas-time; and this is another circumstance sure to increase greatly the popularity of the "Five Little Farmers."

II. The Laying of the Stone: A Sermon by the Most Rev. DAVID MORIARTY, D. D., Bishop of Kerry, with Commemorative Verses by the Very Rev. ROBERT FFRENCH WHITEHEAD, D. D., AUBREY DE VERE, Esq., and Rev. JOSEPH FARRELL, on occasion of Laying the First Stone of a New Church in St. Patrick's College, Maynooth. (Dublin: M'Glashan & Gill.)

EVERY Catholic, and especially every Irish Catholic, must needs feel

the deepest interest in all that concerns Maynooth-that noble College which Dr. Newman has described with literal truth as "the largest and most important ecclesiastical seminary in Catholic Christendom ;' which Cardinal Manning calls "the great Alma Mater of the Priesthood of Ireland;" which the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland, assembled in National Synod, have declared to "have deserved well of successive generations of the clergy and people of Ireland;" and which has been styled, in words of less authority, "the focus and centre of the Irish Church-the very heart out of which flows, and flows never to ebb, the tide of Ireland's sacramental life." We have used the expression "literal truth" in reference to Dr. Newman's superlatives, because many might suspect that there was some generous exaggeration in attributing to our poor Ireland so proud a boast. But in France and other continental churches the grands seminaires are almost as numerous as the dioceses, and many of them hardly merit the epithet prefixed to their name; whereas la petite mais féconde Irlande (as Pére Fèlix called her once in the pulpit of Notre Dame de Paris) has one really "great" seminary for all her young Levites, in which she is able to concentrate all that she has of best for the worthy accomplishment of this greatest apostolic work. Considerations like these, which we must restrain ourselves from pursuing further, lend a special solemnity to the occasion, of which a beautiful souvenir is here presented to the clergy and the faithful. The Bishop of Kerry interpreted eloquently and with consummate skill the feelings of all who took part, by actual presence or in spirit, in laving the foundation of the new College Church of Maynooth; and it is well that his discourse is preserved in this elegant form. Of the remaining pages of this little memorial there is only one of which it would be becoming in us to express our appreciation: and we do so by venturing to print here also the hymn which sounded so triumphantly through the College quadrangle as the long white robed procession drew near the fortunate block of granite which one poet has thus apostrophised:

III. Tales from the German of Canon Schmidt. Newly Translated by H. J. G. (Dublin: M'Glashan & Gill, 1876.)

THE good German priest, who rightly thought he was doing a holy work in satisfying usefully that craving of the child's heart: Tell us a story!--Canon Schmidt, filled very many large volumes with tales and plays and poems, all specially composed for the young. The fullest and best translation of his Tales is that published first by James Duffy, nearly thirty years ago. The present volume contains a new and excellent version of "The Canary Bird," "The Forget-me-not," "The Rose Tree," "Trust in God," "The Dove," and some others. They read very freely and pleasantly in this version, and there can be no doubt of the wholesomeness of the lessons which they teach and of the impressions which they convey. The type is clear, large, and open; and the numerous engravings will still further attract youthful readers, and finally "precipitate the decision" of many a child hesitating in the choice of a Christmas Story-book.

IV. Critico-Biblical Disquisition on the Time during which Christ lay in the Tomb. By FRANCIS DE HIERONYMO JOVINO, S. J., Professor of Sacred Scripture and Oriental Languages in Woodstock College, Maryland. (Woodstock College Print. 1875.)

THIS book, which has travelled to us across the Atlantic, belongs manifestly to the second class of books included under our title"Other Books." It is very different indeed from the pretty Christmas tomes by which it finds itself surrounded. The author dedicates it to Father Beckx, General of the Society of Jesus, as the first fruits of the printing press established at Woodstock, the Theological College of the Jesuits of the United States. One does not need to be so learned as the American Professor of Scriptural and Oriental Languages to be able to perceive that this is an extremely erudite disquisition, exhausting all that history, archæology and hermeneutics have to say on the subject. For the benefit of others besides those who (as has been written of some one) have a consciousness of knowing Latin in general, but whose knowledge of any particular Latin passage is not so precise as might be desired, the treatise is given in Latin and English on alternate pages; and our comparison of some pages leads us to believe that the English version has been skilfully executed.

V. Enlarged Edition of MISS MULHOLLAND'S Prince and Saviour. With Illustrations in Gold and Colours. (Dublin: M'Glashan & Gill.) THE popularity at once acquired by the sixpenny edition of "Prince and Saviour; the Story of Jesus, simply told for the Young," has suggested this new and beautiful issue. To make the original issue possible at such a price, the printing and get-up, though the one was legible and the other neat, were still very far from worthy of a little book which approached so near to being worthy of its theme. In the form in which it is brought out now, just in time for Christmas, the