Poets that lasting marble seek intention, and not as part of the essayist's own meant suspect; but as soon as it was known verbal stock. Waller lamented the dangers that the Americans said "expect" instead, it which English poets had to encounter in conse- became at once a smart and clever thing to say quence of writing in " a daily-changing tongue;" so too. It showed that you understood the age but he attributed the evil, not to slang, but to in which you lived-knew the kind of speech the natural growth of the language : which society demanded, and were not an old "fogey." That the use of the word was ridiculously wrong, was a matter of supreme indifference; if it was the last new fashion from the West, that was sufficient. It might be supposed that such absurdities would live their In the present day, slang is assimilated with brief season, and die out; but this is unforlamentable facility. It enters largely into the tunately not the case. Nothing is so percomposition of parliamentary wit; it moves to manent as established corruption. We have a laughter in the law courts; it helps to point the greedy appetite for vulgarisms, especially when style and enforce the arguments of writers in they are of transatlantic origin. 'Go-ahead," the press. People now are not courageous used as an adjective, is now as common in Eng. they are "plucky." Nothing is ever long-it land as in America; but it must be admitted is "lengthy." We form resolutions not imme- that this is a much more expressive phrase, and diately, but "right away;" we enter into en- therefore more capable of justification, than the gagements "on our own hook." The desire to great majority of our importations. "A fix," write in a popular style is the cause of this, and for a dilemma, or difficulty, is a stupid barthe public encourage it. Slanginess is considered barism, which ought to be scouted out of the smart, and indicative of a knowledge of affairs language; yet we find it frequently used in conand society. It is amusing to observe the com-versation, and even sometimes in respectable placency and quiet self-esteem with which most men will utter a cant phrase of the day, as if they had themselves invented it on the spot, and it were something superlatively brilliant and felicitous. "Neither you, nor I, nor any other man," has induced many a foolish fellow to think himself a born wit. 66 How's your poor feet ?" a year ago cheated half the natives of Cockaigne into the belief that they were gifted with a special genius for repartee. The heaviest face kindled with unwonted light, the dullest voice chuckled with conscious fun, as the words came forth. And every one laughed, and was fully persuaded that he had heard the sarcasm for the first time, and was delightfully surprised at its readiness, point, and applicability. This, however, is a habit of the uneducated, and has not yet infected the higher classes of our periodical literature, though it is unpleasantly conspicuous in the cheap comic journals. In the better order of papers, what is chiefly to be complained of is the use of words and phrases which have no warrant and no real use, for the paltry purpose of appearing familiar with the town and its habits. Most of the questionable expressions at the present day are borrowed from the Americans; and, fond as we are of rating our republican kinsmen for their vulgarity and uncouthness, it is wonderful to see the eager quickness with which we adopt any of their perversions of the language. Even well-educated people now use the word "expect" in the sense of "suspect." They will say that they "expect" a thing was so and so-which is a preposterous confusion of ideas. They caught a glimpse of some one in the City this morning, and they "expect it was Smith." This, we believe, was originally an importation from the United States, and came in, if we mistake not, about twenty years ago. People had been very well content until then to say suspect when they writing. The word "loafer," for idler, is making way with us, though perhaps somewhat slowly. "Posted up," in the sense of well-informed, on any current topic the aspects of which change from day to day, is now of frequent use. We have fallen so desperately in love with the American expression over a thousand," that "above a thousand," which had the sanction of centuries, has almost disappeared. The new phrase may be as good as the old, and we do not mean to say that it is grammatically wrong or essentially vulgar; but the abandonment of any mode of expression which has formed part of the language for generations is always objectionable, unless there should be some positive advantage in the change. For some reason best known to themselves, the people of the United States choose to say sun-down" for sunset. It is, we think, very questionable whether the compound is grammatically allowable; but at any rate it will be sad to find a beautiful expression, which has come down to us through countless generations of ancestorswhich has its roots in five centuries of literature -which is linked with some of the most lovely passages in our poetry, and which, in fact, is part of the very poetry of common speech-giving way before a compound with no associations at all. Yet we have serious misgivings of such a result. "Sun-down" has of late made its appearance in some of our English newspapers; and, knowing from former experience with what senseless avidity our countrymen seize on the like corruptions, we are not without a fear that some years hence we shall see the setting of sunset. English writers have also recently adopted the American trick of forming verbs out of nouns. We say that a certain act was "motived" by this or that consideration; and a morning paper stated the other day in its leading columns that, in consequence of the Metropolitan Railway having come to an arrangement with the Great Western in regard to the Bishop'sroad station, the former company would continue "to function along the whole line." This may, for aught we know, be good railway directors' language, but we submit that it is not English. Many of these corruptions proceed from the commercial love of brevity-an instinct common to both hemispheres, though, like everything else, exaggerated to inordinate proportions in the Western. The Americans almost invariably omit the definite article before such titles as "Honourable" and "Reverend ;" and we have recently taken to the same form of abbreviation. You need but glance at a daily paper to see, in the report of some meeting, a statement that "we observed on the platform Rev. Zachariah Jones and Hon. Adolphus Verisopht." The saving of time thus effected is not sufficient compensation for this inelegant clipping of our English; and even though parallel cases may be quoted, which have now received the sanction of time, it is always a desperate argument to defend one bad thing by another. The almost universal knowledge of French, the constant translation of diplomatic documents from that language in our newspapers, and the frequent discussion of continental politics in parliament and the press, have also done a disservice to English by the introduction of a great many Gallic idioms. The danger, however, is less from this than from the American source of corruption. Our language has always had a tendency to throw out any French modes of expression which may have been temporarily adopted; whereas transatlantic interpolations are not only readily received, but generally retained. It is in this direction, therefore, that we ought to be especially on our guard. Of course, no one would object to the introduction of new words and phrases where they are clearly required. Language has many of the characteristics of a vital organism; and it would be the merest pedantry, as ineffectual as pedantic, to say that the English tongue-a tongue spoken by the most vigorous and expanding race in the world is not to throw forth fresh shoots when a legitimate demand arises. The railway system has introduced into general parlance, if it has not created, many new terms which are worthy additions to the vocabulary. "Stoke," "shunt," "siding," &c., are all perfectly legitimate words. So is "telegram," ," though, when it was first used, some over-particular scholars objected to its construction, as being questionable Greek. However that may be-and the point is doubtful-the word is now very good English, and we could not get on without it. All we quarrel with is purposeless innovation, made in the spirit of coxcombry and ignorance. A hundred and fifty years ago, Swift, lamenting the corruptions which were even then creeping into the language, proposed to Harley, Earl of Oxford, the then prime minister, to establish "a society or academy for settling and ascertaining the purity of our tongue; to set a mark on the improprieties which custom has made familiar; to throw out vicious phrases and words, to correct others, and perhaps retrieve some others now grown obsolete; and to adjust the orthography, pointing, &c." Such a standard might be useful; but whether it would do much to check our national weakness for slang, is more than doubtful. EATABLE GHOSTS. AMONG the many supernatural annoyances which disturb the comfort of the Eibo-folkthat is to say, the population of Swedish origin that inhabits the northern coast and the islands of the Gulf of Riga-may be mentioned a formidable legion of semi-substantial ghosts, whose visits are anything but "few and far between." Like the ghosts of other nations, they are the spectres of deceased persons, and they have the generic quality of vanishing at cock-crow. But they are distinguished from the ghosts of the ordinary nurse's tale by certain powers and privileges peculiar to themselves. They can put on various shapes; they are not without a certain degree of acquisitiveness, and they can produce palpable effects, as though they were not altogether incorporeal. The same Whatever be the vices of the ghosts who figure in our own village records, they are habitually honest. Nay, honesty is their characteristic quality, for even if they represent some defunct old sinner, who has hid his neighbour's gold under a hearthstone, the very object of their visit is to disclose the hidden treasure, that it may be restored to the lawful owner. So is it not with the ghosts of the Eibo-folk. In the island of Nucko-which, by the way, is a peninsula at low water-a respectable old gentleman once saw a tall white figure come out of a churchyard, and make a dash at some horses that were grazing hard by. Fortunately the horses were too quick for the ghost, and consequently were not to be caught. island furnishes us with an instance of a ghost that perfectly knew how to stand up for its rights. A certain woman was negligently buried without a cap, and as this was a sort of thing not to be tolerated, her ghost soon appeared in the house she had once inhabited, and by shouting "Bare-head! Bare-head!" conveyed a very intelligible hint. A council of friends was held, and it was decided that the grave of the deceased should not be opened, but that the next corpse buried in the same churchyard should be provided with an extra cap, to be handed over to its neglected neighbour. This decision was carried into effect, and there is every reason to believe that the newly-interred body honourably and promptly executed its trust, for the noisy ghost was never heard after the burial. Ghosts were not always so considerately treated. At a place called Kattbeck, on the continent, an old fellow whose duty it was to burn charcoal, unluckily reduced all his stock of wood to ashes, and fearing the beating that was the ordinary consequence of such mishaps, hanged himself. The house was taken by another man of similar vocation, but the ghost of the former occupant maliciously on one leg. This form gave hopes of soon came back, with a rope in its hand, and a capture, but no sooner was an attempt made made a terrible disturbance. This was not to to seize the mannikin, than, hey presto! he was be endured; so the new tenant, seeing the ghost converted into a fowl, which defied all pursuit. standing at the door one fine moonlight night, Still more daring was a ghost that, in the shape took his opportunity. He cut a silver coin into of a black he-goat, met a peasant of Rälby on nine pieces, and shot them through the head of his way home from a shooting expedition. The the spectre, who vanished with a loud roar, and peasant levelled his gun at the animal, but it never was seen afterwards. It is worthy of immediately changed into a black man, snatched observation that the marksman took care that the weapon out of his hands, and broke off the the ghost's shadow did not fall upon him, since lock. A prayer caused the spectre to vanish, if it had done so, he would have been wholly in and the peasant ran away likewise; but the its power. For we must understand that the latter, on returning to the spot next day, found Eibo ghost is not only somewhat substantial, the fragments of the gun lying at a distance from but that it casts a shadow. Possibly the fate of each other. A ghost who met a man coming this twice-killed suicide came to the ears of home to Kertell, in Dago, had an easier method another ghost, who appeared at Dirslätt (nearer of dealing with aggressors. Its form was that the isthmus which joins Nucko to the continent), of a great hulking fellow, and it carried a huge and who was mischievous beyond the average, leather sack. Into this the man must needs but showed a singular deficiency in personal plunge his knife, when such a strong gust of courage. When the men were absent from wind came from the hole, that it knocked him home, this spectral nuisance would extinguish down. In this instance the ghost seems to have the lights, drive the women out of doors, let the had the right on its side, and there is no doubt cattle loose, and accompany all these enormities that the man was a churlish lout, for when he with a frightful uproar; but if a man was on met the spectre he had just been quarrelling the premises, it did not so much as show its with a neighbour, although it was Christmasface. Shall we harbour a suspicion that the eve. Very harmless, too, was a white figure women devised this timid ghost on purpose to that came up to a peasant of Worms, who make the men keep proper hours? The most was driving home from the pastor's residence to unsatisfactory tale relates to the ghost of an old his own home at Borby, in Worms. It seated gentleman, who made a point of visiting his itself behind him, and evidently intended no family every Thursday. Passing through the mischief, as it leaped down at the journey's end, front room of the homestead, which includes the but it had frightened the poor man out of his kitchen, he tapped at the door of the sitting-wits, as he afterwards proved by giving tobacco room until it was opened, and the eldest son instead of corn to his chickens. was deputed to receive the restless father. The An old proverb tells us that the meat of one ghost explained the cause of its visitation, on is the poison of another, and we are informed the solemn promise of the son that it should that ghosts, though generally esteemed anuisance not be revealed to any one else. This was a by the human inhabitants of the Eibo-district, sad balk to the more curious members of the are regarded as an exquisite delicacy by the family, and very probably the enlightened son wolves. A peasant who died at Kertell, in gave himself many conceited airs on the strength Dago, adopted the common bad habit of revisitof his exclusive information. But the interviewing his old residence, and making a great noise, so far answered its purpose, that the Thursday visits were not repeated. In the importance given to the Thursday by the Eibo-folk, a reverence to the God Thor may be traced, and it is worthy of remark that the operations of grinding and spinning on Thursday afternoon are deemed unlucky, and likely to cause a disorder in the sheep. At Rälby, a village in the island of Worms, there was a strong-minded young man, who went so far as to shoot the ghost of his own father, with a silver coin cast into the form of a bullet. The ghost disappeared, and in its place was found a quantity of slime. Feeling something like remorse, the son mixed up the ghost's remains with some sand, in order to give them consistency, and wrapping them up in a cloth, piously deposited them in the churchyard. At Oesterby, in Nucko, there was a most ingenious ghost, which baffled all attempts to put it down. First it appeared on the stove, in the shape of a black dog, and when the unwelcome beast had vanished, a little grey man was seen to effect an entrance through the wall, just above the window, and hop about but this affliction might perhaps have been borne, if he had not beaten his widow, with whom he had lived on very bad terms. With his brother he attempted to curry favour, and finding him engaged in heating a lime-kiln in the mountains, offered to lend a helping hand. The brother, however, wanted no such assistance, but cried out to the intrusive spectre, "Have you forgotten whence you came? You ought to be under ground. Be off to the wolf." Perceiving that his affability was thrown away, the spectre retired, and proceeded to the house, but when he reached the stepping-stones of a brook, he was met by a wolf, who devoured him on the spot. What ought a philanthropist to do if he unexpectedly comes upon a ghost that is in danger of being eaten up by a wolf? Certainly the ghost is more human in appearance, but as far as flesh and blood go the living quadruped would seem to be more nearly akin to us. The casuists of the Eibo-folk decide in favour of the wolf, if we may judge from the following incident. A ghost, seized with one of those fits of home angel. Others fled into the woods, where they lived in huts, and it is said that relics of their sojourn are still to be found. sickness which are so little respected by the survivors, was on his way to his former residence, when he was suddenly assailed by a pack of wolves, and forced to take shelter on the top of According to some of the traditions of the a bayloft. The disappointed wolves stood howl- Eibo-folk, the immediate cause of the plague ing below, and the ghost, becoming insolent from was a little grey man, who might be seen and a sense of security, showed them his leg, and scoff-heard at a distance, but whom no one could ingly asked them if that resembled a wolf's foot? | approach. If he intended to spare a house, he Unluckily, he had reckoned without his host, in the most literal sense of the expression, for the peasant to whom the premises belonged thrust a pitchfork through the roof, ran him through the leg, and cast him among the wolves, who at once ate him up. On the following morning a few drops of blood were seen upon the spot. This story belongs to Worms, but the utility of wolves in devouring ghosts is so generally acknowledged among the Eibo-folk, that they have a proverb: If it was not for the wolves, the world would be full of goblins. These ghosts of the Eibo-folk do not in general appeal very strongly to our moral sympathies; but there seems to have been one in the island of Worms of whom the temperance party might be proud. An ill-conditioned fellow, who was terribly fond of brandy, had a son so badly crippled that he could only walk on all-fours. Less fortunate than Tiny Tim, in the Christmas Carol, he gained by his deformity nothing but curses from his brutal parent, and was glad enough to die when he had attained his ninth year. Death, however, did not bring the poor little fellow as much rest as he had anticipated, for one Thursday evening he appeared to his brothers and sisters, perfectly cured of his deformity, and well planted on his feet, but with a very dismal countenance. When he had called several times, always seating himself on the threshold, and always departing without a word, the children made their father acquainted with the facts. That disreputable gentleman asked the little ghost what he wanted, and was informed that the heaviness of his curses prevented the poor child from sleeping in his grave. "That was my sin," said the repentant father; 'depart in peace." The child vanished never to reappear, and the father thenceforward abstained from brandy. Might not this story furnish an illustration to the British Workman? The inhabitants of the provinces adjoining the Gulf of Riga look back with horror to a great plague which visited them in the year 1710, and committed ravages from which it is said the population of Esthonia has not yet recovered. When we hear that of sixty-three preachers in this single province forty-eight perished, we may estimate the sufferings of the people in general. As might be supposed, the plague was attended with the usual revolting circumstances; the dead were buried without coffins or any mark of respect, the only care of survivors being to remove them as speedily as possible. As a singular instance of the despair that is common to these visitations, it is recorded that many of the people, abandoning all hope, put on their best clothes, and quietly sat in their houses awaiting the approach of the destroying passed it by with the words, "Here I have nothing to do;" but otherwise he entered the dwelling and struck the residents with his staff, whereupon they immediately expired. The people of Runo he seems to have treated with a sort of cruel courtesy, as he rode about the island in a calash, with a three-cornered hat upon his head. It appears that the boatman who brought him to the island was the first to perish. The boatmen of Dago seem to have understood this form of visitation, for when they were returning from a foreign ship, which was moored near their island, and to which they had taken provisions, and a little boy three feet high, with a three-cornered hat on his head, leaped into their boat, they threw him overboard. However, he resumed his place, and thus the pestilence was brought to Kertell. The island Kyno was invaded in a more artful manner. There a man found an image on the coast that looked as if it had been broken off a ship. He took it home, and laid it against the wall. When the night came it began to whimper and groan, as if it was in pain, and he could neither quiet it nor remove it, but soon fell sick and died. It was afterwards taken out and thrown into the sea by persons stronger or cleverer than the original finder; but the mischief was already done, and nearly the whole village perished. The supposition that an odd kind of goblin is the proximate cause of the plague, does not preclude the belief that he is the agent of a Higher Power. On one occasion the personified Pestilence visited a house at Kertell, where all were asleep except an elderly virgin. The pestilence touched them upon the bosom in turns with its staff, thus making a blue mark, which soon spread over the entire body. When all was dead except the old maid, she called on the pestilence to destroy her also, but was told that her name was not on the list, and she survived the visitation accordingly. A similar story is told of a visitation at Kerslatt, in Worms. Here, while the other inhabitants of a house were sleeping, a little grey man, carrying a staff, a candle, and a book, walked in, and was closely watched by an old gentleman, who sat awake by the stove. He touched the sleepers three times, but when he came to a cradle, in which there was a child, he looked at it, took out his book, turned over the leaves, and left the infant unscathed. The child lived, and so, also, did the old man, to tell the tale. The Finns are born conjurors, which certainly does not seem to be the case with the Eibo-folk; and hence it is but natural that in the legends of the latter, magical victories over the plague are ascribed to their more astute neighbours. A Finnish servant-girl at Kertell contrived to lock up the plague in an empty stable, but a stupid slut would sleep in the stall in spite of all warnings, and not only perished herself, but let loose the malady. So large a space as a stable was not required, for on another occasion the same Finnish girl bored a hole in the door-post, into which she thrust the pestilence, and then stopped up the aperture with a peg of juniper, which kept the prisoner fast for seven years, seven months, and seven days. A certain emperor seems to have driven the plague out of one of the villages by a magnificent coup d'état. He caused a ship, freighted with the sick and dead of the plague, and with the living Death (!) as one of the passengers, to sail upon the high seas, there to be set on fire. Who this particular emperor was we cannot say, but we suspect that he flourished a little before 1710. If the grey man or boy is only an agent, it seems very clear that he likes his occupation. When the corpses were carried to the churchyard he was seen dancing about in the fields, with his three-cornered hat in his hand, evidently delighted with his own mischief. Before taking leave of the strange goblins of the Eibo-folk, we may remark that the ghosts have a keen sense of the proper mode of wearing one's apparel. A cowherd of Kertell, who had been suddenly struck blind by a malignant spirit, recovered his sight immediately by turning his glove inside out. Similar stories are recorded among the Russians proper, and it is said that if one of these is assailed by the wood-spirit, and thereby loses his way, he takes off all his clothes and puts them on again with the inside out. If this process is found too tedious, it seems that a turned cap or stocking will answer every purpose. YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY IN INDIA. nories) of the stewards, by way of training, and realised in the beginning a no uncommon end, by making themselves thoroughly sick of the country to which they were bound. It was by the second mail in December, 1853, that I traversed the overland route for the first time. In those days even the railway through France was incomplete. The railway from Paris dropped you at Châlons, and the steamer took you up at that point, along the Saone, to Lyons. The diligence carried you thence to Avignon, where the railway began again, taking you in triumphantly to Marseilles with the air of having brought you all the way. This mixed mode of travelling is certainly more picturesque and pleasant than being propelled the whole way by the same agency, with as few breaks as possible, and no rest to speak of. There were several English travellers making their way to catch the same mail as myself. I had met one of them before, at Dover, when he had asked me if I was going any further than Calais, and I had answered, "Just a little furthertowards Caubul." We now fraternised of course, and the other overland people did the same, making up a little party of their own, and experiencing a foretaste of that strong characteristic of Indians," a sense of that bond of union which, however they may quarrel among themselves, seems to separate them from the rest of mankind. Among those on board were two young gentlemen going out in the Civil Service; one free, the other in the custody of his father. The former was ready to bet any amount on anything, and play whist at impossible points; the only serious care he condescended to recognise, relating to the safety of three boxes of saddlery-including, I believe, a side-saddle or two for contingencies-which he was taking out with him in anticipation of that first-rate stud which he has probably found out by this time costs a great deal of money to keep, even in India. He presented a contrast JANUARY in the Red Sea. Noon. The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steam-ship Ne-in most respects to the second griff, who, mesis is making nine knots an hour through the bluest water I ever beheld. We left Suez yesterday, and begin to feel intensely Eastern, as overland passengers always do at this point. Those who had never made the journey before, appeared to expect that their Indian experiences would commence as soon as they left Southampton. By much reading of guide-books they brought their minds into a state which rendered it impossible to call their lunch anything but tiffin, or their cigars anything but cheroots; and I believe that but for the ruthless prohibition of the cold weather they would already have begun to don their white clothing, of which they had, with a prudence quite unnecessary, kept out a supply for impossible contingencies. By talking to the old Indians on board-who gave themselves airs of superiority-they had actually picked up whole phrases of Hindustanee in the first few days, which they aired remorselessly, to the confusion of appropriateness and the bewilderment of comprehension. They bought government Manillas (made in the Mi besides being in custody, was treated like a criminal. Not for him were the adventurous bets, or the impossible points. For him no Mr. Peat had provided saddles upon improved principles, with English trees such as the Indian-made article can never match, and sound leather, such as even Cawnpore cannot supply; hits adapted to every kind of mouth, Arab, Caubul, Waler, or humble tattoo of Mofussil life; bridles that will hold anything, and spurs that are a delight to the heel. In the stead of these indulgences he was furnished with plenty of lectures upon the impropriety of gambling in any shape, and the ruinous consequence of keeping horses of luxury for any other purpose than carrying their owner whither he may want to go, for which object it must be admitted that some ten or twenty of those animals does seem an undue allowance. There was an old major (majors were not minors then as they sometimes are now) who had been disappointed, as majors of the old school always are, who scowled upon his young allies, said un |