confession of a prisoner who had died but a few minutes before.

37. The dying prisoner had confessed that he was one of a secret band of coiners, who had carried on the trade of making false money to a very great extent, and that Vincen'te's confidential clerk, Jacobi, was the head of the gang; that all the false money was delivered to the clerk, who exchanged it for good money from his master's coffers; and that, on the arrest of Vincen'te, he had placed the tools for coining and the false money where they had been found by the officers.

38. The confession further gave the names of the gang, and their places of concealment. All were arrested; one of them became evidence against his comrades ;—and thus the truth of the confession, and the innocence of Vincen'te, were fully established.

39. The president of justice, in order to make all possible amends, called a public meeting of the citizens of Padua, at which Vincen'te was produced; then the president, descending from the tribunal, and taking Vincen'te by the hand, led him to a seat by his side, on the bench of justice.

40. The crier then proclaimed silence, when the president arose, and having read the confession made by the dying criminal, and the additional evidence against the other prisoners, he concluded the whole by declaring the innocence of Vincen'te, and restoring him to his credit, his fortune, and the good opinion of his fellow-citizens.

Comments on the Story.

1. When the reading of this excellent Italian story had been concluded by Mr. Agnew, Mr. Raymond remarked, "The saying of the wise man is as true now as it was in olden times, that 'pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall;'-and it was one wiser than

a Prov. xvi. 18.

Solomon who said, 'Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.'

2. "Moreover, the story just read," said Uncle Philip, "shows the uncertainty of the very strongest circumstantial evidence. We are sometimes told that one or two witnesses may testify falsely against a man, but that circumstances cannot lie; and that there may be a chain of circumstances pointing to guilt, more conclusive than any amount of direct testimony. But the foregoing story, in which all the events narrated are quite possible, should lead us to exercise the greatest caution against relying too much upon circumstances, when they tell against the life of a human being."

3. Then Mr. Bardou remarked, "I would say to the young people who are present, that when you grow up to be citizens, and are called to sit upon a jury when the life of a human being is at stake, it will be well for you to remember this case of circumstantial evidence; and, even if the circumstances against the prisoner are of the very strongest kind, ask yourselves, 'Is it not possible that they testify falsely against him?' In my own experience I have known a trial for murder, in which the circumstantial evidence was as strong as in this case, and the accused was convicted on it, and suffered the penalty of death; yet it was afterward found that he was wholly innocent."

Mr. Agnew then resumed the reading of Freddy's letter, as follows:

III.-The Voyage Interrupted.

1. As we continued on our course down the Adriatic, a sudden storm, which threatened to become a hurricane— but which Prof. Howard declared was a touch of the sirocco-burst upon us from the south-east, and Captain

a Matt. xxiii. 12.

Gray thought it best to run for shelter into the deep and broad harbor of Porto Molo, which opens, between two immense craggy rocks on the east coast of Ithaca, one of the Ionian Islands. Here several of our party went ashore at

Vathy, the capital.

2. Most of us at first regretted that we were obliged to stop at this rocky and, comparatively, barren island; but Prof. Howard rendered our short stay here quite interesting, especially to the college graduates; for he told us that this is the very island so celebrated in antiquity as the kingdom of Ulysses; and that the great Grecian poet, Homer, in his poem the Odyssey, very accurately describes the port, then called Phorcy, in which we had taken refuge. Then he quoted these lines from the Odyssey :

3.

"A spacious port appears,
Sacred to Phorcy's" power, whose name it bears ;-
The craggy rocks, projecting to the main,

The roaring winds' tempestuous rage restrain:
Within, the waves in softer murmurs glide,
And ships secure without their hawsers ride.”

Pope's Trans.

4. The natives pointed out to us some very ancient ruins, which they call the Castle of Ulysses; and the Professor told us that, some distance south of the port, there is a perennial spring, which the traditions of the island regard as the famous fountain of the nymph Arethu'sa. He also related to us the fable of Arethu'sa, as it has been exquisitely told in poetry by the English poet Shelley.

5. Having taken on board a Greek pilot at Vathy, we left the harbor, and, still keeping near the Grecian coast, passed the island of Zan'te,—so famed for the Zan'te cur

a

Phorcy was also the name given, in Grecian mythology, to "the old man of the sea," whose three daughters had only one eye and one tooth in common.

rants of commerce,-rounded Cape Matapan, the southern extremity of Greece, then turning northward, early in the morning of the last day of April, we entered the harbor of the Piræ'us, and came to anchor about four miles south-west of the city of Athens.

6. Away off, across the undulating plain of Attica, could be seen a little square-topped hill with something on it, which our glasses soon discovered to be the ruined edifices

of the ancient city. Most prominent among these loomed the venerable Parthenon; and so clear and so pure was the atmosphere, that, although we were five or six miles distant, every column of the noble structure could be seen through the telescope. Here I must close my letter, for we are preparing to start for the city.

CHAPTER XVI.-TWENTY MILES BELOW LAKE-VIEW.

I.-Factory Management.

1. Some twenty miles below Lake-View, on the Minsi River, was the thriving town of Anderson, which was noted for its extensive iron-works and potteries. Here a company had recently been formed for the purpose of erecting suitable buildings and manufacturing cotton and woollen goods. As the Lake-View factories had acquired a high reputation, not only for business prosperity, but also for the happy relations that had always existed between the owners and their employés, the Anderson directors wrote to Mr. Middleton (our Uncle Philip) for some account of the plan and principles of the establishment of which he was superintendent.

2. Uncle Philip wrote back, that he would send down some one to talk to them on the subject, if they would call a public meeting for the purpose. He would send a young man, he said, who, having begun as a boy in the Lake-View factories, had worked his way up through all the departments, and was fully competent to explain everything about the management of the business.

3. The result was, that a large meeting of the Anderson people, including many of those employed in the iron-works and potteries, listened, with great interest, for nearly an hour, to the young man sent by Uncle Philip, as he dwelt upon the relations of employers and employed, and explained how their interests might be, and ought to be, harmonized, as had been done in the Lake-View factories owing to the wise plan on which they were founded, and their liberal and enlightened management. The speaker was our young friend Ralph Duncan. Nine years before, he had entered the Lake-View factories as "bobbin-boy."