that was yet heavier. Our cottage had an ample piazza, (a luxury almost
universal in the country houses of America,) which, shaded by a group of
acacias, made a delightful sitting-room; from this favourite spot we one
day perceived symptoms of building in a field close to it; with much
anxiety we hastened to the spot, and asked what building was to be erected
there. ''Tis to be a slaughter-house for hogs,' was the dreadful reply.
As there were several gentlemen's houses in the neighbourhood, I asked if
such an erection might not be indicted as a nuisance. 'A what?' 'A
nuisance,' I repeated, and explained what I meant. 'No, no,' was the reply,
'that may do very well for your tyrannical country, where a rich man's
nose is more thought of than a poor man's mouth; but hogs be profitable
produce here, and we be too free for such a law as that, I guess.'"

* * * * *


THE BELL ROCK LIGHT HOUSE.

On the 9th ult., about 10 P.M., a large herring-gull struck one of the
south-eastern mullions of the Bell Rock Light House with such force, that
two of the polished plates of glass, measuring about two feet square, and
a quarter of an inch in thickness, were shivered to pieces and scattered
over the floor in a thousand atoms, to the great alarm of the keeper on
watch, and the other two inmates of the house, who rushed instantly to the
light room. It fortunately happened, that although one of the red-shaded
sides of the reflector-frame was passing in its revolution at the moment,
the pieces of broken glass were so minute, that no injury was done to the
red glass. The gull was found to measure five feet between the tips of the
wings. In his gullet was found a large herring, and in its throat a piece
of plate-glass, of about one inch in length.--(From No. I. of the