f the wire may be viewed
through a microscope which magnifies 500 times; and by these means,
therefore, its 500th part will become visible.--_Lardner's Handbook_.

CHEAP LIVING.

In the interior of Bulgaria and Upper Moesia, the low price of
provision and cattle of every description is almost fabulous compared
with the prices of Western Europe. A fat sheep or lamb usually costs
from 1s. 6d. to 2s.; an ox, 40s.; cows, 30s.; and a horse, in the best
possible travelling condition, from L.4 to L.5 sterling; wool, hides,
tallow, wax, and honey, are equally low. In the towns and hans by the
road-side everything is sold by weight: you can get a pound of meat
for a halfpenny, a pound of bread for the same, and wine, which is
also sold by weight, costs about the same money. In Servia, pigs
everywhere form the staple commodity of the country. I have seen some
that, would weigh from 150 lbs. to 200 lbs. or more offered for sale
at 300 Turkish piastres the dozen; in the neighbourhood of the Danube
they fetch a little more. The expense of keeping these animals in a
country abounding with forests being so trifling, and the prospect of
gain to the proprietor so certain, we cannot wonder that no landowner
is without them, and that they constitute the richest class in the
principality. In fact, pig-jobbers are here men of the highest rank:
the prince, his ministers, civil and military governors, are all
engaged in this lucrative traffic.--_Spencer's Travels._

MOUNTAINS IN SNOW.

Cold--oh, deathly cold--and silent, lie the white hills 'neath
the sky,
Like a soul whom fate has covered with thy snows, Adversity!
Not a sough of wind comes moaning; the same outline, high and
bare,
As in pleasant days of summer, rises in the murky air.

Very quiet--very silent--whether shines the mocking sun
Through the wintry blue, or lowering drift the feathery
snow-clouds dun:
Always quiet, always silent, be it night or be it day,
With that pale shroud coldly lying where the heather-blossoms lay.

Can they be the very mountains that we looked at, you and I?
One long wavy line of purple painted on the sunset sky;
With the new moon's edge just touching that dark rim, like
dancer's foot,
Or young Dian's, on the hill-side for Endymion waiting mute.

O how golden was that even!--O how balm the summer air!
How the bridegroom sky bent loving o'er it