In this, the Rochdale men followed the example of Leeds. This corn mill brought the Pioneers to the verge of bankruptcy, but they manfully braved the storm, so that last March the corn-mill had a capital of £31,000 invested in it, and the business of the first quarter of this year amounted to £35,000. These sums are almost incredible, but more remains behind. Five years after the establishment of the cornmill, a more hazardous enterprise was undertaken. A cotton manufactory was started in some old rooms; but just before the distress a magnificent mill was built, which cost in all £50,000. It is a pleasure to be able to relate, that during the most severe month of the distress, November, 1862, the co-operative cotton mill was running three days a week.

A few

Such is a brief and therefore imperfect view of this wonderful society. words about the store organization. A workman wishing to become a member, first signs a declaration of his willingness to take out five shares of £1 each, and at the same time he pays one shilling entrance money. He is then proposed as a member before the committee of management, and his name is posted up in the meeting-room, and if no objection is made to him he is admitted a member. If admitted, he must go on paying at least threepence weekly, until he has made up his five shares. All this time he is receiving profits on his purchases, which assists him wonderfully in making up his shares. As soon as he has made up one share, he begins to receive interest at 5 per cent in addition to his profits. When a member goes to the store to make a purchase, he receives a "tin ticket" with the amount of his purchase stamped on. At the end of the quarter he takes his tickets to the store, has his purchases summed up, and receives a proportional amount of profit. He may take his profits away in his pocket if he has made up his five shares, or he may allow them to accumulate until he has reached the value of a hundred shares, and there he stops. Various admirable arrangements are made for matters of detail; but the guiding principle is No Credit. The stores pay for their goods when they buy them, and receive money for them when they sell them. The consequence is there are no bad debts; the merchants can sell to the stores at a low rate, because they are sure of their money; and who may estimate the advantage to the buyers of "no credit allowed"?

Such is the representative of the great Co-operative movement; and of such kind is the movement itself. The more it is considered, the more it will be admired.

What an advance on the old mob riots, Chartist demonstrations, and Socialist absurdities! Here is a movement which has stood for twenty years in its present form, and has spread over much of the continent; a movement, which, according to those most likely to know, has done more for the moral and social advantage of working men, than all Acts of Parliament put together,-more than any other movement ever started. It is a movement of incalculable importance to our dear land, for surely it is no exaggeration to say that it tends largely to secure that peace and happiness, that truth and justice, which we pray may be established among us for all generations, and which all desire to see. B.

THE LOVING-CUP.

The Grace-cup and Loving-cup appear to be synonymous terms for a beverage, the drinking of which has been from time immemorial a great feature at the corporation dinners in London and other large towns, as also at the feasts of the various trade companies and the Inns of Court,the mixture of which is a compound of wine and spices, formerly called "Sack," and is handed round the table, before the removal of the cloth, in large silver cups, from which no one is allowed to drink before the guest on either side of him has stood up; the person who drinks then rises and bows to his neighbours. This custom is said to have originated in the precaution to keep the right or dagger hand employed, as it was a frequent practice with the Danes to stab their compa. nions in the back at the time they were drinking. The most notable instance of this was the treachery employed by Elfrida, who stabbed King Edward the Martyr at Corfe Castle whilst thus engaged. At the Temple the custom of the Loving-cup is strictly observed. The guests are only supposed to take one draught from it as it passes; but, in No, 110 of the Quarterly Review, a writer says, "Yet it chanced not long since at the Temple, that though the number present fell short of seventy, thirty-six quarts of the liquor was consum. ed. " Cups and their Customs.

"Whose pigs are these my lad?" "Whoy, they belong to that there big sow." No! I mean who is their master?" "Whoy," again answered the lad, "that little 'un there; he's a rare 'un to feight.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE NEWS MAGAZINE."

SIR,

Allow me the pleasure of sending you a little" Anecdote" for the first number of your "News Magazine." I promise you, if you insert it, you shall hear from me monthly, until the end of your first year's existence, by which time you will have found out whether you have been sold, or your Magazine. Excuse my freedom with you, as you have my best wishes, I have ventured to hint at a contingency which you may not have calculated upon.

I have been sold twice in my life-time; I am, however, a bit of a Philosopher, as well as

Sir, yours very truly,
FAST COACH.

Fletton, June 10th, 1864.

P.S.-I expect you will be glad to receive anything at first.

P.S. 2-I would enclose my Card, but the Governor has set his face against Cards! F. C.

[We have printed the letter sent us by "Fast Coach," which perhaps, he did not intend us to do, and therefore he will be "sold" for the third time! We are half inclined to think his "Governor" has got one "Card" left at home, which he would not be sorry to part with. Ed. of N. M.]

THE ANECDOTE.

THE OLD MAN AND HIS DOG. (Translated from the French.)

A poor old man had a dog, which he had reared from a puppy, and with which he had daily shared the parsimonious morsel that was scarcely sufficient for the subsistence of both. By age and scantiness of food, his strength declined so fast, that he could no longer procure enough to keep himself and his dog alive.

He would have given the animal away, but he had no form of beauty, or qualities that could attract the attention and friendship of others; and, driven to extremity, his master took him in his arms, tied a stone to one end of the string, and the other end round the neck of the dog, carried him to one of the bridges, wept over him, kissed him, and plunged him into the river after which, he went and sat down by the side of the wall, covered his face with his hands, and was seized

:

with the agonizing thought, that he had that instant wilfully put to death the only remaining friend he had on earth.

He had scarcely remained a minute in this disconsolate state, when a neighbour passing came up; and, seeing him thus, immediately enquired what had happened.

"I am a miserable and guilty wretch," said the old man: "I do not deserve to live there was but one creature in the world that loved me, and him I have this minute destroyed."

"Who?-what creature? and, how destroyed?"

"My poor, my patient Fidel-that suffered with me, and never murmured." "But what of him?"

"I have thrown him over the bridge." "And why did you do so?"

"I had no longer any food to give him, without fasting myself, and for that I had not courage."

"No food? when did you leave home?" "Early this morning, I have been in the Champs Elysees: I sat there all day with Fidel."

"Then you do not know that Antoine has returned ?"

"Returned! How should he return? I should not have been starving here, if Antoine had not fallen at Toulon."

"So everybody thought; but it was not true he was taken prisoner, he has made his escape, and is now waiting at home, impatient to embrace his father."

"My dear boy, my Antoine, living !". "I have seen him."

"Oh, what a rash wretch have I been to drown Fidel! I do not deserve the blessing which Heaven has sent me." The old man had scarcely finished this, his last regret, before Fidel came running up, and jumped into his arms. The stone had slipped out of the noose, Fidel swam to shore, and the poor old man's happiness was as great as it was unexpected.

THE FENS IN THE TIME OF THE ROMANS.

Along the shores of the Wash, where the fresh and salt waters met, the tendency to the deposit of silt was the greatest; and in the course of ages, the land at the outlet of the inland waters was raised above the level of the interior. Accordingly, the first land reclaimed in the district was the rich fringe of deposited silt lying along the shores of the Wash, now known as Marshland and South Holland. This was the work of the Romans, a hard-working, energetic, and skilful people; of whom the

Britons are said to have complained that they wore out and consumed their hands and bodies in clearing the woods and banking the fens. The bulwarks or causeways which they raised to keep out the sea are still traceable at Po-Dyke in Marshland, and at various points near the old coastline.

On the inland side of the Fens the Romans are supposed to have constructed another great work of drainage, still known as Carr Dyke, extending from the Nene to the Witham. It means Fen Dyke, the fens being still called Carrs in certain parts of Lincolnshire. This old drain is about sixty feet wide, with a broad, flat bank on each side; and originally it must have been at least forty miles in extent, winding along under the eastern side of the high land, which extends in an irregular line up the centre of the district from Stamford to Lincoln. It was calculated to receive all the high-land and flowing waters, preventing them flooding the lower grounds; and was thus of the nature of an intercepting or "catch-water" drain.

The same people also laid several causeways across the Fens for military purposes. Thus Herodian alludes to the construction of such causeways for the purpose of enabling the Roman soldiers to pass over them and fight on dry land, the Britons having taken refuge from them by swimming. Such was probably the origin of the causeway made of gravelstill traceable, though in most places covered over with moor-soil-extending from Denver in Norfolk over the Great Wash to Charke, and from thence to Marsh and Peterborough, a distance of nearly thirty miles.

The eastern parts of Marshland and Holland were thus the first lands reclaimed in the district, and they were available for purposes of agriculture long before any attempts had been made to drain the lands of the interior. Indeed, it is not improbable that these early embankments thrown up along the coast had the effect of increasing the inundations of the lowerlying lands of the level; for, whilst they dammed the salt water out, they also held back the fresh, no provision having been made for improving and deepening the outfalls of the rivers flowing through the Level into the Wash. The Fen lands in winter were thus not only flooded by the rainfall of the Fens themselves, and by the upland waters which flowed from the interior, but also from the daily flux of the tides which drove in from the German Ocean, holding back the fresh waters, and even mixing with them far inland.Smiles.

"MISERIES."

By Sir Fretfull Murmur, Knt.

Sending to the Morning Post, a paragraph written by yourself, announcing the arrival of yourself and family in town, in the following words; "Yesterday Mr. and "the charming Mrs. F. and their three "lovely and accomplished daughters arrived "at their town house in Burlington Street, "from Moss Hall in Kent, which beautiful "retreat, has undergone some very delight"ful alterations from the exquisite designs "of Mrs. F. whose unrivalled taste is the "theme of admiration amongst all her "numerous fashionable friends and "acquaintance. Meeting three days after the appearance of the paragraph an acquaintance, who informs you to your great gratification that he had read the arrival: then upon your modestly observing thereon, that "it is a singular thing, that one cannot move without being watched "by these confounded Newspaper writers, "and that it is really wonderful how they "can get the intelligence they publish.' Your friend laughing in your face, and telling you that he was in the Newspaper Office to get a puff for a friend of his inserted at the time, when your servant came in with and paid for the paragraph, which lying on the counter he perused and recognized to be in your own hand writing.

All your acquaintance telling you, that a portrait which you are aware is rather flattering, is not at all like you.

Not having paid your devotions very ardently to Coke upon Littleton, or the whole law relative to the duty and office of a justice of the peace; being asked at dinner before a large party, by a country magistrate, your opinion upon a plain settlement point, which has bewildered him; giving a wrong one, and confounded by being, in a knowing and officious manner, set right by a rip of a pettyfogging country attorney; who was honoured by an invitation to the same table.

On a sultry day, putting your hand into your breeches pocket, in withdrawing the former, turning the latter inside out, and seeing a guinea roll to and vanish through a chink in the floor.

Sitting opposite to a man who squints, and answering him when he is addressing another person.

Finding a man growing warm with you on some very private and delicate family topic in a coffee-room, where you observe every one is listening and smiling.

This "Misery" occurred to a friend of Sir Fretfull's. [ED. N. M.]

In sharply turning a corner, coming suddenly in contact with a chimneysweeper, who impresses your white waistcoat and light coloured breeches with very visible memorials of the rencontre.

Putting coals on fire, the handle of coal-skuttle being dirty-New gloves on. Wishing to wake early to be in time for a morning train, waking, and upon looking at your watch discovering that you had not wound it up.

To be obliged frequently to meet in company a man, who opposes every remark for the purpose of starting an argument, in which he is always more vociferous than convincing.

Being surrounded by a parcel of spoiled, squalling brats, 'till you are almost induced to think favourably of Herod.

Being incessantly pestered to eat more, after you have made a hearty dinner.

At a game at forfeits saluting a pretty looking girl, and finding that her teeth are not aromatic pearl.

The miseries in the shape of mistakes, which two persons of the same name, residing within four doors of each other, experience.

Knocking at a door, and by a horrible and unaccountable lapse of memory, forgetting the name of the master or the mistress of the house.

Trying to pass a man who waddles.

Crossing a yard, and unexpectedly finding yourself within the extent of the chain of a large surly house-dog, affecting boldly to look him in the face, and in an agony of horror, gradually stealing away from him.

Opening a very stiff box filled with small wafers, and spilling them all over the room.

In the midst of a merry story being suddenly forced to weep by the sudden operation of an excessive portion of patent and potent mustard.

"The Old Mermaid." After tea, I continued my walk westward to a small, quiet, comfortable village, about five miles from Huntingdon, where I became the guest of "The Old Mermaid," who extended her amphibious hospitalities to all strangers wishing bed and board for the night. Both I received readily and greatly enjoyed under her roof, especially the former. Never did I occupy a bed so fringed with the fanciful artistries of dreamland. was close up under the thatched roof, and it was the most easy and natural thing in the world for the fancies of the midnight hour to turn that thatching into hair, and to cheat my willing mind with the delusion that I was sleeping with the long, soft

It

THE CHRONICLE-1864.

MAY 3rd. Mr. M. Redman, surgeon, Lincoln, received a letter from Sir C. Phipps, written by command of the Queen, and enclosing a Post Office Order for £3 from Her Majesty, as a donation to assist Mrs. Jane Reddington, who had recently been delivered of three children at one birth. (This is the third triplet in Lincoln within the last 20 years, and two of them occured in Mr. Redman's practice.-In the former cases the children died; in the present instance all three are likely to live.)

A fire occurred at Wragby last night, which resulted in the death of Mary Anne Wimberley, an unmarried lady, who lodged at Mr. Charles Pickering's, aged 77.

4th. James Willis, Boston, drover, was convicted of cruelty to a dog belonging to him; was fined 11. 2s. 6d., and in default of payment, was committed to prison for 14 days.

9th. At Somersham Petty Sessions, Stephenson Kidman and Joseph Reid, farmers, Fenstanton, were found guilty of having brutally assaulted William Murphin, at Fenstanton, on the 20th of April last, and fined: Reid 51., with 21. 38., costs, and Kidman 41. with 21. 3s.,.costs. Both defendants paid the amount.

10th. Mr. Herbert B. Spurgin of Thrapston, passed his examination before the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and was duly admitted a member of that institution.

A visitation was held in St. Martin's Church, Stamford.

At the Isle of Ely Sessions, the chief constable reported, that Lieut. General Cartwright had inspected the Isle of Ely constabulary, on which occasion the General stated, that the force stood at the head of the list in his district, in the detection of crime, no less than 85 per cent of the indictable offences in the Isle of Ely, having been committed for trial.

The Archdeacon of Stow held a visitation in Lincoln Cathedral. 11th.

The Duke of Manchester's Mounted Volunteers, were inspected by Colonel Ibbetson, in Kimbolton Park. The Inspecting Officer, pronounced a high eulogium on the improved efficiency and steadiness of the regiment. About 180 members were present.

Naomi Speechly, singlewoman, Ramsey, sought magisterial advice, on account of the "charming" influence practise on her by Thomas Parker, who she represented could by rubbing a brick on the wall of her residence, cause her to "totter, dance, jump and sing," so that she could not stop herself.

Eliza Hewitt, who stated she was a native of Ancaster, near Grantham, left a small box at the Sibsey Station to be forwarded by train. It was directed to Mr. J. Wilkinson, stonemason, Wormgate, Louth. Some suspicion was excited as to the contents of the box, and it was opened, and found to contain a living infant.

16th. At Stilton, the foundation stone of a new chapel for the United Methodist Free Church, was laid by the Rev. T. Sherwood.

17th. The Manor of Holywell-cumNeedingworth, St. Ives, was sold at Messrs. Beadell's rooms, London, to Messrs. Cree and Last, Solicitors, Gray's Inn Square, London, and realized 16,000l.

18th. Mr. Middleton Smith, North Street, Peterborough, agent for Chaplin & Horne, whilst under the influence of delirium tremens, attempted self-destruction by cutting his throat with a razor; assistance was at hand, and he was fortunately prevented from accomplishing his purpose.

John Lilley, a native of Thorney, a laborer employed on the Great Northern Railway, was run over by the Manchester express train, near the Peterborough Station, and killed on the spot.

19th. Naomi Speechly, of Ramsey, having undergone a medical examination and pronounced of unsound mind, was removed to an asylum.

The Northamptonshire Volunteers were this day reviewed by the Most Noble the Marquis of Exeter, the Lord Lieutenant, in Burghley Park. About 800 men were on the ground. The élite of the county were present on the occasion. The railways ran special trains, and brought thousands of sight-seers from all parts. A charge of 6d. admission to the Park was made on the public, which appears to have caused general dissatisfaction. After the fatigues of the day, the volunteers were regaled with pork pies, roast beef, bread and ale.

20th. At Long Sutton, Mary Ann Dixon, servant, who had been living with Mr. J. Coupland, of Sutton, was committed for trial at Lincoln assizes, on the charge of the wilful murder of her female infant, on or about the 2nd inst. The body was found on the 16th inst., in Wm. Dixon's (the prisoner's father's) garden, on the Holbeach bank.

A very severe thunderstorm passed over the neighbourhood of Peterborough. The lightning was extremely vivid, and killed a cow at Orton-also a sheep belonging to Mr. Wagstaff, of Chesterton.

21st. Charles Daubney was employed off Freiston shore, Lincolnshire, with a horse and cart, shrimping, which is a common practice when the tide recedes. By some