the temple or fire-house, they stand round the fire at the distance of eleven or twelve feet from it, and the priest utters a speech, to the effect that, as fire is the virtue and excellence of Deity, it must be worshipped as part of him; and that all things resembling it, as the sun and moon, which proceeded from it, are to be loved; and they pray that they may be forgiven if, in the ordinary uses of this element, they should either spill water on it, or supply it with any fuel unworthy of its purity, or commit any other irreverence or abuse, in the necessary employment of it for the wants of their cominon life. As soon as a child is born the priest is sent for; and, on his arrival, he ascertains the precise moment when the birth took place, calculates the nativity according to astrological rules, and names the infant. Some time afterwards the child is brought to the temple, when the priest takes pure water, and puts it into the bark of a tree which grows at Yezd, in Persia, and which they say receives no shadow from the sun. Out of this he pours the water on the child, praying that it may thus be cleansed from the pollutions of its parents. At seven years of age the child is again taken to the temple, to receive religious instructions; and as soon as he knows the required prayers perfectly by heart, he is directed to repeat them over the fire, his mouth and nostrils being covered with a cloth, lest his sinful breath should pollute it. After prayers he is required to drink water, chew a pomegranate leaf, and wash himself in a tank, when he is considered inwardly and outwardly clean, and the priest invests him with the linen sadra, or sacred shirt, and the girdle of camel's hair, woven by his own hand. He then prays over him, that he may continue a faithful follower of the religion of which these garments are the badge. All which being duly transacted, the child is held a confirmed Parsee. commanded perfect silence. The priest, standing at a distance, pronounces that," as this, our brother, while he lived, consisted of the four elements, now he is dead, let each take his own- earth to earth, air to air, water to water, and fire to fire." According to the more recent author alluded to, the Parsees are now far from remaining so peculiar a people as they were two hundred years ago. They have spread from their original settlements in Western Hindostan into various parts of the East; and, like the Jews in their dispersion, have retained certain of their ancient usages, which, as well as their physical constitution, mark them as a distinct race; while they devote themselves to commercial pursuits with such keenness, that they are known as eager and unscrupulous moneymakers, much more than as zealous fire-worshippers. They seem to have attached themselves peculiarly to the Europeans, who are now in the ascendant. The Parsee has not only been the best sutler to the British forces in Scinde, Afghanistan, and Lahore, but he is generally the mess-agent at the different military stations throughout the presidency of Bombay; he is found likewise in some localities of Bengal and Madras, and in the British consular ports of China. He endeavors by all means to obtain for his sons an education in the English language, which many of them speak and write with remarkable facility. The government offices, the banks, the merchants' counting-houses, and the attorneys' offices, are crowded with clerks of this race. The Parsees are personally distinguished from the Hindoos of Lower India by a taller, larger, and more athletic figure; and they have the bold formation of countenance, the fine aquiline nose, with well-developed nostrils, the large black eyes, and well-turned chia, which we admire in the Armenian; while the long ears, heavy eyebrows, and thick, sensual-looking lips, must be regarded as drawbacks. Some of them are as fair as Europeans; but, instead of the ruddy complexion in the north, they exhibit the sallowness which even ourselves acquire by long residence in India. Parsees are notoriously given to good-living. The best of flesh, fish, and fowl are whipped from a bazaar for their consumption; pork and beef are their aversion; but mutton-hams are imported by some of the gentry for their use. Every description of European wine is drunk. In the making up of their victuals, the Parsees are rather gross, as they use large quantities of clarified butter, commonly known as ghee. Confectionery of every variety is largely partaken of, and bread after the English fashion is eaten by almost every member of the tribe. The Parsee com For the celebration of funeral rites the Parsees have in each of their settlements two tombs or towers, built of a circular shape, large, pretty high from the ground, and somewhat distant from each other. One is for those who have led a commendable life; the other, for such as may have been notoriously vicious. The tombs are paved inside with shelving-stones, and in the middle is a deep pit to receive bones. All around the walls are laid the shrouded and sheeted dead, exposed to the action of the elements, and the ravages of the beasts and birds which frequent the spot; after which, the bones are collected, and deposited in the receptacle mentioned. A priest may not come within ten feet of a corpse, nor may the corpse be permitted to touch wood, because this is the fuel of the holy fire; it is laid on an iron bier, and carried to the spot by appointed persons, who are | Boyd. *The Parsees. By H. G. Briggs. Oliver and fessional gentlemen are often the confidants of the women, they are too frequently the butts or buffoons of the men, who perform the ceremonies enjoined on them with the samo kind of relish that a patient evinces in swallowing a nauseous draught prescribed by a physician. mences the day by eating a light breakfast, is true that every family supports from one often no more than a slice or two of bread, to half-a-dozen priests; but though these proand several cups of tea, which he drinks with a handkerchief applied to the piece of pottery. His dinner is between twelve and two o'clock during the day, and is served in polished plates of brass large quantities of rice are then consumed with curry, along with a variety of pungent ingredients, ground into what is called chitni, stews, &c. By tradesfolk and the better classes of the community a cup or more of tea is partaken of either at four or five o'clock in the afternoon. The evening meal takes place between eight and ten o'clock, and is distinguished by much license both in wine and speech. Then comes the tat, or parting cup, which bids To each and all a fair good-night. But though a gourmand in point of living, and an undoubted bon vivant, the Parsee is sprightly, and alive to every amusement, fond of entertaining his friends, and benevolent from charitable impulse, rather than from any view of purchasing merit. His outer dress is of Gujerati origin; but beneath the closely-tied cotton coat is the sacred shirt and cord, to which we have adverted as the essential badges of his faith. These are worn by the women as well as the men; while the outer dress even of the poorest Parsee female is a silk sadee, composed of several yards, first received in folds about the waist, and then thrown over the head, so that the outer end of it falls upon the right arm. The lower part of the dress of both sexes consists of loose drawers, made of cotton or silk, according to the circumstances of the wearer, and drawn in at the waist by a cord run through an open hem. Before children are invested with the sacred shirt and cord, their dress is remarkably rich, and in many cases extravagantly ornamented with gold and precious stones. The Parsees exhibit so many startling inconsistencies with reference to their own once hallowed rites and tenets, that it is hard to say what peculiar observances they now as a body consider imperative; and still more difficult would it be to predict how long any of those now generally maintained will resist the progress of innovation. For instance, the reverence for fire is deemed their leading peculiarity; yet, since the celebrated conflagration in Bombay, in 1802, it is notorious that Parsees have assisted in quenching fire: our author has seen one of this community fire a pistol; and though it has been affirmed that they would not settle with their women in any locality where there was no atish (fire-temple) or dokma (funeral-tower), yet he says they are to be found scores of miles from either one or other. A number of them have been buried at Macao, outside the city-walls, and have tombstones of Anglican form, with inscriptions both in English and Gujerati. The truth seems to be, that this people, either from courtesy or political necessity, or as matter of mere indolent acquiescence, yielded one thing to the Hindoo, another to the Mohammedan, and, now that they are aspiring to aggrandizement among the Christians, they are making new concessions. Yet there remain some curious exceptions to this process of assimilation. Though the cow is not an object of Parsee worship, yet the elegant, the good, the learned, the grave, the delicate, the pious-all equally, and so far as we know without exception — rinse the mouth, and anoint the eyes and tips of the ears, with l'urine de bœuf, as a matutinal ceremony. Though even the credulity of Sir William Jones affected a fastidious hesitancy on this point, it has been established by more recent investigators of Parsee customs, who have never failed to observe in every household the brass lotas, or pots, employed for this Parsee ladies are intrusted wholly with the household management, and they are said to be as thrifty, precise, and provident in spending money, as the men are keen in making it. Some of them are themselves at the head of agency or mercantile establishments. They are by no means closely confined, and, in case of widowhood, are permitted to marry again. They are further said to be loquacious beyond belief, and by no means choice in their vocab-purpose. ulary of complimentary terms. One would Again, though Parsees do not hold that suppose that one such wife would be enough tenderness for animal life which is entertained for any man; yet bigamy is frequent, and by the Buddhists of this part of the Indian there is no law to forbid it. peninsula, yet they hold the canine species in The Parsees of the present day are, as a superstitious veneration, believing that the body, extremely indifferent to the religion for sight of a dog carries with it an absolving which their ancestors were content to suffer virtue to a person in the article of death. expatriation and even death. They neither That this may be effectually obtained, they study its doctrines, which are regarded rather place some curds on the forehead of the dying as historical figments than matters of faith, man, immediately between the eyebrows; nor do they carefully regard its precepts. It and the brute, in licking the curds, affords opportunity for the gaze so devoutly desired. | formerly entertained on subjects which are Ridiculous as this may seem," says our now familiar to us. Many a time we should author, and scouted as it is by the respect- find that our forefathers lacked nothing but able portion of the community, it is never- opportunity for showing themselves as metheless well known throughout Gujerat." chanically ingenious as ourselves. The seed Whatever may have been the zeal of the was good, but the soil was not prepared, and first emigrants to preserve their sacred litera- thus many a great idea was lost to them and ture, they seem utterly to have lost sight of their generation, to fructify in a later. In their civic code of laws. As soon, however, matters of science, Kepler made many guesses, as they gained some considerable strength, the boldness of which, considering the age in they selected a Panchayat, or assembly of which he lived, is quite marvellous; and alfive, from among the most wealthy, talented, though his guesses may not have been enand upright members of their community; its tirely right, they furnished clues which were province being to protect their creed from valuable to later explorers. In matters of the innovations, and to guard their peculiar tra- practical application of science to useful purditions. The Panchayat, which was after- poses, Robert Hooke, in the time of Charles wards extended in number, partook somewhat II., was repeatedly throwing out suggestions, of the nature of the Jewish Sanhedrim, and building up theories, and imagining contrivpossessed, with the voluntary consent of the ances which were much ridiculed at the tribe, all the usual powers of a government time, but which have since been shown to without affecting the political relations of the have been based on a good foundation. In Sovereign in whose country they resided. At 1737 Jonathan Hulls published the plan of a a later date the British government lent its steamboat not widely differing from the sanction to this body to a certain extent, for paddle-boats now in use; but in 1737 his the settlement of their own civil questions, invention was scoffed at. It is wholesome to especially with respect to inheritances and apply these correctives to our own age; it wills. Its present character is chiefly that takes a little of the conceit out of us. of a committee for the distribution of charity; and the Parsees look to British law in almost every instance when justice is sought. From Household Words. A CENTURY OF INVENTIONS. WHICH century? The eighteenth, with its busy array of cotton-spinning Arkwrights, pottery-making Wedgwoods, canal-digging Brindleys, lighthouse Smeatons, and steamengine Wattses? Or the nineteenth, with its gas, railways, electric telegraphs, screw steamers, sun pictures, electro-metallurgy and electro-engraving, crystal palaces, automatic machinery, and chemistry of cheapness? Or the twentieth, which the "coming man" is to see- when all towns are to be well drained; all refuse to be made productive as manure, instead of poisoning the water we drink; all workmen's houses to exhibit cheap cleanliness instead of costly dirt; all men scorn to get drunk or to beat their wives or to starve their children; all people to learn that the worship of the Golden Calf is not the noblest exercise of man's powers? No, none of these. Quaint old writers were wont to apply the term century, not merely to a hundred years, but to a hundred facts or a hundred things; as the centurion of Roman days was a captain Over a century or a hundred men. It is of one of these quaint old writers of whom we would now speak; and for this reason that it is useful, in a busy age, to look back occasionally, and to see what were the ideas 66 The Century of Inventions," by the Marquis of Worcester, presents an admirable corrective of this sort. The marquis, belonging to the family of the "proud Somersets," was a distinguished member of the court of Charles the First, and entertained that monarch right royally at Ragland Castle, then the patrimony of the Somersets, and now the name-place of a new peerage, well bestowed on one of the marquis' descendants. The marquis supported the king with his purse, his hospitality, and his personal bravery. The marquis, in the exercise of that skilful mechanical genius of which we shall presently have to speak, had constructed at Ragland Castle some hydraulic engines and wheels by which water was conveyed to the top of the great tower. During the troubles of the civil war his castle was visited by some unwelcome guests of the Roundhead party; and, desirous to get rid of them, he gave private orders to set the water-works in full play. "There was such a roaring, that the poor silly men stood so amazed as if they had been half dead; and yet they saw nothing. At last, as the plot was laid, up comes a man staring and running, crying out before he came at them, Look to yourselves, my masters, for the lions are got loose.' Whereupon the searchers gave us such a loose, that they tumbled so over one another down the stairs, that it was thought one half of them had broken their necks; never looking behind them till they were sure they had got out of sight of the castle." The Marquis of Worcester thought and wrote about steam-engines at a time when of ink was employed, which was invisible until treated with a particular chemical liquid; sometimes a device was impressed on the seal of such a nature as to convey information intelligible only to the sender and the receiver; sometimes a secret cipher or alphabet was used. The marquis appears to have been fond of that sort of construction which (if we may compare small things with great) is exhibited in Mr. Babbage's calculating machine, where there are various revolving circles, which may occupy an infinite number of different positions with respect to each other, and each position be made to indicate some particular figure, letter, word or idea. The marquis spared neither time nor cost in developing his contrivances. There is among the Harleian MSS. one in the handwriting of his lordship, descriptive of a kind of short-hand which he had invented; there are no less than forty-seven engraved plates, of small folio size, illustrative of the system, the diagrams being printed in red ink. The system comprises a series of small octagon spaces, with a line branching in various directions from a central point. The system is, however, somewhat clumsy. steam-engines were not, and threw out hints attached in bygone times, before penny posts, about numerous contrivances which look and queen's heads, and adhesive envelopes wonderfully like many that have been realized were thought of. Sometimes a peculiar kind in later days. After he had been besieged at Ragland, and the castle dismantled; after he had clung to the fortunes of his old master to the last, and then gone to France with the young prince Charles; the marquis fell into extreme indigence. There is an affecting letter extant, relating to a loan of his for so small a sum as five pounds. Whether it was during his troubles that his mind sought to relieve itself by occupation in scientific and mechanical pursuits, is not exactly known; but, in 1663, shortly after the Restoration, appeared his Century of Inventions," under the following curious title: "A Century of the names and scantlings of such Inventions as at present I can call to mind to have tried and perfected, which (my former notes being lost) I have, at the instance of a powerful friend, endeavored now, in the year 1655, to set these down in such a way as may sufficiently instruct me to put any of them in practice." The book was what would now be called in 24mo, with about eighty pages. There have been six subsequent editions the last having valuable notes by Mr. Partington. The original edition had a dedication to the king, which would appear extravagant were there not ample proof of the mar- After five inventions relating to these quis' intensity of loyal devotion. In the matters, the marquis starts off to the subject next edition there is an address or dedication of telegraphs, and speaks of two or three to the two houses of parliament. He modestly which evidently belong to the same class as states that, during the intestine commotions, those which the Admiralty employed until a he had lost between six and seven hundred recent period. The inventor then gives loose thousand pounds of his princely fortune by to the organ of destructiveness. He speaks his adherence to the royal cause; he thanks of "an engine, portable in one's pocket, them for having granted to him a kind of which may be carried and fastened on the patent or monopoly in the advantages possibly inside of the greatest shiptanquam aliud accruing from a hydraulic machine which agens and, at any appointed minute, he had invented; he expresses a wish that though a week after, either of day or night, the country may reap benefit from some it shall irrecoverably sink that ship;" he among the remainder of his projects, all of mentions "a way, from a mile off, to dive and which he presents to the nation through the fasten a like engine to any ship, so as it may king and parliament; he states that he had punctually work the same effect, either for expended ten thousand pounds in establishing time or execution;" but, as a counter-irria kind of experimental workshop, where a tant, he points out "how to prevent and skilful artisan, Caspar Kaltoff, had been for safeguard any ship from such an attempt by thirty-five years employed at his expense in day or night;" and his preservative mood various constructions connected with the new also appears in his "way to make a ship not inventions; he offers to put into practical possible to be sunk, though shot at form any one of his century of inventions hundred times between wind and water by which parliament may deem likely to be cannon, and should she lose a whole plank, useful to the nation. He finishes his address yet, in half an hour's time, should be made by subscribing himself, "My lords and as fit to sail as before ;" but he returns again gentlemen, your most passionately-bent fellow- to the destructive by his way" to make such subject in his majesty's service, compatriot false decks as in a moment should kill and for the public good and advantage, and a take prisoners as many as should board the most humble servant to all and every of you ship without blowing the real decks up or destroying them." Much of this is very curious and interesting. Mr. Partington thinks that the first of these contrivances may have included a gun-lock, a charged bomb - Worcester." Many of the earlier inventions relate to secret correspondence a subject to which an immense amount of importance was - an shell, and a clock; the gun-lock being made | to act upon the bomb at a given moment by the clock. When Mr. Fulton with his torpedo, and Captain Warner with his long range, have described more than they appeared able to perform, we must allow the marquis a little doubtful obscurity in his "mile-off" project. The unsinkable ship was perhaps an anticipation of the water-tight compartments of modern times. One of the inventions is quite delicious. Only imagine "how to make upon the Thames a floating garden of pleasure, with trees, flowers, banqueting-houses, and fountains, stews for all kind of fishes, a reserve for snow to keep wine in, delicate bathing-places, and the like; with music made by mills; and all in the midst of the stream, where it is most rapid," only imagine, we say, a commissioner of sewers converting our great metropolitan cloaca into such a paradise! The Mexicans know something of this matter; they form floating gardens on the lake near the city; they first plait or twist willows with roots of marsh plants, and upon this foundation they place mud and dirt, which they draw from the bed of the lake, and thus may be formed the soil for a garden. When the owner wishes to change his locality, he need give no notice to quit; he gets into a boat and tugs his garden after him. The marquis had probably some such plan as this in his teeming brain. 285 utes' time." Such are some of the inventions, Four or five of the inventions relate to locks and keys, mostly to that kind of puzzlelock which has from time to time attracted most attention. Flying was not likely to Our noble friend jumps about from one sub- escape the notice of such an indefatigable conject to another with an alacrity truly remark- triver; and, consequently, in the seventyble; his projects are as numerous and varied seventh invention, we are told "how to make as those of Uncle Jack, in Sir Edward Bulwer a man to fly; which I have tried with a little Lytton's Novel. A way to level and shoot boy of ten years old, in a barn, from one end cannon by night as well as by day; a quick to the other, on a hay-mow." We are intromode of weighing an anchor; a way to make duced to "a watch to go constantly, and yet a boat work itself against wind and tide; needs no other winding from the first setting how to make "a little engine, within a coach, on the cord or chain;"" a way to lock all whereby a child may stop it, and secure all the boxes of a cabinet (though never so many) persons within it, and the coachman himself, at one time;" hollow-handled pocket-combs, though the horses be never so unruly, in full knives, forks, and spoons, for carrying secret career;" how to raise water constantly, with papers; a rasping-mill for hartshorn," where"whereby persons two buckets only, day and night, without any by a child may do the work of half-a-dozen other force than its own motion; how to " in- men ;" an instrument crease the strength of a spring to such a degree ignorant in arithmetic may perfectly observe as to shoot bombasses and bullets of an hun- numeration and subtraction of all sums and dred pounds' weight a steeple height;" how fractions ;" a "chair made à la mode, and yet to "light a fire and a candle, at what hour a stranger, being persuaded to sit down in it, of the night one awaketh, without rising or shall have immediately his arms and thighs putting one's hand out of bed;" how to make locked up, beyond his own power to loosen an artificial bird fly which way and as long as them;" a "brass mould to cast candles, in one pleaseth; a way to make "a complete light which a man may make five hundred dozen in portable ladder, which, taken out of one's a day, and add an ingredient to the tallow pocket, may be by himself fastened an hun- which will make it cheaper, and yet so that dred feet high;" how to make a pistol to dis- the candles shall look whiter and last longer.' charge a dozen times with once loading, and Any one who has seen Mr. Sopwith's very innew priming genious monocleid writing cabinet will be without so much as requisite; a way, "with a flask appropriated forcibly reminded of " the way to lock all the into it, which will furnish either pistol or boxes of a cabinet (though never so many) at carabine with a dozen charges in three min-one time;" and the beautiful machine now once |