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The cost of the Bi-chloride of Mercury is we presume, at present, something less than one dollar per pound — but the cost would be greatly reduced should the mineralizing process occasion an unusual demand. The South American quicksilver mines, now unworked, would be put into operation, and we should get the article, perhaps, for forty or even thirty cents per pound. But even now the cost of Kyanizing is trifling in comparison with that of cutting, squaring, and roughening stone — to say nothing of the difference in cost between wood itself, and such stone as our present pavements demand.

Decay being thus prevented, all danger from miasma is of course to be left out of the question; and although it has been frequently asserted that the mercurial effluvium is injurious to the health — the assertion has been as frequently refuted in the most positive and satisfactory manner. The mercury is too closely assimilated with the wooden fibre to admit of any perceptible effluvium. Even where sailors have lived for months in the most confined holds of vessels built of mineralized wood, no ill consequences have been found to arise.

We write this article with no books before us, and are by no means positive about the accuracy of our details. The general principles and facts, however, are not, we believe, matters of dispute. We confess ourselves, therefore, at a loss to understand how, or why it is, that a Kyanized wooden pavement to a limited extent, has not been laid (if only by way of a forlorn-hope-like experiment) in some of our public thoroughfares. Or are we merely ignorant of the case — and has the experiment been fairly tried, and found wanting?

THEATRICAL RATS

The well-known company of rats at the Park Theatre understand, it is said, their cue perfectly. It is worth the price of admission to see their performance. By long training they know precisely the time when the curtain rises, and the exact degree in which the audience is spellbound by what is going on. At the sound of the bell they sally out; scouring the pit for chance peanuts and orange-peel. When, by the rhyming couplets, they are made aware that the curtain is about to fall, they disappear – through respect for the moving heels of the audience. Their temerity is regulated by the intensity of the performers. A profitable engagement might be made, we think, with “the celebrated Dog Billy.”

CABS

These anomalous vehicles, of which we Americans know so little by personal inspection, and so much through the accounts of the travelled, and the pages of the novelist, are about to be introduced among us “as a regular thing.” In New-York they are already gaining ground, and going over it. The cab proper, as used in London, is an affair sui generis, and has very little affinity with any thing else in nature. It resembles, in some respect, the old-fashioned sedan chair, and carries two inside passengers, who sit vis a vis, with the coachman at top. The bottom nearly touches the pavement, and the entire vehicle has an outré appearance. Those in New[[-]]York at present, are of a bright chocolate color, and look very stylish. Their charge is twenty five cents for any distance under two miles. The cab-introduction will bring about among us a peculiar race of people — the cabmen. These creatures are not mentioned in Buffon, and Cuvier has entirely forgotten them. They bear a droll kind of resemblance to the human species — but their faces are all fashioned of brass, and they carry both their brains and their souls in their pockets.

A MOVING CHAPTER

(PART I)

The Omnibus may be defined as a moveable house of public entertainment on strictly temperance principles, and four wheels. The word Omnibus is derived, or rather taken bodily from the Latin; and in view of that fact, we have made a painfully severe inquiry into the locomotive habits of the Romans, to find if they had the omnibus. But after profound researches, which would not have dishonored the industry of Niebuhr himself, we arrived at no satisfactory conclusion. So we must leave that an open question