excuse for its neglect. But there is no difficulty.
"What has the laundress got to do? She has
simply to dissolve a certain amount of an easily
soluble crystal in water, in certain proportions.
The pan containing the solution stands beside
her, and after the fabric on which she has been
operating in the ordinary way has been washed
and starched (when starch is needed) she dips
the article into the solution, and wringing it
out, puts it in a warm place to dry. Is this
much to do on the sure chance of saving a
human being from pain, disfigurement, or death?
But even some of this trouble can be saved.
Mr. Robert Latta, of Glasgow, has invented a
compound, which starches and renders garments
non-inflammable at one operation.

Young ladies, we have kept our word!  Neither
in this article, nor that which preceded it, have
we said a word against the beautiful and
convenient fashion of crinoline. On the contrary.
If you will but steep yourselves sufficiently in
tungstate of soda, you may wear as much crinoline
as you like, may stand close to the fire, and
place your candle on the floor when you are
looking under the bed for thieves. In fact, all
sorts of pyrotechnic liberties may be allowed to
those who are provided with this great defensive
armour.

THE EARTHQUAKE OE LAST YEAR.

ON the evening of Wednesday, 20th of March,
1861, the town of Mendoza lay calmly, quietly,
subsiding into the night, as she had done every
evening for more than two centuries past. The
sun had long since sunk behind the Andes,
whose lofty snow-clad peaks no longer reflected
his declining rays. It was nearly twenty minutes
past eight, vespers were just over, and the
churches poured forth their throng of
worshippers into the streets. Mendoza never was
a busy city in the European or Buenos Ayrean
sense of the word, though she was the emporium
of all the trade between Chili and the Argentine
Provinces, and now that the work of the day
was over it was hardly possible to imagine a
more perfect calm in any hive of men. A few
of the shopkeepers only were still occupied,
especially those in the Arcade of Soto Mayor,
where the brilliant paraffin lamps attracted
crowds of ladies to make purchases in preparation
for the Holy Week, then close at hand. The
saloons of the Progress Club were crowded with
young men, the elite of the city. The cafés
were full, their billiard-tables all occupied, and
their patios (or central court-yards of the
houses) crowded with citizens taking their
evening cup of coffee, and smoking their evening
cigar. The horses on the cab-stand in the
plaza lazily dropped their heads, knowing their
day's work to be nearly over. And over all the
moon, then entering her second quarter, cast
long shadows over the streets, and silvered all
the towers and the domes.

Twenty minutes past eight. There seems to be
a loud rumbling as of a heavy cart over a stony
pavement, few heed it, few even hear it; but
some Chilians, men from the land of earthquakes,
who are sensitive to the least warning, shout " An
earthquake! an earthquake!"  as they rush to the
centres of the patios and the street corners. They
scarcely get to a safe distance from the walls
about them, when with a terrible roar the earth
heaves— once, twice, three times— and Mendoza
is not. Where Mendoza had been, lies a
sepulchre of ruins: not a cry, not a wail breaks
the continued stillness of the moonlit night;
every voice is hushed in terror or in death.
Fourteen thousand people lie under the mound
of ruined brickwork, dead, dying, or grievously
hurt. The shocks continue at intervals throughout
the night, and throughout the next day,
and the next, and for a month and more; but
they can do no more harm. That first awful
space of ten seconds sufficed for perfect ruin;
nothing was left standing, not a house, not a
wall, nor even a stone fence, for twenty leagues
about the city. Men standing in open spaces,
at street junctions, in large patios, in the plaza,
or on the alameda, are thrown down, and many
even there are buried in the ruins of their
houses. Those who escape, struck dumb and
paralysed with terror, remain where they stood
as the town fell, and quake with dread. Horses
and oxen that were grazing in the fields being
thrown down, dare not rise again for days, till
custom gives them courage, and they are driven
by hunger to their pasture. The earth in many
places opens huge gulfs wherein walls, parts of
houses, wretched men also, are swallowed up.
The canals are drained, the courses of the rivers
altered, and lakes and springs rise in the most
unaccustomed places.

When after the first shocks the few survivors
muster courage to look about them, they pick
their way by moonlight over masses of fallen
brickwork, guided by the moan of pain which
now first begins to proclaim some living sufferer
below. Here is an immense pile of rubbish
where the principal street ran by the Church of
Santo Domingo. That chief building has fallen
outwards, and hundreds of worshippers who had
but just risen from prayer, kneeling on the
marble pavement under the dome, are there
killed—crushed and buried beneath the great
walls.

The dealer, thrown out into the street from his
own doorstep, finds speedy death under the fall
of his own house. His wife, perhaps crossing
the patio, is thrown down, but escapes with
a few slight bruises. Her children were all
within; she is alone in the world, childless and
a widow.

The governor escapes almost by a miracle;
he steps into the patio to bow out an evening
visitor, his house tumbles behind him and the
visitor is buried in the doorway, but the host
escapes, so stupified, that for days he can do
nothing. More active men also escape, and as
soon as the first shock of terror is past, their
active energies send them to the rescue of those
who may yet be saved. Thus many, cowering
down in angles and corners formed by beams
resting on ruined walls and bridging over a space