of the race of
landowners, not pleasant to a Russian and a Christian czar. Therefore
this bank was established to lend money to distressed members of the
landed interest; compelled by its charter to lend 200 rubles per soul,
at a given interest and time, to every landowner who should deposit
his title-deeds with the bank. On a certain day very soon after
Tchitchikof's abrupt exit from Nikolsk, a solicitor applies at this
bank for a loan of 400,000 rubles on the security of 2000 souls. The
title-deeds are examined--found correct; the money is paid; and in a
few days afterwards M. Tchitchikof and the money are both out of the
jurisdiction of the czar.

The time for repayment arrives. The bank hears nothing of M.
Tchitchikof. A letter is sent to Nikolsk: no reply. Another of a
threatening nature: still no reply. Finally, a special agent is
despatched, and finds neither Tchitchikof nor security; but gradually
collects the particulars of his visit, as narrated above, and returns
to report progress, or no progress, to his superiors. There is nothing
for it, one would think, but to write off the 400,000 rubles as a
clear loss, and think no more of it. But a paternal government knows
better than that. It adjudges that the Nikolskians are virtually
accessaries to the fraud; apportions the loan among the sellers of the
souls, and compels repayment. So that the Nikolskians have to
conclude, in reflecting on M. Tchitchikof, not without acerbity and a
certain uncharitableness of spirit, that if he were a friend of his
species, he limited _his_ species to himself; and if he were mad,
there was a very clear and profitable method in his madness.

Meantime the principal actor in this little Russian episode, as the
Baron von Rabenstein, captivates the hearts of our English ladies at
the ball-room, and empties the pockets of our English gentlemen at the
_rouge et noir_ table in the fashionable German watering-place of
Lugundtrugbad. And without disparaging his patriotism, or natural love
of country, we believe we speak advisedly when we state, that he has
not the slightest idea of returning, within anything like a limited
period, to the territories of his autocratic majesty.

SPELLING-BOOK _VERSUS_ HORN-BOOK.

Nothing is considered a more shocking mark of defective education than
_false spelling_, or _bad spelling_, or _misspelling_--all which terms
are used to express one's spelling a word in some way which the critic
does n