til the time of their final removal from
the establishment has arrived. They are taught the various branches of
needle-work and dress-making, and receive such other instruction as
may sufficiently qualify them for becoming domestic servants,
housemaids, cooks or washerwomen. They are not suffered, by the
regulations, to remain in the house after the age of twenty-one: but,
before that time, it is the duty of the _junta_, or committee of
management, to endeavor to procure employment for them earlier in a
private family or in some house of business. Should the circumstances
of the parents have improved during the stay of their daughter at the
institution, they are not suffered to take her away until they have
paid her previous board and education at the rate of fifteen dollars a
month; but if the girl herself has acquired property by inheritance,
or is able to improve her condition by marriage or otherwise,
independent of her parents, she is suffered to leave the house without
any payment; and, in the event of her marriage to the satisfaction of
the junta, a little dowry is provided for her, amounting to $500, from
a fund created from prizes in the lottery, the produce of tickets
presented to the institution. Six such marriages had taken place, and
dowries bestowed from this fond in the course of a single year." This
lottery business shows the spirit of gambling so largely developed in
nations of Spanish descent. The Mexicans are noted for it, and Santa
Ana, who spent his exile in Cuba, and recently sailed from Havana for
Vera Cruz, indulged in the propensity to a great extent. But he had
two strings to his bow, and whilst playing his fighting cocks was also
playing for an empire, and has won the game. How long he will hold it
remains to be seen.

* * * * *

[Illustration: HUMOUROUS]

HUMOROUS.

A VERY LONG NOSE.

A gentleman having put out a candle by accident one night, ordered his
waiting man (who was a simple being) to light it again in the kitchen,
adding--"But take care, James, that you do not hit yourself against
anything in the dark." Mindful of the caution, James stretched out
both arms at length before him, but unluckily, a door that stood half
open, passed between his hands and struck him a woful blow upon the
nose. "Golly gracious!" muttered he, when he recovered his senses a
little, "I always heard that I had a very long nose, but I never
thought it was longer t