pipe and threw the burning match down. By chance it
fell upon the innocent looking bag, and probably just at the spot where
it leaked. After the consequent explosion only two pieces of the bag
could be found, one of which was thrown through the top windows of the
bank. Even the sound wave, or wave of concussion, had a mind to
distinguish itself. It entirely missed the first floor windows of the
bank, and left them uninjured, though the windows in both the ground
floor and the second floor were broken. The wave seems to have crossed
the street, smashing the ground windows there, and then been deflected
back across the street and upward to the top story of the bank.

AN OLD AQUEDUCT SYSTEM.

Ancient life is not usually considered to have been very cleanly, but it
is to the credit of the Romans that as much as 2,200 years ago they made
up their minds to reject the water of the Tiber as unfit to drink. They
hunted for springs in the mountains, and in the course of a few
centuries so many aqueducts were built that Rome had theoretically a
better supply of water than any modern city enjoys. Practically,
however, the Romans suffered from a peculiar kind of water pilfering.
Instead of 400,000,000 gallons daily which the springs furnished, the
city received only 208,000,000 gallons. This immense loss, says a
careful paper by the Austrian engineer, E. H. d'Avidor, arose partly
through neglect of the necessary repairs in the aqueducts, but still
more through the water being positively _stolen_. For one of the
principal favors by which the State and the emperors were in the habit
of rewarding minor services was by granting concessions for the _lost_
water; that is, for the water which escaped through the overflow of the
reservoirs, cisterns, and public fountains, or through the defects in
the aqueducts and mains. The consequence, of course, was that every
landed proprietor who had obtained a concession for the waste water
escaping from an aqueduct passing through his grounds was anxious to
increase this waste as much as possible--and from this wish to
intentional injury was but a step. The overseers and slaves in charge
were constantly bribed to abstain from repairing damages which had
arisen, or to cause new ones to arise, and these abuses reached such a
pitch that one aqueduct (Tepula) brought _no_ water whatever to Rome
during several years, the whole having been wasted, or rather abstracted
on its way. The irregulariti