disgust the indecent haste of the few attendants by
whom this portion of the last rites is usually despatched. In the country,
and in smaller towns, the corpse is usually exposed for at least a day: I
know few exceptions, from Trent to Naples. It is generally an affecting
ceremony. One of the most touching instances of the kind I can remember,
was the exposure of a young girl, who had just died in the flush of beauty
in a small village in Tuscany. I was passing through at the time, and
stepped by chance into the church. The corpse was lying on a low bier
before the altar; a small lamp burnt above. Her two younger sisters were
kneeling at her side, and from time to time cast flowers upon her head.
Scarcely a peasant entered but immediately came up and touched the bier,
and, after kneeling for a few moments, rose and murmured a prayer or two
for the spiritual rest of the departed. All this was done very naturally,
and with a kindliness which spoke highly for the warmth and purity of their
affections. A similar custom still continues at Rome. The day after the
execution of the conspirator Targioni, who suffered in the late affair of
the Prince Spada, flowers and chaplets, notwithstanding every precaution
on the part of the police, were found scattered on his tomb. He has been
refused, for his contumacy in his last moments, Christian sepulture, and
was buried in a field outside the Porta del Popolo. It is remarkable that,
very nearly in the same place, the freedmen of Nero paid a similar tribute
of affection to the mortal remains of their master. Garlands and flowers,
the morning after his death, were also found upon _his_ tomb.

_New Monthly Magazine._

* * * * *

SLAVERY IN THE EAST.

The slave in eastern countries, after he is trained to serve, attains the
condition of a favoured domestic; his adoption of the religion of his
master is usually the first step which conciliates the latter. Except at
a few seaports, he is seldom put to hard labour. In Asia these are no
fields tilled by slaves, no manufactories in which they are doomed to
toil; their occupations are all of a domestic nature, and good behaviour
is rewarded by kindness and confidence, which raises them in the community
to which they belong. The term gholam, or slave, in Mahomedan countries,
is not one of opprobrium, nor does it even convey the idea of a degraded
condition. The Georgians, Nubians, and Abyssinians, and even th