called edible, but it gives an agreeable flavour to brandy; and in Sweden and other northern countries is sometimes added to home-made wines. There is, or was, a feast celebrated in Hamburg, called the Feast of Cherries, in which troops of children parade the streets with green boughs ornamented with cherries, to commemorate a triumph obtained in the following manner:--'In 1432, the Hussites threatened the city of Hamburg with immediate destruction, when one of the citizens, named Wolf, proposed that all the children in the city, from seven to fourteen years of age, should be clad in mourning, and sent as suppliants to the enemy. Procopius Nasus, chief of the Hussites, was so touched with this spectacle, that he received the young suppliants, regaled them with cherries and other fruits, and promised them to spare the city. The children returned crowned with leaves, holding cherries, and crying "Victory!"' THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON. _September 1852._ Progress, in one or other of the many forms in which it has of late presented itself, is now the prime subject of talk; and if the progress be real, it would not be easy to find a more satisfactory cause of conversation. Go-ahead people take much interest in the ocean steam-boat question; and now that the Collins line of steamers is supported by a grant from the United States government, double the amount of that paid to the British line, it is said that we are to be irrecoverably beaten in the passage of the 'ferry,' as Jonathan calls it, between Liverpool and New York. East sailing is no doubt an essential desideratum in these days--but what a price to pay for it! A quarter of a million on one side the Atlantic, and half a million on the other: as though there were not enterprise enough in either land to undertake the work--and do it well too--without a subsidy. One result may be safely predicated--that the winner will be the first to give in; and the timid may comfort themselves with the assurance, that neither national prosperity nor 'decadence' depends on the issue. A line to run from Liverpool to Portland, in the state of Maine, is in contemplation; and the Cunard Company are building four screw-steamers--the _Andes_, _Alps_, _Jura_, and _Etna_--which are to carry the mails to Chagres, as well as New York. The first steam-collier has come into the Thames, having run the distance from Newcastle in forty-eight hours. Forty hours, we are told, will surface in future, when the stiffness of the new machinery shall have worked off. She consumed eight tons of coal on the voyage, and brought 600 tons as cargo, the whole of which was discharged in the day, and the vessel went back for a further supply. Apart from the facilities for loading and unloading, the certainty with which these steamers will make the passage, will benefit the citizens of London, by saving them from the rise in price which inevitably follows the fall of the thermometer in December.