[Illustration: CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. Fourth Series CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. NO. 753. SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1878. PRICE 1½_d._] BIANCONI. Charles Bianconi was altogether a very remarkable person, and not less for his energy and perseverance than for his public services, ought to be kept in remembrance. He was by birth an Italian—not, however, an Italian of the lethargic south, but of the northern mountainous district bordering on the Lake of Como. We might call him an Italian highlander. Belonging to a respectable though not affluent family, he was born on the 24th September 1786. At school he made so little progress as to be thought little better than a dunce. People did not quite understand his character. His impulse was to work, not to study. He wanted to have something to do, and if put on a fair track, was not afraid of being left behind in the ordinary business of life. With this adventurous disposition, and with a good physical stamina, he was bound for eighteen months to Andrea Faroni, who was to take him to London, and there learn the business of a dealer in prints, barometers, and small telescopes. Faroni did not strictly fulfil his part of the contract. Instead of proceeding to London, he took the boy to Dublin, at which he arrived in 1802; so there he was started in a business career in Ireland when sixteen years of age. Helpless, friendless, without money, and ignorant of the English language, his fate was rather hard; but his privations only served to strengthen his powers of self-reliance. Like a hero, he determined to overcome all difficulties.