the patience, wonderful the tact employed by Miss Rogers and her able assistants in the far more difficult task of teaching actual speech. A small percentage of the children will prove too slow and blunt of perception ever to master it, and will have to be sent where the old finger alphabet is still the method in use. Some, on the other hand, will succeed so brilliantly that it will be impossible for a stranger to detect that they were once deaf-mutes,—that they seize your words with their eyes, not with their ears, and have never heard the sound of human speech, though they can speak. And the great bulk will return to their homes capable of understanding in the main what is going on around them, and of making themselves intelligible to their friends without recourse to signs. Our actual Cranford over the sea, then, has a considerable advantage over the Cranford of romance, in that her heroines do not wait for the (in fiction) inevitable, faithful, long-absent, mysteriously-returning-at-the-right-moment lover to redeem their lives from triviality, and renew their faded bloom. And, in the present state of the world’s affairs, what is more needed than the single woman who succeeds in making her life worth living, honorably independent, and of value to others? Through such will certainly be given new scope and impetus to the development of woman generally, and in the long run, therefore, good results for all. Among the solid achievements of Northampton must also be mentioned an excellent free library, with spacious airy reading-room, such as any city might be proud of. There is also a State lunatic asylum, with large farm attached, which not only supplies the most restorative occupation for those of the inmates who are capable of work, but defrays all the expenses of the institution, with an occasional surplus for improvements.