Oakum-picking proves a useful occupation not only for imbeciles capable of no higher industry, but for malingerers and idlers, who are soon anxious to escape from it into the shoemaker's, tailor's, blacksmith's, or carpenter's shops. "In the same manner the females have been gradually broken into habits of industry to a degree hitherto unprecedented. Those who have done nothing for many years but mutter to themselves, or crouch in corners, now sew or knit from morning till night. Knitting, sewing, straw-bonnet making, and other occupations, are carried on throughout the house to such an extent that, I fear, in a very short time, unless some outlet is obtained for exportations, we shall be at a loss to know what to do." In addition to the usual handicraft employments, which are all practiced in the establishment, it is interesting to observe that some patients occupy themselves in engraving, drawing, and land-surveying. A considerable portion of one of the houses has been elegantly painted, and in part refurnished, by the patients.--_Chambers._ MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. Congress adjourned on the 30th of September, in accordance with the resolution noticed in the last number of the Magazine. Very little business of general interest was transacted in addition to that of which a record has already been made. The appropriation bills were passed, and in one of them was inserted a prohibition of flogging in the navy and aboard merchant vessels of the United States, which received the sanction of both houses and became a law. A provision was also inserted, granting land bounties to soldiers in the war of 1812, and in any of the previous wars of the United States. The passage of the bill involving, directly or indirectly, the slavery issue, of which we have already given a full account, restored a greater degree of harmony and of calmness to both branches of Congress than had hitherto prevailed, and the same influence has had an important effect, though to a less extent, upon the country at large.