Next is a Jew, looking all sorts of agonies, and one may fancy he knows he is losing in an hour, what it has cost him years of cunning and self-denial to amass. And so on, round the table, we find ill-dressed and well dressed Germans, French, Russians, English, Yankees, Irish, mixed up together, in one eager crowd; thirsting to gain gold without giving value in return; risking what they have in an insane contest which they know has destroyed thousands before them; losing their money, and winning disgust, despondency, and often despair and premature death. Never a year is said to go by without its complement of ruined fools and hasty suicides. The neighboring woods afford a convenient shelter; and a trigger, or a handkerchief and a bough, complete the tragedy. [From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.] THE CONFLICT OF LOVE--A TALE OF REAL LIFE. In the north of France, near the Belgian frontier, is situated a small, obscure town. It is surrounded by high fortifications, which seem ready to crush the mean houses in the centre. Inclosed, so to speak, in a net-work of walls, the poor little town has never sent a suburb to wander on the smooth green turf outside; but as the population increased, new streets sprang up within the boundary, crowding the already narrow space, and giving to the whole the aspect of some huge prison. The climate of the north of France during half the year is usually damp and gloomy. I shall never forget the sensation of sadness which I felt when obliged by circumstances to leave the gay, sunny south, and take up my abode for a while in the town I have described. Every day I walked out; and in order to reach the nearest gate, I had to pass through a narrow lane, so very steep, that steps were cut across it in order to render the ascent less difficult. Traversing this disagreeable alley, it happened one day that my eyes rested on a mean-looking, gray-colored house, which stood detached from the others. Seldom, indeed, could a ray of sunshine light up its small, green-paned windows, and penetrate the interior of its gloomy apartments. During the winter the frozen snow on the steps made it so dangerous to pass through the narrow alley, that its slippery pavement seemed quite deserted. I do not remember to have met a single person there in the course of my daily walk; and my eye used to rest with compassion on the silent gray house. "I hope," thought I, "that its inhabitants are old--it would be fearful to be young there!" Spring came; and in the narrow lane the ice changed into moisture; then the damp gradually dried up, and a few blades of grass began to appear beneath the rampart wall. Even in this gloomy passage there were tokens of awakening life, but the gray house remained silent and sad as before. Passing by it, as usual, in the beginning of June, I remarked, placed on the window-sill of the open casement, a glass containing a bunch of violets. "Ah," thought I, "there is a _soul_ here!"