One thing in the garden that used to greatly attract visitors was the Gaveuse Martin, a machine for cramming fowls in order to fatten them rapidly. The society considered Martin's invention of so much importance to the world that it granted him a building in the garden and permission to charge a special admission. The machine has since been introduced into the artificial egg-hatching establishment of Mr. Baker at Catskill-on-the-Hudson; at least, he has a machine for "forced feeding" which must greatly resemble Martin's. Specimens fattened by the Gaveuse Martin, all ready for the _broche_, used to be sold on the premises. The interior of the building was occupied by six gigantic _epinettes_, each holding two hundred birds. A windlass mounted upon a railroad enabled the operator (_gaveur_, from _gaver_, to cram, an inelegant term) very easily to raise himself to any story of the epinette. The latter was a cylinder turning upon its axis, and thus passing every bird in review. "An india-rubber tube introduced into the throat, accompanied by the pressure of the foot upon a pedal, makes the bird absorb its copious and succulent repast in the wink of an eye." Four hundred an hour have been thus fed by one operator. Fowls thus fattened are said to possess a delicacy of flavor entirely their own. M. H. LITERATURE OF THE DAY. Christy Carew. By May Laffan, author of "The Honorable Miss Ferrard," etc. (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Henry Holt & Co. The novels to which Miss Laffan gives a sponsor in affixing her signature to the latest, _Christy Carew_, present two strong and distinct claims to our notice in the vigor and realism with which they are written, and the thorough picture they give of Ireland, politically and socially, at the present day. They are no mere repetitions of hackneyed Irish stories, no sketches drawn from a narrow or partial phase of life, but the result of large and penetrating observation among all classes, made in a thoroughly systematized manner, so as to form a thoughtful and almost exhaustive study of a country which is more dogmatized over than understood. Ireland has never been depicted with so much interest and sympathy by any novelist since Miss Edgeworth wrote her _Moral Tales_, and both the country and the art of novel-writing have advanced since then, the latter possibly more than the former. Miss Edgeworth, indeed, has been singularly unfortunate. She drew from life, and her talent and observation were worthy of a more lasting shrine, while the artificiality of her books has caused them to decay even faster than those of some of her contemporaries. Her successors in Irish fiction, with no lack of talent, have been too often careless in using it, or have preferred story-telling to observation. Miss Laffan wields a genuine Irish pen, graphic, keen of satire, with plenty of sharp Hibernian humor, but she shows in its exercise a care and directness of