earthquake, exclaim, "Thanks that Mafuie has but one arm! if he had two, he would shake the earth to pieces." ORIGIN OF THE WORD LADY. It was the custom at the time of the Plantagenets, and previously, for ladies of distinction and wealth regularly to distribute money or food to the poor. The title of _lady_, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, and literally signifies _giver of bread_. The purse, with similar meaning, was named as a receptacle for _alms_, and not as an invention for the preservation of money. ANECDOTES IN SERMONS. The fashion which once prevailed of introducing historical anecdotes into addresses from the pulpit, is illustrated by the following extract from a sermon by the Martyr Bishop Ridley:-- Cambyses was a great emperor, such another as our master is; he had many lord-deputies, lord-presidents, and lieutenants under him. It is a great while ago since I read the history. It chanced he had under him, in one of his dominions, a briber, a gift-taker, a gratifier of rich men; he followed gifts as fast as he that followed the pudding, a hand-maker in his office, to make his son a great man; as the old saying is, "Happy is the child whose father goeth to the devil." The cry of the poor widow came to the emperor's ear, and caused him to flay the judge quick, and laid his skin in his chair of judgment, that all judges that should give judgment afterward should sit in the same skin. Surely it was a goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the judge's skin: I pray God we may once see the sign of the skin in England. STATE OF LONDON IN 1756. The state of the police regulations in the metropolis at the above date, is exhibited in the following extract from an old magazine:--