"It has often occurred to me," said the Clergyman, "that our municipal regulations ought, on this subject, be much improved. Our Excise officers enter the cellars of the wholesale and retail spirit-dealers, only to gauge the strength of the spirit, and to ascertain how much it may be overproof, which alone regulates the Government duty; but for the sake of the public health I would go further than this. If a butcher be found selling unhealthy meat; a fishmonger, bad fish; or a baker cheat in the weight of bread, they severally have their goods confiscated, and are fined; and so far the public is protected. But the authorities seem not to care what description of poison is sold across the counter of gin-palaces--an evil which may easily be remedied. I would put the licensed victualler on the same level with the butcher and fishmonger: and if he were found selling adulterated spirits, and the charge were proved against him by the same having been fairly analyzed, he, too, should be liable to be fined, or even lose his license. The public health is, upon this point, at present, utterly unprotected." "Some such measure," observed the host, "might be advantageously adopted; but I confess that I do not advocate the prohibition principle; instead of preaching a Crusade against the use of any particular article, whether of necessity or comfort, let us educate the people, and improve their social condition by inculcating sound moral principles; they will soon learn that habits of industry and temperance can alone insure them and their children happiness and prosperity; and in so doing you will teach a sound, practical permanent lesson." "But," interrupted the Clergyman, "if we continue the conversation longer, we shall ourselves become transgressors; the 'stirrup-cup' is drained; much remains doubtless to be said respecting the evils, physical and moral, which arise from intemperance; but let us now adjourn." "With all my heart!" exclaimed the host, "and now, 'to all and each, a fair good night.'" From "Rambles beyond Railways;" by W. Wilkie Collins, author of "Antonina." MINING UNDER THE SEA. In complete mining equipment, with candles stuck by lumps of clay to their felt hats, the travellers have painfully descended by perpendicular ladders and along dripping-wet rock passages, fathoms down into pitchy darkness; the miner who guides them calls a halt. We are now four hundred yards out under the bottom of the sea, and twenty fathoms or a hundred and twenty feet below the sea level. Coast-trade vessels are sailing over our heads. Two hundred and forty feet beneath us men are at work; and there are galleries deeper yet even below that. The extraordinary position down the face of the cliff, of the engines and other works on the surface at Botallack, is now explained. The mine is not excavated like other mines under the land, but under the sea.