Mr. Martin mentions a very curious fact. The increase of population, he says, has been most rapid, and is to be accounted for by the number of females born, the proportion being, with regard to males, as three to one! The great preponderating number of females brought forth among domesticated animals, will account for the countless herds of cattle which overspread the colony.--_New Monthly Magazine._ * * * * * SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS. * * * * * THE BLACK LADY OF ALTENÖTTING. With the exception of the shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne, there exists throughout Germany no spot of greater sanctity, no altar of richer endowments, than the Chapel of the Black Lady, on the frontier of Bavaria. The hearts of its sovereign electors have been deposited, from century to century, within the consecrated cells; nor is there an historic event, involving the interests of their own, or the adjacent kingdoms, which is not supposed to have been influenced by her potent interposition. A sufficient history, in fact, of the destinies of the whole empire, might be recorded in a mere catalogue of the national offerings to the shrine of Altenötting. In rambling through the eastern provinces of Bavaria, some few springs ago, I chanced to arrive one glowing afternoon at the post-house of an inconsiderable town; which, from the grass-grown tranquillity of its streets, and from a peculiar air of self-oblivion, appeared to be basking fast asleep in the sunshine. There was little to admire in the common-place character of its site, or the narrow meanness of its distribution; yet there was something peculiar in its look of dreamy non-identity; and had it not been for the smiling faces of the fair-haired Bavarian girls, who were to be seen glancing here and there, with their embroidered purple bodices and coifs, and silver-chained stomachers, I could believe myself to have reached some enchanted realm of forgetfulness. As I entered the Platz, or market-square, of the little town, chiefly with a view to the nearer inspection of the cunning workmanship of the aforesaid carcanets of silver, a light sprinkling of April rain began to moisten the pavement--one of those unheard, unseen, revivifying showers, which weep the earth into freshness, and the buds into maturity. I was anxious, however, to withdraw my mere human nature from participation in these herbaceous advantages; and looking about for some shelter which might preserve me from the mischiefs of the shower, without depriving me of its refreshing fragrance, I espied in the centre of the Platz--a square of no mighty area--a low, rotunda-like building, with slated roof, overhanging and resting upon wooden pillars, so as to form a sort of covered walk.