The next time M.L.B. visits Scotland, let him ask the first peasant he meets how to keep eggs fresh for years; and he will answer rub a little oil or butter over them, within a day or two after laying, and they will keep any length of time, perfectly fresh.  This discovery, which was made in France by the great Reamur, depends for its success upon the oil filling up the pores of the egg-shell, and thereby cutting off the perspiration between the fluids of the egg and the atmosphere, which is a necessary agent in putrefaction.  The preservation of eggs in this manner, has long been practised in all “braid Scotland;” but it is not so much as known in our own boasted land of stale eggs and bundle-wood.

In Edinburgh, I mean the Scottish and not the Irish capital, M.L.B. may actually eat new laid eggs a year old! How is it that this great comfort is not practised in the navy?  The Scotch have also a hundred other domestic practices for the saving of the hard earned “siller;” and are far from the commission of any such idle waste as M.L.B.’s story exhibits.  S.S.

P.S.  Tinder-boxes are unknown in Scotland, and I am sure M.L.B. if he wants a business would as readily make his fortune by selling them, as the Yorkshireman who went to the West Indies with a cargo of great coats.

* * * * *

LINES

ON MY FORTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY.

(For the Mirror.)

  On the slope of Life’s decline,
  The landmark reached of forty-nine,
  Thoughtful on this heart of mine
  Strikes the sound of forty-nine. 
  Greyish hairs with brown combine
  To note Time’s hand—­and forty-nine. 
  Sunny hours that used to shine,
  Shadow o’er at forty-nine. 
  Of youthful sports the joys decline,
  Symptoms strong of forty-nine. 
  The dance I willingly resign,
  To lighter heels than forty-nine.

* * * * *

  Yet, why anxiously repine? 
  Pleasures wait on forty-nine.

  Social pleasures—­joys benign—­
  Still are found at forty-nine. 
  With a friend to go and dine,
  What better age than forty-nine? 
  Ladies with me sip their wine,
  Though they know I’m forty-nine. 
  Tea and chat, and wit combine,
  To enliven musing forty-nine. 
  Let harmony its chords untwine,
  Music charms at forty nine. 
  O’er wasting care let croakers whine,
  Care we’ll defy at forty-nine. 
  Fifty shall not make me pine—­
  Why lament o’er forty-nine. 
  Joys let’s trace of “Auld Lang Syne,”
  Memory’s fresh at forty-nine. 
  Then fill a cup of rosy wine,
  And drink a health to FORTY-NINE.

W. W.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.