The Abbe de l’Epee died at Paris on the 23d of December, 1789, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.  Had he been spared two years longer, he would have seen his school, the object of his fond cares, adopted by the government, and decreed a national support.  But though this act, and the accompanying vote, which declared that it was “done in honor of Charles Michel de l’Epee, a man who deserved well of his country,” were creditable to the National Assembly, and the people whom it represented, yet we cannot but remember the troublous times that followed,—­times in which no public service, no private goodness, neither the veneration due to age, the delicacy of womanhood, nor the winsome helplessness of infancy, was any protection against the insensate vengeance of a maddened people; and remembering this, we cannot regret that he whose life had been so peaceful was laid in a quiet grave ere the coming of the tempest.

It is but justice, however, to the French people to say, that no name in their history is heard with more veneration, or with more profound demonstrations of love and gratitude, than that of the Abbe de l’Epee.  In 1843, the citizens of Versailles, his birth-place, erected a bronze statue in his honor; and the highest dignitaries of the state, amid the acclamations of assembled thousands, eulogized his memory.  In 1855, the centennial anniversary of the establishment of his school for deaf-mutes was celebrated at Paris, and was attended by delegations from most of the Deaf and Dumb Institutions of Europe.

But sixty-eight years have elapsed since the death of this noble philanthropist, and, already, more than two hundred institutions for the deaf and dumb have been established, on the system projected by him and improved by his successors; and tens of thousands of mutes throughout Christendom, in consequence of his generous and self-denying zeal, have been trained for usefulness in this life, and many of them, we hope, prepared for a blissful hereafter.  To all these the name of the Abbe de l’Epee has been one cherished in their heart of hearts; and, through all the future, wherever the understanding of the deaf-mute shall be enlightened by instruction, his memory shall be blessed.

WHO IS THE THIEF?

(Extracted from the Correspondence of the London Police.)

FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE, OF THE DETECTIVE POLICE, TO SERGEANT BULMER, OF THE SAME FORCE.

London, 4th July, 18—.

Sergeant Bulmer,

This is to inform you that you are wanted to assist in looking up a case of importance, which will require all the attention of an experienced member of the force.  The matter of the robbery on which you are now engaged you will please to shift over to the young man who brings you this letter.  You will tell him all the circumstances of the case, just as they stand; you will put him up to the progress you have made (if any) towards detecting the person or persons by whom the money has been stolen; and you will leave him to make the best he can of the matter now in your hands.  He is to have the whole responsibility of the case, and the whole credit of his success, if he brings it to a proper issue.