the graving-tool, washerwomen poison themselves with potash or Prussian blue; though, of course, these are only general rules, with a great many exceptions.  And in Paris it is said that among all ranks and professions, and in both sexes, at least half of the suicides are by asphyxiation with charcoal.  Surely in France one hardly needs to preach any doctrine of not patiently suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  A healthier and more inspiring morality would be that of the story of the baron of Grogzwig and his adventure with the “Genius of Despair and Suicide,” as narrated in an episode of Nicholas Nickleby; for the stout baron, after thinking over his purpose of making a voluntary departure from this world, and finding he had no security of being any the better for going out of it, abandoned the plan, and adopted as a rule in all cases of melancholy to look at both sides of the question, and to apply a magnifying-glass to the better one.

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In Philadelphia, at least, where there is still a respect for age, the tidings will be received with respectful regret of the death of Nono, a noted pensionary of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, at the ripe age of more than a hundred years.  To have achieved the celebrity of being the oldest inmate of that institution was no despicable distinction, but the venerable centenarian had other claims to honor.  A native of the Marquesas Islands, he was brought by Bougainville in 1776 to the Royal Museum, afterward known as the Jardin des Plantes.  It has frequently been alleged that parrots may live a hundred years:  Nono has established the fact by living still longer.  As he thus contributes an illustration to science, so surely he might point a general moral and adorn a historic tale.  If Thackeray could discourse so wisely on “Some Carp at Sans Souci,” the vicissitudes which this veteran Parisian witnessed in the French capital from 1776 to 1873, under two empires, two royal dynasties and three republics, might be worth a rhapsody.  Nono seems to have been a well-preserved old parrot.  Magnificent in youth, he attained literally a green old age, for his plumage was still fresh and thick.  Very naturally, he had lost his houppe, and was almost totally bald.  However, his eye was clear and bright enough to have read the finest print or followed the finest needlework; and it had the narquois, lightly skeptical look of those who have seen a great deal of life.  In short, Nono was a stylish and eminently respectable old bird.  That worthy person, Monsieur Chavreul, who treats the animals of the Jardin like a father, has stuffed and mounted the illustrious Nono as a testimonial of affection and respect.

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