COFFINS OF BAKED CLAY OF THE CHALDEANS.—­Mr. Kennet Loftus, the first European who has visited the ancient ruins of Warka in Mesopotamia, and who is attached to the surveying staff of Colonel Williams, appointed to settle the question of the boundary line between Turkey and Persia, writes thus:—­“Warka is no doubt the Erech of Scripture, the second city of Nimrod, and it is the Orchoe of the Chaldees.  The mounds within the walls afford subjects of high interest to the historian and antiquarian; they are filled, nay, I may say, they are literally composed of coffins, piled upon each other to the height of forty-five feet.  It has, evidently, been the great burial-place of generations of Chaldeans, as Meshad Ali and Kerbella at the present day are of the Persians.  The coffins are very strange affairs; they are in general form like a slipper-bath, but more depressed and symmetrical, with a large oval aperture to admit the body, which is closed with a lid of earthenware.  The coffins themselves are also of baked clay, covered with green glaze, and embossed with figures of warriors, with strange and enormous coiffures, dressed in a short tunic and long under garments, a sword by the side, the arms resting on the hips, the legs apart.  Great quantities of pottery and also clay figures, some most delicately modeled, are found around them; and ornaments of gold, silver, iron, copper, glass, &c., within.”—­Art-Journal.

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ANCIENT PRICE OF LABOR.—­In the year 1352, 25th Edward III., wages paid to haymakers were 1d. a day.  A mower of meadows, 3d. a day, or 5d an acre.  Reapers of corn in the first week of August, 2d.; in the second, 3d. a day, and so on till the end of August, without meat, drink, or other allowance, finding their own tools.  For threshing a quarter of wheat or rye, 21/2d.; a quarter of barley, beans, peas, and oats 11/2d.  A master carpenter, 3d. a day, other carpenters, 2d.  A master mason, 4d. a day, other masons, 3d., and their servants, 11/2d.  Tilers, 3d., and their “knaves,” 11/2d.  Thatchers, 3d a day, and their knaves, 11/2.  Plasterers, and other workers of mud walls, and their knaves, in like manner, without meat or drink; and this from Easter to Michaelmas; and from that time less, according to the direction of the justices.

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THE “QUARTERLY REVIEW” suggests that “If an additional postage of one penny per letter were to be charged to every person who prefers making the postman, or rather the public, wait until his servant shall think proper to open the door to receive a handful of prepaid letters, which could rapidly be dropped, exactly as they were posted, through a receiving slit into a tortuous receptacle, from which it would be impossible for any but the right person to extract them, the delivery of the correspondence of the country would be perfect.”

* * * * * SOME LIBERALS in France have been carrying on a kind of duel by libel, the libel being enforced apparently by its strict truth.  Some of M. Thiers’s political antagonists, seeking to annoy him, volunteered to circulate in the form of a card the following advertisement for a lady who appears to be related to M. Thiers, and also to carry on an honest avocation:—­