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    is the account of the private manners of the followers of Zoroaster . The author , perhaps partly out of deference to the public he addresses , makes very light of certain superstitious practices in which his co-relig ionists indulge , whilst he does not shrink from relating them . , „ * ,. , ' . ¦ ¦ Our fair readers will not be indifferent to the following revelation of domestic life among the fire-worshippers : •—The Parsoe women occupy a much more honourable position than either their Hindoo or Mahometan sisters . The Parsees in general are good and affectionate husbands , and discharge faithfully their duties towards their -wives , while the latter are not unconscious of

    theirs towards their lords , and hence most families lead a peaceable and very happy life . . In a great number of Cases the husbands are much influenced by their wives , and considering the present state of education among the latter , it is remarkable that such exceptions ever should exist . Though the Parsee ladies are not seen in society , it is not to be supposed that their life at home is spentin entire seclusion or in female company only , as is the case among the Hindoos and Mahomedans . At home they mix freely in the family , join in the conversation , and take part in other affairs without reserve , while during the day they are engaged in visiting and

    gossiping among themselves . They also find employmerit in making dresses for their children , in which they take much interest , also in working in embroidery and Berlin wool , an occupation introduced among them of late years only , but in which they have made considerable progress . The halls of the wealthy contain many exquisite specimens of this art , which constantly attract the admiration of European visitors . The females of the poorer classes are mostly engaged in the kitchen , attending to domestic matters , or in fetching water from the wells ,. which are generally situated at some distance from the house .

    As a race the Parsees are highly social , and they embrace every opportunity of visiting or entertaining their friends and relations . A religious festival or holiday , a birthday or a marriage , are the great occasions for their . social enjoyments . As an indication of the increasing intellectual taste Of ' -the' Parsees , it may be noted that of late English' music forms one of the amusements of their e % -ening parties , instead " of the ugly and absurd riautches . of native dancing g irls , accomr panied by musicians ( save the mark !) who are ho great masters of their profession , but who grin , nod , and stamp , " and make horrible faces in their excitement , with a view to deceive the audience into the belief that they are absorbed in the spirit of their art !

    These specimens will give some idea of the nature of this volume , which is full of similar nicely written paragraphs on social phases . We recommend our readers to consult it for themselves , and especially to notice the hearty and unreserved gratitude expressed on many occasions by the writer towards the English in their character of governors of India . Such testimony is invaluable . As might have been expected , the writer speaks harshly of the Mohammedans , to whom his race owes all its disasters , and who are ever ready , on the slightest provocation , to repeat their onslaughts . His pica in favour of the oppressed Parsees of Persia is well worthy of attention , both by the public and flie Government ,

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    A JOURNEY DUE NORTH . A Journey Due North ; being a Residence in ltussia in the Summer of 185 C . By George Augustus Sala . Richard Uentloy , New Burlington-street . A . great number of persons nro fully aware Hint much of the "Journey due North" was originally published in , the " Household Words ; " but , although in the cy . es .. Qf its proprietors ,, contributors , regular subscribers , and their several numedinte circles , this serial is one of vnst importance , it is ,

    portfolio of photogrammata than the present ; and we arc well content to allow the artist the space of a future volume for the treatment of subjects he has not yet approached . Russia changes not from year to year—little enough from century to century . There was little , if anything , really new in the roadbook of Mr . W . H . Russell , the handbook of Herr Kohl , or the travels of the Marquis de Custine . Mr . Sala has added little to our deep-rooted impressions about Russia , nor has he pretended to do so ; but as a refreshing commentator , he is unapproached by

    cither of the authors we have named . His _ style is so peculiarly colloquial that his report reminds us , here and there , of that of a travelling expert for the Grand London Lodge of the order of Bohemia sent to investigate the possibility of harmonising Russian institutions with the theories of comfort , civilisation , and progress propagated by that order for the use of all the world . "I can imagine , " he says , " no better way of conveying a palpable notion of things I have seen in this strange land than to institute comparisons between things Russian , wliieh my reader will never know , I hope , arid

    —not so muddy , not so slimy , but the real water of the Neva . St . Petersburg has been robbed from the river-Its palaces float rather than stand . The Neva , like a haughty courtesan , bears the splendid sham upon her breast like a scarlet letter , or the costly gift of a loyei she hates . She revolted in 1824 , she revolted in 1839 , she revolted in 1842 , and tried to wash the splendid stigma away in floods of passionate * tears . She will cast it away from her some day , utterly . arid for ever . The city is an untenable position now , like Naples . It must go some day by the board . Isaac ' s Church and Winter Palace , Peter the- Great's hut and Alexander ' s Monolith will be no more heard of , and will return to the mud their father , and the ooze , their mother . There is something saddening in the author ' s musings on a Petersburg fete night : —

    At midnight you could walk a hundred yards on the Xevskoi without finding a single soul abroad to look at the illuminations : at midnight it was broad daylight . The windows were blind and headless ; what distant droschkies there may have been made not the thought of a noise on the wooden pavement ; and those rows of blinking , flaring grease ^ pots resting in the earth led yon . to fancy that you were walking on the roofs of a city of the dead illuminated by corpse candles . Take no lame devil with you though , good student , when you walk

    these paving-stone house-tops . . Bid him unroof , and what will it avail you ? There are no genial kitchens beneath , no meat-safes before whose wire-gauze orit-. works armies of flies sit down in silent , hopeless siege ; no cellars sacred to cats and old wine ; no dustbins where ravens have their sayings banks and invest their little economies secretly . There is nothing beneath but the cold , black ooze of the Neva , which refuses to divulge its secrets , even to devils—even to the worst devil , of all , the police .

    Very powerful and affecting is the sketch of peasant life and peasant misery given in the tenth chapter . As it cannot be extracted in its entirety we forbear from tampering with it , but will conclude our extracts with a word or two anent imperial progresses i- ^—From Petersburg to Warsaw there is a chaussee or road which , by a fiction as beautiful and fantastic as a poem by Mr ., Tennyson ,-is said to be macadamised . It

    is perpetually being remended at the express- command of the . emperor . "When he travels over it the highwayis , I dare say , tolerable , for the . autocrat being natiirally born to have the best of every thing ,, his subjects have an . extraordinary genius-Jbr supplying him _ with the verybest , and the very best it is for the time being . When , the Czar is coming , " rotting rows of cabins change intosmiling villages , bare poles into flowering shrubs , rags into velvet gowns , Polyphemus becomes Narcissus ; . blind men see and lame men walk , so to speak . The Czar can turn anything except his satraps' hearts .

    We have heard of shams like this within the borders of our own merry England . Great Highland lords and lady proprietors have been known to pass in triumph along fictitious grooves of Boeotian , happiness cut through wildernesses artificially created to multiply sheep and grouse instead of peasants . In this , and in many other cases , we agree with our author that for the mote observable in Russia , there is in our domestic eye a beam of corresponding and , under circumstances , of more disgraceful magnitude ; and we can believe and see how , pondering thus , the envoy of the Household V ' ords T the outline of whose fervid sentiment shows clearly through the rich embroidered veil of humorous writing , turned homeward sadder as well as wiser for his " Journey Due North . "

    save through the medium of faithful travellers , things familiar to us all in London and Paris . " And so the reader who finds himself perusing a private arid confidential report of the travelling delegate , must not be surprised if , not being one of " us all , " he meet with allusions to things both in London and Paris with which he is utterly unfamiliar . If he take the trouble to read , and not to skim , this book , he will find it is one of no common merit ; although if he regarded it . as a rosary of comicalities only , he might find it even too thick-set , and so inadvertently discard it . To ourselves it appears a series of skeletons for thoughtful

    essays clad originally in sparkling habiliments to furnish forth , we suppose , the hebdomadal , feast of fun for the readers of the Household Words . Mr . Sala ' s pages dazzle us with suggestive wit , gathered , in-thc first place , by the countless facets of his own ingenious miiicr , and thence reflected on to his reader in an easy conversational manner , as if all cue or key were superfluous . The = adept being thus gratified by excellent satire , the noviee flattered at beingleft to fill up outlines . ; for himself , and the catechumen astounded into admiration by the traveller ' s display of world knowledge , what doubt is there that an extended circle of householders will welcome to their

    hearths the flying words of the modern peripatetic ? In davs when " Englishmen may be tempted to allow philo- ' Russianism to succeed an equally undignified Russonhobia , it may be as well to observe , that with all the author ' s amiable liberality , all his obvipus intention to repay Russian superficial courtesy with English kindliness , he can no more hinder legitimate old-fashioned deductions from the premises he furnishes , than he can add to or take from the facts of older travellers . Those who have fixed opinions about Russia , the value of her friendship , and the danger of her enmity , will , after reading Mr . Sala ' s pages , be of the same opinion still ; and those who have not yet t / raite la liusse , will , if they follow him carefully , hardly miss the cut is cera" cosaoue" underneath .

    It may be invidious to pick specimens from such a shower of quotable passoges as this book affords . Our author may be indignant at our selection , Our reader may think little of our taste , and undervalue I ho corpus of the work from the saniplo shown . But it is an cvery .-duy difficulty after all-. Tlio Baltic Steamboat . Notes in the opening chapters we thought admirable . The C runs tad t Custom-house seemed bettor still ; but the rapid and clever Panorama of the Quays , and the NcvskoK lYospokt at St . ' Petersburg , threw all previous passages into the shade . Here the author stepped trom mere roadside sketching to the considoration of Russian institutions , socially , morally , and politically ; but first of all he alludes as follows

    to the well-credited instability of tho capital : — Many persons endoavour to explain tho badnoas of tho St . Pctorsburg pavomont by tho severity of tho olijmito ,, aud-aia _ tvmuUGmus-uuUii »~ 4 } tho city is built . Tho whole pluoo ia , it must bo confossed , n tloublo-unmmou Anisturdam ; and it Iibb ofton boon with foolinga ukin to horror that 1 have pooped into h hole on tho mnyniflcont NevskoX when tho workmen woro momling tho piiv . oincnt—which they nro incessantly occupied in doing in some part of tho ' stroot during tho summer months . At tho distance of perhaps two foot from tho grnnlto elaba of tho footpath or tho hexagonal wooilon blocks of tho roadway , you boo tho ominous rotting of logs and pilos on which tho wholo city ia built , and at a dreadfully short distance from thorn you see tho water

    after nil , so dispensable an articlo of literary diet that there arc myriads of reading and well-read people who by no chnncc , or very rarely , dip into its pages . To such especially we can recommend Mr . Sala ' s book . With it we have lightened tho tedium of a journey nioro strictly due north than that to St . Petersburg ; and if wo may not uncontrndioted proohum a work highly interesting that will engross tho attention of a traveller from Euston station to " Morry Carlisle , " we mi \ y as well resign -tlio-. i'ight-- ^ ot : - 'privato--a 9--well' ~ ivs--ot : -- ]) ublio- ^ jiKlg'

    ment . Thoro is littlo of tho guide-book , hand-book , or speoiol corresppndontry about Mr . Sala ' s performancoj and so slight is the internal evidenco that the Author ovor ponotratod far into the interior of Ru £ Sia , that wo at least aro not astounded at tho sting-Joss imputation to that ofl ' eot which ho thinks it worth while in his " Envoi" to rofu ^ e . But tho striking features of tho anoiont and modern capitals of tho empire afford matorial for evon a moro extonsivo

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    No . 441 , September 4 , 1858 . ] . THE LEADER . 907

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    , HEALTH AND DISEASE . Health and Disease , their Laws , with Plain- Practical PreacriutioiiB for the People . 13 y Benjamin Kidgo , M . D ., F . K . G . S . ; &c , - ¦ ^ Chapiniuvand Hall .. Amon g the numerous works that have appeared ia recent years treating popularly of the soience o £ life , there is none that is more attractive in its style and treatment of the subject , or will give moro satisfaction to the general reader / than this volume by Dr . Ridge . Almost every man at forty—and every woman at every ago—is fond of speculating in physic . It is an uncontrollable propensity like the passion for gambling , or gold-finding , or horseracing ; and volumes of wise saws have been written against it by the regular practitioners . Dr . Ridge RutftjmflyQ ^ yiafe sire , and endeavours togive it a sale direction , fio would teach mon something about tho laws ol lile , tho functions of their various orgaus , tho disturbances to whioh they ivre liable , and ho oudearours a . lso to explain in a simple yot stwkuig W tup causes which produde tho moro important ailments that all ' eot mankind . Ho does not provide us with * book in whioh all tho diseases of tho human frame aro learnedly schodujod according to the perplexing synopses of tho writers of dictionaries j no does not

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 4, 1858, page 907, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2258/page/19/