Cheating The Guillotine

Tom. Paine tells his escape front the guillotine, during his confineraeiit in the Luxenibourg, in this way: "The room in which I was lodged was on the ground floor ; with the door opening outward flat against the wall, so that when it was open the inside of the door appeared outward, and the contrary wheii it was shut. When persous were to be taken out of the piison for the guillotine it was ahvays done in the night, and those that perform that office had a private mark by which they knew what rooms to visit. The door of my room was markt d one morning, when it was open and flat against the wall; being clused in the evening, the fatal line of chalk came inside, and thus the deetroying angel passed by. A few days after this Robespierre feil, and Mr, Monroe arrived to reclaim me." Stranger still, however, is the story Vaublai.c tells of M. de Chateaubrun. who was not only condemned todeatb, but actually taken to the scaffold. He was the last of twenty victims. Aftt r 12 or 15 executions, one part of the horrible instrument broke, and a workman was sent for to niend it. AL de Cliateaubrun was, with the otber viotims, near the scaffold, with his hands tied behiud his back. The repairing took a long time. The day began to darken; the great crowd of spectators were f ar more intent on wyttching tl ie repairing of the guillotine than on looking at the victims who were to die ; and all, even the gendarmes theniselves, had their eyes flxed on the scaffold. llesigned, but very weak, the condemned man leaned, without meaning it, on those behind him, and tuey pressed by the weight of the body, mechanically made way for him, till gradually, and by no effort of his own, he came to the last ranks of the crowd. The instrument once repaired, the executious began, and they hurried U the end. A dark night concealed both executioners and spectators. Led on by the crowd, De Chuteaubruu was at Hrat amazed at his situation, but soon conceived the hope of escaping. He went to the Champs Elysees, and there, addressing a man who looked like wurkman, he told liini, laughingly, that some comrades with whom he had been joking had tied his hands behind his back and taken his hat, telling him to go and look for it. He begged the man to cut the cords, and the w orkman pulled out a kn i ie aud Uid so, laughing all the while at the joke. M. de Chateaubrun then proposed going into one of the small wine-shops in the Champa Elysees. During a slight repast he seeined to be expecting his comradea to bring back his hat, and, seeing nothing of them, he begged his guest to carry a note to soine friend, whom he kjiew would lend him one, for he could not o bareheaded through the streete. Ho added that his friend would-bring him some inoney, for his comrades, in fun, had taken away his purse. The poor man believed every word M. de Chateaubrun told him, took the note, and returned in half an hour accompanied by the friend, who embraced Chateaubrun and Rave him all the help required. The sun is not burning out. After the lapse of thousands of yeara we have the most incontrovertible eridence that the lightof to-day is no less brilliant now than it was when man walked amid the groves of Eden. We may venture further back into the arcana of time, and say that the sun of tlie past su nnner has shone with splendor equal to the radiant power which myriads of ages ere yet man appeared on this planet, stimulated the growtb of those luxuriant forests which perished to form those rast beda fronj which we derive uur coal.