"The writer of that paper was Mr. Samuel Ferguson, then and still a Member of the Irish Bar, going the North-East Circuit, and a native of Belfast. Mr. Ferguson is also the author of some spirited stanzas, published in the same Magazine, entitled, 'The Forging of the Anchor,' and is very favourably known as the author of some interesting papers in 'Blackwood,' and in the Antiquarian department of the 'Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy,' of which learned body he has been for several years a member."
"Mr. F." adds W. C. J. A. "has, I believe, but I am not quite sure, written in the 'Dublin University Magazine.'"
The Shadoof.—I beg to inform W. G. with reference to his observations in your "Current Notes" for December last, that the Shadoof as engraved by you at p. 96 is in common use all over the State of New York in places where wells are obliged to be sunk, the machine being far less costly than a pump, and such as anybody can construct.
We have abundance of rivers and streams, so many indeed, that I have never seen a windmill in America.
Your N. Y. ES-pecial Reporter.
Thomas Hood.—How lamentable is it to observe, from the research of A. K. in Willis's "Current Notes" for December (p. 90), and for which I sincerely thank his Correspondent, that so eminent a man as Thomas Hood should so recently have departed from among us without record of his death.
His Song of the Shirt alone, written with so humane a purpose, surely demanded some notice. Are you aware that the Song of the Shirt suggested the American Sewing Machine, exhibited in the World's Fair, for the purpose of relieving poor females from the nightly drudgery of "stitch—stitch—stitch?" W. S.