The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-23 00:00:00

ing that, according to the colour of hair, its pig-
ment cells reveal a considerable difference in their
constitution, is given as thus tabularised _

Fair Hair. Brown Hair. Black Hair.
Carbon 49.345 50.622 49.935
Hydrogen 6.576 6.613 6.631
Nitrogen 17.936 17.936 17.939
Oxygen and sulphur 26.143 24.829 25.498
The following passage will be regarded by many as
towards its close altogether disgusting and abomi-
nable. All young lovers more especially we would
earnestly recommend not by any means to glance
at these matter-of-fact remarks about hair :

"An examination of its structure shows that the dif-
ference of colour is entirely owing to the tinct of the
fluid which fills the hollow tube in each hair. This tinct
or pigment shows through the cortical substance in the
same manner that it does through the epidermis of a
negro. Hair is, in fact, but a modification of the skin.
The same might be said of feathers, horns, and scales.
Not improbably the distinguished lady now honouring
these pages with her attention, will be shocked at hearing
that her satin-soft shoulder is almost chemically inden-
tical with the plated and roughened mail of the croco-
dile—and she will hardly perhaps believe us when we
infrrm her that her bird, when he sets right some err-
ing feather with his beak, is acting with the same
chemically composed instrument upon the same chemi-
cally composed material as Mademoiselle does when she
disentangles with a comb her charming mistress's softly-
flowing tresses. The fond lover again, as he kisses some
treasured lock, will doubtless be disgusted when we tell
him, that, apart from the sentiment, he might as well
impress his fervent lips upon a pig's pettitoe, or even
upon the famous Knob Kerry, made out of the horn of
a rhinoceros, carried by the king of hunters, Mr.
Roualleyn Gordon Cumming."
Whereupon the reviewer gives this capital descrip-
tion of hair anatomically considered :
" The hair, anatomically considered, is composed of
three parts—the follicle or tubular depression in the skin
into which the hair is inserted—the bulb or root of the
hair—and the stalk or cortical part filled with pigment.
A single hair, with its follicle, might be roughly likened
to a hyacinth growing from a glass—with this difference,
that the hair is supplied with nutriment exclusively from
below. The bulb, which rests upon the reticulated bed
of capillary vessels of the cutis and sub-cutaneous tissue,
draws its pigment cells or colouring matter directly from
the blood—in like manner, the horny sheath is secreted
directly from the capillaries—so that, unlike the hya-
cinth plant, it grows at its root instead of at its free ex-
tremity. A hair is not, as it appears, a smooth cylindri-
cal tube like a quill ; on the contrary, it is made up of a
vast number of little horny laminae—or our reader might
realise its structure to herself by placing a number of
thimbles one within the other, and as she adds to this
column by supplying fresh thimbles below, she will get
a good notion of the manner in which each hair grows,
and will see that its oldest portion must be its free ex-
tremity."
Upon the article descriptive of the "Hungarian Cam-
paigns" we have already in our leading columns com-
mented. The other, to which we would here more
particularly direct attention, is the one contrasting
the two systems at Pentonville.

The Westminster Review. New Series. No. VI.

Unfortunately we have left ourselves but little
space for reference to the contents of the new num-
ber of the Westminster. Altogether it is about the
best number since it passed under its present ma-
nagement. The different contributions comprised
in it are more agreeably diversified, and some of
them are distinguished by a more than usual dis-
play of scholarly intelligence. We would particu-
larly commend, as deserving of careful perusal the
charming paper on " Martial and his Times," inter-
spersed with a profusion of illustrative quotations.
Reference was some time since made by us elsewhere
in this journal, to the introductory contribution re-
lating to " Jamaica Distress and British Philan-
thropy." Perhaps the most readable production
in the number is the criticism, or rather, we might
more correctly term it, the panegyric on " Thacke-
ray's Works." There is a thoughtful chapter on
" Iconoclasm in German Philosophy." Further on
we have another puff direct of the " Poems of
Alexander Smith," poems that ought long ago to
have set the Thames on fire if they really possessed
a portion of that fire of genius which has been
eulogised by so many choral publications. Besides
these contributions, there are other entertaining
papers—one on " French Writers on French
Policy," another on " Ruth and Villette," recent
novels so entitled, another on the " Educational
Institutions of the United States," and another on
the Creeds and Heresies of " Early Christianity."
Beyond all we have the usual Foreign Quarterly
supplement, reviewing in regard to England, Ame-
rica, Germany, and France, the principal features
of contemporary literature.

EPSOM-(THIS DAY.)