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LIGHTING OF STREETS.

“ The light of the sun is succeeded by other lights, whichare far superior to the lamps lighted by the Egyptians,on the festival of Minerva of Sais. The night with us differsfrom the day only in the appearance of the light; withregard to labour and employment, every thing goes on well.Some work continually ; but others laugh and amuse them-selves with singing.” He certainly here must allude tolighting the streets.

Tn another passage, in the oration to Kllebichus, the sameauthor tells us, that the ropes from which the lamps thatornamented the city were suspended, had been cut by someriotous soldiers, not far from a bath. “ Proceeding,” sayshe, “ to a bath, not far oft', they cut with their swords theropes from which were suspended the lamps that affordedlight in the night-time, to show that the ornaments of thecity ought to give way to them.” Moreover, also at Antioch,the following passage of St. Jerome , appears to confirm theprevious belief, from the quotations which have beengiven, where he thus expresseth himself: “ In an alterca-tion between a Luciferan and an Orthodox, an adherent ofthe schismatic Lucifer disputed in the street with a truebeliever, till the streets were lighted, when the listeningcrowd departed; and they then spat in each other’s face andretired.” Dominic,us Vallarsius, in his elegant edition ofthe works of that father, has proved, in a short dissertation,that this indecent dispute took place in the year 378.

Basilius the Great, in a letter to Martinianus, giving anaccount of the miserable situation of his native city Cecsarea,in Cappadocia , anno 371, says, “ They had nights withoutlights,” (nodes non illustraias.) The inference which thisadmits is, that he knew this was not the case in some othercities, and probably, that he had lived in some other townwith superior accommodations.

Notwithstanding all w r e have seen, it really does not ap-pear that there were either in the cities of Athens or ofHome, any general regulations of the police with respect tothe regular illumination of those cities ; but on the contrary,it appears, they were never thus lighted, except, indeed,upon some very particular occasion. The general illumina-tion of the streets is, we believe quite modem, and an Eu-ropean invention; M. St. Evremoml says, the illuminationof the streets of Paris , during the night, by a multitude oflamps, deserves that the most distant nations should go tosee what neither the Greeks nor Homans ever thought offor the police of their republics. This opinion is said to bewell founded: for, although both Athens and Home might