THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 89 



room, and gave way to so many exuberant expressions of delight 

 that for a minute or two I could not obtain from him the explana- 

 tion I was longing for. At length, he told me that a gamekeeper 

 in the service of the nobleman referred to had been accused to his 

 master of having been seen to trap a fox, cut it open, disembowel it, 

 and carry it home with him to hide his misdeed. As vulpicide in a 

 hunting country is regarded as an offence about as heinous as child- 

 murder, the keeper would inevitably have been dismissed in disgrace 

 if the charge had been proved against him. His story was that he 

 had found a hare in a trap set by a poacher, whom he had deprived 

 of his expected prize by taking it home for his own dinner, after 

 paunching it on the spot ; and he added that the man who made 

 the accusation was a troublesome poacher, and the owner of the 

 trap, who had a spite against him because he kept a keen watch 

 upon his movements. As the latter persisted in his accusation, the 

 keeper's knife, with which he had opened the animal in question, 

 was examined ; and, in the hinge of the blade, were found the hairs 

 sent to me. My reply completely confirmed the keeper's statement, 

 restored him to his master's confidence, and baffled the malignity of 

 a scoundrel. 



Two or three years ago an action at law came on for hearing in 

 the North, in which a large field of onions having been blighted and 

 destroyed, certain persons were sued for having caused the evil by 

 the smoke of their neighbouring works. On the trial these damaged 

 onions were produced, and proved to have been destroyed by a 

 parasitic rust, which filled all the tissues of the plants, and killed 

 them. The microscope gave an answer to the action, and the suit 

 was lost. 



Last year a similar trial took place in Edinburgh. A large 

 number of evergreens and other trees were covered with a black 

 coating like soot. It was assumed that this, also, was a case 

 of smoke nuisance, and an action was commenced against the owners 

 of certain chimneys. On the trial the report of our Foreign Secre- 

 tary, Dr. M. C. Cooke, showed that the black substance was not 

 soot, but organized vegetables — algse and fungi — capable of germi- 

 nation ; and, again, the microscope prevailed. In both these 

 instances had the simple precaution of microscopical examination 

 been first employed large sums of money would have been saved by 

 those who, having suffered supposed injury, attributed it ignorantly 

 to the wrong cause, and experienced defeat. 



