NOTES OF THE MONTH. 455 



not been recognized by the present Belgian government, so that his 

 Grace might as well apply to the King of the Sandwich Islands as 

 far as hope of coin is concerned, and with about as much right. 



GOOD-NATURED FRIENDS. We remember something of a proverb 

 which cautions the heedless, where there is a choice of seats, to be- 

 ware of a fall. We fancy ourselves in a somewhat similar predica- 

 ment amidst the friendly struggles of good-natured gentlemen, all 

 eager for the public good. Mr. Buckingham, at the head of a posse 

 of elderly gentlewomen, declare fermented liquors to be rank poison, 

 and insist on it that tea is the only true reviver ; when, behold, a 

 meeting of the faculty is forthwith convened, and tea is voted to be 

 as deleterious a concoction as ever was invented by the arch-enemy. 

 See the following report of the Medical Society of London : 



" Mr. Cole said he would not then state his views on the subject at any 

 length, but this he would observe, that throughout the course of his prac- 

 tice he had uniformly found the habit of tea-drinking in the highest degree 

 injurious, debilitating the stomach, and bringing on a train of nervous dis- 

 orders which baffled the power of medicine. 



" Mr. Proctor confessed that to a certain extent he was becoming a con- 

 vert to Mr. Cole's views ; still he could not go so far as that gentleman, 

 but thought that the constitution of the patient, and the time at which the 

 tea was taken, materially influenced its effects. He had made inquiries of 

 a large tea-taster as to the effects on his stomach after tasting great quan- 

 tities, and had been informed that, usually after so doing, he found his 

 stomach somewhat disturbed. If the tea be taken in a morning on an empty 

 stomach, in large quantities, it will most probably prove injurious," 



We are very much inclined to be of Mr. Cole's way of thinking, 

 and consider tea-drinking to be totally at variance with the " greatest 

 happiness principle," backed at is is by Mr. Proctor's friend the tea- 

 taster's experience. But soft while this argument is proceeding we 

 are athirst this foaming tumbler of Barclay's bottled stout is not to be 

 resisted : thus then " off with Us head ; so much for Buckingham !" 



ANOTHER HUG FROM THE URSA MAJOR. The tender mercies of 

 the Muscovite government are again displayed by the following ac- 

 count of the ameliorated treatment of their victims. 



" The administrative council of Warsaw have regulated the weight of 

 the chains to be borne, in future, by the Polish convicts. The men are to 

 carry seven pounds of iron, and the women six !" 



These convicts are those men, who won the admiration of civilized 

 Europe, by their heroic endeavours to free their country from bar- 

 barian taskmasters ; and the women are they who encouraged them 

 in noble deeds by their influnce, and even example; of this are they 

 convicted and condemned to linger out a wretched existence in slavery 

 and chains. How much longer will Europe permit this heroic nation 

 to groan beneath the scourge of those bloodthirsty Tartars ? To be 

 the slave of the brutal and debased Muscovite, is the lowest of all 

 human degradation, for they possess not one attribute of superiority. 

 They are the least interesting of all savage tribes, possessing the cun- 

 ning and duplicity, without the sole redeeming quality of the brute 

 its courage. Where did they ever display magnaminity in the field 



