NOTES OF THE MONTH. 575 



the " united ages" of ancient parish paupers, or who fills up nooks of 

 newspapers with the " important fact" of the relative proportions of 

 births and deaths : 



"According to the German Pedagogic Magazine, there lately died in 

 Swabia a schoolmaster, who for fifty-one years had superintended an insti- 

 tution with old-fashioned severity. From an average inferred by means of 

 recorded observations, one of the ushers has calculated, that in the course 

 of his exertion he had given 911,500 canings, 124,000 floggings, 209,000 

 custodes, 136,000 tips with the ruler, 10,100 boxes of the ear, and 22,700 

 tasks to get by heart. It was further calculated that he had made 700 

 boys stand on peas, 600 kneel on a sharp edge of wood, 5,000 wear the 

 fool's cap, and 1,708 hold the rod." 



We hope not to be accused of a lack of charity in surmising that 

 the learned gentleman who made these " recorded observations," was 

 not unfrequently associated with the illustrious 5,000 who figured in 

 the above interesting list. 



Here is another elaboration from the pen of one of those erudite 

 worthies deep in the genealogy of learned pigs, mermaids, and kings 

 of the Canary Islands, and profound on apple-trees in untimely 

 blossom : 



" The Whitehaven Herald says : There was left at our office yesterday, 

 one of the most remarkable specimens of that useful root, the potatoe, 

 which ever fell under our notice. This extraordinary tuber was grown on 

 the estate of Mr. John Grindale, of Bootle Fell Side. It is of the kidney 

 species, and its girth the long way is 44 inches, and round the middle 25 

 inches. Its weight, when first taken up, was three pounds, and to add to 

 the wonder, it is one complete well-formed potatoe, and is not, like many 

 other large specimens of the same plant, formed by a conglomeration of 

 several contiguous roots united to each other." 



The cranium of the chronicler and the pulpy phenomenon he re- 

 cords, we suspect to be one and the same kidney. They are both " large 

 specimens of the same plant/' and it is a pity to disturb the " con- 

 glomeration" of the " contiguous roots." Mr. John Grindale, of 

 Bootle Fell Side, may well exult in the pride of possessing such a 

 TUBER ; but Bootle Fell Side has equal reason to rejoice in its his 

 tori an. 



BOASTED TORY INCONSISTENCY. The late number of Blackwood 

 contained a long article entitled, fl The Austrian Government in 

 Italy." We will not waste the time, or uselessly revolt the feelings 

 of our readers, by the exposure of this disgusting tissue of falsehood 

 and misrepresentation, founded entirely on a work of that miserable 

 profligate, Dal Pozzo, whose whole work, even from the very title, 

 " The Happiness of Italy under the Austrian Government," is the 

 expression of sentiments the most directly at variance with his real 

 ones an eulogy on a government that he hates in his heart with the 

 most perfect hatred, and would take any means to overturn. We con- 

 tent ourselves with simply referring the reader to the number of the 

 same magazine for July, 1830; where the head of this same govern- 

 ment is designated as " the most double-minded and perjidious minister 

 that ever existed one who will take a crooked path from his pure 



