44 



THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



toward our hotel, I asked a direction to the 

 Post Office. 



"'"That's of no use," answered William; 

 "here are letter boxes on the corners, and the 

 carriers empty them before you could reach the 

 Post Office." 



" ' " But I have no stamps," I urged. 



" ' " That's soon settled. There ought to be 

 a drug store hereabouts" ; and entering the 

 first one I procured postage stamps and mailed 

 the letters in my pocket.' 



"Thus far speaks M. de Guerville. To his 

 experiences let me add ray own. In Boston I 

 was under the charge of a charming American, 

 Miss Alice W. We had been walking some 

 time, and I suggested something to eat. She 

 assented, and I looked about for a restaurant. 



"'We needn't find a restaurant,' she ex- 

 plained ; ' there must be a drug store here- 

 abouts,' and actually, at the next corner of 

 Tremont street, in an enormous shop, we got 

 some very good cakes. A little later I felt that 

 I must return to my hotel, in order to write a 

 letter to New York, making arrangements for 

 my Western tour. 



"'That is quite unnecessary,' said Miss 

 Alice. ' There must be a drug store here- 

 abouts. ' And in the nearest drug store I was 

 able to buy the needful stationery, write my 

 letter, get my stamp and post my letter. In 

 short, I pronounce the American drug store the 

 special Providence of the visiting foreigner." 

 [Yet neither of these pilgrims seems to have 

 discovered the drug store " Directory."] 



THE AUSTRALIAN DRUG CLERK. 



The Australian chemist, says the 

 Chemist and Druggist of Australasia, has 

 the weakness of his countrymen, and, as 

 the boy is father to the man, the patient 

 apprentice may serve as an illustration. 

 In the winter he is patient. He has decided 

 that the busy time is over, that there 

 will be no " biz " doing for the next few 

 months and that he need not even bother 

 about polishing up the glassware, since 

 the flies have given up working for the 

 season also. He lays himself out, there- 

 fore, to prolong any work he may be 

 engaged in by asking questions, more or 

 less relevant, concerning the same. If he 

 is engaged in dusting a bottle, he gazes 



at its spotless surface and asks, "Where 

 do flies go to in winter?" or "If flies have 

 their use how is it there is no use for them 

 now?" A stranger would try to snub 

 him, a familiar would know that it would 

 be as easy to snub the prince of inter- 

 viewers as an Australian youth. " He 

 looks innocent enough," said a magis- 

 trate who was asked to commit a boy of 

 ten for insubordination. "Yes," was 

 the reply," he does now, but you should 

 see him when he's roused." 



ON A CUSTOM OF MANUFACTURERS. 



Besides, what can be done when the 

 apprentice, to whom the chemist has 

 sworn to impart a full and complete 

 knowledge of his business, pauses in the 

 act of weighing up quinine to ask if it 

 would alter the chemical composition of 

 this drug to pack it in smaller compass? 

 And when (still pausing) he goes on to 

 calculate that thousands of pounds must 

 be wasted annually by the conservative 

 Britisher, who sends out quinine and tan- 

 nin, and benzoic acid and the like in bot- 

 lles which could be made to hold six 

 times as much, and thus, inferentially, 

 afiirms the common sense of the colonial 

 and the manufacturers' want of it, who 

 would be inclined rather to admire his 

 attention to practical details than to cen- 

 sure his abstraction. Neither, on the 

 other hand, can it be asserted that his 

 remarks are altogether wanting in sense 

 when he grumbles at the slowness of a 

 suppository machine that will only turn 

 out one at a time, or ventures to think 

 that ready-made pills are the most ele- 

 gant. If, in short, he " works " under 

 protest, and seems to protest too much, 

 the master is rarely in a position to chide 

 with consistency, for does not he himself 

 feel the winter to be a season of lazy- 

 discontent, when the only thing that can 

 be done with energy is to discuss (or 

 cuss) the state of the roads in the coun- 

 try, or "those trams" in town? Btit 



