376 NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



" In the year 1834, there was born in the northern Netherlands 87,800 

 children ; the deaths were 68,484 ; the marriages 21,281." 



Of the preponderance of the births o^-er the deaths we say nothing', 

 though there is room for a remark or two on that point. What we 

 are anxious to know is, how it happens that where there are only 

 21,281 marriages per annum, there should be 87,802 births. 

 Dominie Sampson would have held up his hands and exclaimed, 

 " Prodigious !" with a special emphasis at such a statement. In most 

 European countries, Ireland excepted, the average interval of births 

 in families (making due allowances for those instances in which no 

 children result from marriage) is two years. In the northern Ne- 

 therlands, if the above statement be correct, the average interval of 

 births in the matrimonial state must be much shorter, even on the 

 supposition, which for the sake of Belgian morality we are unwilling 

 to make, that an unusual sprinkling of the children are born out 

 of wedlock. 



Suspicious Persons. — The following advei-tisement appeared in 

 a Hobart Town paper : — 



" Found, on a suspicious person, two remarkably fine bullocks." 



We do not exactly see how these couple of "remarkably fine bul- 

 locks" could have been found oii any person, whether suspicious or 

 otherwise. But let that pass. What we should like to know is whe- 

 ther there be any test, and if so, Avhat the test is in Hobart Town, by 

 which the question whether a man be suspicious or not is to be de- 

 cided. The great criterion of respectability is held by some people 

 in this country to be the circumstance of one's keeping a gig'. This, 

 as mentioned in the " Notes of the Month'' in a former number, was 

 seriously stated by a witness in a course of examination in a court of 

 law. No matter though whole families were ruined by some fashion- 

 able swindler, so long as he managed to keep a gig he was respectable. 

 What constitutes a " suspicious" appearance in Hobart Town, and 

 consequently exposes one to the risk of having his " remarkably fine 

 bullocks,'' or any other property he may chance to possess, taken from 

 him, we know not. Possibly, if he have " a shocking bad hat," or 

 be but indifferently attired, or chance to have a long beard, he may, 

 according to the sapient legislation of that place, be a very fit subject 

 of suspicion. That "suspicious" characters are as plentiful as black- 

 berries, as FalstafF would have said, in that part of the world, we can 

 well believe ^indeed, we "suspect" the records of the Old Bailey, 'f 

 carefully examined, would afford presumptive evidence of the fact. 

 But the question still recurs — What are the recognised symptoms of 

 being " suspicious'' in that place ? It is important we should ascertain 

 this before we make up our minds to emigrate thither. It is no joke 

 to have oneself branded in a public journal as a " suspicious" person, 

 in addition to one's " bullocks" or other property being taken from hinu 



ANECDOTE OF JOHN FAWCET. 



The celebrated John Fawcett, the strictest and best stage ma- 



