1861.] ADDRESS OF THE EDITOR. 13 



For the present also we hope our amiable correspondent Mr. 

 Sim will also have patience with us. We do not deny that he 

 has feelings and susceptibilities just like other men^ nor that 

 they have been sorely tried. Botanists^ like poets^ are occasionally 

 liable to fits of irritability. His wrongs shall be rectified, and the 

 saddle put on the right horse. There is a time for everything ; 

 but the festive season of Christmas, when our hearts should be 

 overflowing with a grateful sense of the deliverance accomplished 

 for us many centures ago, and which we now commemorate, is not 

 a fit period for writing angry diatribes against our fellow- mortals 

 and fellow-sinners. The effects of good fare and of cheerful so- 

 cial intercourse naturally indispose us for redressing personal 

 grievances. 



The Editor of the ' Phytologist,' however, has the pleasure 

 of bearing a faithful although feeble testimony to the merits of 

 his amiable Perth correspondent, and confidently avers that he 

 does not know a more single-minded, trustworthy, truth-loving, 

 upright man alive. In his short notice of what he saw, and 

 which we published in another part of this journal, he gave no 

 opinion about the origin of the plant, and also refrained from all 

 remarks Avhich could have been offensive to the most sensitive of 

 phyto-geographers. 



Our correspondents would soon forsake us if we were not faith- 

 ful to the principles whicli we publicly avowed when we under- 

 took the management of this periodical. We are bound by our 

 well-known professions as well as by our private inclinations, to 

 publish all botanical facts, by whomsoever they may be reported. 

 Our readers will see more on this head in a subsequent page of 

 our address. 



One or two remonstrances have reached the Editor about the 

 unsatisfactoriness (what a long word!) of anonymous announce- 

 ments and nameless contributors. Our justification may be stated 

 in the old saw, " Necessity has no law,^'* or in a similar well- 

 known and pithy proverb, viz. " We have Hobson's choice, this or 

 none." It is surely well known to all our readers, for it has 

 often been stated, that all contributions are gratuitous. Our con- 

 tributors know this ; some of them by long experience. If the 

 articles were paid for, we might not always have them on ow 



* Tlie sense of the Greek proverb is, " Necessity is the strongest thing, for it 

 conquers all things," — Kparei itiunuv. 



