MAY 183 



Here, I thought to myself as I walked away, is a fine instance 

 of the contrast between the old country and the new, and of the 

 good fortune of those who are bold enough to break their ties and 

 seek their fate in the Colonies. The father, bent with years, 

 roughly clad and half blind, seated on my barn-floor splitting 

 broaches for a few pence, or, as I have seen him again and again, 

 standing all day in the wild December weather at the corner of a 

 covert to prevent the pheasants from breaking out, and the son 

 who is in South Africa with plenty of * land, cattle, black men, 

 and bacca plants.' 



I do not gather, however, that distance makes the heart more 

 filial. I imagine that letters are few and far between, and but 

 little of the produce of the black men and the bacca plants flows 

 into the old man's pocket. 



We are cursed with an egg-eating turkey. As I was sitting 

 at lunch I observed a turkey-hen running about the lawn with 

 what I took to be a frog in its beak, which it was making violent 

 efforts to swallow. On investigation I found that it was not a 

 frog but an egg. It seems that this unnatural creature lays eggs 

 with unusually thin shells, and having chanced to crush one by 

 sitting on it, was tempted, and found it uncommonly good to eat. 

 From that day she began to devour every egg she laid, but being 

 conscious of her guilt, she first carries them to a distance, where 

 she thinks that she will not be observed. That is why she appeared 

 upon the lawn, which at luncheon-time, when the gardeners are 

 at dinner, is a secluded spot suitable for the commission of crime. 

 She did not know that justice lurked behind the dining-room 

 windows, and that after judgment comes execution. 



In to-day's Times I see that a deputation waited upon Mr. 

 Chaplin, the President of the Local Government Board, to urge, 

 amongst other things, the prohibition of the artificial colouring of 

 margarine to resemble or imitate butter, and the prohibition of 

 the mixing of margarine and butter for sale. From Mr. Chaplin 

 they got uncommonly cold comfort. He told them that he had 

 ' heard the arguments of the other side,' and that if this fraudulent 



