1872.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



215 



thoir reward. But when thou docst tliine alms, let 

 not thy lelt hand know what thy right hand doeth." 



In all sober verity, such parade of almost 

 saintly perfection, is utterly abliorreut to every 

 right minded man. 



Dickens, in his David Copperfleld, which of 

 all his fictions he says he likes best, has painted 

 in colors vphich can never fade, a certain Uriah 

 Heep, who in liis career well nigh exhausted all 

 the heights and depths and lengths and breadths 

 of (he humility dodge. Was it reserved for Homer 

 A. King to put the religious dodge to the same 

 varied uses? 



The celebrated poet, Thomas Hood, must have 

 been an indignant witness of the painful union of 

 religious professions with very uureligious acts, 

 or his pen could never thus have consigned them 

 to pei-petual infamy : 



"With sweet kind natures, as in honeyed cells, 



Keligioa lives, and linds lierself at home ; 



But only on a formal visit dwells 



Where wasps instead of bees have formed the comb. 



Shun pride, O man ! whatever sort beside 



You talie iu lieu, shun spiritual pride ! 



For of all prides, since Lucifer's attaint, 



The proudest swells a seZZ-elected saint. 



A man may cry Church ! Church ! at every word, 



With no more piety than other people — 



A daw's not reckoned a religious bird 



Because it keeps a cawing from the steeple. 



'I'he temple is a good, a holy place, 



But canting only gives it an ill savor ; 



While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace, 



And bring religion's self into disfavor ! 



Behold yon servitor of God and mammon, 



Who binding up his Bible with his ledger. 



Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon, 



A black-leg saint, a spiritual hedger, 



Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak. 



Against the wicked remnant of the week, 



A saving bet against his sinful bias — 



"Rogue that 1 am," he whispers to himself, 



" I lie — I cheat — do anything for pelf, 



But who on earth can say I am not pious !" 



Some of my readers may question whether I 

 have weighed carefully the risk of exposing a 

 man who lias at least two presses under his con- 

 trol, and an organized body-guard of infringers 

 upon my patent to do his bidding. Others 

 may fear lest on the principle of the old law 

 maxim, " The greater the truth the greater the 

 libel,'' even the just severity of my language may 

 recoil upon myself. After his December utter- 

 ances, however, Mr. King has no valid reason for 

 being surprised at my plain exposition of his 

 apiarian career ; those December utterances he 

 must know would be pronounced libellous by 

 any honest court and jury in the land. 



If there are any of my readers to whom my 

 language may seem unjustifiably severe, I would 

 say that they will probably think otherwise when 

 facts are presented to them as they must be, still 

 more damaging to Mr. King. 



Beekeepers of America ! as I think of the late 

 Samuel Wagner, I feel that it was laid upon me 

 as a sacred duty, to expose the man whose 

 calumnies followed him to the very moment 

 when he sank in unconsciousness ; and have, 

 even after his death, though this could not have 



been intended, have been sown broadcast over 

 the land by M. E. Williams, associate editor 

 with Mr. King. Williams' article, as full of base- 

 ness as though dictated by King himself, will 

 be given in due season, with suitable comments 

 thereon, to the readers of the American Bee 

 Journal, who will then know more fully under 

 what a sense of moral indignation I have penned 

 this personal. 



L. L. Langstkoth. 

 Washington, D. C, Feb. 23, 187^. 



[For the American Bea Journal.] 



Pate ted Honey Boxes. 



On page 136, of the December number of the 

 Bee Journal, Mr. George T. Wheeler informs us 

 that he has patented a honey box. We men- 

 tioned that kind of honey boxes in tlie "Annals 

 OF Bee-cdlture" for 1870. Mr. William 

 Plocher, of Fairwater, Fond du Lac county, 

 Wisconsin, an intelligent German beekeeper, 

 who has Huber's work and several other German 

 treatises on bees, has used that device for years, 

 and is now using it. What sense is there in 

 running to the Patent office, with every old 

 notion that we have re-vamped? 



A friend of ours in Upper Canada, has hit 

 upon the same principle as our new style hive ; 

 and he informs me that lie has used it the past 

 season with the greatest satisfaction. And we 

 do not know how many more liave hit on the 

 same principle. Now, suppose we had galloped 

 off to the Patent office, and paid j\Iunn & Co., 

 or some other Co., a large fee, we could no 

 doubt have succeeded in making a donkey of 

 ourself, just as hundreds of others have done 

 before for themselves, and as many more will 

 probably keep doing. Just so long as our 

 Patent office is managed as it is and has been, 

 you may depend on it tliere is and always will 

 be a screw loose somewhere. 



E. Gallup. 



Orchard, Iowa. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Bees at Lucknow, Oauada. 



Mr. Editor : — In looking over some of the 

 back numbers of the Journal, I saw an account 

 of _the reason for bees leaving for the woods, 

 which brought to my mind an incident con- 

 nected therewith, which was this. I met one of 

 my neighbor's boys one morning, of whom I 

 inquired how his father's bees were doing. He 

 replied, " very well, only we lost one swarm 

 yesterday." Ah I'said I, how was that? " Well," 

 replied he, " yesterday was a very hot day, and 

 a fine large swarm came off and lit on a currant 

 bush. Father said it was too icarm to put them 

 ina hiv'i then, and he would leave them till evening ; 

 but when evening came, they were gone." Ah ! 

 said I, Charley, if you had subscribed for the 

 American Bee Journal two years ago, as I 

 wanted you to do, your swarm, to say nothing 

 else, would have been worth the whole price. 



