KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



313 



of applications for missing letters during twelve 

 months is nearly 10,000. The net revenue of the 

 post-office, after deducting charges for manage- 

 ment, &c, is now above £1,000,000 a-year ; the 

 cost of management is £1,400,000; the payment 

 to railway companies for conveying mails, 

 £330,000 a-year, and to steam-packet companies, 

 £850,000. The amount of money -orders issued 

 annually is nearly £10,000,000, and the yearly 

 revenue derived from commission on money- 

 orders, £80,000. The value-of property con- 

 tained in missing letters during twelve months 

 is about £200,000.— Rosa B. 



A Pleasing Reminiscence — apropos of the 



Season : — 



It was a lovely eve in June, 



The flowers were filled with rains ; 

 The hills in splendor seemed to burn 



With liquid rosy stains ; 

 The moss-rose, like a maiden's blush, 



Bent low its odorous head, 

 And kissed a lily couched on leaves, 



Like some young virgin dead. 



The marigold, with eager look, 



Bloomed blissful in the light, 

 And trembled to the zephyr's Kiss, 



Like young stars to the night ; 

 The proud sun, with his golden crown 



Of splendor, slowly sank; 

 And dew-drops burnt like dazzling gems 



Upon the wild-thyme bank. 



The Bees 'mong dews had ceased to bathe, 



The birds had ceased to sing ; 

 And earth looked like a glittering queen — 



The sun a dying king ! 

 The giant river seemed to sleep, 



And dream of fading clouds ; 

 Whose images all sweetly shone 



Within its breast in crowds ! 



The crimson hues from flowerets waned, 



The verdurous hills grew dim; 

 The Nightingale sang to the moon, 



His passion-panting hymn ! 

 The vine leaves fluttered, sweet as love, 



Around their fragile stems ; 

 And earth slept like a gorgeous bride, 



Adorned with dewy gems ! Q. 



Notts. 



The Uses of Insects. — The connection between 

 decay and vitality is so extremely intimate, that 

 the former has more than once been stated as the 

 cause of the latter. It was the favorite theory of 

 one school of philosophy, that life was the off- 

 spring of decay ; and it is not impossible that 

 Hydra was intended to embody and personify this 

 principle of antiquity. It is not necessary, how- 

 ever,- to believe this, to see that decay and 

 insect life are so intimately connected that it is 

 difficult often to say whether the decay resulted 

 from insect ravages, or whether the insects were a 

 host of scavengers to remove the load of decompo- 

 sition , — thus preventing the malaria which would 

 otherwise follow in its wake. The mice which al- 

 ways followed an overflowing of the Nile, were ac- 

 counted by the Egyptians to be a creative power 

 of the fresh mud, the last creative energy left in 



an old and worn-out world ; and it is easier to 

 adopt an imaginative theory like this, which re- 

 quires neither investigation nor trouble, than it is 

 to say how and when any given tribe of insects 

 came on a decaying substance. Whether insects 

 are the cause or the effect of the disease called 

 fingers-and-toes in turnips, is still enveloped in no 

 small degree of obscurity — known in Suffolk in the 

 time of Arthur Young ; treated of by the entomo- 

 logist Spence in 1812, in Yorkshire ; by the Cale- 

 donian Horticultural Society in 1819 ; by the 

 Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland in 

 1828, and again in 1853 ; and now we seem to 

 know less whether insects are to blame for 

 causing the malady, or to have the credit of re- 

 moving the decay which that disease produces ! 

 Mr. Anderson says, "the most probable explana- 

 tion is that which attributes the disease to the 

 attacks of insects. He shows this to be the more 

 probable, because, though many of the correspon- 

 dents of the Highland and Agricultural Society of 

 Scotland saw no symptoms of insects, it is only 

 negative evidence ; and as they will not attack the 

 leaves, but rather the roots, they may easily 

 escape detection. This is quite true, says a writer 

 in the Gardeners 1 Journal; but we have ourselves 

 examined young turnips which we knew before- 

 hand would be diseased, have thinned them out 

 day by day, and watched most minutely the pro- 

 gress of the plant, and are satisfied that no insect 

 was there until the disease had gone on to a very 

 mature stage indeed. If insects do first attack, 

 it is something quite anomalous. We have often 

 seen instances where for ten or twelve years, in 

 some three successive rotations, the turnips were 

 sound on one side of a line, as straight as a furrow 

 could be drawn, and completely diseased on the 

 other. There is no law of insect life, with which 

 we are acquainted, that would keep them for 

 twelve years in one line so very accurately, when 

 the whole field was treated exactly alike : and this 

 alone would, in our opinion, be amply sufficient to 

 settle the whole question. The evidence of the 

 practical men wliose opinions are taken, however, 

 shows that the facts they have observed are almost 

 all inconsistent with the insect theory. — An Ob- 

 server. 



Travelling on Elephants. — After breakfast, Mr. 

 Williams and I started on an elephant, following 

 the camp to Gyra, twelve miles distant. The do- 

 cility of these animals is an old story ; but it loses 

 so much in the telling, that their gentleness, obe- 

 dience, and sagacity, seemed as strange to me as 

 if I had never heard or read of these attributes. 

 The swinging motion under a hot sun is very op- 

 pressive, but compensated for by being so high 

 above the dust. The Mahout, or driver, guides by 

 poking his great toes under either ear, enforcing 

 obedience with an iron goad, with which he ham- 

 mers the animal's head with quite as much force 

 as would break a cocoa-nut, or drives it through 

 the thick skin down to the quick. A most disa- 

 greeable sight it is to see the blood and yellow fat 

 oozing out in the broiling sun from these great 

 punctures. Our elephant was an excellent one, 

 when he did not take obstinate fits ; and so docile 

 as to pick up pieces of stone when desired, and 

 with a jerk of the trunk throw them over his head 

 for the rider to catch, thus saving the trouble of 



