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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



of red-breasted play-fellows in the garden — so 

 tame ! We have many a game together now. 

 In the spring, it will'be delightful to play together. 

 We dig up worms, and they eat them from our 

 hand. We thank you for your kind invite. We 

 may, perhaps, some day take flight, and will then 

 gladly make one at your hospitable table.] 



Tlie Siskin— I have a pet siskin, Mr. Editor; 

 such a dear little fellow ! He is so tame, too ! 

 However I do not let him out of his cage. I call 

 him Huie ; and he comes when called, to take a 

 seed from my mouth. He is quite a traveller. 

 Bought at Newburgh, Fifeshire, he was taken to 

 Dundee ; thence by Aberdeen to Inverness ; 

 thence by Glasgow, Liverpool, and Birmingham, 

 to his present residence at Coventry. So accus- 

 tomed is he to locomotion, that he is never dis- 

 turbed when his cage is about to be covered over. 

 He was never trained to sing ; but, whilst travel- 

 ling, picked up the song of the chaffinch, mixed 

 with the notes of a canary. These he combines 

 with his own natural, sprightly song. It is pretty 

 to hear him " lead off" with his own notes, then 

 swell out into the^ canary-notes, and finally end 

 with those of the chaffinch. His value to a dealer 

 might be next to nothing — to me he is invaluable. 

 He was ill in June last ; but you prescribed for 

 him. He took what you recommended, and was 

 soon°" himself again." — A. M., Coventry. 



Insanity. — This fearful malady, Mr. Editor, is 

 fast spreading amongst us ; and I regret to say 

 that it is not a little increased by the peculiarly 

 cruel punishment inflicted in our various prisons. 

 A case in point — one of how many others ? — pre- 

 sents itself in an inquest just held in the Mill- 

 bank prison. The suicide, Thomas Wilkinson, 

 was aged only nineteen. He had been in sepa- 

 rate confinement three months and eight days. 

 The subjoined, from the evidence given before the 

 coroner, is worthy the perusal of every heart that 

 can/eel. We may be "just," surely, without 

 being unnecessarily " cruel." Mr. Postance, the 

 religious instructor, deposed that, on the 27th of 

 October last, the deceased had expressed great 

 sorrow for his former conduct, and appeared very 

 rational. Dr. Baily, the prison physician, under 

 whose medical care the deceased had been, con- 

 sidered the act of suicide to have been unpre- 

 meditated, and to have arisen from his long sen- 

 tence. This witness thought the general cause of 

 the suicide of prisoners arose from the long pros- 

 pect of transportation. Mr. J. D. Rendle, resi- 

 dent surgeon, had seen nothing in the manner of 

 the deceased to lead him to suppose he would 

 commit suicide. Dr. Baly here said, that the six 

 months' separate confinement had greatly ag- 

 gravated the diseases of prisoners, and only on 

 Saturday last he recommended that a number 

 should be placed in association until they could 

 be removed to Dartmoor or other places. Cap- 

 tain Groves, in answer to questions from the cor- 

 oner, said, that he had no doubt the separate 

 confinement, even in its mitigated form, affected 

 both the body and the mind of the prisoners. 

 He came to that conclusion, from a mass of obser- 

 vations which he had made from time to time, 

 and the statistics of the prison. The jury unani- 

 mously returned a verdict — " That the deceased 



destroyed his own life by cutting his throat with 

 a razor, he being at the time in a state of tempo- 

 rary insanity, brought on by separate confinement." 

 Let us hope, my dear Sir, that some reform may 

 be soon effected, in the abolition of this fiendish 

 refinement upon cruelty ! — Patek-Familias. 



[We most cordially agree with you, in the sen- 

 timents you express. Insanity is a subject we 

 have long been studying. We have seen many — 

 alas ! too many — thus mentally afflicted. We 

 have come to the firm conviction that, of the two, 

 death is the more desirable. We ought to be 

 very tender indeed, with all persons suffering from 

 nervous affection. Our endurance and forbear- 

 ance, under such circumstances, must be exem- 

 plary. It is a duty we owe to God and to each 

 other. The intellect is frequently poised on the 

 weight of a single feather. The gigantic street- 

 organs under our very window, as we before re- 

 marked, have more than once nearly turned our 

 editorial brain, and rendered us fit objects for 

 Bedlam. These infernal machines, — these " or- 

 gans of destructiveness," greet our ear at least 

 thrice daily, (beginning at nine a.m.) — sometimes 

 lingering near us for an hour at a time. Our pen 

 is then at once thrown down — our ideas seek an 

 hour's refuge in Han well, and we realise not a 

 few of the mental tortures known only to the 

 dwellers in that and similar asylums. These are 

 some of those fearful inflictions upon society, 

 for which there is no remedy. Foreigners, too, 

 are the offenders — not our own countrymen ! 

 still we have no redress. The "law" laughs at 

 us, and we grin at it. We are " not justified," 

 we learn, in taking the law into our own hands. 

 That may be — but we greatly fear, ere the Spring 

 is over, we shall be indicted for "manslaughter" 

 at least. We have certain indefatigable Italian 

 "performers" in our mind's eye, who grind 

 their boxes of whistles immediately under our 

 window — and in our street,* that most assuredly 

 stand ever}- chance of being speedily registered 

 in the Bills of Mortality. We feel sure, if we 

 defended our own cause, that we might plead " a 

 justification," and so get " acquitted." It is 

 worth the trial ; for we may as well be " martyred" 

 one way as another. Only let us be tried by a 

 west-end jury, and we are content.] 



The Wine-Cork Insect. — I dare say, Mr. 

 Editor, there are many of your readers ignorant 

 of the appearance presented by the walls of a 

 merchant's wine-cellar. The large bodies of 

 floating web, or mould, must be seen to be 

 credited ; and a sight more remarkable of its 

 kind, perhaps never existed. Insect life is busy 

 here — above, below, all around. Aye, even the 

 corks in the bottles are alive ! Hear what Mr. 

 Westwood says about the Wine-Cork Insect : — 

 " At a season when our wine-cellars are subject 

 to more than ordinary visitation, and long stored 

 up bottles of choice wine are dislodged from their 

 dark retreats, and their contents duly discussed, 

 we may be allowed to leave the gardens and 



* We selected a lofty attic in this street — 

 " said to be " one of the quietest and most 

 secluded in London, — simply because we thought 

 we should be free from annoyance. Yet are we 

 persecuted, almost to death ! — Ed. K. J. 



