KIDD'S LONDON JOURNAL. 



303 



SNAKES IN AUSTRALIA. 



I have met with several, and witnessed 

 many wonderful and narrow escapes (says 

 Mr. Hodgson, the traveller.) A friend, who 

 had been out shooting for some hours, 

 coming home tired, without thought or re- 

 flection was on the point of throwing himself 

 on a stretcher to rest, when he was suddenly 

 pulled back by a bystander, who had ob- 

 served a tremendous brown snake coiled up 

 on the opossum cloak. He was horrified, 

 but providentially saved. The snake, of 

 course, was soon despatched. Another friend 

 on a cruise, put his saddle down for a pillow 

 at night as usual, and on lifting up the 

 saddle-flaps the next morning, he observed a 

 beastly deaf adder lying flat clown. He soon 

 dropped the saddle, and killed the snake. 

 While giving our horses water one day, my 

 cousin saw a black snake, half in and half 

 out of the water ; he shot it and put it on an 

 ant hill to watch the ants at work. While 

 so engaged, its mate came at us, passing 

 over my instep, in a state of great excite- 

 ment ; it was also shot. On going over the 

 Main Range, a deaf adder was observed 

 creeping on a poor quail which crouched on 

 the ground, fascinated ; we allowed the poor 

 bird to fall a victim ; and then struck at the 

 adder. The blow did not take effect, — and 

 the reptile sprang three feet at my friend, 

 who escaped unhurt; the adder was subse- 

 quently killed. Again, being one day en- 

 camped on the Main Range, for the purpose 

 of cutting bark with my brother and a friend, 

 I had to go down to a little water-hole to fill 

 the quart pots for tea; while stooping down 

 to my task, an enormous black snake slid 

 down the bank, quacking and hissing ; before 

 I could recover from my fright, he had 

 passed over my arm, and up the opposite 

 bank. I was too much terrified to shoot at 

 him, though I had my gun at my side. Two 

 more instances will suffice — a little child, the 

 daughter of a friend of mine, playing on the 

 verandah, was on the point of picking up 

 what she thought a varnished piece of wood 

 — so flat and straight was it extended — when 

 her father called her back. The snake (for 

 such the piece of wood turned out to be) 

 basking in the sun, proved to be a large 

 diamond snake about nine feet long. Again, 

 I was sitting with my sister, after the 

 children were put to bed, and having heard 

 that a snake had been seen in the house 

 during the day, we were frightened. While 

 engaged in conversation we heard noises of 

 " Cah, cah, cah," issuing from the rafters 

 and shingles ; and to our horror beheld a 

 nasty yellow snake hanging down over our 

 heads, as if about to spring upon us : up we 

 started, a gun was soon brought to bear 

 upon him, and he fell down ; I found two 

 mice inside him — for which, no doubt, he 

 had visited us. 



OUR NOTE BOOK. 



Joyous Childhood, — There is a time be- 

 tween childhood and manhood, when the cha- 

 racter may be said to go through a process 

 resembling fermentation ; and the effect of spoil- 

 ing, and of simple erroneous treatment of various 

 kinds, are in a great measure thrown off. But 

 take away from a child all the joyousness proper 

 to his young years, and let him only know his 

 parents, or others that have been around him, as 

 tyrants, and the evil is irreparable. His life has 

 wanted an element. He has not known that 

 morning sunshine of the breast which is the 

 brightest of all moral sunshine. Treated him- 

 self without gentleness, affection, and mercy, he 

 is rather disposed to revenge his own sufferings 

 upon other people, as the genie confined in the 

 barrel and thrown into the sea vowed to destroy 

 whoever let him out. Thus sourness goes down 

 like an estate with a family, and the sins of the 

 fathers are visited upon the children even unto 

 the third and fourth generation. 



Husbands, in general, mistake the nature of 

 the dominion granted them over their wives, and 

 absurdly fancy they thence have a right to be 

 tyrants ; but the proper dominion of a man over 

 his wife is not to make her a slave. The use of 

 this dominion is, to preserve order and peace in 

 the family ; for which end the husband's will is to 

 be obeyed, when it happens, conscientiously, to 

 differ from the wife's. But though, for the sake 

 of peace, the man's will is to be the rule, the wife is 

 his natural adviser and counsellor, whose opinion 

 he should always listen to, and follow — if he find it 

 more just and reasonable than his own. It is con- 

 trary to the laws of God and nature, for a husband 

 to require blind obedience from his wife. But many 

 men foolishly imagine this dominion gives them 

 such a superiority over women, as renders the 

 whole sex despicable, in comparison with them- 

 selves. Such ignorant men will not suffer their 

 wives to reason with them, because they are 

 women; and crown their despotic triumphs by 

 asking, " How should a woman know anything?" 

 This procedure is so absurd, so ridiculous, that 

 where it is to be found, the husband may pro- 

 perly be said to want common sense. Some stu- 

 pid and tyrannical husbands pretend to a misera- 

 ble kind of low wit ; and, for want of invention, 

 can never bring forth a jest but at the expense 

 of their wives. All the stale invectives against 

 the sex are trumped up by these heroes to abuse 

 their wives with. And as such doughty cham- 

 pions, without antagonists, must always appear 

 victorious, women are thus abused to their faces ; 

 while, for very sensible and decent reasons, they 

 either dread, or refuse, to defend themselves; 

 which so plumes these triumphant gentlemen, 

 that at length they turn their stupid jest into 

 earnest, and thence really acquire a shameful 

 and unnatural contempt of women. We would, 

 however, remind them, in the words of Bishop 

 Home, that '' men themselves, who have all the 

 authority in public, cannot yet by their deliberations 

 establish any effectual good, without the concurring 

 assistance of women to carry them into execution." 



