
KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
123 

be condensed, not benefiting the plants at all. I 
should like to know what more experienced readers 
think of the matter.—KH. H. C. 

First and Last Love :— 
“First love” is a pretty romance, 
Though not quite so lasting as reckoned ; 
For when one awakes from its trance, 
There’s a great stock of bliss in a “‘ second.” 
And e’en should the ‘ second ” subside, 
A lover should never despair ; 
For the world is uncommonly wide, 
And the women uncommonly fair. 
Those poets their rapture may tell, 
Who never were put to the test: 
A “first love” is all very well, 
But, believe me, the “‘ last” love's the best! 
J. B. 
[A wag, residing at Liverpool, has sent us the 
above, requesting to have our opinion of the senti- 
ment. How shall we give it, so as to steer clear 
of offence? Let us observe that the human heart 
is very capacious—so then, let every one of our 
loves (we will not say how many) be carefully 
packed up in that heart, and lovingly tended, 
There is no ‘‘ matrimonial question”’ raised ; there- 
fore we speak out “like a man!’’ When we walk 
in a garden filled with beautiful flowers, whose 
aroma almost overpowers our senses with delight, 
how can we dare to give any decided preference ? 
We love them all best—of course !] 

“ Smoky’ London,’ with a Gleam of “ Hope.” — 
Your metropolitan readers, and those in the 
country also, who have any sympathy with us in 
the privation of light and pure air (which in this 
city of smoke we are called to endure), will be 
glad to hear that the House of Commons has 
passed a bill which provides that, on and after the 
ist of August, 1854, all manufactories, and also 
all the steamers on the river, from London Bridge 
to Richmond, shall consume their own smoke. 
“The smoke-protectionists, however,’ the Times 
tells us, “are looking very black; they have a 
vested interest in compelling us to consume their 
smoke. It is true they do not like smoke them- 
selves; the brewer, whose lofty chimney is a 
volcano always in astate of eruption, lives twenty 
miles out of town, where his moss-roses are not 
cankered, and where his gardener gets the prize 
for the best basket of pansies at the neighboring 
flower-show. Once a week he gets on the rail, 
and comes up to town just to see how the chimney 
draws, and how the till fills; and then runs off, 
thanking his stars that he lives where he cannot 
smell his own grains or swallow his own smoke.” 
But in spite of “vested interests,” the nuisance 
is doomed: twelve months more, and it will be 
in a great measure annihilated.—R. M. 

Unqualified Medical Practitioners —From a 
table which has been compiled, in the Medical 
Times and Gazette, comparing the number of 
practitioners in medicine, according to the census 
of 1841, with the number of qualified practitioners 
in the Medical Dictionaries of 1851—it would ap- 
pear that the former amounted to 33,339 persons, 
the latter to 11,808, leaving 21,531 persons prac- 
tising In one or more departments of medicine, 
without due qualification. 
Tn England, according 
to the census, there was thus a practitioner to 
every 543 of the population ; in Wales, 1 to 822 ; 
in London, 1 in every 272; in Scotland, 1 in 
593; and in the British Isles, 1 in 510; while, 
taking the numbers in the Medical Directory, 
the proportion of qualified men to population 
was, in England, 1 in 1527; in Wales, 1 in 
2893; in London, 1 in 714; in Scotland, 1 in 
1614; and in the British Isles, 1 in 2215. The 
following observations are abridged from an 
article in the same periodical on this important 
subject :—In the table are included ‘ Chemists 
and Druggists,” and there is sufficient reason 
on the face of it for so doing. It appears that, 
deducting the chemists and druggists from the 
grand total, it would leave 22,495 persons prac- 
tising medicine according to the census, or 10,687 
more than appear in the Medical Directories. 
Thus there is 1 chemist and druggist in Great 
Britain to every 2 medical practitioners. This 
warrants the assumption that ‘chemists and 
druggists’ are themselves practitioners to a 
great extent. Indeed, the experience at assizes 
and before coroners’ juries, where detection and 
conviction are the exceptions, sufficiently attests 
the fact. We therefore include them in the 
ross total. “ Keepers of lunatic asylums ”’ have 
een omitted, though a large number of them 
would legitimately appear. It is worthy of ob- 
servation that, under the head of ‘‘ keepers of 
lunatic asylums,” 216 of them are females, and 
many of these under 20 years of age. In Bir- 
mingham, there was 1 ‘‘herbalist’”’ under 20 
years of age; 2 “keepers of lunatic asylums ”’ 
under 20; 14 female leach-bleeders ; and 1 female 
physician. One female “dentist” in Taunton; 
1 “physician” in Norwich under 20; 2 “‘ medi- 
cine vendors” in the Tower Hamlets under 20 ; 
1 “midwife”? in Preston under 20; 1 “ phy- 
sician”’ in Canterbury under 20; 2 “ physicians” 
in Bristol under 20; 1 female “chemist and 
druggist” in Colchester under 20 ; 1 “ physician”’ 
in Darlington under 20; and 1 female ‘ surgeon”’ 
in Cornwall under 20.—Is not this, Mr. Editor, 
a very curious table? We find no fewer than 
216 females (under 20 years of age) keeping 
“lunatic asylums;”’ one chemist and druggist 
to every two medical practitioners!! The “ bills 
of mortality’ are heavy. Is it to be wondered 
at !—Amicus. 
L“ Where ignorance is bliss,” &c. We must 
not, my dear Sir, inquire ¢oo closely into matters 
of every-day life. If we did, we should (four-fifths 
of us) die from fright !] 

Boring Shells.—Several shells have the sin- 
gular capability of boring the softer rocks of 
marble, and limestone, and reefs of coral—for the 
purpose, it would seem, of eluding their natural 
enemies. This habit is remarkable in some species 
of mussels, such as the Mytilus lithophagus and 
the M. rugosus.—W. 

The Tree Mignonette—This may be readily 
produced. Place a young plant in a pot, with a 
stick from 16 to 20 inches long to tie it to. Con- 
tinue to strip off the lower branches as it grows, 
until you get a stem of the required length. It 
may be kept through the winter in the window of 
