
KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 

279 

antiquity respecting the truth of it. Well 
might the satirist exclaim— 
Who has not heard, when Egypt’s realms are 
named, 
What monster gods her frantic sons have framed ! 
Here she’s gorged with well-grown serpents ; there 
The crocodile commands religious fear, 
Where Memnon’s statues magic strings inspire 
With vocal sounds that emulate the lyre, 
And Thebes (such, Fate, are thy disastrous turns) 
Now prostrate o’er her pompous ruins mourns ; 
A monkey-god, (prodigious to be told!) 
Strikes the beholder’s eye with burnished gold 
To godship. Here blue Triton’s scaly herd, 
‘The river progeny, is thus preferred. 
Through towns Diana’s power neglected lies, 
Where to her gods aspiring temples rise.-— 
(Juven. Sat. XV.) 
“You enter,” says Lucian,“ into a magnificent 
temple, every part of which glitters with 
gold and silver; you then look attentively 
for a god, and are cheated with a stork, an ape, 
or a cat; a just emblem,” adds the above 
author, ‘‘of too many palaces; the masters 
of which are far from being the brightest 
ornaments of them.” 
26. CURE FoR AGuE.—-In some parts of 
Somersetshire, you are advised by the old 
women to catch a large spider of any species, 
and shut ham up in a box, and as he dies, 
so does the disease! 
27. THE Doc.—If this animal howls under 
the window or the door, it isa sure sign of 
a death in the family. This belief, we are 
sorry to say, istoo common; and that in 
highly respectable families ! 
Taunton, Nov. 15. 
(To be Continued.) 
THE WINTER NIGHTS FOR ME. 

Bright summer flies on golden wings 
To orient climes away ; 
The linnet now no longer sings 
On fragrance-breathing spray ; 
The fairest flowers have faded all ; 
The sun smiles not so free ; 
But why should this the heart appal ?— 
The winter nights for me! 
The winter nights, when happy hearts 
In sacred kindness meet ; 
When each his joyful tale imparts, 
To make life’s cup more sweet! 
When souls depress’d forget their care, 
And gladness circles free ; 
When lovers sit by ladies fair ; 
The winter nights for me! 
What though ’tis bliss to wander forth 
Through groves at sun-red eve ;— 
What though the zephyrs of the north 
Make some for summer grieve ? 
Where lovers’ hearts beat free, 
I'll give you summer, nights and all ;— 
THE WINTER NIGHTS FOR MB! a 



FRUIT,—ITS USE AND ABUSE. 

A Mepicau MAn, whose name has not 
gone forth, has published his opinion upon 
the propriety of eating or not eating fruit, 
lest’ evil consequence$ should ensue there- 
from. He commences his argument thus :— 
Because bowel complaints usually prevail 
most during the hot season of the year—the 
latter end of summer and autumn, when fruit 
is most abundant, and in tropical climates 
where fruits are met with in greatest 
variety—it is inferred, according to the post 
hoc propter hoc mode of reasoning, that the 
one is the consequence of the other. It 
were about as reasonable to attribute the 
occasional occurrences of sea-scurvy in the 
navy to the use of lemon-juice, lime-juice, 
or potatoes. These articles are powerfully 
antiscorbutic, and so are ripe fruits anti- 
bilious; and diarrhoea, dysentery, and 
cholera are complaints in which acrid and 
alkaline biliary secretions are prominent 
conditions. 
I have seen many eases of dysentery, ob- 
stinate diarrhoea, and liver disease, in people 
who have been long resident in tropical 
climates ; and, from the history which I have 
been able to obtain respecting their habits of 
diet, 1 have come to the conclusion that 
these diseases were induced and aggravated, 
not by the light vegetable and fruit diet 
most in use among the natives, but because 
Englishmen usually carry out with them 
their European mode of living. They take 
large quantities of nitrogenous and carbon- 
aceous food, in the shape of meat and wines 
or spirits, rather than the light native food, 
as rice and juicy fruits, and the vegetable 
stimulants and condiments, the native 
peppers and spices so abundantly provided 
by Nature. 
It is well known that, though large 
quantities of animal oils and fats, wines, 
spirits, and malt liquors, which contain a 
large amount of carbon, may be consumed 
with comparative impunity in cold climates 
and in winter, when the carbonaceous matter 
gets burnt off by the more active exercise 
and respiration; yet, in hot climates and in 
summer this element is retained in the liver, 
and ultimately gives rise to congestion of 
that organ and its consequences—diarrheea, 
dysentery, and bilious disorders. 
Though in extensive practice for 15 years, 
ina district abounding with orchards and 
gardens, 1 cannot remember an instance in 
which I could distinctly trace any very 
serious disorder to fruit as a cause; though 
one might reasonably expect some mischief 
from the amount of unripe and acid trash 
often consumed by the children of the poor 
I would not be supposed to advocate either 
immoderate quantities of the most wholesome 


