KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
AN ODE TO DECEMBER. 
BY HELEN HETHERINGTON. 
Cotp, dark December! Why stalk in so cheer- 
lessly ? 
Kind friends are waiting to hail thy return. 
Dull care is retreating and warm hearts are 
beating,— 
a3 ” él ” 
Then “why” old December, say,‘‘why ” dost thou 
mourn ? 
Oh, I have witness’d with grief the departure 
Of many fair years,—never more to return ! 
All hope withers fast, when I think on the past ; 
Alas, for the future,—we’ve that yet 1o learn! 
Dreary December! nay, talk not so gloomily ; 
Merry Old Christmas is still in thy train; 
The joy that he brings, and the songs that he 
ings 
Will make us all smile and be happy again. 
True, Christmas comes with its pastime and plea- 
sure ; 
Yet there be many approach him with fear. 
Though the dance and the song are the first in 
the throng, 
Old debts, and long bills, often bring up the rear ! 
Listen, December! There yet is a pleasure, 
A feast for the friendless,—a solace for woe ; 
Oh, let us ne’er cease to breathe tidings of peace, 
Of joy, and good-will to all mortals below! 
Though grandeur and greatness may roam from 
our dwelling, 
This, this is a blessing that ne’er will remove,— 
There’s enough, and to spare; e’en the meanest 
may share, 
And gain an admission by Faith, Hope, and Love ! 
CHRISTMAS,—A FRAGMENT. 
BY T. K. HERVEY. 
CHRISTMAS brings with it a thousand 
delights ; and it possesses a thousand uses 
that minister to our better nature, and de- 
serve to live in the remembrance of all whom 
homely joys and homefelt attachments have 
power to charm. Pleasant recollections 
return with it; happy hours, passed away 
indeed, but whose memory is yet green in 
our hearts, associate themselves with its 
presence. It is sanctified to our domestic 
affections ; and the lamp of love would burn 
but dimly were not the oil of gladness poured 
into it on anniversaries like these. Our outer 
world is a cold and cheerless world; it has 
no soil in which the loves of the heart can 
take root and flourish; hence when man 
passes into it, and mingles with its business 
and its strifes, his affections fade and wither, 
and too often die. But it is the beautiful use 
of the festival of Christmas to bring him back 
again to old thoughts and old associations ; 
to revive affections that are drooping, and to 
make him feel how far nobler and better a 
passion is love than ambition. 

301 
We have no patience with a world which 
is beginning to despise its good old customs ; 
and yet, alack! how are ye fallen, ye merry- 
makings, and mummings, and masques! Ye 
had better get to a nunnery, as the Utili- 
tarians have declared you to be vain and 
unprofitable—for they cannot extract any per- 
centage from your existence. Ye neither 
sow nor reap; ye spin no silk, and ye weave 
no stockings. Her Majesty cannot tax ye, 
neither can the Custom House officer make 
ye profitable to the State. Away then, ye 
misseltoe bushes, and ye yule-logs! Vanish 
snapdragon, hot cockles, and wassail! Too 
long have ye cumbered a commercial world 
with your profitless presence. Go, and seek 
some land where folks are uncultivated 
enough to love homely pleasures and respect 
olden things. Find out some new people; 
whose hearts are weak enough to beat with 
pleasure at your return, and who love ye for 
the dear associations ye call up. 
Go to some gpot like this—if ye can find 
one ; and leave us, who have grown older and 
wiser than to waste our time in loving or 
being loved, to the exalted employment of 
levelling a railroad, or improving a spinning- 
jenny ! 
THE AZTEC CHILDREN. 
THE FOLLOWING VERY INTERESTING RE- 
MARKS, having reference to the two Aztec 
children, about whom such a Munchausen tale 
has been invented, will be read with feelings 
of curiosity. The writer merely gives his 
initials: M. H. We copy the article from 
our excellent contemporary, the Cratic :-— 
“In the public notices that have appeared 
on the subject of the Aztecs, as they are 
called, it seems to be taken for granted that 
these diminutive and strange specimens of 
the human race, lately exhibited in London, 
owe the peculiar shape of their heads to 
nature, and not to artificial means. The 
practice, however, of modifying the head in 
infancy by pressure prevailed so extensively 
over the American continent, and more par- 
ticularly in central America, that it is very 
probable the singular shape of the head 
exhibited in the race lately imported from 
America is owing to mechanical contrivance. 
The case of the Flat Heads and of the Caribs 
places the existence of the custom beyond 
all doubt. ‘The practice seems to have pre- 
vailed along the whole western coast of 
America, and to have assumed different 
characteristics in different localities. 
“Skulls of a peculiar anomalous form were 
found by Mr. Pentland, in the province of 
Upper Peru, now called Bolivia, and par- 
ticularly in the great valley of Titicaca. He 

