NATURE NOTES. 
J/4 
While he was in London, Kalm visited the suburbs and made careful notes 
upon the market gardening there. He saw the haymakers at work “on the 
slopes just outside London, especially on the north side of the town ; ” went to 
Vauxhall, “that much vaunted pleasure garden, where the youth of London, 
almost every evening in summer, divert themselves,” and to Kanelagh ; to Peter 
Collinson’s garden at Peckham, “ a pretty village ” three miles out of town ; 
and to Chelsea, “a little suburb or village, situated a couple of miles towards the 
west,” where “ a multitude of people in fine weather in the summer come out to 
enjoy themselves.” Londoners frequently spent what in the north is called “ the 
week end” in Chelsea. There is also a full account of the trees of the “ beautiful 
forest ” of Epping. The London smoke impressed him greatly, and is often 
referred to — it discoloured “ tin and silver gildings,” and “ statues of former 
kings looked just as if the image of a nigger or of a crossing sw’eeper had been set 
up, only in royal costume.” “ When the snow had lain a couple of days on the 
roofs,” he continues, “it began to acquire a black colour; the houses were all 
•either blackish or grey from the coal smoke. To a foreigner and one unused to 
it, this coal smoke was very annoying, for it affected the chest excessively, 
especially at night. I found in my own case that however free I was from cough 
when I now' and again went into London from the country, I got one ahvays as 
soon as I had been there a day, which never failed to be the case, even further on 
in the summer when the air was warm, and there were not large fires in the town; 
but as soon as I left London and had been two days out in the country, I lost my 
cough. All who lived far out in the country, and were not accustomed to coal 
smoke, even native Englishmen, had the same tale whenever they came up to 
London on their business. But when anyone had been for a time in London he 
no longer had so very manifest a sensation of it. Nevertheless, I am not al- 
together indisposed to believe that this great coal smoke is even one of the 
reasons that cause so many in England to be troubled w'ith lung disease and 
consumption.” 
Plere is a brighter picture of London life. “At the beginning of May was 
seen at many places in the streets a custom which milk-girls practise. They had 
bound together several vessels, such as cans, pint pots, drinking cups, &c. , which 
were mostly of silver (!) but sometimes also of tin, and made with them a device, 
either like a pyramid or like a man, or most frequently like a woman, or also in 
some other fashion. Some of these images were decked with a number of 
flowers. They were carried either on a barrow or on the head. A spelman or 
fiddler, who played the viol, always accompanied them, together with several 
girls. They mostly stood in front of each house where they were accustomed to 
ofter milk for sale, when the fiddler fiddled and one or more of the girls danced. 
The usage was that after they had done this they received pence from the persons 
at whose houses they danced. They began this on the ist of May and kept it up 
for some days.” Alas ! the milkmaids and their !May dances are gone, it is only 
the smoke that remains. 
The book abounds with quaint and interesting passages, and will well repay 
perusal. Perhaps some after reading it will be pleasantly reminded of the author 
when the spring brings it the beautiful Kalmia, which bears his name. 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
In' Annals of a Fishing Village (William Blackwood & Son, ys. fid.) the “ Son 
of the Mar-shes ” gives us some delightful chapters of what we can hardly be wrong 
in believing to be autobiography, although it does not purport to be so, and is 
written in the third person ; and with it may fitly be noticed A Son of the Fens, by 
P. H. Emerson (Sampson, Low, & Co., fis.), which claims to be autobiographical, 
but, unless we are mistaken, is not really such. Both are interesting books, and 
will repay perusal ; the author of the former, indeed, needs no commendation to 
our readers, and Mr. Emerson's previous works have been well received by the 
press. 
“ Marshton ” is not the real name of the “ fishing village” depicted in these 
xharming pages, but there are sufficient itidications given in the text to enable 
