January 5 , 18S2. ] 
TO OUR READERS. 
On the completion of another half-yearly volume our first duty and pleasure is to acknowledge the 
greetings of those numerous readers who have appended them to their letters and communications 
during the past few weeks, and to assure our friends that their good wishes are esteemed and 
reciprocated. 
Several of those letters we are tempted to publish, but we can only give extracts from two of them 
—one as a type of those showing that our contributors have not laboured in vain, but that the seed they 
have sown has produced fruit; the other as a proof of earnest reading, and a novelty—even to us who 
are accustomed to a variety of styles—in expression. 
“ Last year ” writes a correspondent, “ I sent you a letter on my success in Grape-growing; this 
year I send you an example of my work. Each year I have improved on the past, and this season the 
crop is better than ever. I wish also to say that I owe all my success to the Journal, and I look for the 
paper every Thursday afternoon with as much interest as I look for my dinner.” 
Our only comment on this letter is that we hope the writer of it will always have a good Journal, 
a good dinner, and good Grapes* 
The next letter we have preserved is dated several weeks back, and is somewhat amusing. “I am,” 
says the writer of it, “ always glad to receive the Journal. The last number arrived after a long and 
busy day, and at night I was too tired to read it all, but awaking: about two o’clock in the morning I 
slipped on my jacket and slippers, went down stairs and read Avith much pleasure the first day oi a 
‘ Week in Belgium’ and Mr. PettigreAv’s ‘ Autobiography,’ and then went to roost again.” 
We do not desire to disturb the repose of our readers, but Avish to make our pages both interesting 
and useful, and with such skilled and ready helpers as Ave are so fortunate as to possess we shall not 
fail in our object. 
