Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No.306

But instead of the face of dismay he expected, the officer began to laugh, and assured him that Monsieur L – was safe in his room, and should immediately make his appearance, which, on being summoned, he did. The prisoner had his joke and his few hours of liberty, and the creditor his disappointment, which his dishonest intentions well merited. So many debtors escape, that it was lately proposed to revive this law, now obsolete; but the suggestion was negatived, under the apprehension that this trick of Monsieur L – 's might be repeated in right earnest.

There is a singular story told of a young man called Pierrot Dubourg, who was for some time a prisoner in the Luxembourg. Pierrot was a young farmer, who in 1788 resided about twenty miles from Paris. Handsome, gay, and prosperous in his circumstances, he was one of the happiest of men; the more so, that he had won the affections of a beautiful young girl called Geneviève, who had promised to become his wife. When the period appointed for the wedding approached, Pierrot told her that he must go to Paris for a short time, promising to bring her on his return all sorts of pretty things for her corbeille. Well, Pierrot went, but he did not return. Geneviève waited and waited, week after week, and month after month; till at last, overcome by an anxiety which was rendered more acute from a spice of jealousy, she determined to seek him in the great city herself. She knew the address of the house he lodged at on his arrival, and thither she directed her steps.

'Monsieur Pierrot Dubourg?' said the woman of the house; 'certainly he lodged here, but that is some months ago: he has been in prison ever since, and is not likely to get out, I fancy, for he was sent there by the Comte de Fersen!'

Further inquiry elicited the following particulars: – Pierrot, on his arrival in Paris, with plenty of money in his pocket, had fallen into the hands of a set of persons who had very soon relieved him of it, and indeed of everything he possessed besides. These were the servants of some of the profligate courtiers of those days, whose morals appear to have been of the same complexion as their masters'. The person who had introduced him into this nest of plunderers was the Comte de Fersen's coachman, and when Pierrot found himself ruined, it was to him he attributed the mischief. Irritated and miserable at the loss, he one day relieved his vexation by falling foul of the offender just as he was mounting his box, full dressed, to drive his master to court. Of course the comte, who was in the carriage, was indignant, and poor Pierrot soon found himself in prison.

It might have been supposed that Geneviève would be very much grieved when she heard this story, but, on the contrary, she was very happy: her lover was not unfaithful, only unfortunate, and with a determined will she set about getting him free. But although she succeeded at last, the success cost her very dear, and strange to say, it cost the king of France very dear too. After addressing herself to the police and the judges, and after presenting a petition to the king, which remained unanswered, and kneeling in the dust as the queen passed to Versailles, who drove on without attending to her, Geneviève at length procured an introduction to the Baron de Besenval, the favourite of the Comte d'Artois, the king's brother, to whom she made many prayers and many visits; and then one morning Pierrot Dubourg found himself, he knew not why or wherefore, suddenly at liberty. As he stepped into the street, an old woman accosted him, and bade him follow her. After walking some distance, she begged permission to tie a handkerchief over his eyes, to which – his curiosity being greatly excited – he consented. When the bandage was removed, Pierrot opened his eyes in a magnificent apartment, where nothing met his view but satin, velvet, gold, and glass, and before him stood a lady attired like a princess, but masked. Alas! it was the old story of Claudio and Angelo. Furious with rage, Pierrot struck her, and then, ashamed of the unmanly act, he was about to rush from the room; but she stopped him, and after telling him that she gave him back his vows, and renounced his love, she handed him a packet containing her peasant's dress, and all the presents he had made her in their happy days: and so they parted; and when Pierrot returned home, and they asked him what had become of Geneviève, he said she was dead.

This happened in the reign of Louis XVI., and one might wonder how the humble Pierrot's disappointed love could influence the destiny of the king of France; and yet it did so. Pierrot had quitted Paris with his heart full of bitterness against the aristocracy; but more especially against the king, who had rejected Geneviève's petition; and against the queen, who had disdained her tears and prayers. After staying a short time in his formerly happy home, the contrast with the past, and the cruel recollections constantly suggested, became too bitter for him, and he wandered away, living an irregular sort of life, and mingling more and more with the violent republicans, to whom his only tie was, that they, too, hated the court and the courtiers. The course of his travels having at length brought him to St Menehould, he happened to be one day lounging in the streets, when, observing two carriages approaching, he stopped to see them pass. His surprise may be conceived when, on the driving-seat of one of them, dressed as a servant, he recognised the Comte de Fersen! Such a disguise could not be worn for nothing, and urged by hatred, he drew near the carriage, and looked in. There sat the queen of France, whilst the king, attired as a valet, was awkwardly endeavouring to perform the duties of his supposed office. It was Pierrot Dubourg who whispered to Drouet the postmaster who the travellers were, and it was he who accompanied Drouet's son in pursuit of the unhappy fugitives, who were overtaken at Varennes, and brought back to Paris. Pierrot Dubourg came too, and after losing sight of him for some time, we find him again filling the office of assistant executioner, in which situation he witnessed the beheading of his once-loved Geneviève, who was guillotined on the same day with Madame Dubarry.

Monsieur Arago, in his éloge of Lavoisier, relates that this great chemist might possibly have escaped the death inflicted by his ignorant and ungrateful countrymen, who told him they had no more need of learned men, had he not been more anxious for the safety of others than his own. A poor woman in the neighbourhood of the Luxembourg had received him into her house, where she neglected no precautions for his safety and concealment; but his alarm for the consequences to his benefactress should he be discovered, distressed him so much more than his own danger, that he made repeated attempts to escape from her friendly roof, which she, by her vigilance, defeated. One night, however, he succeeded in eluding her watchfulness, and the next day saw him in the Luxembourg, whence he was removed to the Conciergerie, on his rapid way to the scaffold.

Condorcet, the great mathematician, is said to have lost his life by not knowing how many eggs there should be in an omelette. Aware that he was suspected by Robespierre – for though a republican, he had dared to pity the royal family – he disfigured his face and hands with mortar, and fled from Paris in the disguise of a mason. After passing twenty-four hours in a wood, hunger drove him to a little inn, where he ordered an omelette.

'Of how many eggs?' asked the servant.

'Twelve,' replied the philosopher at random. A mason ordering an omelette of twelve eggs awakened suspicion; he was searched, and a volume of Horace being found in his pocket, he was arrested. Unable to face the scaffold, Condorcet took poison, and died on the road to Paris.

Everybody knows that the horrors of the French Revolution were redeemed by many noble actions. We have told the story of Bouchotte at St Pelagie. Benoit, the keeper of the Luxembourg, also distinguished himself by many generous and courageous deeds. He saved the life of the Duchess of Orleans, the mother of Louis-Philippe, by refusing to give her up when summoned before the Committee of Public Safety. He declared she was ill – dying – all but dead, and thus averted her fate till she had an opportunity of obtaining protection.

A lady called Jeanne Faurie also found a powerful friend in a jailor of the Luxembourg. She was young, and extremely beautiful, and although Rifaut was looked upon as one of the most inflexible of functionaries, her bright eyes melted his rigidity. He procured her pens, ink, paper, and books. 'I know my character and my life are at stake,' said he; 'but speak! command me! Whatever you desire I will do.' When he heard that she was on the list of persons to be executed, he gave her a disguise and all the money he had, and set her at liberty. For some time he concealed the lady's flight; but when it could be no longer kept secret, he went to Benoit, confessed his fault, and demanded the punishment. Benoit, however, did not betray him; and Jeanne Faurie's escape was not known till there was no danger in making it public. The Luxembourg was called the Reservoir of the Conciergerie, and Josephine Beauharnois was confined here before being transferred to the latter prison. It is related that when she afterwards resided in the Luxembourg as wife of the First Consul, she one day intreated Bonaparte to accompany her to the cell she had formerly inhabited. When there, she asked him for his sword, with which she raised one of the flags, and there, to her great joy, she found a ring given her by her mother, on which she set the highest value. She told him that when she was summoned to quit the prison, supposing she was going to the scaffold, she had contrived to conceal the jewel, which she could not bear to think should fall into the hands of the public executioner.

NEW THEORY OF POPULATION

Amongst the names inscribed on the keeper's register of the Luxembourg, are those of the ministers of Charles X. in 1830, and also that of Louis-Napoleon, the present President of the French Republic, who was confined here after the unsuccessful affair of Strasburg.

The idea of Mr Malthus, that population has a tendency to increase faster than the means of subsistence, unless some powerful and obvious checks be interposed to keep down the race to the level of subsistence, has been recently met by Mr Doubleday with a denial and an effort at refutation. From an article by Mr Hickson in the last number of the 'Westminster Review,' we learn that Mr Doubleday endeavours to show grounds for believing that, while there are powerful tendencies to increase beyond the limits of subsistence, there are likewise tendencies to a decrease, which must result in preserving what may be called a balance between the quantity of food and the number of people. Mankind, from Adam downwards to our own day, have gone forward and backward in numbers by a series of fits and starts – they have by no means been going on as a constantly-increasing quantity. Look at the countries in the East mentioned in the Bible – Egypt, Judæa, Asia Minor, Persia, Assyria. Once densely peopled, they are now either desolate, or inhabited by a poor decaying remnant of the proud races which formerly inhabited them. Egypt would soon expire as a nation if not constantly recruited by fresh arrivals from abroad. Neither China nor India is so populous as it was two thousand years ago. The cultivated aboriginal races of America, who left monuments of their greatness, long since disappeared, and were succeeded by tribes of Indians, who are now rapidly disappearing. The history of the world presents many other instances of an entire disappearance of populations.

No doubt war, pestilence, famine, vice, and misery, have all played an important part in sweeping away nations, or in reducing the numbers of their people; but Mr Doubleday holds it to be demonstrable that redundancy of population is prevented in a less continuous degree by these causes, than by one which Malthus altogether overlooks – one, in fact, which militates against his theory. The mention of this check, which is only of recent discovery, will come upon most persons as a surprise: it is comfort– easy circumstances, allied with cultivated feeling; and, to all appearance, the easier the circumstances, the less the increase. Mr Doubleday thinks it would not perhaps be going too far to say, that by carrying these influences a certain length, the race might become extinct. As proof, he refers to the gradual dying out of families among the aristocracy and baronetage – two orders of persons who, above all others, might be expected to be prolific in descendants: —

'Thus it has been,' proceeds this writer, 'that the peerage of England, instead of being old, is recent; and the baronetage, though comparatively of modern origin, equally so. In short, few, if any, of the Norman nobility, and almost as few of the original baronets' families of King James I., exist at this moment; and but for perpetual creations, both orders must have been all but extinct. * * * Of James I.'s creation in A.D. 1611, only thirteen families now remain; a decay certainly extraordinary, and not to be accounted for upon the ordinary ideas of mortality and power of increase amongst mankind.'

Commenting on these facts, the reviewer observes: – 'Several instances from humbler, but still wealthy, or at least comfortable classes of society, are given by Mr Doubleday, tending to the same conclusion, that an ample provision of the means of subsistence does not necessarily act as a stimulus to population, but often seems to have a directly contrary tendency; as if ease and abundance were the real check of population, and a certain amount of poverty and privation were essential to any considerable increase. Thus he mentions the case of the free burgesses of the wealthy corporation of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a body, in 1710, of about 1800, possessing estates and endowments, and exclusive privileges, amply sufficient to protect every individual among them from want; and shows that, although all the sons of every citizen were free by birth, their numbers would have diminished had they not been recruited from without; and that, even with the aid of contested elections, when freemen by purchase were admitted for the sake of votes, the entire body of burgesses remained nearly stationary for upwards of a century. This, too, while the poorer corporation of Berwick-upon-Tweed doubled the number of its free citizens during the same period.

'The examples of the corporation of Durham and Richmond in Yorkshire are adduced to the same effect; but we need not go so far north for corroborative evidence of the same class of facts. In the corporation of London, all the children of a citizen, whether male or female, enjoy the right of freedom by inheritance; and as many of the exclusive privileges of this body have not yet been done away, women still exercise in the city various avocations in their own name (such, for instance, as the trade of a town carman), from which the rest of the inhabitants of the metropolis, non-freemen, are excluded. Until recently, the freedom of the corporation of London was essential to a share in the administration of revenues amounting to upwards of a million per annum, and is still indispensable to a large portion of them. We may reasonably conclude that it was an object of some importance to the ancient citizens of London to keep the patronage connected with such large funds in their own hands, or to leave it in the hands of their own posterity. This object, however, has been so entirely defeated, that if we now inquire into the origin of the present holders of the good things in the gift of the London corporation and the trading companies, we find they are nearly all north countrymen, who have elbowed their way into the city from Scotland or the provinces, and that the descendants of such men as Sir William Walworth and Sir Thomas Gresham are nowhere to be found.

'During the forty years from 1794 to 1833, the admissions by patrimony to the freedom of the corporation of London were only 7794 out of a total of 40,221 admitted – a third of the number having been strangers who purchased their freedom, and one-half sons of strangers obtaining their freedom by apprenticeship.'

Mr Doubleday's explanation of these phenomena is to the effect, that it is not misery, but comfort, which deadens the principle of increase. It is notorious that the poorest parents have, as a general rule, the greatest number of children. Only feed people on potatoes and salt, oatmeal-porridge, or any other plain fare, and let them at the same time maintain a struggle to get even that, and sure enough their firesides, or the places where the fire should be, will be garnished by as plenteous a crop of youngsters as you could wish to behold! How these children are fed it is often so difficult to comprehend, that one is almost driven to the conclusion that they somehow live and have strength to romp about on the mere element – fresh air. It is very clear that nature abhors all sorts of codling and pampering: —

'It is a fact, admitted by all gardeners as well as botanists,' says Mr Doubleday, 'that if a tree, plant, or flower be placed in a mould either naturally or artificially made too rich for it, a plethoric state is produced, and fruitfulness ceases. In trees, the effect of strong manures and over-rich soils is, that they run to superfluous wood, blossom irregularly, and chiefly at the extremities of the outer branches, and almost, or entirely, cease to bear fruit. With flowering shrubs and flowers the effect is, first, that the flower becomes double, and loses its power of producing seed; next, it ceases almost even to flower. If the application of the stimulus of manure is carried still further, flowers and plants become diseased in the extreme, and speedily die; thus, by this wise provision of Providence, the transmission of disease (the certain consequence of the highly-plethoric state, whether in plants, animals, or in mankind) is guarded against, and the species shielded from danger on the side of plenty. In order to remedy this state when accidentally produced, gardeners and florists are accustomed, by various devices, to produce the opposite, or deplethoric state; this they peculiarly denominate "giving a check." In other words, they put the species in danger in order to produce a corresponding determined effort of nature to insure its perpetuation – and the end is invariably attained. Thus, in order to make fruit-trees bear plentifully, gardeners delay, or impede, the rising of the sap, by cutting rings in the bark round the tree. This, to the tree, is the production of a state of depletion, and the abundance of fruit is the effort of nature to counteract the danger. The fig, when grown in this climate, is particularly liable to drop its fruit when half-matured. This, gardeners now find, can be prevented by pruning the tree so severely as to give it a check; or, if grown in a pot, by cutting a few inches from its roots all round, so as to produce the same effect. The result is, that the tree retains, and carefully matures, its fruit. In like manner, when a gardener wishes to save seed from a gourd or cucumber, he does not give the plant an extra quantity of manure or warmth. He does just the contrary: he subjects it to some hardship, and takes the fruit that is least fine-looking, foreknowing it will be filled with seed whilst the finest fruit are nearly destitute. Upon the same principle, it is a known fact, that after severe and long winters, the harvests are correspondingly rapid and abundant. Vines bear most luxuriantly after being severely tried by frost; and grass springs in the same extraordinary manner. After the long and trying winter of 1836-37, when the snow lay upon the ground in the northern counties until June, the spring of grass was so wonderful as to cause several minute experiments by various persons. The result was, that in a single night of twelve hours the blade of grass was ascertained frequently to have advanced full three-quarters of an inch; and wheat and other grain progressed in a similar manner.'

It is shown by facts, that in the animal economy a low physical state, of course along with air and exercise, is equally favourable. In proportion, therefore, as conditions adverse to this simple principle are encouraged, so will the ratio of increase be limited. Indulgent idleness, want of out-door exercise, codling with cordials, dosing with medicines, tight-lacing, late hours, mental excitement, and fifty other things, induce the physical weakness and irritability which renders the production of offspring an impossibility. Causes of this kind, operating along with those artificial restraints, the validity of which Malthus is so far right in recognising, are mainly concerned in keeping population within bounds. It would then appear, that so long as there is an abject, struggling poor, ignorant and ill-fed, there will be a vigorous growth, a dangerous population – dangerous, because redundant as respects their capacity and will to work. On the other hand, by an universal spread of education, by the cultivation of rational tastes and habits, and by the simple mode of living which such tastes would engender, there will ensue something like a medium between a relatively-redundant and a comparative extinction of population.

THE IRISH BARON

AN ANECDOTE OF REAL LIFE

At the beginning of the present century a certain regiment was ordered to Ireland, and was very soon dispersed over various districts. One detachment was sent to Ballybrag, and when the officer in command and his two subalterns met at the wretched pothouse (for it was scarcely an inn) where they were to mess, and began to discuss their prospects of amusement, they were quite thrown out. There was no visiting, no hunting, no shooting, no billiard-table, no horses to ride, no milliners to flirt with, not so much as even 'a bridge to spit over.' In those days military men had rarely a literary turn, but books became of so much importance, that they read over the few they possessed, and sent to the nearest town, which was very distant, for more. Active amusement, however, was what they chiefly desired; and one evening the countenances of all three became animated, during a listless ramble, at the sight of a boy in a crownless hat, torn coat, and nether integuments held on by a single button; he was shouting forth 'The County Tyrone,' as he dangled a brace of trout in one hand, and switched the air with a long wand he held in the other, his curly hair blowing over his bright rosy countenance in the fresh breeze, the picture of health and careless happiness.

'Hollo! my fine fellow! where did you catch these trout?'

'Plase your honour, in the Junnagh, just beyant.'

'Beyant! where's that?'

'Just behind them hills there's plenty. If I had but a fishing-rod, and something more sinsible nor a crooked pin!'

'What a handsome intelligent boy! What's your name?'

'Patrick O'Sale, plase your honour.'

'Well, Paddy, you'll show us the trouting stream, and I'll give you a shilling.'

Paddy O'Sale had heard of a shilling, but had never yet seen one; so his gratitude was unbounded: he not only showed them the stream, but made rush-baskets for the fish they caught, told them tales, sung them songs, and, in short, by his good-humour and intelligent fun, very much enlivened their stay at Ballybrag. He was very proud of the notice of these gentlemen, was happy to be employed in doing anything for them, and when the route came, manifested so much genuine sorrow, that they resolved to adopt him, and make him, in fact, a fils du régiment. He accordingly began his military career as a fifer in the – th regiment, and when older, entered the ranks, and became servant to his first friend, Captain B – . Very soon he distinguished himself by his extraordinary intelligence and orderly conduct, which promoted him to the rank of sergeant; twice he headed a forlorn-hope, and upon all occasions showed so much bravery and prudence, that upon the first vacancy he was unanimously recommended for an ensigncy, which he obtained, retaining as an officer the good opinion he had before possessed of all his former comrades. He was a remarkably handsome man, and, we need scarcely observe, a very clever one also, taking advantage of all that fell in his way as to education, &c. But alas! no one is perfect; and Patrick O'Sale was vain and extremely ambitious: so, not wishing to remain where his very humble origin was so well known, he exchanged into another regiment, and very soon became equally popular with his new companions as he had been with his old friends of the – th.

The peace reduced him and many others to half-pay, and with it and his handsome person he resolved to take his chance of fortune. He settled himself in a town on the north coast of France, and looked about for a wife. Not long had he to wait: his proficiency in French, which his quick capacity enabled him to pick up easily, opened many doors which were shut against his higher-born but less talented compatriots; and ere long, the widow of a hotel-keeper, twenty years his senior, gave him to understand that he needed but to propose. Whether this was in all respects the prize he looked for it is hard to say; but they married, and lived together three years, during which time he behaved to her with affectionate kindness; and when she died, she left him all that was in her power, which, although much less than he had hoped for, made up, together with his half-pay, a reasonably good income. This, although it would have been a mere pittance to most men, seemed a fortune to our adventurer; and with it he started for Paris, where he made so good a figure, that a young and handsome widow manifested the same admiration his former less distinguished wife had done. We need not enter into a description of the affair further than to say that it terminated as the other had done – in marriage. While arranging the preliminaries, the lady objected to his name.

'O'Sale!' cried she (eau sale!– dirty water!); 'never can I follow such a name into a drawing-room!'

'I am very sorry, but it is my name.'

'Is there no title in your family?'

'No,' stoutly answered the quondam Paddy.

'What, then, is the name of your father's estate?'

He thought of the cabin in which he had passed his childhood – the pig, his playmate that had paid its rent – his father, in his long frieze coat, with a hay-band round his hat – and his mother, attired in the fluttering rags which so many of the Irish seem to think impart an airy smartness to their dress; perhaps, too, he thought with regret of the warm hearts that had beat beneath them, so fond, so proud of him; and the 'sunshine' of his own 'breast,' that, in spite of his almost uninterrupted good-fortune, had never bounded so lightly since: but at anyrate he answered with admirably-acted quiet dignity, 'It is, alas! no longer in our family.'

'But,' persisted the lady, 'you were born near some village – in some parish that had a name?'

'The village of Ballybrag was not far from our residence.'

'A la bonne heure – that will do excellently well! Call yourself the Baron de Ballybrag.'

'Call myself?'

'Mais oui, why not? I shall not object to be named De Ballybrag.'

She accordingly had her cards printed 'La B

de Ballybrag,' and her husband, who, after all, had a fondness for his patronymic, left his with his acquaintances as the Baron O'Sale de Ballybrag. One of these I preserve as a memento of the odd characters and adventures which so frequently make real life resemble a romance.

CHEMICAL INQUIRIES

Experience had long taught the Scotch that oats, such as they grow in their climate, are a most nutritious food; but the habits of the more influential English, and the ridicule of a prejudiced lexicographer, were beginning to make them ashamed of their national diet. Chemistry has here stepped in, and by her analysis of both, has proved not only that the oat is richer in muscle-forming matter than the grain of wheat, but that oatmeal is in all respects a better form of nourishment than the finest wheaten flour. But what is more, chemistry has brought us acquainted with the value of parts of the grain formerly considered almost as waste. The husk or bran of wheat, for example, though given at times to pigs, to millers' horses, and other cattle, was usually thought to possess but little nutritive virtue in itself. Analysis, however, has shown it to be actually richer in muscular matter than the white interior of the grain. Thus the cause of its answering so well as food for cattle is explained; and it is shown that its use in bread (whole-meal bread) must be no less nutritive than economical. The true value of other kinds of food is also established by these inquiries. Cabbage is a crop which, up to the present time, has not been a general favourite in this country, either in the stall or for the table, except during early spring and summer. In North Germany and Scandinavia, however, it appears to have been long esteemed, and various modes of storing it for winter use have been very generally practised. But the cabbage is one of the plants which has been chemically examined, in consequence of the failure of the potato, with the view of introducing it into general use, and the result of the examination is both interesting and unexpected. When dried so as to bring it into a state in which it can be compared with our other kinds of food (wheat, oats, beans, &c.), it is found to be richer in muscular matter than any other crop we grow. Wheat contains only about 12 per cent., and beans 25 per cent.; but dried cabbage contains from 30 to 40 per cent. of the so-called protein compounds. According to our present views, therefore, it is pre-eminently nourishing. Hence if it can but be made generally agreeable to the palate, and easy of digestion, it is likely to prove the best and easiest cultivated substitute for the potato; and no doubt the Irish kolcannon (cabbage and potatoes beat together) derives part of its reputation from the great muscle-sustaining power of the cabbage – a property in which the potato is most deficient. Further, it is of interest – of national importance, we may say – that an acre of ordinary land will, according to the above result, produce a greater weight of this special kind of nourishment in the form of cabbage than in the form of any other crop. Thus twenty tons of cabbage – and good land will produce, in good hands, forty tons of drum-head cabbage on an imperial acre – contain fifteen hundred pounds of muscular matter; while twenty-five bushels of beans contain only four hundred pounds; as many of wheat only two hundred, twelve tons of potatoes only five hundred and fifty, and even thirty tons of turnips only a thousand pounds. The preference which some farmers have long given to this crop, as food for their stock and their milk-cows, is accounted for by these facts; while of course they powerfully recommend its more general cultivation as food for man. Again: – In many parts of our island furze or gorse grows up an unheeded weed, and luxuriates in favourable spots without being applied to any useful purpose. In other districts, however, it is already an object of valuable though easy culture, and large breadths of it are grown for the feeding of stock, and yield profitable returns. Chemical researches show its nutritive property to be very great. Of muscle-building materials it contains, when dry, as much as 30 per cent., and is therefore in this respect superior to beans, and inferior only to the cabbage. Under these circumstances we can no longer doubt the conclusions at which some experimental feeders had previously arrived, nor the advantage which might be obtained from the more extensive cultivation of gorse on many poor and hitherto almost neglected soils. —Edinburgh Review.