‘Bad enough!’ indignantly interposed my analyst’s mamma. ‘That’s Mr Grittles’s very best moist—threepence-three-farthings a pound!’
‘I daresay it is. If it was fourpence, it wouldn’t make any difference.—Did you ever hear of the sugar-mite, Acarus sacchari’——
‘No; I can’t say I ever did,’ I said, ‘and I don’t want to, either. We have had enough of this sort of thing, and I am not going to have any more agonies over every article we eat.’
I had again put my foot down. But it was too late. I had even forbidden my analyst, under penalty of forfeiture of his pocket-money for several months to come, telling us anything whatever about the food we eat or the drink we imbibe; but the mischief was done. I have lost my confidence in my fellow-man, and still more in my fellow-man’s productions. I may try in an imperfect way to protect our household. I may give the strictest orders that none but the refinedest of sugar shall be admitted into our store-cupboard; but who is to answer for the man who makes the jam and the marmalade, or the other man who makes the Madeira cakes and the three-cornered tarts? And how much is there that we have not heard? I have silenced my analyst’s lips, it is true; but there is also a language of the eyes, and still more a language of the nose, and when, with a scornful tip-tilt of the latter, he says, ‘No, thank you,’ to anything, my appetite is destroyed for that meal. I can’t take a pill or a black draught without my disordered imagination picturing my chemist ‘pestling a poisoned poison’ behind his counter. I can’t even eat a new-laid egg or crack a nut without wondering what it is adulterated with. This is morbid, no doubt. I am quite aware that it is morbid, but I can’t help it. I am like Governor Sancho in the island of Barataria: my choicest dishes are whisked away from me—or rendered nauseous, which is as bad—at the bidding of a grim being who calls himself Analytical Science. He may not know anything about it, or he may be lying; but meanwhile he has spoilt my appetite, and the dish may go away untasted for me.
Truly, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The moral of my painful story is obvious. I intend to bring up the rest of my family, if possible, to occupations involving no knowledge whatever.
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
About two years ago, we recorded an interesting discovery which had been made on the coast of Norway, that of a viking war-ship, which had formed the tomb of some forgotten Danish freebooter. We have now to chronicle a somewhat similar find, which has recently been unearthed at Brigg, in Lincolnshire. While the workmen were excavating the ground for a new gas-holder, they came upon a block of oak, which ultimately proved to be an ancient British vessel of extraordinary size. It is cut out of a solid piece of wood, and measures forty-eight feet in length, fifty-two inches in width, and thirty-three inches in depth. The boat is in a wonderfully good state of preservation, owing, no doubt, to the clayey nature of the soil in which it lies, and which has effectually sealed up every cranny against the intrusion of the air. The discovery of this prehistoric relic is of such interest, that it is to be hoped some way of preserving it from the action of the weather will be found before it is too late.
Only a few years ago, an ancient wooden causeway was discovered in the same neighbourhood—a causeway made of squared balks of timber fifteen feet long and ten inches square. The ends of these logs were bored with holes for the reception of pegs, so that the whole structure could be firmly fastened to the earth. This was evidently a necessary precaution; for the causeway crosses the valley of the river Ancholme, and would be subject to removal by the action of the tidal waters. It is believed that an extensive shallow lagoon once existed in the Ancholme valley, and that this was slowly filled up with alluvium. It is to this silting up with a non-porous soil that the preservation of both the boat and the causeway is due.
The Times of India raises a curious point about a certain meteor of unusual brilliancy which was seen in India on a certain night in January last. Curiously enough, a meteor which was described by eye-witnesses in almost the same language which was used by the Indian observers, passed over London on the same evening. It was travelling in an easterly direction, and appeared about two hours and a half before the meteor noted in India. The question raised by this double appearance is: Are these two meteors really one and the same? The distance between the two points of observation is between five and six thousand miles, which would give a rate of movement for the meteor of thirty-five and a half miles per minute. The question is a startling one, which we should think could be easily answered by consulting the logs of various vessels which were near the presumed track of the meteor on the night of its occurrence. Such an unusual appearance could not fail to have been recorded.
The celebrated Christy Ethnographical Collection has now been added to the British Museum, and for the first time it may be said that the country which has the best opportunities of studying prehistoric and semi-barbarous peoples in all the countries of the world, is not behind its neighbours in its collection of objects for promoting that study. Mr Henry Christy, who died in 1865, left his wonderful collection to four trustees, to deal with it as they might think fit in the best interests of science. These trustees offered the collection to the national Museum on the very wise condition, that it was not to become the property of the Museum until it should be publicly exhibited there. This proviso has prevented the collection being packed away into cellars for an indefinite time, a fate which has befallen too many treasures intrusted to the national Museum.