Hope.—We recommend you to get a small sixpenny manual on canaries and their treatment. Your bird has probably been in a draught. See our article at page 775, vol. iii. Our correspondents are as numerous as ever, and the difficulty is to find space for all the answers written. Your handwriting is not formed.
Marian.—The Jewish year begins with Tisri, which month follows immediately after the new moon following the autumnal equinox; but the ecclesiastical year begins with the seventh month—viz., Nizan or Abib. The following is the entire list:—Tisri, Marchesvan, Chislev, Thebet, Sebat, Adar, Nisan, Tjar, Givan, Thammuz, Ab, and Elal.
Miscel.—When reading or reciting to a public audience, it is usual to stand, unless the piece to be read be very long. You should (or might) hold the letter. “If you were to see So-and-so painted by so poor a painter, and bad at that” (bad event for a bad attempt). This is the meaning of the Americanism.
Inquirer.—Chemists have signs of their trade like other tradesmen. The hairdresser has a striped pole, the publican chequers, or a bush, etc. Divide your ancient from your modern coins, and let each of these be sub-divided according to size and age. Have little trays with a succession of shallow circular cells lined with coloured paper to receive them, deep enough to preserve them from any touch of the tray that lies on it.
Ignoramus.—You could clean the large white skin hearthrug by means of powdered plaster of Paris. There is no difficulty in making a small copy of a large picture; the difficulty would be in enlarging.
SHE STRETCHETH OUT HER HAND TO THE POOR;
YEA, SHE REACHETH FORTH HER HANDS TO THE NEEDY.
PROV. XXXI, 20.
M. W. A.—On a liberal computation, the cost of keeping a pony varies from £10 to £20 per annum. The grazing will cost less than that of a cow, and £4 or £5 would cover it. You may give him turnips and carrots, and scraps from the house of vegetables and bread. Oats would cost about 10s. a month; but they are really quite unnecessary. A cartload of hay at a corn-merchant’s price would be about £5, more or less, and this should last one pony from the end of a summer’s grass (about the end of October) till the beginning of May next year, when grass would be resumed. But unless the animal were groomed and harnessed by yourself, you must also take the expense of a groom into your account, and the cost and repair of a trap.
Kathleen.—Rest your foot for a couple of days, and if inflamed poultice it a few times; then cut the nail quite straight at the top, and scrape (with a penknife or scrap of glass) down the centre to thin the nail in the middle, and so dispose the sides to rise up instead of bending downwards and inwards, from the convex (or rounded) shape of the nail. It might be best at first to cut the nail rather in a “u” or “v” shape in the middle, instead of quite straight across, as you may do afterwards.