Gradually the groan, extorted by the last pang of dissolution, died away, and with it the spirit of poor Gerald Kavanagh.
Alice perceived what had happened as soon as any of the bystanders, but high and shrill her scream mounted over the wailing which arose from the others, ere she once more sank down in the swoon which the excess of her anguish had so mercifully caused.
On the following day a coroner’s inquest was held upon the bodies of the three sons of Peter Kavanagh, in a public-house not far distant from the scene of this fatal debauch. A surmise had been afloat that poison had somehow or other been the cause of their death, and an examination of one of the bodies was considered needful. I will not shock my readers with a description of the fearful chamber where this most loathsome operation was performed. The result was a verdict to the effect that the three Kavanaghs had died “from the excessive use of ardent spirits.”
I commenced by saying I feared that this narrative might fail in pointing a moral. It has a moral—a moral to selfish and ill-judging parents, and equally ill-judging societies, who lay the flattering unction to their souls that coercion will have a better effect than a fair and consistent example. Verily, the Spartan nobles, who exhibited the drunken slave before their children, and then placed the wine-cup within their reach, had a better knowledge of human nature than the Irish father who would exorcise the demon of alcohol out of his children by pledges of abstinence, or threats of punishment, while, in the security of his own experience, he feels he can temperately enjoy the luxury of spirituous drink.[1]
R. M.
[1] From the Londonderry Standard.
Fine connexions are apt to plunge you into a sea of extravagance, and then not to throw you a rope to save you from drowning.
SAP IN VEGETABLES.
SECOND AND CONCLUDING ARTICLE.
We endeavoured in our last article to describe the principal circumstances of interest with respect to the ascending or unelaborated sap. We have found that it is derived from the aliment which consists of water and carbonic acid; that it is composed of a solution of sugar and gum in water; that it ascends in the ordinary trees of this country through the wood, which is situated between the bark and pith; that the causes which elevate it are partly a vital attraction or suction exercised by the buds, and partly an endosmose, by which, in consequence of its superior density, it draws in its aliment through the spongy extremities of the roots; that its use is not only to furnish materials for the descending or elaborated sap, but by developing the fleshy part of plants to cause the growth of stems in length and roots in thickness. We shall now proceed to show the origin, the course, the composition, and the uses of the descending or elaborated sap.