At Brussels, the demand for labour is so great, in consequence of the number of new buildings, that tradesmen consider they confer a favour on a customer by the execution of his orders. The lower classes have become, within the last seven years, extremely dissipated, owing it is supposed to the increase in the wages of the mechanics and labourers employed in the numerous buildings erected within that period. During the Kaermess annual feast of three days, it is calculated 80,000 litres (pots) are drunk each day!
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Cooper, the American novelist, has just published two volumes of "Notions" of his countrymen, in the course of which he bestows on them the following surperlative epithets: "most active, quick-witted, enterprising, orderly, moral, simple, vigorous, healthful, manly, generous, just, wise, innocent, civilized, liberal, polite, enlightened, ingenious, moderate, glorious, firm, free, virtuous, intelligent, sagacious, kind, honest, independent, brave, gallant, intellectual, well-governed, elevated, dignified, pure, immaculate, extraordinary, wonderful," &c. He then calls them the "most improving," which is painting, nay coating, the lily, to "wasteful and ridiculous excess."
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OSTRICHES
Impart a lively interest to a ride in the Pampas. They are sometimes seen in coveys of twenty or thirty, gliding elegantly along the undulations of the plain, at half pistol-shot from each other, like skirmishers. The young are easily domesticated, and soon become attached to those who caress them; but they are troublesome inmates; for, stalking about the house, they will, when full grown, swallow coin, shirt-pins, and every small article of metal within reach. Their usual food, in a wild state, is seeds, herbage, and insects; the flesh is a reddish brown, and if young, not of bad flavour. A great many eggs are laid in the same nest. Some accounts exonerate the ostrich from being the most stupid bird in the creation. This has been proved by the experiment of taking an egg away, or by putting one in addition. In either case she destroys the whole by smashing them with her feet. Although she does not attend to secrecy, in selecting a situation for her nest, she will forsake it if the eggs have been handled. It is also said that she rolls a few eggs thirty yards distant from the nest, and cracks the shells, which, by the time her young come forth, being filled with maggots, and covered with insects, form the first repast of her infant brood. The male bird is said to take upon himself the rearing of the young. If two cock-birds meet, each with a family, they fight for the supremacy over both; for which reason an ostrich has sometimes under his tutelage broods of different ages.—Mem. Gen. Miller.
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Dr. Kitchiner recommends a gentleman who has a mind to carry the arrangement of his clothes to a nicety, to have the shelves of his wardrobe numbered 30, 40, 50, and 60, and according to the degree of cold pointed to by his thermometer, to wear a corresponding defence against it.
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Dr. Harwood fed two pointers; one he suffered to sleep after dinner, another he forced to take exercise. In the stomach of the one who had been quiet and asleep, all the food was digested; in the stomach of the other, that process was hardly begun.