BULBOUS ROOTS.
In glasses filled with water, bulbous roots, such as the hyacinth, narcissus, and jonquil, are blown. The time to put them in is from September to November, and the earliest ones will begin blowing about Christmas. The glasses should be blue, as that colour best suits the roots; put water enough in to cover the bulb one-third of the way up, less rather than more; let the water be soft, change it once a week, and put in a pinch of salt every time you change it. Keep the glasses in a place moderately warm, and near to the light. A parlour window is a very common place for them, but is often too warm, and brings on the plants too early, and causes them to be weakly.—Ibid.
TRAVELLING INVALIDS.
We cannot refrain from stating our belief, and this on the authority of intelligent physicians, as well as from personal observation, that much mischief is done by committing invalids to long and precarious journeys, for the sake of doubtful benefits. We have ourselves seen consumptive patients hurried along, through all the discomforts of bad roads, bad inns, and indifferent diet, to places, where certain partial advantages of climate poorly compensated for the loss of the many benefits which home and domestic care can best afford. We have seen such invalids lodged in cold, half-furnished houses, and shivering under blasts of wind from the Alps or Apennines, who might more happily have been sheltered in the vales of Somerset or Devon. On this topic, however, we refrain from saying more—further than to state our belief, that much misapprehension generally prevails, as to the comparative healthiness of England, and other parts of Europe. Certain phrases respecting climate have obtained fashionable currency amongst us, which greatly mislead the judgment as to facts. The accurate statistical tables, now extended to the greater part of Europe, furnish more secure grounds of opinion; and from these we derive the knowledge, that there is no one country in Europe where the average proportion of mortality is so small as in England. Some few details on this subject we subjoin,—tempted to do so by the common errors prevailing in relation to it.
The proportion of deaths to the population is nearly one-third less in England than in France. Comparing the two capitals, the average mortality of London is about one-fifth less than that of Paris. What may appear a more singular statement, the proportion of deaths in London, a vast and luxurious metropolis, differs only by a small fraction from that of the whole of France; and is considerably less than the average of those Mediterranean shores which are especially frequented by invalids for the sake of health. In Italy, the proportion of deaths is a full third greater than in England; and even in Switzerland and Sweden, though the difference be less, it is still in favour of our own country.—Q. Rev.
NEWSPAPER LOVE.
The paper so highly esteemed, entitled, The Courier de l'Europe, originated in the following circumstances:—
"Monsieur Guerrier de Berance was a native of Auvergne, whose fortune in the origin was very low, but who by his intrigues succeeded in gaining the place of Procureur General of the Custom-house. He married two wives; the name of the last was Millochin, who was both young and handsome. She soon began to find out that her husband was very disagreeable; and what caused her more particularly to remark his faults was her contrasting him with M. Cevres de la Tour, with whom she fell most desperately in love. This passion became so violent, that Madame Guerrier fled into England with her lover, who, in his turn, left his wife behind him in Paris. The finances of these two lovers growing rather low, M. Sevres de la Tour, who was a man of talent, thought, as a plan to enrich himself, to turn editor to a newspaper, and for this purpose started the Courier de l'Europe, which succeeded beyond his most sanguine hopes. Disgust, which commonly follows these sort of unions, caused Madame Guerrier to be deserted by her lover, and she was obliged to turn a teacher of languages for her subsistence.—The Album of Love.