CAUSES OF IDIOTCY.-The near relationship by blood of the parents seems to be the cause of, or at least it is the precedent fact to, many cases of idiotcy, We do not suppose that this connection is of itself the cause of idiotcy. But if there are any weaknesses or defects of body or mind, or tendencies to disease or oddities in the family, they may be overpowered, or cease to appear in the next generation, if those who have them marry with strangers, and mix their blood and life with those who have not these peculiarities, and thus the children may escape the imperfections or liabilities that otherwise might have been entailed upon them. But when two persons of the same blood and character unite together in marriage, their peculiarities are doubled in power by being combined in their children, and the odd or weak traits which are subordinate in the parents may predominate in their offspring. The parentage of 359 idiots was ascertained. In 17 families the parents were near blood relations. In one of these families there were five idiotic children born; in five, four each; in three, three each; in two, two each; and in six, one each.

CHILDHOOD'S PLEASURES.-Blessed be the hand that prepares a pleasure for a child! for there is no saying when and where it may again bloom forth. Does not almost everybody remember some kindhearted man who showed him a kindness in the quiet days of his childhood? The writer of this recollects himself at this moment as a barefooted lad standing at the wooden fence of a poor little garden in his native village; with longing eyes, he gazed on the flowers which were blooming there quietly in the brightness of a Sunday morning. The possessor came forth from his little cottage-he was a woodcutter by trade-and spent the whole week at his work in the woods. He was come into the garden to gather flowers to stick in his coat when he went to church. He saw the boy, and breaking off the most beautiful of his carnations-it was streaked with red and white-gave it to him. Neither the giver nor the receiver spoke a word: and with bounding steps the boy ran home; and now, here at a vast distance from that home, after so many events of so many years, the feelings of gratitude which agitated the breast of that boy expresses itself on paper. The carnation has long since withered, but now it blooms afresh.-Douglas Jerold.

A PROTESTANT journal in America lately spoke of the old lady who triumphantly pointed out the "Epistle to the Romans," and asked where one could be found addressed to the Protestants? The "Catholic Mirror" happily retorts by telling us of a negro Baptist at the south, who said to his Methodist master-"You've read the Bible, I s'pose?" "Yes." "Well, you've read in it of one John the Baptist, hasn't you?" "Yes." "Well, you never saw nothing about John the Methodist, did you?" "No." "Well, den you see, dere's Baptists in the Bible, but dere aint no Methodists; and de Bible's on my side."

A WAG was once asked what inference he could draw from the text in Job-" And the asses snuffed up the wind." "Well," he replied, "the only inference that I can draw is this-that it would be a long time before they would grow fat upon it!"

A CASE OF CONSCIENCE.- Friend Broadbrim," said Zephaniah Straitlace to his master, a rich Quaker of the city of Brotherly Love, "thou can'st not eat of that leg of mutton at thy noontide table to-day." "Wherefore not?" asked the good Quaker. "Because the dog that appertaineth to that son of Belial, whom the world calleth Lawyer Foxcraft, hath come into thy pantry and stolen it; yea, and he hath eaten it up." "Beware, friend Zephaniah, of bearing false witness against thy neighbour. Art thou sure it was friend Foxcroft's domestic animal?” "Yea, verily, I saw it with my eyes, and it was Lawyer Foxcraft's dog, even Pinch'em." "Upon what evil times have we fallen!" sighed the harmless secretary, as he wended his way to his neighbour's office. "Friend Gripus," said he, "I want to ask thy opinion." "I am all attention," replied the scribe, laying down his pen. "Supposing, friend Foxcraft, that my dog had gone into thy neighbour's pantry and stolen therefrom a leg of mutton, and I saw him, and could call him by name, what ought I to do?" "Pay for the mutton -nothing can be clearer." "Know thou, friend Foxcraft, thy dog, even the beast men denominate Pinch'em, hath stolen from my pantry a leg of mutton of the just value of four shillings and sixpence, which I paid for in the market this morning." "If it be so, then it is my opinion that I must pay for it" and having done so, the worthy friend turned to depart. "Tarry yet a little, friend Broadbrim," cried the lawyer. "Of a verity I have yet farther to say unto thee, thou owest me six-andeightpence for advice." "Then verily I must pay thee; and it is my opinion I have touched pitch and been defiled."

DIRECTIONS FOR A SHORT LIFE.-We copy the following directions for a short life from an old almanac. We doubt not they will prove as efficacious as any doctor could desire:"1st. Eat hot bread at every meal. 2nd. Eat fast. 3rd. Lie in bed every morning until the sun is two hours high. If the case should prove stubborn-4th. Add the morning dram.”—Provincial Paper.

CAPS IN GOLDSMITH'S DAYS.-Her cap, if cap it might be called that cap was none, consisted of a few bits of cambric, and flowers of painted paper, stuck on one side of her head.-Goldsmith.

DELICACIES OF THE SEASON.-In the French sauces at present, the chief element is said to be a jelly made from snails!

THE PRESTON STRIKE.-In a large pamphlet of 100 pages, read at the meeting of the British Association by Mr. Ashworth, the pecuniary results of the strike are estimated as follows:-Loss to the employers, £165,000-loss of wages to the operatives, £250,000-loss to the contributors to the strike fund, and to the neighbouring towns, £97,000——loss of profit to shop keepers and others, £21,250total loss to the community by the Preston strike, £533,250.

"UNION is not always strength," as Sir Charles Napier observed, when he saw the purser mixing his rum with water.

The amount of wealth at Sebastopol is computed to be £20,000,000. The fortifications have cost not less than £7,000,000, and the military and naval stores are of prodigious value,

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culcate by hexample as well as by receipt," (drawing a long breath). "Now, Ma'am, she says she halways abstains from wine afore dinner,' cause she considers it bad for the health; but, as you, Ma'am, have been so kind and so thoughtful as to have this mild cowslip prepared for the hold lady, she says she'll not refuse helping herself to half a glass of the same."

Coming to the full stop at the end, Miss Gladstone interposed.

"Very well, I am going down to her now." And Charles opens the door wider for her to pass. On entering the parlour, Miss Gladstone apologizes to Lady Torkovall for not having been ready to receive her.

66

"Now, my dear," says Lady Torkovall, as she sits next her friend, you perceive I have on a black watered silk dress, a good plain velvet bonnet, a large sable round tippet, with cuffs to match, strong black boots, and the best dove-coloured French kid gloves, but there was a time when the old lady used to dress."

Miss Gladstone said she certainly saw no necessity for any apology respecting her ladyship's toilet, and begged she would not be on any ceremony at all with her during her visit. The bell then rang for dinner, and the evening passed in chat. The next morning, after breakfast, as Miss Gladstone was carefully taking the pins from the corners of a handkerchief, which covered a splendid piece of embroidery in a frame, and began to make several other remote preparations for sitting down to needle-work, Lady Torkovall suddenly commenced the following pathetic remark :—

"Never, in the past time, in the present time, in the future time, never could, should, or would the old lady suffer any one to be sacrificed for her."

Miss Gladstone looks up inquiringly. "Never," Lady Torkovall proceeds, "can I bring my mind to allow a human creature, whether man, woman, or child, whether Greck or Roman, Jew or Gentile, to suffer for my sake. Now, my dear Maria, I have known you from an infant, and your dear departed mother was my dearest and most valued friend. I know (without the slightest inquisitiveness on my part, for I hold that vice in abomination, but the old lady cannot help knowing what she knows, and hears, and almost sees, though at the distance of twenty miles)-I know how virtuously you spend your time, and that you would consider your morning lost if you were to allow it to pass without performing some good act in behalf of your neighbour. I cannot think of permitting you to dedicate this morning entirely to my entertainment in prejudice to the poor, whom, I am aware, you would otherwise visit."

Miss Gladstone replied, as there were one or two families in immediate want of assistance, she would relinquish the pleasure of her company that morning, in compliance with her kind request. Then, presenting her guest an amusing book to entertain her during her absence, she proceeded from her house in Grosvenor-square, in a fly, towards the Borough, without any attendance.

Miss Gladstone was an heiress of rather considerable property, the only daughter of her deceased parents; born and educated in the Catholic faith, she had devoted the greater part of her fortune to

the relief of the starving poor, hence she had no carriage of her own, and although her house was elegantly furnished, agreeably to her station in life, yet she deprived herself of much for the benefit of others. She was always dressed elegantly, adapted to the circle in which she moved; but in visiting the famished sufferer she divested herself of those vain ornaments, the sight of which are only calculated to render the poor dissatisfied with the gifts distributed. In their ignorance, they are often inclined to consider the hand sparkling with diamonds and rubies ungenerous in its donation, which merely extends to them a relief of comparatively small value; they do not understand the necessity the great ones of the earth are under of wearing these ornaments in order to keep up appearances, from which their hearts may nevertheless be detached. How warm a reception did she receive from these lowly ones! how different to that experienced by the soupers and tractarians of the day, when these sternly ask the starving man to sell his soul for a mess of pottage! Did she perchance offer brighter silver or purer gold? did she promise finer linen, or warmer blankets, to entice them to remain in the faith of their forefathers? Not at all; it was not for what she gave, or in hopes of being repaid for his civility, that the overworked, emaciated Irishman delayed taking his short night's uneasy rest upon his hard bed, until he should have said one Hail Mary for the good lady who had been to see him when he was sick in the hospital; it was not for what she gave that the baby, struggling in the arms of the mercenary, rejected the sugar this woman forced into its mouth to induce it to come to. her infant school, now held out its little arms, as Miss Gladstone entered the room, and cried to go to her, lisping her well-remembered name; it was not for what she gave that its aged grandsire now brushed a tear from his careworn, wrinkled forehead (after he had been previously compelled to listen for an hour, remaining quite unmoved with compunction, to a lesson out of a Protestant bible, impressively read in a sonorous tone by Mrs. Straightback, the widow of the late Mr. Straightback, who was brother-in-law to the parson) when she spoke but one little word of consolation, and reminded him that the poor in spirit are blessed!

Already Miss Gladstone is in earnest conversation with a family who have frequently rejected the proffered offer of blankets, upon condition they would conceal their faith, and renounce their birthright to heaven; and vainly has it been attempted, in this abode of poverty, thus to impose upon the desolation of the widow and the credulity of the orphan!

Our readers are requested to be present at a scene which is taking place about five minutes' walk from London Bridge, on the Borough side, although we must apologize for inviting them into this locality, which is certainly not one of the most select, and the neighbours are none of the most aristocratic.

'Twas in that age, twixt boy and youth,
When thoughts are words, and speech is truth,

that James Momball was vainly endeavouring to appease the wrath of an incensed apple-woman, who beheld with dismay her stall shaken from its foun