QUESTIONS.

When did George III. ascend the throne? How did he differ from his predecessors? Who were his prime ministers at the commencement of his reign? What measure offended the American colonists? What was the first overt act of rebellion? What powers were allied against England? What European fortress belonging to Britain was gallantly defended for three years? When was the independence of the United States finally recognised?

WORK.

Work, work, my boy be not afraid;
Look labour boldly in the face;
Take up the hammer or the spade,
And blush not for your humble place.

There's glory in the shuttle's song-
There's triumph in the anvil's stroke;
There's merit in the brave and strong
Who dig the mine or fell the oak.

And so the active breath of life

Should stir our dull and sluggard wills;
For are we not created rife

With health that stagnant torpor kills?

I doubt if he who lolls his head
Where idleness and plenty meet,

Enjoys his pillow or his bread,

As those who earn the meals they eat.

ELIZA COOK.

The British islands cannot produce sufficient beef and mutton to supply the population, and large quantities are sent to us from other countries. Besides the cattle and sheep that are brought alive from the

continent of Europe, an enormous quantity of preserved meat in tins is daily arriving from Australia and New Zealand, and more is still wanted. Among the delicacies that have come from Australia, kangaroo soup, and the preserved flesh of the kangaroo, are remarkable. Perhaps, if the importation goes on, we may receive other articles of food hitherto unknown in these islands. It becomes an interesting inquiry, what the natives of other lands have for dinner?

What is a dinner? that is the question. In Siam, the answer is given in the shape of a dish of dried elephant. In Greenland, raw meat prevails, because it produces in the consumer more warmth than cooked meat. A slice of raw blubber, or a chunk of frozen walrus-beef, is there considered delicious, even by Englishmen. Frozen seal is a good native preparation for a long cold journey; but raw bear is the very best travelling food of all. Sledges are very commonly eaten with infinite relish, because they are made of dry frozen salmon, which has acquired an improved (Esquimaux) flavour by its long use and keeping.

What is a dinner? would be answered by the African bushman, with a table covered with roots, bulbs, wild garlic, the core of aloes, the gum of acacias, berries, the larvæ of ants, lizards, locusts, and grasshoppers; while his twin, the Kaffir, would produce nothing but a dish of sour curdled milk, with a little millet. The Indian of Brazil sustains himself upon rats and other small vermin, snakes, and alli

gators; while the aboriginal Australian feeds upon the opossum, the wombat, the wallaby, the bandicoot, and the bounding kangaroo. The Chinese get fat upon worms, sea-slugs, horses, black frogs, unhatched putrid ducks and chickens, rotten eggs, dogs and puppies, besides the aristocratic and costly birds'nests. The food of the Dyak of Borneo is sometimes a snake, sometimes an alligator (if small), and sometimes a monkey. The Abyssinian, I am sorry to say, leads a very unsteady life, and makes himself positively drunk upon various kinds of raw flesh.

What is a dinner? is answered by the African epicure with a tender young monkey, highly seasoned and spiced, and baked in a jar set in the earth, with a fire over it, in gipsy fashion. It is answered by the low Arab with a feast of hyena, although the smell of the carcase is so rank and offensive, that even dogs leave it with disgust. It is answered by the natives of North America with a pole-cat, although the animal is considered too pestilent for human food. It is answered in Italy with a fox; and in the Arctic regions, again, with a fox-pie. It is answered by the Indians of North America with a dish of prairie-wolf; by the natives of Demerara with a dish of sloth; by the Hottentots with a dish of lion; and by the natives of the Malay peninsula with a dish of tiger.

The question is answered by the Dutch and Hottentots with a dish of smoked porcupines; by the Africans with baked elephant's paws; by Bushmen and Dutch colonists with a dish of salted hippopotamos; and by the Abyssinians with a dish of rhinoceros.

In France the question will be soon answered (if Monsieur Saint Hilaire should overcome the general prejudice) with countless dishes of horse-flesh; and in Tartary it is already answered with a feast of donkeys. Greeks and Romans have found the ass palatable before this; and Central Asia revels in it to this hour. In Barbary it is answered by a dish of camel's-flesh; and by the Hottentots with a dish of giraffe and giraffe-marrow. It is answered in Southern Guinea by a dish of boa-constrictor; and in Ceylon with a feast of the destructive anaconda. It is answered at the Havana by a dish of shark; by the Barotse of Central Africa by a dish of alligator; and by Dr Livingstone (in a case of need) by two mice, and a light blue-coloured mole.