Various

“ With their naked feet and their cat-like tread, the negroes marched along far more silently than white men could ever have done, toward the faint lights that gleamed fitfully beyond the gully. If possible, Delgado would have preferred to lead them straight to Orange Grove house, for his resentment burnt fiercest of all against the Dupuy family, and he wished at least, whatever else happened, to make sure of massacring that one single obnoxious household. ”

“ Let us look at a few of the supposed characteristics of our ‘cousins’—one and all taken from the travelling citizen of other days, but who latterly has faded into the background before the true American, and is only now to be seen in second-class hotels or lodgings. Does he ask interminable questions with the curiosity of an inquisitor, till nothing remains but a point-blank demand to know the amount of your income? If so, engage rooms in a German pension, and relate your experiences after a three days’ stay. Does he worry you to death with a skilful display of the knife-trick? ”

“ In the attempt to banish national distinctions, to develop the Anglo-Saxon race, America has a firm friend here; and just as her truest sons, when desirous of looking beyond themselves, turn for their inspirations to the genius of the British people, so do we in return take a leaf from that chapter of events in the progress of humanity which it seems to be the mission of Americans to arrange. ”

“ But he feared greatly the perils and temptations of the factory for his unruly army. ‘Whatebber else you do, me fren’s,’ the old African muttered more than once, turning round beseechingly to his ragged black followers, ‘doan’t drink de new rum, an’ doan’t set fire to de buckra trash-houses.’
At the foot of the little knoll under whose base the trash-houses lay, they came suddenly upon one of the faithful field-hands, Napoleon Floreal, whose fidelity Delgado had already in vain attempted with his rude persuasions. The negroes singled him out at once for their first vengeance. ”

“ That this is a matter of grief to all true Americans, is well known; and it is always said, whenever a case comes up, the man in question is a ‘German American.’ The tenacity of the Teuton has preserved his individuality under foreign conditions, and he now forms a distinctly powerful element in the country, lives the same way as if he were in Germany, thinks the same thoughts, and clings to his language. ”

“ The men were now thoroughly inflamed with the hot new rum, and more than one of them began to cry aloud: ‘It time to get to de reg’lar business.’ But a few still lingered lovingly around the dripping hogshead, catching double handfuls of the fresh spirit in their capacious palms. Presently, one of the women, mad with drink, drew out a short pipe from her filthy pocket and began to fill it to the top with raw tobacco. As she did so, she turned tipsily to a man by her side and asked him for a light. ”

“ The juvenile republican of Europe, panting on the outskirts of exclusivism, makes a great mistake when he imagines America is free from ‘class’ prejudice. Let him emigrate to a house on the wrong side of Boston, and we can promise he will have leisure during the remainder of his life to calculate the difference in degree between the descendants of those whose patent of nobility bears the date of the Mayflower and the representatives in the Old World of Norman blood. ”

“ The man she identified as Godfrey Harleston was no other than Mr George Picknell, my friendly clerk, who had taken so much interest in me, and who had so constantly, although without any seeming intention, directed suspicion to the step-son of Mr Thurles; and if Sam had not been ‘shopped,’ or if Picknell had had the honesty to behave fairly to Sam’s wife, his scheme might have been successful—so far as he was concerned. ”

“ Most of us probably who are in the habit of constantly visiting the Zoological Gardens have heard the roar of the lion—that grand, deep-toned, terrible voice, which seems to make the very air in close proximity to the king of beasts vibrate and quiver. We also frequently read and hear tales of the roar of the tiger ”

“ It is unnecessary to allude here to another aspect of the weed question further than to remark, that a garden owes much of its charm and neatness to its order, cleanliness, and entire absence of weeds. ”

“ In a second, a dozen angry negroes had darted forward, with their savage cutlasses brandished aloft in the air, ready to hack their offending fellow-countryman into a thousand pieces. But Delgado, his black hands held up with a warning air before them, thundered out in a tone of bitter indignation: ‘Doan’t kill him!—doan’t kill him! My children, kill in good order. Dar is plenty buckra for you to kill, witout want to kill your own brudder. ”

“ But there are others besides our children who may gain a useful knowledge in natural history by a stroll through the Zoological Gardens; and one hopes for a still more profitable effect in the ideas of many; for when studying the structure, the form, and the habits of even the meanest of creatures, it is hardly possible for the reflective mind to resist feeling a sense of the power and wisdom of the Creator. ”

“ It is somewhat extraordinary that neither lion nor tiger has the power of climbing trees. They can make prodigious springs and bounds, but cannot clamber up a tree ‘hand over hand,’ so to speak, like the bear; and this is the more surprising when we remember that the jaguar, the puma, and the leopard, like all the smaller cats, are active, expert climbers. True, both lion and tiger are far larger and heavier than any other of the felidæ ”

“ If so, study the German character in the lower middle class. Is this class, however, making all allowance for humanity, morally sound, and is it the same in the United States? We answer unhesitatingly, ‘Yes;’ though perhaps in Europe it ought to be limited to Northern Germany. We would also affirm that the men in both countries are intellectually decidedly above their customs or their manners; while the women ripen early, and have a natural vivacity added to good appearance, which supplies the want of a corresponding culture. ”

“ That America should be more Germanised than Irishised or Frenchified, is a tribute to the higher qualities of the Teuton; and that a certain class of Americans could become so transformed from its original type, only tells how completely it has been absorbed, and how far away it already is from the Anglo-Saxon race. ”

“ Probably the tiger, on account of his more muscular hind-quarters, would have most friends; but many experienced travellers and sportsmen who have witnessed the extraordinary strength and ferocity of the lion, hold the contrary opinion. In parts of Central India, as also in Kutch and Guzerat in the Bombay Presidency, the Asiatic lion and tiger are still found in the same jungles; but we never hear of the two animals quarrelling and coming to blows. Formerly, the lion of India, on account of the male having a shorter mane, was considered to be of a different species from his African brother ”

“ The old elephant chained up beneath the tamarind tree stays for a moment swaying his great body backwards and forwards, and listens attentively. His neighbour, a gray Arab horse, with pricked-up ears, gazes uneasily in the direction the sound appeared to come from; while the dogs, just before lying panting and motionless in the moonlight, spring to their feet with bristling back and lowered tail, and with growls of fear disappear under the tent fly. ”

“ Before speaking individually of the many interesting animals to be seen in the Zoological Gardens, it is right to point out, for the benefit of the uninitiated, or to those who have never visited a foreign land, and consequently have not had the opportunity of seeing wild creatures in a state of nature, that though the great majority of the prisoners we see there doubtless give a true idea of their habits when roaming in their native jungles, yet many of the quadrupeds, more especially those bred in the Gardens, cannot altogether be relied upon in this respect ”

“ With regard to weeds generally, it must always be borne in mind by the farmer and gardener that they not only deprive the growing crops of the food intended for them only, but their presence robs the young plant of the air, light, moisture, and heat essential for its healthy development. It is quite possible, however, that some of the plants we now condemn as weeds will some day be utilised as green crops and ploughed in. ”

“ What have we more charming, for instance, than traveller’s joy (Clematis vitalba) , bryony, dogrose, or the large white bindweed? And as to some other weeds, which of our garden plants figure so largely in pictures as the foxglove, purple loosestrife (Lithrum salicaria) , the teasel, or the dock? Nevertheless, they are weeds, and as such, are entirely out of place on the garden or farm. Robbers and usurpers are they, to be ignominiously decapitated or uprooted, and consigned to the rubbish-heap or the flames.
Nature, it must be remembered, never sleeps ”

“ But ample space and outdoor exercise are also great desiderata, and in this respect it must be confessed that the Lion-house of our own Zoological Gardens does not compare favourably with buildings intended for a like purpose to be seen at Berlin and other continental collections. At the Thiergarten, Berlin—where may be seen a magnificent troop of seven or eight lions all in one large inclosure—there is a rocky hill—made secure, so far as the public are concerned, by a circle of high iron railings, and connected by doorways with the ordinary winter dens. ”

“ If the poor soul could only have known it, he might have added with perfect truth that it was the end of every other negro rebellion too; the white man is always too strong for them. But hope springs eternal in the black breast as in all others, and it was with a placid smile of utter oblivion that he added next minute: ‘But we doan’t gwine to be beaten dis time. We too strong ourselbes now for de soldier an’ de buckra. Delgado make tings all snug; buy pistol, drill naygur, plan battle, till we sure ob de victory. ”

“ There is, therefore, a hard task before the American people—the necessity to weld into an harmonious whole European elements with long histories of animosity to each other, at all times more or less active, possessing Old World grievances that are inoperative in the United States, and bent upon maintaining their own ideas under the shelter of a common home. That measures will be taken to suppress the disturbances of divers nationalities whenever they occur against the American people, there is no doubt ”

“ In our changeable climate, more especially during the long dreary winter-months, when the ground is often covered with snow and hard frosts prevail, animals like the lion, the tiger, and the leopard, accustomed to tropical climates and a more equable temperature than ours, necessarily require their dens to be artificially heated, and great care taken to guard against their suffering from the extreme cold. ”

“ The Australian colonies and New Zealand, according to one of the Indian journals, drink far more tea per head of population than the British Islands. The Australians come first, with 7.66 pounds per head; the New Zealanders next, with 7.23 pounds per head; while the people of Great Britain, though appearing third in the list, consume only 4.90 pounds each. Newfoundland and Canada come next; while in the United States the consumption is only 1.30 pound per head; and in Russia, which is always regarded as a great tea-drinking country, the consumption is only 0.61 pound per head. ”

“ It must be allowed, however, that the Asiatic lion is altogether a less courageous and dangerous beast than the animal inhabiting the African continent; and our experienced Indian hunters assert that the former, even when fired at, wounded, and driven to bay, seldom turns on his pursuers and fights to the death after the manner of the royal tiger. ”

“ It is a high-standing, slender creature, thin across the loins like a greyhound, and carrying the tail more after the manner of the dog than the true cat.
As being the largest of the group before us, the lion and the tiger naturally attract our chief attention. These champions of the Old World have many a time in the days of ancient Rome been pitted the one against the other in mortal combat ”

“ Does he brag like a schoolboy and believe that existence centres in himself? If he does, make the acquaintance of the first German at the nearest watering-place. Does he, in his native town, when aspiring to a higher place in the respect of the citizens, turn himself quite inside out in the effort to be agreeable? ”

“ If there is anything which characterises an Englishman, as distinct from the rest of his species, it is his sensitiveness on the point of similarity to his kind, and his willingness in carrying this out, to submit himself to personal inconvenience, rather than allow any singularity to appear. Where this comes in, the American does not bow to the same strict conventional rule, his constant activity and the dissimilitude of life having of necessity forced him to take circumstances into account. ”

“ Belgium, Sweden, Austria-Hungary, and Spain consume less than the other European nations; but there is not one nation on the continent, with the exception of Holland, in which the annual consumption exceeds one pound per head. But in certain parts of the countries named, tea-drinking is much more common than in others. In certain Russian districts, especially, tea is drunk constantly and copiously, and it is this fact which has given rise to the notion that Russia is the most bibulous of all tea-drinking countries.
TO A CHERRY BLOSSOM. ”

“ Seeds from the fir-cones, dropped years ago, are partially relieved from the superincumbent pressure, germinate, and in a few years supply the places of those that are destroyed. But every summer breeze wafts the winged seeds of the thistle, dandelion, the coltsfoot, groundsel, and many others, far and wide. Borne aloft on their tiny parachutes, they sail along until a summer shower bears them down to a moist, warm, resting-place in the field or wild. ”