paid for help to the poor. Was this stupidity or cruelty? Was the mind of Dives so lulled by comfort and dulled by an overfed carcass as to be incapable of realising the sufferings of Lazarus, or of perceiving what an ugly footnote his presence on the premises furnished to the gorgeous text of the rich man's life? or did he actually derive pleasure from the evil contrast between his own ease and the beggar's misery? If the latter was the case, then it was only an extreme instance of what may be commonly observed, that the delight of possession is enhanced to base minds by the fact that others have to go without. No man can eat his own weight in much less than six weeks: the motive that makes a rich man load his table with provisions far beyond the capacity of his guests (as is commonly done) is not hospitality but ostentation. A. has a dinner of six courses served, so B. is unhappy unless he can amaze his guests with one of seven. A. cannot afford six courses: B. accomplishes seven, and the only gratification he gets out of the feat is that he has done what A. has to deny himself.

But it is more likely that stupidity-inertness of intellect, either innate or acquired was the source of Dives's wickedness. Observe, it is neither the poverty and suffering of Lazarus that it is impossible to bring into harmony with the wealthy establishment; poverty and pain are necessary ingredients in many a beautiful composition. The rich man's gate should be the surest place for the poor man to go to for succour; his presence there completes the picture. The irreconcilable discord lies in the fact that his condition was cared for, his wounds untended, except by the dogs. Sympathy is

un

but the action of healthy imagination, causing one being to feel for and with another. Imagination itself is but the offspring of memory and experience; what we have never known we can only depict in our minds by comparison with what we have known. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man to conceive" things which transcend his experience. We could imagine neither joy nor sorrow had we never smiled or wept; and it is incredible to those who have not watched the process, how dwarfed or warped the imagination may become in one accustomed to have everything done and found for him; who has never known what it is to feel a want without the means of satisfying it. When the imagination is dwarfed, the result is stupidity; when it is warped, cruelty: and it is the peculiarity of these two vices, that they are devoid even of that quality which permits the employment of other kinds of guilt as artistic material. Unlovely in themselves, they do not even by contrast enhance their corresponding virtues. Stupidity is of no service as a foil for wit and wisdom; cruelty adds no whit to the sweetness of mercy. Therefore it behoves every one who concerns himself with the harmony of this world to wage unrelenting war against these two "lothely

human character the core of a savage, vengeful nature, the heart of the predatory animal, dominated and in some degree concealed by Christianity (the one creed which softens men's hearts), civilisation, and education, but neither dominated nor concealed among certain races where these have had no sway. It may be asked of those whose habit it is to extol the past at the expense of the present, whether some progress has not been made in teaching men to be merciful not only to their fellows but also to the lower animals. A couple of centuries ago the very heyday of the good old times-it seems hardly to have dawned on men's minds that the sufferings of brutes were worthy of serious consideration. Great scandal was caused when, in 1722, the Rev. James Granger (the eponymous founder of the school of Grangerites) preached a sermon against cruelty to animals, and printed it under the title of 'Apology for the Brute Creation, or Abuse of Animals censured.' His parishioners were indignant, and it is recorded that the mention of horses and dogs was resented as a prostitution of the dignity of the pulpit, and was thought to be a proof of the excellent man's insanity.

All honour to Mr Granger, and grateful honour to the men and women who work so diligently now to carry on the work he so well begun. There is plenty left for us all to do. Many cruel practices have been put down by law, and there prevails among most people such a degree of tender mercy towards their speechless fellow - creatures as would make Mr Granger's parishioners rub their eyes and wonder what kind of finikin folk we had be

is

are born cruel, and that mercy a matter of education. Many a fair day is darkened by one witnessing a cruel act. Such was one of the first bright mornings of the present laggard spring. On a common near London a couple of clowns were observed intently watching some object in the grass. Four or five decently dressed people had been attracted to look on, and the curiosity of one passing having been excited, he also joined the group, only to witness a piece of brutality the recollection of which haunted him for many days. A lizard, than which there is no more shapely or harmless creature (with a pedigree, moreover, that puts to shame the proudest human families, for it is the heir of the mighty saurians of Pleiocene times), had come out to bask in the welcome sun. These trousered monsters had caught it and cut it in two, in order to watch the movements of the mutilated parts, and laughed (Lord! is there anything so cruel as laughter?) as the head and tail moved in different directions.

So these two, cruelty and stupidity, remain, the perpetual foes of sweetness and light, each an intolerable discord in the harmony of creation. The hatefulness of cruelty makes many people doubt the possibility of eternal punishment. They feel it impossible to believe that God would permit the existence of creatures whose whole occupation is to be the infliction. of torment. Let any one who has visited, say, the marble-quarries of Carrara, and witnessed the lifelong misery borne by the wretched oxen hauling the heavy blocks, doubt, if he can, that men are sometimes as relentlessly cruel as any devils. Nay, but there is worse than this and nearer home. The following ugly little vignette ap

It often occurs to some of us to doubt whether much of the time and money we spend in afflicting young souls with compulsory education is not sheer waste. One result seems to be the rearing of children to aspirations far beyond the humble callings of their parents, and by so much to unfit them for lowly duties which must be exacted somewhere; but perhaps this is only the initial jar incident to novelty. The true end of education is to equip the student, not to unfit him: surely toil may be lightened to the workman whose senses are trained to apprehend the scale of nature's contrasts, the

mighty and grand-as in the contrast of continent with ocean, or floating cloud with massive mountain-as well as the small and exquisite, as in the bursting of scarlet flower from grey bulb, of tender leaf from harsh twig, or brilliant insect from dry chrysalis. There is no room for stupidity in the mind that has been wakened to this limitless harmony, and penetrated by the light of beauty, in which cruelty cannot exist, for it is the dark places of the earth that are the habitations of cruelty. There is plenty of needless suffering inflicted upon animals still; but any one who remembers agricultural life as it was five-andtwenty years ago, must have observed gratefully the greater consideration shown to workhorses and cattle by the present generation of farm-servants, especially in the northern part of this island. Scotland has for centuries led the van of education, and her people seem still to maintain that honourable place, inasmuch as they display in a greater degree than their southern fellowsubjects that sure token of true culture-gentleness to dumb ani

mals.

HERBERT MAXWELL.

SOME authorities on matters pertaining to angling would have us believe that the fish are more wideawake than they used to be, and that tackle on finer and more scientific principles, with far more elaborate baiting, is now required. This is certainly made to perfection; and yet there is something far more necessary to success than all this, and that is a knowledge of the haunts and the habits of the fish angled for. As a rule, fish are very much like "humans" in having varying ways of living and of behaving themselves in different localities. What will serve the angler in one county or even in one part of the same county, will be quite useless in another.

This is why the rustic angler, an agricultural labourer perhaps, will, with his primitive fishing-gear, get a good basket of fish, to the great astonishment of those less fortunate fishers who may be using the latest of modern appliances. The rustic knows the run and the lie of the water, accurately to a yard. From his childhood he has been familiar with it; he knows, too, the favourite foods of the fish as the seasons vary. He is well aware, also, how necessary it is to hide himself by all possible means from the sight of the fish: as he says, "They eyes is mortal quick; they sees you lots o' times afore you gets a glint on 'em." His knowledge of woodcraft gives him the knack of moving quietly; and what a valuable habit or gift that of quiet action is, either in gentle or simple folks! The latter may not practise it at all times, but they can when it is necessary. To see a great fellow come through

the tangle and lay himself down by the brook for a side-cast upstream, without so much as startling the moor-hen that is feeding near at hand, is an interesting and common enough sight with us.

If pike have come out of good waters they are a fine enough fish for the table, but as a game sporting fish the pike is all that can be desired. When he has smashed up everything, and left me considering the vexatious incidents that are apt to attend his capture, I have found him more than I could desire. Now and again great brutes, about which the rustics have legends, rush from their haunts in the roots of flag, reed, and tangle, and seize a jack of three or four pounds by the middle

-one that the angler was in the act of landing-close to the bank. Then, for a brief space, may be seen a tearing struggle; smash go the first and second joints of your rod and a part of your line, with the hooked jack, and all is over. I have known some younger members of the rustic angling community to be so unnerved by mishaps of the kind that nothing could induce them to fish again in or near the water where this had occurred. They sum the creatures up as dangerous to get near with either hand or foot." For my part I prefer the middle-sized fish for sport and for the table.

One of the pike's favourite haunts I know well. Changes have take place since I first remember it, but it is not greatly altered. The old mill, as grey and as dusty as of old, stands yet surrounded by woods. There is the road winding between heath and

bracken towards the upland moors; and there, too, is the other road, lined on either side with foresttimber, which leads to a secluded hamlet. The large rush-and-alder-fringed mill-pool is as it was, but the causewaycawsey" the rustics call it with its sloping weir-boards - "splash-boords' exists no longer. On each side of this stone-covered cart-road, which was protected by posts and rails, the pool extended, and a plank foot-bridge running directly over the sloping splash-boards was used by the customers who came from the hamlet to the mill. general rule the water on the causeway was about six inches deep, but sometimes it was more. The miller's horses and cattle were constantly passing to and fro over it during the day.

As a

On this waterway in the daytime the small fish delighted to congregate, for food and warmth were there; but in the gudgeon season these little beauties would come in shoals just at the dusk of the evening from a small stream that ran in near by, and they fed on the stones of the causeway, which had been warmed by the sun. Aquatic insect-life was there in great abundance. As the small stream ran round a little bend direct on to the cart-track, the gudgeon had no occasion to swim in the mill-pool; it would have been fatal for them to venture there. The pike knew, however, when the toothsome, luscious little fishes were feeding on the stones, and they would gather on both sides of the causeway for the purpose of better acquaintance, if possible. When the head of water in that particular season was high enough in the pond to cause a run over the splash-boards into the pool, certain friends of mine, who,

as they put it, "knowed what they was arter," would gather on the foot-plank bridge, with the full consent of the miller, who was wroth about a lot of his young ducks that had lost the number of their mess through those voracious pike. The lads had noticed that when the gudgeon shoaled on the stones the pike were on the watch. Now and again a small pike would sail on the causeway, poise himself for a moment, and then make a rush for them, causing a dire commotion. Some threw themselves clean out of the water, others made for the pond never to return again. You could see fierce rushes and swirls where the pike were quite ready for them. Some, in their fright, would venture too near the current that ran over the splash-boards, and, after vain efforts to recover themselves, would wriggle down, tail first, into the other side of the mill-pool, to be instantly snapped up by the pike there.

Roach and small trout the monsters could have in abundance; that was their common food, easy enough to get whenever they required it; it would have been useless to try to capture them with either of these: but gudgeon were a luxury which they tried their hardest to procure when it was possible.

Now gudgeon are, at certain times troubled by some law known to themselves-compelled, like eels, to make down-stream. Let any one curious in such matters, who knows their haunts, watch them gather for days-if there is any fall in the water— before they will finally allow themselves to be carried over, tail first, into the current below. They do not all go over at the same timea few, the finest fish, slip over first, in small companies, as if to show,