Literary Lapses

III.--REMAINS OF BOTANY. Botany is the art of plants. Plants are divided into trees, flowers, and vegetables. The true botanist knows a tree as soon as he sees it. He learns to distinguish it from a vegetable by merely putting his ear to it. IV.--REMAINS OF NATURAL SCIENCE. Natural Science treats of motion and force. Many of its teachings remain as part of an educated man's permanent equipment in life. Such are: (a) The harder you shove a bicycle the faster it will go. This is because of natural science. (b) If you fall from a high tower, you fall quicker and quicker and quicker; a judicious selection of a tower will ensure any rate of speed. (c) If you put your thumb in between two cogs it will go on and on, until the wheels are arrested, by your suspenders. This is machinery. (d) Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference is, I presume, that one kind comes a little more expensive, but is more durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it. Hoodoo McFiggin's Christmas This Santa Claus business is played out. It's a sneaking, underhand method, and the sooner it's exposed the better. For a parent to get up under cover of the darkness of night and palm off a ten-cent necktie on a boy who had been expecting a ten-dollar watch, and then say that an angel sent it to him, is low, undeniably low. I had a good opportunity of observing how the thing worked this Christmas, in the case of young Hoodoo McFiggin, the son and heir of the McFiggins, at whose house I board.