'Cape Breton an island!' cried King George's Minister, the Duke of
Newcastle, in the well-known story, 'Cape Breton an island! Why, so it
is! God bless my soul! I must go and tell the King that Cape Breton's
an island.' That was a hundred years ago; but only the other day the
Board of Trade placarded all our towns and villages with a flaming
notice to the effect that the Colorado beetle had made its appearance at
'a town in Canada called Ontario,' and might soon be expected to arrive
at Liverpool by Cunard steamer. The right honourables and other high
mightinesses who put forth the notice in question were evidently unaware
that Ontario is a province as big as England, including in its borders
Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, London, Hamilton, and other large and
flourishing towns. Apparently, in spite of competitive examinations, the
schoolmaster is still abroad in the Government offices.
GO TO THE ANT
In the market-place at Santa Fe, in Mexico, peasant women from the
neighbouring villages bring in for sale trayfuls of living ants, each
about as big and round as a large white currant, and each entirely
filled with honey or grape sugar, much appreciated by the ingenuous
Mexican youth as an excellent substitute for Everton toffee. The method
of eating them would hardly command the approbation of the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It is simple and primitive, but
decidedly not humane. Ingenuous youth holds the ant by its head and
shoulders, sucks out the honey with which the back part is absurdly
distended, and throws away the empty body as a thing with which it has
now no further sympathy.
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