freely and uselessly. The
rail-road speculators have taken off many millions, and the money is
well employed; for even allowing that, in some instances, the
expectations of the parties who speculate may be disappointed, still it
is spent in the country; and not only is it affording employment and
sustenance to thousands, but the staple produce of England only is
consumed. In these speculations--in the millions required and
immediately produced, you can witness the superiority of England.
Undertakings from which foreign governments would shrink with dismay are
here effected by the meeting of a few individuals.

And now for my commissions. What a list! And the first item is--two
Canary birds, the last having been one fine morning found dead: nobody
knows how; there was plenty of seed and water (put in after the servant
found that they had been starved by his neglect), which, of course,
proved that they did not die for want of food. I hate what are called
pets; they are a great nuisance, for they will die, and then such a
lamentation over them! In the "Fire Worshippers" Moore makes his Hinda
say--

"I never nursed a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well
And love me--it was sure to die."

Now Hinda was perfectly correct, except in thinking that she was
peculiarly unfortunate. Every one who keeps pets might tell the same
tale as Hinda. I recollect once a Canary bird died, and my young people
were in a great tribulation; so to amuse them we made them a paper
coffin, put the defunct therein, and sewed on the lid, dug a grave in
the garden, and dressing them out in any remnants of black we could find
for weepers, made a procession to the grave where it was buried. This
little divertissement quite took their fancy. The next day one of the
youngest came up to me and said, "Oh, papa, when will you die?"--A
strange question, thought I, quite forgetting the procession of the day
before.--"Why do you ask, my dear?"--"Oh, because it will be such fun
burying you."--"Much obliged to you, my love."

There is much more intellect in birds than people suppose. An instance
of that occurred the other day, at a slate quarry belonging to a friend,
from whom I have the narrative. A thrush, not aware of the expansive
properties of gunpowder, thought proper to build her nest on a ridge of
the quarry, in the very centre of which they were constantly blasting
the rock. At first