t, even in this relaxation, the old energy and
earnestness of purpose asserted themselves. He toiled and experimented,
watching the growth of his plants and flowers with more than professional
pains. Nor is it improbable that the ardour which led him to confine
himself for hours together in a heated and unhealthy atmosphere led to
his fatal illness.

"We are bound, then, to mark and admit how much the moral element in the
worker contributed to his success, and to the freshness of the regard
which is felt for his memory and name. England is proud of his works,
but prouder still of the man who did them. Far different would have been
the result if impatience, ungenerousness, and love of greed had marred
his life and work. The tributes of respect which we gladly lay upon his
tomb to-day, would probably have been placed elsewhere."

REMARKABLE COINCIDENCES.

Many years ago the editor of this book and an elderly lady, the widow of
a well-known farmer, took tickets from Little Bytham for Edenham in
Lincolnshire. They were the only passengers, and as the railway passed
for nearly two miles through Grimsthorpe park, she asked the driver if he
would stop at a certain spot which would have saved us both perhaps
half-a-mile's walk. The request was politely refused. After going a
good distance the train was suddenly pulled up. I opened the window and
found it had stopped at the very spot we desired. The stoker came
running by with a fine hare which the train had run over. I said we can
get out now and he said, Oh yes. And so through this strange
misadventure to poor pussy our walk was much shortened.

Some years before the above occurrence I was travelling by the early
morning mail train from the Midlands to the West of England. At Taunton
I perceived a crowd of persons gathered at the front of the train. I
went forward and saw a corpse was being removed from the van to a hearse
outside the station. On reading the inscription on the coffin plate I
was somewhat taken aback to find my own name. So Richard Pike living and
Richard Pike dead had been travelling by the same train. Perhaps rarely,
if ever, have two more singular circumstances occurred in connection with
railway travelling.

LOSS OF TASTE.

Serjeant Ballantine in his _Experiences of a Barrister's Life_,
says:--"There was a singular physical fact connected with him (Sir Edward
Belcher), he had entirely lost the sense of taste; this he f