ur circulation. He would
diet you with salt, vinegar, alum, and sometimes, vitriol. Boiling water
would be poured on your feet when you seemed ready to faint. It would
be his boast that he could keep life within you for two or more weeks
longer than would have been possible without his treatment. Would you
not have preferred to have been killed at once when you were first
captured? What were the crimes you must have committed during your past
incarnation to warrant such punishment in this?

The wanton waste of flowers among Western communities is even more
appalling than the way they are treated by Eastern Flower Masters. The
number of flowers cut daily to adorn the ballrooms and banquet-tables of
Europe and America, to be thrown away on the morrow, must be something
enormous; if strung together they might garland a continent. Beside
this utter carelessness of life, the guilt of the Flower-Master becomes
insignificant. He, at least, respects the economy of nature, selects
his victims with careful foresight, and after death does honour to their
remains. In the West the display of flowers seems to be a part of the
pageantry of wealth,--the fancy of a moment. Whither do they all go,
these flowers, when the revelry is over? Nothing is more pitiful than to
see a faded flower remorselessly flung upon a dung heap.

Why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless? Insects can
sting, and even the meekest of beasts will fight when brought to bay.
The birds whose plumage is sought to deck some bonnet can fly from its
pursuer, the furred animal whose coat you covet for your own may hide
at your approach. Alas! The only flower known to have wings is the
butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer. If they
shriek in their death agony their cry never reaches our hardened ears.
We are ever brutal to those who love and serve us in silence, but the
time may come when, for our cruelty, we shall be deserted by these best
friends of ours. Have you not noticed that the wild flowers are becoming
scarcer every year? It may be that their wise men have told them to
depart till man becomes more human. Perhaps they have migrated to
heaven.

Much may be said in favor of him who cultivates plants. The man of the
pot is far more humane than he of the scissors. We watch with delight
his concern about water and sunshine, his feuds with parasites, his
horror of frosts, his anxiety when the buds come slowly, his rapture
when th