being
all surprised at once. The early French missionaries in Canada, also
asserted that the squirrels of that region, having denuded the country on
one side of the big lake, of nuts, used to take pieces of birch bark, and
hoisting their tails for canvass, float to the other side for their
supply.' We have been struck with a passage in a powerful article upon
'_The Hope that is within Us_,' in a late foreign periodical, wherein the
fruitful theme of our correspondent is touched upon. 'If matter,' says the
writer, 'be incapable of consciousness, as JOHNSON so powerfully argues in
_Rasselas_, then the _animus_ of brutes must be an _anima_, and
immaterial; for the dog and the elephant not merely exhibit
'consciousness,' but a 'half-reasoning' power. And if it be true, as
JOHNSON maintains, that immateriality of necessity produces immortality,
then the poor Indian's conclusion is the most logical,

'Who thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.'

The truth is, that we must depend upon _revelation_ for an assurance of
immortality; which promises, however, the resurrection of the body, as
philosophy is unequal to its demonstration, and modern researches into
animal life have rendered the proof more difficult than heretofore.' By
the by, 'speaking of animals:' there is a letter from LEMUEL GULLIVER in
the last number of BLACKWOOD, describing a meeting of 'delegates from the
different classes of consumers of _oats_, held at the Nag's-Head inn at
Horsham.' The business of the meeting was opened by a young RACER, who
expressed his desire to promote the interests of the horse-community, and
to promote any measure which might contribute to the increase of the
consumption of oats, and improve the condition of his fellow quadrupeds.
He considered the horse-interest greatly promoted by the practice of
sowing wild oats, which he warmly commended. A HACKNEY-COACH HORSE
declared himself in favor of the _sliding-scale_, which he understood to
mean the wooden pavement. Things went much more smoothly wherever it was
established. He contended for the abolition of nose-bags, which he
designated as an intolerable nuisance; urged the prohibition of chaff with
oats, as unfit for the use of able-bodied horses; and indeed evinced the
truth of his professions, that he 'yielded to no horse in an anxious
desire to promote the true interests of the horse-community.' An OLD
ENGLISH HUNTER impressed upon the young