Mr Shirley Hibberd’s paper on the Protection of British Wild-flowers, recently read before the Horticultural Club, London, calls attention to the possible extinction of many of our wild plants. Many of these are in great demand for political as well as horticultural purposes, and the lecturer made special mention of the modest primrose. He petitioned all those who truly love the country to abstain from purchasing wild plants from travelling hucksters, whose baskets represent the half-way house for a plant on the road to extinction. He also strongly deprecated the practice of offering prizes for wild-flowers at flower-shows, as being another cause which must help extinction. Sir Joseph Fayrer, in a recent lecture delivered in London on Cholera, said that contagion by personal intercourse was a theory of the disease which was no longer tenable. The British and Indian governments, who were in possession of well-ascertained facts concerning this subject, had discontinued all quarantine measures, and relied solely upon sanitary laws. In perfect sanitation resided the sole means of preventing the disease; and every individual should be scrupulously careful in his living and clothing as the best means of prevention. Care in diet, avoidance of all depressing influences, precautions against chills, violent alternations of temperature, impure water, unripe fruit, were the main considerations for those who wished to be safe from cholera. In addition to these precautions, the dwellers in every town and village in the country should do their best to secure good ventilation, perfect drainage, and should avoid overcrowding. Many of these safeguards are unfortunately beyond the scope of individual effort, especially in our crowded cities; but much good could be done if public bodies would only do their duty. One of the London vestry clerks has proposed a comprehensive scheme for getting rid of and utilising the contents of the London dustbins. On the banks of the Thames between Tilbury and Southend there is an expanse of useless, marshy land which only waits the process of reclamation. The proposal is to convey the refuse of London to this land and to turn it into profitable terra-firma. It is calculated that the metropolis pays at present one hundred and twenty thousand pounds annually for the removal of dust and road-sweepings, which go to the farmers and brickmakers. If the new scheme could be carried out at the same or less cost, Londoners would be glad to adopt it. At present, householders are entirely at the mercy of the contractor, who undertakes to remove the dust regularly, but does not do so.