I have now I think worked out your patience; and though I could dwell much longer on the subject, and eke out much from ancient lore, I will end by a less pompous quotation of part of a well-known song-- ‘A frog he would a-wooing go, Whether his mother would let him or no.’ And the catastrophe, ‘A lily white duck came and gobbled him up.’ Pray apply the moral. Had the said frog had his mind cultivated, and had he been acquainted with nature, he would not have engaged in a thoughtless courtship, that could have no good end, nor have disobeyed the voice of experience, and so met with the fate that awaited him. You may now go on your walk; and if a common frog cannot interest you, take care of the lily white duck.” B. GARDENS FOR THE LABOURING CLASSES. BY MARTIN DOYLE. The advantage which the working man, possessed of a little patch of land at a moderate rent, has over him who is without any, or holds it at a rate greatly above its value (a common case with the Irish labourer), can only be fully understood by those who have narrowly observed in England the respective conditions of the field labourer, with his allotment of a rood or half a rood of garden, and the workman in a town factory. It is very obvious that the garden gives healthful recreation to the family, young and old, who have always some little matter to perform in it, and if they really like the light work of cultivating kitchen vegetables, fruits and flowers, they combine pleasure with profit. Here is something on which they can always fall back as a resource if a day’s work for hire is interrupted--they can make up at home for so much lost time--the children have something rational and useful to do, instead of _blackguarding_ about roads and streets--they help to raise the potatoes and cabbages, &c., which with prudent management materially assist their housekeeping. The benefits which have arisen to the labourer and all the rural poor in England who have obtained from ten to forty perches of garden from land-proprietors or farmers, or those who have the privilege of encroaching upon commons for the purpose, is truly surprising. Much of this is attributable to the exertions of the London Labourers’ Friend Society, who, in an age when party violence divides man from his fellows, and excites from some quarter or other opposition to every system designed for the common good, have quietly but steadily pursued their own way.