I commenced by saying I feared that this narrative might fail in pointing a moral. It has a moral--a moral to selfish and ill-judging parents, and equally ill-judging societies, who lay the flattering unction to their souls that _coercion_ will have a better effect than a fair and _consistent example_. Verily, the Spartan nobles, who exhibited the drunken slave before their children, and then placed the wine-cup within their reach, had a better knowledge of human nature than the Irish father who would exorcise the demon of alcohol out of his children by pledges of abstinence, or threats of punishment, while, in the security of his own experience, he feels _he_ can temperately enjoy the luxury of spirituous drink.[1] R. M. [1] From the Londonderry Standard. * * * * * Fine connexions are apt to plunge you into a sea of extravagance, and then not to throw you a rope to save you from drowning. SAP IN VEGETABLES. SECOND AND CONCLUDING ARTICLE. We endeavoured in our last article to describe the principal circumstances of interest with respect to the ascending or unelaborated sap. We have found that it is derived from the aliment which consists of water and carbonic acid; that it is composed of a solution of sugar and gum in water; that it ascends in the ordinary trees of this country through the wood, which is situated between the bark and pith; that the causes which elevate it are partly a vital attraction or suction exercised by the buds, and partly an endosmose, by which, in consequence of its superior density, it draws in its aliment through the spongy extremities of the roots; that its use is not only to furnish materials for the descending or elaborated sap, but by developing the fleshy part of plants to cause the growth of stems in length and roots in thickness. We shall now proceed to show the origin, the course, the composition, and the uses of the descending or elaborated sap. The elaborated sap is formed out of the ascending sap. The place where this change takes place is in the leaves and green parts of vegetables; it is generally in the spring season that the ascending sap pushes out the buds into branches, and developes the little scales which had surrounded these organs into leaves; but when these leaves are formed, the sap continues to ascend into them, and there undergoes those alterations from whence the elaborated sap results. Now, these alterations consist in the getting rid of all superfluous water and carbonic acid, which, originally absorbed as aliment, had not undergone the conversion into gum and sugar during the ascent of the sap; secondly, in the acquisition of additional nutriment from the atmosphere; and, thirdly, in the conversion of these substances into a variety of new compounds.