On one occasion, a new servant maid, unacquainted with this system, was sent for the usual quantity of flour of sulphur, but by some mismanagement she brought home a pound of flour of mustard. Her mistress sent her back to the grocer from whom it had been bought, but from previous jealousies or quarrels unnecessary to detail, he refused to take it back again. The poor maid could not herself be expected to substitute the required sulphur, and the old lady was determined that the mustard should not be lost. She accordingly mixed it with the treacle instead of the other substance, and actually ladled every particle of the compound down the throats of her grandchildren and the servant maid, who consented to take her share as a punishment for her inattention, until the whole mixture was consumed. The old lady was less foolish than the farmer who sows the seeds of weeds, because she had previously ascertained that the flour of mustard was harmless; but the husbandman must know that those seeds which are not genuine grass seeds are noxious to his land, by rendering it foul, and it is therefore extravagance and not economy on his part to use bad seeds, merely to save waste. I am sorry to say that the same indifference prevails among the lower classes of our farmers as to seed in general. On this subject I shall again occupy a page of the Journal in an early number. * * * * * A LAZY DOG.--Dr Arnaud d’Antilli, one day talking with the Duke de Laincourt upon the new philosophy of M. Descartes, maintained that beasts were mere machines; that they had no sort of reason to direct them; and that when they cried or made a noise, it was only one of the wheels of the clock or machine that made it. The Duke, who was of a different opinion, replied, “I have now in my kitchen two turnspits which take their turns regularly every other day to get into the wheel; one of them not liking his employment, hid himself on the day he should have wrought, so that his companion was forced to mount the wheel in his stead; when released, by crying and wagging his tail, he made a sign for those in attendance to follow him. He immediately conducted them to a garret, where he dislodged the idle dog and bit him severely.”--_Dublin University Magazine._ CURIOUS COINCIDENCES. One of the most fruitful sources of superstition, and that which has been most productive of what are styled “well-founded and authenticated stories of supernatural occurrences,” is that Protean monster known in all its forms by the general appellation of “Remarkable or Curious Coincidences.” The frequent occurrence of events precisely similar in their details, though perfectly simple and ordinary individually, is apt to be considered, first, as remarkable, and, if again repeated, wonderful.