Between August 1, 1826, and August 1, 1827, 212 vessels have passed through the Caledonian canal from sea to sea. 295 vessels have made partial passages through one end of the canal, to and from various ports; 74 boats, not above 15 tons burden each, have been employed in the carriage of articles to the fishery stations; and 91 steam-boats have passed through the canal, all within the period abovementioned. _Medicine._ A respectable contemporary journal gives the following calculations on the relative state of the medical profession in London and Paris. The French have long objected to the multitude of our professors, and the drugs they employ; and it would seem by this comparative statement that their objection is not ill-founded:-- In _London_ there are 174 physicians, or 1 physician to 700 inhabitants; 1,000 surgeons, or 1 surgeon to 1,200 inhabitants; 2,000 apothecaries, or 1 apothecary to 600 inhabitants. In _Paris_ there is 1 physician to 1,300 inhabitants; 1 surgeon to 6,000 inhabitants; 1 apothecary to 4,450 inhabitants. Being in the proportion of 1 physician in Paris to 5 in London; 5 surgeons in London to 1 in Paris; 7 apothecaries in London to 1 in Paris. Supposing, on an average, each of these persons to receive 1,000_l._ a year, the whole income of the medical profession in London would be 3,474,000_l._ annually. _Poor Rates._ About the close of the seventeenth century, the poors' rates of England and Wales were stated, on the authority of parliamentary documents, to amount to 665,362_l._; and the population of both to 5,475,000. In 1821, the poors' rates amounted to about 7,000,000_l._, and the population to 12,218,000. Dividing the greater rates 7,000,000_l._ by the lesser 665,362_l._, we have about 10-1/2 to 1, which is the proportion in which the poors' rates have increased in the last 127 years. And dividing the greater population 12,218,000 by the lesser 5,475,000, give about 2-1/2 to 1, which is the proportionate increase of population during that space of time. _Van Dieman's Land Wasp._ The wasp of Van Dieman's Land is a smaller but much more splendid insect than the English wasp; it has four orange-coloured wings, and horns and legs of the same colour, a hard body, and a formidable sting. It is an inhabitant of the forest, and is at war with a spider that makes its hole in the sandy places, and which is armed with a cap or door, which it pulls over on the approach of its enemy, or in rainy weather. The wasp hovers close over the ground, prowling from one hole to another. Having seized its prey, it immediately kills the spider, and carries it off to its own hole, when it is said to devour the limbs, and to deposit its egg in the body to be hatched by the putrefaction that ensues, and which furnishes food for the young insect produced. * * * * * THE SKETCH-BOOK. No. XLVIII. * * * * * HIGHLAND SUPERSTITION.