BORES OF THE PRESS.
SOLOMON confessed ignorance of three things, and there are certain appearances which have puzzled the wise of all times. LAZARILLO de TORMES tells us that no philosopher can explain why fly-dung is white on brown paper, and brown on white. WALTER SCOTT again is at his wits end when he sees a dog performing the ceremony of turning round thrice before he couches. No man under the sun has a capacity of intellect equal to the discovery of the cause or causes why dustmen wear red breeches. But these mysteries— serpents on the rocks, fly-dung, the dog's pirouette, red-breeches- are all surpassed in our minds by certain riddles of the Daily Press. Why is it, in the name of SoeossoN, (Epirus, and MICHAEL SCOTT the old wizard, or WALTER SCOTT the younger one, that we read every day of our lives of the Medico-Botanical Society ; and why is it that we read every year of our lives of the gifts of Maunday Thursday ? These appearances must rank with the dustman's breeches, among the inexplicables. Why do we never take up a newspaper without seeing sonie such announcement as that, " Yesterday, Chicgahaloombagalsee, King of the TOM.,,Z00 Is- lands, was received a member of the Medico-Botanical Society ? " What concerns it the public to know what number of kings have become members of that Society ; and why don't they rather tell us what they grow ? There are certain things which grieve merely by the repetition. Let a drop of water fall on a man's head, and it conveys but the indifferent sensation of a drop of water ; repeat it regularly, and it becomes a torture of the most unendurable de- scription. So is it with the Medico-Botanical Society paragraphs. A new mad-house will be necessary for the reception of the luna- tics they will infallibly make. We know a score of people at least who are excited to a phrensy of wrathful curiosity by the sight of them. They crumole up the paper, gnash their teeth, and cry " What the D— is 'the Medico-Botanical Society, and who cares what kings are members of it.? "—But an older grief than this is Maunday Thursday to us. Since we were the height of the table on which we write, we remember to have read, in exactly the same words, regularly every Good Friday, that " Yesterday being Maim- day Thursday," Sec. beef and stockings were given to sonic, old men and women. Then came the graces all at length, and these inter- esting particulars :— " A wooden platter, containing two salt cod, two salt salmon, eighteen red and a similar number of salt herrings, and four loaves, was then placed before each person."
Then the anthems arc recited, with their accompaniments of gifts —" Blessed is he," goes with shoes and stockings : " Praise the Lord," with woollen and linen ; " 0 Lord, grant i he King," purses of money ; and " Blessed be thou," is the stave for a flagon filled with wine.
" time data pcena diu viventibus"
that every year we have repeated to our weary eye this stereotyped account of the red herrings, worsted stockings, beef, beer, grand hymns, and little silver pennies of Maunday Thursday.
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