THE PLUM PUDDING-Part Second.

As soon as the ta-ble cloth was re-moved, and some fruit was placed on the ta-ble, un-cle Rob-ert hand-ed to me a slate and a slate pen-cil, to put down the num-ber of persons who had done an-y thing to-wards ma-king the pud-ding. Har-ry would have it that no-bod-y had an-y thing to do with it but Peg-gy Saun-ders: he was, how-ev-er, ver-y soon of a dif-fer-ent o-pin-ion. Old Mr Raikes ap-peared heart-i-ly to en-joy our won-der as un-cle Rob-ert pro-ceed-ed thus:—

"In ma-king a plum pud-ding flour is used, and to pro-duce this flour man-y persons are em-ployed. The ground has to be ploughed and har-rowed, the seed to be sown, the corn to be reaped and ground, and all must have been done be-fore Peg-gy Saunders could get e-nough at the ba-ker's to make a pud-ding. Now, a plough is formed part-ly of i-ron, and i-ron is pro-cured from a great depth in the earth; per-haps a hun-dred men are employed in these mines be-fore a sin-gle piece of i-ron is pro-duced. Then there is the wood work of the plough and har-row. The tim-ber must have been felled, barked, lopped, and sawn in-to pie-ces for the wheel-wright. The gear-ing of the hors-es which ploughed and har-rowed the field, is part-ly formed of leath-er; this must have been tanned, cur-ried, and worked up in a prop-er manner."

As un-cle Rob-ert pro-ceed-ed, I put down on

my slate the num-bers of the men which he thought had been em-ployed, and I was as-tonished, and so was my broth-er Har-ry.

"Then," con-tin-ued un-cle Rob-ert, "we must con-sid-er that plums, sug-ar, cur-rants, cit-ron, lemon peel, nut-megs, and all-spice, are brought from dif-fer-ent pla-ces a-broad, where num-bers of persons are constant-ly em-ployed to pre-pare them. They are brought a-cross the wide sea in ships. These ships could not be made with-out the as-sist-ance of man-y men, nor nav-i-ga-ted with-out man-y sail-ors. The hen's nest must have been vis-it-ed for eggs; the milk-maid must have been em-ployed in sup-ply-ing milk; the butch-er must have killed the cow be-fore he could sell the su-et ne-ces-sa-ry for the pud-ding."

"Well!" cried I, hold-ing up my slate, "I am sure you might give o-ver now; see how man-y col-umns of fig-ures I have got!" "O no," replied un-cle Rob-ert, "you have got a great deal to do yet; for now the mat-e-ri-als of the pudding are put to-geth-er, it must be boiled; now the wa-ter came from the pump, to make which the pump ma-ker and many of his men have been bus-i-ly oc-cu-pied. The coals which made the fire were got from un-der ground by coll-iers, hundreds of whom ver-y like-ly were em-ployed in the mines whence they were ob-tained. There is, too, the basin in which the pud-ding was boiled : this was made at the pot-ter's. And the cloth in which it was wrapped was woven in some man-u

fac-to-ry." How long un-cle Rob-ert would have gone on I can-not tell, for I lost all pa-tience; so I reckoned up the num-ber on my slate of the work-men and la-bour-ers in wood and i-ron, mechan-ics, mi-ners, ship-wrights, for-eign-ers, and sail-ors, and oth-ers who had di-rect-ly or in-direct-ly done some-thing to-wards pro-du-cing the plum pud-ding on the ta-ble, and found it to be more than double the num-ber that my un-cle had men-tioned.

Har-ry and I stared with a-maze-ment, but we had not a word to say, for the thing was proved be-yond dis-pute.

all parts of the world, ex-cept Au-stra-li-a. Their move-ments are stealth-y, they prowl a-bout at night, eat all they can at one meal, and hide the rest for fu-ture oc-ca-sions. They com-mit great hav-oc on game and poul-try, and their clev-er

ness and ac-tiv-i-ty make it dif-fi-cult to take them. In some coun-tries traps are set for them; but in Eng-land they are gen-er-al-ly hunt-ed with strong hounds, and by men on horse-back. They will run for for-ty or fif-ty miles be-fore they are caught, nev-er los-ing their pres-ence of mind or their cour-age; and when at the end they are o-ver-come, they de-fend them-selves to the last, bite ver-y se-vere-ly, and die with-out ut-ter-ing

even a moan.

The fol-low-ing sto-ry, il-lus-tra-tive of the cunning of the fox, is told by Mr St. John: “I went one sum-mer mor-ning be-fore day-break, to try to shoot a stag, which had done great damage to the crops. Just after it was day-light, I saw a large fox come ver-y qui-et-ly a-long the edge of the plan-ta-tion where I was con-cealed. He looked with great care o-ver the turf wall into the field, and seemed to long ver-y much to get hold of some hares that were feed-ing in it-but ap-pa-rent-ly knew that he had no chance of catch-ing them by dint of run-ning. Af-ter consid-er-ing a short time, he seemed to have formed his plans; for hav-ing ex-am-ined the dif-fer-ent gaps in the wall by which the hares might go in and out, he fixed up-on the one that seemed the most fre-quent-ed, and laid him-self down close to it, like a cat watch-ing a mouse hole. Cun-ning as he was, he was too in-tent on his own hunt-ing to be a-ware that I was with-in twen-ty yards of him with a load-ed ri-fle. I was a-mused to see

the fel-low so com-plete-ly out-wit-ted, and kept my ri-fle read-y to shoot him if he found me out and at-tempt-ed to e-scape.

'In the mean-time I watched his plans. He first with great si-lence and care scraped a small hol-low in the ground as a hi-ding place for himself; ev-er-y now and then, how-ev-er, he stopped to listen and some-times to take a most cau-tious peep in-to the field. When he had done this, he laid him-self down in a con-ve-nient post-ure for spring-ing up-on his prey, and re-mained perfect-ly mo-tion-less. When the sun be-gan to

rise, the hares came one by one from the field to the cov-ert of the plan-ta-tion. Three had alread-y come in with-out pass-ing by his am-bush, One of them came with-in twen-ty yards of him, but he made no move-ment be-yond crouch-ing still more flat-ly to the ground. Pres-ent-ly two came di-rect-ly to-wards him. Though he did not ven-ture to look up, I saw by the mo-tion of his ears that those quick or-gans had al-read-y warned him of their ap-proach. The two hares came through the gap to-geth-er, and the fox, springing with the quick-ness of light-ning, caught one and killed her. He then lift-ed up his boot-y, and was car-ry-ing it off like a re-triev-er, when my ri-fle stopped his course, and I went up and despatched him. Af-ter see-ing this, I nev-er wondered a-gain as to how a fox could make prey of an-i-mals much quick-er than him-self, and appa-rent-ly quite as cun-ning."