Agaric (Agaricus semiglobatus) found growing
in numbers on heaps of manure, is poisonous,
and Mr. Sowerby states that it once proved nearly
fatal to a whole family who had gathered it, in
mistake for the common mushroom, in Hyde
Park. Another very dangerous native toadstool is
the very common bright brown Bulbous Agaric
(Agaricus bulbosus), which abounds among
grass, and in woods in autumn, and has the
odour of horseradish.

The old and general practice adopted by cooks
of dressing mushrooms with a silver spoon, to
detect their poisonous qualities by the tarnishing
of the metal, is an error which cannot be too
well known and exposed; for the poison may
not tarnish the spoon, and many lives, especially
on the Continent, have been sacrificed to it.

The safest way to deal with mushrooms is to
steep them in vinegar or brine before dressing
them. This was known to the ancient Greeks, for
they say, "Prepare your funguses with vinegar,
salt, or honey, for thus you will rob them of their
poison." And in cases in which accidental
poisoning from mushrooms or toadstools is known
or suspected, should any delay arise in obtaining
medical assistance, an emetic composed of a
large dessert spoonful of mustard, in a cupful
of warm water, ought to be immediately
taken.

Finally, mushrooms, like eggs and oysters,
must be eaten when fresh.

THE WIDOW'S WAKE.

DEEP in the midnight lane,
Where glimmering tapers feebly pierce the gloom,
Through many a winking pane,
All tearful in the rain,
The widow lies within her naked room.

Coldly the widow lies,
Though woe and want can touch her never more;
And in her beamless eyes,
Grief's well, that rarely dries,
Never again shall hoard its oozy store.

Coldly the widow lies.
God's mighty midnight creepeth overhead
King's couch and pauper's bed,
All human tears, all cares, all agonies,
Beneath His gaze are spread.

And these poor boards of thin and dismal deal,
That hold her mortal relics, in His eyes
Are sacred as the gilded obsequies,
When purchased mourners kneel
'Mid all the painful pomp in which some great
man lies.

None may this vigil keep:
Retired in life, the widow died alone,
And in this silent sleep
None wait by her; none weep
To find that she is gone.

Only the winds that steal
Coldly across the damp and broken wall
On that pale visage fall,
As though they paused her icy brow to feel,
Or death's blank gaze a moment to reveal,
Uplift the scanty pall.

And this is she who struggled long and sore,
In the black night-time of a dire distress—
Most patient wretchedness,
Bearing a bitter cross to death's dark door,
Receiving there—if humankind may guess—
A crown of glory for the thorns she wore.

MY RAILWAY COLLISION.

IF you mount the steps leading to No. 3,
Upas-tree-court, Inner Temple (third floor, left
hand), you will find on the outer door, in white
letters, black rimmed, on an oak ground, the
name of "Pod."

On a foggy morning on the twenty-second
November, that gentleman (myself) had resolved
to go down on important legal business (first
brief) to Wiltshire, my native county.

I was deep in a legal dream, and wandering
through a cloudy Westminster, where difficulties
entangled me, and getting into a sort of Castle-in-
the-Air Chancery, when I was knocked back into
life by Mrs. Dustall, my laundress, calling out,

"Seven o'clock, sir, and such a nasty morning."

She needn't have said that. Thump went my
boots.  In a moment I was splashing in my
bath like a tame merman learning swimming.
But something troubled me, and hung about me
like a damp shirt.  What was it?

IT WAS A PRESENTIMENT.

A foreboding of evil it was, and I will say it
till the day of my death, and would have said
so, even if nothing had happened.  It was as a
nail in my boot, as a whitlow on my hand; as an
invisible millstone it hung about my neck; and
I could not find the string that tied it on, so
that I might cut it.

Breakfast.  Butter in pats, clean-stamped as
Greek cameos, bread floury white, toast warm and
absorbent, tea balmy and fragrant as Nepenthe—
which some suppose it was—mutton-chop juicy
as a peach.  Admirable Mrs. Dustall—"perdition
catch my soul, but I do love thee!" Tie on that
direction.  See if that barrel of oysters has come.
There!  bless me!  I've forgotten my boot-jack!
Strap up that portmanteau. Thank you, Mrs.
Dustall. Now call a cab. The laundress runs
to the St. Clement's cab-stand, soured at being
driven out in curling papers, into the cold and
wide, wide world. She calls the seven-caped
cabman reading aloft, upon his aerial seat, his reeking
Daily Telegraph. But I take five minutes
more to glance at the Times.

French Invasion. Leader on Thames
Drainage. Another leader—Abolition of the
Lord Mayor's Show, &c. A bottom paragraph,
at the bottom of the third column of the fifth
page:

"TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT."

Let me skim it.  "Carelessness of pointsman
—red signal mistaken for blue.  Old story—
foggy weather.  Only three men killed—stoker
mortally injured."  Cambridge line, of course.
Old story—hang a director.  Who cares to read
railway accidents?

Oh, cab!  Thank you, Mrs. Dustall.  Call the