with him in one of the glazed cases, among
other plants, a species of banana. This
reached Upolu, one of the group, in a healthy
condition, was transplanted, and, in May,
1840, bore a fine cluster of fruit exceeding
three hundred in number, and weighing
nearly a hundredweight. The parent plant
then died, leaving behind more than thirty
young ones, which were distributed to various
parts of the Island, and multiplied in the
same ratio. To "estimate the importance of
the introduction of this plant, we must bear
in mind the great quantity of nutritious food
furnished by the banana. Humboldt says,
that he was never wearied with astonishment
at the smallness of the portion of soil which,
in Mexico and the adjoining provinces, would
yield sustenance to a family for a year, and
that the same extent of ground which, in
wheat, would maintain only two persons,
would yield sustenance, under the banana,
to fifty."

Whilst large prizes are annually awarded
to new pansies, tulips, and other ephemeral
monstrosities in the vegetable world, the
inventor of the "miniature conservatory" has,
we believe, received no testimonial whatever
of the services he has rendered to horticulture
from those who have been most benefited by
the invention. He reaps his reward,
however, in the consciousness of the good he has
done "in his generation," and in the feeling
that, in the homes of many, his name,
associated with ferns and flowers, has become
a " Household Word."

CHIPS.

"STREETOGRAPHY."

THOUGH we English flatter ourselves that
those systems of general and social polity—
which we are pleased to term the British
Constitution—give to existence more security
and liberty than is ensured to our Continental
brethren; yet in the smaller arrangements
for public convenience we are, compared with
them, barbarians. The details of municipal
management in France, for example, are
infinitely superior to the arrangements made
for the English towns'-people by those knots
of well-fed wisdom Corporations. In France
it is always possible for a stranger to find his
way to any street; and to know its name
when he is in it; in England, impossible.
In Paris, the dullest Dutchman or most
opium-soddened Turk never need lose his way
in an intricate neighbourhood, because labels
tell him, in large and legible letters at the
corner of each street, those he wants; but
set down the cleverest country gentleman in
any one part of London, to find his way to any
other part of it with the best map to be got,
and he will be only able to find it in a cab;
for those who have the ordering of these
things in certain districts of the Metropolis,
believing that the names of streets ought to
be known by the world at large by instinct,
take little care about getting them written up.

The other day a gentleman of Coblentz, by
dint of several cabs and endless enquiries,
found out at last the residence of a young
baronet to whom he was accredited, near Portman
Square. He was unusually methodical
about trifles, even for a German, and had
taken very good care to note down the name
of the street in which he had fixed his
temporary lodging. The baronet, when he was
taking leave, naturally enquired where he
should have the pleasure of returning the
visit? The German produced his pocket-book,
and gravely read from it, "Number nine,
Stick-no-bill-Street." "Stick no bills" being
the only words he could find written up against
the houses, he of course, adopted them, as his
proper address.—A similar mistake is
recorded of an American, from Fourth Street,
Philadelphia. He too was in search of the
address on a letter of introduction; and, when
he got into the street, actually disbelieved the
information given to him, that he had arrived
at his proper destination. "Don't I see," he
said, looking up at the corner, "that this is
F. P. Sixteen-feet Street?"—and returned to
his hotel without delivering his letter.

The rustiest select vestryman of the old
school is unable to deny that the name of
every street ought—for the convenience of the
inhabiting, but more especially for that of
the visiting-public—to be distinctly and legibly
inscribed at the corners of every street in
Great Britain; within the range of ordinary
visions, and not some twenty feet high, to be
obscured by the friezes of shop-fronts and the
balconies of private houses. This very necessary
job should be snatched from the neglect
of the various parochial officers, and put into
the hands of the Commissioners of Police;
together with several other small reforms, by
a very great deal too numerous for the limits
of a "Chip."

We will not dismiss this suggestion without
pointing out that in every improvement in
Streetography (Like Bentham, we coin as we
require, and defy the Dictionary) some variety
in the names of our public ways would be very
advantageous. As the sponsors of old streets
have exhausted all the Charles's, George's,
Mary's, and other common-place nomenclatures,
the respectability of streets in progress
(and they are legion) might not be damaged
by being designated by the names of a few of
the benefactors of our race—our eminent
inventors, divines, poets, and artists. But while
the naming of thoroughfares is left to
individual caprice, the inestimable confusion of
metropolitan topography will continue to
be worse and worse confounded. Already,
according to the "London Directory," there are
streets, squares, terraces, and groves, which are
honoured with the names of "Victoria" or
"Albert" in twenty-five instances. Thirty-
four London thoroughfares bear the title of
York, and twenty-three that of Gloucester;