another port, Holland, when serving in the
Coast Guard, and on half-pay.  The Choughs
build and breed in great numbers in the
cliffs contiguous to both these coves.  About
this season of the year the boys take the
young from the nests, when they are fledged,
which they dispose of for trifling sums, varying
from one penny to sixpence; and numbers
are to be seen all round the neighbourhood,
in the cottages and gardens, perfectly tame.
I have frequently had them myself.  The
people hold them in a sort of reverence (the
why I don't know), and they are never shot
or destroyed in any other manner; some of
the Cornish folk say that they can be taught
to speak, but that I very much doubt.  I
have been all round the coast of Cornwall
repeatedly in revenue cruisers, and into
almost every creek and cove on it, and I never
saw the Choughs, or knew them to breed, but
in two places more besides those I have named:
namely, a cove called Porthallow (pronounced
Praala), and another, Porthowstock
(pronounced Proustock). These coves are just
inside the Manacle Rocks, in the parish of
St. Keverne, twelve miles from Helston and
nine from Falmouth; the first-named coves
are three miles from Tregoney and eight from
Truro. I never saw the Chough to the westward
of the Lizard.

"I felt interested in reading your brief
notice of the upsetting the Logan Rock.  I
happened to be there, although not
immediately connected with that act of Vandalism.
I was then chief mate of the Nimble, revenue
cruiser, which vessel was commanded by
Lieutenant Hugh Goldsmith, who, with eight
of the crew, performed the exploit.  I was in
the plain immediately under it when it was
capsized out of its socket on its side,
jamming itself in a sort of natural fork in the
granite: a large piece of which, nearly a ton
weight, it knocked off into the sea as it fell
over.  The weight of the Logan Rock itself,
as near as could be ascertained, is seventy to
seventy-five tons; at least, that was the opinion
of an eminent engineer, who was there when
it was replaced.  I could have furnished you
with a full, true, and particular account of all
the proceedings in connexion with it, if I could
have imagined it would have been acceptable,
and that I should not have been considered as
taking a liberty."

A WHOLESOME POLICY.

WE are certainly a camel-eating people.
Otherwise it would seem to us an odd thing
that a Life Assurance Company, before granting
a policy and becoming liable for the payment
of money after death, should carefully inquire
concerning small-pox, fits, gout, asthma, and
such other liabilities to sickness, in the applicant
himself, and never ask a syllable about
the surrounding outward circumstances in
which he may be living.  Whoever has
insured his life may live over a cesspool.  He
who has taken out a policy is not called upon
to give notice of his intention, though he may
propose removing to some quarter of the
town in which his house maybe ill-ventilated,
his neighbourhood confined, his drainage in a
state of horrible neglect.  But the Office must
be warned if he proposes to peril his existence
by the risks of foreign travel.  There was a
case in point that attracted public notice
some little time ago.  A gentleman, aged
thirty-one, in excellent health, assured his
life for a thousand pounds.  Having paid only
three annual premiums, he removed to a
sickly spot in the Bethnal Green Road, and
died of typhus fever after a few days illness.
The number who die quietly, who cut off a
paring from the ripe years of their lives for
every day spent under unwholesome
influences, who work incessantly on their own
coffins, and spend thirty years of manhood in
annihilating thirty years of age, is far from
small.  In one district of London, an
inhabitant dies yearly out of every fifty-
eight; and in another, one out of every
nineteen.  Yet our Assurance Companies
do not consider it material to ask, as a
question that affects their policy, in which
of these two districts a proposed life may
reside.

In the healthiest of our counties one person
dies yearly out of every fifty-seven
inhabitants; in the whole of London, one in forty-
one; and, in the whole of Liverpool, one in
thirty.  One in thirty corresponds with the
loss suffered by our armies on the field ot
Waterloo.  Nevertheless, it is no question
affecting Life Assurance whether a man be
residing on the top of the wholesomest country
hill in England, or in the recesses of Saint
Olave, Southwark.  Typhus fever destroys
more lives than gout, rupture, small-pox,
asthma, palsy, and intemperance together
but, while inquiries are made carefully
concerning tendencies to such disease, in the
granting of a life policy no note is taken
of those outward circumstances by which
fevers are produced.  A man's policy is
void should he drink poison; but no
Assurance Company appears to care how much
he breathes in the familiar way of drain-gas
or malaria.

It cannot be said that sanitary considerations
of this kind affect only the lives of poor
people, who are not customers to the
Assurance Companies.  They are, indeed, the
greatest sufferers, but not the only ones.
Their wretchedness clings to the skirts of
grandeur.  One of the worst courts about
London lies under the shade of the Queen's
palace walls.  Questions of fresh air, drainage,
and such matters as belong to public health,
affect greatly a consideration of the
probability of life among the gentry.  The
average age at which gentlemen and ladies
die, is, in London forty-four; in Liverpool,
only thirty-five.  The gentry of Saint George's,