the making-up of accounts is going on), goes
back again to work till twelve or upwards.
Perhaps an anxious little wife is waiting to
take home a loving, hard-worked husband to
a late and humble supper; perhaps the twain
have been separated for the entire day, and
then comes the temptation to sit later than is
healthy, especially when the toils of the next
day commence so early. Perhaps, in a lighter
season, some precious hours are snatched for
mental improvement—for reading, writing,
and the lecture-room (for your railway-clerk
is not necessarily an animal only covered
with figures, as a Nineveh bull with arrow-heads).
But this comes not to our purpose
—when is the railway clerk to dine?

Is it necessary that all the clerks be detained
at one time?  If so, railways are unlike
any other institution in existence. If
matters be well organised, and if you have
leaders instead of martinets, everybody may
get some leisure. And with the when comes
the where of the question, and we will try to
answer both by one solution. Railway-clerks
are not resident on the premises. Many of
them live near, many are compelled to live
far away from the scene of their labours.
Most of the stations are seated in the most
unenviable neighbourhoods, and the doubtful
beef, dried-up ham, or saveloys of a ham and
beef establishment, or a plate of that ingenious
compound known as à-la-mode (not, by the
way, always a bad thing in its way), or the
routine of chop and steak, steak and chop,
form the staple of entertainment for the
snatched half-hour. Now, even this would be
not so bad, if it could be got at a decent
time; but the chance of a bread-and-butter
lunch (as at the great Ichthyosaurio-Megatherian)
is a poor stamina for those who work
from nine A.M. to five P.M., and we cannot
help wondering whether the great iron
monster cannot feed its cubs better.

Now why cannot our railway authorities,
with their gigantic stations, their exaggerated
halls, their sumptuous waiting-rooms, and
princely hotels, why cannot they find something
like a decent, cheap, and wholesome
table-d'hôte for their own clerks, open, we
will say, at one, two, and three o'clock, so
as to allow of a certain number going to
dinner without stopping the necessary work
of the station, and likewise remaining
within reach of call if imperatively
required? Instead of "Chop, sir?—yes, sir—
sixpence—bread, seven—tatoe, eight—any
greens, sir!—no, sir," we might have a
good cut off a large wholesome joint, or
a sole, or a slice of cod, wholesome vegetables
and bread, for something like four
shillings or four-and-sixpence a-week, everything
being well served, and the large number
rendering it a good speculation on the part
of the company.

Under such an arrangement, especially
with some senior clerks acting as stewards,
not only men connected with railways, but
those employed in all large establishments,
would get better dinners, would be less distracted
from their work, and enjoy more
comfort than they can command at present.
Every one knows both the economy and the
wholesomeness of large joints.

We speak advisedly on this subject. We
know those who had remained through long
days of utter exhaustion, until broken health
has taken from them wasted years, to seek
some new employment. We have known those
whom a life among eating-houses has eventually
severed from all home ideas. Men
are not mere machines (though even a
machine requires feeding), and if we would make
our railway-clerks a permanent instead of a
perpetually migrating body—if we would
uphold railway credit as an active agent of
civilisation—we must recollect that our railway-clerk
has a stomach, and we must find
out how, when, and where he is to dine.

SUPERNATURAL ZOOLOGY.

WE open the first printed herbal, called
the Ortus Sanitatis; it was published in the
last years of the fifteenth century, and tells
what was known, not of plants only, but also
of birds, beasts, fishes, and stones, three or
four hundred years ago. We have sketched
in some back numbers of this journal the
superstitions that formed part of the belief
and science of our forefathers, so far as regards
men and spirits, and fulfil now an exceedingly
old promise by here setting down a
note or two about their supernatural zoology;
for of the wonders of their botany it will
be quite enough to speak in one short paragraph.

They figured in good faith the arbor
vitæ, or the lignum vitæ Paradisi, and stated
that the flesh of any man who ate it would be
firm for ever, and that such a man would be
exempt from every care. The wood of this
tree is not destroyed but purified by fire.
Bitumen, floating on the Dead Sea is also
reckoned among plants, although it is defined
to be the dung of demons. Butter ranks
among herbs as the flower of milk, and
cheese has a like privilege. It is said, by-the-bye,
that Zoroaster in the desert ate nothing
but cheese for twenty years, and was during
the whole time free from ache or pain. The
Diptannum or Biptannum is described and
figured as a sort of mint growing in rocky
places, and well known in Thessaly and Crete,
which being eaten expels arrows or any steel
or iron weapons from the body. Arrows shot
into a goat by the hunter, if the goat nibbles
diptannum, are shot out again. Dew falling
upon stones or plants congeals and produces
manna. If gathered quickly it is green; if it
remain long on the plant or stone it will
acquire a whitish colour. Mandragora is
male and female, and is figured with roots in
the respective similitudes of a man and a