tobacco, or stramonium, or near a plant of rhus
vernix, the poison ivy, symptoms peculiar to
the action of each plant are soon produced.

A DEBT OF HONOUR

DESIRING to record in this Journal, in the
plainest and simplest manner possible, certain
words publicly spoken by its Conductor on a
recent occasion, we present the following
extract from the latest-published copies of
AMERICAN NOTES, and MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. It
is entitled,

"POSTSCRIPT.

"At a public dinner given to me on Saturday
the 18th of April, 1868, in the City of New
York, by two hundred representatives of the
Press of the United States of America, I made
the following observations among others:

"' So much of my voice has lately been heard
in the land, that I might have been contented
with troubling you no further from my present
standing-point, were it not a duty with which I
henceforth charge myself, not only here but on
every suitable occasion, whatsoever and
wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense
of my second reception in America, and to bear
my honest testimony to the national generosity
and magnanimity. Also, to declare how
astounded I have been by the amazing changes I
have seen around me on every side, changes
moral, changes physical, changes in the amount
of land subdued and peopled, changes in the
rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth
of older cities almost out of recognition, changes
in the graces and amenities of life, changes in
the Press, without whose advancement no
advancement can take place anywhere. Nor am
I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in
five-and-twenty years there have been no changes
in me, and that I had nothing to learn and no
extreme impressions to correct when I was here
first. And this brings me to a point on which
I have, ever since I landed in the United States
last November, observed a strict silence, though
sometimes tempted to break it, but in reference
to which I will, with your good leave, take you
into my confidence now. Even the Press, being
human, may be occasionally mistaken or
misinformed, and I rather think that I have in one
or two rare instances observed its information
to be not strictly accurate with reference to
myself. Indeed, I have, now and again, been
more surprised by printed news that I have
read of myself, than by any printed news that I
have ever read in my present state of existence.
Thus, the vigour and perseverance with which
I have for some months past been collecting
materials for, and hammering away at, a new
book on America has much astonished me;
seeing that all that time my declaration has
been perfectly well known to my publishers on
both sides of the Atlantic, that no consideration
on earth would induce me to write one. But
what I have intended, what I have resolved
upon (and this is the confidence I seek to place
in you) is, on my return to England in my own
person, in my own Journal, to bear, for the
behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to the
gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted
at to-night. Also, to record that wherever I
have been, in the smallest places equally with
the largest, I have been received with
unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper,
hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable
respect for the privacy daily enforced upon
me by the nature of my avocation here and the
state of my health. This testimony, so long as
I live, and so long as my descendants have any
legal right in my books, I shall cause to be re-
published, as an appendix to every copy of those
two books of mine in which I have referred to
America. And this I will do and cause to be
done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but
because I regard it as an act of plain justice
and honour.'

"I said these words with the greatest earnestness
that I could lay upon them, and I repeat
them in print with equal earnestness. So long
as this book shall last, I hope that they will
form a part of it, and will be fairly read as
inseparable from my experiences and impressions
of America.

"CHARLES DICKENS.

"May, 1868."

TWO TIPS.

ALTHOUGH not a betting man, and
notwithstanding the fact of my having spent upwards
of twenty years in the East, I have, like every
other Englishman, always taken an interest in
our great national feast day the day on which
we celebrate the festival of St. Derby. The
first commemoration of this annual holiday that
I can recollect was, I think, in 1828 or '29.
I was taken to Epsom, and although I do not
remember any particulars connected with the
event, I recollect perfectly that the winner was
a horse called The Colonel, belonging to Mr.
Petre, uncle of the present peer of that name.
The last Derby I saw was some forty years later,
in 1867, when Hermit showed in front so
unexpectedly, and his owner netted a fortune.
I went to India the year Bay Middleton won
the blue ribbon of the turf. I heard of the
Running Rein and Leander scandal at the Cape
of Good Hope, and I got back to England just
in time to see Merry Monarch run off with the
great prize, and to hear the trial, Orlando
versus Running Rein, connected with the turf
fraud of the previous year, in which no less
than four barristers, who are now judges
(Messrs. Cockburn, Lush, Kelly, and Martin),
and one (Thesiger) who has been Lord
Chancellor, were counsel on one side or the other.

Connected with Merry Monarch's year (1845)
a curious incident befell a near relative of mine,
who was in those days a very wild subaltern in
a crack cavalry corps, but is now an officer of
standing and rank in the army. We were