Chinese arbor vitæ. _Thuja orientalis._
Dedicated to _St. Alice_.
~December 17.~
_St. Olympias_, A. D. 410. _St. Begga_, Abbess, A. D. 698.
[Oxford Term ends.]
_The Season._
By this time all good housewives, with an eye to Christmas, have laid in
their stores for the coming festivities. Their mincemeat has been made
long ago, and they begin to inquire, with some anxiety, concerning the
state of the poultry market, and especially the price of prime roasting
beef.
“O the roast beef of old England,
And O the old English roast beef!”
* * * * *
_Manner of Roasting Beef anciently._
A correspondent, who was somewhat ruffled in the dog-days by suggestions
for preventing hydrophobia, let his wrath go down before the dog-star;
and in calm good nature he communicates a pleasant anecdote or two,
which, at this time, may be deemed acceptable.
_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._
Dear Sir,
As an owner of that useful class of animals, dogs, I could not but a
little startle at the severity you cast on their owners in your
“Sirius,” or dog-star of July 3d. In enumerating their different
qualities and prescribing substitutes, you forgot one of the most
laborious employments formerly assigned to a species of dogs with long
backs and short legs, called “Turnspits.”
The mode of teaching them their business was more summary than humane:
the dog was put in a wheel, and a burning coal with him; he could not
stop without burning his legs, and so was kept upon the full gallop.
These dogs were by no means fond of their profession; it was indeed hard
work to run in a wheel for two or three hours, turning a piece of meat
which was twice their own weight. As the season for roasting meat is
fast approaching, perhaps you can find a corner in your _Every-Day Book_
for the insertion of a most extraordinary circumstance, relative to
these curs, which took place many years ago at Bath.
It is recorded, that a party of young wags hired the chairmen on
Saturday night to steal all the turnspits in the town, and lock them up
till the following evening. Accordingly on Sunday, when every body
desires roast meat for dinner, all the cooks were to be seen in the
streets,--“Pray have you seen our Chloe?” says one. “Why,” replies the
other, “I was coming to ask you if you had seen our Pompey;” up came a
third while they were talking, to inquire for her Toby,--and there was
no roast meat in Bath that day. It is recorded, also, of these dogs in
this city, that one Sunday, when they had as usual followed their
mistresses to church, the lesson for the day happened to be that chapter
in Ezekiel, wherein the self-moving chariots are described. When first
the word “wheel” was pronounced, all the curs pricked up their ears in
alarm; at the second wheel they set up a doleful howl; and when the
dreaded word was uttered a third time, every one of them scampered out
of church, as fast as he could, with his tail between his legs.
_Nov._ 25, 1825.