The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-09-23 00:00:00

POTATOES IN INDIA.—A correspondent informs us that
when he went to India, threescore years ago, a basket of
potatoes, weighing about a dozen pounds, was occasionally
sent, as opportunity offered, by Warren Hastings, the Go-
venor of Bengal, to the Governor of Bombay, and was consi-
dered a very acceptable present. On reception the members
of the council would be invited to dine with the governor to
partake of the rare vegetable. Some how or other the potato
was introduced into Guzerat, and, in process of time, Bom-
bay became well supplied with it : so well that the market
had ever an abundance at a low price and very good. This
may imply a lapse of twenty years. When the Bengal and
Madras armies rendezvoused at Bombay, on their way to
Egypt, every transport was supplied with as many potatoes
as the captains would take—slung under the tops, under the
chains, over the stern, &c. The general in command of the
army of Egypt, who superintended all its equipments,
although he did not go with it (Sir Arthur Wellesley), was
much struck with the resources of Bombay, in equipping and
refitting an army, transports, &c., and, among other things,
with the unbounded supply of potatoes and fine onions ; and
—having always both eyes open—it struck him that the po-
tato might be advantageously grown in Mysore. He con-
descended to confer with the writer of this mem., who hap-
pened to know something of the soil, climate, &c., of Mysore
and the result was, sending, at Sir Arthur's expense, 500
baskets of potatoes, each weighing 111bs, to the residents at
Mysore, with instructions as to the distribution of them for
seed, the cultivation, &c. Now, it is understood that potatoes
are as good, as plentiful, and as cheap in Mysore as in Bom-
bay or any other place.—Gardener's Chronicle.
A WARNING TO GREAT READERS.—Ideas are not trifles
to he tossed about like children's toys. They enter our
spirits either as conquerors or as conquered ; as conquerors
when, with a sickly effeminancy, we surrender our faculties
tamely to their indiscriminate seizure ; as conquered, when,
with Titanic might, in fair and honourable combat, we have
converted them into obedient ministers. The ideas that pos-
sess us weaken and distract us as much as the ideas that we
possess give unity, force, fulness, and compression to our
being. If we have unhappily been smitten by this contagion,
of facile submission to the headlong hordes of ideas, half-
ideas, and no-ideas, that are continually traversing society,
the remedy is altogether in our own hands. We must first
of all get rid of the gluttonous habit of swallowing more in-
tellectual food than we have ability to digest. Intellectual
dyspepsia is as common and as troublesome a malady as its
corporeal namesake ; and it must be overcome chiefly
through the means, temperance and exercise. No book
is indifferent any more than it is a matter of indiffer-
ence to us whether we drink water or laudanum. Every
book that we peruse must tend either to destroy or to
establish our intellectual health. We should never re-
gard reading in the light of a mere amusement ; we
should regard it as an important element in our internal pro-
gress. We should always read with an object; we should
always connect one book with another, so as to bear on that
object; and we should always link every such object with
the primary object 'of our entire career, the augmentation
of our mental stature, of our moral worth, and of the
harmony, directness, vigour, and emancipation of our capaci-
ties, We should not take up a book because we wish to
cast a few idle hours with a prodigal levity into the gulph of
time ; but because we wish to make one step nearer a
gradual development of mind and character. Reading in
the manner and with the purpose I am recommending, we
shall be astonished to find bow much more we know well,
than in the days of our epicurean indulgence iu printed fri-
volities, and how much we have risen above those whom that
indulgence still seduces. Exercising self-denial in books, we
should likewise learn to exercise self-denial in conversation,
if we are sincere in our desire to stand apart from the mob
of superficialists, on whose greedy but arid brain a mingled
rush of thoughts, notions, facts, and fancies fall like rain
upon the sand, spoiling a shallow platitude, without con-
ferring fertility. There are few things more fatal to clear-
ness of perception and power, and continuity of reflection,
than a hankering for that small glory which is obtained from
smartness, wit, or readiness in conversation. Easy talking
begets easy thinking, and easy thinking is confused thinking ;
in other words, is thinking without thinking. 1 have known
more than one friend descend into a mere gossiping machine,
who, both from talents and acquirements, was fitted to tell
with weight and splendour on the most stirring movements
of the world. He who has stooped, for however short a
period, to be the pampered orator of some trifling coterie,
has the curse of debility upon him, and can never become
one of the apostles of humanity.—. Rev. William Maccall.