life. The ingredients of hodge-podge exist in _rerum natura_, and the
place they occupy and the function they fulfil in it are no less
deserving of our inquisitive regard.

Thus, there is water in it, without which there were no seas and no
sailing of ships, no rivers and no plying of mills, no vapour and no
power of steam, no manufacture and no trade, and not only no motion, but
no growth and no life. There is mutton, or beef, in it, and connected
therewith the breeding and rearing of cattle, the production of wool,
tallow, and leather, and the related manufactures and crafts. There are
turnips and carrots in it, the latter of such value to the farmer that
on one occasion a single crop of them sufficed to clear off a rent; and
the former of such consequence in the fattening of stock and the
provision of animal food, that a living economist divides society
exhaustively into turnip-producing classes and turnip-consuming. There
are leeks and onions in it, and these, with the former, suggest the art
of the gardener, and the wonderful processes by which harsh and fibrous
products can be turned into pulpy and edible fruits. And there are pease
and barley in it, and associated therewith the whole art of the
husbandman in the tillage of the soil and the raising of cereals, with
the related processes of grinding the meal, baking the bread, preparing
the malt, brewing the beer, and distilling the fiery life-blood at the
heart.

Now, to discourse on all these, as they deserve, would be a task of no
ordinary magnitude, but the subject is an interesting one, and to treat
of it ever so cursorily might not unprofitably occupy a reflective
moment or two. Water is the first topic it is laid upon me to talk
about, and I begin with it all the more readily because it suggests a
sense of freshness, and thoughts which may float our enterprise