and what
cabbages! At present the crop of cabbage heads, to be sure, promises to
be very large through the intervention of blue glass; but much the
greater number of them appear to be growing upon human shoulders.

--Science, or self-styled science, however, insists on playing its
tricks with colors as with other matter--if color be matter. There is
now a budding theory that the eye is and always has been in a state of
development, and that we are yet to discover new colors of which we
have at present no idea. In support of this it is urged that in early
literature we find only the strong primary colors mentioned--red, blue,
black; black, however, being the absence of true color. It is supposed
that the other colors were not seen; and in support of this it is urged
that Aristotle assigns only four colors to the rainbow. But surely this
is scientific trifling. It is natural that early writers upon any
subject should notice only the strongest and most salient points
connected with it. Its finer gradations become the subject of
subsequent discussion. Particularly might this be expected to be the
case in the ruder states of society. It is not that the senses cannot
perceive; for the savage senses are very keen, as is well known, but
that language, perhaps even the mind, does not discriminate. It is
content with broad and marked distinctions. So with regard to the eye
and color. We may be very sure that a perfect eye sees, and has always
seen, all possible color. But unless led thereto by science or art, or
love of beauty in dress or ornamentation, the observer is content with
noticing the strong tints, red, blue, yellow, black, white--and green
also, which is so widely spread over nature. But as to a new color,
that is quite impossible, unless some new gradation or combination of
color may have a new name given to it. For in the spectrum we have a
perfect gradation of colors, all that are in the ray; and after we pass
the primaries, the others are but combinations and gradations. To get a
new color we must wait for a new eye and a new sun.

--Where will the desire for championship not lead some one of us, and
where will it end? We have champion walkers and skaters, champion
boot-blacks and bill-posters; and out at the West the other day a lad
employed in a newspaper office to wrap papers for the mails announced
himself as the champion paper-wrapper, and challenged anybody to wrap
with him--the most in so many hours. Th