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Show Prof. Lehly, being requested to give some facts concerning the Hessian fly, stated. He had examined a crop of wheat near Easton, and found the fly was destroying about one half of it, many prostrate heads being infested with them, they having passed into the second state. He saw in the newspapers that the fly was in some way connected with the seventeenth-year locusts. If one notices, the locust never touches the grain. From what he has seen of the habits of the fly, it would not be difficult to destroy them and get rid of them; if the stubble was burnt it would destroy all their eggs, so that few or none would remain to hatch next year. The fly weakens the stalk by taking out the sap, so that it falls wile heading up. The locust lives in the ground, and when seen it is ready to deposit its eggs in the tree. It never eats after we see it; it can only suck liquids; after they come out they creep up trees and there again deposit eggs; they only destroy the ends of the branches of trees by taking the sap from them. <br><br> CURIOUS TRIALS IN ENGLAND The habit and temper of the Englishman which inclines him to stand up for his rights and resent encroachments brings some very curious cases into court. Recently a baker sued a Justice of the peace and recovered nominal damages for imprisonment for fourteen days at heard labor as a penalty for refusing to have his child vaccinated. It was proved, too, that although the words "hard labor" had [unreadable line] blanks, the plaintiff had not been put to hard labor. A farmer was brought before a provincial court for obtaining an agricultural prize on a bull and afterwards selling the animal for nearly $600 which he had represented as blooded stock, but whose dam, "Graceful," was fictitious, and whose grand dam was a common cow. <br><br> A man brought a suit for four shillings against the Metropolitan Railroad Company of London (the amount paid by him for a cab from Richmond) because the train on which he was riding stopped before it reached the Richmond station and prevented his reaching a Southwestern railroad train in time. The magistrate dismissed the case on the ground that if the train hadn't stopped, there would have been a collision, and the plaintiff would probably have not been there to bring suit at all. <br><br> Another story is of a pick-pocket who was seen to take a pocketbook out of a lady's back pocket and run away. When caught he threw himself on his knees and begged to be let go. He had spent seventeen years in prison, he said, and the police wouldn't give him a chance. There were ten detectives to one thief in the city and there was no chance for a thief at all. |