In the cities of New York and Philadelphia, there have been in active operation this season, societies of ladies who have made it a pleasure and business to gather bouquets of flowers and distribute among the poor and sick in the public hospitals. Charitable individuals have contributed freely of both flowers and money, and the ladies their time to make the idea a genuine success. It is a labor of love, and thousands of blessings from the sufferers, testify to the appreciation in which the good work has been held. The following lines on this subject lately accompanied an engraving of a flower scene in Harper's Weekly:

Into the homes of sorrow and distress

The rare sweet flowers go to bnd and bloom, And with their own bright lift make glad awhile

The lives that wither in perpetual gloom. Poor hearts that long have xtarved for word of love,

Dim eyes that ne'er behold a beauteous thing, And tired hands that stretch themselves in vain

For Joys that ever from their grasp take wing.

To these the flowers on their mission go,

And breathe a fragrance fraught with new sweet lift, And canse an atmosphere of joy and peace

To enter e'er mid scenes of pain and strife. Sweet bads of beaaty! how they seem to say,

"Cheer np I cheer up"! there are kind hearts and true, And thongh your paths scem over-grown with thorns

Yet there are flowers still which bloom for yon.

A thousand blessings on the kindly hands

Which plnck the fragrant flowers for the poor, A thousand blessings in the kindly feet

Which falter not, but go from door to door, And leave with tender, loving charity

The sweet joy - breathing gifts of love divine. Who knows what endless flowers of grace and truth,

The Flower Mission may hereafter twine.

Death of Mr. Olm.

We regret to hear of the death of Mr. Peter Olm, of Olm Brothers, Newark, N. J. An accident, resulting from a vicious horse, and violent throw from a wagon, produced injuries so severe as to cause death within a

few hours. He was much esteemed for character and ability as a florist.