in my life, & I thowt I'd hist in a few swallows of suthin strength'nin. Konsequents was I histid in so much I dident zackly know whare bowts I was. I turned my livin wild beasts of Pray loose into the streets and spilt all my wax wurks. I then bet I cood play hoss. So I hitched myself to a Kanawl bote, there bein' two other hosses hitcht on also, one behind and anuther head of me. The driver hollerd for us to git up, and we did. But the hosses bein' onused to sich a arrangemunt begun to kick

& squeal and rair up. Konsequents was I was kickt vilently in the stummuck & back, and presuntly I fownd myself in the Kanawl with the other hosses, kickin' & yellin' like a tribe of Cusscaroorus savvijis. I was rescood, & as I was bein' carrid to the tavern on a hemlock Bored I sed in a feeble voise, "Boys, playin' hoss isn't my Fort."

MORUL-Never don't do nothin' which isn't your Fort, for ef you do you'll find yourself splashin' round in the Kanawl, figgeratively speakin'.

THE FOX AND THE CROW.

BY GEO. T. LANIGAN.

A CROW, having secured a Piece of Cheese, flew with its Prize to a lofty Tree, and was preparing to devour the Luscious Morsel, when a crafty Fox, halting at the

foot of the Tree, began to cast

THE FOX.

about how he might obtain it. "How tasteful," he cried, in wellfeigned Ecstasy, "is your Dress; it cannot surely be that your Musical Education has been neglected. Will you not oblige-?" "I have a horrid Cold," replied the Crow, "and never sing without my Music, but since you press me-. At the same time, I should add that I have read Æsop, and been there before." So saying, she deposited the Cheese in a safe Place on the Limb of the Tree, and favored him with a Song. "Thank you," exclaimed the Fox, and trotted away, with the Remark that Welsh Rabbits never agreed with him, and were far inferior in Quality to the animate Variety.

Moral. The foregoing Fable is supported by a whole Gatling Battery of Morals. We are taught (1) that it Pays to take the Papers; (2) that Invitation is not Always the Sincerest Flattery; (3) that a Stalled Rabbit with Contentment is better than No Bread, and (4) that the Aim of Art is to Conceal Disappoint

ment.

A WELL-DRESSED negro applied to the judge of probate of this city for a marriage license. Being asked how old his intended was, he answered with great animation, "Just sixteen, judge -sweet sixteen, and de handsomest girl in town.” The judge said he could not do it, as the law forbade him to issue license to any one under eighteen. "Well, hold on, judge," exclaimed the man, "I know dat dem girls am deceitful, and lie about deir age. She is nineteen, if a day." "Will you swear to it?" asked the judge. "Yes, sah," he replied, and did. "And how old are you?" said the judge. The chap looked suspicious, and replied cautiously, "Thirty-five," and added, "If dat won't do, judge, I've got more back."—Newspaper.

EUROPEAN DIET.

BY MARK TWAIN.

A MAN accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe; but 1 think he would gradually waste away, and eventually die.

He would have to do without his accustomed morning meal. That is too formidable a change altogether; he would necessarily suffer from it. He could get the shadow, the sham, the base counterfeit of that meal; but that would do him no good, and money could not buy the reality.

To particularize: the average American's simplest and commonest form of breakfast consists of coffee and beefsteak; well, in Europe, coffee is an unknown beverage. You can get what the European hotel keeper thinks is coffee, but it resembles the real thing as hypocrisy resembles holiness. It is a feeble, charif it had been made in an American hotel. The milk used for it acterless, uninspiring sort of stuff, and almost as undrinkable as is what the French call "Christian" milk-milk which has been

baptized.

After a few months' acquaintance with European "coffee," one's mind weakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the rich beverage of home, with its clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it is not a mere dream, after all, and a thing

which

never existed.

Next comes the European bread-fair enough, good enough, fashion, but cold; cold and tough, and unsympathetic;

after a

and never any change, never any variety-always the same tire

some

thing.

Next, the butter-the sham and tasteless butter; no salt in it, and made of goodness knows what.

It

Then there is the beefsteak. They have it in Europe, but they don't know how to cook it. Neither will they cut it right. comes on the table in a small, round, pewter platter. It lies in the centre of this platter, in a bordering bed of grease-soaked potatoes; it is the size, shape, and thickness of a man's hand with -the thumb and fingers cut off. It is a little overdone, is rather dry, it tastes pretty insipidly, it rouses no enthusiasm.

Imagine a poor exile contemplating that inert thing; and imagine an angel suddenly sweeping down out of a better land and setting before him a mighty porter-house steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputtering from the griddle; dusted with

a

fragrant pepper; enriched with little melting bits of butter of the most unimpeachable freshness and genuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining the gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; township or two of tender, yellowish fat gracing an outlying district of this ample county of beefsteak; the long white bone which divides the sirloin from the tenderloin still in its place; and imagine that the angel also adds a great cup of American home-made coffee, with the cream a-froth on top,

A FRENCH COOK.

some real butter,

firm and yellow and fresh, some

smoking hot biscuits, a plate of hot buckwheat cakes, with transparent syrup-could words describe the gratitude of this exile?

The European dinner is better than the European breakfast, but it has its faults and inferiorities; it does not satisfy. He