Notice--I bought of a grocer in this town seven pounds of sugar, from which I extracted one pound of sand. If the rascal, who cheated me, will send to my address seven pounds of sugar (the Scriptural measure of restitution) I will be satisfied. If not, I will expose him.

The next day nine seven pound packages of sugar were left at the advertiser's house, there being nine grocers in the town, and each supposing himself to have been detected.

-AN AMERICAN PAPER.

A lot of minstrels went to a town, and advertised to give performance for "the benefit of the poor, tickets reduced to six-pence." The hall was crammed full. The next morning a committee for the poor called upon the treasurer of the concern for the amount the said benefit had netted. The treasurer expressed astonishment at the demand. "I thought," said the chairman of the committee, "you advertised this concert for the benefit of the poor!" Replied the treasurer, "did we not put the tickets down to sixpence so that the poor could all come?" The committee vanished.

A College professor was being rowed across the stream in a boat. Said he to the boatman, "Do you understand philosophy?" "No, never heard of it." "Then one quarter of your life is gone." "Do you understand geology?" "No." "Then one half of your life is gone," "Do you understand astronomy?" "No." "Then three quarters of your life is gone,' but presently the boat tipped over, and spilled both into the river. Says the boatman, "Can you swim ?" "No". "Then the whole of your life is gone.

In the middle ages, a fool had so bitterly angered his sovereign by some of his pointed jests, that the

monarch passed sentence of death upon him, but permitted him to select the manner in which he would die. "Then I choose to die of old age," was the ready reply.

"I wonder," says a woman of humour, "why my husband and I quarrel so often, for we agree uniformly on one point, he wishes to be master and so do I."

A person looking over the catalogue of professional gentlemen of the bar, with his pencil wrote against the name of one, who was of the bustling order, "has been accused of possessing talents." Another seeing it, immediately wrote under, "has been tried and acquitted."

I saw a rich man's son seated at the head of his father's grave, and engaged in a dispute with a poor man's son, saying, "My father's sarcophagus is of stone, and its inscription is coloured, and a flooring of marble is laid (for the foundation), and bricks of the colour turquoise have been used (for the super-structure); what is there like this in thy father's grave? A brick or two have been brought together, and a handful of earth sprinkled over them." The poor man's son heard him, and said, "Ere thy father stir himself under the heavy weight that is on top of him, my father will have reached paradise." -SADI'S GULISTAN.*

Thackeray tells us of an Irish woman, begging alms from him, who, when she saw him put his hand in his pocket, cried out, "May the blessing of God follow you all your life," but, when he only pulled out his snuff-box, added, "and never overtake ye."

* Translated by Platts.

A man with one eye laid a wager with another man, that he the one-eyed person saw more than the other. The wager was accepted. "You have lost," says the first, "I can see the two eyes in your face, and you can only see one in mine."

One man was trying to impress upon another some argument, but the other man appeared rather dull of apprehension; at length the former being slightly irritated, exclaimed, "why, sir, it is as plain as A. B. C." "That may be," quietly replied the other, "but I am D. E. F."

A gallant old gentleman of the name of Page, finding a lady's glove on a watering place, presented it to her with the following words:

"If from your glove, you take the letter G,

Your glove is love, which I devote to thee." To which the lady returned the following neat answer, "If from your Page, you take the letter P,

Your Page is Age, and that won't do for me."

"Don't you understand me?" thundered an old man, why, you must be quite a fool!" "True," meekly replied the other, "I am very near one.”

There is a good deal of the brute in man; for example, he is generally dogmatic, often pusillanimous, and sometimes easily cowed: occasionally categorical and is always ready to be made a lion of.

The difference between Love and Law is this. In love the attachment precedes the declaration; in law the declaration precedes the attachment.

The difference between a suit of clothes and a suit at law is this.-One provides you with pockets, and the other empties them.

Why is your shadow like a false friend? Ans. Because it follows you only in sun shine.

RIDDLE.

What's that which all love more than life,
Fear more than death or mortal strife ?—
That which contented men desire,
The poor possess, the rich require ?-
The miser spends, the spendthrift saves,
And all men carry to their graves?
The answer is-Nothing.*

• From The Book of Humour, Wit, and Wisdom.

164. YES AND NO.

Never trust a man who assents to everything you say without making a single correction or suggestion of his own. A A man, in fact, who is an incarnate "Yes," is either a fool or a knave.

"No" is a hard word to utter. It stumbles on the tongue. When it is out, it never goes into other people's ears pleasantly, but everybody is down upon it.

Most men are slaves, because they cannot say "no."

Learn to speak this little word,

In its proper place;

Let no timid doubt be heard,
Cloth'd with sceptic grace.

Let thy lips, without disguise,
Boldly pour it out;

Though a thousand dulcet lies

Keep hovering about.

For be sure our hearts would lose

Future years of woe,

If our courage could refuse

The present hour with "No."

-ELIZA COOK.

One "No" averts seventy evils.

--HINDUSTANI PROVERB.

There is indeed great virtue in a "No," when pro

nounced at the right time.

-SMILES.