Democratic watchman. (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1855-1940, March 27, 1908, Image 2

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    A —
Bellefonte, Pa., March 27, 1908.
AS A LITTLE CHILD,
As alittle child they are leading him,
For his hair is white and his eyes are dim;
As a little child he is whispering low
To the phantom friends of long ago;
As a littie child he is wondering back
In fancy over the golden track;
In the years that were and the days that fled
He is dreaming the dream of ‘he dreamless
dead!
Asa little child they must humor him,
When the hair is white and the eyes are dim.
Ah, do not jeer at his peevish ways
That try one's patience through dreary days—
He's living over the life that he knew
In boyhood’s valley of gold and blue;
As a little child on a mother's breast,
His heart is weary; he wants to rest!
As a little child he must have his way,
In thought of youth and his dream of play;
He has torgoiten his time and place
And lives in the joy of an olden grace;
As a little child in the childheart spell
He hears the chime of the fairy bell,
Aud thinks be is young as a boy again
In the rosy weather and country lane !
As a little ehild with his hand in theirs
They lead him forth as his fancy fares;
His hair is white and his form is bent,
And his voice is soit as a sacrament
When he calls the names that are on the tomb
As if they were sweet jo the living bloom;
He has forgotten, he does not know
He isn't a child in the long ago!
Second childhood they eall it: Yea!
Old heart grown young in the dream of play,
Feeble footstep and palsied hand
Are lost in the vision of childhood land!
He hardly sees and he seldom hears,
Bat ever the voices of vanished,years
Are singing sweet as they sang of old
In the gates of youth and the fields of gold!
As a little child he is romping now
With friends who slumber beneath the bough;
He calls their names and he hears them laugh
And he talks to them in his childhood chaff—
Bo sweet, so good, that he does not know
They are dust of bloom where the roses grow,
And only the shadows of life are there
In the violet vales and the country air!
Worn and weary and weak and oid,
He is wandering back to the days of gold.
He thinks he is holding the little hand
He held in that morning of Other Land;
He thinks he is wading the little stream
Of silver rippiz and golden gleam—
With hair grown white und with eyes grown dim,
As alittle child they are leading him!
— Baltimore Sun,
ON TOP.
[By Charles Frederick Gow.]
(IE Jenkinses' donkey was as
well knewn in Charlottesville as
the schoolteacher, minister or
doctor. For twenty years or
more it had hauled the family and the
family produce in and out of town.
There were many who could remember
it when young and dapper, but the
passing years had altered its age, ap-
pearance and disposition very much in-
deed. When left in front of she store
he did not need to be tied and afford-
ed an effective lllustration of the prin-
ciple of inertia to the master of the
village school.
“When a moving body comes to rest,”
be would say to pupils of the class in
DAN REPLACED THE BARS AND WENT
AWAY.
physics, “it remains as inert as the
Jenkinses' doukey until some extrane-
ous impulse starts it up again.”
The Jenkinses had prospered, owing.
all agreed. quite as much to the capa-
bilities of Jehu us to any other mem-
ber of the ramiiy, and they now pos-
sessed a team of horses that could
travel footer and farther than the pa-
tient ass and carry twenty times as
much. What to do with this superan-
auated supernumerary had become the
greatest problem of the household, and
the hired man, who had just come in
from the barn with a couple of Jehu's
heel marks upon his person, angrily
proposed that the “doggone beast be
shot!”
“Shot!” cried the sharp volce of Mrs.
Jenkins as If a pistol had suddenly
gone off. “I'd like to see it tried!”
“Oo soot my Zehoo, and 1 soot oo!”
exclaimed little Bobby, who loved the
donkey as he loved his life.
“Poor old Jehu! He's seen his best
days! We'll have to get rid of him
somehow,” Mr. Jenkins sald, taking
Bobby in his arms and gazing at the
once active and useful donkey, who
bad now laid his chin across a pair of
bars and was gazing retrospectively
into the distance.
“And so have some of the rest of us,
but it doesn't follow that we have to
be shot, does it?" Mrs, Jenkins asked,
looking savagely at the back of the
hired man, who was limping up and
down the room.
“Fodder's scarce,” suggested Tom,
the oldest son, a thrifty fellow who
was working his father's farm on
shares.
“And you can bet your sweet life
that old Jehu hasn't lost his appetite
with his teeth,” laughed Dan, the sec-
ond son, a whimsical, happy go lucky
youngster of sixteen, who saw the
funny side of everything.
“It's a shame to talk so slightingly
about our dear and faithful friend!”
exclaimed the daughter Susie, whose
gentle voice was always lifted in be-
half of weakness or of suffering.
“But he hasn't done a lick of work
for six months, and he’s got the heaves
so that you can hear him breathe a
mile away! He keeps me awake
nights! I'm for selling him to a ped-
dier!” Dan replied, seizing this prom-
ising opportunity to tease his sister,
whom he secretly adored.
“l consider that the height of in-
gratitude!” Susie answered, looking re-
proachfully at her brother.
“Nevertheless, old Jehu is a prob-
lem,” Father Jenkins said.
“Not as long as there Is grass in the
meadow or fodder in the stzll!” his
wife declared in a tone of voice that
invariably terminated family disputes
and now led her husband to reply:
“All right, Emily! If you say keep
him, keep him it is! I reckon he won't
live long anyway!"
“No! He'll go off in one of his
coughing spells or choke on a corn-
stalk, poor old honker!” Dan declared
gayly, as if announcing the most cheer-
ful event in the world, but started
down the path to the bars and patted
tie nose of the ass,
With the cantankerousness of old
age, Jehu snapped at the caressing
hand, and with the swift impulsive
ness of youth Dan slapped him on the
jaw.
“Take care!” called his father's ad-
monishing voice.
“It’s the only language he hasn't for-
gotten!” Dan rejoined.
At this moment the bell on the top of
| a tall pole by the kitchen door began
i to ring.
The “hands” came hurrying
from the barn, and the family assem-
bled round the table, loaded with good
things. The serious business of satis-
fying the clamorous demands of nature
put the thought of Jehu out of every
mind. but at the conclusion of the
meal Dan led the limping donkey down
the long lane to the pasture between
fences over the rails of which the
woodbine was clambering and in whose
corner the sumac with its red blossoms
und the elderberries with their purple
fruit were standing thick.
Letting down the bars. he stuck his
thumb into the lean ribs of the donkey
and when that resentful creature rear-
ed and kicked chuckled with a bound-
less joy.
“You're spizzerinktum hasn't all
burned up yet. eh, old man?’ he said.
Jehu did not reply, but stood with his
back turned until Dan replaced the
bars and went away, when he laid his
chin upon the topmost rail and watch-
ed his youthful master with a nfedita-
tive eye. What his reflections were a
man may only guess; but, judging from
the expression of his countenance, they
were a gloomy mixture of skepticism,
cynicism and despair of life. After he
had ruminated for a long time upon
the mysteries of ex!atence Jek. turned
away to break his fast. The weather
had been moist, and the grass in the
meadow was succulent. Into its cool
sweetness he dug his aged nozzle and
chewed the few shreds which his worn
and widely scattered teeth could tear
away. with mild regrets for vanished
youth. After he had satisfied his ap-
petite he looked about. A flock of
sheep were pastured in the field. Some
of them were lying down, blinking at
the sun and reflectively chewing the
cud. Sidling up to these, one after an-
other, he poked his nose into their ribs
and roused them up. Was it a spirit
of Innocent mischief like Dan's that
made him do it or envy of their hap-
piness or restlessness of heart? And
why was it that he crept quietly be-
hind a young colt and kicked him in
the thigh, lifting up his raucous voice
In a loud. triumphant honk as the
frightened filly squealed and started
down the pasture on a run? Of all the
inarticulate and untransiatable sounds
of nature that honk was the most star-
tling and mysterious! What was its
true significance? An outpouring of
Joy, sorrow, anger or despair?
Amid the traditions floating around
the school yard there was one about
old Jehu's honk. The teacher had been
accustomed to dismiss the school at
the sound of a steam whistle which al-
ways blew at noon. One day it blew
too soon, she thought, but closed the
recitation, opened the door and let out
the eager throng of little people, only
to learn that it was the voice of Jehu
she had heard!
More than once during the morning
Jehu lifted up his deep, incompre-
hensible and farreaching voice, but
had the Jenkins family not been com-
pletely absorbed in their tasks they
would have noticed that in the after-
noon Jdt suddenly assumed a different
tone, Not ouly did it become more fre-
quent, more insistent and more remote,
but had a plaintive and & pleading
quality that had never been heard in it
before. And. worse than this, it finail-
ly had ceased to sound at all!
But in the multitude of sounds that
fell upon the family ears from roosters,
cattle, sheep and farm machines Jehu's
voice was mingled and lost. When fit
ceased, it was not missed. No one had
bestowed a thought upon the old gray
donkey until Susie and little Bob went
hand in hand down the long lane to
drive the cattle home.
“Where's my Zehoo? asked the
child, whose sharp eyes detected his
absence from the crowd of living
things about the bars.
Casting her eye over the pasture.
Susle saw that he was gone. Inex-
plicable as this seemed at first, she
quickly found the reason why. Just
inside the bars there was an old well
which had mysteriously gone dry and
been coverad up by heavy planks.
With a start of terror, she observed
that this covering bad been broken
through and that In the splinters of
the boards were long tufts of Jehu's
almost snow white hair.
“Help, help!" she screamed, putting
her pretty hands to her lips and shout-
ing to her brothers in a neighboring
field.
“What's the matter?” they inquired.
throwing down their hoes and starting
on a run.
“Jehu’s fallen in the well! Quick!
Quick!” she cried. In a few moments
the news had traveled all around the
farm, and the different members of the
family came running from the fields,
the barn, the house, to find Susie
wringing her hands in helpless grief
and little Bobble howling through his
tears, “My Zehoo's—fallen—in—ze—
well; ze—naughty—ole—well!”
It is one thing to discuss the prob-
lem of what to do with an old and
faithful servant like the donkey when
he is alive, and it is quite another to
stand by a deep well into which he has
fallen and where he may be suffering
agonies from broken bones.
“’Ere’s a pretty 'ow-de-do!” piteously
exclaimed the kind hearted Yorkshire-
man, who that very morning had pro-
posed to shoot him in cold blood.
“Who knows how much you are to
blame—yourself!” exclaimed the im-
placable Mrs. Jenkins, wiping her blue
eyes with a checked apron whose color
matched them to a shade.
“Do you think he's dead?’ asked
Dan in a ghastly whisper, remember-
ing with remorse that his last act had
been one of disrespect, If not unkind-
ness.
“As a doornail!” Tom sententiously
replied.
“How deep's the well?" the mother
asked,
Some thought it ten and others twen-
ty feet, put all agreed that at Jehu's
advanced age even a donkey could not
possibly survive so hard a fall. Un-
| questionably the faithful ass was dead.
“Strange solution of the problem
what to do with Jehu, isn't it?" Mr.
Jenkins asked in a voice whose tone
of too affected grief led Mrs, Jenkins
to remark:
“I do believe you're glad he's dead!”
“Oh, no. my dear!" he said, resenting
her reproach with a quite sincere an-
ger. “I'm not exactly gind he's dead;
but, then, you know, he had to die
some time and in some way, and |
reckon he found this one 'bout as sat-
isfactory as any. He's been a good
mule, and I'm as sorry as anybody.
only I'm honest enough to say that he's
been saved a lot of suffering. and
we've been saved a lot of trouble!”
“Better not preach his funeral ser-
mon till you really know he's dead!
Remember ‘bout that editorial on
Judge Hancock, don't you?" observed
the irrepressible Daniel, referring to a
newspaper eulogy on the charact r of
a distinguished citizen who had in-
sisted upon defeating the prognostica-
tions of the whole medical fraternity
and surviving to read his own obit-
uary.
“Oh, he's dead all right,” Tom as-
serted, “or you'd hear him honk or
kick or heave. Listen! There isn't
any sound, you see. Old Jehu's done
for. Better bury him right where he
is, hadn't we, father? [It's not often
that any one so accommodatingly dies
in his own grave.”
“Yes, if you're sure. 1 wouldn't ilke
to bury him alive,” the farmer an-
swered and kicked a little loose earth
into the well, adding after listening a
minute: “That settles it! Better get
some shovels and begin.”
The time consumed by the hired men
in going to the barn for tools was prof-
itably employed in eulogies upon the
“BETTER GET SOME SHOVELS AND BEGIN.”
character and accomplishments of the
dead donkey, and never were there
wore kind and complimentary tributes
paid to the worth of any creature down
below the scale of human life. And
yet it must be sadly sald that there
was still in every breast but Bobbie's
that pitiless joy that wells up from
living bosoms over open graves. Who
ever died, man or beast, but the gap-
ing crowd consoled its sorrows, some
with the reflection that they would
now be relieved from a heavy burden
of care, some that there would be more
standing room on earth, some that they
could now wear the abandoned shoes
and some that they could spend the
substance of the dead? But these are
feelings which we try to cover up
from our own eyes as well as those of
others, and Mrs. Jenkins, who could
not perfectly succeed in doing so, was
quite as much relieved as all the rest
when the men came back with the
tools and the rough interment was be-
gun.
How thoughtful the good old donkey
seemed to every one! If he had de
liberately planned to save them trou-
ble, he could not have arranged the
circumstances of his death more con-
venlently.. When the well was dug the
earth had not been carried off and now
lay a collar round its mouth. The sex-
tons simply had to push it back.
It was not a very deep well either
and would require so little time for
filling that everybody lingered to see
the last of the obsequies of the poor
old ass. The men were strong and
spelled each other at the work. Shov-
eiful after shovelful of earth tumbled
into the gaping hole with a dull thud.
From the sound of the falling clods it
was evident that the grave was nearly
filled. Mrs. Jenkins and Susie were
turning sadly away when suddenly an
exclamation of astonishment burst
from the lips of the workmen. They
turned and with unbelieving eyes be-
held old Jehu rising plainly into view,
stamping the falling earth with his
hoofs and making a solid platform up-
on which he steadily rose in something
of the way the poet says that good
men do—upon stepping stones of their
dead selves to higher things!
For an instant quite a solemn silence
brooded over the scene, and then young
Daniel voiced a universal thought. “By
Jinks,” he said, “it's hard to keep a
good man down!"
In the single eye of the old jackass.
who gazed about that circle of mourn-
ers whose sorrow had been turned less
into joy than amazement. there was a
triumphant and some thought a malev-
olent look which seemed to say plain-
er than words, “On top again!
No Come Back.
Some of the West Indian islanders
| have learned that when a foreigner
| misbehaves on thelr shores it is better
| to suffer In silence than to mete out
| to a rest.
punishment at the risk of a descending
gunboat from the miscreant’s native
land. A judge In Haiti, however, re-
cently took occasion to pay off old
scores and to redeem his self respect
In the case of an offender brought be-
fore him.
To his first question as to the nation-
ality of the accused the interpreter had
answered that the prisoner was from
Switzerland.
“Switzerland!” said the judge. “And
Switzerland has no seacoast, has it?"
“No seacoast, your honor,” replied
the interpreter, .
“And no navy,” continued the judge.
“And no navy, your honor,” was the
reply.
“Very well, then,” sald the judge,
“give him one year at hard labor.”-—
Brooklyn Life.
The Other Reason.
A teamster retires at the age of
ninety with an accumulation of $30.
000. He says he wants and is entitled
Some Inquirers want to
know how he could have saved so
much on $12 a week, the highest wages
he ever received. The answer is easy.
He got $2 a day. He lived on 22 cents
a day. He saved the difference. I lived
In New York on 6 cents a day for
nearly six months and was in magnifi- |
cent health. Some people eat to live;
others live to eat. As the old chap on
the ferryboat sald to the small boy:
“Sonny, why does a pig eat?”
“Cause he’s hungry.”
“No. There's another reason.”
“Whut's dat?”
“He wants to make a hog of him-
self." —New York Press.
Sam Weller.
It was Sam Weller who made Dick-
ens famous. “Pickwick Papers” were
a complete failure financially until this
unique character was introduced. The
press was ail but unanimous in prais-
ing Samival as an entirely original
character whom none but a great gen-
jus could have created. Dickens re-
ceived over $16,000 for “Pickwick Pa-
pers,” and at the age of twenty-six he
was incomparably the most popular
author of his day.—London Standard.
Book Evolution.
“Books” have progressed from the
days when they were only wooden rods
or bits of bark. For the derivation
which connects “book” directly with
“beech,” both having been “boe” In
Anglo-Saxon, is the favorite one.
“Buchstaben,” the German word for
letters of the alphabet, means literally
“beech staves.” Many book words go
back to such vegetable origin. The
Latin “liber.” a book, whence comes
our “library,” was properly the inner
bark or rind of a tree. especially of
papyrus. The Greek “biblon,” whence
“Bible” and “bibliophile.” meant much
the same thing. A “codex” was a
block of wood, and “leaf” is obvious.
A Compromise.
A private soldier was taken to the
guardroom for being intoxicated. He
became excited. “Sergeant, am 1
drunk?’ he asked of the “noncom” in
charge.
“Yes—take off your boots,” was the
reply.
“But excuse me, sergeant,” the de
linquent continued, “I am only half
drunk.”
“Very well, then—take one boot off!”
said his superior.—~London Scraps.
Peculiarity of Madness.
Who can tell why it is that in mad-
houses the idea of subordination is
very seldom to be found? Bedlam 1s
inhabited only by kings, poets and
philosophers.—Medora Messenger.
| reproachful?
Water and Life.
Of ell the conditions preparatory to
life the presence of water, composed of
oxygen and hydrogen, is at once the
most essential and the most worldwide,
for if water be present the presence of
other necessary elements Is probably
assured. If water exist, that fact goes
bail for the necessary temperature, the
gamut of life being coextensive with
the existence of water as such, It is
#0 consequentially, life being impossi-
ble without water. Whatever the plan-
et, this is of necessity true. But the
absolute degrees of temperature with-
in which life can exist vary according
to the mass of the body, another of the
ways in which mere size tells. On the
earth 212 degrees F. limits the range
at the top and 82 degrees F. at the bot-
tom in the case of fresh water, 27 de-
grees F. in the case of salt. On a
smaller planet both limits would be
lowered, the top one the most. On
Mars the boiling point would probably
"be about 110 degrees F. Secondly,
from the general initial oneness of thelr
constituents a planet that still pos-
sesses water will probably retain the
other substances that are essential to
life-—-gases, for the reason that water
vapor is next to hydrogen and helium
the lightest of them all, and solids be-
cause their weight would still more
counduce to keep them there. Water,
indeed, acts as a solution to the whole
problem.—Professor Lowell's “The Ev-
olution of Life” in Century Magazine.
Only an Office Boy.
“If you want a ready-to-hand study
in the downright cussedness of human
nature unwarped,” sald an insurance
agent, “just watch the office boys in
your own or any other place of busi-
ness. In four cases out of five the
thing will come out this way:
“A new boy is engaged. He Is meek
and mild, apologetic of bearing and
courteous of speech. He is apparently
seeking an excuse for daring to make
a living. He looks reproachfully at
the head office boy, who orders him
around in a rough, catch-as-catch-can
style. Such rudeness pains him.
“Note this boy a little later. His
rude superior has resigned or been dis-
missed, and he Is now head office boy.
Is he meek and mild, apologetic and
Say, he's a worse young
ruffian than his predecessor—bullyrags
the newcomer, ignores the cuspidor,
uses language not fit to print and
comes dangerously near ‘sassing’ his
employer. He knows it all, and a lit-
tle more.
“There are exceptions. but they prove
the rule.”—New York Globe.
A Big Grasshopper.
A geographical expedition which set
out for Australia on an exploring and
mapmaking tour had engaged a negro
cook, who took great interest in every-
thing he saw. While the party was en
route a kangaroo broke out of the grass
and made for the horizon with pro-
diglous leaps, an event that interested
the colored gentleman exceedingly.
“You all have pretty wide meadows
hereabouts, I reckon,” he said to the
native who was guiding the party.
“Not any larger than those of other
countries,” returned the guide most po-
litely.
“Well, there must be mighty power-
ful high grass roundabouts, heh?” he
insisted.
“Not that I know of,” replied the
guide. “Why do you ask such odd
questions 7
“Why, I'll tell you, boss. 1 was think-
in’ of the mighty uncommon magnitude
of them grasshoppers.”—Kansas City
Independent.
An Artist's Ruse.
A Roman cavalier commissioned a
great artist to paint his portrait, no
definite price being agreed upon. When
the portrait was finished, the painter
asked 100 crowns In payment. The
highborn sitter, amazed at the demand,
returned no more nor dared to send for
his counterfeit presentment, whereup-
on the artist hit upon the happy expe-
dlent of first painting bars across the
portrait, then affixing the doleful leg-
end, “Imprisoned for debt,” and finally
placing it in a prominent part of his
gtudio, to which Roman nobles fre-
quently resorted. Ere long a rich rela-
tive came to the rescue and released
his kinsman.
Newton's Telescope.
Newton's telescope is a clumsy look-
ing instrument, nine inches in length.
two inches in aperture and capable of
magnifying thirty-eight times, It was
entirely made by Newton himself, who
first exhibited it before the Royal so-
clety In 1671, and more than 100 years
later his successor in the presidency of
the society laid before George III. Sir
Willlam Herschel's scheme for mak-
ing a telescope on Newton's plan, to be
forty feet in length and four feet In
aperture.—Pall Mall Gazette.
Financial Expedient.
8hoeblack Shine, sir? Four sous?
Passerby—No, thank you. Shoeblack—
Two sous? Passerby—No. Shoeblack—
For nothing, then? Passerby — All
right, if you like. Shoeblack (after
having finished one shoe)—It's 8 sous
to clean the other, sir.—Nos Lolsirs.
Kept Busy.
One of the contemporary poets asks,
“Where are the bright girls of the
past? Our own observation is that
some of them are administering cau-
tious doses of paregoric to the bright
girls of the future.
Tender Hearted.
Mrs. Muggins—My husband is too
tender hearted to whip the children.
Mrs. Buggins—Humph! My husband
is so tender hearted that he can’t even
beat the carpet!
Where envying is. there is confusion
and every evil work.—New Testament.
A Lesson In Grammar.
in a certain mountainous region the
teachers are appointed with little ques.
tion concerning their grammatical
orthodoxy. Occasionally, however, a
wave of school reform sweeps through
the valleys, and undesired examina-
tions are thrust upon embarrassed ped-
agogues.
It was during one of these periods of
{intellectual discomfort that the follow-
ing sentence was given: “The bird
flew over the house.” Accompanying
it was the query, “Is ‘flew’ a regular
or an irregular verb?”
One teacher after another shook his
head hopelessly despite the slow,
thought inspiring fashion in which the
examiner repeated the perplexing fact
that “The — bird — flew — over — the —
house.”
Finally a man rose in the rear, and,
with the assurance of one who puts
his trust in logic and a practical knowl-
edge of natural history, he volunteered
a solution. Said he:
“If that bird which fiew over the
house was a wild goose, it went in a
straight, regular line, so the verb is
regular. But if it was a peckwood
that flew over the house, then it went
In a crooked, zigzag line, and so the
verb is irregular.”
All but the grammar bound exam-
finer were satisfied with this sensible
and rational explanation. — Youth's
Companion.
Artistic Slips.
It is a frequent matter of lamenta-
tion on the part of artists that one of
their number may spend genius and
time on a plece of work, only to fail
conspicuously in small detail,
There is a story that one Royal acade-
mician gave a hand five fingers and a
thumb and that another painted a live
lobster bright red. ’
The clever Goodall had been engaged
in painting a number of laborers drag-
ging a huge stone across the desert
when a man of science entering the
studio said to bim: “I say, Goodall, if
you want those fellows to pull that
stone you must double their number.
It would require just twice as many
for the task.”
But it is not modern painters alone
who slip up on points of accuracy.
Even Albrecht Durer in a scene repre-
senting Peter denying Christ painted
one of the Roman soldiers in the act of
smoking. Turner put a rainbow be-
side the sun, and in another picture he
got fearfully tangled in the ship's rig-
ging.—Chicago Record-Herald.
——————————
Fixing a Photografter,
Senator Stone of Missouri once made
himself unpopular with a certain pho-
tographer. The latter individual ap-
peared at the senator's room at the
capitol and announced that he was
there to take a picture. Stone expostu-
lated, but in vain. A few days later
the photographer again appeared and
presented the pictures and also a bill
for $10. Remembering how hopeless
was his argument against having the
pleture taken, Senator Stone decided it
would be still more useless for him to
decline to pay for them. So he wrote a
check. After the man's name was on
the check he wrote the word “Photo-
grafter.”
When tue man presented the check
at the senate disbursing office for pay-
ment, he was required to indorse the
check and write after his name, just
as it was written on the face of the
check, the word “Photo-grafter.”—8t.
Louis Republic.
A Limit to His Power.
A curious historical anecdote is hand-
ed down from the time of James IL
James, being in want of £20,000, ap-
plied to the corporation for a loan. The
corporation refused. The king insist-
ed. “But, sire, you cannot compel us,”
said the lord mayor. “No,” exclaim-
ed James, “but I'll ruin you and the
city forever. I'll remove my courts of
law, my court itself and my parlia-
ment to Winchester or to Oxford and
make a desert of Westminster, and
then think what will become of you!"
“May it please your majesty,” replied
the lord mayor, “you are at liberty to
remove yourself and your courts to
wherever you please; but, sire, there
will always be one consolation to the
merchants of London—your majesty
{i eannot take the Thames along with
you!”
Garrick's Wit.
David Garrick on one occasion passed
Tylurn as a huge crowd was assem-
bling to witness the execution of a
criminal. “Who Is he?’ asked the
great actor of a friend who accompa-
nied him.
“I believe his name is Vowel,” was
the reply.
“Ah.” said Garrick, “1 wonder which
of the vowels he is. for there are sev-
eral. At all events it is certain that it
is neither U nor I!"—London Saturday
Review,
Quite Natural.
“Of course.” sald the tourist, “you
know all about the antidotes for snake
bite?”
“Certainly.” replied the explorer.
“Well, when a snake bites you
what's the thing you do?"
“Yell.”—Philadelphia Press.
Two Roads.
First Mother (reading letter from son
at college) — Henry's letters always
send me to the dictionary. Second
Mother (resignedly) — That's nothing.
Jack's always send me to the bank.—
Puck.
Source of Supply.
Minister—My dear little boy, why
don't you get an umbrella? Jakey—
Since pa has quit going to church he
pever brings home any more umbrel-
las.—Jewish Ledger.
Every misfortune can be subdued
with patience.—Socrates.