* * *

HEARD IN THE BANK.

A woman from the country made a deposit consisting of several items.
After ascertaining the amount the receiving teller asked, "Did you foot
it up?" "No, I rode in," said she.

H. A. N.

* * *

The fact that Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and other great
departed whose names are taken in vain every day by small-bore
politicians, do not return and whack these persons over the heads with a
tambourine, is almost--as Anatole France remarked in an essay on
Flaubert--is almost an argument against the immortality of the soul.

* * *

Harper's Weekly refrains from comment on the shipping bill because, says
its editor, "we have not been able to accumulate enough knowledge."
Well! If every one refrained from expressing an opinion on a subject
until he was well informed the pulp mills would go out of business and a
great silence would fall upon the world.

* * *

It is pleasant to believe the sun is restoring its expended energy by
condensation, and that the so-called human race is in the morning of its
existence; and it is necessary that the majority should believe so, for
otherwise the business of the world would not get done. The happiest
cynic would be depressed by the sight of humanity sitting with folded
hands, waiting apathetically for the end.

* * *

Perhaps the best way to get acquainted with the self-styled human race
is to collect money from it.

* * *

TO A WELL-KNOWN GLOBE.

I would not seem to slam our valued planet,--
Space, being infinite, may hold a worse;
Nor would I intimate that if I ran it
Its vapors might disperse.

Within our solar system, or without it,
May be a world less rationally run;
There may be such a geoid, but I doubt it--
I can't conceive of one.

If from the time our sphere began revolving
Until the present writing there had been
A glimmer of a promise of resolving
The muddle we are in:

If we could answer "Whither are we drifting?"
Or hope to wallow out of the morass--
I might continue boosting and uplifting;
But as it is, I pass.

So on your way, old globe, wherever aiming,
Go blundering down the endless slopes of space:
As far away the prospect of reclaiming
The so-called human race.

Gyrate, old Top, and let who will be cl