ike Ned Hardcash should
ever be able to say or remember that he had kissed the mistress of The
Beauties.

I was sad at heart: hope now failed me. Poor little Eva! I must bury
her image with the "wild rose," with "my star," with the "sympathizing
friend." All, all are emptiness--are names, are dreams. The poets were
old-fogy chaps: they never saw the women of to-day, and well for them
they did not.

I am still unmated: I bear the loneliness that awaits all great
excellence. The sun has no companion in glory; the moon shines alone;
there was but one phoenix; the white elephant is solitary. So it must
be with me. I am not misanthropic: I have learned to bear my
superiority with philosophy. I was groomsman at Eva's wedding the
other day, and gave her a handsome present, as it was expected I
should. I still like my fellow-beings, and fulfill the duties of life
to the best of my abilities. I flirt, I dance, walk, drive, pursue my
usual occupations, give bachelor-parties at The Beauties, and have
grown contented from habit, but I am a confirmed old--or shall I say
young?--bachelor.

ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

MUNICH AS A PEST-CITY.

From a time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,
Munich has had the reputation of being an exceptionally unhealthy
place. All ancient towns have their legends of desolating plagues, the
record of an ignorant defiance of sanitary laws, but such stories are
especially numerous in the traditions of Munich, and are connected
with circumstances which show that epidemic diseases were formerly
extremely frequent and virulent in that City.

The absurd festival of the "Metzger-Sprung" (Butchers' Leap), which
takes place annually on the Monday before Ash-Wednesday, when
butcher-boys attain to the second grade of their apprenticeship by
dressing themselves in long robes trimmed with calves' tails, and
springing into the old fountain in the Marien-Platz in the face of an
admiring crowd, is held in commemoration of a similar frolic contrived
several hundred years ago by lads of the same trade during the
prevalence of a horrible epidemic, for the purpose of tempting the
frightened citizens out of their gloomy houses into fresh air and
merriment, which these sensible youths had concluded to be the best
safeguards against disease. The grotesque procession of the
"Schaeffler-Tanz" (Coopers' Dance), which occurs once in every seven
years, just before the Carnival, has a similar origin. One