her lover with, I think, a knife.
A fire on Blank Street and some babies--one,
Two, three or four, I don't remember, done
To quite a delicate and lovely brown.
A husband shot by woman of the town--
The same old story. Shipwreck somewhere south.
The crew, all saved--or lost. Uncommon drouth
Makes hundreds homeless up the River Mud--
Though, come to think, I guess it was a flood.
'T is feared some bank will burst--or else it won't
They always burst, I fancy--or they don't;
Who cares a cent?--the banker pays his coin
And takes his chances: bullet in the groin--
But that's another item--suicide--
Fool lost his money (serve him right) and died.
Heigh-ho! there's noth--Jerusalem! what's this:
Tom Jones has failed! My God, what an abyss
Of ruin!--owes me seven hundred clear!
Was ever such a damned disastrous year!

IN THE BINNACLE.

[The Church possesses the unerring compass whose needle points directly
and persistently to the star of the eternal law of God.--_Religious
Weekly._]

The Church's compass, if you please,
Has two or three (or more) degrees
Of variation;
And many a soul has gone to grief
On this or that or t'other reef
Through faith unreckoning or brief
Miscalculation.
Misguidance is of perils chief
To navigation.

The obsequious thing makes, too, you'll mark,
Obeisance through a little arc
Of declination;
For Satan, fearing witches, drew
From Death's pale horse, one day, a shoe,
And nailed it to his door to undo
Their machination.
Since then the needle dips to woo
His habitation.

HUMILITY.

Great poets fire the world with fagots big
That make a crackling racket,
But I'm content with but a whispering twig
To warm some single jacket.

ONE PRESIDENT.

"What are those, father?" "Statesmen, my child--
Lacrymose, unparliamentary, wild."

"What are they that way for, father?" "Last fall,
'Our candidate's better,' they said, 'than all!'"

"What did they say he was, father?" "A man
Built on a straight incorruptible plan--
Believing that none for an office would do
Unless he were honest and capable too."

"Poor gentlemen--_so_ disappointed!" "Yes, lad,
That is the feeling that's driving them mad;
They're weeping and wailing and gnashing because
They find that he's all that they said that he was."

THE BRIDE.

"You know, my fri