ey, preparing to set down the answer.

"No," replied the Dying Man, "I was the aggressor."

"Yes, I understand," said the District Attorney; "you committed the
aggression--you were compelled to, as it were. You did it in
self-defence."

"I don't think he would have hurt me if I had let him alone," said the
other. "No, I fancy he was a man of peace, and would not have hurt a
fly. I brought such a pressure to bear on him that he naturally had to
yield--he couldn't hold out. If he had refused to shoot me I don't see
how I could decently have continued his acquaintance."

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the District Attorney, throwing down his note-
book and pencil; "this is all quite irregular. I can't make use of such
an ante-mortem statement as that."

"I never before knew a man to tell the truth," said the Chief of Police,
"when dying of violence."

"Violence nothing!" the Police Surgeon said, pulling out and inspecting
the man's tongue--"it is the truth that is killing him."

The Massacre

Some Holy Missionaries in China having been deprived of life by the
Bigoted Heathens, the Christian Press made a note of it, and was greatly
pained to point out the contrast between the Bigoted Heathens and the law-
abiding countrymen of the Holy Missionaries who had wickedly been sent to
eternal bliss.

"Yes," assented a Miserable Sinner, as he finished reading the articles,
"the Heathens of Ying Shing are deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked. By the way," he added, turning over the paper to
read the entertaining and instructive Fables, "I know the Heathenese
lingo. Ying Shing means Rock Creek; it is in the Province of Wyo Ming."

A Ship and a Man

Seeing a ship sailing by upon the sea of politics, an Ambitious Person
started in hot pursuit along the strand; but the people's eyes being
fixed upon the Presidency no one observed the pursuer. This greatly
annoyed him, and recollecting that he was not aquatic, he stopped and
shouted across the waves' tumultous roar:

"Take my name off the passenger list."

Back to him over the waters, hollow and heartless, like laughter in a
tomb, rang the voice of the Skipper:

"'T ain't on!"

And there, in the focus of a million pairs of convergent eyes, the
Ambitious Person sat him down between the sun and moon and murmured sadly
to his own soul:

"Marooned, by thunder!"

Congress and the People

Successive Congresses having greatly impov