Man with No Enemies

An Inoffensive Person walking in a public place was assaulted by a
Stranger with a Club, and severely beaten.

When the Stranger with a Club was brought to trial, the complainant said
to the Judge:

"I do not know why I was assaulted; I have not an enemy in the world."

"That," said the defendant, "is why I struck him."

"Let the prisoner be discharged," said the Judge; "a man who has no
enemies has no friends. The courts are not for such."

The Alderman and the Raccoon

"I see quite a number of rings on your tail," said an Alderman to a
Raccoon that he met in a zoological garden.

"Yes," replied the Raccoon, "and I hear quite a number of tales on your
ring."

The Alderman, being of a sensitive, retiring disposition, shrank from
further comparison, and, strolling to another part of the garden, stole
the camel.

The Flying-Machine

An Ingenious Man who had built a flying-machine invited a great concourse
of people to see it go up. At the appointed moment, everything being
ready, he boarded the car and turned on the power. The machine
immediately broke through the massive substructure upon which it was
builded, and sank out of sight into the earth, the aeronaut springing out
barely in time to save himself.

"Well," said he, "I have done enough to demonstrate the correctness of my
details. The defects," he added, with a look at the ruined brick-work,
"are merely basic and fundamental."

Upon this assurance the people came forward with subscriptions to build a
second machine.

The Angel's Tear

An Unworthy Man who had laughed at the woes of a Woman whom he loved, was
bewailing his indiscretion in sack-cloth-of-gold and ashes-of-roses, when
the Angel of Compassion looked down upon him, saying:

"Poor mortal!--how unblest not to know the wickedness of laughing at
another's misfortune!"

So saying, he let fall a great tear, which, encountering in its descent a
current of cold air, was congealed into a hail-stone. This struck the
Unworthy Man on the head and set him rubbing that bruised organ
vigorously with one hand while vainly attempting to expand an umbrella
with the other.

Thereat the Angel of Compassion did most shamelessly and wickedly laugh.

The City of Political Distinction

Jamrach the Rich, being anxious to reach the City of Political
Distinction before nightfall, arrived at a fork of the road and was
undecided which branch to fo