resents a large number of

Old and New Songs

and Hymns, in great variety and very carefully selected, comprising
Sixteen Hundred in the Eight Numbers thus far issued, together with much
choice and profitable Reading Matter relating to Music and Musicians. In
the complete and varied

Table of Contents,

which is sent free on application to the Publishers, there are found
dozens of the best things in the World, which are well worth committing
to memory; and they who know most of such good things, and appreciate
and enjoy them most, are really among the best educated people in any
country. They have the best result of Education. For above Contents,
with sample pages of Music, address

Harper & Brothers, New York.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: SISTER SUE'S DREAM ABOUT BROTHER TOMMY.]

AN IRON PLUM.

The London coster has become a very interesting character, and many
songs, and good ones too, have been written about his virtues and his
weaknesses. Some of these street venders have made fortunes, and have
retired to live the balance of their days in ease. One of these retired
gentlemen was interviewed not long ago by a London newspaper, and in the
course of the talk he showed how some of them had managed to grow rich
so speedily.

"The costers wot sold plums made the money," he said, "an' a bloomin'
big part of it came from wot they calls the iron plum. A fair take in
that was. You wouldn't have known it from a real 'un--colored just the
same, and with a good bloom on it. Course you took care to keep it close
at hand, and at your side of the heap you was selling from. 'Come and
have lumping weight,' says you, and you popped the iron 'un in among the
others, and wallop went the scale, with p'r'haps no more than half a
p'und instead of a p'und in.

"All you had to do was to take just one--the one, as being rather too
much of a good thing in the way of overweight, just as you were handing
the plums to the customer, and the trick was done. It was bowled out,
though, in a rum sort o' way before it had been in use long enough to do
any of 'em so much good. I had a pitch in Leather Lane at the time, and
it being plum season, I was working the bullet, as we used to call it,
and so was the woman who kept the stall next to me. There used to be a
beadle sort of chap to keep order in the lane, and he was always
uncommon handy at spotting the finest fruit on a man's barrow and
whipping it into his mouth wit