s he not for ages revolved upon church-steeples as the emblem of
watchfulness? He has the homelier virtues. He is a kind father and a
fond as well as a multitudinous husband. He knows how to protect his
family from errant and disreputable roosters, and he is always willing
to stand aside with unsatisfied appetite and permit them to devour a
dainty he has found. He is useful and admirable in his relation to
this world, and he is not without value to the next, for popular
belief has credited him with the office of warning revisiting spirits
to retire from the earth; and when he crows all through the night, the
Katie Kings and other ghostly persons who come from space to rap
upon tables and evoke discordant twangs from guitars are deaf to the
seductive entreaties of the mediums. When

"This bird of dawning singeth all night long,
... then they say no spirit dares stir abroad."

Perhaps the true method of expelling Satan from the land and of
reforming the corruption which afflicts the country is to place
the cock upon our standards and to offer him inducements to crow
perpetually. There should be something to that effect in the political
platforms. A goose saved Rome; why should not a rooster rescue
America? Let the patriot who curses the noisy bird which crows him
from his drowsy couch at an unseemly hour think of these things and
allay his wrath with reflections upon the well-deserved glories of the
matutinal rooster.

I have one neighbor who does not regard the crowing cock with proper
enthusiasm--who is indeed inclined to look upon it with disgust; but
as he has been a victim of the bird's vociferousness, perhaps his
sentiments of dislike for the proud bird may be excused.

The agricultural society of our county held a poultry show last fall,
and Mr. Butterwick, who is a member of the society, was invited to
deliver the address at the commencement of the fair. Mr. Butterwick
prepared what he considered a very learned paper upon the culture of
domestic fowls; and when the time arrived, he was on the platform
ready to enlighten the audience. The birds were arranged around the
hall in cages; and when the exhibition had been formally opened by the
chairman, the orator came forward with his manuscript in his hand.
Just as he began to read it a black Poland rooster close to the stage
uttered a loud and defiant crow. There were about two hundred roosters
in the hall, and every one of them instantly began to crow in the