t. The wicked and unfeeling even go so far as to seek
amusement in her misery. Her "ducklings" and other symptoms of maternal
agony at beholding the feathered darlings tempting the dangers of a
neighboring duck-pond, do not move their stony breasts. On the contrary,
they decidedly relish that sort of thing, and greet with positive
hilarity the efforts of some sympathizing rooster to cheer her. Fie,
upon such natures! If they must have an outlet for their ribaldry, let
them take PUNCHINELLO'S advice and select such instances as that
recently furnished in Sacramento, where a hen took charge of a nest of
kittens, and resolutely maintained it against the parent cat. Here the
case was different. The hen had become a trespasser. She had no business
with kittens. There was no hypothesis by which she could claim them as
her own. Kittens are not hereditary in the family of fowls, and she knew
it. It was an usurpation without any pretext of justification. What
would become of us if such a precedent could be extended to the genus
_Mammalia?_ Hundreds of rapacious old maids would be seizing all sorts
and all sizes of babies from agonized mothers, and asserting for
themselves the hallowed duties of maternity. Our infant days would have
been days of ceaseless motion. We should have been shuttle-cocked from
maiden to mother and from mother to maiden after a fashion calculated to
defeat the wise purposes of ipecac and paregoric, and to frighten our
natural curls into a state of painful perpendicularity. The mere
presentment of such a possibility, carries its refutation, and puts the
aggressions of this Sacramento hen in the category of outrages which all
society is banded to suppress. If you must laugh, O generation of
scoffers, make your jokes and gibes the instrument of protecting the
altars of all such feline households as may be thus assailed.

* * * * *

Flag and Rag.

What is the difference between a railroad danger signal and a lost
pocket-handkerchief?

The one is a red flag, the other is a fled rag.

* * * * *

[Illustration: SOCIAL SCIENCE.

_Lecturer._ "THERE IS A CUMULATIVE APPROXIMATIVENESS, SO TO SPEAK, A
PERIOD WHEN THE RECALCITRANT CORPUSCLES BEGIN TO "-------

_Stenographer._ "CON-FOUND THE FELLOW! I KNEW HE'D BREAK MY PENCIL WITH
HIS INFERNAL JAW-SMASHERS!"]

* * * * *

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE.

[BY ATLANTIC CABLE