burned in the apartments of royalty. To some extent it was
employed as a medicine and to flavor certain dishes.
Nowadays it is utilized almost exclusively by perfumers, in
the preparation of fine scents, being first converted into a
tincture by dissolving it in alcohol.

ORIGIN OF HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.

ANCIENT PARALLEL OF OUR JINGLE.

"A Kid! A Kid!" Sang the Hebrew
Children in Lieu of Our Parable from
the Pages of Mother Goose.

The sources of our nursery rhymes are many, and slowly to be traced out.
Many of them have a lineage with serious historical meaning; others seem
to have been suggested by the forms of more serious verses or parables.

Take "The House That Jack Built"; many sources and parallels have been dug
out. The Kafirs of South Africa tell a story like it in form and
substance. The most interesting parallel, however, is an ancient Hebrew
parable called "The Two Zuzim," the summation of which is as follows:

[This is] the kid that my father bought
for two zuzim.
[This is] the cat that ate the kid, etc.
[This is] the dog that bit the cat, etc.
[This is] the stick that beat the dog, etc.
[This is] the fire that burned the stick, etc.
[This is] the water that quenched the fire,
etc.
[This is] the ox that drank the water, etc.
[This is] the butcher that slew the ox, etc.
[This is] the angel of death that killed the
butcher, etc.
[This is] Yaveh, that vanquished the angel
of death, etc.

Spartacus to the Gladiators at Capua.

BY ELIJAH KELLOGG.

It is Friday afternoon. The "scholars" of School Number
Nine, having droned through a week of lessons, are beginning
the "weekly exercises." Come visitors--Freddy Jones's mother
and aunt, and William Groso's father, and the minister, and
old Mrs. Huggins, who never misses the occasion, though she
has no children of her own. Teacher, working into her voice
an unwonted note of encouragement, calls the first name on
the program, and Freddy Jones, his legs very stiff, marches
to the platform, jerks his head toward teacher, and faces
his mates. His legs are no longer stiff; on the contrary,
his knee-joints seem to be made of whalebone. His mouth is
dry and his forehead is clammy.

Freddy is not the biggest or strongest of the boys; he is
not a leader among them. He has even been known to play with
the girls. H