ary to remove the
wainscot, when some things were brought to light which greatly
astonished the workman. A brace of decanters, sundry bottles containing
"something to take," a pitcher, and tumblers were cosily reposing in
their snug quarters. The joiner ran to the proprietor with the
intelligence.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed the deacon. "That is curious, sure enough.
It must be old Captain Bunce that left those things there when he
occupied the premises thirty years since."

"Perhaps he did, returned the discoverer, but, Deacon, that ice in the
pitcher must have been well frozen to remain solid."--_Abbie C. Dixon_.

Here's to a temperance supper,
With water in glasses tall,
And coffee and tea to end with
And me not there at all.

The best prohibition story of the season comes from Kansas where, it is
said, a local candidate stored a lot of printed prohibition literature
in his barn, but accidentally left the door open and a herd of milch
cows came in and ate all the pamphlets. As a result every cow in the
herd went dry.--_Adrian Times_.

A Michigan citizen recently received a letter from a Kentucky whisky
house, requesting him to send them the names of a dozen or more persons
who would like to get some fine whisky shipped to them at a very low
price. The letter wound up by saying:

"We will give you a commission on all the orders sent in by parties
whose names you send us."

The Michigan man belonged to a practical joke class, and filled in the
names of some of his prohibition friends on the blank spaces left for
that purpose.

He had forgotten all about his supposed practical joke when Monday he
received another letter from the same house. He supposed it was a
request for some more names, and was just about to throw the
communication in the waste basket when it occurred to him to send the
name of another old friend to the whisky house. He accordingly tore open
the envelope, and came near collapsing when he found a check for $4.80,
representing his commission on the sale of whisky to the parties whose
names he had sent in about three weeks before.

Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.--_Samuel
Johnson_.

TEXAS

The bigness of Texas is evident from a cursory examination of the map.
But its effect upon the people of that state is not generally known. It
is about six hundred miles from Brownsville, at the bottom of the map,
to Dallas, which is severa