nging around, living
from hand to mouth, living upon some friend, waiting for a vacancy in
some overcrowded store; and, when a vacancy occurs, offering to work for
a salary that would cause a shrewd business man to suspect their
honesty; and when remonstrated with by friends, and advised to go to
work, they invariably answer, "I don't know what to do."

We would say to these who want to know what to do, go to work. There is
work enough to do by which you can earn an honest living and gain the
respect of all those whose respect is worth seeking. Quit loafing about,
waiting and looking for a clerkship in a store with a wheelbarrow-load
of goods. Get out into the country on a farm, and go to work. What to
do? Why, in the Mississippi bottoms there are thousands of acres of
virgin growth awaiting the stroke of the hardy axe-man, and thousands of
acres of tillable-land that need only the work of the sturdy plowman to
yield its treasures, richer far than the mines of the Black Hills; and
yet you say you don't know what to do?

Go to work--go to the woods--go to the fields--and make an honest
living; for we have in our mind's eye numbers of men whose talents are
better suited to picking cotton, than measuring calico; to cutting cord
wood than weighing sugar; to keeping up fencing, than books, and to
hauling rails, than dashing out whiskey by the drink; and we can assure
you that the occupations you are better adapted for are much more
honorable in the eyes of persons whose respect is worth having.

* * * * *

A little girl asked her father one day to taste a most delicious apple.
What remained was ruefully inspected a moment, when she asked: "Do you
know, papa, how I can tell you are big without looking at you?"--"I
cannot say," was the reply. "I can tell by the bite you took out of my
apple," was the crushing reply.

* * * * *

DONAHOE'S MAGAZINE.

BOSTON, FEBRUARY, 1886.

NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.

The Poles.

We have been taught from our boyhood days to regard the Polish people as
second to none in obedience to their church; except the Irish, they have
suffered more for the Faith than any other peoples in Europe. We are,
therefore, grieved to see in some of our Western cities a spirit of
rebellion unworthy of the sons of De Kalb and Kosciusko. There is
something radically wrong. In the following article, from our esteemed
contemporary, the _Lak