as contributed its assortments of choice,
white skeletons and second hand clothes to the remorseless maw of the
hungry and ravenous north.

And still the great pole continued to squeak on through days that were
six months long and nights that made breakfast seem almost useless.

In 1477 Columbus went up that way, but did not succeed in starving to
death. He got a bird's-eye view of a large deposit of dark-blue ice, got
hungry and came home.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the northern nations of
Europe, and especially the Dutch, kept the discovery business red-hot,
but they did not get any fragments of the true pole. The maritime
nations of Europe, together with other foreign powers, dynasties, and
human beings, for some time had spells of visiting the polar seas and
neglecting to come back. It was the custom then as it is now, to go
twenty rods farther than any other man had ever been, eat a deviled
bootleg, curl up, and perish. Thousands of the best and brightest minds
of all ages have yielded to this wild desire to live on sperm oil,
pain-killer and jerked walrus, keep a little blue diary for thirteen
weeks, and then feed it to a tall white bear with red gums.

That is not all. Millions of gallons of whiskey are sent to these frozen
countries and used by the explorer in treating the untutored Esquimaux,
who are not, and never will be, voters. It seems to me utterly
ill-advised and shamefully idiotic.

BILL NYE'S ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Capitalist--Will you kindly furnish your address once more? You must
either stop moving about so or leave some one at home to represent you.
Nothing is more humiliating to a literary man of keen sensibilities than
to draw at sight and have the draft returned with the memorandum on the
back in pencil "Gone to the White mountains," or "Gone to Lake Elmo on
another bridal tour," or "Gone to Bayfield to be absent several years,"
or "Gone to Minnetonka to wait till the clouds roll by."

"Searcher," Peru, Ill.--Cum grano salis was the motto of the ancients,
and was written in blue letters at the base of the shield on a field
emerald, supported by a cucumber recumbent. The author is unknown.

"S. Q. G.," McGree's Prairie, Iowa, asks: "Do you know of any place
where a young man can get a good living?"

That depends on what you call a good living, S. Q. G. If your stomach
would not revolt at plain fare, such as poor people use, come up and
stop at our house a