na; I eat, drink or sleep just as I feel
like it."

"What horrible barbarity! You must settle down to some occupation, my
friend. If you don't it will be my duty to lock you up as a vagrant."

"If I have to follow some occupation I think I'll start a coffee house.
I've got a considerable amount of coffee and sugar stored here and
there."

"Oh, you have, have you? Why, you are not such a hopeless case as I
thought you were. In the first place you want to pay me the sum of fifty
dollars."

"What for?"

"As an occupation tax, you ignorant heathen. Do you expect all the
blessings of civilization for nothing?"

"But I have no money."

"That makes no difference. I'll take it out in tea and coffee. If you
don't pay up like a Christian man, I'll put you in jail for the rest of
your life."

"What is jail?"

"Jail is a progressive word. You must be prepared to make some
sacrifices for civilization, you know."

"What a great and glorious thing is civilization."

"You cannot possibly realize the benefits of it, but you will before I
get through with you, my fine fellow."

The unfortunate native took to the woods and has not been seen
since--_Waverly Magazine_.

[Illustration]

OUR PURPOSE.

By MARY HANSEN.

_I come, not with the blaring of trumpet,
To herald the birth of a king;
I come, not with traditional story,
The life of a savior to sing;
I come, not with jests for the silly,
I come, not to worship the strong,
But to question the powers that govern,
To point out a world-old wrong._

_To kiss from the starved lips of childhood
The lies that are sapping its breath,
And brighten the brief cheerless valley
That leads to the darkness of death;
With reason and sympathy blended,
And a hope that all mankind shall see,
Untrammeled by Creed, Law or Custom--
The attainable goal of the Free._

MARRIAGE AND THE HOME.

By JOHN R. CORYELL.

You remember _Punch's_ advice to the young man about to be
married--don't. There is a jest nearly half a century old, and yet ever
fresh and poignant. Why? Can it be that the secret, serious voice of
mankind proclaims the jest truth in masquerade? Can it be that marriage,
as an institution, has indeed proved itself in experience such a
terrible failure?

We worship many fetishes, we of the superior civilization, and the
institution of marriage is the chief of