at the trolley-wire is very
dangerous to human life. This is not really so. Nobody has ever been
killed by a shock from a trolley-wire. The current used for electric
railways, although great power is conveyed by it, has not the property
of giving a fatal shock to the human system. There are just as great
differences between the electric currents used for different purposes as
there are between streams of water. Some streams have great volume, but
very slow flow, others fly out of a half-inch nozzle with sufficient
velocity to drill a hole through a man's body as cleanly as a rifle
bullet. It is the same with an electric current. You may have a current
capable of fusing bars of iron, yet you could not feel it pass through
your body, and another kind of current that can be carried by a fine
wire will give a shock strong enough to kill. Therefore, believe me,
there is a great deal of nonsense written in the newspapers about the
"deadly trolley."

Where the "deadliness" of the trolley certainly comes in is in the
extreme handiness of the cars. The horse-car driver has hard work to get
much speed out of his team; the gripman of the cable-car can go no
faster than the cable will drag him; but the motorman of the trolley-car
can with a twirl of his wrist send his heavy car bounding on like a
thing of life. The temptation to "speed up" when it is so easily done is
too much for human nature. This accounts for the many accidents that
occur, though it is only fair to say that the fault is partly with the
mothers who allow their little ones to play in streets where there are
car tracks, for the victims of the trolley-cars seem to be nearly always
young children.

A PARTNERSHIP ARRANGEMENT.

BY WALTER CLARKE NICHOLS.

A partnership once, as some historians state,
Was formed on the banks of the slow-flowing Nile
By a young Cheshire cat, an elephant straight
From the jungle, and, thirdly, an old crocodile.

"For surely," the elephant plausibly said,
"We can all of us turn in the forth-coming years,
When sad, to the crocodile, whom we've been led
To believe an exceptional expert in tears."

"Quite right," quoth the latter. "We cannot begin
Too early, and when we need mutual mirth
We can look to our pussie, whose broad Cheshire grin
Excels in duration all others on earth."

"And then, when we're travelling," chimed in the cat,
Who had been for some moments in solemn thought su