of life in which to arrange my worldly affairs
and prepare for the great change. It is enough, for I have but few
affairs and it is now four years since death became an imperative
obligation.

"I shall bear this writing on my body; the finder will please hand it
to the coroner.

"JAMES R. COLSTON.

"P.S.--Willard Marsh, on this the fatal fifteenth day of July I hand
you this manuscript, to be opened and read under the conditions agreed
upon, and at the place which I designated. I forego my intention to
keep it on my body to explain the manner of my death, which is not
important. It will serve to explain the manner of yours. I am to call
for you during the night to receive assurance that you have read the
manuscript. You know me well enough to expect me. But, my friend, it
_will be after twelve o'clock._ May God have mercy on our souls!

"J.R.C."

Before the man who was reading this manuscript had finished, the candle
had been picked up and lighted. When the reader had done, he quietly
thrust the paper against the flame and despite the protestations of the
others held it until it was burnt to ashes. The man who did this, and
who afterward placidly endured a severe reprimand from the coroner, was
a son-in-law of the late Charles Breede. At the inquest nothing could
elicit an intelligent account of what the paper had contained.

FROM "THE TIMES"

"Yesterday the Commissioners of Lunacy committed to the asylum Mr.
James R. Colston, a writer of some local reputation, connected with
the _Messenger_. It will be remembered that on the evening of the 15th
inst. Mr. Colston was given into custody by one of his fellow-lodgers
in the Baine House, who had observed him acting very suspiciously,
baring his throat and whetting a razor--occasionally trying its edge
by actually cutting through the skin of his arm, etc. On being handed
over to the police, the unfortunate man made a desperate resistance,
and has ever since been so violent that it has been necessary to keep
him in a strait-jacket. Most of our esteemed contemporary's other
writers are still at large."

THE BOARDED WINDOW

In 1830, only a few miles away from what is now the great city of
Cincinnati, lay an immense and almost unbroken forest. The whole region
was sparsely settled by people of the frontier--restless souls who no
sooner had hewn fairly habitable homes out of the wilderness and
attained to that