Sunday there was no use of advertising any more, and we refused twenty
dollars' worth more because we thought if that was the last paper we were
going to get out we might as knock off work Friday and Saturday and go and
catch a string of perch. The people have been fooled about this thing
enough, and the first man that comes around with any more predictions
ought to be arrested.

People have got enough to worry about, paying taxes, and buying
strawberries and sugar, to can, without feeling that if they get a tax
receipt the money will be a dead loss, or if they put up a cellar full of
canned fruit the world will tip over on it and break every jar and bust
every tin can.

Hereafter we propose to go right along as though the world was going to
stay right side up, have our hair cut, and try and behave, and then if old
mother earth shoots off into space without any warning we will take our
chances with the rest in catching on to the corner of some passing star
and throw our leg over and get acquainted with the people there, and maybe
start a funny paper and split the star wide open.

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH OF JULY.

On this great day we are accustomed to leave our business to hired men,
and burn with patriotism, and ginger pop, fill ourselves with patriotic
ferver, and beer, shout the battle cry of freedom, and go home when the
day is over with our eye-winkers burned off, and to sleep with a
consciousness that a great duty has been performed, and that we have got
bank notes to pay on the morrow. For three hundred and sixty-four days in
the year our patriotism is corked up and wired down, and all we can do is
to work, and acquire age and strength. On the 4th of July we cut the wire,
the cork that holds our patriotism flies out, and we bubble and sparkle
and steam, and make things howl. We hold in as long as we can, but when we
get the harness off, and are turned into the pasture, we make a picnic of
ourselves, with music all along the line.

THE USES OF THE PAPER BAG.

A First Ward man was told by his wife to bring home a quart of oysters on
New Year's night, to fry for supper. He drank a few prescriptions of egg
nog, and then took a paper bag full of selects and started for home. He
stopped at two or three saloons, and the bag began to melt, and when he
left the last saloon the bottom fell out of the bag and the oysters were
on the sidewalk.

[Illustration: SLIPPERY OYSTERS.]

We will leave the man there, gazing