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Editor's

CLERICAL friend at Cleveland, Ohio, writes as follows: "The account of the manner in which the Drawer obtained a good seat to witness the Oberammergau Passion Play reminds me of a similar exercise of Yankee wit by the late Rev. Dr. Leonard Woods, of Bowdoin College. I heard the amusing account from Dr. Woods himself, though I can not tell it as he did, to 'set the table on a roar.' The good Doctor arrived in Paris the day before the grand ceremonies on the removal of the ashes of the great Napoleon to the magnificent monument where they now repose, and he was determined to witness the pageant. But how? The American Minister could do nothing for him. No good place to see the sight could possibly be had for love or money. However, having found out the mourning dress in which the relatives would appear, he went to the fashionable tailor, was arrayed in one of those dresses, and obtained a place among the family dignitaries. How he managed to be as sympathetic as any of the mourners, and how he escaped detection, were inexpressibly laughable.

THERE were many good things said as well as done at the recent General Convention of the Episcopal Church held in this city. This, for example, told by a clerical delegate from Missouri, presents the "wake" question in a new and winning light:

Bridget, a good girl, who did not encumber the kitchen with "steady company," asked permission to go to a wake, which was granted. A few days later she called for her money; she was going to leave. The mistress was sorry to hear it, and asked if she was displeased with anything. "No, I'm not," and with some hesitancy added, "I'm going to marry the corpse's husband; he told me I was the life of the wake."

TROUBLES OF A COUNTRY SEXTON.

CONSPICUOUS among those who congregate at the post-office of the quaint old town of A- to await the arrival of the morning mail is old J, the village sexton, a man of ready wit, and overflowing with anecdotes of his rather gloomy profession. Like some men in other paths of life, he regards his calling with contempt, stoutly averring that almost any trade is preferable to it.

"You see," he said, one morning, pursuing his favorite topic, "the business don't pay, an' it never will. Some folks seems to think a grave-digger oughter work for nothing. Why, here, only a short time ago, I buried a woman, an' knowin' her husband was well fixed, I wasn't in no hurry 'bout sendin' in my bill. Fact, nothin' was said 'bout it till we happened to meet one day in the store, an' then says he,

how much do I owe yer?'

Drawer.

"Well,' says I, 'le' me see. I hed to hire a man to do the diggin', 'cause the frost was in the ground; an' then I 'tended the funeral, so I guess I shell hev to charge yer as much as five dollars.'

"F-i-v-e d-o-1-1-a-r-s!' says he. Why, man alive, I could 'a just druv clean over to Mnigh on to eight mile away, an' hed the job done for half that.'

"An' then there was a man last year, over here a little out o' town. He hed his wife die, an' knowin' me, he sent for me to bury her, 'cause he knowed I'd do the job up in good style. Well, I took charge of the funeral, an' then hed the grave rounded up an' turfed over, so's to look snug and comfterble like. I didn't send in no bill nor think o' dunnin' till I met the man at town-meetin' in the winter. Hullo, J. -,' says he, 'how much must I pay you for that little service you done me last fall?'

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UNCLE HARVEY, as he was called in B——, Maine, was for many years one of the overseers of the poor. Among the paupers committed to his custody was a poor old man named Jones, who one night awakened the overseer by his groans. Uncle Harvey called to him and asked what was the matter. "I'm dying, Uncle Harvey, I'm dying; go and get me a doughnut: I must have suthin' to pass away the time."

The consolatory nut was produced, and Jones faded peacefully away from the planet.

A CORRESPONDENT at Rochester writes that during his vacation last summer he passed a few days at the house of a distant relative, a man of the old Puritan type, who lived among the hills of Central New York. At every meal a blessing of unusual length was asked in language so quaint as to be noticeable. "On the moruing of my departure," writes our friend, "he fairly outdid himself, and closed by saying, 'O Lord, we thank Thee that we again survive the pale nations of the dead!"

Most of us are of that way of thinking.

A GENTLEMAN at "Somerville Farm" tells us of a young man who, on attaining his majority, started to seek his fortune in the West, much against the wishes of his father. Three

A FRIEND at Andover, Massachusetts, contributes the following:

The Rev. Joseph Capen, minister at Topsfield, Massachusetts, from 1681 to 1725, wrote in 1682 an elegy on the somewhat celebrated "computation man" and printer, John Foster, which concluded as follows:

The body, which no activeness did lack,
Now's laid aside like an old almanac;
But for the present only's out of date;
"Twill have, at length, a far more active state;
Yea, though with dust thy body soiled be,
Yet at the resurrection we shall see
A fair edition, and of matchless worth,
Free from erratas, new in heaven set forth.
"Tis but a word from God, the great Creator:
It shall be done when He saith imprimatur.

CONVERSING a few evenings since with a witty prelate who had been in attendance at the Triennial General Convention of the Episcopal Church, allusion was made to the curious vagaries that are manifested by the inmates of our lunatic asylums. In his capacity of visitor of one of these institutions, he encountered on a pleasant morning in one of the walks in which the poor patients are permitted pedestrian exercise an elderly person who at different times claimed to be a personage of historical renown.

"Good-morning, sir," said the visitor. "Pray whom have I the pleasure of addressing this morning?"

"Sir, I am Moses the Lawgiver," was the dignified reply.

At the next visit the same question was repeated, and the answer was, "I, sir, am the Emperor Napoleon."

"Ah, indeed! but it was only last week you told me you were Moses the Lawgiver." "That is true, sir," was the calm response; "but that was by another mother."

it relates to himself. Talking with the Drawer a few days since, Mr. Travers said that when he first became a member of the Board of Brokers the business was small compared with what it now is, and appeals to the president on points of order less frequent. On one occasion, when a certain stock was called, he and Mr. Henry G. Stebbins bid almost at the same moment for a hundred shares. Mr. Stebbins, in his bland and graceful way, addressed the president, saying there could be no mistake as to who was entitled to the stock, as he had made his bid and sat down before his young friend had finished. "Th-th-that may b-b-be so,” replied Mr. Travers, “b-b-but ev-ev-every body r-r-round knows that I be-be-began first." Which was unanimously confirmed, and the stock was awarded to Mr. Travers.

"Th-th-that's a fact," said Mr. T., " and you may put it in the Dr-Drawer."

On another occasion a little knot of gentlemen were chatting in one corner of the club, when Mr. Lawrence Jerome, the readiest and most inexhaustible of raconteurs, turned to Mr. T. and said:

"Look here, Travers, I want to tell you a first-rate story."

"All r-r-right," replied Mr. T. "Go ahead; I'll st-st-stay, if the r-r-rest will.”

It was a simple and understandable way of stating it by a Chinaman who, having indulged in too many convivial fluids, was taken, quite intoxicated, to the First Precinct police station. On being questioned by the officer how he became so, he held up his hand, and pointing to the thumb and four fingers said, “Five gin cocktail; regular Melican drunk."

REV. DR. GANNET, whom the Unitarians of Boston revered as next to Chanting in saintliness and purity of soul, was an unfailing attendant upon a religious meeting held by a few friends. With his usual devotion to good things, and forgetfulness of self, he set out at the regular hour on the day of the terrible snow-storm of 1868, which blockaded the streets of the Hub, and in which several persons lost their lives while attempting to leave the city for suburban homes. The Doctor, who was as Lilliputian in frame as giant in soul, struggled on through the deserted streets, encountering greater and greater difficulties, until at last, overcome with cold and fatigue, he stumbled and fell in an immense snow-drift, where he lay helpless and in imminent peril of his life.

At this critical juncture an enormous truckman, battling his way along, fortunately entered the street, and catching sight of the Doctor, waded into the drift, picked him up, and fighting out again, shook the snow from his burden, and without the slightest idea who he was, laid him on the first door-step they could reach.

Standing over him, he gazed down as a big

IN these days, when hygienists are beginning to make us feel that where "ignorance is bliss 'twere folly to be wise," the following may bring a restful suggestion of its own:

Judge H, of New York, being ordered to a mild winter climate, took refuge in Florida, and sitting one day in front of his hotel on the St. Johns, seemed to furnish a study to the knot of idlers under the live-oaks of the yard.

"I expect, stranger, they have right smart of consumption where you were raised," began the most curious at last.

"More or less. How is it on the St. Johns ?" answered the Judge, with a quiet whiff at his pipe.

"Well, they do a powerful heap of chilling in some spots; that's a fact, but right about here they dry up and blow away." And then followed an enumeration of the ills flesh might fall heir to in different regions not so far removed. In Upper Florida it was possible to die of bronchitis; in New Orleans there were the snares of Yellow Jack; and in the pine lands a thunder-bolt sometimes fell with even swifter stroke. At last the laziest of the group pushed back his sombrero and gave his hair a slow and thoughtful rub.

"Fact is, stranger," with a meditative look at the Judge, "I don't reckon it makes so much difference, after all. Fact is, it's rather dangerous livin' anywhar."

A CLERICAL friend at Hornellsville, New York, mentions a little girl who was amusing herself by jumping from one to another on some flagging stones that were being laid on the sidewalk. Her mother, fearing she might hurt herself, forbade this pastime, but, suspecting disobedience, looked through the window, and seeing her do the same thing, called her in and told her she was not only disobeying, but breaking one of the commandments. The little one felt badly at first, but soon brightened up, and said, "Mamma, those commandments break awful easy."

And that, generally, is what's the matter. They are so easy to fracture.

DEACON of Illinois, sold a horse with fullest recommendations, and with the repeated assurance that he had owned the creature for three years, and it had never given him a particle of trouble in all that time. On reaching home the purchaser harnessed his new acquisition into a buggy, and was just about to take the reins, when the horse's heels came flying into the dash-board, and the whole vehicle fell suddenly into wreck. Loosening the animal, he led him to a light wagon and tried that, when a similar chaos was the immediate result. |

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hours, and a third trial made, this time the harness and solid fore-wheels of a farm dray being the sacrifice. Hot with indiguation, the purchaser sought the deacon, and confronted him with the facts.

"Didn't you tell me you had owned this horse three years, and never had a particle of trouble with him in that time?" "Oh yes."

"Well, that was thirty-six hours ago, and he has kicked out three harnesses, two dashboards, and two or three wagous for me in that time."

"Oh, very likely," answered the deacon, with an unruffled smile. "He always had that way when I owned him, but I never allow such little things as that to trouble ME."

ONE Isaac Reed was the editor of an edition of Shakspeare, in twelve volumes, published by Tegg in 1820. The epitaph upon his tomb is curious. It runs as follows:

Reader, of these few lines take heed,
And mend your ways for my sake;
For you must die, like Isaac Reed,

Though you read till your eyes ache. This Shakspearean commentator and bibliophile was a conveyancer of London. He had a large and curious library, which, after his death, realized $20,000.

AN Odd-fellows' lodge in Ohio had the misfortune to lose recently a very deserving member, who fought with distinguished bravery in seventeen of the most hotly contested battles during the late war. The funeral was numerously attended, especially by brethren of the order, who subsequently paid honor to his memory by passing the following resolution: "Resolved, That we will cherish his many virtues, pass his imperfections, and try to imitate his patient endurance, and finally trust all is correct."

THE Rev. Dr. Broadus, an old Baptist parson famous in Virginia, once visited a plantation where the darky who met him at the gate asked him which barn he would have his horse put in.

"Have you two barns?" asked the doctor. "Yes, sah," replied the darky: "dar's de ole barn, and Mas'r Wales has jes build a new one." "Where do you usually put the horses of clergymen who come to see your master?"

"Well, sah, if dey's Methodis's or Baptis's, we gen'ally put 'em in de ole barn, but if dey's 'Piscopals, we puts 'em in de new one."

"Well, Bob, you can put my horse in the new barn: I'm a Baptist, but my horse is an Episcopalian."

THERE are people in the world-even in England-who do not positively yearn for the smoke of tobacco, especially when the fleecy cloud ascends from the bowl of an old pipe.