You have been told what a grand show the people in India will often make with their elephants. In this there might not be much harm, but they do worse things than these with them; they teach them how to fight, and that is very bad. Many sad tales have been told of the dreadful things they have done when they have been made to run upon ranks of soldiers who could not withstand the great strength of such a huge creature. But they have been known, when wounded by a cannon ball, to turn round upon those who sent them, and then, full of rage with pain, they would trample down all who stood in their way, as that elephant is doing in the picture.

The people know when the elephant is mad, for then he lifts up his long trunk high in the air, and woe be to any one of them whom he lays hold of with it, for he will dash him on the ground, and kill him by stamping on him with his big heavy foot.

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

It is a very wicked thing for men to fight with one another; and it is very wrong indeed to set dumb animals, like the horse or the elephant, to help them to fight; for we cannot believe that the Lord made them for any such bad purposes. Both these animals are very useful, and willing to help men when they treat them kindly; but if any one should use them ill, though they cannot speak, they will show in their own way that they do not like it, for the horse will kick at him, and the elephant will crush him.

When I was a boy I read a tale about an elephant that I have not forgot. It was this. In one of the cities of India, a keeper of some elephants was driving them down a street to the river to drink. On the way they passed by a tailor's shop. One of the elephants poked its long trunk into the shop, when the tailor, out of fun, pricked it with a needle. The elephant seemed to take no notice, but went on to the river; where, having had a good drink, he went among some rushes, and having stirred up the mud with his feet he filled his great trunk with muddy water, and on his way back he spouted out the dirty stuff all over the poor tailor, who, you may depend upon it, never played any more tricks with an elephant again.

And so I would advise you never to tease or play tricks with dumb creatures, such as dogs or cats, or they may turn savage and bite or scratch you. Always treat them kindly, and then they will not hurt you.

Anecdotes and Selections.

PROFESSOR FAWCETT.-It is said of Professor Fawcett, the blind member of Parliament, that no sooner had he recognised that he was hopelessly blind for life—he was shot in the eyes by a companion while out partridge shooting-than he determined that "it should make no difference," except, perhaps, that his career should be political rather than legal. Already entered at Lincoln's Inn, he relinquished, after some thought, a legal career entirely, and, to the amazement of his friends, proceeded to active political work. How completely his own opinion has been justified at the expense of that of his friends is now well known; but success could hardly have been predicted for the blind young man who, without money, connections, or political backing of any kind, came up to town on the death of Sir Charles Napier, and, attended only by his secretary, took a committee-room and proposed to the electors of Southwark that he should represent them in Parliament. His courage, however, made him many friends, and he only retired from the contest when Mr. Layard was brought forward. Unsuccessful in his first attempt to gain a seat in Parliament, he made a second at Cambridge, which, as well as a subsequent venture at Brighton, resulted in defeat. At the general election of 1865 he contested Brighton again, and was then elected by a large majority. Again beaten at Brighton in 1874, he was shortly afterward returned for Hackney. Meanwhile he became Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge—a post which he now holds.

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

THE PARIS SHOPKEEPER.-Your Paris shopkeeper is always something of an artist. The nameless grace, which you can find nowhere else, is native or indigenous here. Italian art is of the past; German art is heavy; English art is solid; but the French paint, print, move, write and talk with a lightness and skill, proved by the fact that they are imitated by all others. And so the Paris shopkeeper is a model for others. He can tell whether your hat or coat is English or American; and of course he can divine your country at once. There is no trouble too much for him. He is the most dangerous of confidence men, and he has only to find your opinions to concur with you heartily. The ease of his manner is not less interesting than the harmony of the colours in which he or she dress themselves, their shelves, or their windows; and, to crown all, they never speak too loud, or move with vulgar haste. It was Beau Brommel, I think, who said he had bought many more pairs of gloves in Paris than he needed, simply that he might watch the shop-girls trying them on his hands.

BE MINDFUL.-It needs no guilt to break a husband's heart. The absence of content, the mutterings of spleen, the untidy dress and cheerless home, the forbidding scowl and deserted hearth-these, and other nameless neglects, without a crime among them, have harrowed to the quick the heart's core of many a man, and planted there, beyond the reach of cure, the germ of dark despair. Oh, may woman, before that eight arrives, dwell on the recollections of her youth, and cherishing the dear idea of that tuneful time, awaken and keep alive the promise she so kindly gave. And though she may be the injured, not the injuring one-the forgotten, and not the forgetting wife-a happy allusion to the hour of peaceful love-a kindly welcome to a comfortable home-a smile of love to banish hostile words-a kiss of peace to pardon all the past, and the hardest heart that ever locked itself within the breast of selfish man will soften to her charms, and bid her live, as she had hoped, her years of matchless bliss, loved, loving and content-the source of comfort and the spring of joy.

ASSYRIAN TABLETS.-Certain Assyrian tablets, discovered by the late Mr. George Smith, and now in the British Museum, are found to throw great light upon Assyrian Chronology between 605 and 517 B.C. One of these shows that Cyrus, in the ninth year of his reign, abdicated the throne of Babylon in favour of his son Cambyses, Cyrus himself ruling the other provinces until his death, with the title of "King of Countries;" and another, that Cambyses, so far from having been killed on his return from Egypt, must have lived to rule again after the suppression of the revolt of the false Smerdis and the false Nebuchadnezzar.

DON'T WAIT.-Don't wait until to-morrow. Remember in all things that, if you do not begin, you will never come to an end. The first weed pulled up in the garden, the first seed in the ground, the first shilling put in the savings-bank, and the first mile travelled on a journey, are all important things; they make a beginning, and thereby a hope, a promise, a pledge, an assurance that you are in earnest in what you have undertaken. How many a poor, idle, hesitating, out

THE FIRESIDE.

cast is now creeping and crawling on his way through the world who might have held up his head and prospered if, instead of putting off his resolutions of industry and amendment, he had only made a beginning.

BIBLE ARITHMETIC.

Addition.-Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity.-2 Peter, i. 5-7.

Subtraction.-Laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings-desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby.-1 Peter, ii. 1, 2.

Multiplication.-Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.-2 Peter, i. 2.

He that ministereth seed to the sower doth minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness.-2 Cor. ix. 10.

t

Division.-Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.-2 Cor. vi. 17, 18.

The Fireside.

reason of stagnation. Under certain circumstances air stagnates much as does water. We would not think of drinking from a stagnant pool. No more should we breathe the stagnant air.

DON'T SHUT THE WINDOWS.-The | may, however, be free from steam, and superstitious dread of night air on still the air may be unfit to breathe by account of dampness leads the ignorant or thoughtless to close the windows at nightfall. No greater mistake could be made, for whatever the air inclosed in the room, it becomes more damp with every breath inhaled, and very soon becomes damper than the out-door air. If the windows of a sleeping room during occupancy at night be lowered at the top and raised at the bottom during the dampest night they will remain perfectly dry; but if kept closed during the dryest night, glass will be covered with water, or, in cold weather, with frost, by reason of condensation of moisture in the room. The windows are therefore very good barometers, or afford generally a good test of the quality of the air. When there is a sufficient circulation to keep the air pure, it will always have the effect to keep the windows dry. The windows of a room, hall or church,

BOXING CHILDREN'S EARS.-Speaking of boxing the ears of children as a mode of punishment, the London Lancet says: "Medical men alone can be fully aware how fruitful a source of suffering and danger is represented by the box upon the ear. There are, for example, under observation at the present moment two schoolboys who who have been the victims of such an assault. Surely, schoolmasters ought to have learned, long ere this, the danger of a mode of personal chastisement that has apparently usurped the place of others, which, if more disgusting, were not attended with an equal amount of peril."

NOTES AND QUERIES-FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY.

Notes and Queries.

G. F.-You are wrong. The apostle | ness, temperance and the judgment to is admonishing two ladies of rank who, come: but why? Very probably perhaps through difference of tempera- because she wrapt herself in her robes ment, had become, as we say in our of ancestral privilege, and thought she common talk, "two people." was safe whatever she might do.

Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry.