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is a humbug-husbands are domestic Napoleons, Neros, Alexanders, sighing for other hearts to conquer after they are sure

of yours.

2. The honeymoon is short lived as a lucifer match; after that you may wear your wedding dress at the wash-tub, and your night-cap to meeting, and your husband would n't know it. You may pick up your own pocket handkerchief, help yourself to a chair, and split your gown across the back reach ing over the table to get a piece of butter, while he is laying in his breakfast as if it was the last meal he should eat this side of Jordan; when he gets through he will aid your digestion-while you are sipping your first cup of coffee-by inquiring what you'll have for dinner, whether the cold lamb was all ate yesterday, if the charcoal is all out, and what you gave for the last green tea you bought.

3. Then he gets up from the table, lights his cigar with the last evening's paper, that you have not had a chance to read, gives two or three whiffs of smoke, sure to give you a headache for the afternoon, and just as his coat-tail is vanishing through the door, apologizes for not doing "that errand" for you yesterday-thinks it doubtful if he can to-day-" so pressed with bu siness," Hear of him at 11 o'clock, taking an ice cream with some ladies at Vinton's, while you are at home new lining his coat-sleeves.

4. Children by the ears all day, can't get out to take the air, feel as crazy as a fly in a drum; husband comes home at night, nods a "how d'ye do, Fan," boxes Charley's ears, stands little Fanny in the corner, sits down in the easiest chair in the warmest corner, puts his feet up over the grate, shutting out all the fire, while the baby's little pug nose grows blue with the cold; reads the newspaper all to himself, solaces his inner man with a hot cup of tea, and just as you are laboring under the hallucination that he will ask you to take a mouthful of fresh air with him, he puts on his dressing gown and slip.

pers, and begins to reckon up the family expenses! after which, he lies down on the sofa, and you keep time with your needle, while he snores till nine o'clock.

5. Next morning ask him to leave you "a little money,” he looks at you as if to be sure that you are in your right mind, draws a sigh long enough and strong enough to inflate a bellows, and asks you "what you want with it, and if a half a dollar won't do." Gracious king! as if those little shoes, and stockings, and petticoats could be had for half a dollar!

6. Oh, girls! set your affections on cats, poodles, parrots or lap dogs-but let matrimony alone. It's the hardest way on earth of getting a living—you never know when your work is done up. Think of carrying eight or nine children through the measles, chicken pox, rash, mumps, and scarlet fever, some of 'em twice over; it makes my sides ache to think of it. Oh, you may scrimp and save, and twist and turn, and dig and delve, and economise, AND DIE, and your husband will marry again, and take what you have saved to dress his second wife with, and she'll take your portrait for a fire-board, and—but what's the use of talking? I'll warrant every one of you'll try it, the first chance you get; there's a sort of bewitchment about it somehow. I wish one half of the world warn't fools, and t'other half idiots, I do. Oh, dear!

LESSON XXII.

SPEECH AT A DEBATING SOCIETY.

BY A SPECTATOR.

QUESTION:-Which is the greatest evil, a scolding wife or a smoking chimney?

1. MR. PRESIDENT:-I have been almost mad a listening to the debate of these 'ere youngsters. They don't know anything about the subject. What do they know about the evils

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of a scolding wife? Wait till they have one for twenty years, and been hammered, and jammed, and slammed, all the while; and wait till they have been scolded because the baby cried, because the fire wouldn't burn, because the oven was too hot, because the cow kicked over the milk, because it rained, because the sun shined, because the hens didn't lay, because the butter wouldn't come, because the old cat had kittens, because they come too soon to dinner, because they were one minute too late, because they sung, because they tore their trowsers, because they invited a neighbor woman to call again, no matter whether they could or not,-before they talk about the evils of scolding.

2. Why, Mr. President, I had rather hear the clatter of hammers and stones, twenty tin-pans and nine brass-kettles, than the din, din, of a scolding wife. Yes-sir-ee, I would; to my mind, Mr. President, a smoking chimney is no more compared to a scolding wife, than a little nigger is to a dark night.

LESSON XXIII.

SCENE ON THE FIRST DAY OF APRIL.

BUFFALO COURIER.

1. DEEP in a lonely glen, by rugged cliffs
Surrounded, and hemmed in, there had been reared
A rustic hamlet. Its low cottage

Was neat and comely, and its single spire
Peered up amid the rocks that beetled round,
And humbly pointed out the way to heaven.
'Twas a wild spot, where nature loved to rear
Her rustic noblemen. The village school

From which rich stores of knowledge had been won,
Stood close beside a precipice, whose top

With a broad, solid rock was covered o'er.

Here oft the village children would resort
For sport and pastime; heedless of the cliff
Which stretched so close beside them, heedless, too,
Of many a prudent matron's warning voice,
Or the good teacher's wise and solemn look,
As he gazed down into the dark abyss,

And shook his head, and bade them stand aloof.

2. Bright rose the sun the morn that ushered in

3.

The month of storms; from rock, and brier, and tree,
The frost-work glittered like a diamond robe.
The ice-bound stream was loosing fast her chain,
And summer seemed awaking from her sleep.
The village lads their wonted haunts had sought,
To spend their holiday; and wild and high,
Rung out upon the air their shouts of glee.
Long time they gamboled, till the sun had climbed
With silent, lingering step, half-way mid-heaven,
And in their childish joyousness forgot,

The frowning precipice; when one wild youth,
Marked out his headling course toward the cliff,
And on a sudden shrieked and disappeared!
With horror-stricken looks the startled group,
Gazed for a moment, then in one wild scream,
They burst, and, frighted, fled.

The alarm was spread,

From cot to cot, even to the hamlet's verge,

And every hut, and every humble shed

Gave forth into the street its stated train,

With anxious look, to question who was lost.

He was a widowed mother's only son,

And every breast in sympathy awoke,

When she-the stricken-from her cot rushed forth,

And led toward the cliff. The hurrying crowd
Pressed close upon her track, with hooks and ropes
Preparing, as they went, that they might bring
Back from the deep abyss the mangled boy,-
A last poor consolation for a friend.

4. They reached the spot, and, by a mother's tears
Urged on, made ready for the dire descent,
Down that dark precipice, when suddenly,
Peering above the rocks, the widow's son
Cried, "April Fool!"

LESSON XXIV.

JOHN THOMPSON'S DAUGHTER.

ANONYMOUS.

1. A fellow near Kentucky's clime,
Cries, "boatman do not tarry,
And I'll give thee a silver dime,
To row us o'er the ferry."

2. "Now who would cross the Ohio,
This dark and stormy water?"
"O, I am this young lady's beau,

And she's John Thompson's daughter.
3. "We've fled before her father's spite,
With great precipitation,

And should he find us here to-night,
I'd lose my reputation.

4. "They've missed the girl and purse besides,
His horsemen hard have pressed me,
And who will cheer my bonny bride,

If yet they will arrest me?"

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