tell you, you won't catch me in any lies after this. The greatest fire-eater of the south may get to the White House, before I'll prevent it by falsehood. I am totally convinced; thank you, John. Good night!

S. S. CELEBRATION BOOK.

YOUTHFUL ADVOCATES OF TEMPER

ANCE.

SCENE -In front of a country schoolhouse.

Arthur. I say, Joe, father got back from the Legislature last night. Don't you wish you had a father in the Legislature ?

Joe. I dunno. My pa says the Legislature's made up of a lot o' thieves.

A. That's 'cause he can't go himself, ain't it?'

J. Guess he could if he should try as hard as your pa did. He can do 'most anything.

A. Except elect himself, Joe. The people do the voting. Father's going back to-morrow. He says he must be back to vote for the anti-liquor bill, or some such thing. It's to keep folks from selling other folks whiskey and things. "A prohibitionary measure." I b'lieve he calls it.

J. Yes, I know. I heard pa talking about it yesterday. He said if we didn't have some such thing all the boys would grow up drunkards; but I won't, any way. I'll never drink whiskey, nor brandy, nor wine, nor any such thing.

A. Good for you, Joe! Here's my hand on that, and let's stick to it. Father says the Legislature can't do much to help Temperance any way. He says they may legislate and legislate till doomsday, and the men 'll die drunkards just the same. It's the temperance principle that the world wants, he says, more than any temperance laws. I heard him talking to mother about it last night. We can do more for the community," said he, "by helping the young to form habits of total abstinence than by making laws all our life."

J. What is " total abstinence," Arthur?

A. Don't you know? Why, it's letting all sorts of liquor alone - not taking a drop. J. Then we're Total Abstinence boys, ain't we?

A. Of course we are. We'll be so, too,

until we become Total Abstinence men.

H. (coming up). What's that about Total Abstinence men, boys? Who's fool enough to preach Total Abstinence?

A. Wiser folks than you preach it, and practice it, too.

H. Humph! What's the reason a man shouldn't drink a little once in a while, if he wants to?

A. Because of the danger that he may soon drink a little twice in a while, and that's what makes drunkards.

H. Sho! My father ain't a drunkard, and he drinks when he's a mind to. So 'll 1, when I'm a man. He says Total Abstinence is a humbug, and so do I. (Moves away).

A. I tell you, Joe, Harry's learning bad lessons. He thinks his father ain't a drunkard just because he don't lie around in the corners of the fences, like old Billy Bunn, but I'm thinking his father's example is worse than old Billy's. You see nobody would think of doing as Billy does; but father says it's doing as Harry Gray's father does that leads to the other. Father found Mr. Gray in the street t'other night too drunk to get along, and had to help him home. Harry don't know that. Father says he knew old Billy twenty years ago, when he was as promising a young man as there was in the county. If he'd been a Total Abstinence boy he might have been Governor now.

J. Suppose all the boys were Total Abstinence boys, where would the drunkards come from?

A. There wouldn't be any. 'Cause you see Total abstinence boys would be pretty certain to be Total abstinence men, and the drunkards would all die off before long. What a world this world would be, without any drunkards in it? I read in a paper yesterday, that drinking makes 'most all the misery and crime there is.

J. Let's start a temperance society and get all the boys into it.

A. A good idea, Joe. We'll call it the Young Abstainers, and we'll have every boy become a member. There come half-a-dozen of 'em now. We'll go and talk it up. Three cheers for the young abstainers! Hip-hip

come on.

(They rush briskly away.)

PROF. A. A. HOPKINS.

"HONOR THY FATHER AND THY

MOTHER."

[CHARACTERS. FRANK AND HARRY.]

Frank. Well, Harry Locke, where are you going in such a hurry?

Harry. I have got an errand to do at the grain store.

F. Who for? the governor?

H. No, sir. Did you think I was in Governor Claflin's employ?

F. What a fellow you are! I mean Jedediah.

H. Jedediah who?

F. Locke, of course, your old man; did he send you? Seems to me that you are obtuse this morning.

H. And I hope I shall continue to be obtuse, Frank Jenkins, if it prevents my being disrespectful to my father.

F. Pho! where's the harm? I always call my dad, "old man.”

H. And your mother, "old woman"?

F. Yes. Sometimes I call her Dorothy. Jane.

H. I'm sorry Frank, that you have got into this habit; it's a very foolish, if not a very wicked one.