MRS. POST-"But why adopt a baby when you have three children of your own under five years old?"

MRS. PARKER "My own are being brought up properly. The adopted one is to enjoy."

The neighbors of a certain woman in a New England town maintain that this lady entertains some very peculiar notions touching the training of children. Local opinion ascribes these oddities on her part to the fact that she attended normal school for one year just before her marriage.

Said one neighbor: "She does a lot of funny things. What do you suppose I heard her say to that boy of hers this afternoon?

"I dunno. What was it?"

"Well, you know her husband cut his finger badly yesterday with a hay-cutter; and this afternoon as I was goin' by the house I heard her say:

"Now, William, you must be a very good boy, for your father has injured his hand, and if you are naughty he won't be able to whip you.'-Ed -Edwin Tarrisse.

Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.-George Eliot.

Better to be driven out from among men than to be disliked of children.-R. H. Dana.

See also Boys; Families.

CHOICES

William Phillips, our secretary of embassy at London, tells of an American officer who, by the kind permission of the British Government, was once enabled to make a week's cruise on one of His Majesty's battleships. Among other things that impressed the American was the vessel's Sunday morning service. It was very well attended, every sailor not on duty being

there. At the conclusion of the service the American chanced to ask one of the jackies:

"Are you obliged to attend these Sunday morning services?" "Not exactly obliged to, sir," replied the sailor-man, "but our grog would be stopped if we didn't, sir."-Edwin Tarrisse.

A well-known furniture dealer of a Virginia town wanted to give his faithful negro driver something for Christmas in recognition of his unfailing good humor in toting out stoves, beds, pianos, etc.

"Dobson," he said, "you have helped me through some pretty tight places in the last ten years, and I want to give you something as a Christmas present that will be useful to you and that you will enjoy. Which do you prefer, a ton of coal or a gallon of good whiskey?"

"Boss," Dobson replied, "Ah burns wood."

A man hurried into a quick-lunch restaurant recently and called to the waiter: "Give me a ham sandwich."

“Yes, sir,” said the waiter, reaching for the sandwich; "will you eat it or take it with you?"

"Both," was the unexpected but obvious reply.

CHOIRS

See Singers.

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS

While waiting for the speaker at a public meeting a pale little man in the audience seemed very nervous. He glanced over his shoulder from time to time and squirmed and shifted about in his seat. At last, unable to stand it longer, he arose and demanded, in a high, penetrating voice, "Is there a Christian Scientist in this room?"

A woman at the other side of the hall got up and said, "I am a Christian Scientist."

“Well, then, madam," requested the little man, "would you mind changing seats with me? I'm sitting in a draft."

CHRISTIANS

At a dinner, when the gentlemen retired to the smoking room and one of the guests, a Japanese, remained with the ladies, one asked him:

"

"Aren't you going to join the gentlemen, Mr. Nagasaki? "No. I do not smoke, I do not swear, I do not drink. But then, I am not a Christian."

A traveler who believed himself to be sole survivor of a shipwreck upon a cannibal isle hid for three days, in terror of his life. Driven out by hunger, he discovered a thin wisp of smoke rising from a clump of bushes inland, and crawled carefully to study the type of savages about it. Just as he reached the clump he heard a voice say: "Why in hell did you play that card?" He dropped on his knees and, devoutly raising his hands, cried: "Thank God they are Christians!"

CHRISTMAS GIFTS

"As you don't seem to know what you'd like for Christmas, Freddie," said his mother, "here's a printed list of presents for a good little boy."

Freddie read over the list, and then said:

"Mother, haven't you a list for a bad little boy?"

'Twas the month after Christmas,

And Santa had flit;

Came there tidings for father

Which read: "Please remit!"

-R. L. F.

Little six-year-old Harry was asked by his Sunday-school teacher:

"And, Harry, what are you going to give your darling little brother for Christmas this year?"

"I dunno," said Harry; "I gave him the measles last year."

For little children everywhere

A joyous season still we make;

We bring our precious gifts to them,
Even for the dear child Jesus' sake.

-Phebe Cary.

I will, if you will,

devote my Christmas giving to the children and the needy, reserving only the privilege of, once in a while,

giving to a dear friend a gift which then will have
the old charm of being a genuine surprise.

I will, if you will,

keep the spirit of Christmas in my heart, and, barring out hurry, worry, and competition,

will consecrate the blessed season, in joy and love.

to the One whose birth we celebrate.

-Jane Porter Williams.

CHRONOLOGY

TOURIST "They have just dug up the corner-stone of an ancient library in Greece, on which is inscribed '4000 B. C.'" ENGLISH MAN-"Before Carnegie, I presume."

CHURCH ATTENDANCE

"Tremendous crowd up at our church last night." "New minister?"

"No it was burned down."

"I understand," said a young woman to another, "that at your church you are having such small congregations. Is that so?"

"Yes," answered the other girl, "so small that every time our rector says 'Dearly Beloved' you feel as if you had received a proposal!"

"Are you a pillar of the church?"

"No, I'm a flying buttress-I support it from the outside."

CHURCH DISCIPLINE

Pius the Ninth was not without a certain sense of humor. One day, while sitting for his portrait to Healy, the painter, speaking of a monk who had left the church and married, he observed, not without malice: "He has taken his punishment into his own hands."

CIRCUS

A well-known theatrical manager repeats an instance of what the late W. C. Coup, of circus fame, once told him was one of the most amusing features of the show-business; the faking in the "side-show."

Coup was the owner of a small circus that boasted among its principal attractions a man-eating ape, alleged to be the largest in captivity. This ferocious beast was exhibited chained to the dead trunk of a tree in the side-show. Early in the day of the first performance of Coup's enterprise at a certain Ohio town, a countryman handed the man-eating ape a piece of tobacco, in the chewing of which the beast evinced the greatest satisfaction.

The word was soon passed around that the ape would chew tobacco; and the result was that several plugs were thrown at him. Unhappily, however, one of these had been filled with cayenne pepper. The man-eating ape bit it; then, howling with indignation, snapped the chain that bound him to the tree, and made straight for the practical joker who had so cruelly deceived him.

"Lave me at 'im!" yelled the ape. "Lave me at 'im, the dirty villain! I'll have the rube's loife, or me name ain't Magillicuddy!"

Fortunately for the countryman and for Magillicuddy, too, the man-eating ape was restrained by the bystanders in time to prevent a killing.

Willie to the circus went,

He thought it was immense;
His little heart went pitter-pat,

For the excitement was in tents.

-Harvard Lampoon.