'cause there's a good many kinds of shells, | unfit to teach school; and yet he'll take it hard such as oyster shells, snail shells, chestnut to be turned off. He little suspects how we shells, and such like; third future tense, indelible mode, nomination case to thou or you understood, according to Rule IX. Things that are equal to the same things are equal to one another. have been making game of him; and I do feel a little guilty. I never will impose on any other person while I am on this committee. But I'll ask him a question or two, and some way may suggest itself to us to refuse him a Pellet. My friend and myself would like to certificate, without exciting his suspicions or have you spell a few words. rousing his anger. (Loud.) Mr. Peabody! Simpson. (Turns quickly, with his umbrella over his shoulder.) Your humble servant, sir. Is my certificate ready? You've talked and writ long enough to make a dozen! Tullyhorn. I would like to ask one or two questions more. What has been your pursuit in life! Simpson. Well, if you urge the matter, I must tell you. My pursuit has been old Simpson. I know all about spells: cold spells, spell of weather, wet spell, and Pellet. No matter about those. spell Jacob? Can you But Simpson. I guess! J-a-k-u-p, Jacob. they do say a leader of the choir up to our meeting got stuck with more music than he had words, and so he called it Ja — fol-deriddle cob! Tullyhorn. What did you say your full | Tully's daughter Sarah! name was? Simpson. Winthrop Getchell Peabody. Tullyhorn. Please to spell it, for it sounds unusual to us. Simpson. I ought to charge extra, for it is a hard thing to do. But here goes: We-e-inwin, throar double-up, thrup, Winthrop; Gee-e-double-etchell, Getchell; Peabody, eabody abody-body- ody - dyy, Peabody: Winthrop Getchell Peabody. I guess I'll set down and rest! (Sits down.) Now I'll jest run it over kinder fast, and I guess you'll like it. (Spells it very rapidly, and rises.) Say! How's that? Any more questions? It 'pears to me you are mighty particular! Tullyhorn. We will not detain you much longer. We are pleased (aside) that's so· isn't it, doctor? with the examination. Make yourself comfortable while we write a document for you. Tullyhorn. (Jumping up, excitedly, and stepping toward PEABODY, PELLET also.) My daughter! What do you mean, sir? No hesitation! By what right do you refer to my daughter? Simpson. (Slowly laying down his umbrella, taking off his overshoes, overcoat, and hat, and showing himself in true character.) Well, Mr. Tullyhorn, what do you say now? Who's fooled? Can I have my certificate? or will you send me off? Hey? (Punches his ribs with his thumb.) Tullyhorn. Your're a sly joker! You rather took the advantage of "old Tully;" And as for friend Pellet and me, we are most in gloriously "sold." But we'll forgive you. Say, doctor? Pellet. Yes, Tully; but how about his pursuit ? Tullyhorn. We will go straight to the house and see about that. Come, let us start, Simpson, Pellet, for this is enough for one day of the Yankee schoolmaster. [Exeunt. GENTLENESS and affability will always find friends; but a surly, discontented person will be shunned and despised. Simpson. (Soliloquizes while the committee converse together.) Document! that means stifercate. Well, times ain't now as they used to was to be! It used to was to be as to how as that anybody could rise into the potent office of schoolmaster; but now 'tain't so as how as, without being zamined by this larned committee; and this is the way eddication is going to be riz! De-lightful task to rear the infant thought, and teach the young idee how to fire! - (Aside.) I do believe I have really fooled old Tully! (Walks up and down.) Pellet. (Aside.) Well, Mr. Tullyhorn, what do you say? Isn't he a genius? How are we going to get rid of him? We have had our fun in asking him questions, but what shall we do? — DRINK nothing without seeing it; sign Tullyhorn. I'm puzzled! He's evidently a nothing without reading it, and make sure that keen Yankee — sharp, shrewd, but totally | it means no more than it says. A MAN who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them a fortune. NEVER talk unless you have something to say. Many are always shouting to hear the echoes of their own voice. TO MY HAT. FRIENDS must part, and so must we, Though the parting sad will be, Old hat. Thou, my old and well-tried friend, We have, many and many a day, Thou to me hast surely been We have travelled long together, Rain and hail, and awful blows, Old hat, You and I have seen, and more, Now thy form is sorely battered, And thou lookest all so dusty, Pencil Sketches. Boys and girls, please gather around a table, each with pencil and paper. Let each draw the head of a man, woman, or any animal. No player must see what kind of a head is drawn by his neighbor. Each player, having drawn a head, folds the paper so that the head shall not be seen, and passes the paper to his left hand neighbor, who must draw a body to suit the head, without seeing the head. Of course the paper must be so folded that the second player can know to what point to attach the body. Having drawn a body, each player folds his or her paper again as before, and passes it to his left hand neighbor, who draws the feet and legs, and, folding the paper, passes it as before. Each player then writes the name of some lady or gentleman present on the paper passed to him. Then one of the players is selected to collect and exhibit all the drawings to the company. The results of the drawings will be found to be very amusing. Puzzle Drawings. This game is commenced in the same manner as "Pencil Sketches." The players assemble round a table, each with a pencil and paper. One player must be selected to direct the game. The director then requests each player to draw some kind of line on his paper crooked, straight, horizontal, angular, or in any way he or she prefers. The director requests all the players to fold the papers carefully, in order to conceal the drawings. He then passes a box or hat, in which all the papers are to be placed. After the papers are well mixed, the box or hat containing them is passed, and each player selects a paper. The Ar the time of the Mohammedan condirector then requests each player to unfold quest of India, in the eleventh century, so his or her paper, and draw some figure which many of the people of that country were car- is formed partly by the line on the paper. ried to Ghizni, in Afghanistan, the conquer-The director then requests each player in turn or's capital, and there sold into slavery, that sometimes the price of a man did not exceed one dollar. ✓ SELF-RESPECT is the foundation of a moral character; it is next to religion and virtue. DON'T believe in the man who talks most, for "mewing cats are very seldom good mousers." to exhibit to the company his or her drawing. Whoever does not succeed in drawing some animal or thing, is ordered by the director, as a punishment, to recite some prose or poetry, or write a verse, or sing a song. This game often requires much ingenuity. We saw a perfect pair of snuffers drawn from such a crooked mark we should have despaired of making anything out of it. One boy drew a wheelbarrow, another a cow. THE HE letter-bag is well filled during these early weeks of the new year, and it must be that our friends are, in some pleasant way, stimulated to a little extra head work. We have a choice lot of puzzles and rebuses, which we shall send out, from week to week; and it is very gratifying to notice the improvement made in composition and in drawing by cur contributors. Do not think that because each and every effort is not printed, your labor is lost. "Practice makes perfect," and by always doing the best you can, progress is sure. "What's worth doing at all is worth doing well" is an old and true saying, and it is as true in regard to our head work" as anything else. When we compare some of the earlier efforts of our young friends with those they now send, we are pleased, and feel like saying very complimentary things. Thus do we mix advice and praise. Many tical friend has only to read the Letter Bag to Monsieur's letters are welcome, and the only thing "green" about them is the ink! Do not be alarmed because we are to go to Europe for a little while; we shall make such plans for the Magazine as will satisfy all our friends, and distance will not prevent us from having a weekly intercourse with them. - For the information of those who may think we break our own rules, we will say, that the geographical puzzles that appear with letters were accepted before the rule excluding letters was adopted. Is Ski satisfied?-" Nevvy" Downsey will find that in 1870 the Magazine will have greater variety than ever before. And so, while he and Monsieur are "grinding away at boarding-school," our editorial mill will grind a feast of good things for their enjoyment and profit. G. G. M., and others who ask about the binding of the Magazine, are informed that the binder will take off the covers and advertisements unless otherwise directed. We send covers ready for the binder's use for fifty cents; by using these, uniformity is secured. Our friends Walter and Tot will take notice of what we have written. The answer to Bostet's conundrum is certainly nice: "Why is France an uncle?"-The fourth sprout of The Acorn looks healthy, but the last sentence on the last page needs a little mending. Jip's rebus is spoiled by one of its symbols; he will quickly think what it is. You are right, Frank T. Pierce; any boy who obtains, four years in succession, a good club for the Magazine, may call us uncle to his heart's content, and we should like hundreds of just such nephews. As for the base ball matter, we shall omit it for the winter months.-N. O. Vember's arithmetical puzzle is good, and we should like more of them. Stir up your brains, boys and girls, for new things in puzzles. - L. S. Burchard says he does not make puzzles, but he certainly makes Does our young friend in Philadelphia think a good letter; he says he is a follower of the that we do not make the best selection we can "art preservative of all arts"- an expression, for head work? - U. P. Ward is certainly on which our readers may like to know, is from an the u-p-ward track, for his letter shows care, inscription on the house of one Koster, or neatness, and accuracy. The price (without Coster, to whom was once attributed the in- postage) of the three months' numbers convention of printing. The Latin words of the taining "Breaking Away" is sixty-two cents. inscription are," Memoriæ sacrum typogra--Come again, Will? Why, dear boy, you phia ars artium omnium conservatrix. Hic primum inventa circa annum MCCCCXL." Will our Latin students translate this? Rutgers College is in New Brunswick, N. J.; write to the treasurer for catalogue. Slim Jim, now tell us, did you make the conundrum you send us? "Why is the Magazine like Andrew Johnson's term of office? Because it's the best thing out!" Your scep can't come too often. 1 WISH CORESPONDENTS. - L. D. C., Box 38, Greensburg, Ind. Rocket, Newtonville, Mass. B. O. W. C., Lock Box 54, Cadiz, Ohio. - Carlton F. Wilson, Lock Box 4, Santa Cruz, Cal. Rusticus, Box 49, Media, Pa., wants to hear from some Good Templar. — George M. Powers, 114 Fifth Street, Troy, N. Y. (on secret societies). OUR BOYS GIRLS OLIVER OPTIC, Editor. ANCIENT CITIES. MUCH UCH has been written concerning the populousness of the ancient world; yet the subject will probably always remain open for discussion. Ancient writers generally took little pains to be exact in numbers; and, even where their figures are correct, they are often not what we want. In Rome, for example, a census was generally made every five years, and there was a record of the number of citizens, women, children, slaves, freedmen, and foreigners, as well as of their trades, professions, and ages; but the historians have only given us the totals in a few cases. Of all the ancient writings that have come down to us, the two most remarkable and valuable books, in a statistical point of view, are the Old Testament and Cæsar's Commentaries. We have more exact and complete statistics of the Hebrews than of any other ancient people. Often we have to estimate the population of a city from the number of citizens. Not unfrequently we are compelled to proceed with facts still less definite. Here, then, are reasons enough why all writers do not agree upon the population of a city like Rome, and why they differ, by forty millions or more, as to the population of the Roman empire in the time of the earlier emperors. 66 De Quincey, writing before London contained its three millions, says, Speaking even of London, we ought, in all reason, to say the nation of London, and not the city of London; but of Rome, in her palmy days, nothing less could be said in the naked severity of logic. A million and a half of souls! That population, apart from any other distinctions, is per se, for London, a justifying ground for such a classification; à fortiori, then, will it belong to a city which counted, from one horn to the other of its mighty suburbs, not less than four millions of inhabitants, at the very least, as we resolutely maintain, after reviewing all that has been written on that much vexed theme, and very probably half as many more." Gibbon. About the middle of the second century, there were in the city, according to Publius Victor, forty-eight thousand four hundred and ninety-two inhabited houses. This number of houses, with twelve hundred thousand people, would give each house twenty-five inmates. Their houses, though they had not so many stories as those in some of our modern cities, were often more than seventy feet high, and were occupied even to the garrets. The ancient wall which enclosed the seven hills had a circuit of thirteen Roman miles. Under Aurelian the circumference was about twenty-one miles. When the city was taken by the Goths, in 409, it was nearly circular, and covered some six million square yards of territory, which would give each house, including its proportion of street and garden, nearly one hundred and twenty-five square yards, or five square yards for each person. But this space was not very equally distributed. Many of the streets were very narrow, and the slaves were, we might almost say, packed away in barracks, as a single patrician had four thousand of them in his city residence. Thus, under the empire, if all the buildings had been removed beyond the walls, and the territory on which the city stood had been equally divided among the inhabitants, each individual would have had a space equal to fifteen feet in length by three in breadth. Not much like the Rome of earlier days, when the wall, thirteen miles in length, enclosed all the houses, together with gardens, tillage, and pasture lands. |