"I wish people would food."

eat proper | months we were "called home" at church, which is what they sezs in our part for "publishin' the banns;" and a good wife has Bessie been to I. There she sits! She knew what work was, and did it too, havin' lived with old Miss Smiles for nigh upon fifteen

I went on wi' my taters and sarlt. All at ance up blazed the fat, and Mary Jane she screams out loike mad.

"What be'st thee doing?" calls out the missis from the wash-'us.

"The nasty thing's all on fire," she year. screamed.

"Ye've no call to mind, missis, I'll see to it," says I. So I puts out the blaze, and poured out all the black fat into the hog-tub aside the back door.

Mary Jane niver so much as said "Thank'ee," but, looking as cross as two sticks, goes on with her frying. I went back to my taters and sarlt.

"None of that muck for me," thinks I. I was eating away, as toime was gettin' on to serve the pigs, when out screams Mary Jane again in that fakless way of hers.

"Oh! do come here, mar; all this nasty bacon is curlin' up, it won't keep flat."

"La bless the lass!" cried the poor tired soul, as in she come to see what was the matter, wiping her arms with her apron, for sh'd jest taken 'em out o' the soap-suds; "whativer be up wi' thee?"

"I can't fry this bacon," says Mary Jane; ard look what a mess I'm in too!"

"Get away do," said the missis, out o' patience at last with young madam's whimsies; "a pretty poor man's wife thee'll be."

As for Mary Jane, she niver got a husband wi' all her money, for the old folks left her a tidy bit.

You see she warn't eddicated enough to make a lady on 'er, and the little bit o' pianny playin', and such loike, spiled her for reg'lar work. Depend upon it, a real lady can turn her hand to anything, and isn't ashamed to own it; why I've known some as could do any mortal thing, and yet well fit to sit down in Queen Victoria's own drawin'-room!

So that's why I never married Mary Jane.

PENLEY REYD.

From La Revue Scientifique. AN ISLAND OF PEACE.

In the Pacific, midway between New Zealand and New Caledonia, there is an island whose history is curious enough. It is Norfolk Island, discovered in 1776 by the celebrated navigator Cook. Its coasts are nearly inaccessible; cliffs prevent landing on all sides, except at two points, on the north and the south re

"I don't intend to be a poor man's spectively, which permit of access and wife," sezs sue.

"Nor a rich one's either," thinks I; "for a man wi' money will want summut better nor the loikes o' you for his cash;" but I sed nothin', only, as I went out, I sezs to the poor old missis:

"I've had my dinner, thank'ee, ma'am" -I was allers a civil chap-"so don't 'ee fash about frying any more, leastways not for I." Wi' that goes out to serve the pigs, which were makin' a rare noise for their food.

That night, arter I done work, I cleaned myself up, and went to see Bessie Larkins; and in less than three

which are so utilized by vessels. The soil, which is of a dark tint, is very fertile; it produces nearly all the tropical plants as well as those of temperate countries. Besides coffee, bananas, sugarcane, leguminous vegetables of all kinds, oranges, lemons, and citrons, the grape, apples, etc., flourish there marvellously. As for the flora peculiar to the island, it is necessary only to mention the famous Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria excelsa). We have said that the history of the island is very curious. In the beginning, Norfolk received from Sydney, its sister colony, a population of convicts; then abandoned and again

reoccupied, it became in 1826 a place for | with all its buildings, penitentiary and the transportation of condemned habit- agricultural. We see, then, the islandual criminals. Terrible and bloody scenes were enacted there, but at the suppression of transportation to the Australian colonies the island was again abandoned. Now there was at this date in the same Pacific Ocean another island whose inhabitants asked nothing better than to be removed; these islanders were the descendants of the mutinous crew of the English ship Bounty, whose history, too long to tell here, and, besides, well known doubtless to the reader, forms one of the most dramatic episodes of the maritime annals of the eighteenth century. The mutineers of the Bounty, after taking wives at Tahiti, settled on Pitcairn Island, not less accessible than Norfolk; they were leading there a life unknown to the rest of the world with which they had broken off all relations, when, long years after, an English ship having by chance touched at this unknown and supposedly deserted isle was surprised to find there human beings, compatriots.

The origin of this population was not such as to recommend it, but long years had flown, and the past was forgotten; everybody in England showed the deepest interest in these new Robinson Crusoes when their history became known. With time the islanders had multiplied and found their island of Pitcairn too small for them. They asked that England, which was, after all, the suzerain of these subjects of whose existence she had so long been ignorant, should cede to them the abandoned Norfolk Island,

ers breaking up their homes to go and settle in a place nearly three thousand miles away, where they debarked on June 8, 1836, to the number of one hundred and ninety-nine persons of both sexes. These one hundred and ninetynine are to-day eight hundred and thirty-two, living by the whale-fishery and by agriculture, under a government that is simplicity itself. The island is under the jurisdiction of the governor of New South Wales; it is administered by three functionaries, of whom the principal or "chief magistrate" receives one hundred and twenty-five dollars yearly salary; the chief postmaster has forty dollars, and the register of land twenty-five dollars. Perhaps these salaries may seem small, but it must be added that there is no public revenue, since there are no duties. The sole tax consists of obligatory labor, to which all the male inhabitants from eighteen to sixty years of age are subject, and which represents four days of work between January and June, chiefly in road repairing. The laws, which are few in number and as simple as the political and administrative organization of the island, do not fill more than two sheets of paper. Police would be needless; as nobody commits any crimes, there are no prisons. The climate being very healthful, sickness is unknown; nevertheless there is, as a precaution, one physician who, like the chaplain, is an official agent; both of them are paid from a fund administered by the governor of New South Wales.

Animal Humbugs.-In military stables horses are known to have pretended to be lame in order to avoid going to a military exercise. A chimpanzee had been fed on cake when sick; after his recovery he often feigned coughing in order to procure dainties. The cuckoo, as is well known, lays its eggs in another bird's nest, and to make the deception surer it takes away one of the other bird's eggs. Animals are conscious of their deceit, as shown by the fact that they try to act secretly and

noiselessly; they show a sense of guilt if detected; they take precautions in advance to avoid discovery; in some cases they manifest regret and repentance. Thus, bees which steal hesitate often before and after their exploits, as if they feared punishment. A naturalist describes how his monkey committed theft; while he pretended to sleep the animal regarded him with hesitation, and stopped every time his master moved or seemed on the point of awakening.

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She hath worked in the storm's loud Not in single bud and flower, but univer