widows, the wives of a deceased Mormon, offered me their hearts and hands. I called on them one day, and taking their soft white hands in mine, which made eighteen hands altogether, I found them in tears.

And I said, “Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?"

They hove a sigh-seventeen sighs of different size. They Baid:

"Oh, soon thou wilt be gonested away!"

I told them that when I got ready to leave a place I wentested.

They said, "Doth not like us?"

I said, "I doth--I doth !"

I also said, "I hope your intentions are honorable, as I am a lone child, my parents being far, far away."

They then said, " Wilt not marry us?"

I said, "Oh, no; it cannot was."

Again they asked me to marry them, and again I declined. When they cried-

"Oh, cruel man! This is too much, oh, too much!"

I told them that it was on account of the muchness that I declined.

While crossing the desert I was surrounded by a band of Ute Indians. They were splendidly mounted, they were dressed in beaver-skins, and they were armed with rifles, knives, and pistols.

What could I do? What could a poor old orphan do? I'm a brave man. The day before the battle of Bull's Run I stood in the highway while the bullets--those dreadful messengers of death-were passing all around me thicklyin wagons--on their way to the battle-field. But there were too many of these Injuns-there were forty of them, and only one of me; and so I said:

"Great Chief, I surrender." His name was Wocky-bocky. He dismounted and approached me. I saw his toma hawk glisten in the morning sunlight. Fire was in his eye. Wocky-bocky came very close to me and seized me by the hair of my head. He mingled his swarthy fingers with my golden tresses, and he rubbed his dreadful Thomashawk across my lily-white face. He said-

GGGGG*

"Torsha arrah darrah mishky bookshean!"

I told him he was right.

Wocky-bocky again rubbed his tomahawk across my face, and said, "Wink-ho-loo-boo!"

Says I, "Mr. Wocky-bocky," says I, Wocky, I have thought so for years, and so's all our family."

He told me I must go to the tent of Strong-Heart and eat raw dog. It don't agree with me. I prefer simple food. I prefer hash, because then I know what I'm eating. But as raw dog was all they proposed to give to me, I had to eat it or starve. So at the expiration of two days I seized a tin plate and went to the chief's daughter, and I said to her in a silvery voice-in a kind of German-silvery voiceI said:

"Sweet child of the forest, the pale-face wants his dog." There was nothing but his paws! I had paused too long! Which reminds me that time passes. A way which time has.

I was told in my youth to seize opportunity. I once tried to seize one. He was rich. He had diamonds on. As I seized him-he knocked me down. Since then I have learned that he who seizes opportunity sees the penitentiary. I will seize this opportunity to close my lecture.

MATURNUS' ADDRESS TO HIS BAND.

Men-not slaves!

EDWARD SPENCER.

I speak to you! This creature tells the truth:
We did not taste Rome's power until we turned
To fight the legions! That power I knew full well,
And knowing made the venture-took all risks-
And now approve them--thus:

I frankly tell you, we are hard bested!

We've lost three battles, and will lose another
If we must fight to-morrow--and the last!

Say we may chance escape from here-break through
These serried lines-what then? "Twere but exchange
Of dungeons, for Rome's prison is the world!

That sleepless tigress, once she tastes our blood,

Must lap it every drop! We have defied

The sacred majesty of Rome, proud sitting

Upon her seven hills! Whither shall man fly
When Rome pursues, or how escape when Rome
Says he shall cease! If we flee to the desert,
Rome's arm will reach us there! Across the sea,
On pathless wilds, in dungeons, in the grave—
There is no sanctuary for us anywhere--
No refuge for us-no escape from out
Rome's ghastly thraldom of ubiquity!

You all have heard

How proud Achilles was made safe from wounds,
Except in one small spot!-An arrow probed it,
And proud Achilles died! And so proud Rome,
Steel-crusted, shaking off assaults like spray
Of raindrops dashed on granite, bears within
A heart so wrung by passion's fiery thrills,
So flushed, so overcome, so weak, subdued
By pleasure's mad fruitions, idle ease
And pampered luxury and cankering lust―
So dastard in effeminate wantonness-
That every touch afflicts it-every blow,
Though but an infant with his bauble dealt it,
Brings agonies! There is the spot to strike-
Beneath the armor, past the shield, right through
The palpitating heart! Great Jove! Rome's heart!
Our swords are whetted!

Comrades, we have borne these toils

Not all in vain! The deed that is to do
Pales all our past deeds to a feeble shadow
In its heroic glory! Day and night
Blend softly with each other, year on year,
When, sudden, 'thwart the startled face of night,
A flaming wonder, some great comet, bursts,
Waving her sword, and all the nations tremble!
So what we plan shall flash upon the world,
And strike Rome palsied with astonishment!

I know a path-it leads o'er yonder crag,
And through dim valleys, where the banished sun
Ne'er dreams of shining, till it finds the rills
That flow to the Adrian sea! Along that path
We steal away to-night, unseen, until

We cross the mountains! Then, disbanding, creep
Like peaceful travelers, one by one, to Rome.
There will I meet you--there complete the plot
That gives us Rome to spoil.

To Rome, then, soldiers! Follow swift my steps!
Tread quick and bold--yet light! Wake not the foe
Who slumbers there beneath us; nor the snow
That trembles there above us! Guard each breath!
Above, below, around us, lurks swift death!

THE HERO OF THE COMMUNE.-MARGARET J. PRESTON

"Garçon! You, you

Snared along with this cursed crew?

(Only a child, and yet so bold,

Scarcely as much as ten years old!)

Do you hear? do you know

Why the gens d'armes put you there, in the row,
You with those Commune wretches tall,
With your face to the wall?”

"Know? To be sure I know! Why not?
We're here to be shot;

And there, by the pillar's the very spot,
Fighting for France, my father fell:
Ah, well!-

That's just the way I would choose to fall,
With my back to the wall!"

(Sacre! Fair, open fight, I say,

Is something right gallant in its way,

And fine for warming the blood; but who
Wants wolfish work like this to do?

Bah! 'tis a butcher's business!)

How?

(The boy is beckoning to me now:

I knew that his poor child's heart would fail,
Yet his cheek's not pale:)

......

Quick! say your say, for don't you see

When the church-clock yonder tolls out Three,
You are all to be shot?
-What?

'Excuse you one moment? O, ho, ho!
Do you think to fool a gen d'arme so?"

"But, sir, here's a watch that a friend, one day,
(My father's friend) just over the way,

Lent me; and if you'll let me free--
It still lacks seven minutes of Three-

I'll come, on the word of a soldier's son,

Straight back into line, when my errand's done."

"

'Ha, ha! No doubt of it! Off! Begone!

(Now, good St. Dennis, speed him on!
The work will be easier since he's saved;
For I hardly see how I could have braved
The ardor of that innocent eye,

As he stood and heard,
While I gave the word,

Dooming him like a dog to die.)"

"In time? Well, thanks, that my desire
Was granted; and now I'm ready :-Fire!
One word!-that's all!

-You'll let me turn my back to the wall?”

"Parbleu! Come out of the line, I say,
Come out! (Who said that his name was Ney?)
Ha! France will hear of him yet, one day!"

TEXAS CENTENNIAL ORATION.-R. B. HUBBARD.

Sirs, you have been told that we are demons in hate, and gloat at the thought of war and blood. Men of New En gland-men of the great North! will you believe me when. for two millions of people whom I represent, and for the whole South as well, I denounce the utterance as an inhuman slander, an unpardonable falsehood, against a brave, and, God knows, a suffering people?

Want war! want bloodshed!-Sirs, we are poor, broken in fortune, and sick at heart. Had you stood by the ruined hearth-stones, by the wrecks of fortune, which are scattered all along the shore; had you seen, as I have seen, the wol howling at the door of many a once happy home-widowhood and orphanage starving, and weeping over neverreturning sires and sons, who fell with your honored dead at Gettysburg and Manassas; could you hear, as I have heard, the throbbing of the great universal Southern heart-throbbing for peace, and longing for the old and faithful love between the States; could you have seen, and felt, and heard all these things, my countrymen, you would take me by the hand, and swear that the arm thus uplifted against us should wither at the socket, and the tongue which utters the great libel on our name become palsied at its root forever!

With each returning spring let us scatter flowers over the resting-place alike of Federal and Confederate dead, as we enshrine with immortelles of memory your Sumner, and Thomas, and McPherson, with our Sidney Johnston, Stonewall Jackson, and the great Lee, forever. Let universal amnesty crown the closing of the century. Our brothers