FIRE! FIRE!! FIRE!!!

How awful is this cry on a dark winter's night when all people are safe and warm in their beds! They must jump up directly, for their own sakes, to know where the fire is; for it may be in their own house, and then they must make their escape as they can, without staying to take away any of their clothes, or money, or furniture, and feel thankful if they can save their own lives and the lives of their children.

People should always be very careful to prevent fires. They generally take place through carelessness. Sometimes they happen through leaving something too near a large fire when they go to bed, and sometimes through a spark from a candle falling on some cotton gown or frock. No person should ever go up stairs with a candle that has a long snuff. The candle should always be snuffed before it is taken up stairs. When people go to bed they should always use an extinguisher, or the candlestick should be set on the floor, or on a table that has nothing on it that can take fire; and it should always be put out before you get into bed. I had once a servant girl who placed a chair near her bed, that she might set the candlestick on it and put the candle out after she had got into bed. Early next morning we smelt a burning smell up stairs, and going into her room, found that the sparks of the candle, when blown out, had set fire to a cotton apron she had laid on the chair, as if, silly girl! she had laid it there to catch the sparks, and it had burned the apron to pieces and through the rushbottomed chair, and it was a wonder that it did not set fire to the bed and burn her in it before she awoke. For there she was, fast asleep, and the apron blazing away close beside her! I had a young man too, who ought to have known better, who one night was reading in bed. Well: he fell asleep, and the candle fell on the bed, and burned through the quilt,

and blankets, and sheet, and through the sheet and blankets again, down to the ticking of the bed on which he was lying!

It is in this way, I say, that houses are generally set on fire-through very great carelessness. We cannot be too careful to avoid such a calamity as setting fire to our own houses through carelessness. Young people generally are the most careless.

And if it is needful to be careful in houses, how much more in farm-yards, and in barns, and stables, where straw and hay which may soon take fire are strewed about under foot in all directions. Once let a farm stable or outhouse take fire, and it is almost impossible to stay the progress of the devouring flames. There may be no fire engine or water at hand, and all they can do in such cases is to save their own lives, and the lives of their cattle, and keep the fire from spreading if they can. Our frontispiece represents a scene of this description.

I cannot leave off without a word of caution to boys and girls. Every week the newspapers tell us of some boys or girls burned to death, through setting their clothes on fire. Remember, fire will burn in the daytime as well as in the night. You cannot be too careful of fire. Girls, especially, should always take care, if they go to take off a kettle or saucepan, that they do not set fire to their aprons and frocks. In this way many have been burned-and many more than used to be. In former days, woollen or linen aprons were worn, and these did not so soon take fire; but cotton, which is now worn, soon takes fire, and therefore more young people are burned. We would advise all girls who have household matters to manage, to wear woollen aprons. Should it, however, ever happen that a girl finds her dress on fire, she should not run screaming about, but should directly throw herself on the floor and roll over and over, and whilst doing this she may scream as hard as she likes for

help. But never stand up, for the flame always ascends, and if you stand up, you are making your own body a conductor to the flame, which will then soon reach your hands and face and burn you dreadfully.

As it is now winter, and many young people are crowding round the fireside, it may be well for them if they pay some regard to these friendly hints which I have here given them.

THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS.

MORE TRUE STORIES-BUDGET THE EIGHTH.

I HAVE learned something about the sheep and the goats; and I think I have a pretty good notion why christian people-I mean those who are christians indeed-should be set forth, as they so frequently are in the old and new Testament, under the similitude of sheep, while the rest are to be reckoned as goats. The sheep is a nice cleanly animal; a very useful animal; and, in particular, it is remarkably meek, harmless, and inoffensive. Your Mr. and Mrs. Sheep, with all the little Sheep, seem to know very well that they have not, by nature, that desperate strength, and those terrible weapons which some of their neighbours carry about with them; and if they had, I verily believe that, so long as their name is Sheep, they would prefer the comforts of a quiet life to all the honours (I say not the horrors) of war. Who will deny that it would be a grand thing if the English and French-Russians-Americans-all people in the world, instead of proceeding as they have sometimes done, would forget old quarrels, and would resolve, one and all, that henceforth they will endeavour even to live and love together, just like a flock of sheep?

As for the goat, he may be very well in his place