There was a minor evisis in a local household some time last Week when two old servants. the family who had retired to the countryside sine seats agg called and presented a couple of ye chickens. The birds were an early Christmas contribution from old retainers to. th festive board, But the question arose: what could be dane with them until Christmas? There Js'a small garden which the household, in committee, decided. was nevertheless quite large enotigh for the birds to root about in during the process of being fattened up. There was, how= ever, the question of accommodation at' night. What could be done with the birds? There is in the' garden a large box which formerly con tained sand with which the children used play, but for a variety of reasons this sand was Tong' ago cast. out and the box had been dome duty as a sheller for plants which were deemed {o be too tender to strvive the possible sharpness of autumn nights, The crux of the problem, therefore, resolved itself into the simple ques: tion whether the plants should be brought indoors at nights or the birds, And the solution Wwas quite simple: owing to. certain habits osiessed. by chickens and Not possessed by plants, the latter won, There would have been comparatively little diimeully thereafter had not the servants, with the best intentions in the world, decided that a useful addition to the two hens already. in stock would' be a cockerel. 11 was believed that under proper supervision the hens "might. be persuaded to lay a fow eggs against the time they should be dished up on the dinner table~and with the price of eggs what itis in Shanghai just now, tty was a contr!- tion mast fondly' to be wished, But the result has not followed in. the manner which might reasonably have been expected. Instead of in-traducing' harmony to the vardon, the cockerel has proved to be a disrupter of the peace—not, mark you, from any tendency to aggression, from the opposite, a meekness which proves that the genius who invented the term "hen-pecked" knew what he was talking about, Tt must be Admitted thatthe bird itself is somewhat alarmist in character. In alr raid emergencies, that is to say when hawks fly over, he sounds the "alert with ineitating frequency, and. this may account for the apparent. fraying of the, nerves of the hens which causes them to unite in attacking him the moment he sounds the "all leat." Again, betiveen the hens themselves there has been opened a rift, Periodically in the past either bird could esereise itself by flapping. Its wings without any" serious. eonsequ But now, itis sad to relate, neither one can indulge Ju being-apping without the other rushing from whatever part of the garden it Inppens to be and challenging it to battle, There Dloodehed, battle having been offered and ac~ cepted bythe two parties without serious effects to cither, both immediately agreeing to call the incident closed, There may be some moral. 10 bbe drawn from all this, such as "AI the World's a chicken-farm and all the men and. women merely chickens;" but what it is no one at the moment can decide, Perhaps one of the experts who contributes Nature and other. Noter to these columns could come to the rosel Sure Loser New: Boy, I was tossing half the night ana 401 feel bad this morning!
Ted: Geo, that's tough luck!
Ned: il say it way tough luck! No matter how many coins we tossed T coulder win one and let them go ayain—then trace the reappear ance of the ermine anopheles: they have this Droved that these pests will travel from one to two miley in search of a "blood ment" "that me); and in Now Jersey anopheles have been known to fly forty miles for the same purpose, But, of course, you have to go a long way to et something for nothing in New Jersey tis.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.