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formance of certain ceremonies by the medicine-men-whose medicine - bags, composed of the skins of wild animals, form an important feature of the ceremony-are cooked and eaten. The dog-meat, when prepared, presents a very uncouth and repulsive appearance as it is borne from man to man in shapeless trenches that each may select the portion he intends to devour.

To the casual spectator such a ceremony as the dog-feast seems a confused conglomeration of frivolous rites and genuflections, destitute alike of meaning and design. One might be tempted to believe that the principal and most rational object of the assemblage was to eat the dogs. Inquiry, however, of any well-informed resident of the country, elicits the reply that the unfortunate beings are assembled for what, in their eyes, is the celebration of a solemn act of communion with the spirits. That such communion is real has been believed, to our knowledge, by many clergymen and priests in the Indian country, though, of course, their theory is that it exists with the powers of darkness. It probably lies much with the accidental bias of each man's mind, whether he inclines to so serious a view of these barbarous proceedings, or mentally attributes to them much the same amount of spiritual efficacy which he would to the fantastic contortions of some Eastern devotee.

The nominal object of this feast is to make medicine. What medicine this is, we are unable to state with precision. The Indians have many medicines, composed for the most part of roots, and sometimes possessed of real medicinal virtue. Sarsaparilla, for instance, is used by them. Some are said to be highly poisonous, and even to exercise what we presume would to a physician appear an unaccountable effect.

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We had employed at one time, as a servant in the family, a Salteaux girl, of about twenty years of age. As a natural result of her presence about the establishment, numerous Indians of both sexes, claiming ties of consanguinity of more or less remoteness, daily besieged the culinary department of our domestic economy. The matter became unbearable, finally, as it often occurred that the kitchen-floor was nearly covered with the squatting relatives. The girl was ordered to refuse admittance to any being, of either sex, babited in a blanket. It happened that the first candidate presenting himself for admittance after the receipt of this prohibitory order was an old conjurer, or medicine-man. The door was unceremoniously shut in his face. He lingered about, however, until some duty called the girl outside the door, when, after threatening her with dire revenge, he took his departure. The poor domestic was much alarmed, and reported his threats. Little attention was paid to it, and

the winter passed away without a further call from the conjurer.

In the early spring, the girl by some accident cut her hand slightly-not sufficiently deep, however, to necessitate binding up. Before it healed, she was one day engaged in carrying water from an adjacent stream, when the conjurer unexpectedly approached her. Professing to have forgotten his ejection of the previous winter, he proffered his hand in a friendly way to the girl, who thoughtlessly gave him in return the wounded member. He shook it a long time, squeezing it tightly in his own. The sore smarted considerably, and upon withdrawing her hand by reason of the pain, she noticed some dark substance in the palm of the conjurer's hand. The thought then occurred to her that he had poisoned the sore. She was assured of it by the medicine-man, who informed her that she would break out in black blotches for one month in each year, ever afterward. One year from that date black eruptions appeared over her entire body, each spot about the size of a dime silver coin. They continued upon her person, without any severe pain, for one month, when they disappeared. For three successive years-as long as we had knowledge of her-the eruptions occurred regularly, and continued for the allotted time.

Among the visiting Indians who called perennially at our kitchen-door during the winter months, was a middle-aged woman suffering from a loss of power to move the facial muscles. This incapacity was brought on, according to her own testimony, and that of others cognizant of the circumstances, some five years before our first acquaintance with her, by certain drugs administered by a conjurer. These medicines were given her to produce that effect alone, without reference to the prevention or cure of other diseases, and were taken without her knowledge, being mingled surreptitiously with her food. The effect soon showed itself in a total loss of power in the facial muscles.

She be

came as expressionless as a mask. Only the eyes moved; and, as they were intensely black and rather sparkling eyes, the ghastly deformity was rendered the more glaring. The most singular effect was produced, however, by her laugh. She was a jolly, goodnatured squaw, and laughed upon the slightest provocation. Her eyes sparkled, and her "Ha! ha!" was musical to a degree; but not a muscle moved to denote the merriment on that expressionless face. One felt that some one else laughed behind that rigid integument, and was fain to pull it off, and see the dimples and curves it concealed. The sensation was that of being in the presence of an enigma one could not comprehend. No idea could be formed of what she thought at any time; but when she waxed merry her countenance was more than ever a deathmask.

As to the growth of hair over the body, we remember to have seen but one instance of it. That was an old man from a tribe dwelling in the swamps and marshes. He was entirely covered with a thick coating of hair nearly an inch in length. Only about the eyes was there any diminution in the

quantity, where for nearly an inch in a circle there was no hair. He attributed the phenomenon to a decoction of certain herbs given him by a medicine-man whom he had mortally offended. His family, so far as we saw of them, were innocent of any hirsute covering.

In a family of three Cree Indians of ad vanced age, a sister and two brothers, named respectively Sallie, Creppe, and Hornie, once pensioners of ours at an isolated trading. post, perhaps the strangest effects of the medicine-man's drugs appeared. These old people had been poisoned in early youth, with a different effect in each case. Sallie, who was a hanger-on about the kitchen, lost the nails of her fingers and toes regularly every year at the season when birds moult their feathers. This phenomenon had never failed to occur annually since the medicine had been taken in infancy. There was but little pain connected with this shedding of the nails, and they soon grew out again. Her brother Creppe was afflicted with an eruption of warts over his entire person, and was altogether as hideous a looking object as could well be imagined. The divisions of his fin gers and toes were hidden by these monstrous excrescences; from his ears depended warts nearly an inch in length; in fact, he was covered with them all over except his eyes. At certain seasons of the year they became very painful, and deprived him of the power of locomotion.

But in the case of Hornie-a name con ferred by some facetious Scotch trader, in allusion to a fancied resemblance to his Sa tanic majesty--the effects of the poison were of quite another character. Hornie's bair was simply changed from a generally deep black to alternate streaks of black and white. These streaks were about an inch in width, and ran from the forehead to the back of the head. The line of demarkation betwee the two colors was very abrupt and distinct; the white color being the purest that can be imagined. There was no gradual merging from iron-gray to gray, thence to white; it was the whiteness of unsullied snow throughout the streak. And it never changed.

We do not feel that strangers to the subject of which we write will receive these in cidents with the confidence which they de serve, nor even that those who are somewhat familiar with the actual circumstances wil admit every inference to be drawn to be the living truth; but our own assurance is se clear and strong that we can only judge the critic by his judgment of it. We know what we assert, and are upon honor with the reader.

Medical gentlemen in the country have differed in their opinions as to the ability of Indians to cause the above-described symp toms; and, so far as we can gather, the subject is a difficult one, and resolves itself more into a question of evidence of facts than of the medical property of the roots and drugs.

The writer was furnished an opportunity of examining at his leisure the contents of many medicine-bags at a certain Indian mission-station in a northern country. These bags had formerly been the property of sundry medicine-men, who, on their conversion to Christianity, had transferred them to the keeping of the reverend missionary. There

was a large collection of them thrown promiscuously upon the floor of a small outbuilding. The bags were, for the most part, formed of the skins of various wild beasts in embryotic state, taken off whole, and so stuffed as to retain as much as possible the natural position of the animal. They had evidently served as the totems of the owners. The contents of these primitive medicinechests were as varied as the most enthusiastic curio could desire. Each article was wrapped carefully in a separate parcel by itself, with the inner bark of the birch-tree, and duly labeled as to its contents with totemic symbols. An unwrapping of these packages resulted in the discovery of an extensive assortment of ingredients. There were many dried herbs of many different varieties-bark and leaves of strange plants and trees; white and orange colored powders of the finest quality, and evidently demanding skill in their preparation; claws of animals and talons of birds; colored feathers and beaks; a few preserved skins and teeth of reptiles; but a total absence of liquids or any vessels that could be used to carry them. There were several plants, packages of which were found in every bag; but the majority differed greatly, and the materia medica of each practitioner seemed to be the result of individual choice and research. One thing, however, was common to all the small package of human finger and toe nails. Of what peculiar signification they were, or used in what malady, we are unable to state.

Among the other contents of the medicine-bags, and common to all, were small images of wood, the presence of which was considered essential to the proper efficacy of the drugs. This was the real totem which presided over the effectual use of the ingredients, and represented the guardian spirit of the owner. The Indians believe every animal to have had a great original or father. The first buffalo, the first bear, the first beaver, the first eagle, etc., was the Manitou, or guardian spirit of the whole race of these different creatures. They chose some one of these originals as their special Manitou, or guardian; and hence arose the custom of having its representation as the totem of an entire tribe. But the medicine-men, being, as it were, the priests of the spirits and mcdiums between them and the world, are entitled to a special guardian spirit of their own, and hence carry his totem among their drugs. As they profess to heal through the direction of this spirit or guardian, they very properly place his image among the means he commands to be used.

These images were, as a matter of course, of limited size and rough workmanship. Their designs were various, and represented different animals, birds, reptiles, the human figure in strange attitudes, the sun and moon, and combinations of all these in many forms. Whatever they held to be superior to themselves, they deified; but they never exalted it much above humanity, and these images never betrayed the expression of a conception of a supernatural being on the part of their owners.

But, whatever may have been the value of the contents of these medicine-bags, cer

tain it is that a fraternity of medicine-men exists among the Indians, and that those without its pale look with great awe upon the power of its members. The latter are the great actors in the dog-feasts. They make medicine for the recovery of the sick, who apply for their assistance, and initiate novices into the mysteries of the fraternity. In payment for each exercise of these offices, a remuneration of some value is required; the charges being, like those of many of the medical profession, in proportion to the wealth of the patient. In many cases it hap. pens that, through a pretty thorough knowledge of the virtues of certain herbs, a firm determination on the part of the sufferer not to die, and a constitution inured to noxious lotions of every kind, the medicine-man effects a cure. Some of his cures and specifics

are wonderful, too.

The writer recalls to memory a certain buffalo-hunt in which he once participated, accompanying a French-Indian family. Among the members of this nomadic domestic circle was a young woman of about nineteen years of age, and of not very strong physique. It happened one day that, in drawing a loaded shot-gun from the cart by the muzzle, the charge exploded, and passed entirely through her body in the region of the chest. The gun being not over twenty inches distant from her person when discharged, the shot left a hole through which one's finger could be thrust. We were tented on the plain, hundreds of miles from settlements, and totally destitute alike of medical knowledge and remedies. The girl was given up for lost, of

course.

Near our own camp, however, were a few lodges of Indians, and among them, as usual, a medicine-man. The report of the accident soon reaching the Indian tepees, this conjurer stalked over to our tents, and looked without comment for a time upon the unskilled efforts being made for the sufferer's relief. At length he addressed the father of the girl, offering to cure her if she was intrusted to his care. Clutching at this straw, in the absence of any better thing, with the girl's consent the father accepted the proposal; and the patient was transferred to the lodge of the medicine - man. Strange as it may appear, the woman recovered after a time, under the drugs and care of the conjurer, and was able to return home with us at the termination of the hunt. We saw her some years after, and she expressed herself

as enjoying perfect health. The payment for effecting this cure was, if we recollect aright, two Indian ponies, which, it is needless to say, were cheerfully paid.

ferent tribes, however, or, it may be, different schools of medicine, have their distinct methods of initiation. The most curious initial ceremony coming under our own observation was that of a tribe in the far North. The candidate was required to repair to the forests for a certain number of days, to be passed in fasting, until, from extreme physi cal privation, he should be wrought up to close communion with the spirits. He then returned, and entered the pale of the fence marking the limits of the dog-feast, to be at once surrounded by a circle of conjurers and braves of his tribe, who indulged in a wild dance. In the midst of this dance a live dog (white in color, if to be had) was brought within the circle by the instructing medicineman, and handed to the novitiate. Seizing the sacrificial canine by the neck and a hindleg, the candidate finished his initiation by devouring the animal alive. The spectacle of this poor wretch, his face covered with blood, the howls and contortions of the suffering animal, and the yelling, dancing demons, circling about in their monotonous dance, was appalling to the last degree. The dogs consumed were generally of small size, but in some instances large ones were given, and the neophyte was in a gorged and semidormant condition at the termination of his repast.

With some few orders of medicine-men physical torture in the initiation obtains. The candidate, to cure others, must be a perfect physical man himself; and, as he may occasion pain to his patients, must be able to endure it without murmur in his own person. At an appointed time he appears before a medicine-man, who cuts four gashes about three inches long on the shoulders near the point. With a smooth stick of hard wood he makes a hole underneath the slits he has cut, and taking in an inch or more in width, and through which a buffalo-thong is passed and tightly tied. Then the breast is served in the same manner. After this one thong is fastened to a long pole, the other to a buffalo-skull, or other heavy weight, with about ten feet of rope between the back and skull. The candidate then jumps into a lively dance, singing a song in keeping with the performance, and jerking the skull about so fast that at times it is four or five feet from the ground, all the time pulling as best he can at the thong fastened to the pole by jumping back and swinging upon it. At times the flesh on back and breast seems to stretch eight or ten inches, and, when let up, closes down again with a pop. This dancing and racing continues until the flesh-fastenings break. The novitiate is by that time a terrible-looking object, and so nearly exhausted that he has to be helped away. His wounds are washed and bound up, presents are made to him, and he is thenceforth recognized as a medicine-man.

On his initiation into the mysteries of the brotherhood, the candidate, besides paying the me licine-men a fair price, must be a man known to the adepts as eligible. This eligibility consists, it has been contended, in physical perfection alone; but, having known conjurers who were deformed from birth, and others maimed at the time of their initiation, we incline to the opinion that mental characteristics are those most closely examined. A certain dignity of appearance, a severe and mysterious manner, and a more than usual taciturnity and secretiveness in the candidate, are favorably considered. Dif- | are carefully treasured up in his recollection,

A fast of ten days' duration has been stat ed to us, on oral and trustworthy testimony, as a necessary preliminary among some tribes to becoming a conjurer. During the time indicated the candidate sleeps among the branches of a tree, where a temporary residence has been fitted up for him. His dreams

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818

A WEDDING-MARCH-ON TRIAL.-ATTRACTIVE HOUSES.

and he believes that the spirits who are af
terward to become his familiars then reveal
themselves to him. Indeed, this intent watch-
ing for his spiritual familiars is the principal
object of his retirement and fast. He is
taught to believe in two kinds of spirits, one
eminently good, the other eminently evil.
But the latter are inferior in power to the
former. The good spirits are his guardians
and familiars, yet he may use the devices of
the evil ones if he so desire. Every accident
of life with a medicine-man is accounted for

by spiritual agency. An amusing incident
may serve to show the extent to which this
belief may be carried:

A small company of Indians drifted into
the writer's premises one winter's day for the
purpose of begging provisions. Among the
number were several noted conjurers. Some
freak of curiosity tempted us to try how far
their belief in the supernatural would carry
them; and, having a large music-box in our
possession, it was wound up and placed unno-
ticed upon the table. In a moment it began
playing, and the notes of "Bonnie Doon,"
"The Lass o' Gowrie," etc., reverberated
through the apartment. At its first chords
the faces of the savages assumed a wonder-
ing, dazed expression. But, quickly recover-
ing from that phase of amazement, they be-
gan to trace the sound to its origin. After
some minutes of deep attention, one old man

ever, in their weather divinations. During
stormy weather, the medicine-man may be
heard in his tent engaged in loud incanta-
tions. After half a day spent in this manner,
he appears, and predicts at what time the
storm will begin to abate, the direction the
wind will take, and the time that will elapse
before its entire cessation. In short, he gives
a complete meteorological and storm table;
and, in the many instances in which these
predictions were made in our presence, they
invariably proved correct.

However, neither from undoubted medi-
cine-men who have been converted to the
Christian faith, nor from any others of whom
we have heard, has any thing worth knowing
in relation to what may be termed the mys-
teries of the ceremonies above indicated
been ever elicited. Christian ex-conjurers
have, we believe, been known to express an
opinion that they possessed a power when
pagans which they were unable to exercise
after baptism. What this belief may be

worth we do not know.

H. M. ROBINSON
(late Vice-Consul at Winnipeg, B. N. A.).

A WEDDING-MARCH-ON
TRIAL.

evidently discovered the source, and without DAY with dewy eve was blending,

a moment's hesitation raised his gun and
fired it at the box. It is perhaps unneces-
sary to mention that the instrument was, to
use a nautical expression, "a total wreck."
The conjurer asserted that the music was pro-
duced by an evil spirit concealed in the box,
and could only be driven out by a gunshot.
Our curiosity was satisfied, but at a consid-
erable expense.

For whole nights previous to the public
and final ceremony of the dog-feast, the
principal medicine-man, installed in his med-
icine-tent, instructs his pupils. The quaint
party is accompanied by an individual who
beats the medicine-drum, the monotonous
tones of which are kept up during the whole
time the lesson continues. What special
branch of medical science is instilled into
the minds of the pupils we do not know. It
is probably but a lesson in incantation or
some senseless jugglery, intended to awe the
candidate; for the medicine-men are acute de-
ceivers, and as despotic and absurd in social
life as are the priests and oracles and conjur-
ers of civilized man in another hemisphere.

In has been our good fortune to see some of the tricks performed by the medicine-men, among the most curious of which is one analogous to the celebrated Davenport trick. The conjurer in every instance permitted an inspection of tent and person; he was then securely tied inside the tent and left alone for a moment, when he would appear untied at the door; a moment later he would be tied again. This trick is, in certain localities, quite common among them, and exceedingly well performed. They exhihit also many other feats of jugglery, in themselves very curious and interesting, but not calling for notice in this paper.

An interesting circumstance obtains, how

Clouds lay piled in radiant state,
When a fine young German farmer
Rode up to the parson's gate.

Clinging to him on a pillion
Was a maiden fair and tall,
Blushing, trembling, palpitating-
Smiling brightly through it all.

Said the farmer: "Goot Herr Pastor,
Marguerite und I vas coome
Diesen evening to be married,

Dhen mit her I makes mine home."

Soon the nuptial-tie was fastened;

Soon the kiss received and given.
In that moment earth had vanished-
They had caught a glimpse of heaven!

But the prudent German farmer

First recalled his tranced wits;
Said: "Herr Pastor, here's von skilling;
Choost at present ve vas quits.

"But, dake notice, if I finds her-
Marguerite, mine frau, mine queen-
Ven der year vas gone, is better

As goot, by dhen, I coomes again."

Twelve months sped with 'wildering fleetness
Down Time's pathway past recall,
Then there came a barrel rolling,
Thundering through the parson's hall,
With this note: "I send, Herr Pastor,
Mit ein barrel of besten flour,
Dhem five dollars-for mine Marguerite
More better as goot is every hour.

"Dot shmall leetle baby is ein darling!

If dhey shtay so goot, vy dhen,
When dot year vas gone, Herr Pastor,
Quick, booty soon, you hear again."
On the wedding-march went singing,
Sweeter, tenderer than before.
At the year's end it came drumming
Gayly at the parson's door,

[DECEMBER 25,

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HOW me your bill of company, instead

"S1

of your bill of fare," is the remark attributed to a shrewd and experienced social critic. How well he knew that no gas tronomic achievements could take the pia of genial society; that no marvels of cookery could lift a dull dinner company out of its own dull level, or atone to a person of brai and taste for the fixed vicinity for two three hours of a brace of bores! Given the social success, let the bill of company be al that it should be, and no one would be indifferent to the triumphs of culinary art But, unless to a professed gourmand, the lat ter is of much less importance than it is ge erally supposed to be, and the former alote of absolute necessity, if one is desirous-ar! who is not?-of having an attractive house. I have known what are called high livers, those who were very fond of the pleasures of the table, who would persistently avoid what they knew to be a dull house on dinner o casions, though they also knew that the bi of fare was fit to set before a king.

But the test of an attractive house is not in its invited company always, though that may be finely selected; for a large visitin list and observant shrewdness, together with experience, will enable many a hostess to give delightful parties. The really attractive house is that where attractive people, people of brains, and taste, and character, like to "drop in." There are such rare combi nations of circumstances and conditions, of traits and temper, which are necessary to make this attractiveness, that such houses

are not plentiful. One absolute condition is a certain domestic harmony. A family-jar is fatal. A Madame Récamier could scarcely "hold her own" in such an atmosphere. It is hardly less absolute that the hostess should, above all things, have the quality of appreciation, and the tact to conceal her preferences where this appreciation would lead her into absorbing interests in individuals. A real liking for social companionship, which does not have its slightest root in vanity, and therefore is not merely self-seeking, but instead self-lifting, would complete these conditions so happily that one might well question whether they have ever been fulfilled. But, rare as they are, we now and then find that they are not impossible. A hostess of this temper and tact would be sure to make her guests comfortable physically. She would have no draughts from swinging doors and unheated chambers. She would be sure that her rooms were properly ventilated, and that no scent of yesterday's dinner lurked in unaired corners.

"I hate to go to Mrs. Blank's, because she hasn't any nose," said a gentleman, recently, to an intimate friend.

"No nose! what on earth do you mean?" queried the friend.

"I don't mean the facial protuberance of bone and cartilage. I mean that she has no nose for all the purposes that a nose is good for. I smell dead dinners in her house from January till May. She's a pretty woman, she's a bright woman, and amiable to a degree. Her house is as pretty as she is, and she's hospitality itself, but I can't get used to those dead dinners. They smother all my fancies, all my ideas, with their charnel-house suggestions.

So it is inevitable that the hostess of the House Beautiful must have a nose of the most sensitive construction as an olfactory.

The very best aid to ventilation is an open fire. It needs not to be that expensive luxury, a hearth fire of wood; an open grate, or one of the pretty open-grate stoves which are just now coming into the market, will serve the purpose. With this open fire Mrs. Blank would be able to burn up literally all her dead-dinner odors, and people with sensitive noses could nurse their finest fancies in the sweetened atmosphere thus created. I once occupied the back-parlor directly over the basement-kitchen in a Boston boardinghouse. The house was heated with a furnace, and for a time I endured the mingled scents of dead and living dinners with what patience I might. It was a brief time, how ever, for, discovering the possibility of an open fire in a long-disused and furniture-hidden grate, I made a fresh arrangement with my landlady at once, and, turning off the furnace-heat, built up an open fire, which, with care, seldom died out. I had no further trouble with dinner or any other disagreeable odors, while rooms in the second and third story would gather now and then unsavory scents, which could not be easily dispelled; my back-parlor, even with its close kitchen vicinage, was invariably sweet and healthy.

So sweet and pure was the air in comparison with the other rooms, that my neighbors on the second and third floors, who would

now and then drop in upon me, invariably exclaimed, "How pleasant the air is here, and how very odd that you don't get the scents from the basement!" Of course, the closure of that detestable "hole in the floor" had something to do with the banishment of the basement scents; but not every thing, as I discovered very quickly when a warm day came and my fire went out. Then, with insidious, creeping footsteps, the little fiends of foul smells came stealing in under my door. A handful of kindlings lighted in that blessed grate, and presto!-the fiends were burned up in purifying flames in good orthodox fashion, as fiends ought to be. Let no misguided house-keeper think that she can insure all this beauty and comfort by that meanest of shams-a gas-log. Neither sweetness of atmosphere nor ideal pleasure can be found in that glaring humbug. No afterdinner odors can be burnt up in that blaze, no fine fancies flower out in that g(h)astly light. But, with the grate filled with soft or hard coal, or, best of all, with wood, one need not trouble one's self with other ventilators, nor with the lack of fine furniture. And so the wise woman, who is desirous of making an attractive house, will in her parlor arrangements first of all establish an open fire!

The next thing to be considered is the seating of your friends. You had better by far sacrifice a picture, or a bust you had set your mind on with a view of its giving grace and beauty to your room, than have a scarcity of comfortable chairs. If you can't have both, dispense with high art in this case, for you can't dispense with the other, which, in the nature of human nature, is a necessity. Nobody can be at ease in a chair too high or too low, or that bulges in the back where it ought to curve inward, or with any other of the uneasy angles and hard lines that are so often the torment of a visitor doomed to the "best parlor" with its "best chairs." Seven or eight-it may be ten-years ago, a certain style of furniture came into vogue and "raged" to the extent that a fresh "style" is sure to do with the majority of people who blindly suppose that a "fashion" of furnishing is indispensable to the elegance of their houses. This style was known, I believe, as the medieval pattern. It produced tall, hardseated chairs, with straight, high backs, and tall, straight-backed sofas or lounges, upon which no mortal could even appear at ease. It did not show a single curve of grace or aspect of luxury. It was rigid, stiff, and uncompromising, and I never knew a party to go off well in rooms with which it was furnished. In the "attractive houses," where we like to "drop in," there is never any fashion in the furniture. It may be costly, of carved rosewood and satin. It is quite as likely to be of simplest material, and within the range of a limited purse. But it is comfortable. That is the grand desideratum. I know of two parlors, one in the vicinity of Boston, where this "attractiveness" is entirely the result of taste and tact.

An open fire confronts you as you enter this latter parlor-an open fire of wood blazing forth from an old-fashioned stove. There are no costly pictures upon the walls, only a

few engravings. Groups of ferns nod from the mantel- shelf, and all the doorways are fringed with evergreens. Pots of flowers cluster at the windows, and vines hang from the cornices of the simple lace curtains. About the fire, low, inviting - looking chairs stand hospitably. These chairs are well worn and of various designs, and, sitting there in the light of the cheerful blaze, you will never miss any freshness or costliness of furnishing or decoration. In this parlor some of the brightest men and women of the day "drop in" of an evening, or in the late hours of the afternoon, when the genial blaze from the open stove throws joyous invitations of welcome in long streams of light from the low windows.

The other parlor is a rather famous reception-room in the southern part of New England, in the small State that adjoins Massachusetts. Its hostess has entertained most of the famous men and women who were in their prime forty years ago, but she will never grow old herself, and still holds her court with a younger generation with undiminished sway. Her rooms are somehow regions of enchantment. Yet, if you examine critically, you will discover that it would be difficult to find furnishings of less cost. But a bit of drapery here and there, soft groupings of color, mellow lights, not the strong, fierce glare of a full blazing chandelier, easy-chairs, and an open fire, make a harmonious whole, which, with the atmosphere of the hostess herself, completes a charm as delightful as rare. People visit these houses with a frequency they have no time for in other quarAnd the reason is obvious. Here are to be found the realities of ideal social lifewhat every one imagines, yet what few are able to realize, either in their own homes or in another's. And these ideal realities are freedom from conventionalities, together with a cultured refinement, which gives to the barest simplicities a grace and charm which costly display always lacks. After all, it ought not to be so difficult to find such attractive houses. The list of "conditions" is not so lengthy nor the requirements so hard but it would seem easy of fulfillment if one should seriously and thoughtfully consider it, and set about it as one of the finest achievements to be accomplished. A socially sympathetic nature, a little taste and tact, and-a sensitive nose! There is the recipe. NORA PERRY.

ters.

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base. While many are unable to see their full significance, many more are unwilling to see it, and try to hoodwink others by flippant and noisy repetition.

Proverbs at best are seldom more than partial truths, and at worst are often the meanest of falsehoods. They are specious generally, and their speciousness frequently veils their sophistry and their moral deformity.

"The world owes a man a living" is one of the pleasant fallacies by which both lazy and unprincipled fellows seek to evade duty to themselves and responsibility to others. The world may possibly owe a man a living | when irreparable adversity has overtaken him; when he has failed after repeated trials, or when he cannot get work. But it certainly does not, if he folds his arms, or, through wretched vanity misnamed pride, refrains from honest labor which he counts unworthy. He in whose mouth the phrase oftenest is, is very apt to be a professional loafer or sponge, or, still worse, a genteel swindler-a borrower of money without expectation or thought of its return. He affects to believe that the world is indebted to him, although he has rendered it no service; has given it absolutely nothing to base an obligation on. He is usually a drone in the beehive of life; a claimant of merit he does not possess; a sycophant, a sham, and a bully combined.

Beware of the man who is voluble about the debt this busy ball has incurred by his birth! He is not to be trusted. His fondness for the proverb indicates his antipathy to work-and the enemy of work is the enemy of society-offers just ground for suspicion; is an argument against his character. The few men who are the world's creditors will be very sure to keep silent concerning the fact, if they recognize it; though the great probability is that they will be too modest to be conscious of their large deserving.

There is a pride in merit that bridles the tongue as well as humbles the judgment of its own performance. But the fellow who has the globe on the debit side of his ledger, can rarely balance his account save by a liberal entry of immitigable self-conceit.

"All stratagems are fair in love and war" is one of the most atrocious sentiments ever uttered. An ingenious deviltry lies in its wording; for it couples two things that are entirely opposite. Love is the antipode of war; not its contradiction alone, but its extinction. Assent to the latter part of the proverb might be readily gained; but never to the former from any mind of moral sanity. The cunning of the verbal contrivance is therefore palpable. The enormity of half the phrase is concealed in the plausibility of the other half.

Stratagems in love? Who can think of them without abhorrence. The connection is unnatural, inhuman. Mephistopheles lurks in the suggestion. Love is the one thing above aught else that should be dealt with in strictest honesty; that should be reverenced, worshiped, glorified. To take any advantage of love would be-if any thing were-an unpardonable sin; for love is the queen of vir

tues, the angel part of our common humanity. It is so pure, so sweet, so tender, so generous, so noble, so confiding, so spontaneous, that to wrong it by a thought-much more to deceive it is wicked in the extreme. And then to employ stratagem deliberately, and likewise to justify it, is simply infamous. He would be bold indeed who should have the courage to father so vile a maxim. The bitterest cynic has never said any thing to surpass or exceed this, which strikes at all faith, and in its spirit aims to strangle what is best in human na

ture.

Not one person in a hundred that quote the words takes in their entire meaning. The attention is directed to stratagem and warthose two terms linger in the memory-and love and the suggestion of its monstrous treatment are kept in the background until familiarity with the phrase renders the whole acceptable. If the adage should be so curtailed as to include love only, there are not many who would not be startled by its utterance. Then it would stand-it should so stand with its present appendage-as a semiapology of roués and profligates to public decency; and the right kind of people would never mention it except in condemnation.

Charity begins at home" is generally the excuse of selfishness for lack of generosity. Yet many who are not naturally selfish may be made so by taking what they deem a prudential admonition too much to heart. Applied to the over-liberal, the proverb may be, and doubtless often is, a corrective. The mischief is that they who need its restraining influence seldom use or heed it. In the main, it is the oral property of the morbid and the covetous, and, to strengthen themselves in their sordidness, they employ the phrase to the detriment of others whose character is yet unformed, but whose tendency is in the wrong direction.

The charity that begins at home is prone to stay and end there. And he who preaches the doctrine is in constant danger of carrying its practice to a point of positive nig. gardliness.

Of a kindred kind is "Self-preservation is the first law of Nature." As everybody knows, or ought to know, the meaning of the axiom is literal and absolute. As such it cannot be gainsaid. But it should be, when it is put forward as a warning against benevolence, as a curb to any disposition to help the needy. Self-preservation, being an instinct, needs no enforcement from proverbial popularity. They that are perpetually telling us that it is the first law are usually the very persons who might make us wish it were the last law; for then they might so forget themselves for a moment as to drop out of the world to which they add nothing but a bad example.

"What is the good of having friends unless you use them?" is often jocosely asked; but the friends are oftener obliged to answer seriously. The proverb is in bad taste, to say the least, and its repetition evinces a grievous want of sensibility, if nothing worse. Friendship springs from sympathy, from spiritual affinity, from mutual understanding and appreciation, and ought to be a recipro

cal incentive to advancement, improvement, to a larger and better life. To put it primarily to material use is to degrade and profane it. The nature capable of understanding or feeling friendship will be slow to ask the rhetorical question unless playfully or satirically. And such a nature never will and never can act upon it.

There is quite enough in this bustling, necessarily prosaic world to dwarf and destroy our ideals, without our volunteering any cynical and superfluous aid thereto. A true friend is so willing and anxious to assist us in every honorable way possible, that we should be careful not to give him excess of opportunity. Besides, to use a friend, in the general sense of the verb, is ignoble, and must soon result in the fracture of friendship; for no friend can long consent to be used without a certain loss of self-respect, without which friendship is impracticable.

No doubt there is a constant temptation with many persons to employ their friends to their own advantage, without thought of reciprocity; and quoting the proverb strengthens the temptation and justifies the habit. Never let the aphorism pass your lips, however jocularly, lest you be suspected, in the first place, of meaning it, and, secondly, lest you prompt others to do what they shall eventually regret.

"What was once a vice is now a custom," though it may be true enough, has done a deal of harm by making unthinking folk believe that some unalloyed vice they are inclined to is destined to become a custom, and be relieved, therefore, of all its evil. They undertake to substitute the present for the past, and to forecast the futurenever a safe experiment in any hands but those of a master. Because a thing is a custom, it is not the less, but more, a vice. Repeaters of the apothegm usually seek thereby to mitigate or atone for a favorite fault of their own. They are in no wise successful except in calling attention to their proper short-comings, and emphasizing their egotism. They who have a vice, and are conscious of it, would better try to get rid of it than to excuse it by the expression of any sophistry or catch-phrase of an apologizing character.

"One may as well have the game as the name is a most mischievous saw, and is constantly heard from men who are looking for excuses for misbehavior. Such men not infrequently invent their own detractions in order, as they say, not to be any better than their reputation. To them the vulgar prov erb does small harm, except in so far as it facilitates them in moral decline. But to persons of another and higher kind, whose instincts are good, and whose characters are weak, it is exceedingly pernicious.

Slander is always bitter, and is likely to arouse a revengeful feeling that may expend itself in practical misanthropy or general wrong-doing through a mistaken notion of self-justice. The wisest, the only true way to deal with slander is, of course, to live it down. Still, this is doubly hard when some one at your elbow is steadily whispering, “ As well have the game as the name;" for there is a certain sort of savage consolation to most of us in the secret thought that we are quite

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