THE POOR EDITOR.

To be the editor of any kind of newspaper, either country or metropolitan (but very especially the former), is a position which must be trying to a good-natured man! Because it makes him an object of charity whether or no. It makes him the object of a peculiar and humiliating, because an interested, charity-a charity thrust upon him with offensive assurance and a perfectly unconcealed taken-for-granted that it will be received with gratitude, and the donor accounted a benefactor; and at the very same time the donor's chief motive, his vulgar self-interest, is left as frankly unconcealed. The country editor offers his advertising space to the public at the trifle of one dollar and a half or two dollars a square, first insertion, and one would suppose his patrons" would be satisfied with that. But they are

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not.

They puzzle their thin brains to find out some still cheaper way of getting their wares celebrated--some way whereby they can advertise virtually for nothing. They soon hit upon that meanest and shabbiest of all contrivances for robbing a gentle-spirited scribbler, viz., the conferring upon him of a present and begging a "notice" of it-thus pitifully endeavouring to not only invade his sacred editorial columns, but get ten dollars'

worth of advertising for fifty cents' worth of merchandise, and on top of that leave the poor creature burdened with a crushing debt of gratitude! And so the corrupted editor, having once debauched his independence and received one of these contemptible presents, wavers a little while the remnant of his self-respect is consuming, and at last abandons himself to a career of shame, and prostitutes his columns to "notices" of every sort of present that a stingy neighbour chooses to inflict upon him. The confectioner insults him with forty cents' worth of ice-cream-and he lavishes four "squares" of editorial compliments on him; the grocer insults him with a bunch of overgrown radishes and a dozen prize turnips-and gets an editorial paragraph perfectly putrid with gratitude; the farmer insults him with three dollars' worth of peaches, or a beet like a man's leg, or a watermelon like a channel-buoy, or a cabbage in many respects like his own head, and expects a third of a column of exuberant imbecility-and gets it. And these trivial charities are not respectfully and gracefully tendered, but are thrust insolently upon the victim, and with an air that plainly shows that the victim will be held to a strict accountability in the next issue of his paper.

I am not an editor of a newspaper, and shall always try to do right and be good, so that God will not make me one; but there are some persons who have got the impression somehow that I am that kind of character, and they treat me accordingly. They send me a newfangled wheelbarrow, and ask me to "notice" it; or a peculiar boot-jack, and ask me to "notice" it; or a sample of coffee, and ask me to "notice" it; or an

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article of furniture worth eight or ten dollars, or a pair of crutches, or a truss, or an artificial nose, or a few shillings' worth of rubbish of the vegetable species; and here lately, ail in one day, I received a barrel of apples, a thing to milk cows with, a basket of peaches, a box of grapes, a new sort of wooden leg, and a patent composition" grave-stone. "Notices" requested. A barrel of apples, a cow-milker, a basket of peaches, and a box of grapes, all put together, are not worth the bore of writing a "notice," or a tenth part of the room the "notice" would take up in the paper, and so they remained unnoticed. I had no immediate use for the wooden leg, and would not have accepted a charity grave-stone if I had been dead and actually suffering for it when it came: so I sent those articles back.

The ungraceful custom, so popular in the back settlements, of facetiously wailing about the barren pockets of editors, is the parent of this uncanny present-inflicting, and it is time that the guild that originated the custom and now suffer in pride and purse from it reflected that decent and dignified poverty is thoroughly respectable; while the flaunting of either a real or pretended neediness in the public face, and the bartering of nauseating "puffs" for its legitimate fruit of charitable presents, are as thoroughly indelicate, unbecoming, and disreputable.

"AFTER" JENKINS.

A GRAND affair of a ball-the Pioneers'-came off at the Occidental some time ago. The following notes of the costumes worn by the belles of the occasion may not be uninteresting to the general reader, and Jenkins may get an idea therefrom :

Mrs. W. M. was attired in an elegant pâté de foie gras, made expressly for her, and was greatly admired.

Miss S. had her hair done up. She was the centre of attraction for the gentlemen and the envy of all the ladies.

Miss G. W. was tastefullly dressed in a tout ensemble, and was greeted with deafening applause wherever she

went.

Mrs. C. N. was superbly arrayed in white kid gloves. Her modest and engaging manner accorded well with the unpretending simplicity of her costume, and caused her to be regarded with absorbing interest by every one.

The charming Miss M. M. B. appeared in a thrilling waterfall, whose exceeding grace and volume compelled the homage of pioneers and emigrants alike. How beautiful she was!

The queenly Mrs. L. R. was attractively attired in her new and beautiful false teeth, and the bon jour effect they

naturally produced was heightened by her enchanting and well-sustained smile. The manner of the lady is charmingly pensive and melancholy, and her troops of admirers desired no greater happiness than to get on the scent of her sozodont-sweetened sighs, and track her through her sinuous course among the gay and restless multitude.

Miss R. P., with that repugnance to ostentation in dress, which is so peculiar to her, was attired in a simple white lace collar, fastened with a neat pearl-button solitaire. The fine contrast between the sparkling vivacity of her natural optic and the steadfast attentiveness of her placid glass eye, was the subject of general and enthusiastic remark.

The radiant and sylph-like Mrs. T. wore hoops. She showed to great advantage, and created a sensation wherever she appeared. She was the gayest of the gay.

Miss C. L. B. had her fine nose elegantly enamelled, and the easy grace with which she blew it from time to time marked her as a cultivated and accomplished woman of the world; its exquisitely modulated tone excited the admiration of all who had the happiness to hear it.

Being offended with Miss X., and our acquaintance having ceased permanently, I will take this opportunity of observing to her that it is of no use for her to be prancing off to every ball that takes place, and flourishing around with a brass oyster-knife skewered through her waterfall, and smiling her sickly smile through her decayed teeth, with her dismal pug-nose in the air. There is no use in it-she don't deceive anybody.