READING ALOUD IN THE FAMILY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3020, 1 March 1881, Page 4

READING ALOUD IN THE FAMILY.

" Why do you never read aloud, Mariw?' asked Mr Jones of his wife. / The Scientific Advaffce says that reading aloud is on*' of the bonds that cement families together ; wonder you never thought of it/ " I think of ifc, Mr Jones! Why didn t you think of it yourself?" " Well, you see, I Jam often hoarse and tired, and then I want to smoke at night; but you have nothing else to do. Suppose we try it: you read and I'll listen.' " Very well; when will we begin ? ' " Why, to-night, with the morning paper. I havn'fc half read it; now I'll smoke and listen. This is comfortable, I can tell you. After all there's no place like home"' Mrs Jones was pleased and said 7 , No dear," and she took up the paper. She turned ifc over once or twice, and rustled afra good deal, but finally, in a clear, distinct, but feminine voice, she began : "Wedding belles " •' Stop; _taHa : ! " said Mr Jones; read the markets first."

A long rustling and turning over of the paper. "I can't find' them, dear;, they're left out; but here's a lovely murder!" " Well," in a disappointed voice, " go on." So Mrs Jones read the Horrible Murder of an Entire Family, which recital madeJones so sick that he threw away his cigar j and then she came to the "Boston Women's Deposit Company,' which Jones was aaxious to hear about, when she had read about three lines she said, "O pshaw!_ Nowoman would act that way ; there isn't a; word of truth in it," and read an account of a baby that was found on a doorstep, and an opening of fall in millinery. Jones was sound asleep by this time, but she did not know it. Then she turned the paper again, and Jones was suddenly aroused by a firm grip on his shoulder. "Hey, hallo! what time is it Maria? It's too early to get up yet." "Mr Jones!" shouted his wife ; she stood over him like an avenging angel and held the paper before his dazed eyes. ! " Who — cut — that — piece — out —Mr Jones ?"

Yes, there was a quarter of a column cut clean out of the paper. Jones had done it, but to save his life, the wretched man could not tell what for. At a desperate venture he said: "It was an article on oleomargarine; I remember now.

"Old Margarine! And what did you want of her?" He explained that it was a kind of butter, but she didn't believe. Guilt was written all over him. She stared at that empty place in the paper until it seemed to her that she must die if she did not know what was there. Then she broke down and sobbed.

" And you —you said there was no place Kke home, and—and —now " "There isn't!" shouted Jones, as he took his hat and plunged into the darkness. "For pure, undiluted misery and uncomfortableness there is no place like it 1" Reading aloud is not encouraged in the Jones family any more. Mrs Jones bought a duplicate copy of that paper the next day and found out that it was only a stupid old list of sales in real estate, and Jones says any other kind of cement for keeping families together is preferable to reading aloud. —Detroit Post.