LORD STANHOPE ON THE ART AND FACULTY OF PUBLIC SPEAKING.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 131, 21 January 1859, Page 3

LORD STANHOPE ON THE ART AND FACULTY OF PUBLIC SPEAKING.

Tub'observations of the 'limes on this important topic might, we think,: be studied with advantage by many of our public men, few of whom seem to have thought that to study the art of speaking correctly, if not eloquently, formed any part of the duty of a legislator".—

The address of Lord Stanhope to the University of Aberdeen deserves a high place iv what has now become a numerous and important class of conir positions. We have seldom read anything so likely to apply the needful stimulus to the often smouldering fire and fitful ambition of academic youth. A Scotch precedent is about, the last that 19.likely to obtain weight.at our English universities, and one of them has for its chancellor a man who teaches eloquence, at least, by his own most distinguished example. Yet even Lord Derby could bring- that example more home, and make it more available, if he would some day : inform the scholars and reasonevs, but very indifferent talkers, of his university how he came by his marvellous command of words and power of exposition. This is not meant to imply that the example is perfect, for, like one of the representatives of the same university, Lord Derby is occasionally carried away in the torrent of Ills own words. When, however, we see a Irian, the chief of his party, able to rally it and bring it into power once and again under the most adverse circumstances,—when there is no subject-on which he cannot deliver .himself so as to rivet the attention of all hfiarers, disarm their hostility, and for the time even overbear their con-victions^-it is idle to criticise a faculty which everybody must envy and desire. So,, by what process is Lord Derby an orator ? How did art assist nature? Can he impart the secret to that crowd of students, —the hope of England,—from whom oar Parliament, otir pulpits, our courts, our magistracy, our hustings, and platforms are to-be supplied ? Lord Stanhope has given hisr view of the secret, which, indeed, is in general terms tliat to which every distinguished orator, ancient or modern, has given his authority. It is labor, study, practice, drudgery, application, or whatever else we may call it. We should only take up needless time if we were "to attempt an enumeration of the splendid examples and emphatic admonitions in favor of early, constant, various, and systematic training, in the case, of everybody called upon to speak in public. The early statutes and usages of our universities bear witness to the paramount importance of the faculty! in ,the estimation of our forefathers. The old; scholars of Oxford "disputed" their way from term to term, from one degree to another. Till the Restoration we believe we are justified in saying that no sermon was ever read in the University pulpit, and even elsewhere a manuscript was as great a confession, of weakness as a printed book would be in these days. Yet these were^agea in which the universities' had a far stronger hold on the nation than they now have. They were riot behind ours in: solidity of scholarship, "in.depth of philosophy, and strength of conviction. The art of-speaking did not dilute learning and weaken vigour of mind, but ministered to them. Scholars then not only held their own, but went forth, and taught, and persuaded, and governed the world.

, In. this age, however, which brooks no comparison with any age that went before it, it is a plain fact which cannot be disputed, fhat neither at our universities, nor fit our public schools, nor in any other places ami systems of education in vogue amongst us, is any at tempt made to teach the art of speaking. What may be adduced in the. way of exception is utterly inconsiderable. From the time a gentleman's son goes to school to the happy moment when he sees his name, perhaps, in the list of wranglers or the " Class List," he has most probably never recited English poetry or prose, never even read either aloud, much less has he ever made an oral statement of-facts or views to a greater length than a short sentence in reply to a short question. Up to the age of three-and-twenty it is a matter yet to be ascertained whether the intended clergyman can read a verse in the Bible as it ought to be read.; whether the intending barrister can make a legal statement, attempt to convince without giving disgust, or to persuade without making himself ridiculous. He may at that age be able, to do many things seldom required. He.may be deep in Greek and,' Roman antiquities, arid able to construe or even scan any chorus; he may write Greek and Latin verses in a dozen metres ;he may be a good mathematician,'and even compose a tolerable essay. He may have these and many other accomplishments, which may never be' called into practice once in a whole life; except in the production ot written sermons, or in some correspondence of unusual gravity." What, however, every man must do in one way or another, what is the common gift of all classes, all professions, all ages from infancy,what.is the first and'foremost difference between^man and brute, and. between one man arid another, is left to chance, without any assistance whatever "from schools or universities. Some, men have naturally better organs of articulation, some are in better society and riiore among good talkers than others ; some* are more sociable; some begin to talk a year or two before others, and have that start upon them ; some prefer society to study from mere idleness ; some are early seized with an ambition to be orators. Nature and circumstances interfere in many ways, and make one man a speaker, another a mute, and others all shades between these extremes, but education in these days has nothing to do with the result. A schoolboy is all his time declining, conjugating, parsing^construing, scanning,—all grammatical and critical exercises; reciting : first Latin doggerel about genitives and preterites;. then, it must be admitted, Latin and Greek speeches and poetry. The universities merely complete this course of training. Bat the habit of mind imparted by all these exercises is rather adverse to method, facility, and elegance of expression than conducive to those qualities. It often helps to make men hesitate, boggle, and stammer, to be at a loss for a word, or give two or three words instead of one, contradict themselves, explain, repeat, and fall, into every vice of utterance. The question, as Lord Stanhope very properly says, does not refer only to public speaking. The tongue is continually called into service, and is always liable to failure for want of a proper training. ; ■■'■'■ The result, is lamentable, and often disagreeable, the first education that the country can give offers no security whatever that a man shall not offend and disgust when he should please arid inform. Enter church after church, in the metropolis or elsewhere, and you shall hear the prayers read by a machine, and the sermon read by .a drone.'The supplications' are solemn without being- serious; the exhortations have only that gravity that conduces to sleep. The one. is a pious form, and the other an unpleasant It is riot our present purpose, and certainly is no wish of ours, to enlarge :upon defects which are the staple.of almost every conversation in respectable houses' .between the hours ,of one and two on Sunday af crnopn'. Nor is this si-ate of things confined to'the Church. Hundreds of excellent gentlemen aspire to Parliament, ami get in or not, with the same ultimate ill success. The moment they try to speak, all their feelings, thought, facts, and purposes either crowd to the tongue, or fly altogether, and leave it utterly bankrupt of words. Those who can speak do not; often bring credit on ■the gift/ Indeed, in this country there is nothing which is so often the subject of a sneer as fluency of speech. It has become an affectation with many that they cannot express themselves, and they find excuses enough alike in the shortcomings and excesses of others. A large part of the wisdom, the experience, and the actual power of the country ■is unrepresented, in Parliament, through the taciturnity or defective expression of our public men. while, as a natural consequence, many who have little else than a ready 'com.maud of words obtain an influence beyond their just worth. "In a people of the blind a one-eyed man is king;" and in an assembly of bad1 speakers or mute's a very ordinary orator will get more than his due. It must be so at the bar, and in the pulpit also. ;; At, the former there have been men who have been sneered at for their garrulity, their vulgarity, their tautology, and utter defiance of all the rules of rhetoric, ever since they opened theii" mouths, but when, they obtain practice, wealth, mid rank, they can afford, to laugh at their briefless, brethren. In the pulpit the scholar and gentleman from the university pines and moulders in liis curacy without even the conviction of ministerial success, while an ignorant Ranter carries away half his flock, and the vulgar Dissenter, with every fault of manner and style, with solecisms innumerable and unpardonable outrages on social propriety, is run after by thousands, would fill a Colosseum, and has everything a clergyman can wish for except a palace, a peerage, arid "My Lord." The chief foundation of his power is not merely his own eloquence, but the utter want of that quality in most of his competitors. He has been pleaching every day, to a small party or a large one, ever since he was ten years old. He has been among preachers. When another ended he began ; and when he was tired another took it up. His whole life, shortas it is, has been one course of preaching. The Oxford or Cambridge divine has got up 20 textbooks, can read the Scriptures in the original, has read the Fathers and the old English theologians,., but never preached except by book, and has scared y- heard a sermon that was hot a written one, and read accordingly. : . .

No doubt, people must have begun early to speak well. The child who is allowed to tell his long story: all about nothing at all, or the tale he has read that morning, in his nursery-book, is in training for an orator. . He will very soon have his little audience, while the philosopher is left on .his stool, and the sulkev is left to go where he .will. This is domestic training, which, whether by precept or example, has more to do /than schools. But, if schools are good for anything, they ought to help here too. Boys ought to practise that which they will have to dp in future life; to describe what they have read,- seen;, or heard ; to read from other languages into good English, as Lord Stanhope says was part of Pitt's training, to state cases and "arguments, and in every possible way to acquire readiness, nerve, a good vocabulary, a. gentle tone of voice, neither overbearing nor timid, and even a.bearing that shall not be positively ridiculous.. It stands, to reason, and is certainly borne out in .multitudes of'instances, that if a child is ever to speak well-it-ought to begin as soon as it has the use of its tongue ;- and the course ought not to be intermitted at school or college. At present all the rhetorical training a boy has at either of these places he picks up for himself. If he does this his future career is often a triumph of self-will over duty;, or vather;of nature over learned folly. While the good ; boys are plodding over their tasks, writing no end of verses, racking their brains to find matter for a theme, of turning over the leaves of dictionaries and grammars till they are dizzy, some indolent fellow is following his own bent, talking, all kinds of nonsense, , playing off his jokes on everybody, and trusting to his good fortune and address to propitiate his master/Thirty years hence he is likely enough to become a great man, and, in his way, a useful man, while his dutiful and rplodding contemporaries are settling into obscurity and insignificance.' It ought not to be, but it is, so, and will remain so, aslong as the^art of speaking well is utterly neglected, in all its stages and applications, and nothing is cared for but headwork and pen work, as applied to ancient languages and pure mathematics.

DR. ELIZABETH BLACKWELL;It .is not customary for one periodical worlc to make extracts from■'another; but there may- be. instances in which a breach of the rule will be. held as justified. We find, in the second number of a new monthly magazine,I'styled the English Woman's Journal, a piece of actual life-history of a most heroic and touching character. By presenting some pads of it to a wider circle of readers, we believe we shall be at once, improving the hearts of our friends by a profoundly interesting story, and making known to them a clever and promising aspirant of the periodical press, having specially in view the advancements of the interests of womankind. The narrative is an account of the professional cdncation of a young English-' woman residing in America, who has somewhat astonished the, world by becoming a regular diplomaed physician, and settling in that capacity in New .York. The narrative is the production of an admiring and sympathising sister. Elizabeth Black well was the eldest^ of a family of seven, thrown with their mother on the world by. the early death of theiv father in embarrassed circumstances. She had a severe struggle for some years, striving to maintain herself, and help the junior branches by teaching. At length,' having by inconceivable self-denial saved a little money, she entered upon a course of education for the profession of a physician, being of opinion that women are fitted to become medical practitioners, and that she would be doing her sex some service by shewing, them the way. It will be found, in the ensuing extract, what difficulties, in addition to those of poverty, she had to overcome before the attainment of her wishes. -. - - . "In May, 1847, after three years of incessant application, during which the closest study had , occupied every moment noi engaged in teaching, she left Charleston, and went to Philadelphia, where she endeavored to obtain admittance to the medical schools, but without success. ' The physicians at their head were either shocked or angry at her request, and the doors of all those schools were closed against so unprecedented an application; and finding'it impossible to avail herself of the. facilities provided for students of the-other sex, she now entered upon a coui'se of private anatomical study and dissection with Professor, Allen, and of midwifery with Dr. Warrington of Philadelphia. But, although she could undoubtedly learn much from the private lessons of competent instructors, she felt that so fragmentary a mode of study could not give her the solid medical education resulting from a regular collegiate course;,and, moreover, as it was her aim not to excite ignorant or halfeducated female pretenders to an unauthorised assumption of the physician's office, but, on the contrary, to procure the opening of the legitimate approaches of the medical career to women seriously desirous to qualify themselves for the worthy discharge of its duties, bypassing through the course of preparation -prescribed.to men, her admission to a regular medical college, and the acquisition of the medical diploma—as a sanction for .her.own course and a precedent for other women—were essential to the carrying out of her plans. She therefore procured a list of all the .medical colleges in existence in, the United States, and proceeded to address an application for admission to, each of them in succession.

"'I am sending out arrows in every direction, uncertain which may hit the mark,'" she -remarks in a letter written at this time. :

"Her application, though,..accompanied by a certificate of her having gone,'through'the requisite preparatory study under Dr. Dickson, was refused by twelve medical colleges. In some cases, the refusal was couched in the shape of a. homily on the subordinate position assigned to woman by nature and society, and her presumption in wishing to enter a sphere reserved to the nobler sex; or an exposition of the impropriety and indelicacy implied in a woman's attempting to karn the nature and laws of her own physical organisation. .For several .months it appeared as though even her tenacity of purpose would fail to break through the barriers of prejudice and routine: opposed to her on every side: But at length her £>ath, .so long obstructed, began to grow clearer.

"Among the applications she had made through^ out the length and hreadth of the -United States, one had been" addressed 4o the Medical College, of the University of Geneva, in the State of New York. The faculty of that institution, having considered her request, agreed that they saw. no reason why a woman—possessed of the requisite preparatory requirements—should not be admitted ; but feeling tliat the question was one whose decision must rest, practically, with the students themselvesl —as it would have "been easy for them, if so disposed, to render a place in the amphitheatre untenable by a lady—they determined to' refer the matter to them, and,,having called them together, left the application with them for examination and decision. The students, 'having discussed the: subject,. decided unanimously in favor of the new applicant; and a ' preamble' and ' resolutions' were, drawn up and voted by them, inviting her to enter the college, and pledging themselves ' individually and collectively that, should she do so, no word or act of theirs should ever cause her to regret the step.' v ; ; ■•'

*' A copy of these ' resolutions,' accompanied by a letter of invitation from themselves, having been transmitted to her by the faculty of the-university.,, she went to Geneva in November of: that yearj was entered, on. the college books as ' -Noi 417j' and threw herself into the study of the various branches, of medical learning thus opened to her, with" an ardor proportioned to the difficulties she had to overcome.iii gaining access to them. v '• But the position she had striven' so hard to attain was not without certain inconveniences, in T separable from the nature of the case; and though she had weighed, and was prepared to endure them, for the sake of the knowledge that.she could:obtain in no other way, it-will be readily understood that a young and sensitive woman could not find herself placed in so.novel a situation, and assist at all the demonstrations involved in a complete course of medical exposition, without occasional severe trial to her feelings, : Aware that the possibility of her going through with such a course depended on her being able, by her unmoved deportment, to cause her presence there to be regarded; by tliose around her, not as that of a woman among men, but of one student among five hundred; confronted only with the truth and dignity of natural law, she restricted herself, for some time'after her entrance into the college, to diet sp; rigid as almost to trench upon starvation, in order that no involuntary change of color might betray the feeling of embarrassment occasionally created by the necessary plain-speaking of scientific analysis. How far the attainment of a'selfcommand which rendered her countenance as impassible as that of a statue can be attributed to the effect of such a diet, may be, doubtful; t but her adoption of such an expedient is too characteristic, to be omitted here. ' "' .

"From her first admission into the college until she left it, she also made it an invariable rule to pass ,in and out without taking any notice of the students; going straight to her seat, and never looking in any other direction than to the professor, and on her note-book. :

"Hovy necessary was her circumspection to the prosecution of the arduous task she had asstfrned maybe, inferred from an incident which occurred during the lecture in the amphitheatre,> short time after her admission. The subject of the lesson happened to be a particularly trying one ; and. while' the lecturer was proceeding with his demonstration, a folded paper—evidently,a note— was thrown down by somebody in one of the upper tiers behind her, and fell upon her arm, where it lay, conspicuously white, upon the sleeve of her black dress. She felt, instinctively, that this note contained some gross impertinence, that every eye in the building was upon her, and that, if she meant to remain in the college, she must repel the insult, then and there, in such a way as to preclude the occurrence of any similar act. Without moving, or raising her eyes from her note-book, she continued to write, as though she had not perceived the paper; and when she had finished her notes, she _ slowly lifted the arm on which it Jay, until she had brought it clearly .within view of every one in the building, and then, with the slightest' possible turn of the wrist, she caused the offensive missive to drop upon the floor. Her action, at once a protest and an appeal, was perfectly understood by the ; students and, in an instant,

the amphitheatre rang with'their. Murjretie .applause, mnijied' 1 witti'liiases directed 'against her cowardly assailant. Throughout this fcene she kept her eyes constantly fixed,upon heruftte-i'Gofr, taking no more apparent notice of this weleorae demonstration than "she had clone of the unwelcome degression which had called it forth. But her position in the college was made'from that moment; and not the slightest annoyance of any kind was ever again attempted throughout her stay. On the contrary, X sincere regard, at once kindly and respectful, was thenceforward evinced towards her by her fellow students; and though,'for obvious reasons, she still continued to hold herself aloof from social intercourse with them, yet, whenever the opportunity of so doing presented itself in the course of their common studies, they always shewed themselves ready and anxious to -reneler her any good offices in their power, and some of them are among her truest friends at this day. "The' feeling of embarrassment' which had caused her so much pain on her first .appearance among her fellow-students was, however, •'soon modified by familiarity with topics forming the subject of daily study, and was at length entirely absorbed in the growing interest and admiration excited by the wonderful' and beautiful mechanism of the human frame. But the suffering it had caused her, on her entrance into the college, suggested to her the desirability of providing a firstclass medical school for the reception of female students • only—an institution which she hopes to establish in the course of time;

" But though the'lady student.', had thu9 made good her position within the walls of the college, the. suspicious and. hostile curiosity with ~which she was regarded in the little town was long, in is'ubsiding. ' She could not, at first, obtain admission to a suitable boarding-house ; .the heads -of those establishments having been threatened with the desertion of their 'best' inmates if she were received. As she went through the streets on her way to and from the coilege, audible whispers "of 'Here she comesV orvr-nde cries of 'Come on, Bill, let's have-a look at the lady, doctor!' would meet her ears; and not only idle boys, but welldressed men and women, would, place themselves before her, or draw up in little knots along the pavement, to see tier go by, as though- she had been some strange animal from another planet. But the passage of the quiet-looking little figure, dressed with the utmost simplicity, taking no notice of the rude people about her, and looking neither to the right hand nor to the left,;gradualiy ceased to excite remark; and when she had been called upon by the wives of some of the professoi^, the most 'respectable' of the boarding-houses consented to receive her as an inmate. * *

"From the time when she had first resolved upon the study of medicine, until a very recent period, she pursued -a system of self-denial in every branch of personal expenditure so rigid that it would be hardly credible to those who had not witnessed its details, and involving privations that only her exceptional temperament .could have enabled her to undergo- Her arrangements were invariably made on the most inexpensive scale; ■she .-put' up with the simplest accommodations, dressed with, more than Quaker plainness, went about on foot in all weathers to the utmost limit of her. strength,, and resolutely denied herself everything, without exception, that it was possible for her to do without. Her refusing herself a little bottle of eau de Cologne, which; slie could have bought for fourpenee-halfpenny, and- to which, being very fond of scents, she happened one day to take such an especial fancy, that she was haunted for years with •occasional- visions of that same little bottle, was in , accordance with the invariable rule she had marked out for herself. Acts of rare'generosity on her part towards others during this period might be. cited; but with regard to herself—although additional resources were placed at her disposal by her relatives in England—her self-denial was inexorable; every farthing thus economised being regarded by her as so much gained for the exigencies of future study, and treasured accordingly. Such having been her mode of action from the beginning of her student's- career, it was not without anVaJmost heroic effort that, as her «ourse of study "drew towards its close, she compelled herself to purchase a handsdme black silk dress for the grand affair of her graduation. In "a letter written at that time, she says :•—''! am working > hard for the ..parch* ment, which I suppose.,will1 x>oroe in due time; but 1 have still an immense amount of dry reading to get through with, and to beat into ray memory. 1 have been obliged to have a dress made for the graduation ceremony; and meanwhile it lies quietly In my trunk, biding its time,. It is a rich black silk, with a cape, trimmed With black silk fringe, and some narrow white lace round the iieck and cuffs. I could not' avoid the expense, though a grievous one for a poor.student; for the affair will take place in a crowded church ; 1 shall have to mount to a platform, on which aits the president of the university in'gown and triangular hat, surrounded by rows of reverend;: professors; and of course I can neither disgrace womankind, the college, nor the Blackwell's, by presenting myself in a shabby gown.' "In January, 1849, the ceremony in question took place, as just described. The churcli was crowded to suffocation; an immense number of ladies being present, attracted from every point of the compass, from twenty miles round, by the' desire to witness the presentation of the first medical diploma ever bestowed upon a woman; and among the crowd were some of her own family, who had come to Geneva to be present on the occasion. When the preliminaiy ceremonial had been gone through withj and the various addresses had been delivered, the wearer of the black silk dress ascended to the platform with a number of her brother-students, and received from the hands of Dr. Lee, -the venerable president of the university, the much-desired diploma, which with its seal and; blue ribbon, and the word Domhius changed to Domina, admitted her into the ranks :of the medical fraternity, hitherto closed against her sex. Each student, on receiving the diploma; returned a few words of thanks. On receiving hers, Dr.: Elizabeth replied, in a low voice, but amidst a hush of curiosity arid interest so intense that the words were audible throughout the building:— :

"' I thank you, Mr. President, for the sanction given to my studies by the institution of which you are the head. With the help of the Most High, it shall be the endeavor of mylifetodo honor to the diploma you have conferred upon me.' "The president, in his concluding address,;alluded to the presence of a lady-student during, the collegiate course then closing, as 'an innovatioti that had been in every way a fortunate one:' and stated that' the zeal and energy she had.displayed in the acquisition of science had offered a brilliant, example to the whole class;' that 'her presence had exercised a beneficial influence upon her fellow-students in all respects;' that 'the average attainments and general conduct of the students during the period she had passed among them were of a higher character than those of any class that had.been assembled in the college since he had been connected with the institution;' and ; that 'the most cordial good wishes oflierinstructors would go with her in her future career."' Vs ~

'■Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell is now a highly successor doctor at New York, where she has been latterly joined by a junior sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell, who has passe/l through the same professional education with equal eclat, but under greatly less difficulty.— Chambers' Journal " "■'

Women and the "Fiiess.—With the'growth of the press has grown the direct influence of educated,women on the world's aß'airs. Mute in the senate and in the Chinch, their opinions have found a voice in the sheets of ten thousand readers First in the list of their achievements came admirable novels, not be-' cause fiction can be written without knowledge, but because it only requires that knowledge which- lhay - can most easily attain, the result of insight into humanity. As peiiodieals have waxed numerous, ■so has female authoiship waxed strong. The magazines demanded short graphic papers, observation, wit, and moderate learning—women demanded work such as they could perform at home, and ready pay upon performance;'the two wants met, and the female sex has become a very important element in the fourth estate. If editors were ever known to disclose the dread secrets of their d-nia, they only could gi-e the pub ie an idea of tV authoresses whose unsigned names arc Lt-gion; of th-iir rolls of manuscripts, which are 2s the sands of »hs £«> —ErjlishviCTtwtS Jw>yi!>

THE BEWITCHED CLOCK. About half-past eleven o'clock on Sunday night a human leg, enveloped in blue broadcloth, might have been seen entering Deacon Barber's kitchen window. The log was followed by an entire body of a live Yankee, attired in his Sunday go-to-meeting clothes. It was, in short, Joe Mayweed, who had thus burglariously won his way into the Deacon's kitchen.

" Wonder how much the old Deacon made by orderin' me not to darken his door again ?" soliloquised the young gentleman. "Promised him I wouldn't, but didn't say nothing about winders. Winders is just. x»,s good as doors, ef there ant no nails to tear your trousers onto. Wonder ef Sally will come down ?—-the critter promised me.' It's cold enough to freeze a Polish bear. 0, here conies Sally!" The beauteous maiden then decended with a pleasant smile, a tallow candle, and a box of lucifer matches. After receiving a rapturous greeting, she made a rousing fire in the*cooking-stove; and the happy couple sat down to enjoy the sweet interchanges of hopes and vows, when they were startled by the old Deacon, Sally's father, shouting from his chamber door, "Sally! what are you getting up in the middle of the night for?" • " Tell him it is almost morning," whispered Joe. "I cannot tell a fib," replied Sally. •'l'll make it the truth then," said Joe; and running to the large old-fashioned clock* he set it at five.

"Tell me what time it is," cried the old gentleman. "■lt's five by the clock," replied Sally; and immediately corroborating her words, the clock struck five.

The lovers sat down again and resumed their conversation. Suddenly the staircase began to creak.

" Good gracious! father's coming down," cried Sally.

" The Deacon, by thunder !'' cried Joe "Hide me, Sally."

"Where can I hide you?" cried the distracted girl. " 0,. I know," said he; " I'll squeeze into the old clock case." And without another word he concealed himself in the case and then closed the door.

The Deacon was dressed; and seating himself, he pulled out his pipe, lighted it, and began to smoke. "Five o'clock eh?" said he. Well, I shall have time to smoke a few pipes, and then I'll feed the critters." :

"Hadn't you better feed the critters Tust ?" suggested the doubtful Sally. "No;, smokin' clears my head and wakes me up," replied the Deacon, not a whit disposed to hurry. Bur-r-r, whiz, ding! ding! ding! went the old clock.

" Tormented lightning!" exclaimed the Deacon, starting up and laying his pipe on the stove; kt what on 'arth is that?"

;" It's only the clock striking five," replied Sally, tremulously. . • . Whiz, ding! ding! went the old clock furiously. • . . . " Powers of creation !" cried the deacon; Mstrikin'five, eh? It has struck over a hundred already!" . " Deacon .Barber!" cried the Deacon's better half, who had hastily robed herself, and now came plunging down the staircase in the wildest state of alarm, "what in the universe is the matter with that clock?" ■

"Goodness only 'knows," replied the old man. " It's been a hundred years in the family, and never acted so before." Whiz, ding.! ding! whiz! went the old clock again.

"It'll burst itself!" cried the Deacon, who retained a leaven of good old New England superstition in his nature, " And now," said he, after a pause* advancing toward the clock, ""I'll see what is going

on in it."

"0 don't!" cried his daughter, seizing one of his coat tails, While his wife clung to the other. " Don't 1" chorused both the women.

"Let go my raiment,'' shouted the Deacon. " I ain't afeerd of the powers of

darkness!"

,- But the women wouldn't let go % so the Deacon slipped out of his coat; and while from the sudden cessation of resistance they fell heavily on the floor, he pitched forward and grabbed the knob of door. But no human power could open.it, for Joe was holding it from the inside with a death-grip.

The old Deacon began to be dreadfully frightened. He gave one more tug, when an unearthly yell, as of a fiend in distress, burst from the inside, then clock-case pitched headforemast at the Deacon, fell headlong on the floor, smashed its face, apd wrecked its fair proportions. The current of the. air extinguished the candle —the Deacon, the old lady, and Sally fled upstairs—rand Joe Mayweed extracted himself from the clock, and effected his escape by the way he entered.

The next day all Appleton was alive with the story that- Deacon Barber's clock had been bewitched; and although many believed his version, yet some, especially Joe' Mayweed, affected to discredit the whole affair, and hinted that the -Deacon had been trying the experiment of tasting hard cider, and that the vagaries of the clock only existed in his distempered ima-

gination.

-However, the interdict being taken off, Joe was allowed to resume his courting, and won the assent of the old people to his union with Sally, by repairing the old clock till it went as well as ever it di&.—'Amencan Union.

The Omnipotence of Love. —Love has made a graye gouty statesman fight duels, the soldier fly from his colors, a pedant a fine gentleman, and the very lawyer a poet. --rWycherki/i