But there are fish that should be propagated in the interest of the people. There is a species of fish that never looks at the clothes of the man who throws in the bait, a fish that takes whatever is thrown to it, and when once hold of the hook never tries to shake a friend, but submits to the inevitable, crosses its legs and says "Now I lay me," and comes out on the bank and seems to enjoy being taken. It is a fish that is a friend of the poor, and one that will sacrifice itself in the interest of humanity. This is the fish that the State should adopt as its trade mark, and cultivate friendly relations with, and stand by. We allude to the bullhead.

The bullhead never went back on a friend. To catch the bullhead it is not necessary to tempt his appetite with porter house steak, or to display an expensive lot of fishing tackle. A pin hook, a piece of liver, and a cistern pole, is all the capital required to catch a bullhead. He lays upon the bottom of a stream or pond in the mud, thinking. There is no fish that does more thinking or has a better head for grasping great questions, or chunks of liver than the bullhead. His brain is large, his heart beats for humanity, and if he can't get liver, a piece of a tin tomato can will make a meal for him. It is an interesting study to watch a boy catch a bullhead. The boy knows where the bullhead congregates, and when he throws in his hook it is dollars to buttons that "in the near future" he will get a bite. The bullhead is democratic in all its instincts. If the boy's shirt is sleeveless, his hat crownless, and his pants a bottomless pit, the bullhead will bite just as well as though the boy is dressed in purple and fine linen, with knee breeches and plaid stockings. The bull head seems to be dozing—bulldozing we might say—on the muddy bottom, and a stranger might say that he would not bite. But wait. There is a movement of his continuation, and his cow-catcher moves gently toward the piece of liver. He does not wait to smell of it, and canvas in his mind whether the liver is fresh. It makes no difference to him. He argues that here is a family out of meat. "My country calls and I must go," says the bullhead to himself, and he opens his mouth and the liver disappears.

It is not certain that the boy will think of his bait for half an hour, but the bullhead is in no hurry. He lays in the mud and proceeds to digest the liver. He realizes that his days will not be long in the land, or water, more properly speaking, and he argues if he swallows the bait and digests it before the boy pulls him out, he will be just so much ahead. Finally the boy thinks of his bait, and pulls it out, and the bullhead is landed on the bank, and the boy cuts him open to get the hook out. Some fish only take the bait gingerly, and are only caught around the selvage of the mouth, and they are comparatively easy to dislodge. Not so with the bullhead. He says if liver is a good thing you can't have too much of it, and it tastes good all the way down. The boy gets down on his knees to dissect the bullhead, and get his hook, and it may be that the boy swears. It would not be astonishing, though he must feel, when he gets his hook out of the hidden recesses of the bullhead, like the minister that took up a collection and didn't get a cent, though he expressed his thanks at getting his hat back. There is one drawback to the bullhead, and that is his horns. We doubt if a boy ever descended into the patent insides of a bullhead, to mine for Limerick hooks, that did not, before his work was done, run a horn into his vital parts. But the boy seems to expect it, and the bullhead enjoys it. We have seen a bullhead lay on the bank and become dry, and to all appearances dead to all that was going on, and when the boy sat down on him and got a horn in his elbow, and yelled murder, the bullhead would grin from ear to ear, and wag his tail as though applauding for an end core.

The bullhead never complains. We have seen a boy take a dull knife and proceed to follow a fish line down a bullhead from his head to the end of his subsequent anatomy, and all the time there would be an expression of sweet peace on the countenance of the bullhead, as though he enjoyed it. If we were preparing a picture representing "Resignation," for a chromo to give to subscribers, and wished to represent a scene of suffering in which the sufferer was light hearted, and seemed to recognize that all was for the best, we should take for the subject a bullhead, with a boy searching with a knife for a long lost fish hook.

The bullhead is a fish that has no scales, but in lieu thereof is a fine India rubber skin, that is as far ahead of fiddle string material for strength and durability as possible. The meat of the bullhead is not as choice as that of the mackerel, but it fills up a stomach just as well, and the Sun insists that the fish commissioners shall drop the hatching of aristocratic fish and give the bullhead a chance. There's millions in it.

WHY NOT RAISE WOLVES?

You devote a good deal of time and labor to the raising of sheep, and what do you get for it. The best sheep cannot lay more than eight pounds of wool in a season, and even if you get fifty cents a pound for it, you have not got any great bonanza. Now, the state encourages the raising of wolves, by offering a bounty of ten dollars for a piece of skin off the head of each wolf. It does not cost any more to raise a wolf than it does to raise a sheep, and while sheep rarely raise more than two lambs a year, a pair of good wolves are liable to raise twenty young ones in the course of a year, if it is a good year for wolves. In addition to the encouragement offered by the state, many counties give as much more, so that one wolf scalp will bring more money than five sheep. You will readily see that our wise legislators are offering inducements to you that you should be thankful for. You can establish a wolf orchard on any farm, and with a pair of good wolves to start on, there is millions in it.

THE SUDDEN FIRE-WORKS AT RACINE.

One of those Fourth of July accidents that are always looked for but seldom occur, happened at Racine, Monday night, which struck terror to the hearts and other portions of the bodies of many eminent citizens, and that none were killed we can all thank Providence, who tempers the fire-works to the sweaty citizen in his shirt sleeves. The enterprizing citizens had contributed a large sum of money, which had been judiciously expended in all kinds of fire-works, and one side of the public square was given up to the display.

Thousands of citizens had gathered there, from city and country, and bright Roman candles shone o'er fair men and brave women, and sixteen thousand nine hundred and twelve hearts beat happy, while music arose with its voluptuous swell, and soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, or words to that effect. At least that was what a young fellow from Racine told us, who was here to see a specialist to have a splinter from a rocket stick removed from his ear.

A few pieces had been shot off, a few bunches of crackers had had their tails tied together and been hung over a wire clothes line, like cats, to fight it out, and the crowd was holding its breath for the next boom, when there was an explosion; the earth seemed to tremble, and the air was full of all kinds of fire-works. The whole supply of fire-works had become ignited, and were blowing off where they listeth, without regard to anybody's feelings.

The crowd became panic stricken, and there never was another such a scene, and never will be until the last great day, when a few thousand people suddenly find that they have got into hell, by mistake, when they thought they were ticketed through to the other place. It was perfectly awful. Prominent citizens who usually display great pluck, became fearfully rattled.

A man named Martindale, a railroad man who weighs over two hundred pounds, was standing near a telegraph pole, and as the firing commenced he climbed up the pole as easy as a squirrel would climb a tree, and when it was over they had to get a fire ladder to get him down; as his pants had got caught over the glass telegraph knob, and he had forgotten the combination, and besides he said he didn't want to take off his clothes up there and come down, even if it was dark, because it would be just his luck to have some one fire off a Roman candle when he got down.



The Hon. Norton J. Field was another man who lost his nerve. He was explaining to some ladies one of the pieces that was to be fired off, which was an allegorical picture representing the revolution, when the whole business blew up. He thought at the time, that the explosion was in the programme, and was just reassuring the ladies, by telling them it reminded him of battle scenes he had witnessed when he was on the military committee in the assembly, when he noticed a girl near him whose polonaise had caught fire, and he rushed up to her, caught her by the dress, intending, with his cool hands, to put out the fire.

The girl felt some one feeling, as she supposed, for her pocket-book, and she started to run, yelling, "pickpocket," and left the burning polonaise in Mr. Field's hands. He blushed, and was about to explain to his lady friends how the best of us are liable to have our motives misconstrued, when somebody threw a box of four dozen of those large firecrackers right at his feet, and they were all on fire. Ten of them exploded at once, and he grabbed the polonaise in one hand and his burning coat tail in the other, and started west on a run.

The steward of the Gideon's Band Club House, at Burlington, said he arrived there at daylight on the morning of the 5th, and he still held the pieces of dress, but the whole back of his coat was burned off, and the suspenders just held by a thread. He said the comet struck the earth at Racine, at 9:30 the night before, and knocked the town into the lake, and he and another fellow were all that escaped.

The narrowest escape was that of young Mr. Oberman. He is a small man, all except his heart and feet, and when the air began to fill with patriotic missiles, he started to run. On passing the News office he had to jump over an old coal stove that stood there, and while he was in the air, six feet from the sidewalk, a sky rocket stick passed through his coat tail and pinned him to the building, where he hung suspended, while other rocket sticks were striking all around him, Roman candle colored balls were falling on his unprotected head, etc. and one of these nigger chasers that run all over the ground, climbed up the side of the building and tried to get in his pants pocket.

Mr. Oberman begged Mr. Wright, the postmaster, to cut him down, but Mr. Wright, who was using both hands and his voice trying to disengage a package of pin-wheels from the back portion of his coat, which were on fire and throwing out colored sparks, said he hadn't got time, as he was going down to the river to take a sitz bath for his health.

The man that keeps the hotel next door to the News office came out with a pail of water, yelled "fire," and threw the water on Mr. Curt Treat's head. Mr. Treat was very much vexed, and told the hotel man if he couldn't tell the difference between an auburn haired young man and a pin-wheel, he'd better go and hire somebody that could. Friends of Mr. Treat say that he would be justified in going into the hotel and ordering a bottle of pop, and then refusing to pay for it, as the water took all the starch out of his shirt.

Those who saw the explosion say it was one of the most magnificent, yet awful and terrible sights ever witnessed, and the only wonder is that somebody was not hurt. What added to the terror of the scene was when they went to the artesian well to get water to put out the fire and found that the well had ceased flowing. On investigation they found that Mr. Sage, the assembly man, had crawled into the pipe.

By the way, Mr. Oberman finally got down from his terrible position by the aid of the editor of the Journal, to whom Mr. Oberman promised coal enough to run his engine for a year. Very few men displayed any coolness except Mr. Treat and Mr. Sage.

LA CROSSE NEBECUDNEZZER WATER.

It is the great ambition of our life to bring to the notice of the people of the world the curative powers of the La Crosse water, that all who may be suffering from any disease, however complicated, may be cured, and all men may become healthy, and women too, and doctors will have to go out harvesting. The La Crosse artesian well, was begun last fall, and completed as soon as the contractor found he couldn't make any money at it. It was rumored that he struck granite, and in fact several little specks of granite were found in the stuff that come from the hole, but it is pretty generally believed now that the granite particles got in from the top, unknown to the contractor. The water came to within ten feet of the surface, and struck. It never would come any further, and the world would have remained in ignorance of its curative powers, only for Powers, who put in a hydraulic ram, and the blockade was broken, the water now flows to the surface, and all is well.

Attention was first called to the curative powers of the water, by a singular incident. A teamster whose duty it was to haul stone, was in the habit of stopping at the well to water his mules. One of the mules was in a sad state. He was blind in one eye, had a spavin, a ringbone, the heaves, his liver was torpid, his lungs were badly affected, and his friends feared that he was not long for the stone quarry. He had no family. Soon after the mule began to drink the water, the driver noticed a great change come over him. Previously he had seemed resigned to his fate, but latterly he was ambitious. One day while playfully mashing the mule over the head with a sled stake, the driver noticed that a new eye had grown in the place of the former cavity, and as the mule kicked him with more than his accustomed vigor, he noticed that the spavin and ring bone were gone, and the former plaintive melody of his voice gave place to a bray that resembled the whistle of the Alex. Mitchell. When it was known that the mule had been cured, others tried the water, men who had never drank it before, until to-day there are thousands who will testify to the benefits arising from its use. We could give the names of many who have been snatched from the grave—the La Crosse water is a regular body snatcher—but we will first give an analysis of the water.

Believing that the water was destined to play a prominent part in solving the great question of how to euchre death, we sent a quantity of it to the eminent Prof. Alonzo Brown, M.D.V.S. of Jefferson, Wis., with a letter of transmittal authorizing him to analyze it thoroughly, and give us the result, at our expense. The following is Prof. Brown's analysis:

LABRATORY JEFFERSON LIVERY STABLE, August 3, 1877.

Lieut. GEO. W. PECK, 4th Wis. Cavalry,

Dear Sir:

Yours of July 25th, received. I should have attended to the water before, but have had several cases of blind staggers in my barn, which has kept me busy. I have examined the water by every process known to science, and pronounce it bully. I took it apart at my leisure, and find that it contains to one U.S. washtub full, of 741 cubic inches, the following stuff:

Chloride, of Sodium, (common salt).............2 sacks. Chloride of Pilgarlic.....................40,021 grains. Bicarbonate of erysipelas.................11,602 " Bicarbonate of pie plant...................2,071 " Blue pills................................21,011 " Bicarbonate of soda water (vanilla.)......17,201 " Sulphate of Potasalager beer..............61,399 " Bicarbonate corrugated iron...............18,020 grains. Mustang Liniment.............................240 " Boneset and summer savory.................10,210 " Dow's Liver Cure, (6 bottles for $1.).....16,297 " Bromide of Alcock's Porous Plaster........22,222 " Flouride of Pain Killer (for cucumbers,).....055 " Paris green..................................001 " Spruce gum and Vinegar Bitters...............075 "

In submitting this analysis permit me to say that I find traces of mock turtle soup, and India Rubber. I consider the La Crosse Nebecudnezzer water the most comprehensive water that I have ever analyzed, and I would recommend it for any disease that human beings or animals may have.

Very Respectfully,

ALONZO BROWN,

Prof. of Chemistry in Jefferson Livery stable, and late Veterinary Surgeon 4th Wis. Cavalry.

* * * * *

We have known Mr. Brown long and well, and his statement in regard to the water can be relied upon. Citizens should retain a copy of this analysis for future reference.

Mr. E.W. Keyes, of Madison, writing under date of August 1st, says: "The La Crosse water you sent me has caused an entire new crop of hair to grow upon my head. I had been bald for years, and offered five hundred dollars, for any medicine that would cause hair to grow. Enclosed find five hundred dollars, and send me more water. I want to try it on Murphey, of the Sentinel. I think it would be a good joke on Murphey."

But wait till we get all the letters written from prominent men who have been cured.

THE INFIDEL AND HIS SILVER MINE.

It is announced in the papers that Colonel Ingersoll, the dollar-a-ticket infidel, has struck it rich in a silver mine, and is now worth a million dollars. Here is another evidence of the goodness of God. Ingersoll has treated God with the greatest contempt, called him all the names he could think of, called him a liar, a heartless wretch, and stood on a stump and dared God to knock a chip off his shoulder, and instead of God's letting him have one below the belt and knocking seven kinds of cold victuals out of him, God gives him a pointer on a silver mine, and the infidel rakes in a cool million, and laughs in his sleeve, while thousands of poor workers in the vineyard are depending for a livelihood on collections that pan out more gun wads and brass pants buttons to the ton of ore than they do silver.

This may be all right, and we hope it is, and we don't want to give any advice on anybody else's business, but it would please Christians a good deal better to see that bold man taken by the slack of the pants and lifted into the poor house, while the silver he has had fall to him was distributed among the charitable societies, mission schools and churches, so a minister could get his salary and buy a new pair of trousers to replace those that he has worn the knees out of kneeling down on the rough floor to pray.

It is mighty poor consolation to the ladies of a church society to give sociables, ice creameries, strawberry festivals and all kinds of things to raise money to buy a carpet for a church or lecture room, and wash their own dishes than hear that some infidel who is around the country calling God a pirate and horse thief, at a dollar a head, to full houses, has miraculously struck a million dollar silver mine.

To the toiling minister who prays without ceasing, and eats codfish and buys clothes at a second hand store, it looks pretty rough to see Bob Ingersoll steered onto a million dollar silver mine. But it may be all right, and we presume it is. Maybe God has got the hook in Bob's mouth, and is letting him play around the way a fisherman does a black bass, and when he thinks he is running the whole business, and flops around and scares the other fish, it is possible Bob may be reeled in, and he will find himself on the bottom of the boat with a finger and thumb in his gills, and a big boot on his paunch, and he will be compelled to disgorge the hook and the bait and all, and he will lay there and try to flop out of the boat, and wonder what kind of a game that is being played on him.

Everything turns out right some time, and from what we have heard of God, off and on, we don't believe he is going to let no ordinary man, bald-headed and appoplectic, carry off all the persimmons, and put his fingers to his nose and dare the ruler of the universe to tread on the tail of his coat.

Bob Ingersoll has got the bulge on all the Christians now, and draws more water than anybody, but He who knows the sparrow's fall has no doubt got an eye on the fat rascal, and some day will close two or three fingers around Bob's throat, when his eyes will stick out so you can hang your hat on them, and he will blat like a calf and get down on his knees and say:

"Please, Mr. God, don't choke so, and I will take it all back and go around and tell the boys that I am the almightiest liar that ever charged a dollar a head to listen to the escaping wind from a biown-up bladder. O, good God, don't hurt me so. My neck is all chafed."

And then he will die, and God will continue business at the old stand.

THE LEGEND OF THE LAKE.

Every noted place of resort has an Indian legend, and the first thing I did after getting my dinner was to look up the legendist. I wanted to hear how it was that the Indian had ceased to frequent this spot. So in looking for the boss legendist I struck Judge Lamoreaux, of Dodge county, who had been herewith a party of friends, Mr. Hayes, and Mr. Van Brunt, with all their wives. They had been searching for ferns and legends and they had a car load. The Judge had heard of the legend, and he took me one side, and with tears in his eyes related to me the horrible story just as he had received it from an Indian named O'Flanegan, who sells relics in the shape of rye. If I can control my emotion long enough to write it, it will be a big thing for history.



Years ago an Indian chief who lived in a dog tent and caught rattlesnakes for a side show, had a daughter, a beautiful maiden, about the color and odor of smoked bacon, and she wore a red blanket cut biased, and a tilter, under a polonaise made over from her last year's striped silk. She was the belliest squaw in the hills, and took the premium at all the county fairs, and she could shoot a deer equal to any buck Indian. Her name was Hiawasamantha, and she had two lovers, a Frenchman and a young Indian. In figuring up the returns there was some doubt as to who was elected, so the father of the girl decided to go behind the returns, and settle it by a commission. There was an eagle's nest half way up the rocks, with young eagles in it, and the old chief said that the one that got there first and brought him a young eagle, should have the squaw. The Frenchman climbed up the back stairs and got there ahead of the Indian, when the young Indian drew from his trousers leg a bar of railroad iron and drove it to the hilt in the breast of the Frenchman, not, however, till the Frenchman had drawn from his pistol pocket a 300 ton Krupp gun and sent a solid shot weighing 280 pounds crashing into the skull of the Indian, and both rolled to the bottom of the bluff, dead. Dr. Hall, of Baraboo, was called, and he probed for the ball, but could not find it, and neither could he get the bar of railroad iron out of the Frenchman, and so they were buried on the spot where now stands the Cliff House. The squaw looked around for another fellow, but they all had other engagements, the excursion train having arrived from La Crosse, and so she went up on a crag and said, "Big Injun me," and jumped off and was dashed into 1,347 pieces, and the wedding was broke up. Pieces of the squaw can now be found among the rocks, petrified, but retaining the odor of the ancient tribe. I got a piece of her, evidently a piece broken off her ear, which retains its shade perfectly, and will long be a reminder of my visit to Devil's Lake. (P.S.—Disreputable parties are selling pieces of stuff purporting to be genuine remains of this beauteous maiden, but they are base imitations. None genuine unless the trade mark is stamped on them.)

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

The Geological Survey is being prosecuted as well as could be expected with the limited means at the hands of the searchers in the bowels of the earth. They have already found, I am informed, that the earth on which we live, and move, and have a being, is composed largely of dirt. The discovery of this fact is alone worth the price of admission. This great discovery, which will be of such value to the future historian, has only cost the state the insignificant sum of $8,280. Rather than remain in ignorance of this astonishing fact, I would willingly pay the money myself—out of the public treasury. It is rumored that parties employed by the State to dive down into the ground and bring up sand in their claws, have discovered symptoms that the world was at one time sick to its stomach, and threw up divers and sundry kinds of rocks and things, and there is a probability that lead ore may be discovered. This will be valuable to make bullets in case of a war with Oshkosh. In peace it is always best to prepare for war, and I trust you will lend your countenance to the able men who are investigating the Lower Silurian age.

FOOLING WITH THE BIBLE.

Reports from the stationers show that there is no demand at all for the revised edition of the Bible, and had it not been for the newspapers publishing the whole affair there would have been very few persons that took the trouble to even glance at it, and it is believed that not one reader of the daily papers in a hundred read any of the Bible, and not one in ten thousand read all of it which was published. Who originated this scheme of revising the Bible we do not know, but whoever it was made a miscue. There was no one suffering particularly for a revision of the Bible. It was good enough as it was. No literary sharp of the present day has got any license to change anything in the Bible.

Why, the cheeky ghouls have actually altered over the Lord's Prayer, cut it biased, and thrown the parts about giving us this day our daily bread into the rag bag. How do they know that the Lord said more than he wanted to in that prayer? He wanted that daily bread in there, or He never would have put it in. The only wonder is that those revisers did not insert strawberry shortcake and ice cream in place of daily bread. Some of these ministers who are writing speeches for the Lord think they are smart. They have fooled with Christ's sermon on the Mount until He couldn't tell it if He was to meet it in the Chicago Times.

This thing has gone on long enough, and we want a stop put to it. We have kept still about the piracy that has been going on in the Bible because people who are better than we are have seemed to endorse it, but now we are sick of it, and if there is going to be an annual clerical picnic to cut gashes in the Bible and stick new precepts and examples on where they will do the most hurt, we shall lock up our old Bible where the critters can't get at it and throw the first book agent down stairs head first that tries to shove off on to us one of these new-fangled, go-as-you-please Bibles, with all the modern improvements, and hell left out.

Now, where was there a popular demand to have hell left out of the Bible? Were there any petitions from the people sent up to this self-constituted legislature of pinchbeck ministers, praying to have hell abolished, and "hades" inserted? Not a petition. And what is this hades? Where is it? Nobody knows. They have taken away our orthodox hell, that has stood by us since we first went to Sunday school, and given us a hades. Half of us wouldn't know a hades if we should see it dead in the road, but they couldn't fool us any on hell.

No, these revisers have done more harm to religion than they could have done by preaching all their lives. They have opened the ball, and now, every time a second-class dominie gets out of a job, he is going to cut and slash into the Bible. He will think up lots of things that will sound better than some things that are in there, and by and by we shall have our Bibles as we do our almanacs, annually, with weather probabilities on the margins.

This is all wrong. Infidels will laugh at us, and say our old Bible is worn out, and out of style, and tell us to have our measure taken for a new one every fall and spring, as we do for our clothes. If this revision is a good thing, why won't another one be better? The woods are full of preachers who think they could go to work and improve the Bible, and if we don't shut down on this thing, they will take a hand in it. If a man hauls down the American flag, we shoot him on the spot; and now we suggest that if any man mutilates the Bible, we run an umbrella into him and spread it.

The old Bible just filled the bill, and we hope every new one that is printed will lay on the shelves and get sour. This revision of the Bible is believed to be the work of an incendiary. It is a scheme got up by British book publishers to make money out of pious people. It is on the same principle that speculators get up a corner on pork or wheat. They got revision, and printed Bibles enough to supply the world, and would not let out one for love or money. None were genuine unless the name of this British firm was blown in the bottle.

Millions of Bibles were shipped to this country by the firm that was "long" on Bibles, and they were to be thrown on the market suddenly, after being locked up and guarded by the police until the people were made hungry for Bibles.

The edition was advertised like a circus, and doors were to be opened at six o'clock in the morning. American publishers who wanted to publish the Bible, too, got compositors ready to rush out a cheap Bible within twelve hours, and the Britons, who were running the corner on the Word of God, called these American publishers pirates. The idea of men being pirates for printing a Bible, which should be as free as salvation. The newspapers that had the Bibles telegraphed to them from the east, were also pirates.

O, the revision is a three-card monte speculation; that is all it is.

A BLACK BEAR AT ONALASKA.

A black bear was brought into town for sale on Friday, having been killed by Tom Rand, near Onalaska. He killed it with a little rifle that didn't look big enough to hurt a hen. If bears are so sociable as to come within sight of La Crosse to be killed, it will be a good excuse for husbands to stay at home nights.

ANOTHER DEAD FAILURE.

Again we are called upon to apologize to our readers for advertising what we had reason to expect would occur at the time advertised, but which failed to show up. We allude to the end of the world which was to have taken place last Sunday. It is with humility that we confess that we were again misled into believing that the long postponed event would take place, and with others we got our things together that we intended to take along, only to be compelled to unpack them Monday morning.

Now this thing is played out, and the next time any party advertises that the world will come to an end, we shall take no stock in it. And then it will be just our luck to have the thing come to an end, when we are not prepared. There is the worst sort of mismanagement about this business somewhere, and we are not sure but it is best to allow God to go ahead and attend to the closing up of earthly affairs, and give these fellows that figure out the end of all things with a slate and pencil the grand bounce.

It is a dead loss to this country of millions of dollars every time there is a prediction that the world will come to an end, because there are lots of men who quit business weeks beforehand and do not try to earn a living but go lunching around. We lost over fifteen dollars' worth of advertising last week from people who thought if the thing was going up the flue on Sunday there was no use of advertising any more, and we refused twenty dollars' worth more because we thought if that was the last paper we were going to get out we might as knock off work Friday and Saturday and go and catch a string of perch. The people have been fooled about this thing enough, and the first man that comes around with any more predictions ought to be arrested.

People have got enough to worry about, paying taxes, and buying strawberries and sugar, to can, without feeling that if they get a tax receipt the money will be a dead loss, or if they put up a cellar full of canned fruit the world will tip over on it and break every jar and bust every tin can.

Hereafter we propose to go right along as though the world was going to stay right side up, have our hair cut, and try and behave, and then if old mother earth shoots off into space without any warning we will take our chances with the rest in catching on to the corner of some passing star and throw our leg over and get acquainted with the people there, and maybe start a funny paper and split the star wide open.

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH OF JULY.

On this great day we are accustomed to leave our business to hired men, and burn with patriotism, and ginger pop, fill ourselves with patriotic ferver, and beer, shout the battle cry of freedom, and go home when the day is over with our eye-winkers burned off, and to sleep with a consciousness that a great duty has been performed, and that we have got bank notes to pay on the morrow. For three hundred and sixty-four days in the year our patriotism is corked up and wired down, and all we can do is to work, and acquire age and strength. On the 4th of July we cut the wire, the cork that holds our patriotism flies out, and we bubble and sparkle and steam, and make things howl. We hold in as long as we can, but when we get the harness off, and are turned into the pasture, we make a picnic of ourselves, with music all along the line.

THE USES OF THE PAPER BAG.

A First Ward man was told by his wife to bring home a quart of oysters on New Year's night, to fry for supper. He drank a few prescriptions of egg nog, and then took a paper bag full of selects and started for home. He stopped at two or three saloons, and the bag began to melt, and when he left the last saloon the bottom fell out of the bag and the oysters were on the sidewalk.



We will leave the man there, gazing upon the wreck, and take the reader to the residence where he is expected.

A red-faced woman is putting the finishing touches to the supper table, and wondering why her husband does not come with the oysters. Presently a noise as of a lead pencil in the key-hole salutes her ear, and she goes to the and opens it, and finds him taking the pencil out of the key-hole. Not seeing any oysters, she asks him if he has forgotten the oysters.

"Forgot noth(hic)ing," says he.

He walks up to the table and asks for a plate, which is given him by the unsuspicious wife.

"Damsaccident you ever(hic)see," said the truly good man, as he brought his hand out of his overcoat pocket, with four oysters, a little smoking tobacce, and a piece of cigar-stub.

"Slipperysoystersev(hic)er was," said he, as he run his hands down in the other pocket, bringing up five oysters, a piece of envelope, and a piece of wire that was used as a bail to the pail.

"Got all my pock(hic)ets full," said he, as he took a large oyster out of his vest pocket. Then he began to go down in his pants pocket, and finding a hole in it, he said:

"Six big oys(hic)ters gone down my trousers leg. S'posi'll find them in my boot," and he sat down to pull off his boot, when the lady took the plate of oysters and other stuff into the kitchen and threw them in the swill, and then she put him to bed, and all the time he was trying to tell her how the bag busted just as he was in front of All Saints Ca(hic)thedral.

THE UNIVERSALIST BATH.

Mr. E.H. Lane is canvassing the city for the Universalist Bath. We don't know why it should be called a "Universalist Bath," as it more nearly resembles a Baptist Bath, as we remember it. The bath is a queer thing, consisting of an India rubber hop sack, fastened to an immense ox bow. The ends are placed on to chairs, the water put in, and you get in and hippotamus and take a complete bath from Dan to Beersheba in a tea cup full of water.

KILLING BIG GAME.

The conductors on the St. Paul railroad are most all good sports with a shot gun. There is Howard and Clason, and Russell, who never tire of talking of the millions of chickens, ducks, wild turkeys and so forth that they have killed. They have tried to get Conductor Green interested in field sports, but he always said the game was not big enough for him. He said he had his opinion men that would surround a little chicken with spike tailed dogs, and then kill it and call it sport. What he wanted was big game. Nothing less than a bear would do him. Last week the owners of the cinnamon bear that was brought down from the Yellowstone, decided to have it killed, and some one told them to get Green to kill it, as he was an old bear hunter from the Rocky Mountains. Green said he was rusty on bears, not having had a tussel with a grizzly in several years, but if they couldn't get anybody else to chance the bear he would make hash of it. So they went down to the ice house where the bear was. Green said he didn't want anybody to go in with him, because they might get hurt. He put on Clason's hunting suit, took a carving knife in his teeth and a revolver in his hand, and went in and looked the bear in the eye. The bear knew Green meant business, and he began to feel around for his ticket. The conductor advanced to within eleven feet of the bear when all at once the animal sprang at him, growling and showing his teeth. Green's first impulse was to pull the bell rope, and order the cuss to get out of the ice house, but he saw the bear coming through the air towards him, and there was not four hours to lose, so he drew the revolver, took aim at the bear's left eye, and pulled. There was a puff of smoke, and the bear fell lifeless at his feet. Placing the animal in his game sack, he wiped the blood from his knife and said to some men who stood outside, their faces ashy pale: "Always shoot bears in the left eye." The men were pleased to see him come out alive and they shook him warmly by the hand. The other conductors, the shooters, are jealous of Green, and they are telling how he killed the bear by going up in the loft of the ice house and falling on him, and one conductor says Green shot the bear with a crow bar through a knot hole. Another said the bear had all four of his legs tied and that a dose of poison was administered through a syringe, attached to a pole, while another says that the bear died from fright. All these stories are the result of jealousy. The bear was killed just as we say, and there are few men that would tackle him—that is, few men aside from conductors.

THE MULE NOT THE EAGLE.

The bird that should have been selected as the emblem of our country, the bird of patience, forbearance, perseverance, and the bird of terror when aroused, is the mule. There is no bird that combines more virtues to the square foot than the mule. With the mule emblazoned on our banners, we should be a terror to every foe. We are a nation of uncomplaining hard workers. We mean to do the fair thing by everybody. We plod along, doing as we would be done by. So does the mule. As a nation we occasionally stick our ears forward, and fan flies off of our forehead. So does the mule. We allow parties to get on and ride as long as they behave themselves. So do does the mule. But when any nation sticks spurs in our flanks, and tickles our heels with a straw, we come down stiff-legged in front, our ears look to the beautiful beyond, our voice is cut loose, and is still for war, and our subsequent end plays the snare drum on anything that gets in reach of us, and strikes terror to the hearts of all tyrants. So does the mule.

OUR BLUE-COATED DOG POISONERS.

"Papa, the cruel policeman has murdered little Gip? He sneaked up and frowed a nice piece of meat to Gip, and Gip he eated it, and fanked the policeman with his tail, and runned after him and teased for more, but the policeman fought Gip had enough, and then Gip stopped and looked sorry he had eaten it, and pretty soon he laid down and died, and the policeman laughed and went off feeling good. If Dan Sheenan was the policeman any more he wouldn't poison my dog, would he, pa?"

The above was the greeting the bald-headed Sun man received on Thursday, and a pair of four-year-old brown eyes were full enough of tears to break the heart of a policeman of many years' standing, and the little, crushed master of the dead King Charles spaniel went to sleep sobbing and believing that policemen were the greatest blot upon the civilization of the nineteenth century.

Here was a little fellow that had from the day he first stood on his feet after the scarlet fever had left him alive, been allowing his heart to become entwined with love for that poor little dog. For nearly a year the dog had been ready to play with the child when everybody else was tired out, and never once had the dog been cross or backed out of a romp, and the laughter and the barking has many a time been the only sound of happiness in the neighborhood.

If the boy slept too long after dinner, the dog went and rooted around him as much as to say, "Look a here, Mr. Roy, you can't play this on your partner any longer. You get up here and we will have a high old time, and don't you forget it." And pretty soon the sound of baby feet and dog's toe nails would be heard on the stairs, and the circus would commence.

If the dog slept too long of an afternoon, the boy would hunt him out, take hold of his tail with one hand and an ear with the other, and lug him into the parlor, saying, "Gip, too much sleep is what is ruining the dogs in this country. Now, brace up and play horse with me." And then there was fun.

Well, it is all over; but while we write there is a little fellow sleeping on a tear-stained pillow, dreaming, perhaps of a heaven where the woods are full of King Charles' spaniel dogs, and a door-keeper stands with a club to keep out policemen. And still we cannot blame policemen—it is the law that is to blame—the wise men who go to the legislature, and make months with one day too much, pass laws that a dog shall be muzzled and wear a brass check, or he is liable to go mad. Statistics show that not one dog in a million ever goes mad and that they are more liable to go mad in winter than in summer; but several hundred years ago somebody said that summer was "dog days," and the law makers of this enlightened nineteenth century still insist on a wire muzzle at a season of the year when a dog wants air and water, and wants his tongue out.

So we compel our guardians of the peace to go around assassinating dogs. Men, who as citizens, would cut their hands off before they would injure a neighbor's property, or speak harsh to his dog, when they hire out to the city must stifle all feelings of humanity, and descend to the level of Paris scavengers. We compel them to do this. If they would get on their ears and say to the city of Milwaukee, "We will guard your city, and protect you from insult, and die for you if it becomes necessary; but we will see you in hades before we go around assassinating dogs," we as people, would think more of them, and perhaps build them a decent station house to rest in.

A HOT BOX AT A PICNIC.

An Oshkosh young man started for a picnic in a buggy with two girls, and when they got half way they got a hot box to the hind wheel of the buggy, and they remained there all the afternoon pouring water on the wheel, missing the picnic. There is nothing that will cause a hot box in a buggy so quick as going to a picnic with girls. Particularly is this the case when one has two girls. No young man should ever take two girls to a picnic. He may think one cannot have too much of a good thing, and that he holds over the most of the boys who have only one girl, but before the picnic is over he will note the look of satisfaction on the faces of the other boys as they stray off in the vernal shade, and he will look around at his two girls as though his stomach was overloaded. We don't care how attractive the girls are, or how enterprising a boy he is, or how expansive or far-reaching a mind he has, he cannot do justice to the subject if he has two girls. There will be a certain clashing of interests that no young boy in his goslinghood, as most boys are when they take two girls to a picnic, has the diplomacy to prevent. Now, this may seem a trifling thing to write about and for a great pious paper to publish, but there is more at the bottom of it than is generally believed. If we start the youth of the land out right in the first place they are all right, but if they start out by taking two girls to a picnic, their whole lives are liable to become acidulated, and they will grow up hating themselves. If a young man is good natured and tries to do the fair thing, and a picnic is got up, and the rest of the boys are liable to play it on him. There is always some old back number of a girl who has no fellow, who wants to go, and the boys, after they all get girls and buggies engaged, will canvass among themselves to see who shall take this extra girl, and it always falls to the good-natured young man. He says of course there is room for three in the buggy. Sometimes he thinks may be this old girl can be utilized to drive the horse, and then he can converse with his own sweet girl with both hands, but in such a moment as ye think not, he finds out that the extra girl is afraid of horses, dare not drive, and really requires some holding to keep her nerves quiet. The young man begins to realize by this time that life is one great disappointment. He tries to drive with one hand, and consoles his good girl, who is a little cross at the turn affairs have taken, with the other, but it is a failure, and finally his good girl says she will drive, and then he has to put an arm around them both, which will give more or less dissatisfaction the best way you can fix it. If we had a boy that didn't seem to have any more sense than to make a hat rack of himself to hang girls on in a buggy, we should labor with him, and tell him of the agonies we had experienced in youth, when the boys palmed off two girls on us to take to a country picnic, and we believe we can do no greater favor to the young men who are just entering the picnic of life than to impress upon them the importance of doing one thing at a time, and doing it well. Start right at first, and life will be one continued picnic buggy ride, but if your mind is divided in youth you will always be looking for hot boxes and annoyance.



CAMP MEETINGS IN THE DARK OF THE MOON.

A Dartford man, who has been attending a camp meeting at that place, inquires of the Brandon Times why it is that camp meetings are always held when the moon does not shine. The Times man gives it up and refers the question to the Sun. We give it up.

It does not seem as though managers of camp meetings deliberately consult the almanac in order to pick out a week for camp meeting in the dark of the moon, though such meetings are always held when the moon is of no account. If they do, then there is a reason for it. It is well known that pickerel bite best in the dark of the moon, and it is barely possible that sinners "catch on" better at that time.

There may be something in the atmosphere, in the dark of the moon, that makes a camp meeting more enjoyable. Certainly brethren and sisterin' can mingle as well if not better when there is no glaring moon to molest and make them afraid, and they can relate their experience as well as though it was too light.

The prayers of the righteous avail as much in the darkness of the closet as they do in an exposition building, with an electric light, and as long as sinners will do many things which they ought not to do, and undo many things that they never ought to have done, the dark of the moon is probably the most healthy.

PALACE CATTLE CARS.

The papers are publishing accounts of the arrival east of a train of palace cattle cars, and illustrating how much better the cattle feel after a trip in one of these cars, than cattle did when they made the journey in the ordinary cattle cars.

As we understand it the cars are fitted up in the most gorgeous manner, in mahogany and rosewood, and the upholstering is something perfectly grand, and never before undertaken except in the palaces of the old world.

As you enter the car there is a reception room, with a few chairs, a lounge and an ottoman, and a Texas steer gently waves you to a seat with his horns, while he switches off your hat with his tail. If there is any particular cow, or steer, or ox, that you wish to see, you give your card to the attendant steer, and he excuses himself and trots off to find the one you desire to see. You do not have long to wait, for the animal courteously rises, humps up his or her back, stretches, yawns, and with the remark, "the galoot wants to interview me, probably, and I wish he would keep away," the particular one sought for comes to the reception room and puts out its front foot for a shake, smiles and says, "Glad you came. Was afraid you would let us go away and not call."

Then the cow or steer sits down on its haunches and the conversation flows in easy channels. You ask how they like the country, and if they have good times, and if they are not hard worked, and all that; and they yawn and say the country is splendid at this season of the year, and that when passing along the road they feel as though they would like to get out in some meadow, and eat grass and switch flies.

The steer asks the visitor if he does not want to look through the car, when he says he would like to if it is not too much trouble. The steer says it is no trouble at all, at the same time shaking his horns as though he was mad, and kicking some of the gilding off of a stateroom.

"This," says the steer who is doing the honors, "is the stateroom occupied by old Brindle, who is being shipped from St. Joseph, Mo. Brindle weighs 1,600 on foot—Brindle, get up and show yourself to the gentleman."

Brindle kicks off the red blanket, rolls her eyes in a lazy sort of way, bellows, and stands up in the berth, humps up her back so it raises the upper berth and causes a heifer that is trying to sleep off a debauch of bran mash, to kick like a steer, and then looks at the interviewer as much as to say, "O, go on now and give us a rest." Brindle turns her head to a fountain that is near, in which Apollinaris water is flowing, perfumed with new mown hay, drinks, turns her head and licks her back, and stops and thinks, and then looking around as much as to say, "Gentlemen, you will have to excuse me," lays down with her head on a pillow, pulls the coverlid over her and begins to snore.

The attendant steer steers the visitor along the next apartment, which is a large one, filled with cattle in all positions. One is lying in a hammock, with her feet on the window, reading the Chicago Times article on Oleomargarine, or Bull Butter, at intervals stopping the reading to curse the writer, who claims that oleomargarine is an unlawful preparation, containing deleterious substances.

A party of four oxen are seated around a table playing seven-up for the drinks, and as the attendant steer passes along, a speckled ox with one horn broken, orders four pails full of Waukesha water with a dash of oatmeal in it, "and make it hot," says the ox, as he counts up high, low, jack and the game.

Passing the card players the visitor notices an upright piano, and asks what that is for, and the attendant steer says they are all fond of music, and asks if he would not like to near some of the cattle play. He says he would, and the steer calls out a white cow who is sketching, and asks her to warble a few notes. The cow seats herself on her haunches on the piano stool, after saying she has such a cold she can't sing, and, besides, has left her notes at home in the pasture. Turning over a few leaves with her forward hoof, she finds something familiar, and proceeds to walk on the piano keys with her forward feet and bellow, "Meet me in the slaughter house when the due bill falls," or something of that kind, when the visitor says he has got to go up to the stock yards and attend a reception of Colorado cattle, and he lights out.

We should think these parlor cattle cars would be a success, and that cattle would enjoy them very much. It is said that parties desiring to charter these cars for excursions for human beings, can be accommodated at any time when they are not needed to transport cattle, if they will give bonds to return them in as good order as they find them.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

He could not tell a lie, George couldn't. Washington, it is probable, never knew what it was to stow away a schooner of beer, and history makes no mention that he ever, on any pretext, eat limberger cheese. At least no mention was made of it in his farewell address. He never was President of a savings bank. Washington never lectured. He never edited a newspaper. He could not tell a lie at the rates editors charge. No he was a good man, with none of the small vices that are so prevalent these days.

BROKE UP A PRAYER MEETING.

A few months ago the spectacle presented itself of a very respectable lady of the Seventh ward wearing a black eye. There never was a case of ante-election that was any more perfect than the one this lady carried.

We have seen millions of black eyes in our time, some of which were observed in a mirror, but we never saw one that suggested a row any plainer than the one the Seventh ward lady wore. It was cut biased, that being the latest style of black eye, and was fluted with purple and orange shade, and trimmed with the same. Probably we never should have known about the black eye had not the lady asked, as she held her hand over one eye, if there was any truth in the story that a raw oyster would cure a black eye. She came to us as an expert.



When we told her that a piece of beef-steak was worth two oysters she uncovered the eye. It looked as though painted by one of the old masters.

Rather than have anybody think she had been having a row, she explained how it happened. She was sitting with her husband and little girl in the parlor, and while, the two were reading the little one disappeared. The mother went to the girl's room on tiptoe, to see if she was asleep. She found the girl with all her dolls on the floor having a dolls' prayer meeting. She had them all down on their knees and would let them pray one at a time, then sing. One of the dolls that squeaked when pressed on the stomach was the leader of the singing, and the little girl bossed the job. There was one old maid doll that the little girl seemed to be disgusted with because the doll talked too much, and she would say:

"There, Miss, you sit down and let some of the other sisters get in a word edgeways. Sister Perkins, won't you relate your experience?"

After listening to this for a few moments the mother heard the girl say:

"Now, Polly, you pass the collection plate, and no one must put in lozengers, and then we will all go to the dancing school."

The whole thing was so ridiculous that the mother attempted to rush down stairs three at a time, to have her husband come up to the prayer meeting, when she stubbed herself on a stair rod, and—well, she got the black eye on the journey down stairs, though what hit her she will probably never know. But she said when she began to roll down stairs she felt in her innermost soul as though she had broke up that prayer meeting prematurely.

THE DOG LAW.

The dog law is as foolish as the anti-treating law, and if it were not enforced, no harm would be done. Our legislators have to pass about so many laws anyway, and we should use our judgment about enforcing them.

LUNCH ON THE CARS.

There is nothing that so gives a man away as to open a satchel and take out a lunch. I have been riding on the cars and have made the acquaintance of people who would listen to my stories, and take in every word as gospel truth. They would seem to hang on my words with pleasure, and be apparently glad they had become acquainted with one who combined so many graces of mind and person, and they would gather around so as not to miss a single lie that I might tell. And yet when I took a paper parcel out of my valise and opened up a lunch, consisting of bread and onions, and sausage and sweitzer cheese, they would draw coldly away from me and sit in the farther part of the car, and appear never to have known me.

THE END