onions would add strength to the picturesque ropes of theatrical paper roses.  The well, too, would replace with a certain grace the too familiar pole.  And again, since all ages and conditions assist at this feast, it would utilize that extraordinary company of figurantes, varying from the longest and slimmest to the shortest and plumpest, which every manager thinks it incumbent to put upon the stage for the rural fete.  Finally, to complete the tableau satisfactorily, it appears that this year at Gonnelieu, at the height of the dancing, half a dozen gendarmes rushed upon the scene, causing a general stampede among the disciples of the onion and a hasty adjournment of the festival.  What law against irregular assemblages was infringed by these onion-worshipers is not clear, for one can hardly detect sedition lurking under the rustic ditty, and it is equally difficult to suspect an Orsini bomb conspiracy of being typified by the conjuring of prodigious prize onions.

It is a vast pity that so many excellent stories are “almost too good to be true.”  Such a tale seems to be the one which explains the origin of that prodigious collection of monkeys that forms so large a part of the population of the Jardin d’Acclimation in Paris; and yet, as this curious account has not been questioned, so far as we are aware, by those who ought to know the facts, it is hardly gracious in us to begin the relation of it by gratuitous skepticism.  A Bordeaux ship-owner, who is noted for insisting on a strict obedience to instructions on the part of his captains, some time ago gave written orders to one of the latter to bring back from Brazil, whither he was going, one or two monkeys—­“Rapportez-moi 1 ou 2 singes.”  The ou was so badly written that the captain read “1002 singes;” and the result was that the owner, three months after, found his ship returning, to his utter stupefaction, overrun with monkeys from keel to mast-head.  However, inflexibly just even in his surprise, he recognized the fault to be that of his own hasty handwriting, and praised the scrupulous captain who had executed his apparent order even to the odd pair of monkeys over the thousand.  For a week apes were a drug in the Bordeaux market, and, adds the story, the Jardin, hearing the news, took care not to lose so good an opportunity of laying in a large stock.

The traditional union of fidelity, obedience to orders, strict discipline and stupidity in the old-fashioned military servant is wittily illustrated in a story told by the Gazette de Paris at the expense of a captain of the Melun garrison.  This officer, who had been invited to dine at a neighboring castle, sent his valet with a note of “regrets,” adding, as the boy started, “Be sure and bring me my dinner, Auguste, when you have left the letter.”  The soldier took the letter to the castle and was told, of course, “It’s all right.”  “Yes, but I want the dinner,” said the lad:  “the captain ordered me to bring it