We do not heed the label fair
    That’s stuck upon the glass;
  It’s counterfeit,—­an ugly cheat,
    That takes in many an ass. 
  The cork is branded right, and we
    Know that it once corked wine;
  They give the hotel-waiters tin
    To save the genuine!

Think of this when you next ’wish you had given the price of that last bottle of champagne to the Tract Society,’ as Cecil Dreeme hath it.

* * * * *

One of the best repartees on record is that of WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, who, having been reproached with inconsistency for having taken from his journal the old motto, ’The Constitution is a league with Death and a covenant with Hell,’ replied that ’when he hoisted that motto, he had no idea that either death or hell intended to secede.  Circumstances alter cases, and definitions modify both.  Slavery, it now appears, is death, as every political economist claims, while the South is—­the other place.

* * * * *

The following is from one who was not ’well off for soap:’—­

    DEAR CONTINENTAL: 

It was my fortune, some time ago, while traveling through the New England States, to lose my trunk, on my way to a very thriving manufacturing village.  Arrived at the principal hotel a few minutes before the dinner hour, I was shown up to my room, every article of furniture in which sparkled with newness,—­its carpet shining like fireworks, curtains painfully stiff, and the air redolent of novelty.

One article of furniture, which I took to be a cottage piano or melodeon, turned out, on raising the lid, to be a wash-stand, amply munitioned with water, towels, and a new piece of soap.  Having noticed that the article had never been used, and my own being lost with my trunk, I determined to put it to its legitimate destination.

I commenced rubbing it between my hands, immersing it in water, passing it quickly from one hand to the other, and using all other persuasive attempts to solve it into lather.  Useless; it was un-lather-able, and hearing the gong sound for dinner, I gave it up as a hopeless job.

After dinner, in conversation with the landlord, he asked me how I liked my room.  I told him that it pleased me very well, and that I had but one fault to find,—­that was, that the soap in the wash-stand was the hardest I had ever seen, and I believed it was made of iron.

    ‘Well,’ said he, with a diabolical smile, ’it is hard soap, and
    it ort to be—­it’s iron-y—­for it’s Cast-Steel!’

* * * * *

The annexed may be read with profit by the charitable:—­

    H——­ has never yet been known to give one cent in charity.  A
    Christian called on him, the other day, and begged him to give
    something to a soup society.