The prisoner reached out his hand-cuffed hands to take the dollar, the hands trembling so that the chains rattled and a great tear as big as a shirt-button appeared in one eye—­the other eye had been gouged out while “having some fun with the boys” at Oshkosh—­and his lips trembled as he said: 

“So help me God, I will!”

That man has been boss of a gang of hands in the pinery for two winters, and has a farm paid for on the Central Railroad, and is “square.”

That is the kind of practical religion a worldly man can occasionally practice without having a gospel car.

BANKS AND BANKING.

The subject of banking has engrossed the attention of your excellent Governor for, lo! these many weeks, and he is constrained to say that some radical changes must be made in the method of receiving deposits by banks, where an equivalent is not rendered, of His Excellency will be compelled to emerge from his present aristocratic quarters and take up his abode in the poor-house.  I would call your attention to the practice certain banks have of issuing checks in lieu of cash.  If these checks were available at the groceries it would be better than it is.  Banks have got in a habit of issuing a species of ivory button in receipt for the green coin of the realm which is only good at the counter of the bank.  These checks are not issued by the National Banks, but by the State Banks, denominated “Keno” and “Faro.”  I would not charge that there is “skullduggery” or “shenanagen” going on in these institutions, as the president of one of them informed me, confidentially, that he dealt on the “square,” but it is a noticeable fact that the dividends received by those who do business with the banks, are almost, as it were, imperceptible.  I trust that you will cause this branch of industry to be thoroughly investigated, and report by bill or otherwise.  Our finances should be beyond suspicion of dishonesty.

LARGE MOUTHS ABE FASHIONABLE.

The fashion papers, which are authority on the styles, claim that ladies with large mouths are all the fashion now, and that those whose mouths are small and rosebud like are all out of style.  It is singular the freaks that are taken by fashion.  Years ago a red-headed girl, with a mouth like a slice cut out of a muskmelon, would have been laughed at, and now such a girl is worth going miles to see.

It is easier to color the hair red, and be in fashion, than it is to enlarge the mouth, though a mouth that has any give to it can be helped by the constant application of a glove stretcher during the day, and by holding the cover to a tin blacking box while sleeping.  What in the world the leaders of fashion wanted to declare large mouths the style for, the heavens only can tell.

Take a pretty face and mortise about a third of it for mouth, and it seems to us as though it is a great waste of raw material.  There is no use that a large mouth can be put to that a small mouth would not do better, unless it is used for a pigeon hole to file away old sets of false teeth.  They can’t certainly, be any better for kissing.