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We are sure all our readers will appreciate the very comical pictures on pages 144 and 145, which illustrate the funny story of “The Magician and His Bee.”  But some of our older boys and girls may be able to put them to another use,—­which, also, would cause much fun and merriment,—­for these pictures would form an admirable series of magic-lantern slides.  And all that is needed to make them is a little skill with the brush and—­patience.

Take an outline tracing of each figure; arrange all the tracings for each slide on the glass strip, according to their positions in the picture; then, by a slight touch of mucilage, or by holding each one with the forefinger, secure them in their places until the outlines can be traced on the glass.  Fill up all the space outside the tracings with black paint, and, this done, put in the shadings of the figures (lines of features, costumes, etc.) with touches of the brush, according to the lines in the printed pictures, until the reproductions upon the slide are true and complete.

Once done, the pictures, enlarged and thrown upon a screen, would be very funny indeed; and if, when they are exhibited, some one will read the story aloud, so as to describe the slides as they succeed each other, you may count upon having a jolly time.

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    Kiukiang, China, August 18, 1877.

Dear St. Nicholas:  I am not so far out of the world but that I can receive and read your excellent magazine.  I look forward to mail day with much pleasure, especially the mail which brings the ST. NICHOLAS.  I read every number through.  I enjoy reading the letters from the little boys and girls, I suppose, because I am a little boy myself.  There are no American boys here except my three little brothers.  We would like to have a play with some of the boys who write for your magazine.  The little boys of China have no such magazine as yours.  I wish they had; it would make better boys of them.  The children of the better class of Chinese go to school.  There they learn to commit to memory the Chinese characters.  In repeating the characters, they sway back and forth; it’s real comical to see them.  They repeat in a sing-song tone.  They go to school at six in the morning.  They have a rest at noon, after which they remain in the evening until eight o’clock.  They have no idea of what we have in America; they are even stupid enough to ask if we have a sun and moon, and all such questions.  My home is on the banks of the great river Yang-tse; nine miles back from the river are the Lu-Say Mountains, five thousand feet high.  The foreign people find it very cool up in the mountains.  There are several large pools of water where they bathe.  I have written more than I expected to.

    —­Good-by, dear ST. NICHOLAS, from your reader,

    EVANSTON HART.

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