We tender the bereaved widow our sincere sympathy at the regular rates.  The cause of Mr. Hop’s demise is unknown.  It is unimportant.

....  A dead Asian was recently found in a ditch in Nevada county.  His head, like that of a toad, had a precious jewel imbedded in it, about the size of an ordinary watermelon, and a clear majority of his fingers, toes, and features had received Christian burial in the stomachs of several contiguous hogs with roving commissions.  As he seemed unwilling to state who he was, or how he got his deserts, he was tenderly replaced in his last ditch, and his discoverers proceeded leisurely for the coroner.  Upon the arrival of that public functionary some days later, a pile of nice clean bones was discovered, with this touching epitaph inscribed with a lead pencil upon a segment of the skull: 

“Yur lize wot cant be chawd of Chineece jaik; xekewted bi me fur a plitikle awfens, and et bi mi starven hogs, wich aint hed nuthin afore sence jaix boss stoal mi korn.  BIL Roper, and ov sich is Kingdem cum.”

....  The following report of an autopsy is of peculiar interest to physicians and Christians:—­Case 81st.—­Felo de se.  Yow Kow, yellow, male, Chinese, aged 94; found dead on the street; addicted to opium.  Autopsy-sixteen hours after death.  Slobbering at the mouth; head caved in; immense rigor mortis; eyes dilated and gouged out; abdomen lacerated; hemorrhage from left ear.  Head.  Water on the brain; scalp congested, rather; when burst with a mallet interior of head resembled a war map.  Thorax.  Charge of buckshot in left lung; diaphragm suffused; heart wanting-finger marks in that vicinity; traces of hobnails outside.  Abdomen.  Lacerated as aforesaid; small intestines cumbered with brick dust; slingshot in duodenum; boot-heel imbedded in pelvis; butcher’s knife fixed rigidly in right kidney.

Remarks:  Chinese immigration will ruin any country in the world.

MUSINGS, PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL.

....  Seated in his den, in the chill gloom of a winter twilight, comforting his stomach with hoarded bits of cheese and broad biscuits, Mr. Grile thinketh unto himself after this fashion of thought: 

I. To eat biscuits and cheese before dining is to confess that you do not expect to dine.

II.  “Once bit, twice shy,” is a homely saying, but singularly true.  A man who has been swindled will be very cautious the second time, and the third.  The fourth time he may be swindled again more easily and completely than before.

III.  A four-footed beast walks by lifting one foot at a time, but a four-horse team does not walk by lifting one horse at a time.  And yet you cannot readily explain why this is so.

IV.  If a jackass were to describe the Deity he would represent Him with long ears and a tail.  Man’s ideal is the higher and truer one; he pictures Him as somewhat resembling a man.