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TEACHER. — Johnny, why do you always begin the word murder with a large letter? Johnny. — Because it's a capital offense. IN the early '8o's, " Jim " Schultz was justice of the peace in Twin Groves township, Nebraska. One day an attorney was exceedingly domineering in his words and actions. His honor finally gave vent to his feeling as follows : " The court will now take a recess. Mr. Attorney, you are a damned liar and a scoundrel. The court will now come to order. Mr. Attorney, if you open your head I'll fine you for contempt." IN a slander case, two witnesses, having testified as to the plaintiff's reputation for chastity, were asked if they knew the meaning of the word chastity. "Why, certainly," replied both witnesses, em phatically. "It means always fighting and quar reling with the neighbors." Fact! IN a trial in the Supreme Court before ChiefJustice Shaw, at Pittsfield, Mass., an eminent Berkshire cross-examiner asked a witness, "Where did you get the money with which you made the purchases spoken of?" The victim thundered, "None of your business! " The lawyer appealed to the Judge : " Please, your Honor, are counsel to be insulted in this manner?" " Wit ness," said the Chief Justice, compassionately, " do you wish to change your last answer? " Witness : "No, sir, I don't! " Chief Justice : " Well, I wouldn't if I were in your place." NOTES.

HORNBOOKS.— Hornbooks,— those leaflets con taining the alphabet, the a-b, abs, a text for exorcism, the Lord's Prayer, and the Roman numerals, framed and covered with transparent horn as with glass, — with which the first lessons in reading were administered to our ancestors, have disappeared so entirely that they are hardly known except to antiquaries, yet they were com mon in England down to the time of George II, and were introduced into America in the seven teenth century. Mr. Andrew W. Tuer, who has written their history, says that the preservation of many of those which have come down to us is

due to the tricks of little boys, who dropped the hateful things through cracks in the floor or wainscoting, to be brought to light again when the house was pulled down. The earliest horn book known to be left, which is assigned to the middle of the sixteenth century, was found behind the paneling of a farmhouse. A hornbook called the Middleton was discovered in 1828 in the thatch of an old cottage. As spelling books came more and more into use, hornbooks became ob solete; and when they were no longer in demand it is said that a million and a half were destroyed in one warehouse. They could, however, be found in use in the country villages down into the present century; and there may be people still living who took their first lessons from them, and had scholastic chastisement administered with the backs of them. As they became scarce, specimens of them rose in value; and while the usual price of them had been a penny, three half- pence, or two-pence, a famous copy — the Bateman Hornbook — was sold at auction for three hundred and twenty-five dollars. This book was three inches and three-quarters high and two inches and seven-eighths wide, with a handle an inch long, and was covered, except the handle, with leather. The alphabet was preceded by the cross, and this was the case with most of the hornbooks. Hence the phrase, "criss-cross row." The back was stamped with a figure of Charles I, bareheaded and in armor, on horse back. At the top corner and facing the king was a large celestial crown, issuing from a cloud above his head, and in the other corner an angel's face and wings. The book bore other marks of less interest. Some of the hornbooks were costly. Queen Elizabeth gave one of silver filigree to Lord Chancellor Egerton, and others were made of ivory and bone. Finally, we come to the gingerbread hornbook, which seems once to have been a common baker's dainty. Of it Prior wrote : — "To Master John the English Maid A Hornbook gives of gingerbread; And that the Child may learn the better As he can name, he eats the Letter."

Hornbooks may be seen portrayed in pictures by the German and Dutch masters, as in Rem brandt's " Christ Blessing Little Children," and the works of Jan Steen and Van Ostade. —Popu lar Science Monthly, Jan., 1897.