What is this light that surrounds me and seems to set fire to my

brain?

What whistle's that, yelling so shrill? Ah! I know now; it's the train.

We often stand facing some danger, and seem to take root to the place;

So I stood-with this demon before me, its heated breath scorching my face;

Its headlight made day of the darkness, and glared like the eyes of some witch

The train was almost upon me before I remembered the switch. I sprang to it, seizing it wildly, the train dashing fast down the track;

The switch resisted my efforts, some devil seemed holding it back; On, on came the fiery-eyed monster, and shot by my face like a

flash;

I swooned to the earth the next moment, and knew nothing after the crash.

How long I lay there unconscious 'twas impossible for me to tell;
My stupor was almost a heaven, my waking almost a hell-
For I then heard the piteous moaning and shrieking of husbands
and wives,

And I thought of the day we all shrink from, when I must account for their lives;

Mothers rushed by me like maniacs, their eyes glaring madly and wild;

Fathers, losing their courage, gave way to their grief like a child;
Children searching for parents, I noticed, as by me they sped,
And lips that could form naught but "Mamma" were calling for
one perhaps dead.

My mind was made up in a moment, the river should hide me away,
When, under the still burning rafters, I suddenly noticed there lay
A little white hand; she who owned it was doubtless an object of
love

To one whom her loss would drive frantic, 'tho she guarded him now from above;

I tenderly lifted the rafters and quietly laid them one side; How little she thought of her journey when she left for this dark, fatal ride!

I lifted the last log from off her, and while searching for some spark of life,

Turned her little face up in the starlight, and recognized-Maggie, my wife!

O Lord! thy scourge is a hard one, at a blow thou hast shattered my pride;

My life will be one endless nightmare, with Maggie away from my side.

How often I'd sat down and pictured the scenes in our long, happy life;

How I'd strive through all my life-time to build up a home for my wife;

How people would envy us always in our cozy and neat little nest; How I should do all of the labor, and Maggie should all the day rest;

How one of God's blessings might cheer us, how some day I p'raps should be rich

But all of my dreams have been shattered, while I lay there asleep at the switch!

I fancied I stood on my trial, the jury and judge I could see,
And every eye in the court-room was steadily fixed upon me;
And fingers were pointed in scorn, till I felt my face blushing
blood-red,

And the next thing I heard were the words, "Hanged by the neck until dead."

Then I felt myself pulled once again, and my hand caught tight hold of a dress,

And I heard, "What's the matter, dear Jim? You've had a bad nightmare, I guess!"

And there stood Maggie, my wife, with never a scar from the ditch,
I'd been taking a nap in my bed, and had not been "asleep at the
switch."
-George Hoey.

SUPPOSED SPEECH OF JAMES OTIS.

[James Otis, a distinguished American patriot, was born at West Barnstable, May, 1724, and was killed by lightning in 1783. He was an eminent lawyer, statesman and scholar]

England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as fetter the step of freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland. Arbitrary principles, like those against which we now contend, have cost one king of England his life, another his crown, and they may yet cost a third his most flourishing colonies.

We are two millions; one-fifth fighting men. We are bold and vigorous, and we call no man master. To

the nation from whom we are proud to derive our origin we ever were, and we ever will be, ready to yield unforced assistance; but it must not, and it never can be, EXTORTED.

Some have sneeringly asked, "Are the Americans too poor to pay a few pounds on stamped paper?" No! America, thanks to God and herself, is rich. But the right to take ten pounds implies the right to take a thousand; and what must be the wealth that avarice, aided by power, can not exhaust? True, the specter is small, but the shadow he casts before him is huge enough to darken all this fair land.

Others, in a sentimental style, talk of the immense debt of gratitude which we owe to England. And what is the amount of this debt? Why, truly, it is the same that the young lion owes to the dam, which has brought it forth on the solitude of the mountain, or left it amid the winds and storms of the desert.

We plunged into the wave with the great charter of freedom in our teeth, because the fagot and torch were behind us. We have waked this new world from its savage lethargy; forests have been prostrated in our path; towns and cities have grown up suddenly as the flowers of the tropics; and the fires in our autumnal woods are, scarcely more rapid than the increase of our wealth and population. And do we owe all this to the kind succor of the mother country? No! we owe it to the tyranny that drove us from her, to the pelting storms which invigorated our helpless infancy.

But perhaps others will say, "We ask no money from your gratitude; we only demand that you should pay your own expenses." And who, I pray, is to judge of their necessity? Why, the king; and, with all due reverence to his sacred majesty, he understands the real wants of his distant subjects as little as he does the language of the Choctaws! Who is to judge concerning the frequency of these demands? The ministry. Who is to judge whether the money is properly ex

pended? The Cabinet behind the throne. In every instance, those who take are to judge for those who pay. If this system is suffered to go into operation we shall have reason to esteem it a great privilege that rain and dew do not depend upon Parliament; otherwise, they would soon be taxed and dried.

But, thanks to God, there is freedom enough left upon earth to resist such monstrous injustice. The flame of liberty is extinguished in Greece and Rome; but the light of its glowing embers is still bright and strong on the shores of America. Actuated by its sacred influence, we will resist unto death. But we will not countenance anarchy and misrule. The wrongs that a desperate community have heaped upon their enemies shall be amply and speedily repaired. Still, it may be well for some proud men to remember that a fire is lighted in these colonies which one breath of their king may kindle into such fury that the blood of all England can not extinguish it. -Mrs. L. M. Child.

RIDING ON THE RAIL.

Singing through the forest,

Rattling over ridges,

Shooting under arches,

Rumbling over bridges,

Whizzing through the mountains,

Buzzing o'er the vale,

Bless me! this is pleasant,

Riding on the rail!

Men of different stations,
In the eye of Fame,
Here are very quickly
Coming to the same;
High and lowly people,
Birds of every feather,
On a common level,
Traveling together!

Gentlemen in shorts,
Looming very tall;
Gentlemen at large,
Talking very small;

Gentlemen in tights,

With a loose-ish mien;

Gentlemen in

gray,

Looking rather green!

Gentlemen quite old,
Asking for the news;
Gentlemen in black,
In a fit of blues;
Gentlemen in claret,
Sober as a vicar;
Gentlemen in tweed,
Dreadfully in liquor!

Stranger on the right,
Looking very sunny,
Obviously reading

Something rather funny. Now the smiles are thicker, Wonder what they mean? Faith, he's got the KnickerBocker Magazine!

Stranger on the left,

Closing up his peepers;
Now he snores amain,
Like the seven sleepers;
At his feet a volume
Gives the explanation,
How the man grew stupid
From "association!"

Ancient maiden lady
Anxiously remarks,
That there must be peril
'Mong so many sparks;
Roguish-looking fellow,
Turning to the stranger,
Says 't is his opinion,
She is out of danger!

Woman with her baby,
Sitting vis-a-vis ;
Baby keeps a-squalling,
Woman looks at me;
Asks about the distance;
Says 't is tiresome talking,
Noises of the cars

Are so very shocking!