in the low bar-room, the street-corner loungers, the mean, vile denizens of the most infamous haunts? But what shall we do, when infants use the destructive agent-infants of six and seven years, some of whom smoke manfully, if that word pleases the grown-up sucklings?

Not long ago, a little boy, not seven years old, came into the house where we were staying, stupid and sick, reeling unsteadily, and fell, almost senseless, upon the floor, causing great panic, as may be supposed. We found out the cause in a few moments. Another little boy, somewhat older, had coaxed him to smoke a few puffs on an old cigar, and the alarming symptoms of poison were the result of his first effort. Thus even babes are teaching one another, and it behooves parents to be on the watch, to guard these poor innocents from a habit that too often leads to infamy-that infamy cherishes as one of her most darling sins.

READING. Always have a book within your reach, which you may catch up at any odd minutes. Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you can give fifteen minutes a day, it will be felt at the end of the year. Thoughts take up no room. When they are right, they afford a portable pleasure, which one may travel or labor with, without any trouble or incumbrance.

NEE that poor old man, with his valise and

umbrella, huollolag stage

all his might, while it passes quietly on its way. He is just too late. If he had been one minute earlier he would have been in season, and would have been saved from a world of vexation and disappointment that now disturb his mind.

His name is Benjamin Bailey, an easy, inactive old man, who loves to tell stories and entertain his friends, and who never seems to have any clear conception that time is passing, or that it is any later now than it was six hours ago.

He is late to bed and late to rise, late to break

fast and late to work. On Sunday he is late to church, and if he has an appointment he is sure to be half an hour behind the time.

Rumor says says that when he was going to a distant state to be married he was two weeks in getting off, because he could not on any day get to the boat in season to start.

He has now packed his valise and is starting on a journey to transact very important business, and business requiring the utmost haste.

It seems that he has been engaged in a vexatious law suit, which has been carried up to its last appeal, and is about to be decided against him. He has just come in possession of important facts that might turn the case and save him from bankruptcy and ruin.

But there goes the stage and he is left behind, and cannot now, by any possible means, arrive in time to save the case.

Poor old man! all his raised hopes are dashedHe has lost his case, and lost his earthly all. How his heart throbs with unvailing regrets! How he wishes he had heeded the advice of his friends, who would have hurried his departure. But it is such an old habit with him to go close on time, that he would really be unhappy if he were by some chance to be five minutes too early. He has a sort of pride in delaying till the last moment and then barely escaping by a hair's breadth. But this foolish pride has cost him a great many disappointments and loss.

es, and has all his life long been his ruling star of evil.

The simple and beautiful habit of punctuality, formed when he was young and cherished through life, would have saved him and his family a world of trouble. But he is too old to be changed now, or to be effectually taught even by the bitter lessons of experience. His friends have long since abandoned the hope of any change. When one has arrived at his period of life he does not often throw off or essentially modify his old habits; they have become a part of himself, and will cling to him till he rests in his grave.

How important, then, that the habits which we form in youth be such as we would wish to cherish in mature years-that they be such as will adorn and not mar our character.

Look again at that toiling and unhappy old man in the picture-his hat has blown off, and his head is bared to the breeze, while his heart is throbbing with disappointment and sorrow. While you feel a pity for his misfortune, learn, before your habits are unalterably fixed, to be punctual at all times. The habit, once formed, will have more to do than I can now tell or you can understand in shaping and perfecting your whole character. It will be worth more to you than an inherited fortune in stocks and acres, because it will be an element of real wealth within. Good habits, like the acquisitions of the mind, enrich the possessor with a real wealth, which is, and

r will be, his own, because a part of him

POSITIVE AND COMPARATIVE.

THERE are lines written, simple and strange,
Tragic, comic, pathetic, and narrative,
So I'll now turn my hand for a change
To a positive and comparative.

The first English letter is A,
We none of us live without air,
The prettiest month is called May,
But the head of our city's a mayor.

A knock at the door is a rap,

An over-all coat is a wrapper,

A belt made of leather's a strap,
But a girl of six feet is a strapper!

The first rule in sums is to add,

A venemous snake is an adder,

A boy of sixteen is a lad

But a lamplighter's help is his ladder,

An apartment is also a room,

A doubtful report is a rumor,

The blossoms of trees are their bloom,

A short reign had poor Mrs. Bloomer!

The end of the day is called night,
A drug of great virtue is nitre,

A very small insect's a mite,

But a clergyman's hope is a mitre.

A cutter has only one mast,

The ruler of Pembroke's "the Master,

The Great Exhibition is past,

But a shepherd is also a pastor.