THEIR WORD OF HONOR The president of the Great B. railway system laid down the letter he had just reread three times, and turned about in his chair with an expression of extreme annoyance. "I wish it were possible," he said, slowly, "to find one boy or man in a thousand who would receive instructions and carry them out to the letter without a single variation from the course laid down.... more...

WILLIAM GASTON. By ARTHUR P. DODGE. Victor Hugo has written: "The historian of morals and ideas has a mission no less austere than that of the historian of events. The latter has the surface of civilization, the struggles of the crowns, the births of princes, the marriages of Kings, the battles, the assemblies, the great public men, the revolutions in the sunlight, all exterior; the other historian... more...

TWO-PENN'ORTH OF THEOSOPHY. (A Sketch at the Islington Arcadia.) SCENE—The Agricultural Hall. A large Steam-Circus is revolving with its organ in full blast; near it is a "Razzle-Dazzle" Machine, provided with a powerful mechanical piano. To the combined strains of these instruments, the merrier hearts of Islington are performing a desultory dance, which seems to consist chiefly in the... more...

MILL'S LOGIC. These are not degenerate days. We have still strong thinkers amongst us; men of untiring perseverance, who flinch before no difficulties, who never hide the knot which their readers are only too willing that they should let alone; men who dare write what the ninety-nine out of every hundred will pronounce a dry book; who pledge themselves, not to the public, but to their subject, and... more...

"SAVE ME FROM MY FRIENDS!" SCENE—A Place of Meeting. Enter Parliamentary Leader and his Subordinate. They greet one another effusively. Leader (cordially). And now, my dear fellow, how are my interests? Sub. (with much heartiness). Getting on capitally! Just been writing to all the papers to say that it is stupid to call you "Old Dot-and-go-one," because it is inapplicable to either... more...

"HALF a year, half a year, half a year onward," has PUNCHINELLO advanced since he wafted his first number to the four quarters of the globe. His road has not been a very easy one to travel. Bad characters lurked behind the fences, from which they would sometimes take a sneak shot at the Showman as he passed. These fellows were awfully bad shots, though, never so much as hitting the van in which... more...

OUR FUTURE. In these exciting times, when our country is enduring the throes of political convulsion, and every time-honored institution, every well-regulated law of society seems tottering from the broad foundation of the past, how few are there who ask themselves the question, What is to be our future? For the past two years we have lived in a state of extraordinary and unnatural excitement, beside... more...

THREADING THE NEEDLE. HERE is Lucy all this while?" asked Mrs. Ludlow of Anna, the maid."I left her five minutes ago, trying to thread a needle," replied Anna. "She is a long while about it," said Mrs. Ludlow. "Send her to me." When Lucy entered the room, her mother asked her what she had been about; and Lucy replied, "I have been teaching myself to thread a needle."... more...

CONDUCTION, ELECTRIC. The electric conductivity of a substance is that property in virtue of which all its parts come spontaneously to the same electric potential if the substance is kept free from the operation of electric force. Accordingly, the reciprocal quality, electric resistivity, may be defined as a quality of a substance in virtue of which a difference of potential can exist between different... more...

CONSTANTINE PAVLOVICH (1779-1831), grand-duke and cesarevich of Russia, was born at Tsarskoye Selo on the 27th of April 1779. Of the sons born to the unfortunate tsar Paul Petrovich and his wife Maria Feodorovna, née princess of Württemberg, none more closely resembled his father in bodily and mental characteristics than did the second, Constantine Pavlovich. The direction of the boy’s upbringing... more...