* * * * *

"What fine fellows we might have been had we lived in those bygone
times. We too, perhaps, would have influenced history and our
names might have been inscribed in the book of immorality."--_New
Ireland._

We understand now why they call it Sin-Fain.

* * * * *

[Illustration: LAMENTABLE LARCENY IN A BOARDING-HOUSE.]

* * * * *

A DECLARATION OF WAR.

This is the yarn that M'Larty told by the brazier fire,
Where over the mud-filled trenches the star shells blaze and expire--
A yarn he swore was a true one; but Mac was an awful liar:--

"'Way up in the wild North Country, a couple of years ago
I hauled Hank out of a snowdrift--it was maybe thirty 'below,'
And I packed him along to my shanty and I took and thawed him with snow.

"He was stiff as a cold-store bullock, I might have left him for dead,
But I packed him along, as I've told you, and melted him out instead,
And I rolled him up in my blankets and put him to sleep in my bed.

"So he dwelt in my humble shanty while the wintry gales did roar,