horse once.


CATS ON THE FENCE.

Some idiot has invented a "cat teaser" to put on fences to keep cats from
sitting there and singing. It consists of a three-cornered piece of tin,
nailed on the top of the fence. We hope none of our friends will invest in
the patent, for statistics show that while cats very often sit on fences
to meditate, yet when they get it all mediated and get ready to sing a
duet, they get down off the fence and get under a currant bush. We
challenge any cat scientist to disprove the assertion.


HOW SHARPER THAN A HOUND'S TOOTH.

Years ago we swore on a stack of red chips that we would never own another
dog. Six promising pups that had been presented to us, blooded setters and
pointers, had gone the way of all dog flesh, with the distemper and dog
buttons, and by falling in the cistern, and we had been bereaved _via_ dog
misfortunes as often as John R. Bennett, of Janesville, has been bereaved
on the nomination for attorney general. We could not look a pup in the
face but it would get sick, and so we concluded never again to own a dog.

The vow has been religiously kept since. Men have promised us thousands of
pups, but we have never taken them. One conductor has promised us at least
seventy-five pups, but he has always failed to get us to take one. Dog
lovers have set up nights to devise a way to induce us to accept a dog. We
held out firmly till last week. One day we met Pierce, the Watertown
Junction hotel man, and he told us that he had a greyhound pup that was