advocating the construction of a railway between that place and
Jayhawk, thirty miles distant. The route presented every inducement.
There would be no grading required, and not a single curve would be
necessary. As it lay through an uninhabited alkali flat, the right
of way could be easily obtained. As neither terminus had other than
pack-mule communication with civilization, the rolling stock and
other material must necessarily be constructed at Hang Tree, because
the people at the other end didn't know enough to do it, and hadn't
any blacksmith. The benefit to our place was indisputable; it
constituted the most seductive charm of the scheme. After six months
of conscientious lying, the company was incorporated, and the first
shovelful of alkali turned up and preserved in a museum, when
suddenly the devil put it into the head of one of the Directors to
inquire publicly what the road was designed to carry. It is needless
to say the question was never satisfactorily answered, and the most
daring enterprise of the age was knocked perfectly cold. That very
night a deputation of stockholders waited upon the editor of the
Herald and prescribed a change of climate. They afterward said the
change did them good. Mr. Gish Makes a Present.

In the season for making presents my friend Stockdoddle Gish, Esq.,
thought he would so far waive his superiority to the insignificant
portion of mankind outside his own waistcoat as to follow one of its
customs. Mr. Gish has a friend-a delicate female of the shrinking
sort-whom he favours with his esteem as a sort of equivalent for the
respect she accords him when he browbeats her. Our hero numbers
among the blessings which his merit has extorted from niggardly
Nature a gaunt meathound, between whose head and body there exists
about the same proportion as between those of a catfish, which he
also resembles in the matter of mouth. As to sides, this precious