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F there is anything amusing about

IF

the blowing up of Mr. Russell Sage it is the suit that Mr. Laidlaw threatens to bring against Mr. Sage, for using him as a shield to catch the first effects of the explosion. Mr. Laidlaw might take the view that is probably taken by Mr. Sage's pastor, that he was the humble instrument in the hands of Providence for protracting the term of Bro. Sage's mundane usefulness. But he declines to see it in that light, and sinfully and stiffneckedly maintains that it was Bro. Sage's own hands that made him useful, and that Bro. Sage has got to pay for it. It is impossible to say how far Mr. Laidlaw is right in his impressions of Mr. Sage's conduct, but if Mr. Sage really did what Mr. Laidlaw says he did, it is doubtful if to an average jury his conduct will seem at all irregular. For railroad engineers and miners, and such like, to stand up and take their share of a smash is well enough; but when a man's income reaches a hundred thousand a year, of course he cannot afford to hold himself so cheap, and if he can get a five-dollar-a-day man between him and sudden death, it is obviously business-like for him to do it. Personal heroism is well enough for persons who have little to lose except their lives; but for arch-millionaires of sound business instincts, there is nothing in it; nothing at all.

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BISHOP POTTER has been saying that great

wealth, great intellectual power and great female beauty, are all dangerous possessions. To be sure; and so are bishoprics. Nevertheless, the Creator in His wisdom saw fit to people the earth with individuals who are liable to all these hazardous incidents; nor is it likely that the Bishop himself would care to swap our current mundane insecurity for the repose of a world populated with cigar

verse will go to the dogs if they don't look after it, are fond of telling us that if we don't all marry and have four children apiece, the population of the earth will gradually die off and leave the world bare of folks. There are some pleasant features about such a prospect, particularly the assurance that it would throw census-taker Porter out of his job; but on the whole it isn't pleasant to contemplate. But there would be vastly more encouragement for individuals to exert themselves to stave off this threatened evil if a little more certainty could be made to attend the raising of offspring. It is exceedingly pleasant to have children if they are good; but, if not, it is better to have had kittens, which can be drowned if not required for use. There are examples of obscure parents who have had renowned children, and of bad parents who have had good children; and there were many well-known cases in which the progress has been the other way, from good to bad, or from bad to worse. For example of this latter tendency Mr. Cyrus Field's son, being of notably good stock, and having all the advantages of a luxurious Christian home, turns out to be a spectacular criminal of ruinous magnitude; Gen. Kit Carson's son, who had an out-of-door raising that should have been wholesome, shows his educational defects by killing the parents of his wife. A son of the disreputable poet of the Sierras, being neglected by his father, robs a stage; and Norcross, the cherished offspring of respectable Bostonians, comes to New York and makes a horrid scandal with a dynamite bomb. It is discouraging to find results so miscellaneously bad issuing from methods of nurture so curiously different.

There are some rules about training children that are held in esteem, and which sometimes seem to give good results but to all of them there are so many exceptions that parents who have done their best are devoutly thankful if their children turn out well, and console themselves if it turns out otherwise by averring that it is the common lot, and that any assurance of goodness is inconsistent with the doctrine of free-will.