Horse-stealers in our time are a good deal handicapped by a change that has come over public opinion. The Government used to hang them, but the populace were by no means horrified at the crime.

Here is a story indicating considerable former leniency in popular thought. A horse-coper "took" a horse and was discovered and convicted, but owing to some assistance he had given the police, he received a light sentence.

He settled in a Norfolk village, turned an honest stock-breeder, and prospered greatly; but there was always a rumour that he had been convicted of some sort of stealing.

A farmer's daughter, however, fell in love with him and he asked her from her father.

"No," said the old yeoman; "I've nothing against you, but no child of mine shall wed a man who has been in trouble for stealing."

The daughter cried and implored, and at last sobbed out, "Willie only took a horse."

"Why," exclaimed the farmer, "didn't ye say so before! Here have I been treating a respectable man as if he had been a thief!"

The Dead Defunct.

A learned weaver, in stating his case before the provost of Irvine in Ayrshire, in the days when hand-loom weaving was a leading industry in that town, having had occasion to speak of a party who was dead, repeatedly described him as the defunct.

Irritated by the iteration of a word which he did not understand, the provost exclaimed—

"What's the use o' talking so much about this child you call the defunct? Cannot ye bring the man here and let him speak for himsel'?"

"The defunct's dead, my lord!" replied the weaver.

"Oh, that alters the case," gravely observed the wise provost.

The Art of Conversation.

"Tell me," pleaded the artless maid, "wherein lies the secret of the art of conversation."

The sage struck the attitude he was wont to assume when in the act of imparting wisdom and said—

"My child, listen!"

"I am listening!" breathlessly she answered.

"Well, my child," he rejoined, "that is all there is in the art of conversation."

How to be free from Discontent.

A philosopher offered sacrifice every day in the temple of Jupiter and made always the same prayer.

At last Jupiter grew tired of hearing over and over again the one request and said, "What would you have?"

"I crave to become a contented man," replied the philosopher. "Never yet have I enjoyed a really peaceful day, for I have never been entirely contented. Even now, aged as I am, there is always something that I long for."

"Consider well what you ask," said the god sternly; "there is but one way in which you can secure the boon you seek."

"And what is that?" asked the philosopher eagerly.

"I must strike you dead; for in death only can man be free from discontent."

"Upon consideration," replied the philosopher, "I think I should be better contented to remain discontented."

And so saying he put on his hat and hastily withdrew from the temple.

Don't be Discouraged.

"Trust yourself to God who calls you, Then no harm can e'er befall you; Don't be discouraged. Do the right, And day will chase away your night."

How she showed her Gratitude.

The present Bishop of Gibraltar, Dr. Sandford, tells the following story. When a young man, and a shy, very shy curate, he called to see an old woman among his parishioners, who complained to him that all she had to live on was half-a-crown a week which she received from the parish.

"And out of that, sir," she went on, "I have to pay two shillings for rent, a shilling for firing, sixpence for bread, fourpence for——"

"Stop, stop, my good woman," said the young curate, "you can't pay all that out of half-a-crown."

"Yes, sir, but I do," she persisted, "I pay——" and she ran through her accounts again.

Finding she was not to be convinced of her arithmetical errors, and that she was both poverty-stricken and deserving, Mr. Sandford promised to send her an extra half-crown on his own account each week.

"For this she rewarded me," says the bishop, "by coming much more regularly to church, but to my horror she never caught my eye while I was in the reading desk or pulpit without promptly jumping up and bobbing me a little curtsey to show her gratitude. Imagine my feelings as a shy young curate."

How The Ducks were Taught.—An officer in the British navy tells us that on one of his voyages, he saw a Chinaman, who kept ducks for a living, practise an odd piece of ingenuity. In the daytime the ducks were permitted to float about on the river, but at nightfall they were carefully collected. The keeper, when it began to grow dark, gave a whistle, when the ducks always flew towards him with violent speed, so they were all invariably safe at home in less than a minute. How do you suppose he had educated his flock so effectually? He always beat the last duck.