I must now draw this letter to a close. We are all well with the exception of colds in the head, but nothing that need give you any uneasiness. Our large seal-brown hen last week, stimulated by a rising egg market, over-exerted herself, and on Saturday evening, as the twilight gathered, she yielded to a complication of pip and softening of the brain and expired in my arms. She certainly led a most exemplary life and the forked tongue of slander could find naught to utter against her. Hoping that you are enjoying the same great blessing and that you will write as often as possible without waiting for me, I remain, Very respectfully yours, _Bill Nye_. (Dictated Letter.) MILLING IN POMPEII. While visiting Naples last fall, I took a great interest in the wonderful museum there, of objects that have been exhumed from the ruins of Pompeii. It is a remarkable collection, including, among other things, the cumbersome machinery of a large woolen factory, the receipts, contracts, statements of sales, etc., etc., of bankers, brokers, and usurers. I was told that the exhumist also ran into an Etruscan bucket-shop in one part of the city, but, owing to the long dry spell, the buckets had fallen to pieces. The object which engrossed my attention the most, however, was what seems to have been a circular issued prior to the great volcanic vomit of 79 A. D., and no doubt prior even to the Christian era. As the date is torn off, however, we are left to conjecture the time at which it was issued. I was permitted to make a copy of it, and with the aid of my hired man I have translated it with great care. [Illustration: 0079] Office of LUCRETIUS & PROCALUS, Dealers in Flour, Bran, Shorts, Middlings, Screenings, Etruscan Hen Feed, and Other Choice Bric-a-Brac. Highest Cash Price Paid for Neapolitan Winter Wheat and Roman Corn. Why Haul Your Wheat Through the Sand to Herculaneum, When We Pay the Same Price Here? Office and Mill, Via VIII, Near the Stabian Gate, Only Thirteen Blocks from the P. O., Pompeii. Dear Sir: This circular has been called out by another one issued last month by Messrs. Toecorneous & Cnilblainicus, alleged millers and wheat buyers of Herculaneum, in which they claim to pay a quarter to a half-cent more per bushel than we do for wheat, and charge us with docking the farmers around Pompeii a pound per bushel more than necessary for cockle, wild buckwheat, and pigeon-grass seed. They make the broad statement that we have made all our money in that way, and claim that Mr. Lucretius, of our mill, has erected a fine house, which the farmers allude to as the "wild buckwheat villa." [Illustration: 0080]