"The Featherstones doubtless will now increase And multiply like the rabbits, While jailers, deputy sheriffs, police, And writers will form good habits. "The widows more easily robbed will be, And no juror will ever heed 'em, But open his purse to my eloquent plea For security, gain, or freedom." When Benson heard of the luck of the good (He was eating his dinner) he muttered: "It cannot help _me_, for 'tis understood My bread is already buttered. "My plats of surveys are all false, they say, But that cannot greatly matter To me, for I'll tell the jurors that they May lick, if they please, my platter." ARBORICULTURE [Californians are asking themselves how Joaquin Miller will make the trees grow which he proposes to plant in the form of a Maltese cross on Goat Island, in San Francisco Bay.--_New York Graphic_.] You may say they won't grow, and say they'll decay-- Say it again till you're sick of the say, Get up on your ear, blow your blaring bazoo And hire a hall to proclaim it; and you May stand on a stump with a lifted hand As a pine may stand or a redwood stand, And stick to your story and cheek it through. But I point with pride to the far divide Where the Snake from its groves is seen to glide-- To Mariposa's arboreal suit, And the shaggy shoulders of Shasta Butte, And the feathered firs of Siskiyou; And I swear as I sit on my marvelous hair-- I roll my marvelous eyes and swear, And sneer, and ask where would your forests be To-day if it hadn't been for me! Then I rise tip-toe, with a brow of brass, Like a bully boy with an eye of glass; I look at my gum sprouts, red and blue, And I say it loud and I say it low: "They know their man and you bet they'll grow!" A SILURIAN HOLIDAY 'Tis Master Fitch, the editor; He takes an holiday. Now wherefore, venerable sir, So resolutely gay? He lifts his head, he laughs aloud, Odzounds! 'tis drear to see! "Because the Boodle-Scribbler crowd Will soon be far from me. "Full many a year I've striven well To freeze the caitiffs out By making this good town a Hell, But still they hang about. "They maken mouths and eke they grin At the dollar limit game; And they are holpen in that sin By many a wicked dame. "In sylvan bowers hence I'll dwell My bruisèd mind to ease. Farewell, ye urban scenes, farewell! Hail, unfamiliar trees!" Forth Master Fitch did bravely hie, And all the country folk Besought him that he come not nigh The deadly poison oak! He smiled a cheerful smile (the day Was straightway overcast)-- The poison oak along his way Was blighted as he passed! REJECTED When Dr. Charles O'Donnell died They sank a box with him inside. The plate with his initials three Was simply graven--"C.O.D." That night two demons of the Pit Adown the coal-hole shunted it. Ten million million leagues it fell, Alighting at the gate of Hell. Nick looked upon it with surprise, A night-storm darkening his eyes.