“I have not the inclination to go into an extended account of the trials and failures that I have met with since I first put on the cap and bells, but I can assure you that I would not contend with them again for what little glory and stamps they have won for me. I have written two books, but my pet is Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Almanac, which has been issued for the last three years, the annual sale of which has exceeded one hundred thousand copies. This little waif will soon make its appearance for 1873, and I hope to make it a welcome guest for many years to come. “My lectures, if they can be called lectures, are three in number, rejoicing under the very familiar titles of Milk, What I Know About Hotels, and the Pensive Cockroach. In this last discourse, a large invoice of reptiles, beasts, and fishes are handled, without mercy, commencing with the dreamy cockroach and touching lightly at times the cunning of the fox, the strange uncertainty of the flea, and the wondrous hypocracy of the cat. “Please excuse, my dear sirs, in this hasty sketch what may appear not to be true, for he who writes about himself is in great danger of telling too much, or too little. My only apology for this monograph is, that it has been written at your request. “Yours calmly, JOSH BILLINGS.” Mr. Shaw began writing for the literary weeklies, and even now writes a half column or so of his quaint paragraphs for the New York Weekly. His almanac and other books have been published through the house of George W. Carleton, New York, and have had a wonderful sale. It is said that Josh has made at least $100,000 by his writings. It has been stated that his uncouth manner of spelling was adopted, in the first instance, quite as much through fear of his ability to spell correctly, as through the wish to be odd. He avoided criticism by intentional and habitual misspelling. He is by nature a philosopher, and the experiences of his whole life are classified in his mind, as illustrations of this or that quality of human nature. Soon after he became famous in the walks of literature, Shaw entered the lecture field. He became at once very popular, and drew large and cultured audiences in the East and West. His last lecturing tour of any length proved very profitable to him. He lectured on The Probabilities of Life, which was divided, as he says, into twenty-four chapters. The hand-bills announcing this lecture read as follows: