In the hands of a Swift, even so trivial an instance might be made to point a moral on the facility with which, alike in theology and politics—from Athanasian creed to Cincinnati or Philadelphia platform—men comfortably interpret to their own diverse likings some doctrine that “begins with an _R_ and ends with an _e_,” and swallow it with great unanimity and enthusiasm. THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. During the war of the Rebellion, a merchant of Milwaukee, who is an excellent hand at sketching, drew most admirably on the wall of his store a negro’s head, and underneath it wrote, in a manner worthy of the Delphic oracle, “Dis-Union for eber.” Whether the sentence meant loyalty to the Union or not, was the puzzling question which the gentleman himself never answered, invariably stating to the inquirers, “Read it for yourselves, gentlemen.” So from that day to this, as the saying goes, “no one knows how dat darkey stood on de war question.” Another question is puzzling the young ladies who attend a Western Female College. It seems that one of them discovered that some person had written on the outer wall of the college, “Young women should set good examples; for young men _will_ follow them.” The question that is now perplexing the heads of several of the young ladies of the college is, whether the writer meant what he or she (the handwriting was rather masculine) wrote, in a moral sense or in an ironical one. HOW FRENCH ACTRESSES AVOID GIVING THEIR AGE. A servant robbed Mlle. Mars of her diamonds one evening while she was at the theatre. Arrested, he was put upon trial, and witnesses were summoned to bear testimony to his guilt. Among these was Mlle. Mars. She was greatly annoyed at this, as, according to the rules of French practice, the witness, after being sworn, gives his age. Now the age of Mlle. Mars was an impenetrable mystery, for it was a theme she never alluded to, and she possessed the art of arresting time’s flight, or at least of repairing its ravages so effectually that her face never revealed acquaintance with more than twenty years. She was for some days evidently depressed; then, all at once, her spirits rose as buoyant as ever. This puzzled the court—for people in her eminent position always have a court; parasites are plenty in Paris—they did not know whether she had determined frankly to confess her age, or whether she had hit upon some means of eluding this thorny point of practice.