What is the most critical time in a baseball match or a football game? When does the oarsman's great test come? Certainly not at the start, for we all do well then. But at the very close of the game, when, after all the players have become exhausted, the real nerve of the contest arrives. That is the time when the man who has been slowly and carefully training year by year will find that he is better than all the others, and that he can put in the extra pound at the oar or the extra speed at the long football run which carries his team to a closely won victory. Athletic training, therefore, is nothing sudden, nothing to be "taken up" at any one time for a short space, but a general self-control and guard which the boy or man keeps over himself in summer and in winter, keeping himself healthy, in good hard condition, and ready for anything he may be called on to do. Any one will tell you this is quite in line with the best methods of study, of work, or of business in after-life; that it is the steady, careful man that wins. But as we are not preaching here, this must be left for fathers and older brothers to do. * * * * * THE COST OF ROYALTY. Here are a few statistics lately published that will doubtless prove interesting to the reader. The royal family of England costs the British government, in round numbers, $3,000,000 annually. Of this sum the Queen receives nearly $2,000,000 a year, besides the revenue from the Duchy of Lancaster, which amounts to a quarter of a million. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland receives $100,000 a year for his services and expenses, and the Prince of Wales $200,000 a year. The President of France receives $240,000 a year for salary and expenses, an enormous salary when it is remembered that the republic is sweating under a stupendous national debt of over $6,000,000,000--the largest debt ever incurred by any nation in the world. Italy can have ten thousand men slaughtered in Abyssinia and still pay her King $2,600,000 a year. The civil list of the German Emperor is about $4,000,000 a year, besides large revenues from vast estates belonging to the royal family. The Czar of all the Russias owns in fee simple 1,000,000 square miles of cultivated land, and enjoys an income of $12,000,000. The King of Spain, little Alfonso XIII., if he is of a saving disposition, will be one of the richest sovereigns in Europe when he comes of age. The state allows him $1,400,000 a year, with an additional $600,000 for family expenses. We are said to be the richest nation on earth, yet our President's salary is only $50,000 a year. It was only $25,000 from 1789 to 1873. * * * * * NEW USE FOR A WATER-CART.