These solicitations often take the offensive form, which is intentionally embarrassing to the person solicited, of an appeal to relieve the purveyor of the subscription-list himself from the obligation incurred by a 'guarantee.' The issue is thus ingeniously and unfairly transferred from the claims of the object, which it is designed to promote, to the question of relieving a friend or a neighbour from a heavy pecuniary obligation. 'Surely you will never allow me to pay all this money myself.' But why not, unless I approve of the object, and, even if I do, why should I increase my subscription, on account of an obligation voluntarily incurred by you, without any encouragement from me? In a case of this kind, the 'guarantee' ought to be regarded as simply irrelevant, and the question decided solely on the merits of the result to be attained. Of course, I must be understood to be speaking here only of those cases in which the 'guarantee' is used as an additional argument for eliciting subscriptions, not of those cases in which, for convenience sake, or in order to secure celerity of execution, a few wealthy persons generously advance the whole sum required for a project, being quite willing to pay it themselves, unless they meet with ready and cheerful co-operation. In the department of social intercourse, there are several applications of existing moral principles, and specially of the softer virtues of kindness, courtesy, and consideration for others, the observance of which would sensibly sweeten our relations to our fellow-men and, to persons of a sensitive temperament, render life far more agreeable and better worth living than it actually is. A few of these applications I shall attempt to point out. Amongst savage races, and in the less polished ranks of civilized life, men who disagree, or have any grudge against one another, resort to physical blows or coarse invective. In polite and educated circles, these weapons are replaced by sarcasm and innuendo. There are, of course, many advantages gained by the substitution of this more refined mode of warfare, but the mere fact that the intellectual skill which it displays gives pleasure to the bystanders, and wins social applause, renders its employment far more frequent than, on cool reflexion, could be justified by the occasions for it. There can be no doubt that it gives pain, often intense pain, especially where the victim is not ready enough to retaliate effectively in kind. And there can be no more justification for inflicting this peculiar kind of pain than any other, unless the circumstances are such as to demand it. Any one, who will take the trouble to analyse his acts and motives, will generally find, when he employs these weapons, that he is actuated not so much by any desire to reform the object of his attack or to deter, by these means, him or others from wrong-doing, as by a desire to show off his own cleverness and to leave behind him a mark of