"Crowds of well-dressed people, men and women, went to Fulton Market yesterday and looked at an enormous salmon which was on exhibition. Mr. Blackford, to whom it belonged, had put a row of big strawberries along its back and stuffed green moss into its capacious mouth. The fish came from the Dalles, a noted fishing place on the Columbia River, Oregon. It measured fifty-two inches from its nose to the tip of its tail, was twelve inches broad, and weighed seventy-two pounds. It was caught in a net." * * * * * BALATON FURED. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I like you very much and most of all Sophie Swett and Frank Stockton and Miss Alcott and Mary Mapes Dodge. I am a little English girl, and I live in Hungary. We are going away in the spring, and father has gone already. Your loving reader, KATHLEEN YOUNG. * * * * * BALATON FURED, HUNGARY. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I feel I must add a few lines to my little daughter's note, to tell you that, as she is suffering from spinal complaint, she is obliged always to lie on her back; so to her--cut off from so many of the pleasures of stronger children--you are doubly welcome. Indeed, we all are very partial to you; your magazine has the distinction of being the most shabby book on our book-shelves. In our home, as no doubt in hundreds of others, you are a household word. Kathleen begs you, if you have room, to print her letter. With every good wish, very truly yours, MARIA YOUNG. * * * * * WASHINGTON, D. C. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I am eleven years old, and have been taking you for several years. I like you better than any other magazine. I have a brother twenty-one months younger than I am, and we look very much alike, and wear the same kind of clothes. He said he had a dream the other night, which he thought was very funny. He dreamed we were playing near the State Department, and a man told him not to get on the grass or he would whip him. After a while he dreamed that I came along and got on the grass, when the man caught me and whipped me by mistake, thinking I was my brother. He thought the dream was very funny, but I did not see the fun in it. Yours affectionately, CHARLES C. * * * * * WASIOJA, MINN. DEAR OLD SAINT: Although my brothers and I have taken you for nearly ten years, this is the first letter I have written you. I want to thank you for Mr. Stockton's valuable "Personally Conducted" series, and also for Mr. Scudder's "George Washington." Mr. Stockton's "Personally Conducted" makes me feel as if I had visited the places he describes. I am, and always shall be, an interested reader.