This story is told: Two years ago a woman landed with as many trunks as a banyan tree; the inspector had been notified that she was a fashionable milliner in New York. She said to the inspector, “I am in great hurry, and if you will put my baggage right through and come up to my store this evening I will give you a five pound note.” The collector scented more than twenty-five dollars for himself in forfeitures, and began the examination. A dozen pairs of new kid gloves, of four different sizes, were the first thing uncovered. The lady protested that they were all for herself, and that she was entitled to a dozen, and they were passed. But when more gloves of different sizes were found, until there were half a gross, she began to raise her bid. Then fifty pairs of new shoes of many different sizes were turned out, and then silks, flowers, ribbons, fans, and finery _à la_ McFlimsy. She at last offered three hundred dollars to have the trunks passed, but as there was about twelve hundred dollars worth of goods on which was a duty to collect of, say, five hundred dollars, all of which (seventeen hundred dollars) was forfeit, it was no use. The business had gone to a point where the owner could not afford to bid against the government for the purchase of the inspector’s honor. The goods were sent to the seizure room, and the woman was sued for the penalty, as it exceeded the value of the property. After two years of obstacles and delay the case was compromised and settled. The inspector told me that his share of the damages would be much more than the three hundred dollars she offered. Honesty is the best policy, virtue is its own reward, and everybody is honest when it pays best, you see. If the woman had not offered the bribe, and thus put it out of the power of the official to show her any leniency, she would have been allowed to take the goods away on payment of simple duty. She at least learned that there is a time and way for all things, including bribery. [B] _Harper’s_ for June, 1884. THE CHRISTIAN REVOLT OF THE JEWS IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA. BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST, D.D., LL.D. There is a little country in the south-eastern corner of Europe, bordering on the Black Sea, which goes by the name of Bessarabia. It drops into the angle formed by the Black Sea and one of the three mouths of the Danube. Before the Crimean war it was a part of Russia, but in consequence of Russia’s defeat in that war she was compelled, in the treaty, to give it up to Turkey, and until six years ago it remained a part of the Turkish Empire. But in the late war between Russia and Turkey it was Russia’s time to win, and so she took back Bessarabia, and it again became a part of her dominions. It has always been the scene of a busy and peculiar life. The very river itself seems to have imparted much of its current to the people, and they have been thinking, in their own humble way, of the best means to promote their own interests.