Their food seems tew consist, not so mutch in what they eat as what they travel, and often finding them dead in my soup at the boarding-house, I hav cum to the conclusion that a cockroach kan’t swim, but they kan float. Naturalists hav also declared that the cockroach has no double teeth. This is an important fackt, and ought tew be introduced into all the primary school books ov Amerika. But the most interesting feature ov this remarkable bugg is the lovelyness ov their natures. They kan’t bite nor sting, nor skratch, nor even jaw back. They are so amable that I hav even known them tew get stuck in the butter, and lay there all day, and not holler for help, and aktually die at last with a broken heart. To realize the meekness ov theze uncomplaining little cusses, let the philosophick mind just for one moment compare them to the pesky flea, who light upon man in hiz strength and woman in her weakness like a red hot shot, or to the warbling musketo, wild from a Nujersey cat-tail marsh, with hiz dagger in hiz mouth ackeing for blood; or, horror ov horrors! to the midnight bed bugg, who creeps out ov a crack az still and az lean az a shadow, and hitches on to the bosom ov buty like a starved leech. Every man haz a right to pick hiz playmates, but az for me, i had rather visit knee deep among cockroaches than to hear the dieing embers ov a single muskeeter’s song in the room jineing, or to know that thare waz just one bedbugg left in the world and he waz waiting for mi kandle to go out and for me to pitch into bed. In conclusion, to show that I aint fooling, i would be willing, if I had them, to swap ten fust class fleas any time for a small sized cockroach, and if the fellow complained that I had shaved him in the trade, I would return the cockroach and sware that we waz even. THE MULE. The mule is haf hoss and haf Jackass, and then kums tu a full stop, natur diskovering her mistake. [Illustration: THE MULE.] Tha weigh more, akordin tu their heft, than enny other kreetur, except a crowbar. Tha kant hear enny quicker, nor further than the hoss, yet their ears are big enuff for snow shoes. You kan trust them with enny one whose life aint worth enny more than the mules. The only wa tu keep the mules into a paster, is tu turn them into a medder jineing, and let them jump out. Tha are reddy for use, just as soon as they will du tu abuse. Tha haint got enny friends, and will live on huckle berry brush, with an ockasional chanse at Kanada thistels. Tha are a modern invenshun, i dont think the Bible deludes tu them at tall. Tha sel for more money than enny other domestik animile. Yu kant tell their age by looking into their mouth, enny more than you kould a Mexican cannons. Tha never hav no dissease that a good club wont heal. If tha ever die tha must kum rite tu life agin, for i never herd noboddy sa “ded mule.”