HOW THE DUCKS WERE TAUGHT.--An officer in the British navy tells us that on one of his voyages, he saw a Chinaman, who kept ducks for a living, practise an odd piece of ingenuity. In the daytime the ducks were permitted to float about on the river, but at nightfall they were carefully collected. The keeper, when it began to grow dark, gave a whistle, when the ducks always flew towards him with violent speed, so they were all invariably safe at home in less than a minute. How do you suppose he had educated his flock so effectually? He always beat the last duck. "DINNA FORGET": A NEW YEAR'S SERMON. BY "MEDICUS" (DR. GORDON STABLES, M.D., C.M., R.N.). "Her air, her manners, all who saw admired; Courteous though coy, and gentle though refined. The joy of youth and health her eyes displayed, And ease of heart her every look conveyed." This well-known magazine of ours, the dear old "G. O. P.," is read wherever in this wide world the English language is understood, and it is this very fact that puzzles and worries me a good deal when I am commencing to write a paper for my readers. You see it is like this: things I may say, and advice I may give, may not suit everyone, as the "G. O. P." finds its way into cottage as well as mansion-house. I have seen its welcome face while travelling in my caravan, in many a stately home in England and in many a feudal castle in bonnie Scotland; and I know too it is read by the farmer's fireside in this country and by the ingle-side in the far north, when the snow-wind goes howthering round the house and mourns in the chimney like the sound of sea and wind on a surf-beaten shore. And I "dinna forget" either that I have many thousands of lassies in the city, who have but little time to open it till eventide or even till Sunday itself. Nor do I forget that the things I tell girls at home here to do, may not altogether apply to those in Australia or Africa. Never mind, I try to do my best. Who can do more? And now, first and foremost, I must wish you all a very healthy New Year. This is from my heart. Dinna forget that. For, if you have health, you are bound to have happiness, so long as shocks of grief and real sorrow keep aloof. Even then, if you are strong, you will be better able to withstand these, than if you were chicken-hearted and weakly. There is one symptom of weakness, by the way, that is often over-looked. A girl may be as fresh and bonnie as a thistle or a rose, yet if she is too sensitive and too sentimental she cannot be really well. Over-sensitiveness may be caused in a good many ways, but it is very apt to lead on to hysteria, and this is a very serious ailment. NOT GOING TO REPEAT. I am not going to repeat to you all the various rules of health I have already, in these columns, laid down scores of times, for the very best of dishes may be served up once too often.