COMBINATION COT AND STEP-LADDER.--We have had lots of clever inventions for saving room in small houses, but the most original is certainly this combination of a bed and a step-ladder. It should prove a very useful article where the occupant of the bed is a light sleeper and doesn't mind having to get up when the step-ladder is needed. It might also be useful in very large families where chairs were scarce. By day it could be stood upright, and the children roosted on its various steps. By night the little brood could come down from their perches, the steps be laid lengthwise, and the family put to bed on the cot. With the addition of a strong wire spring attached to an alarm clock, it should also make an excellent servants' bed. [Illustration] At 6:30 every morning the alarm would work the spring, and the bed immediately be transformed into a pair of steps. This would promote habits of punctuality and early rising in domestic servants that would be invaluable to them. It is true that they might resent the invention, and leave the situation, but the mistress would still have the combination bed for the newcomer. It would be an invaluable article for house decorators and paper-hangers. They could use it as a step-ladder until they got tired of working, and then turn it over and sleep on it until they were rested. In fact, the uses of this combination cot and step-ladder are infinite. It seems to be an article that no well-regulated family can do without. * * * * * "The Great Round World" PRIZE CONTEST THE GREAT ROUND WORLD is now over six months old, and it feels some anxiety to know just how much interest its readers have taken in the news and how much information they have gained from its pages. To ascertain this, it has been decided to offer ten prizes for the best answers to the following: =Name ten of the most important events that have been mentioned in "The Great Round World" in the first 30 numbers, that is, up to number of June 3d.= _In mentioning these events give briefly reasons for considering them important._ This competition will be open to subscribers only, and any one desiring to enter the competition must send to this office their name and the date of their subscription; a number will then be given them. All new subscribers will be furnished with a card entitling them to enter the competition. In making the selection of important events, remember that wars and political events are not necessarily the most important. If, for instance, the air-ship had turned out to be a genuine and successful thing, it would have been most important as affecting the history of the world. Or if by chance the telephone or telegraph had been invented in this period, these inventions would have been _important_ events.