Our Sunday newspapers, to my mind, rank among the greatest institutions of the present day. One finds in them matter that could not be found in several hundreds of books,--beautiful thoughts, broad intelligence, a range of information perfectly startling in its usefulness and perfectly charming in its entertainment. Contrast, please, how we are enabled by their good offices to spend the Sabbath, with the descriptions of hell with all its terrors and all the gloom characterizing the Sabbaths our forefathers had to spend. The Sunday newspaper is an absolute blessing to the American people, a picture gallery, short stories, little poems, a symposium of brain and intelligence and refinement and--divorce proceedings. As I have said, the good will and the fair treatment of the American press have nearly always been my lot. There have been some misguided people who have said harsh things, but when I remember all the misguided things I have done, I am inclined to be charitable for their shortcomings. I do not know that I have anything else to say, except that I wish you all good luck and sunshine and prosperity, and enough of it to last you through a long life. THE CIRCULATION OF OBSCENE LITERATURE. * From "Ingersoll As He Is," by E. M. Macdonald. "ONE of the charges most persistently made against Colonel Ingersoll is that during and after the trial of D. M. Bennett, persecuted by Anthony Comstock, the Colonel endeavored to have the law against sending obscene literature through the mail repealed. That the charge is maliciously false is fully shown by the following brief history of events connected with the prosecution of D. M. Bennett, and Mr. Ingersoll's efforts in his behalf.... "After Mr. Bennett's arrest in 1877, he printed a petition to Congress, written by T. B. Wakeman, asking for the _repeal or modification_ of Comstock's law by which he expected to stamp out the publications of Freethinkers.... "The connection of Mr. Ingersoll with this petition is soon explained. Mr. Ingersoll knew of Comstock's attempts to suppress heresy by means of this law, and when called upon by the Washington committee in charge of the petition, he allowed his name to go on the petition for modification, but he told them distinctly and plainly that he was _not_ in favor of the _repeal_ of the law, as he was willing and anxious that obscenity should be suppressed by all legal means. His sentiments are best expressed by himself in a letter to the _Boston Journal_. He says: "'Washington, March 18, 1878. "'To the Editor of the Boston Journal: "'My attention has been called to the following article that recently appeared in your paper: