Farmer and the Merchant

appear in court and the latter, after trying for a short adjournment, obtains the postponement of the case for a week, when the farmer again, and at considerable expense, makes his bow before the Magistrate, who, after hearing his evidence and recording "no appearance" of the defendant, gives judgment for the amount claimed. Those who find the subject dry may take out their pocket pistols, while they give a thankful thought at the triumph of bucolic virtue over urban vice. But, unfortunately for our hero, he finds, on smilingly pre seating himself before the clerk to lift the spoil, that the merchant has just persuaded the magistrate to grant a re-hearing on the plea that he was away in the country, and could not reach the court in time to defend the case. The farmer's lawyer puts ft a question in such a way to his client as to make it appear that he did not offer the barley to the merchant, "Oh, that alters the case altogether," judgment is reversed, and the virtuous farmer returns like Cincinnatus to his plough. Now, if that farmer is correct in his statement that the lawyer who took his retainer had the merchant for a permanent client, we must unite in thinking that private enterprise does not at present sufficiently protect agricultural interests.

Sir Walter Scott is accused of having destroyed the memory of a nervous boy, in his class at school, by cutting off a particular trouper button which his opponent invariably fondled when he successfully answered any question that had mastered Master Walter. If you will kindly imagine the nervous boy to be your mortgagee, while you occupy the place of Scott, and the button represents the excessive rate of interest, you are at present paying, you may be indulgent while I perform the dry task of showing how I propose to cut the button off in a