I will exchange postmarks and French stamps for any American and European stamps except English and Canadian. To any one who will send me ten stamps, all different, I will send by return mail twenty postmarks.
Willie Gurnett,
Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada.
I live near Niagara Falls. I have a white pony. She is very gentle, and can do a great many tricks. She will lie down and let me get on her back.
I take Young People, and like it so much I can hardly wait from one week till the next for it. I would like to exchange specimens of rock from Niagara Falls for shells or sea-weed. I would also like to exchange coins. I am eleven years of age.
Harry Symmes,
The Grove, Drummondville,
Near Niagara Falls, Canada.
E. McGarrah.—It is said that Robert Burns, when a youth of nineteen, became acquainted with Douglas Grahame, an honest farmer who lived at Shanter, and who afterward figured as Tam o' Shanter in the wonderful poem of that name. A merry story told of Grahame by his friends served as the material which Burns long afterward turned to such good account. The original story was as follows: Grahame had a friend named John Davidson, the Souter Johnnie of the poem, with whom he often made merry when in town on market-day, frequently lingering so late at night as to cause severe displeasure to the good dame waiting at home. It happened once, when returning later than usual, on a very dark, stormy night, Grahame had the misfortune to lose his "bonnet," or cap, in which was all the money he had made that day at the market. Fearing the scolding which he knew awaited him, he took advantage of his wife's superstition and credulity, and invented a terrible story of a band of witches which had appeared to him at Alloway Kirk, and from which he had barely escaped with his life. The dame was satisfied with his explanation, and gave thanks for the miraculous preservation of her husband. Honest Douglas Grahame, however, quietly returned by daylight to Carrick Hill, where he was fortunate enough to find his "bonnet" and money safe in the bushes near the Bridge of Doon. Grahame and Davidson, the originals of Tam o' Shanter and Souter Johnnie, are buried in the church-yard at Kirkoswald.
Mansfield.—In earliest times skins, cattle, corn, and other articles were used as money. According to Homer, certain numbers of oxen were paid for the armor of warriors; and even our modern word pecuniary, the etymology of which is traced directly to the Latin word pecus; signifying cattle, is a convincing proof that those beasts were used as money by the ancient Romans.
Precious metals were also given and taken in payment at a very early age. Abraham is represented in Genesis as coming up out of Egypt "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold," and payments made in so many pieces or shekels of silver are frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. It is supposed that at this period the precious metal was in the form of lumps of different weights, but bore no stamp. Wrought jewels are also mentioned as serving for money.