Daniel Webster. The following anecdote of the great Massachusetts statesman has never before appeared in print:
One day, Clay, Webster and Calhoun met upon the steps of the Capitol. Mr. Clay ventured to remark, in his most affable style, that it looked like rain. Calhoun looked wise, but said nothing. Evidently he took in the whole situation at a glance. It was a crisis for Webster. Carefully laying his thumb behind the third brass button of his blue coat, he gazed from out of those cavernous eyes and grandly uttered these prophetic words: "No, gentlemen, the American people will never forsake the Constitution. We shall have fair weather."
And so it proved.
Alonzo Savage. This time it was the pupil who put the question. The Sabbath-school teacher encouraged her children to bring each a Scripture question to be propounded to the class. Alonzo Savage said he would like to be told why St. Stephen was like a thanksgiving raisin? He allowed it was because they stoned him.
That boy has grown up and entered on a career of usefulness. He gets steady wages as a railroad brakeman, and last week he celebrated his golden wedding. All because Alonzo was faithful at Sabbath-school.
Sarsfield Young.
THE CANADIANS.
A New York oracle, discoursing lately upon Canadian affairs, concludes that American ideas are pervading that region because the people speak of "baggage" and take the right hand in driving on the road. Having traveled somewhat in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and "the Island," I have never heard the term "baggage" used there except by Americans, as they call people from the States. The word is invariably "luggage" in hotels, steamers and stage-wagons. On the road all the people in those provinces whom I met took the left hand, and if any one should attempt to deviate from this old custom of England, he would surely come to grief. When Canadians take greenbacks at par, or make their morning porridge of corn instead of oats, perhaps they may be ready for those other innovations.
What causes the curious difference between the people on the two sides of the boundary-line? for a difference exists in customs, in appearance and in the tones of the voice. It has been a favorite theory that the New England thinness of fibre and sharpness of voice came from the harsh climate and piercing winds; but in Canada the climate is more severe, and the winds are as piercing, yet the faces and forms of the people are rounder and more robust, and their voices, especially those of the women, have a soft and mellow intonation very different from those of their cousins in New England. The customs and habits are also different. In Canada one sees little of the hurried life of the States, always at high pressure. The people take life more easily than we do, and look less anxious. Do these differences arise from different political institutions, and are the burdens of life greater in a republic than under a monarchy?
C.