Be careful to limit the amount of water and fluids which you take during meals, since large quantities of these, especially ice water, hinder digestion. Not more than one glass of water should be taken during each meal. In order to quench the thirst which is so apt to clamor for water at meals an eminent authority suggests taking a glass of hot water fifteen or thirty minutes before meals. This acts especially well in the morning, as it cleanses the stomach.

It cannot be said of the horse, as Heine said of the monkey, that it does not talk for fear of being put to work. Probably the ultimate degree to which the training of animals may be carried is reached in the case of the talking horse that literally made its bow to the public recently at the Crystal palace. Mazeppa is an Arab, educated, so to say, in America, and its extraordinary capacity for learning was manifested before an astonished and enthusiastic audience.

In the strict meaning of the word, the horse does not talk, but is capable of answering questions addressed to it. It even understands French or German when it hears it spoken, though it does not speak these languages, in which it is not less accomplished than some human beings. The animal not only appears to think, but is capable expressing itself intelligibly by signs. It has a special talent for arithmetic.

The audience was invited promiscuously to call out a number of figures which were arranged in rows on a blackboard, and Mazeppa, after looking over them, gave the sum of the addition by pawing the ground in every case the exact number of times necessary to indicate the result. As a mere trick this would be surprising enough; but, considering the figures were taken at random from among the audience, ladies and gentlemen, and, in particular, eager little boys, contributing, collusions seemed out the question, and Mazeppa's good faith was established by the still more remarkable achievement that followed.

The horse was directed to count the number of persons in given rows of the audience, and having done so more than once proceeded to indicate the number of women and the number of men in an particular row. Having passed this examination, Mazeppa stood forth to answer any question to which it was possible to give a reply directly, by means of a shake of the head, signifying either "Yes" or "No," or in figures. Thus, the day of the week and the month of the year, or the date of a birthday, revealed to the trainer, Professor H. S. McGuire, was promptly found by the horse, any attempt to deceive it meeting always with a decidedly emphatic negative.

This astounding entertainment concluded with an imitation by Mazeppa of a young man paying his addresses to a young lady. The horse's affectation of tenderness adds a very humorous touch to an excellent piece of pantomime. The sagacious Mazeppa is simply a wonder.—London News

Two Rochester women were discussing the subject of salads and their construction. The first said:

"Now, for lobster salad I always get a nice, live lobster that weighs about two pounds, and boil it nicely."

The second broke in with: "How do you kill the lobster? You know, I never buy live lobsters because I think it so inhuman to kill them by putting them into a kettle of hot water."

The first woman replied: "Oh, I never kill them that way; that would be too horrible. I always put them on cold water, and let them come to a boil."—Rochester Post-Express

A man who heard Abraham Lincoln speak in Norwich, Conn., some time before he was nominated for president, was greatly impressed by the closely knit logic of the speech. Meeting him next day on a train he asked him how he acquired his wonderful logical powers and such acuteness in analysis.

Lincoln replied: "It was my terrible discouragement which did that for me. When I was a young man, I went into an office to study law. I saw that a lawyer's business is largely to prove things. I said to myself, "Lincoln, when is a thing proved?' That was a poser. What constitutes proof? Not evidence; that was not the point. There may be evidence enough, but wherein consists the proof? I groaned ever the question and finally said to myself, 'Ah, Lincoln, you can't tell.' Then I thought what use is it for me to be in a law office if I can't tell when a thing is proved?

"So I gave it up and went back home. Soon after I returned to the old log cabin I fell in with a copy of Euclid. I had not the slightest notion of what Euclid was and I thought I would find out. I therefore began at the beginning, and before spring I had gone through the old Euclid's geometry and could demonstrate every proposition in the book. Then in the spring, when I had got through with it, I said to myself one day, 'Ah, do you know when a thing is proved?' and I answered, 'Yes, sir, I do. Then you may go back to the law shop,' and I went."—Exchange

An employee of a paper mill company, tired of hearing men boast of their importance, dug up the fact that, according to scientific investigation, the ingredients of a man, plus water, are as follows:

Fat enough for seven bars of soap.

Iron enough for a medium sized nail.

Sugar enough to fill a shaker.

Lime enough to whitewash a chicken coop.

Phosphorous enough to make 2200 match tips.

Magnesia enough for a dose of magnesia.

Potassium enough to explode a toy cannon.

Sulphur enough to rid a dog of fleas.

This whole collection is worth 98 cents, and that in a day when things are three times as high as they used to be.—Headlight

Tired, after numerous calls to patients, who had broken noses, broken heads or broken hearts, one of Director Beitler's police surgeons was waiting the other day at a street corner in the Fourth ward for a horse-car, says the Philadelphia Press. He is a martyr to cold feet, and, as the car did not arrive, his teeth began to chatter and he entered a near-by dry-goods store and said to the proprietor:

"Good morning, madame. May I wait in this store until my car arrives?"

"Faix, an' I don't know 'bout that. I don't want sthrange min in me shop. Git out!" said the woman addressed.

"But my feet are cold, and surely, in the name of charity—"

"Then war-r-m thim by walkin'. Git out!"

"Surely madame, you don't think I would steal anything. I could buy your store and all the rickety tenements around you, and have lots of money left over," said the surgeon, warmly.

"Steal, is it? Faix, but I'm not so sure of that," exclaimed his critic.

Just then the surgeon saw his horse-car coming and he opened fire on the woman as follows:

"You infinitesimal creature of a mundane sphere locked in the depths of your inexhaustibleness, you vassal of an inffamatory oligarchy, whose word is latitudinarianism. Oterque quarterque beati quis onte ora patrum, Trojae sub moenibus altis!"

For once in her life the virago was "floored," and she listened respectfully to the surgeon's Latin with her mouth open.

"Stay if ye wish, sur," she said at last, in quavering tones, "but don't swear in that way that makes me blood cur-r-dle!"

The surgeon fled. The woman had met her master.

Some years ago a plant was established near Lyons, France, for the manufacture of paving glass. Numerous descriptions of the new paving material were published, and a brilliant future was predicted for it. The city authorities of Lyons permitted the manufacturer to lay a specimen section of glass pavement in the Place de la Republique, a center for heavy traffic.

The glass bricks failed to stand the test of wear. The edges of them were soon broken and splintered, and many of the blocks split in two, so that in a short time it became necessary to remove the glass and substitute stone or wood. The city officials agreed that glass pavement can be used under favorable circumstances for sidewalks, but not for the middle of streets.