From the ages of five to 21 years every child's mind resembles a camera. The eye and ear work like lenses, and the brain stores up imagery of the unhealthful as well as the helpful things with which a child comes in contact. Time develops this negative, and in nine cases out of ten a positive result is felt in later years.

As this is the case, the seed of future vice and violence is planted in many young brains by frequent contemplation of gayly colored, flaming posters.

These posters, depicting scenes in prisons, gambling dens, opium resorts, and of hairbreadth and wondrous escapes made from such places , instill in the young mind a harmful idea that if these poster folkds can so escape the grasp of the law surely they could to the same.

Many a boy has been influenced by these posters to such an extent that he has landed in prison. Not long ago there was a case in New York court where the little chap admitted that he had seen pictures of safebreaking on the billboards, and he though it would be fun to try it.

Here was the beginning of a criminal future. In all probability had that boy succeeded in his attempt a t robber the next instance would have been serious, and in later years he would have become a professional cracksman.

The Swedish savant Ryberg has suggested that the discovery of the element metargon in the air strengthens the theory of the existence of a universal atmosphere extending between the planets and throughout the solar system. This, it is said, was already known to exist in the sun before its discovery, some eight or nine yeas ago—that is, in the immediate surroundings of the sun, in all comets an in meteorites—from which facts the Swedish scientist infers that it constitutes a common atmosphere for our system.

It seems a very great pity that some determined effort cannot be made to make dancing more popular. Nowadays, when exercise is a kind of religion to men and women alike it is odd that one recommended by all doctors and recognized all the world over and in all ages as an attractive pastime, into which the art of fascination largely enters, should be more and more neglected among us.

There are two accounts of the origin of the expression "Mind your P's and Q's." According to one, it arose from the early method used in public houses of charging customers for the amount of beer they had consumed no credit. P stood for pint, Q for quart, and as the scores were settled weekly, it was necessary for the toper to watch his P's and Q's.

According to the other story, the phrase owes its origin to the difficulty the printer's devil has experienced from time immemorial in distinguishing between the lower case P's and Q's of the Roman type. The similarity between the two letters is so great, particularly when they are reversed as in the process of distributing, that the printer's apprentice is always warned by the foreman to "mind his P's and Q's."

One of the most false and possibly, for that reason, the most cherished, illusions of man is the idea that he chooses his own wife, says a writer in the New York World, when, as a matter of fact, he merely succumbs to a young person that has marked him for her own as inevitably as smallpox or the black hand.

The much-quoted statement that any woman can marry any man when she wants to like most other glittering generalities, lacks confirmation in fact. But it would be very much truer if the fair participants in the man hunt would devote their attention t oa particular man instead of wasting time in a scattering fire. Very often they undertake too much, and in trying to bring Tom, Dick and Harry to the proposal point at once fail with all three. The same amount of attention given to one of the trio would have convinced him that the dearest woman in the world might, with a great deal of persuasion, consent to marry him and make him the most blessed among his kind.

How this wonderful result is brought about only the girl knows—though very often she doesn't know, but is, like the selected husband, just and obedient pawn in the hands of her wise and elderly female relatives. For a homely girl with an experienced mother has just about 40 times as great a chance to capture a man as a pretty girl without one. The pretty orphan is frequently ingenious enough to think that the feminine role in courtship consists in breathing a whispered yes to the most favored of half a dozen ardent suitors, and so leaves to chance what the wiser maiden accomplishes by cold science.

Of course, only a widow has the science of man-trapping thoroughly mastered, and a new occupation might be furnished impecunious relicts if some kind philanthropists would only endow a school of courtship for women and employ the widows to give object lessons in subtle love-making ot the inexperienced of their sex.

However, to give reality to the lessons, men would probably have to take the passive parts in them, which fate assigns the prospective husbands in real life. And in this event the widows would probably gobble them up faster than the faculty could supply them. For any widow can marry any man she wants unless he is warned in time and has himself sentenced to life imprisonment in Sing Sing or Auburn in self-defense. And even then it would be by no means certain that she wouldn't get him.

We cannot all be widows, however, and those of us not of that privileged class can only cudgel our dull wits over the "preliminaries of marriage," as they were styled in the passionist father's address, and do the best we can in the serene anticipation that some time even our day of widow's weeds and wiles may dawn.

The tennis elbow, the bicycle foot, the clergyman's sore throat and all manner of disabilities that come from modern conveniences are familiar to us. The motor-omnibus voice was discovered by a young woman who was riding outside a motor-omnibus, and trying (as is her habit) to talk. And the horrible truth suddenly flashed on her mind, and from her lips. . . . "I c-c-can't keep-pip-pip my voice sut-tut-till."—The Reader

Maidstone, Sask., Canada,
Feb. 4, 1907

C. J. Broughton, Esq.,
Canadian Government Agent,
Chicago, Ill.

Dear Sir:

Being so well pleased with Canada we wish my father and brother to come here. Will you please send them reading matter on Canada.

We have been here nearly a year and are delighted with this country. We have lived in Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan and we find Canada away ahead of any of them. We have had bright sunshine all winter so far, only two nice, easy snow storms. If it was not all right you know I would not want my father and brother to come here, but we think it is grand.

Yours truly,
(Signed) Mrs. Ed. Troupe.