to ask for a con-acre of hay land. The paying
for it was another and an after consideration,
which was not worth being considered,
inasmuch as the con-acre was indispensable.

Tim was obliged to ask Mike for a con-
acre of hay land. Little funds as there were
left him, it galled him to do so. Mike
demanded for it sixteen pounds sterling an acre.

This is no fiction. It is the exact price
asked, on a certain occasion, for an acre of
land; nor is there anything in this narrative
unreal, except the proper names and the
scene. Tim scratched his hapless poll, and
though his tongue remained silent, his
countenance sufficiently told Mike:

"You have caught your old rival at a
'vantage, and you are taking it out of him
with merciless extortion!"

But Tim had no resource. He agreed, and
in writing, to pay the sixteen pounds, and
he put his name to the document which his
Shylock carefully insisted upon. Fortune
but too fully favoured the vindictive design
of Mike to crush Tim altogether, or to drive
him from the country. For, it so happened
that this season the potatoes, owing to
drought or other causes, completely failed on
hay land. Tim did not dig out enough to feed
a pig for a fortnight. He had to look
elsewhere for the winter provision of his family.
But, Mike was inexorable and demanded his
rent. The case—a well-known one—came
before the sessions at Tipperary, and it was
pleaded on both sides with Irish earnestness.
The bond, however, was there, and the law
was there; and give judgment for other than
Mike the magistrates could not. But, in
giving the award which sanctioned his claim,
and in giving him the power to enforce it, the
chairman, as was afterwards remarked,
observed to Mike that the sentence which
rendered him so triumphant, would infallibly
prove a sentence of death! The judge
himself said so!

There is no use in dwelling on the catastrophe.
Mike Doolan was carried home that
night, on a door, with six bullets through his
body. About two months afterwards Tim was
observed within sight of the American shore.
He had climbed the foremast to discern it, and
a heel of the vessel flung him overboard. His
handsome widow, much pitied, lived for many
years undisturbed at Kiltubby.

CHIPS.

MUNICIPAL LIGHTS.

IT was late and quite dark when we once
reached the town of Falaise, the birthplace
of William the Conqueror. As we drove to
the inn, we passed a lady walking home,
attended by a female servant, who carried a
lantern of such vast dimensions, and such
antique fashion, that it might have helped to
illuminate the castle the night William was
born there. But—our polite guide informed
us—the lantern, as well as the lady, was of
later date than that, somewhere in the Middle
Ages, he did not quite know when, and was
the offspring of the taste and genius of a
certain Mayor of Falaise, whose memory is
still revered by the citizens.

This Mayor was a long time sore troubled
that his people should walk about the streets
in the dark: it was a dangerous, an immoral,
an inexpressibly evil practice. Some one
suggested that lamps might be suspended
at the principal crossings and corners, whenever
moonlight happened to be scarce; but
he rejected the idea with horror, as a piece
of unheard-of innovation, in fact,
revolutionary. So, next morning, he caused the
town beadle to proclaim throughout the
streets, by beat of drum at every utterance
of the proclamation, the Mayor's advice, that
no citizen or citizeness of Falaise should walk
about at night without carrying a lantern
before him or her.

At night, the citizens and—esses obeyed
their chief magistrate. The streets were
filled with male and female promenaders.
Every one of them carried a lantern;—but
all was still as dark as before.

Next morning, the beadle gave another
peripatetic performance on the drum, as a
musical accompaniment to the words, "Every
citizen of Falaise shall, at night, in the streets,
carry a lantern with a candle in it.—Decreed
by the MAIRE."

That evening, the streets of Falaise would
have displayed a carnival, had there been any
light to make it visible. People, and lanterns,'
and candles were congregated, but all remained
in utter darkness.

The third day saw the series of proclamations
complete. The municipal power explained
its meaning in unmistakeable terms. The
beadle, proudly conscious that his rebellious
subjects were now in a state of complete siege,
and had no possible means of escape from the
utmost rigour of the law, fine, and imprisonment,
fiercely smote his soul-subduing drum, as
he ordained, in a voice like a speaking-trumpet
with a crack in it, in the noble name of the
Maire of Falaise, that, all people who walked
the streets at night should carry before them
—a lantern—with a candle in it—lighted.

PASS-WORDS THROUGH ALL THE
RUSSIAS.

LAPA, in Russian, means " claw." Lapaé
stands for to "gripe." Lapowe represents the
object or objects enclosed in a gripe. Any
man who thinks of travelling in Russia had
better learn these words by heart, and try to
understand them. The first is easy—lapa,
lapaé, lapowe—the claw, to gripe, the things
griped. But the last is not English! No
nor is the meaning attached to it. What is
lapowe?

The curious, the venturesome, or the
unfortunate, whom fate conducts to the Russian