take refuge in a hole in the bank of a creek. We rather dreaded the task of following him through all this mud and filth; but, as a last resort, rather than let him have all the poultry, or allow him to continue his depredations at pleasure, we waded through the mud down to his den and dug into his hiding place; and when he was struck on the head with the back of a hoe, he too was terribly shocked.

Now this little animal was not, as may be supposed by some, one of the "common or unclean," but he was one of the elite, a regular society mink. He was covered with very fine fur, but had his stomach filled with stolen chickens. I leave the application to all to whom these presents may come, GREETING. When I want to buy a hat, I never take one unless it fits me.

More or less of the girls participating in the dance are engaged to be married, and great effort is made to keep this a profound secret, so she very naturally has every man for a partner except her intended. Here is music in the back-ground, if her intended is present, and he is sure to be there if he is in striking distance—if he is not down with typhoid fever or in prison.

This music is in his heart, in the nature of clamoring for blood, by a legion of different sized devils. It may be there is not one man in the room that would have his girl under any consideration whatever, but he imagines that they all want her. The female outfit for the ball consists of girls and a number of young married women, and some a little older, and some old women, forty to fifty years old, with grown children, false teeth, false hair, and bloats to swell out their wrinkled cheeks, and they, too, are dressed in the fashion with red ribbons, and blue and green; these furnish the disgust for the occasion—and one of them has been known to furnish disgust enough for a city of ten thousand inhabitants, and of the very best quality. Let us return to the basket containing the young married people, and examine the fruit therein. Reader, did you ever see the young married woman watching her husband as he glides up and down in the merry dance, with an old sweetheart in his arms? If you never did, the first opportunity you have, take a good look at a cat's eyes in the dark and in imagination transfer them to the young wife's head, and you will have a very correct idea of how sweet and amiable she looks.

Who among the living will ever forget that poor unfortunate girl, in the State of Georgia, who was assassinated in the ball room by a jealous young wife? The civilized world was shocked by the announcement of this terrible tragedy, which was purely the fruit of the ball room. These parties were not of the low and vulgar, but were of the society people of the age. How many husbands have in the same way and for the same cause had all the baser, brutish passions aroused to such an extent as to have their reasoning faculties dethroned, and have been driven by the raging devils within to commit many of the greatest, most shameful and most disgraceful crimes that ever blackened the records of a criminal court? How many have cursed and abused their wives while on the way home from the ball room? How many, after their arrival at home, have used their superior physical strength in abusing their wives in a most shameful and disgraceful manner? How much of all this was the result of a frenzied imagination, and not for any real misconduct? How many of all these cruel wrongs and outrages are never known except by the parties themselves? How many fathers and mothers have neglected their children by leaving them in incompetent and unsafe hands, while they spent the night in the ball room? How many husbands have left their wives, in poor health, sometimes sick in bed, with two or three little children crying around them, while they have spent the night in the ball room dancing with other women? How many men and women, and especially women, from physical and mental causes superinduced by the effects of the ball room, have been driven to madness, and have thus become inmates of insane asylums, or have deliberately taken their own lives? O! for the pen of a Milton or a Pollock! But this would not suffice, because these questions can only be answered at the Judgment Bar of God, when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known.

THEY WILL BE ANSWERED THEN.

How many girls have innocently and ignorantly killed themselves, or have sown the seed of some terrible lingering disease, by checking the course of nature, by bathing or otherwise, in their preparation for the ball room, which they would not have done to attend any other place? How many women, all over the country, are suffering the pangs of death from this cause alone?

One of the handsomest and most accomplished girls I ever knew, at the age of eighteen, ignorantly killed herself in this way. I know through physicians of many others who have wrecked their health in the same way. Let the invalids among the women tell their physicians the truth, and then let the physicians and the graves speak out, and the world would be horror-stricken at the awful report. Whiskey has slain its thousands, but the ball, the hop, the dance, its tens of thousands.

In this connection I wish to give young men some wholesome advice, which, if observed, will keep them out of a great deal of trouble, and save the payment of a great many bills. Whenever you hear that an old clock, an old carriage, an old saw-mill, an old steamboat, or a woman or girl who is passionately fond of dancing is on the market, be certain to remain in bed or get the sheriff, which is much safer, to put you in jail until these articles are disposed of. I respectfully refer to all who have had any of these articles knocked off on them.

When the ball closes, the young men take the girls to their homes. In a little while the girls—darling angels—are in the land of dreams, but they certainly never dream that they have been "sowing the seeds of eternal shame, sowing the seeds of a maddened brain." They never dream that they are responsible for all the sins and crimes that flow from the ball room, BUT THEY CERTAINLY ARE, because if they would not go to these places, there never would be another ball or hop or dance upon the face of all the earth.

MEN WILL NOT DANCE BY THEMSELVES.

If they do, they will not injure any one but themselves, and they will be certain not to keep late hours. While the girls are dreaming, the young men are assembling at some favorite room or corner down in town. If Jim gets there first he waits for Bill, and then they wait for Jack, Bob, Ben, Charlie and the balance of the club. When they are all in, one or two of the older ones propose to go across the way and take a drink at the corner saloon, which is still in blast; yes, running at a full head of steam, or rather mean whiskey. Now here is a very strange thing. I have never heard of but one first-class saloon closing until after the ball closed, and in this case the owner was very sick and the bar-tender had skipped with the cash balance. Some of these boys have been taught by their old-fogy fathers and mothers that such things are not to be found on the straight and narrow road, because there is no room for them along this road, and no use for them either.

I have carefully examined my way-bill to heaven, and it was made out by one who knows every foot of the way, but I find no mention made of drinking saloons, ball rooms, theaters, operas, houses of ill-fame, and such like places as being on or near this road. The same one has furnished me a way-bill to hell, and I find all these places mentioned as being on the line of this road. Whenever you find yourself, dear reader, at one of these places, you may know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are not in the narrow road; and with equal certainty you may know you are in the broad road. Now these boys are evidently on the broad road, because the devil's sutler-shops are not to be found anywhere