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THE DANGERS OF PIE. — A reporter of the " New York Times" has published a tale of a Pittsburg bur glar, who was detected by means of a copy in plaster of the impression of his teeth on a pie, found on the premises, from which he had taken a bite. This should be a lesson to persons of his profession not to be hasty, or to employ one of the forks which they carry away, or to eat the whole pie. At the same time the incident furnishes an answer to Ralph Waldo Emerson's question to his guest who declined pie at breakfast: " What is pie for?" — it is to detect bur glars. Professor Webster was detected by means of his victim's artificial teeth. But in the case of the pie-eating burglar there must have been a forcible comparison of the cast with his teeth, and thus, as we conceive, a violation of his constitutional immunity against furnishing evidence to convict himself. This poor fellow was a victim to his piety.
THE IMPAIRED OYSTERS. (Sheffer v. Villoughby, 61 Illinois Appellate, 263; 163 Ill. 518; 34 L. R. A. 464.) Maggie Sheffer, for a dinner Sought defendant's restaurant, Hesitating not to pin her Faith on that enticing haunt; Ordered there a stew of oysters, Succulent, and smelling good, Quite enough in frugal cloisters To sustain the monkish brood. But those oysters took to rising, Like uneasy employees; Yith vivacity surprising, Leaped from their imprisoned seas, Left the artless, trusting Maggie Feverish, with retching sore, Pallid, tottering, and baggy, Scarcely fit to reach the door. When she from her pains recovered, Sued she for this grievous tort, Round about the court she hovered, With the waiting, anxious sort, Till from lower court ejected, As when Eve, the devil's sport, Ate the apple, she expected Justice from an appellate court. But the learned Justice (¡ary, O'er that midway court presiding, By experience made wary, Said, the plaintiff's claim deriding: "That defendant here was careless There is not the least pretence, If I sit here till I'm hairless, I must deem that a defense. Is a woman selling candy,
Nuts or apples at bridge-end, or Italian, with his cart so handy, A street- corner pop-corn vendor,
Liable, if any buyer, Eating, feels within his stomach A sensation as of fire, And a nauseating hummock? The defendant's no insurer Of the quality of food. Maggie therefore must endure her Pangs of indigestion rude." Out of court she goes quite wilted, Countenance and spirits droop, Her hat-feathers downward tilted, Practically " in the soup." Mr. Abbott, her attorney, Growing pale and long of face, Is advised to take a journey, Having first thrown up the case. Maggie's stomach now is easy, But there's settling still to make For the costs and counsel fees he Is awarded for her sake.
FUR ET LATRO. — In Austin Dobson's third series of his agreeable " Eighteenth Century Vignettes" is given the following, from "A Sermon [in Paules Church] of god's fearefull threatenings for Idolatrye . . . with a Treatise against Usurie," by Richarde Porder, 1570: "I remember a tale concerning a theefe that was indyted of félonie, for robbing by the highe wayes syde, and being indyted by the name of iMtro was condemned by ye name of Fur, for which the theefe quarrelled, and sayde the Judge had done him wrong. And when he would not cease exclama tion, Mayster Skelton, the Poet, being a maister of wordes, and cunning in Grammar, was called to de clare the difference between fur and latro, whose an swer was that he saw no great difference between/w and latro, saving this, that /иг did sit on the bench, and /л/rostoode at the barre." Which goes to show that the clergy were just as credulous in those days as now. Imagine a lawyer calling in a poet to explain the difference between technical legal Latin words! Hut the pun was good. MORE OF DICKENS' ANIMALS.— It seems that we overlooked a pair of Dickens' animals in our late re marks on that topic. Tim Linkinwater's blind black bird, in •• Nicholas Nickleby," is not an independent or influential character, but he serves to show the broad humanity of the great creative master, who "loved both man and bird and beast." I5ut in the same novel we have a glimpse of a more interesting animal, the pony appertaining to Mr. Vincent Crumm ier, the theatrical manager, and •* who, like a good many human beings, was more remarkable for his an cestry than on his own account. He drew a cart rather than "a house." He was, to summarize Dickens' de scription in his own language, a strange, four-legged
