PUZZLES PROBLEMS and

CHARADE.

No. I.

I am composed of 8 letters.

My 9, 2, 11, 3, is a small piece of confec- My 6, 4, 8, must have three to make it.

tionery.

My 17, 13, is a denial.

My 1, 8, 4, only a couple.

My 7, 4, 2, wants one to make a thousand.

My 1, 16, 15, is very useful in the study My 8, 2, 5, 3, is the humblest of beings, of geography. and a 66 great conqueror." My 7, 18, 5, 10, is a musical instrument. My whole, no man, woman, or child ever My 14, 6, belongs to me. saw; it fact it is not, nor ever was.

My 17, 8, 12, 4, implies something pleasing.

ILLUSTRATED REBUS.-No. 3.

C. H. W.

1. What is that which is so brittle that, | 4. Why is an amiable and beautiful girl like

if you only name it, you are sure to break it?

2. Why is a Hebrew in a fever like a dia

mond ring?

one letter in deep thought, another approaching you, a third bearing a torch, and a fourth singing psalms ? 5. Why do we buy shoes?

3. What is the loftiest island in the world? 6. Why are hot rolls like a caterpillar ?

28. When it is reserved.

29. Because it has been repressed. 30. A-gate. 30. Man's inhumanity to man makes countless

thousands mourn. [(Man's in human eye) T 2 (man) make (scow) n t less thousands (mower) n.]

31. But screw your courage to the sticking point

IN

IN this cosey corner we propose to have a little familiar talk from time to time with the great multitude of our dear young friends, and to make a few occasional notes, in the way of comment or reply, to such of the letters we receive as seem to require particular attention. It is quite impossible that, even here and in this brief way, all the letters which our kind correspondents send can be answered, or even acknowledged, for those letters amount to many hundreds every month, and a simple record of them would fill up more pages than can be spared from subjects that are more important and more generally interesting. These hosts of little writers must take it for granted that the chubby post-boy whose picture is at the top of this page brings us safely all the letters they intrust to him, and that every day we sit down and examine the big pile he tumbles out of his satchel, reading with pleasure every expression of interest that we find there, and welcoming every contribution and every offer of help gladly, although we are not able to do more than read and feel gratified with most of them. Why, the letters that come about the "Evening Lamp' each month would almost fill a half-bushel!-so let none of all the anxious and hopeful little readers wonder or grieve that their offerings are not printed. Out of such a vast number we have to select what seem to us the best, (and this is no easy task, but one which occupies many hours and much thought,) because the readers of the Magazine must have the very best which we can find for them. We are just as much obliged for the hundreds which we have to lay aside, as for the tens which we think it well to print. It is not so much the great excellence of what is presented to us, as the kind-hearted desire to give us help and their fellow-readers pleasure, although expressed in the rudest and most unpresentable way, which gives us delight in our correspondents. Let it be further remembered, O beloved young folks, that your efforts to prepare something worthy of our acceptance do you just as much benefit, if the result does not quite reach our standard of excellence, as if it were one of the best things in a whole volume; and that we all, young and old, should always try to do desirable and pleasant things for the simple sake of the good that is in them, not on account of any satisfaction or advantage that may afterward be derived

from them.

F. N. C. writes thus: "I send you a line for the Evening Lamp' department of your Magazine, if you deem it worthy. The curiosity of it is, you will perceive, that the letters composing it are in the same order whether read backwards or forwards: Hannah he won not ere we were ton; now eh, Hannah?' The sentence is correct grammatically, and contains twelve more letters than 'Lewd did I live & evil I did dwel,' the author of which offered a reward to any one who would produce a similar line." This is ingenious, but does not fulfil the conditions of the original, which could not only be read both ways, but made good sense, as this does not, being only a collection of words. Who will do better?

THE EDITORS.

Irene (who does not date her letter) sends us a little story and two pieces of verse, which she hopes are good enough to be published. We wish they were, for they are quite nicely done; but Irene and all beginners must remember that they come in competition with the most skilful writers in the country when they offer us their compositions, and that they can no more expect to do as well with their heads as grown and practised persons, than to do as much and as efficient work with their hands as stout and capable men and women.

H. sends from Lancaster, Mass., a sketch called "Bessie's Birthday," which is very clever, but is of too personal a character for so large an audience

as ours.

MAN went through the village one day driving a load of posts. By and by he stopped and threw one of them down by the roadside. A good lady saw him from her window, and said to herself, "Why, here is a kind-hearted man indeed! He is lightening his load because he thinks it too heavy for his horses." Presently he threw off another post. "The kindest-hearted man I ever saw!" soliloquized the lady; but the small boys following him saw that he kept lightening his load till it was quite gone, and a line of white posts lay along the roadside as far as they could see. "Mitter Anner, what all them thticks for?" said inquisitive young Archie; but, without waiting for a reply, he hurried off to new wonders. Three other men came up with shovel and scoop, and various tools, and they scooped out deep holes, and set up the posts in them, and marched on. One of these holes they left unfilled over night, and when they were gone I went out and looked down into the deep round cavity, and there at the bottom sat merry, mischievous little Puck, and winked up at me with his saucy bright

eyes.

And who is Puck? O, a funny hobgoblin that promised three hundred years ago to put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes, and who seems sometimes seriously to be setting himself to the task, and again, in

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICK NOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.