for the remainder of my discourse. Impute it, I beseech you, to no defect of modesty if I insist a little longer on so fruitful if I insist a little longer on a topic as my own multifarious merits. It is altogether for your good. The better you think of me, the better men and women you will find yourselves. I shall say nothing of my allimportant aid on washing-days, though on that account alone I might call myself the household god of a hundred families. Far be it from me, also, to hint, my respectable friends, at the ahow of dirty faces which you would present without my pains 10 to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, town, togeth you have fled to the town-pump and found me always at my post firm amid the confusion and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth while to lay much 15 stress on my claims to a medical diploma as the physician whose simple rule of practice is preferable to all the nauseous lore which has found men sick, or left them so, since the days of Hippocrates. Let us take a broader view of my beneficial influence on mankind.

20

-art

No; these are trifles, compared with the merits which wise men concede to me-if not in my single self, yet as the representative of a class-of being the grand reformer of the age. From my spout, and such spouts as mine, must flow the stream that shall cleanse our earth of the vast portion of its crime and 25 anguish which has gushed from the fiery fountains of the still. In this mighty enterprise the cow shall be my great confederate. Milk and water-the TowN-PUMP and the Cow! Such is the glorious copartnership that shall tear down the/distilleries and brewhouses, uproot the vineyards, shatter the cider-presses, 30 ruin the tea and coffee trade, and finally monopolize the whole

business of quenching thirst. Blessed consummation! Then Poverty shall pass away from the land, finding no hovel so wretched where her squalid form may shelter herself. Then Disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw its own heart and 35 die. Then Sin, if she do not die, shall lose half her strength.

Until now the frenzy of hereditary fever has raged in the human blood, transmitted from sire to son and rekindled in every generation by fresh draughts of liquid flame. When that inward fire shall be extinguished, the heat of passion cannot but grow 5 cool, and war-the drunkenness of nations-perhaps will cease At least, there will be no war of households. The husband and wife, drinking deep of peaceful joy-a calm bliss of temperate affections shall pass hand in hand through life and lie down not reluctantly at its protracted close. To them the past will 10 be no turmoil of mad dreams, nor the future an eternity of such moments as follow the delirium of the drunkard. Their dead faces shall express what their spirits were and are to be by a lingering smile of memory and hope.

Ahem! Dry work, this speechifying, especially to an unprac15 tised orator. I never conceived till now what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my sake; hereafter they shall have the business to themselves.-Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet my whistle.-Thank you, sir!-My dear hearers, when the world shall have been regenerated by 20 my instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquorcasks into one great pile and make a bonfire in honor of the town-pump. And when I shall have decayed like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain richly sculptured take my place upon this spot. Such monu25 ments should be erected everywhere and inscribed with the names of the distinguished champions of my cause. Now, listen, for something very important is to come next.

There are two or three honest friends of mine-and true friends I know they are-who nevertheless by their fiery pug30 nacity in my behalf do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even a total overthrow upon the pavement and the loss of the treasure which I guard.—I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance and take up the honorable cause of 35 the town-pump, in the style of a toper fighting for his brandy

bottle? Or can the excellent qualities of cold water be no otherwise exemplified than by plunging slapdash into hot water and woefully scalding yourselves and other people? Trust me, they may. In the moral warfare which you are to wage-and, 5 indeed, in the whole conduct of your lives-you cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never permitted the dust and sultry atmosphere, the turbulence and manifold disquietudes, of the world around me to reach that deep, calm well of purity which may be called my soul. And whenever I pour 10 out that soul, it is to cool earth's fever or cleanse its stains.

One o'clock! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, I may as well hold my peace. Here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband while drawing her water, as Rachel 15 did of old!-Hold out your vessel, my dear! There it is, full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher as you go, and forget not in a glass of my own liquor to drink "SUCCESS TO THE TOWN-PUMP.”

Runi

HELPS TO STUDY.

Notes and Questions.

Why do you think the author
selected noon as the time for
the Town-Pump's speech?
Show what claim the Pump has
to the various offices which he
says he holds.

What different classes of persons
are represented as coming to
the Pump?

What animals quench their thirst there?

Which one of these pictures do

you see most plainly?

What story does the Pump tell?

What does he mean by the "gem
of the wilderness ''?
Where is it now treasured?
What does the pump say is the

moral of his story?

What does he show to be the best way to bring about any needed reform?

Why may the Town-Pump as well hold his peace when the dinner bell speaks?

Does the speech of the Pump

sound natural, that is, as if someone were really talking? What does the title mean?

"According to the most authentic records, my dear children," said Grandfather, "the chair about this time had the misfortune to break its leg. It was probably on account of this accident that it ceased to be the seat of the governors of Massachusetts, for, 5 assuredly, it would have been ominous of evil to the commonwealth if the chair of state had tottered upon three legs. Being therefore sold at auction-alas! what a vicissitude for a chair that had figured in such high company!-our venerable friend was knocked down to a certain Captain John Hull. This old 10 gentleman, on carefully examining the maimed chair, discovered that its broken leg might be clamped with iron and made as serviceable as ever."

"Here is the very leg that was broken!" exclaimed Charley, throwing himself down on the floor to look at it. "And here are 15 the iron clamps. How well it was mended!"

When they had all sufficiently examined the broken leg Grandfather told them a story about Captain John Hull and

THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS.

The Captain John Hull aforesaid was the mint-master of 20 Massachusetts, and coined all the money that was made there. This was a new line of business, for in the earlier days of the

5

colony the current coinage consisted of gold and silver money
of England, Portugal, and Spain. These coins being scarce, the
people were often forced to barter their commodities instead of
selling them.

For instance, if a man wanted to buy a coat, he perhaps ex-
changed a bear-skin for it. If he wished for a barrel of molasses,
he might purchase it with a pile of pine boards Musket bullets lit
were used instead of farthings. The Indians had a sort of money
called wampum, which was made of clam-shells, and this strange
10 sort of specie was likewise taken in payment of debts by the
English settlers. Bank-bills had never been heard of. There
was not money enough of any kind, in many parts of the coun-
try, to pay the salaries of the ministers, so that they sometimes
had to take quintals of fish, bushels of corn, or cords of wood
15 instead of silver or gold.

As the people grew more numerous and their trade one with another increased, the want of current money was still more sensibly felt. To supply the demand the general court passed a law for establishing a coinage of shillings, sixpences, and three20 pences. Captain John Hull was appointed to manufacture this money, and was to have about one shilling out of every twenty to pay him for the trouble of making them

Hereupon all the old silver in the colony was handed over to Captain John Hull. The battered silver cans and tankards, 25 I suppose, and silver buckles, and broken spoons, and silver buttons of worn-out coats, and silver hilts of swords that had figured at court,-all such curious old articles were doubtless thrown into the melting-pot together But by far the greater part of the silver consisted of bullion from the mines of South 30 America, which the English buccaneers-who were little better than pirates—had taken from the Spaniards and brought to Massachusetts.

다

All this old and new silver being melted down and coined, the result was an immense amount of splendid shillings, six35 pences, and threepences. Each had the date 1652 on the one