"camp," and compels us to look at the ethnological state of Cæsar's period more in the light of a camp-meeting.

The present Midsummer High Jinks are a decided improvement on the original article, which I have closely studied during my stay in Australia. By the kind recommendation of Captain Schenck, I received an invitation from the daughter of an Australian chief to assist her in arranging a cabinet of insects, which she carried about her through all the wanderings of her tribe. I accepted the invitation, arranged the collection, exchanged specimens, and, as the office of State Entomologist was already filled by an intelligent carpenter, I was received in the bosom of the tribe, obtained the right to vote and at the same time different degrees of relationship, with all the privileges otherwise only conceded to Irish cousins.

Owing to a failure of our crop of kangaroos, we had to live chiefly on missionaries. Whenever the supply was exhausted

war-whoop and then followed the example of the valorous chief and climbed each a gum-tree. We gained by this maneuver the most decided victory, because the horses of the enemy got frightened and ran away with the valorous warriors of the home guard, with the exception of a few bold men whose horses refused to run and took to kicking. Those men, after having made us a present of their horses, tried very hard to join the corps d'armée. We hoped they would succeed, and ate their horses. As these horses refused to talk, it will remain a mystery forever at whose instigation their fellow-horses ran from battle. I am certain it was no bribe from our side; perhaps it was a strike for higher wages.

Alas! those happy days are passed, and I am the only survivor of that once powerful tribe. The men have been shot by prejudiced shepherds and cattleherders; the unprotected females have served as food to their affectionate neighbors; and at present I am the only living man that

knows the grammar and spelling of their language.

Alexander von Humboldt mentions in his travels a certain parrot, the parrot of the Atures, who was the only being that talked the language of that extinct race. That is exactly my case. It remains now to draw a moral for you and administer the customary admonitions:

First, my dear Bohemian brethren, let us continue to celebrate this anniversary of the creation of the world;

Secondly, let us keep up the difference between the original Midsummer High Jinks and our present refined celebration by always laying in a good stock of good things; and

Thirdly, and finally, let us not become extinct.

I AM not here to discuss Christmas from a dogmatic point of view; that has been done by our most gracious Sire and other pulpits of this city. I am here to discuss a new side of the question-the commercial one. Christmas is the time when we are expected by the whole world to settle our bills, instead of running up new ones. A friend of mine, and at the same time one of the greatest authorities in Bohemian financiering, invented a new commercial system by not paying the old bills and letting the new bills grow old. It is his view on commerce which I am to develop here.

The word "commerce" is derived from the Latin merx, genitive mercis, which does not mean mercy-of which commercial people show very little to each other.