ABBREVIATIONS INDICATING GESTURE. (r. a. s.) right hand supine (To receive, give, support, rescue ; (palm up) (r. h. p.) right hand prone (palm down).. things floating, good, successful, etc. to put down, bury, suppress, forget, quiet, hush; sinking, hopeless, etc. (r. h. v.) right hand vertical (to repel, banish, resist; lost, past, (palm vertical)... (b. h. s.) both hands supine.. .... forgotten; fear, fright, dismay, horror. larger area, more extended than with one hand only. toward the floor, in front of speaker. toward the wall, in front of speaker. toward the ceiling, in front of speaker. (d. e.)... descending extended toward the floor, right or left of speaker. (h. e.)... horizontal extended. toward the side-walls, right or left (a. e.)... ascending extended. of speaker. toward the ceiling, right or left of speaker. (d. o.)... descending oblique. downward, between front and ex tended. (h. o.)... horizontal oblique.. horizontal, between front and extended. (a. o.)... ascending oblique.. upward, between front and ex tended. HELEN POTTER'S IMPERSONATIONS. BLUNDERS. A STUDY OF JOHN B. GOUGH. OLUMES could be written | upon blunders | and not exhaust the subject. Blunders which make us laugh, and blunders | which make us shudder. Human experience | is full of them. We laugh at phases of drunkenness. I do not blame people for laughing. Man is the only animal that can laugh, | and he ought to enjoy his privilege. One poor fellow, somewhat the worse for drink, fell down a flight of thirty or forty steps, in Erie, Pa., and when a man rushed to help him up, he said, [drunken voice] “Go away, I don't want your help. That's the way | I always come down stairs." We laugh at the man who came home at four o'clock in the morning and said it was one. "But," said his wife, "the clock has just struck four." "I know better,” he replied, "for I heard it strike one | 。reopeatedly." Absent-mindedness is often the source of ludicrous blunders, as in the case of the cooper, who put his son | into the barrel to hold up the head, | and found when he had finished that the boy was in the barrel, | with no way of escape. о Blunders often occur | in efforts to correct them. A speaker once said, (b) "You ask us to work for posterity; | what, I would ask you, ❘ has posoter i°ty | ever done for us?" Which caused his audience to laugh, and he corrected himself thus: "I don't mean those who come directly before us, but those particularly | instantoly | (\) "subsequent." Another one said, "Mr. Chairman, I deny the allegation, | and defy | the alligator." We are apt to call all blunders in words "Bulls; " but I believe the pure bull | to be a contradiction in terms; as, "I met you this morning and you didn't come; | now I'll meet you to-morrow morning, whether you come or not." | An invalid once said, "If I'd stayed in that place till now, I'd have been dead two years ago." I once saw a notice on a ferry-boat: | "Persons are requested not to leave this boat | until made fast to the dock." A minister once announced to his congregation, that, (--) “A woman died | very suddenly | last Sunday, | while I was preaching the gospel, | in a beastly state | of intoxication." Blunders in advertisements | are unlimited: "All persons in this town owning dogs, | shall be muzzled." "Two young women | want washing." "A young man wanted to take care of a horse of a religious turn of mind." "To be sold a pianoforte, the property of a musician | with carved legs." But it is of great importance, | while we are moved to laughter by the blunders that are made, that at the | same time we remember not to count it an irksome task | to avoid making mistakes. Look at our vast continent, | with its various climates and soil, its mountains and valleys, its wonderful wealth, | underground, | and above ground. | Look at the space we occupy upon the surface of the earth, and the space we must occupy | in history. | Have we blundered in the past? Yes, we have blundered in the past, and we are blundering now. We blunder when we lay waste our grand old forests, | our coal-fields, | our vast mineral wealth. We blunder | when we waste the public money, and increase our taxes. | We blunder | when we elect bad men to office. We blunder | when we fail to care for the poor | and the (\) suffering, | of our land. O Imagine, if you can, | all the children of this great nation, properly cared for, | for a single generation. What would be the result? Six hundred and forty-eight little ones, | under five years of age, | died in one week, | in the city of New York, | among the poorer classes. Come with me, | and I'll show you a scene | I once witnessed. Turn from this street of palaces and look upon a new world. Every step you advance | brings you in contact with scenes darker, filthier, | and more degraded. Sickening odors | heavy | with disease | come from open cellars; oaths ring out from subterranean dens. Here on the filthy sidewalk | are children, that are walking heaps of rags. Children | who never hear a mother pray, | but often | hear her swear. Children who must inevitably fill our prisons, penitentiaries, poor-houses and worse. Can they be rescued? Hear how keen their cutting sarcasms; how sharp their rough criticisms! What if all this acuteness, all these sharp intellects, were trained for humanity and Heaven, instead of being trained to prey upon society! Do we not blunder, | in doing nothing for their rescue? °Come with me, | and see where they live! Come from your pleasant homes, where children | play and prattle around you, and climb your knees! (\) Come from your family altars! | Come from the comforts and luxuries, | that God has given you, ❘ and see where these children | °live! Jesus (\) loved little children; | and whoso giveth a cup of cold water to these little ones | shall not lose his reward. See that broken door, | hanging by a single hinge! (--) No fear of burglars here! En ter! (/) Is this a cage NO! of wild animals? men, women and children, | not beasts, dwell here! Every square foot | of the filthy floor has its occupants! Here are the wretched beggars; the drunken | in their debaucheries; gray hairs | and auburn locks; | old and young; | black and white; | sick and suffering; innocent and guilty, all | herding together! Ο Here the robber brings his plun der! Here the (\) murderer hides! | Here the poor girl | (God help her) | brings her horrible | earnings! Here, amidst fumes of poisonous liquors, they spend their lives | in darkness! And such scenes are to be witnessed in every large city, and that, too, within the sound of church bells! Oh, they are a hard set! Yes, they lie and steal.. O O Their sins of commission are awful, but what are our sins of omission! As we gaze in horror | into the abyss where they live, | and shudder | at their degradation, do not some of us think "I am guilty of neglect | toward my brother?" | Reports of "News-boys' Lodginghouses," | "Homes for the Friendless," | and "Charity Schools," show much has been done for them, but they need something more than instruction. Let rich men, | out of their abundance, | invest in clean and cheap lodging-houses; provide cheap and wholesome recreation. Let them have music, with out | lager beer; amusement, | crime. (\) without vice | and Society must pay for the blunders it makes. | It is the in evitable. We may put seed into the ground | and command it not to grow, but it will, and will bring forth fruit | according to its kind. No power of ours | can prevent it. And so the seeds of vice and crime, that we allow to enter into the soil of society, will sprout and grow there! and will bring forth fruit | according to its kind. The middle of August, 1875, ended a strike in the coal fields of Pennsylvania. The miners received their wages; |