DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.

LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.

Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.

LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.

GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.

If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.

READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in "dialect" and humor in slang.