A BEAUTIFUL and harmless little garter-snake was gliding across the road, when a man who happened to be passing seized a club and struck it a crushing blow. As it writhed in agony it turned to its assailant and said:

“Why do you kill me?”

“Do you suppose,” replied the man, “I will let anything in the form of a snake live, when I know there are venomous copperheads in this very woods?”

“And are there no men,” asked the snake, “that are revengeful and dangerous, and would you destroy all men for their sake?”

Let us not be prejudiced against a whole family for the faults of one member of it, or be unable to see any merit in a thing because it is not wholly free from defect.