with the horse, you can easily find some points for which the donkey ought to be the more loved of the two.

By nature, he is just as humble as the horse is proud; he is contented with the commonest food, while the horse is very. dainty about what he

eats.

He will drink no water but what is perfectly clean, and, when he is drinking from even the shallowest pond, he never stirs up the mud from the bottom with his nose. Of course he puts his lips to the water, or he could not drink, but he is careful not to bury his muzzle in it.

The horse does not mind rolling in a wet place or going into mud; but the donkey does not like even to make his feet dirty. When he rolls, he takes care that it shall be in some dry place where he can well rub his coat. If you ever have a donkey, take care that his coat is well combed.

Donkey's milk is good for people in bad health, for whom cow's milk would be too rich.

The donkey is very sure-footed; this means that he does not slip or stumble when he is on dangerous places. His feet are hollow underneath, and grasp the ground, so that he goes safely down steep places where a horse would fall.

Will you think of what you have read about the donkey? And will you take his part if you see a boy ill-using him?

COAL.

THERE are many towns in some parts of England which a stranger finds neither clean nor pleasant.

The streets, as well as the roads that lead to the town, are covered with black dust, the air is full of soot, and a heavy thick fog generally hangs over the town.

You will here and there meet roughlooking labourers, with their faces and hands begrimed with black, and you will probably think them strange, uncouth persons. It is very likely that you will say to yourself,

"What an unpleasant place to live in! What a pity it is that there should be such dirty towns, with their black streets and lanes, instead of pleasant villages, with neat, white-washed cottages, and pretty gardens, and labourers with white smocks, and children with clean faces!"

No doubt the villages are much more pleasant to look at, and to live in; but

our country would not be so rich and thriving as it is, without that which makes these towns dingy and dull.

The black roads and the thick smoke pouring forth from so many chimneys show that we are in the neighbourhood of coal. People have come and set up their great furnaces to smelt iron, and to do other works, because coal is here cheap and plentiful.

I think we should not find our little village homes half so comfortable, if it were not for the cheerful blaze of the coal fire.

We might, perhaps, warm ourselves and our houses with wood, as they do in countries where they can get no coal; but the great steam-engines by which we spin our cotton, and make so many of the goods for which England is famous, could scarcely be worked without coals.

The railway carriages in which these goods are carried from one part of England to another, and most of the boats which transport them to every quarter of the world, are moved by steam-engines.

It is mainly owing to the great quantities of coal found in different parts of England, that our island has become the chief place in the world for making goods and sending them to other countries.

There are different kinds of coal. Some burn longer, and some burn brighter than others. That which burns most brightly is Cannel coal; and this is so hard and smooth, that cups and saucers and other things are made of it and sold for ornaments.

If you wish to know how coal is dug out of the earth, you need only walk a little way out of one of these dull towns of which we have we have been talking.

You will come to an opening in the ground called the pit's mouth, and may be let down to a great depth by means of a rope and large basket not unlike the bucket of a well. When you touch the bottom and step out of the basket, you will find yourself in a very strange place.

There are broad galleries of great