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Printed by Chambers and Hallagan, 4, Abbey-street,

HARVARD

COLLEGE

NOV 20.1928

LIBRARY

Edward Percival Merritt

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PREFACE.

Compilations like the following have too often been made with the sole view of furnishing amusement for an idle hour; and often has this object been pursued without regard to the moral or immoral tendency of the anecdotes selected from this fault the present work is totally free. The articles contained in it will

be found, we trust, interesting; at the same time that they possess the higher recommendation of conveying to the reader some useful information, holding forth some virtue to be imitated or exposing to merited shame, some vice which is to be avoided.

It

may also be remembered, that the stories here given, are well authenticated as true; they will, therefore, it is hoped, be perused with an additional pleasure, which fiction can never produce.

THE

SCRAP BOOK.

HOME.

THE diet of the Arabian tribes in Persia, is more frugal than that of any other of the inhabitants of that kingdom. It consists chiefly of dates. Some years ago, a woman belonging to one of the Arab tribes settled at Abusheker, had gone to England with the children of the British resident at that place. When she returned, all crowded around her to hear the report of the country she had visited. She described the roads, the carriages, the houses, the wealth and splendour of the cities, and the highly cultivated state of the country. Her audience were full of envy at the condition of Englishmen, and were on the point of retiring with that impression, when the woman happened to add, that the country she had visited only wanted one thing to make it delightful. "What is that?" was the inquiry, "It has not a date tree in it," said she. "I never ceased to look for one all the time I was there; but I looked in vain." The sentiments of the Arabs who listened to her, were in an instant changed by the information. It was no longer envy, but pity, which they felt

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