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Show j , AS SPRING APPROACHES, SAnts, roaches, and other concomitants concomit-ants of approaching verduro call upon the Muse for welcome. As the Muso's space is short, however, In a medium as crowded as our own, says Collier's, wo are confined to one of the springtime spring-time topics that crowd the view. Hall, Mosquito! Hero's to you, small bug, whose time upon this earth Is short. Soon wilt thou bo as a tale that Is told, as the fables of forgotten eons, and as last year's snow. Your knell has struck. The back seat for you. Not yet, perhaps, but soon. The scientists again are after you, and they will catch you If you don't watch out. The American Amer-ican Mosquito Extermination Society has made the season's plans. Tho humble beast, whose career at tho best is from one week to three, Is to bo deprived de-prived once more of life, liberty, and the pursuit of man. A hen mosquito, who, If not disturbed, lays about four i hundred eggs, Is hereafter not to lay Jjk; at aI1, Malaria will vanish, and Long Island and New Jersey doctors must seek for pastures new. "Come, gentle Spring! ethereal Mildness! Mild-ness! come." That azure season Is welcome over. Says one anopheles to another: "Oh, could I fiy with thee! We'd mako with joyful wing Our annual visit o'er tho globo, Companions of tho spring." Alas that Interests conflict! In or-' or-' der that man In spring and summer may exist In comfort, millions of loving lov-ing and Hght-wlnged beings must bo kept forover from tho sunshine and tho air. This topic pleases us so much just now, by contrast to the heavier work that forces Itself upon our attention, that wo proceed to offer to a gasping and eager world a further bundle of fancies in celebration of tho spring. No matter what goes on; no matter what dynasties, presidents, corporations, corpora-tions, lawyers, doctors, coroners, and other beings may bo doing; no matter by what particular gyrations proud man may bo bringing hilarity or sorrow sor-row to tho angels; no matter, Muse tho eternal changes, beauty, and fertility fer-tility of the natural world unfold before be-fore us. "Again tho blackbirds sing; tho streams Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams, And tremble in the April showers Tho tassels of the maplo flowers." Ever have tho poets spoken for tho spring, nnd poets are ordinary men equipped with words to match the feel ings common to mankind. Ever havo the brief showers, the opening buds, and tho freshened hills been sung alike by birds and men. Says tho greatest American among tho poots: "Spring Is strong and virtuous, Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous, Quickening underneath tho mold Grains beyond the price of gold. So deep and largo her bounties aro, That one broad, long midsummer day Shall to tho planet overpay Tho ravage of a year of war." Yes, and overpay also the private sorrows of each and every man, urn' mako him know that, with all his t'iet the world is fair and lito a boon. |