THE COUKJER WINTER. r? k "Has.-., ' ) .'j-3S9y AW iii tit wPJa . Business in Lincoln has been rather quiet the past week. Dry goods and clothing men report sales very light and an especially small farmers' trade for this season and the pleasant weather. Merchants generally are looking forward to a fair holiday trade, but it will be largely in those lines which are necessaries or lialf necessaries and small and inexpensive articles. A prominent confectioner states that his business is better than usual at this time and that he anticipates a large holiday trade. At first thought one would class candy and peanuts among the luxuries and would suppose in hard times sales of such things would decrease, but the opposite is true, and people who in other years have mado expensive Christmas presents will now content themselves with a box of candy, or a cheap toy or book. Collections are re ported very slow but some improvement is looked for the first of tho year. There have been no failures of im portance this week. Few people, even those who are fortunate, or un fortunate, enough to own stock in corporations know very much of the laws governing them. In corpor ations, excepting banks, if shareholders, comply with all requirements of tho articles of incorporation there is no liability beyond the capital paid in. If these requirements are not com plied with in every way it renders the stockholder personally liable for the Jebts of the corporation. For example, the law in this state requires all incorporated compan ies to publish in a newspaper once each year a sworn statement of their assets and liabilities. This is very often neglected by the officers who should attend to it, and thus the stockholder, through no fault of his own, unless it be carelessness, becomes liable for al the debts of the company. These statements come usually about the first of January of each year and those interested in corporations should see that see that it is done for their'own safety. (Written for The Courier.) Tho campaign Ho has gono to rest; The winter girl begins To find tho street whero oysters signs. Are waving in the winds. The coal man now begins to smilo And gloats in ghoulish glco Because ho has tho dead wood cinch Where the ico man used to bo. Um. EVOLUTION. "I don't Beo why they picked him out for good congressional tim ber," said the man with envy in his soul. "Well,' replied his companion, T1 remember that at college he was always regarded as a good deal of a stick." -Editor: Here's my chance to try the patent trapdoor, has a poem it that satchel. Bang ! ! Bang ! ! I think he A WREATH, O YEARS. Written for The Courier. Bind mo a wreath for my brow, O years! But not of flowers alone; Bind it of weeds, and grass, and thorns. The things that I most have known. Give mo no passive joy, O years! Where my days pass sweetly by; Give mo the joy to fiercely live And lot me as fiercely die. Give me no unearned glory, O years! No swift fading wreath of a day; But find from tho dead leaves of my life A victor's wreath of bay. William Reed Dunroy IN SILENT CONTEMPT. 2 It happened to be dynamite. "I'm sorry," said the rural justice, "but there's no evi evidence against you and I'll have to turn you loose with just a tine for contempt o court." "But, your hunor, I haven t said a word." "Yes, but darned if you didn't look it." QUATRAINS. ALMOST CORRECT. "So you told your wife that you were going to a meeting of the Dante Club, eh? I really admire your nerve." "Well, I wasn't far from tho truth. Just one letter out of the way the first letter of the title is superflous." Written for The Courier. The Chinese may know all about washing, And some of 'em know how to cook, Jut what they don't know about war Would make a much larger book. The girls have borrowed our shirts and our ties, And we're eyeing the future askance; Since bloomers are now all the rage We fear they will borrow our pants. Usi.