Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — The Canary’s Mirror. [ARTICLE]

The Canary’s Mirror.

Not long ago my wife purchased a canary at a bird store. It had been accustomed to companions of its kind at the store, but at our house it was entirely alone. The pretty little songster was evidently homesick. It would not sing, it would not eat, but drooped and seemed to be pining away. We talked to it, and tried by every means in our power to cheer the bird up, but all in vain. My wife was on the point of carryiiig the bird back to the store when one day a friend said, “Get him a piece of look-ing-glass.” Acting on this suggestion, she tied a piece of a broken mirror about the size of a man’s hand on the outside of the cage. The little fellow hopped down from his perch almost immediately, and gqing up close looked in, seeming delighted. He chirped and hopped about, singing all the pretty airs he was master of. He never was homesick after that. He spends most of his time before the glass, and when he goes to sleep at night he will cuddle down as close to the glass as he can, thinking, Very likely, that he'js getting near to the pretty bird he sees so often.— [St. Louis Globe-Democrat. English laborers of all kinds are now paid over twice as much as they were a century ago.