BOERS GONYOYINK BRITISH PRISONERS TO PRETORIA 03300000300300000000000000 I LIFE IN A COAL MINE.f §o o How Oar Rlack Diamonds Are Dug From the Earth. Q o o oooooooooooocooooooooooooS THE accompanying illustrations give a fair idea of the method of living and working in a Pennsylvania coal mine, thousand of feet from pure air and sunshine. The human workers at least got a small share of both these requisites, but the mino mules have no such breathing spells. The ani mal shown in one of the illustrations not been in the open air for five and he has not been a prisoner i long as many of his fellows. i of a coal miner has improved recent years. Many of the \at used to shorten his life . it one of extreme hazard eliminated,or at least greatly n danger. The air is purer, •r of that greatest of terrors >p —has been reduced to a through more intelligent an those of former days itroduction of improved ma j, the greatest factor in the y .yi'kman's safety being the non-ex plosive Davy lamp, with which a miner may fearlessly enter a pocket full of explosive gas. But with all these new safeguards THE OLD AND THE NEW DAVY LAMPS. IN rSE IN THE PENNSYLVANIA COAL MINES. the life is not an alluring one. The pay is small, the work hard and the dangers still many. The only really pleasant way to be connected with a coal mine is as the owner of one. Our Appalachian coal fields alone could supply the world with fuel for centuries. They are the largest and richest known, and they are so situ ated that the coal can be shipped from them long distances by water. From Pittsburg coal can be carried for eighteen thousand miles on navigable streams, and the grate fires of the South blaze with the rays from the black diamonds from Pennsylvania. The Ohio River is the great coal chute for the Mississippi valley. The coal is carried down it in great barges, pushed by little steamers, and so fast ened together that a single steamer will push acres of coal. Loads of twenty thousand tons are taken. A vast amount of coal is carried on the canals and the great lakes from one of tho chief highways of the coal traffic. The amount of coal carried on the railroads is almost beyond conception. Tho Philadelphia and Beading has more than fifty thousand coal cars, which are dragged by nine hundred coal locomotives. These cars arc kept busy in carrying anthracite coal. The THE ELEVATOR OF A COAL MINE. (The mule in the photograph has been in the mine Tor five years.) Pennsylvania Railroad employs more than seventy thousand carß for the movement of its coal and coke trade, •nd the Central Railroad of New Jer sey carries nbont five million tons of anthracite coal everyyear. More coal is handled at New York than at any other place in the world except Lon don, more than fifteen million Jtons being used or transshipped at that point annually. The coal miners live as poorly as any other class of workmen in the country. For the most part they are THE "FIRE BOSS'S" OFFICE IN* A COAL MINE. (The position of the kneeling miner Is the one usually taken when restinß.) in dirty villages, with narrow streets, their bouses blackened by coal smoke. In many mining districts the houses belong to the company owning the mines, aud the miners pay rent for them, so that when a strike occurs and they are out of money they are given orders to leave. Many of the houses have nothing more than two rooms and a kitchen, and in some places tbe only stores at which the miners can trade are the company's stores. With all this the American miners are far better off than the miners of other countries. Have you ever been down in a coal mine? If so, you can appreciate some of the dangers of mining. A coal mine is like a great catacomb. It is a city underground, the walls of which in many cases are upheld by timbers. Now and then yon come to rooms out of which the coal has been cut. The coal is taken down with blasting pow der, and there is danger of the wall falling and of the miners being crushed. There is also danger from firedamp, Tastes A COAL OAS WITH A DAVY LAMP. or the union of the gases of tiio mine brought together by the light from a lamp or candle. This causes a great explosion. It comes like a stroke of lightning, and with a clap of thunder. As the explosion occurs a roaring whirlwind of fiame goes through the tunnels, pulling down the timbers and caving in the walls. It burns every-1 thing withiu reach. Miners are blinded, scorched and sometimes burned to cinders. Hundreds have often been killed at a time bv such explosions, and by the flood of cur bonic acid aud gas which follows them. The statistics show that even in the United States one miner is killed for every hundred thousand tons of coal mined, and those who are injured number many times this proportion. The first coal found in America was near Ottawa, Illinois. It is mentioned by Father Hennepin, a French ex plorer, wh® visited there in 1679. The first mines worked were about Richmond, Va. This coal was dis covered by a boy while out fijhing. He was hunting for crabs for bait in a small creek, and thus stumbled upon the outcroppings of the .Tames River coal bed. Our anthracite coal fields have perhaps paid better than any other coal fields of the world. They were, discovered by a hunter named Nicho Allen, when George Washington yas President. Allen encamped one night in the Schuylkill regions, kindling his fire upon some black stones. He awoke to find him self almost roasted. The stones were on fire, and anthracite was burning for the first time. Shortly after this a company was organized to sell an thracite coal. It was taken around to the blacksmiths, but they didn't know how to use it, and it was very unpop ular. Some of it was shipped to Phil adelphia by a Colonel Shoemaker and sold there. It was not at all satisfac tory, and & writ was gotten out from the city authorities, denouncing the colonel as a knave and scoundrel for trying to impose rocks upon them as coal. Still Philadelphia has largely been built up by anthracite coal, and 50,000,000 tons of this coal were taken out of the Pennsylvania fields in 1896. Since then soaie of these coal lands have been sold as high as SI2OO an acre, and tho Philadelphia and Head ing Company, in 1871, paid $10,000,- 000 for 100,000 acres of coal land in this region. It is hard to estimate the enormous amount of money the United States makes out of its coal. We get more than three timos as much out of our coal mines as out of our gold mines, and the silver metal is not in it with the black diamonds. There is a little region in eastern Pennsylvania, about a hundred and twenty-five miles from Philadelphia, and not more than two hundred miles from New York, which produces every year coal to a greater value than all the gold mines of tho Rockies, Canada and Alaska. It is our anthracite coal fields whioh turn out between 50,000,000 aud 00,000,000 tons of anthracite every year. We have in addition to this a hundred aud thirty odd million tons of bituminous coal annually. We have, in short, the biggest aud best coal measures on the globe. It is estimated that our coal east of the Rocky Mountains covers 192,000 square miles, and within the past few years coal has been found in many parts of the Far West. Colo rado will eventually be a groat manu facturing State on account of its coal. A Marriage Made In Heaven. At a recent wedding all wont mer rily until the bridegroom was called upon to produce the wedding-ring. In vain he felt in his newly-creased trousers pocket for the indispensable trifle. Nothing could be found except a hole through which the ring had evidently fallen. What was he to do? Suddenly a happy thought struck the parson. "Take your shoe off," he said. Tho suspense aud silence was pain ful. The organist, at the clergyman's bidding, stiuck up a voluntary. The young man removed his shoe. The ring was found, also a hole in his stocking, and the worthy minister re marked, evidently with more than the delay of the ceremony on his mind: "Young man, it's high time yon were married." Swiss Schools of Agriculture* Switzerland was the home of the philanthropist and educator Fellen burg. His school, established in Ho pyl in 1806, was a philanthropy in aid of the peasantry, concerning whom he said that, possessing nothing but bodies and minds, the cultivation of these was tho only antidote for their poverty. At least three thousand pu pils received their education in agri culture here. The Federal Polytech nic School at Zurich is the nation's paide. Out of six courses of superior training which it provides for its one thousand students, forestry and agri culture count as two. Five universi ties and numerous special schools furnish aid to agricultural education. —W. E. De Riemer, in Appletons' Popular Science Monthly. There are a thousand vessels which cross tho Atlantic Oceau regularly every month, same of them twice » month. | DON'T LIKE BRITISH BULLETS. New Knglltli IWUnlle Said to Be Unite ai Bud u tlie Ilum-Ilnm. It is asserted in Fran.-.- that the British are violating one of the pro visions of The Hague conference by their use in the Transvaal of a bullet almost, if not quite, as barbarously destructive as the famous dum-dum bullet. The conference decreed that only those bullets should be used which are completely covered by a hard envelope or case, the objection able feature about the dum-dum bul let being its jagged nickel envelope. The new British bullet has a copper socket, which contains a charge of smokeless powder, aud at the end is a lead ball inclosed in a nickel envelope. THE NEW BTJI/LET. Toward the head of the bullet there is a small opening in this envelope. Frenchmen say that when this bullet touches a soft substance the opening is compressed and the projectile is so enlarged that it assumes the form of a mushroom. As a result, they main tain, fearful wounds are caused. Bul lets of small caliber, they point out, are intended to put men hors du com bat without making them undergo needless suffering. Dr. Bruns, Inspector-General of the military hospital at Wurteirburg, re cently made some experiments with bullets of this type, and pointed out that a bullet with a cavity in its head and "having greater penetration than the dum-dum bullet reaches a soft oi liquid body without changing its form, and then bursts." Illustrations made during these experiments show wounds so frightful that they seem to have been caused by some very powerful explosives, but, according to English experts, we ought to remember while studying these illustrations, that the doctor's experiments consisted mainly of shots fired from a Lee-Metford rifle '0 POWDER U.SEP IX NEW ENGLISH BULLET, at short ranges into dead bodies and results thus obtained are always un satisfactory. A similar charge against Great Britain has been made in Holland ever since the Transvaal war started, and there are few continental papers which have not referred to the subject in one wa'y or onother. Many experi ments have also been made as to the effect of nickel-coated bullets with objectionable cavities, but, as British experts pertinently point out, these experiments havo beeu made on dead animals, aud the conclusions drawn therefrom are of little value. A New Stylo of Fojf Horn. How to render vavigation safe in thick weather is a question which has engaged the attention of many in ventors and experimentalists without any very satisfactory result at the present day. There are now in use several instru ments, modifications of the mega phone, \vhieli are intended to be car lied on vessels for the purpose of lo catiug fog signals, be they on ship or shore. All such inventions are in tended for the listener. It occurred to R. F. Foster that this was working at the wrong end of the problem, aud that the proper place to locate a fog signal was in the signal itself, ao that if a person heard it at all he could be certain of its direction, without being compelled to use any instrument. On this theory a signal was built and installed at Falkner's Island, in FOSTER FOG SIGNAL, FALKNEF.'S ISL AND, CONN. Long Island Sound, under the super vision of the United States Lighthouse Board. The apparatus consists in brief of an immense megaphone, mounted on a circular table. By changing the position of the 'phone toward each of the principal points of the compass in turn, and by blowing a dift'ereut signal at each point, the compass beariug is given to passing vessels. The apparatus works automatically, a three-horse power gas engine being sufficient to pump all the air required for blowing the signals and to turn the worm gear that revolves the mega phone. •I»!>nncse Women Diver*. Over ouo hundred Japanese women, following the hazardous profession of j divers, are found along the coast of the peninsula. They are divided into four batches, and their ages range from seveuteen to thirty. They come almost exclusively from Shima, Mi ye ken, a notod fishery ceutre in Ja pan. Their earnings are, of course, not uniform, as they are paid accord ing to the amount of their work, which consists in diving for agar-agar sea weed, sea-ear, sea-cccumbe>- and so fcrih. —Jai Weekl? Nevu. PEAR'-S OF THOUCHT. Vain hope to make people happy by politics I —Carlyle. The good man's life is like the spark that is brightest at the close. Difficulties of thought, acceptance of what is without full comprebenion, belong to every system of thinking. When interest is at variance with couscience, any pretence that seems to reconcile them satisfies the hollow hearted. Idleness is n craven's goal. No man of worth wants to be free from work. Without work life is not worth the living. If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; if food, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it; toil is the law. To let a man know that you rerog uize and lejoic-e in some good quality of hrs, is to bless him with a new heart and stimulus. Courtesy is the passport to success. We double the power of our life when we add to its gifts unfailing courtesy. The world always begrudges room to a boor. The habit of blaming others when things go wrong is an insidious and dangerous one. Far more in it to the purpose to inquire withiu whether the fault, or much oi it, may not lie at home. Beneficence should never be exer cised at random, nor upon irrational impulse, but should be the outcome and expression of a disposition trained and nourished in the atmosphere of buman friendship. A CANAL ACROSS FLORIDA- Thus We May Steal tlie Gulf Stream De el u res lie I*ll it. Berlin lias been taking a lively in terest in tlie report that an Aineii an engineer has suggested the idea of digging a canal through the peninsula of Florida in order to divert the Gulf Stream from the west coast of Europe to the east coast of America. Berlin ers, however, do not display milch anxiety over the possibility of tlio United States, as it were, robbing the northwest of Europe of some of iis warmth. They admit that Florida, being flat, does not oppose great en gineering difficulties to a canal dig ger whose ambitions are within ordi nary limits. But to make a canal which would accommodate the Gulf Stream would entail an expenditure in comparison with which the cost of the Suez or Panama canals would be a mere fleabrte. The Suez Canal is 160 kilometres long, 100 metres broad, and eight metres deep. It cost 4,00!), 000 marks. The Florida peninsula, at the point where it is to Ie intersected,is almost as broad as the Suez Canal is long; or, perhaps, five or teu kilometres less. The Gulf Stream is about 100 kilometres broad, and 20!) metres deep, aud the new < anal w< uld have to be equally broad and deep. That is to say, it would have to be 25 times as deep and more than a 1000 times as broad as the Suez Canal; and the cost of excavation, quite apart from the extra expense of working at such a depth, would amount to 10,000,000,- 000 of marks, or 2500 times as much as the indemnity paid by France to Germany. Quite apart from the question whether it is technically possible to dig such a broad canal to a depth of 200 metres, the impos sibility of raising such a sum may de liver Europe from tlio fear of the northwest of the continent being sub jected to such an enormous lowering of temperature. After thus seriously considering the idea, Berlin has arrived at the conclusion that the formation of a company will be about as far as this nowest canal scheme is likely to get. New York Sun. Afrlean Itivem. It is a distinguishing feature ol most African rivers that they contain no water for at least eight months of the year. It is true that water can almost always be found in a river bed by digging for it, but in outward ap poarance a river is usually a broad belt of sand lying between high and precipitous banks. Many aud many a coach lias beeu upset in one of these drifts, as they are called. The de scent is always steep, frequently so steep that the brakes cannot hold the coaches. They start going down at a crawl, and then the coach gathers way aud goes on with a rush, the mules are driven into a heap anyhow, and one wonders that they do not get theii legs broken; but they usually land all right, while tlie coach, practically unmanageable, goes down like a sort of toboggan, jumping from stone to stone, and swaying like a ship in a sudden squall, and may or may not arrive right side uppermost at th« bottom. In fact, the passeuger who has gathered his ideas of coaching from a trip to Brightou or a drivo to Virginia Water, finds that he has a lot to learn about the subject wheu he gets to South Africa. Still, on the whole, it was wonderful how few ac ridents did occur,and if one considers that the coaches ran night and day, and that wheu there was no moon it would sometimes be too dark to see the mules from off the coach, it re flects great credit on the drivers. —The Gentleman's Magazine. l'ro«iii' Motlni-inty, Romance and chivalry are not wlmt tlicy wore, ,ilas! Once, the hero, having rescued the maiden from the tower, paused in his flight to exclaim; "Hark! The hoof-beats of pur suers!" But now "Siuell! Tlio odor of my father's antomot ile!" It is terrible, this sordid utilitariau ism!—Detroit Journal "THE GREAT DESTROYER SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT THE VICE OF INTEMPERANCE. Come Amiy From the Itye—-The Impt>r. tanco of Improving the Dti-elllui;* ol the Poor us a Counteractive to llie In fluence* of the Saloon. If a body's always drinking, Everything's awry. Should a body get to thinking Sure he'd stop and sigh. All such bodies think teetotal Very hard and dry, But 'ere they any they could not keen it Ought they not to try? —National Temperance Advocate. ISetter domes For the Poor. Some very wlso aud pActical suggestion* nre contained in the report presented to the Presbytery of New York by Its Com mittee on Temperance. The report dwells on the importance of improving the homes of the poor as a counteractive to the in fluences of the saloons. It says: The liquor traffic makes unceasing and deadly war upon the home. The saloon is the stronghold of this trade. It supplier the weapons and pays for the campaign. It entraps the breadwinner of the house hold and robs him of his wages, his strength, his character and his enjoyment. It robs the wife of the love and protection pledged to her at the altar. It takes irorr the children the care and affection of » father. It steals from every uaembet shelter, food, clothing and an honorable name. To exterminate the saloon is, then, the way to save the home; but this may often be done most effectively by making the home more attractive thun the saloon. Laws have been enacted, sermon" preached, public meetings held, pledges obtained, reformatories established, lec ture nails, coffee houses and other substi tutes tried—und all have done good In a greater or less degree—but why should not effort, intelligent, comprehensive, liberal, persistent, self-sacrificing effort, go back to'the original source; why should not the chief solicitude center aroun.l the home? What can missions and churches among the poor accomplish unless the homes from which the congregations come are auxili aries of such agencies? Philanthropists, sanitary reformers, shrewd Investors and public officials have done not a littln to Improve the dwelling plucos of the lower classes; but Is there nothing the churches can do in their or ganized capacity and individual activities? Doubtless the accepted policy of most missionary operations has had this general end In view. Suloous, however, still oc cupy every available corner, and sometimes half the stores on the block. If tho law cannot close them, the loss of patronage will—but patrons will crowd the saloon door until some other door, morn inviting and with Inore behind it, shall be opened. This should be, and wo believe can be, the door of each man's own home, even i( that homo consists of only one or two rooms. No attempt at concerted action by Ilia churches of any oue denomination or of the entire city would probably effect largn results; but if each particular church in Its own immediate sphere, and with tueh resources as it can command, will practi cally, patiently and resolutely undertake to improve the actual living places of the poor, something might be hoped for. Poisoned Beer. The United States Senate Committee ot\ Manufactures has been investigating a lul terated malt liquors, and examlng chemists and other expert witnesses. Their testi mony shows that salicylic acid is used in beer—particularly imported European beers. European Governments have a way of benevolently prohibiting adulteratou In home-consumed beers, but bmudlv permit ting adulteration in beers made for foreign consumption. That is the kind we get. However,as beer is possibly the worst driulc that human beings can put into their stom achs—except champagne—beer drinkers probably deserve their penalties. There are certain acute forms of kidney disease waxy, oirrhotlc tvpes—found only among ocer-drinkers. Life insurance companies will not Insure brewery-workmen, Rich brewers and all their families have been known to die of kidney disease. Tills is from beer presu malily pure, for probably brewers drink their best beer. WhHt bap peus to those who drink the worst, heaven alone can toll.—San Francisco Argonaut. One Cause of Poverty. In order to learn some deliuite fa?t4 which would bear upon the question as to what causes poverty, one of the agents of the Municipal Reform League of New York was stationed to watch an entrance of a tenement on lower Broadway one evening from seven to eleven o'clock. He saw nine teen men go in with buckets of beer, four teen wooieuwlth buckets of beer, and seven girls from ten to twelve years of ago with buckets or beer; three women also carried in bottles of whisky. Forty buckets of beer and three bottles of whisky In ono eveutng carried into a building in which the aver age weekly earnings per family will not exceed three dollars seems to furnish a suggestion of the cause of poverty. On the evening of the 10th the same agent took observation on a tenement of a better class. Between half-past seven and ten o'clock he saw ten boys from oiglit to four teen years old carry in buckets of henr. The hetterclass tenement had fewer burke s of beer. The more beer tne worse home. One Saloon a Menace. It may go without saying that no com munity can be perfectly huppy and pros perous throughout all its borders while a single d rlnking place remains within its conilues. One saloon argues the presence of an evil and harmful thing; It is a dark and baleful spot In the life of a community; It means misery and unhappiness for som« one. The saloon can only live and thrive as it develops and feeds on the vices of men. Its prosence is inconceivable in a community where every homo is a home Indeed and in truth, and where purity aud virtue make up the life conduct of every luau and woman. It Injures tlie Memory. OAr-indulgence in spirits injures the memory to an incredible degree. In years gone by no person who was known to be of intemperate habits was permitted toap pear as a witness in the Spanish courts of justice, .the authorities maintaining that alcoholism was so prejudicial to the brain that it was unsafe to accept the testimony of an inebriate. A Sad Luck uf Thrift. In a recently publlsh-d book, "Shall We Drink Wine?" written by Doctor John Madden, it is proved that the Amorlcau laboring man pays about twenty times as much for the food he obtains in his beer— and beor is shown to be the most nutritive of alcoholic drinks—us for that he obtains in his bread. The Crusade In Itrlef. The amount of alcohol given to-day is not one-tenth of thnt prescribed forty years ago. In private and hospital prac tice its use is sleudlly declining. When it is considered that among the ruling classes in Chile it is usual to drink seventeen whisky cocktails before break fast, it Is not to be wondered at that cook lighting is oue of the principal amusements. Railroad companies turn a cold shoulder to all applicants for positions when the faintest suggestion of whisky is deteoted, knowing, to their sorrow, th iteve-j a mod erate indulgence in alcohol clouds the brain and places u leaden hand upon muscular power.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers