Democratic A afduan Bellefonte, Pa., Dec. 16, 1892. ESTRANGED. BY JEAN INGLESIDE. And thisis all! The end has come at last! The bitter end of all that pleasant dream That cast a halo o’er the happy past Like golden sunshine on a summer stream. Sweet are the days that mark ed life's sunny slope When we together drew our hearts atune, And through the vision of a future hope We did not dream that they would pass £0 S00D. In happy mood fair castles we upreared, . And thought that life was one long summer day; We had os Groh of future pain, nor feared That shadows o'er should fall athwart our way. : But sunken rocks lie hid in every stream, And ships are wrecked when just in gight of land; So we to-day wake from our pleasant dream, To find our hopes were builded on the sand I do not blame you that do not keep The troth you plighted ere your heart you knew ; Better the parting now than wake to weep Whep time has robbed life's roses f their ew. Another face will help you to forget “The idle dream that bad its birth in trust, And other lips will kiss away regret For broken faith and 1dols turned to dust. Ab, well! you choose, perhaps, the better way ; A purer love shall in your heart be shrined, And 1? I shall go down my darkened way, Seeking forever what I ne'er shall find. TWO OF THEM, BY J. M. BARRIE. She is a very pretty girl, though that counts for nothing with either of us, and ber frock is yellow and brown, with pins here and there. Some of these pins are nearly a foot long, and when they are notin use she keeps them inher hat, through which she stabs them far down into her brain. This makes me shudder; but so is she constructed that it does not seem to hurt, and in that human pin cushion the daggers remain until it is time for her to put on her jacket again. Her sizes is six and a quarter, and she can also get into sixes. She comes here occasionally (always looking as if she had been born afresh that morning) to sit in the big chair and discuss what sort of girl she ig, with other matters of moment. When she suddenly flings herself forward— clasping ber hands on her lknee—aund says “Ob I” T known that she has re- membered something which must outat cuce or endanger her health; and whether it be “I don’t believe in anyboly or anything—there!” or “Why do we die so soon?” or “I bay cho colate drops by the balf pound,” I am expected to regard it, for the time be- ing, as one of the biggest things of the day. I allow her, but no other, to mend my fire ; and some of her most profound thoughts have come to her with a jerk while holding the poker. However, she is not always serious for, though her face is often so wistful that to be within a yard of it is too close for safety, she sometimes jests gleefully, clapping her hands; but I never laugh rather continue smoking hard; and this she (very properly) puts down to my lack of humor. The reason we get on so well is because I treat her exact: ly as if she were a man, as per agree: ment. Ours is a platonic friendship, or, at least, was, for she went off halt an hour ago with ber head in the air. THE BARGAIN. After ouly one glance in ithe mirror, ghe bad spread herself out in the big chair, which seems to put its arms round her. Then this jumped out: “And I had thought you so trust worthy I” (She always begins in the middle.) “What have I done?” though I knew. “Yesterday,” she said; “when vou put me into that cab. Oh, you didn’t do it, but vou tried to.” “Do what?” She screwed her mouth, whereupon I smoked bard, lest I should attempt to do it 2gain. But she would have an answer. “Men are all alike,” she said, indig- nantly. “And you actually think,” I broke out, bitterly, “that if Idid meditate such an act (for one brief moment) I was yielding tothe wretched impulses to which other men give way! Miss Gunnings, do you know me no better than that ?” “I dou't see what you mean,” she replied. (Her directuess is something a little annoying.) I wagzed my head mournfully, and there ensued a pause, for I did not quite know what I meant myself. “What do you mean?’ she atked, more gently, my face showing that I was deeply hurt—uot angry, but hurt. I laid my pipe on the mantel-piece and, speaking very sadly proved to her that I had nothing in common with other young men, though I forgot now how I proved it. If I ceemed to act as they did, my motives were quite different, and therefore T should be judged from another standpoint. Also I looked upon beras a child, while I felt very old. (There are six years between us.) “And now,” said I, with emotion, “gg you still think that I tried to--to do it from the wretched ordinary mo- tive (namely, because I wanted to), I suppose you and I must part. I have explained the aflair to you becanse it is painful to me to be misunderstood. Good-by, I shall always think of you with sincere regard.” Despite an apparent effort to control it, my voice broke, Then she gave way. She put her hand iuto mine, and with tears in ber eyes asked me to forgive her, which I did. This little incident it was that show: ed her how different I am from other men. and led to the drawing up of our platonic agreement, which we signed, £0 10 epeuk, that alternoon over the poker. I promiséd to te to her such a friend as I am to Mr. Thomeon ; I ev- en nudutock, if necessary, to scold her I asked, thcugh she cried (as she hinted she should probably do,) and she was to see that it was tor her good, just as Thomson sees it when I seold him, A NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE. “I shall have to eall you “Mary.” “I don't see that.” “Yes, it is customary among real friends. They expect 1t of each other.” ; I was not locking her in the face, so cannot tell how she took this at first. However, after she had eater a choco- late drop in silence she said, “But you don’t call Mr, Thomson by his Chris tain name ?”’ “Certainly 1 do.” “And he would feel slighted if you did not 2” “He would be extremely pained.” “What is his Christian name 2” «Thomson's Christian name ? - Ob, his Christian name | Thomson's name is—ah—Harry.” “But I thought his initals were J. T.? Those are the initials on that umbrella you never returned to him.” “Ig that so? Then my suspicions were correct. the umbrella is not his own. How like him I” “I had an idea that you merely ca'l ed him Thomson ?” “Before other people only. Men friends address each other in one way in company, but in quite another way when they are alone.” “Qh, well, if itis customary.” “If it were not, I would not propose such a thing.” “Another chocolate drop, and then. “Mary, Dear--" + “Dear?” “Phat is what I said.” ; «I don’t think it worthy of you. luis taking two chocolate drops when Touly said you could have one.” ! “Well, when I get my hand into the bag, I admit—I—I mean, Thomson would not have been so niggardly.” “I am certain you don’t call him ‘Harry, dear.” ; “Not, perhaps, as arule, but at times men friends’ are more demonstrative than you think them, For instance, if Thom—I mean Harry, was ill—" “Bat I am quite well.” “still, with all thisinfluenza about-" HER BACK, She hiad put her jacket on the table, her chocolate drops on the mantel- piece, her gloves on the couch—indeed the room was full of her, and I was hold- ing her scarf, just as 1 Lold Thomson's. | “I walked down Regent Street be- hind you,” I said, sternly, “and your back told me that you were vain.” “I am not vain of my personal ap- pearance, at any rate.” “How could you be?” She looked at me sharply, but my face was without expression, and she sighed. She remembered that I had no humor. “Whatever my faults are, and they are many, vauity is not one of them. “When I said you had a bad temper you made the same remark about it. Also when—"" “That was last week, stupid ! Bat, of course, it you think me ugly—" “I did not say that.” “Yes, you did.” “But it you think nothing of your personal appearance why blame me if I agree with you ?” “She rose baughuly, “Sit down,” “I won't. Give me my scarf.” Her eyes were flashing. She has all sorts of eves. “If you really want to koow what I think of your personal appearar.ce—" +] dont.) I re:umed my pipe. “Well 2”? she said. “Well? “Oh, I thought you were going to gay something.” “Qaly that your back pleased me in certain other respects.” She let the chair take her back into its embrace. “Mary, dear!” It is a fact that ehe was crying. Af ter I had made a remark or two: “I am eo glad you think me pretty,” che said, trankly, “for though I don’t think eo myself, I like other people to thiuk it ; and somehow I thought you considered me plain. My nose is all wrong, isn’t it 2” “Let me see.” “So you admit you, were entirely mistaken in calling me vain ?” “You have proved that I was.” However, after she had drawn the daggers ont of her head and put them into the scarf (or whatever part of a lady’s dress itis that is worked with daggers,) and when the door had closed on her, she opened it and hurriedly fired these shots at me : “Yes, I am horridly vain. Ido my hair every night before I go to bed. 1 was sure you admired me the very first time we met. I know I have a pretty nose. Good afternoon.” HER SELFISHNESE, She was making spills for me, be- cause those Thomson made for me had run down. “Marty, “Well 27 “Mary dear.” “I am listening.” “That is all.” “You have such a curious, wasteful habit of saying one’s name as it it was a remark by itselt,”! “Yes; Thomson has noticed that al- go. However I meant to add thatit is very good of you to make those epills, I wonder if you vould do something else for me.” “Asa friend ?” “Yee, I want youto fill my pipe, and ram down the tobacco with your little finger.” “You and Mr. Thomson do that for each other ?” LH | Mten.'’ “Very well. Give it to me. This way ?’ “Tt smokes beautifully, You are a de. r good girl.” She let the poker fall. “Ob, I am not I” she wailed, “I am not really kind-hearted it is all selfishness.” This came out with a rush; but I am used to her, and kept my pipe in. “Even my charities are only a hid. cous kind of selfishness,” ehe continued with clasped hands. “There is that poor man who sells, match boxes at the corner of this street, for instance. 1 sometimes give him twopence.” (She carries an enormous purse, but there is never more than two-pence in it.) “That is surely vot selfish,” I said. “It is,” said she,” seizing the poker as it intending to do for herself that in instant. “I never give him anything simply because I see he needs it, but only occasionally, when 1 feel happier than usual. I am only thinking of my own happiness when I give it to him, That is the personification 0 ness.” “Mary !”’ “Well, if that isn’t, this is. him, at any rate. crossing the street on purpoge to do it. Oh, I should need to be terrifically to give him anything? There! What do you think of me now 2" “You gave him something on Mon- day when I was with you?” “Yes.” “Then you were happy at time 2” “What has that to do with it ?" “A great deal.” I rose. “Mary dear—"' “No! Go and sit over there.” STAGGERERS. The subjects we have discussed ov- er the poker | For instance : The rapidity with which we grow old. What on earth Mr. Meredith means by saying that woman will be the last thing civilized by man. Thomson. What will it all matter a hundred years hence? How strangely unlike other people we two are | The nicest name for (Mary.) The mystery of Being and not Being. Why does Mary exist ? Does Mary exist? ’ She had come in, looking very dole- tul, and the reason was that the more she thought it over, the less could she | see why she existed, This came of reading a work entitled Why Do We Ez- ist 9—a kind of book that ought not to | be published, for it only makes people unhappy. Mary stared at the problem ' with wide, fixed eyes, until I compelled her to wink by putting another in front of it, namely, Do You Frist? In her ignorance she thougnt there was no ! doubt of this, but I lent her a Bishop Berkeley, and since then she has tak- en to pinching herself on thesly, just to make sure that she is still there. HER SCART. i | | So far I had not (as will have been | noticed) by a word of look or sign | | ! that a woman. broken the agreement which rendered our platonic friendship possible. Thad not even called her darling, and this because, having reflected a good deal | on the sublject, I could not persuade | myself that this was one of my ways of | addressing Thomson. And I would { have continued the same treatment | bad it not been for her scarf, which | has proved beyond all bearing. That | scart is entirely responsible for what | happened to day. | Ivisa strip of taded terra-cotta, and alie ties it round her mouth before go- | ing out into the fog. Her faceis then | sufficiently irritating, but I could en dure it by looking acother way did she i not recklessly make farewell remarks through the scart, which is very thin. { Then her mouth—in short, I can’t put ‘up with this. | 1 had warned her repeatedly. But | she was like a mad girl, or perbaps i shedid not understand my meaning. | “Don’t come near me with that | thing round your mouth.” T[ have | told her a dozen times. I haverefused firmly to tie it for her. Ihave put the | table between me and it, and she asked | why ? (through the scarf) She was | quite mad. | And to-day, when I was feeling rath. | crstrange at any rate | It all occurred | in a moment. | “Don’t attempt to speak with that | gcarf round you, “I had said, and said | iL with my back to her. : i “You think I can’t because it is too { tight 77 she asked. “Go away,’ I said. She turned me round. “Why,” she said wonderingly, “it is quite loose. I believe I could whistle through it.” She did whistle through it. finished our platonic friendship. FIVE MINUTES AFTERWARDS, I spoke wildly, fiercely, exultingly ; and she all the time was trying to put on her jacket, and could not find the sleeve. “It was your fanlt ; but I am glad. I warned you. Cry away. I like to gee yon crying.” %] hate you!” : “No, you don’t.” “A friend=—" That “Friend! Pooh! Bah! Pshaw!” “Mr. Thomson—"’ “Thomson! Tehut! Thomson! [ His Christian name isn’t Harry. I don’t care!” don’t know what it is. “You said—"" “]t was a lie. Don't screw mouth in that way.” “1 will, if IT hike.” “1 warn you !” “I don’t care. Oh! “I warned you.” “Now I know you colors.” “Yon do, and Iglory in it. Platonic friendship—fudge | I guarrelled with you that time to be able to hold your hards when we made it up. When you thought I was reading your character ~~ I—Dou’t—3crew-—your— mouth !” “Give me my scarf,” “T lent you berkeley so that I could take hold of you by the shoulders on the pretence that I was finding out whether you existed.” “Good by forever I” your Oh I? in your true happy betore I would bother crossing | mystery of Being [ was thinking how much I should hike to put my hands beneath your chin and flick it.” “Ifyon ever dare tospeakt> me again—"’ “Don’t—screw—your—mouth ! And I would rather put my fingers through your hair than write the greatest poem in—" She was gone, leaving the scarf be hind her. My heart sank I flang open ‘my window (six hansoms came immediate- 1y.) and 1 could have jumped after her. | But I did not. What I saw had a re- | markable effect on my spirits. I saw | her cross the street on purpose to give f selfish- | twopence to the old man who sells the matches. All's well with the world. As scon I only | as I can lay down the scarf I am going give him something when I am passing | West to the house where Mary dear I never dream of | lives. i | The Immigrant Curse. Pauperism, Crime and Disease Sent Here by Wholesale From Abroad—Millions of Pauper Russian Hebrews Ready to Come.—How Eng- land Exports Her Criminals. Congress will devote its first attention during the coming session to framing a law restricting immigration. During the year 1891 twice as many Jews as are now in the Holy Land dis- embarked at the port of New York. Practically all oi them were paunpers, and 50,000 of them came from Russia. These are the most hopelessly degraded people on earth ; compared with them the Chinese are most desirable citizens. There are 3,500,000 more of them in Russia, and they are all coming over. The fund of $10,000,000 given by Baron Hirsh will suffice to bring them all to America within a few years. They land without a penny in their pockets, and the chief industry they undertake is a kind of peddling which is semi- mendicancy. The Hirsh fund provides each of them with a few dollars where with to pay for a stock of shoe-strings, collar-buttons, suspenders or other such merchandise. Already Hebrew venders of this description average eight to a block in Naw York city. Itis not sur- prising that the Russian Government should desire to get rid of them, inas- much as they never produce anything. If land is given them, they farra it out to others aud live on the rent. Never- theless, it is not apparent why the Czar should be permitted to shitt this burden off on the United States. In 1880 there were 25,000 convicts in prison and on ticket-of-leave in Eng- land. At present there are Jess than 12,000 inall. This reduction has been accom- plished by shipping British criminals to this country. It is a most profitable system, reheving England of dangerous citizens and signifying a saving of $170 a year for each person thus transported. There are about ninety socalled dis- charged prisoners’ aid sociéties in Great Britain. While nominally private benevolent organizations, they are in reality agents of the government. Be- fore a convict is discharged an officer from one of the societies visits him in prison and arranges with him that he shall go to the United States. He near- ly always assents, because he is only too glad to escape police surveillance and to get away from the record which faces him in every court whenever he com- mits a new crime. If he accepts the proposition the government hands him over to the society, paying to the society the society pays $17.50 for the convict’s ticket to America. furnishes him with clothes, bedding and mainder of $12 50 on the ship. the departure of With a view of getting rid of as many criminals as possivle in this way, the British Government has adopted a sys- tem of imposing a short term of impri- sonment and a long term of surveillance on offender against the laws. Thus, af- ter a brief time time the convicts can be released and have every inducement to get out of the country. Not infrequent- Iy a Judge will actually withhold pun- States. Thousands on thousand of Englishmen, declared guilty of the grav- est crimes and released in the manner described, are now in this country, most of them continuing to prosecute their professional warfare against society. On arriving here, the deported criminal promptly changes his name and begins a new carcer unembarrassed by past misdoings. It is positively known that in very many instances such persons re- ceive pecuniary aid from British socie- ties after their arrival on this side of the water, such assistance being transmitted in the shape of postal orders. In 1965 the pauper in England and Wales numbered 46 in’ every 1,000 of populations. At present they are count- ed at only 23 in 1,000. This reduction of more than one-half has been accom- lished hy sending persons of this class to the United States. Obviously, when a charge on the community can be got rid of forever at the cost ot only $17.50 to $20 for a passage across the ocean, it is much cheaper than to support that individual for the rest of his or her life. Lord Derby says : “With a population already congested and growing at the rate of 1,500,000 a year, England must be an emigrating country. To dispose of the growing swarms of the poorer classes is not only a matter of humanity but one also of public safety.” Safety, that is to say for England, but certainly a peril for the United States. Cardinal Mannirg says that ‘one of England's greatest Llessings is her ability to get rid of her pauper classes through emi- gration.” America, of course, can be reached far wore cheaply than any other country available for the purpose. Thus it is that homeless children are gathered by thousands from the streets of Liverpool and other cities and sent hither. Likwise nearly one hundred charitable shelters for fallen women in Great Britain ship their more or less re- claimed unfortunates to us. The Rus- sian Jew now pouring into England are passed on to America, because it is cheaper to pay their fare than to keep them. | Under these circumstances it i3 not “All the time we were discussing the ' surprising to learn that forly per cent. at the same time $30. Out of this sum | An official accom- | panies bim to the port, buys his ticket, other necessaries, and hands him the re- | ishment on condition that the individ- | ual shall consent to go to the United | of the persons at present eonfined in the jails and asylums of the United Sta e are foreign [n New Englard the percentage rises to seventy-five per cent. During the year 1891 there were ffty- eight homicides in Allegheny county, Pa. All of them were committed by aliens or nataralized foreigners. Tialy contributes the grest number of immi- grants to our shores. Five thousand murders cccur annually in that country. These people bring hither their secret society organizatious, such as the Malla the otjects of which are « urder, high- way robbery, blackmail, theft and ull other crimes. More than 150,000 «t them come over yearly. Great num- bers of them return to Lialy every au- | turn and come back again in the spring. { They pay fares both ways, spend four | months in idleness at home, and yet earn | in the season they spend in the Unit- | ed States more than double what they | could if they worked in their native land | all the year round. There are 22 000,- | 000 of these undersirable foreigners in | Italy now who may be said to be on the Because the steamship lines have | found the transportation of immigrants a vastly profitable business they Lave | adopted every possible means to induce the most poverty-stricken and least de- | sirable classes of toreigners to come to this country. The company which brought Asiatic cholera hither last year year alone employs 265 vessels in this trafic. Four thousand sub-agents in Italy are engaged in drun.ming up emi- grants and persuading them to embark, | and these agents utiliz: the services of | countless runners to assist them, receiv- | ing $2 for each emigrant. Folders, | printed for advertising purposes by rail- ways in the United States, are distribut- | ed broadeast, stating that millions of square miles of land are to be had for nothing in Dakota and elsewhere. Pamphlets are similarly circulated, set- ting forth the wonderful resources of America, and on the maps accompany- ing them theswamps of Florida and the alkali beds of the West look as well as the most fertile lands.. The ignorant people are led to believe that each one of them can become the owner of 160 productive acres by simply squat- ting on it, and that grapes grow wild along the railways in Texas. They are told that they will be boarded and lodged at Castle Garden until work is found tor them by immigration officials, whose business it is to supply them with em- ployment. Reaching New York with- out a penny immigrants in general who are bound for such distant points as Portland, Oregon, or Bismark, Dakota, usually suppose that those localities are within easy walking distance. Op dis- covering the swindle of which they have been the victims, they turn to the crowd- ed centres of population. The fares of Itehian immigrants are very commonly paid by their relatives and friends in this country, who, if they have not the money, can obtain it readily without security from any of the numer- | | ous Italian banks in American cities, There are dozens of these institutions in New York which lend money in this way at 100 or 200 per cent., getting it back from the first earnings of the im- ported immigrant. The backs alsodo a great business in contract labor, fetching over men by thousands to work on rail- ways, in the mines or elsewhere. Of course, this is against the law, butit is extremely difficult of detection. It was ascertained not long ago that the steam- ship lines employ persons nominally as stewards, whose actual duty it is to in- struct immigrants on board ship as to the answers they are to give to inquiries | put to them by our immigration oflicials. The lower classes of Hungarians, Ital- ians, Bohemians, Slavs and other people | in Southern Europe have been reduced to the starvation line. Ot all of them | who come to this country, it is reckoned | that fifty per cent. have their passages | prepaid for the purpose of getting rid of them. They are dumped as paupers pure and simple on the free soil of America. By similar ‘‘charitable’” means they are conveycd by rail to what- ever seaport may be nearest their homes. This does not cost very much, because | they travel fourth class. Fourth-class | railway cars in Europe are somewhat "less luxurious than our cattle cars, They "have no seats, and the passengers stand up or sit on their boxes. Toey are so closely packed that the trafic is exceed- | ingly profitable, although the fares are [ less than a cent a mile. On arriving at ' the seaport the wretched people are | placed in so-called emigrant boarding | houses, compared with which the mean- [est tenement houses in New York's { slums are palatial. These = boarding houses are owned by thestearuship lines, and the emigrants are crowded into them as thickly as possible to await the departure of the steamer. They sleep on straw, and the dirt avd squalcr of the accomodations are indiscribable. On the voyage much more attention 18 paid to the weltare of beasts than to that of these: human beings. For example the jackasses imported to the United States from [taly are quartered always on the top deck of the vessel, while the emigrants are placed in the hold: below. The avowed reason for this is that some of the jackasses would be likely to die if they were put in the hold for the lack of fresh air, and they are worth $600 apiece. They are brought tu this coun- try to serve as sires for mules because no such big ones can be raised here. ‘If many of them died the traffie, which is a source of darge gain to the steamship companies. would necessarily be discon- tinued. But with an immigrant it is difi- erer.t. Ii he dies he is