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either side, as the
Bellefonte, Pa., June 19, 1896.
THE BRIAR-ROSE.
The Briar-rose bloomed in the meadow
Where a brook sang on its way ;
And often the sunbeams loitered there
From dawn till close of day.
And often the wandering south-wind
Lingered to whisper and woo, =
Till briar-rose blushed and hung her head,
For she thought him a lover true.
“Have a care, have a care, little flower !”
The meadow brook sang on its way,
“The sun shines clear, but he's fickle, dear,
The south wind bides but a day.”
But briar-rose mocked, and tossed her head,
The sun and the wind laughed long ;
The little brook fled away to the sea,
With a minor in its song.
The south-wind found a violet bank,
The sun wooed each flower that blows ;
The brook mourned low—it bore to the sea
The faded leaves of a rose.
Helen Elizabeth Wilson.
AGROUND ON THE FLATS.
BY ANNIE E. P. SEARING.
The wind was blowing down a wide
stretch of river in a steady blast that bit
and stung with November cold and tore up
the water in flerce white-caps. A woman in
a skiff, with its bow high out of water un-
der the weight of drift-wood in the stern,
was struggling doggedly to pull across the
dreary waste to shore. She was wrapped
in a man’s coat, ragged and faded, and
close over her blowing hair she had pulled
an old slouch hat.
round with each freshening puff of the
wind, she would abandon her right oar and
pull with all her strength on the other,
bringing the little craft back on its course
across the waves, with imminent risk of
swamping it. At last, in a more than
usually severe struggle, the oar snapped in
two, hurling her backward to the bottom
of the boat, where she lay as if stunned,
making no effort to rise. The skiff veered
round in the wind and tore off down stream
like a race-horse, nodding and bowing over
the big waves, with its nose high in the air.
The gloomy day was dying with belated
grace in a pale yellow radiance over the
mountains. Here and there a light twinkled
out in the gathering gloom of the shore on
of drunken madness in mid-channel.
Darkness seemed to come up from the wa-
ter and cover them, the woman and her
cockle-shell craft, as she lay hnddled be-
tween the seats. She raised her head at
last and looked out across the water. The
shore seemed farther off in the gloom, and
the dreariness was a thing to shudder at.
But she did not mind it ; she was be-
numbed with cold and fatigue and misery.
Presently she began to moan and mutter,
as she rested her head on her folded arms.
A belated crow flapped over toward his bed
and supper, with a far-away cry of loneli-
ness. The wind howled in sympathy, and
tore great masses of cloud off the face of a
pale early moon, and then hurled them
back, as if to insult her poor shivering
presence.
‘Oh, I don’t care, I don’t care !"’ wailed
the woman. ‘‘I don’t care what comes or
goes ! I wish the boat would upset ! Oh,
I’m beat out, I'm clean beat out! I give
up—there ain’t any more use trying !”’
Under the dome of every human skull
there is an amphitheatre where the trag-
edies and comedies of life are re-enacted
with a precision and brilliancy equalled on
no other stage. There come times to the
brain when, whether you will er not, you
must see the past played over again there—
see the faces, hear the voices, live again the
thrills of joy or pain. You may beg off,
you may cry aloud to be spared sight and
sound, you may tear your hair and go mad,
but the play goes on, and only unconscious-
ness or death may ring down the curtain.
Out in the gloom of falling night this poor
creature, adrift and helpless, lay, an an-
guished spectator of her panorama of the
past. Curiously enough, it was not sorrow,
or hunger, or the memory of cruel blows
* that wrung cries from her heart, but long-
gone love and tenderness and peace. She
saw her childhood on the old farm, climbed
again on her mother’s knee, prayed her
maiden prayers, and again met and adored
her young lover-husband, with groans of
bitter grief. At memory of those old ca-
resses she wailed aloud ; but it was with
the stupor of endurance that she saw again
the change of scene—mother and father
passed away, and then the poverty, the lit-
tle fishing-hut, and the brutal drunkenness,
the blows, and hunger. Then came a scene
with a cradle among the stage properties, a
little shoe shaped to a fat crumpled foot,
fanny little garments, and broken toys.
The woman stirred and moaned as the boat
bobbed wildly and the wind gave a scream
of fierce delight. Then came the face and
the voice, the piercing childish voice ery-
ing ‘‘Mammy,’”’ and the clinging baby
arms seemed to tighten round her neck.
“Oh, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it !
God !”’ she cried, beating her head against
the gunwale, ‘‘let me drown !”’
But the panorama passed on to a short
grave fenced in amid the grass of a hill-side
meadow, where this same wind that seemed
mocking her sorrow was now bending down
the homely garden lilies she had planted
for her child. There was nothing left to be
re-enacted but the poverty and bestiality
and loathsome living that were to her an-
other death. The last picture of all was
this'day of toil, to bring home wood to
keep her and her sottish husband from
freezing. He was there now, she supposed,
in the wretched hovel they called home,
cursing her for the long delay, while she
was here on her way at last, by freezing or
drowning, to reach her mother and her
child, gone through the door of death such
a weary while before. At last the dull
torpor of cold and spent sorrow enveloped
her, and the night sounds of the river, if
they reached her ears, made no impression
on her brain. The dull beat of passing
steamers and the hail from an occasional
fishing-boat never roused her where she lay.
Once the skiff went driving against a wall
of stone with a shock that toppled some of
the piled-up drift-wood overboard, but she
never moved, nor knew that they were
grinding past the pier of Catskill Light,
and racing on through darkness and danger
into the unknown. There was a wild
shout when they danced right under the
beam of a big night boat. The great wheel
just missed as the skiff slid beneath the
projection of the paddle-box, and the fleet-
ing glimpse of the prostrate figure in the
old coat called forth an angry comment
from the pilot up aloft. ‘‘Drunken fisher-
“man,” he said, surlily. ‘Pity he hadn’t
gone under.’’
So she went on down the beautiful, ter-
rible highway of the river, the road that is
ever changing, yet ever thesame. The
reedy coves where dragon-flies dart and
dream through sleepy noons, and where the
As the boat swung !
boat kept on with a sort | The fyke-nets
wild-duck tries to hide and rest on her
journeys up and down, the great green vel-
vet flats in the ‘turns of the river, where
you may pole your boat through an illu-
sion of waving fields, the low capes and
peninsulas that become islands at high tide,
where the fishermen love to mount their
ghostly net-reels and strand their house-
boats—all the sweet nooks and seductive
tarrying-places that lure the lover of in-
land waters were wiped out and obliterated
by the black’sponge of this wild night. If
the Hudsen is a bewitching mistress, lavish
of smiles by her summer shores, she is no
less a haunting Nemesis in winter, with
her long reaches of black wind-tossed wa-
ters of dreary expanses of ice, when all the
soft distance muffled sounds of her activi-
ties are frozen into a silence that may be
felt—a silence that is only more profound
and awful after a booming crack of the ice,
when she heaves a frozen sigh with the
tide. ,
The skiff drove on with the wind that
sent before it a menace of the ice-bound
gloom that was to follow, past shore lights
and the gleam from the hill-side farm
kitchens, till at last, meeting the tide, it
was driven in over the flats by some trick
of the diverting current to a brace of small
wooded islands, where with a final rush it
drove well up on a little gravelly beach.
Nothing could be more quaint, more
cozy, more absurdly impossible and unreal,
than that island on a hazy day, when the
throbbing heat distorts perspective and
adds strange aspects to the most common-
place things ; but nothing, also, could be
prettier. It is a picture-book island, with
a funny little rambling dwelling built like
a child’s block house, and added to, room
by room, on the ground, as fancy struck
the builder or old boards came to hand. A
narrow walk leads up from the beach
through the enclosure of a miniature flower-
garden to the house, bounding one side of
this sacred precinct. Beyond the little
gate is the pygmy chicken-house, and then
the gentle slope hegins, where the fowls
and the goat may wander through sweet
grass and half-wild flowers, escaped from
the little garden, till they reach the abrupt
side of their tiny world. Here a low rocky
cliff looks off towards the channel, skirted
by a narrow beach at the foot. Cinnamon-
roses riot there unchecked, and tiger-lilies
and drooping columbine. Flat cedars with
their black-green shadows and larches and
birch-trees flank the rocks, while on the
opposite side, where the fish-house stands
in the pine grove, willows fringing the
water drop a veil of privacy and mystery
toward the flats and the river shore. It is
a place of dreams, and not of activities.
cages, and the fishing-=skiffs neatly moored
off-shore or drawn up under the willows,
seem in no sense instruments of labor, but
only accessories to help the picture-book
illusion. The dwellers on this island, a
little old couple, were so integral a part of
-the whole scheme that it would be difficult
to tell whether they first found the island
or the island found them. Small in per-
son, in wants and aims, their limited out-
look on life was perfectly adapted to their
horizon. She could sit in her low- doorway
when the duties of the morning were done,
and watch the passing on the great high-
way of the stream with the gentle excite-
ment that comes to a farmer’s wife by a
country road-side, while he fished, and
water-grass after snipe or ducks, and grati-
fied all the sporting instincts of the fre-
quenter of country clubs. Added to these
quieting pursuits was the serene conscious-
ness of a small bank account ready to be
drawn upon every month, and.a good son,
of whom great thi might be expected.
This son was a clerk in a store in a city
not many miles away, and the only diver-
sion of the bachelor leisure was playing
first violin in the orchestra when ‘‘shows’’
came to town. Through the ice-bound-
winters these two old people hibernated
comfortably, eking out the hours in their
sevahl ways with net-mending and knit-
ting, and the long evenings were short to
them as they read by the green-shaded
lamp, their feet tilted in a twin row on the
kitchen stove hearth. This was a precau-
tionary ceremony to insure sound sleep.
Thus it was they sat through the wild
gale that blew the skiff, bearing its burden
ing thud on the beach.
‘Father,’ said the little old woman, as
she laid down her weekly newspaper and
pushed up her glasses, ‘hedn’t you better
take a look to the out-houses and the boats
before we go to bed? The wind blows
terrible.”’
Father took his feet down off the stove
and guessed he had, while he got his lan-
tern, and brought his great-coat to Mother
to put him into it. That was how they
came to find the woman half frozen in the
boat, her slouch hat pulled down over her
unconscious head, and with her the bless-
ing and diversion for the dull winter days
of nursing her through the long illness
that followed. ‘TFather’’ and ‘‘Mother”
these tiny Samaritans had been to each oth-
er and to their one child for so many years
that I question if, their given names could
have been recalled by either without an
effort. Father and Mother they constituted
themselves without question to this poor
stricken soul, whom they found adrift
from all love and tenderness. They gave
themselves up to a perfect passion of nurs-
ing, and all the pent-up fervor of hot flan-
nels and poultices and blisters and herb
teas and embrocations, that for many yéars
had found feeble expression toward sick
canaries, or bantams with the pip, or a dog
with a broken leg, they lavished on this
woman through a long siege of pneumonia
and brain fever. She lay through most of
the winter like one dead to all emotion or
thought. She ate ; she slept ; she walked
at last about the house like a machine.
She spoke only in brief monosyllables, and
showed no slightest curiosity about her
whereabouts or how she came there. To
all questions as to the past she gave the
same dazed answer: ‘I don’t know ; I
can’t seem to remember anything,”” At
last the people gave up searching in her
poor brain for information, and, with a
wise patience that was partly born of in-
difference accepted her as a gift of Provi-
dence sent for their enjoyment. Towards
spring she roused from her apathy, got a
new light in her eyes and a new color in
her pale cheeks, and with out-door activi-
ties found speech and interest in common
things.
With her heavy dark hair braided closely
round her shapely head, her straight tall
figure and elastic walk, she was a goodly
sight to look upon. So thought Father as
he launched his boats when the ice went
out, and she helped him with her strong
arms ; so said Mother as they set the hens,
made garden, apd cleaned the picture-book
house together, with pleasant woman’s
talk of works and days through the long
spring mornings ; and so, alas! thought
John Henry, coming home with his fiddle
under his arm, to help for a while with the
shad-fishing.
When the last field of ice floats down the
slow current, the river wakens from her
winter sleep. Along her greening banks
warm golden yellows and pinky reds glow
_like tarred bird-
smoked his pipe, or slipped among the
of drift-wood and dead hopes, with a grind- |
where the trees are budding into life, and
the waves curl and flash and break with a
sighing swish and babble that are sweet to
hear after the lonely silence. The: throb-
bing thud of passing paddles or the burr-r
of propellers is heard” at intervals, and
gives assurance to the sleeper when he
wakes and turns over in the night that all
is well again, and that the world is work-
ing'on without him while he rests. Flotillas
of canal-boats creep into sight and slowly
fade away. Then the shad come, and dur-
ing their brief stay the water is alive with
boats darting here and there, while the
fishermen band together to stretch out
their great nets or reel them on the shore.
At night, with lanterns in the bow, they
steal about like glowworms, and then the
sorting and smoking and sending to market
during the short harvest make the excite-
ment of the fish-houses on shore. Long
before sunrise Father and John Henry
would be up and away to the fishing, slip-
ping off like spirits with their laden boats
through the veiled obscurity of the mist-
cloaked river. All day the women worked
alone, and drew together in a sweet rela-
tion of mother and daughter. The little
old woman called the stranger ‘‘Barbary.’”’
as she had once called her only daughter,
long since dead, and with a simple igno-
rance of the name’s appropriateness. Bar-
bara, for herself, had no name, no place
nor part in any relation of life save the
present. With returning health and renew-
ing strength all her old nature had come
back, the gentleness and patience, the dog-
like faithfulness to the task of the hour,
and the heart brimming with love, ready’
to expend itself, like the sunshine, on all
about her path. Everything was there
that went to make her the woman she was,
save the past, and that was as completely
blank as a washed-off slate.
When the soft south wind blew the |
month of May up the river, the cherry-
tree, where the bench was before the low
door, quivered and shook its blossoming
branches under the fleeting weight of north-
ing birds as they hovered and lingered on
the island. A young peach-tree sprawled
and crowded against the house, thrusting
its pink sprays on one side against the win-
dow, and on the other reaching out to the
open doorway. In the sweet-scented twi-
lights they four sat together there and lis-
tened to the fiddle, watching the last of the
sunset reflected in the placid waters. _ The
river lights came out one by one, and pass-
ing boats showed red and green stars as the
dusk dropped down. Now and then the
dying swell of the passing river craft broke
up the reflections into myriads of dancing
jewels, and slipped up the gravel with a |
long sigh of peace. Sometimes the music
grew sad, and the player’s dark eyes when
he bowed his head were always fixed on
Barbara. She, looking out over the water,
and bathed in a dream of sweet odors and
fairyland sights, felt her heart drawn irre-
sistibly by the strains, that seemed singing
their sweet story to her ears alone. Some-
times a bit of the melody would wake a
feeble echo out of her blurred memory, and
she could not bear it. One night, thus re-
called from the sweet trance of a love un-
expressed, she rose and fled away among
the shadows to the cliff as if a ghost had
risen to pursue and claim her.
‘What is it ? What’s the matter, Bar-
bary ?”’ said John Henry, following her,
as, still holding the flddle and bow,. he
passed his free arm around her. She sobbed
out her terrors on his shoulder.
“Oh, I don’t know—but I'm afraid—
afraid to know who I was and where I
came from, and sometimes you play tunes
that seem to almost tell me! There's
something terrible there where I belong—
I’m sure of it ; and if I once remember, I'll
have to go back to it, and I don’t want—
oh, I don’t want to go back !”’
‘You sha’n’t go back—you shall stay
here forever,’’ said the fiddler, as he held
her fast—‘ ‘forever and forever—for you’re
mine !”’
The next day a canal-boat went ashore
on the edge of the flats, and a skiff put off
for the island. The man ina red shirt
who stepped out on the little beach gazed
with a kind of terrified rapture at Barbara
rinsing clothes there.
“Don’t you know me ?’’ he asked, in
surprise, as she straightened up and put
back her escaping hair from her eyes.
She looked at him with a puzzled little
frown between her level brows. ‘‘No,”’
she said, slowly ; “I’ve never laid eyes on |
you before, as I know of.
He took off his hat, and pushed his hand
in a puzzled way through his hair. Then
he shifted the brim around carefully as he
looked down and flushed.
“It would ’a’ been better if you never
had, Katy. I own up to that ; and I will
say I deserve you should cast me off. But
I ain’t the man I was a yearago—I've got
religion, and I mean to live right now.”
“I don’t know you,’’ said the woman,
shaking her head, with a look of dread ;
“maybe I knew you once ; but I’ve been
sick, and I don’t remember any more. I
don’t want to remember !”’ she broke off,
passionately.
The man shrank, as if ashamed. His
handsome weak face paled a little, and his
eyes filled with tears.
“I’ve been awful mean to you,’’ he con-
fessed, sadly, ‘but I always loved yon,
Katy ; it was the drink did it. I’ve hun-
ted all up and down river for you since
that night you went off. I thought if I
found you, maybe you’d come back and
try me again.”’
“Oh, go away !”’ she cried, as he moved
toward her ; ‘‘please go away, and don’t
come back here ! I'm not the woman you’re
looking for. I—I don’t know who I am ;
but I don’t belong to you! I tell you I
don’t know you !”’
He wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve
and turned away. Then he came back to
her. *
‘Don’t you remember,’”’ he said, with a
sigh, ‘how we used to go to prayer meet-
ings together when we first kept company ?
You tried to make me good then, but I
couldn’t seem to make it out. If you’d
come back to me now, I'd try again ; we'd
go to meeting together, and I'd keep
straight right along.’
Bnt the only reply she made was to back
away along the beach, pointing dumbly to
him and the boat.
“I ain’t going back without you,” he
said, following her a little distance. ‘I'll
get work around here somewheres, and
then, if you change your mind, maybe
ou’ll give me another chance. ’Tain’t
ike you, Katy, to be so hard ; yon was al-
ways so forgiving. But I’ll wait, if it’s
ten years, and I know you'll come back to
me.
Then he turned about and got into the
boat and shoved off. He kept his word for
once in his vacillating life, for he did stay
about the neighborhood, and through the
summer, from time to time, when she went
to the village near by, Barbara passed him
at work in the rubbing-mill just across
from the island, planing and smoothing the
great slabs of fagging in the bluestone-
yard: He said nothing of the encounter,
nor did she, though sometimes she shrank
with sudden fear against John Henry's
shoulder, as-he played, through the breath-
1 glooming clouds, 3
{and together we've got to stay.
less summer moonlight, some half-remem-
bered tune of other days.
When the shad-fishing ended, John Hen-
ry went back to his city work, but he car-
ried a promise with him that lightened his
tasks, and Barbara and mother stitched
through the long hot days on wedding gar-
ments. Sometimes he came home in the
early evening, and left again at dawn, and
while he staid the lovers sat through the
long twilights in a trance of melody and
out-door wichery and love. At first a
shadow would sometimes steal under the
willows, silently beach a skiff, and then
lurk about among the trees, listening and
watching and waiting, but after a while it
came no more. = ; :
So the short summer waxed and waned.
Blossom-time passed, and hay-harvest,
when the western breeze carried long whiffs
of drying grass and the drowsy buzz of
mowing-machines from the hill-side. The
apples rounded and ripened, and the grapes
hung full and dark. Then the river put
on her last glow of color, and rivalled the
sunsets in her shore draperies. The haze
of Indian summer dropped down stream
and stilled the ripples into glassy peace,
and the year faded. November came again
“with her menaces, the wind set in from the
north, and the water turned black and an-
gry. Happiness and cheer seemed to drop
out of Barbara's face as the sun paled and
cooled, and a strange restlessness took pos-
session of her. She pulled from the bushes
the old row-hoat in which she had drifted
out of nowhere, and calked and tarred it ;
she could not tell why. When her lover
came she clung to him more closely at
times, and again would shrink from him in
terror. His music seemed only to disquiet
her. At last one night the spell was brok-
en. Without prelude the bow arm, dip-
ping and rising among the shadows in the
kitchen corner, drew out the strains of an
old hymn. :
“Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood,’
quavered Mother, in company with the fid-
dle, and Barbara started, with white cheeks
and fixed eyes, straight away without a
barrier into her past. The old meeting-
house on the hill, the girls and boys of the
were there. She had caught the thread,
and was unravelling all the patterns in
that terrible woof of misery that followed.
All through that night she lived over again
those scenes of wretchedness, and once
more drove before the blast toward the is-
land where she had wakened with that mer-
ciful veil drawn over the nightmare of her
life. Was that the awakening, and this
| the dream ? Or was the summer peace and
happiness but a passing vision—but a res-
pite in the long sorrow called living?
Whichever it was, her awakened conscious-
ness held fast to one steadfast duty, and
her religion, if it had been of a hard com-
plexion, with its limited heaven and well-
defined hell, had at least ingrained upon
her soul an unconquerable adhesion to the
right.
In the morning she stole out and pushed
off in her old skiff among the reeds to the
landing by the rubbing-mill, and here she
waited for the footsteps she well remem-
bered going to work. As the man came
whistling down the path, she moved out
from the bushes, and taking him by the
arm, without a word, she led him through
the winding way to the beach where the
skiff lay. Her face was so pale and her
eyes so full of purpose that he drew back
reluctantly, half doubtful of her sanity.
“I remember it all now,’”’ she said
hoarsely, ‘and I am ready to go back.
Come !”’
“Well, there’s no hurry about it, Katy.
I dun’no’ ‘as you need to, if you don’t
want to. I shan’t ever make no claim.”
There was an intrinsic weakness in the
expression of his face, in the slouch of his
square shoulders, in his drooping averted
gaze, that in some indefinable way express-
ed that his shifty will had ceased to want
her at all. No words of his could so clear-
ly have told it, but the woman did not re-
lax one whit, though she read him with
the undimmed sight of long experience.
‘There’s nothing else to be done,” she
said, and she put into her voice the reason-
ing tenderness one would use to a whimsi-
cal child. “It was God put us together,
I never
tried to get away from you. The oar broke
and the wind drove the boat along; and
then I just give up ; and when I come to,
couldn’t even remember who I was. It’s
all come back to me now’’—here she sob-
bed a little, wildly, and then by an effort
of will recovered her self-control—‘ ‘and
I'm going come with you to begin all over
again.” =
“All right, Katy,’* he said, with an evi-
dent desire to temporize, ‘‘we’ll go, but
not to-day—we’ll wait and get our things
together, you know.”’
“No, she answered, steadily ; ‘‘we’ll
go now, right off, before anything happens.
I haven’t got any thing there that belongs
to me, and you can send back for yours.
Come on ; I'll take an oar.”’
Her will compelled him, and together
they shoved off and headed up the river.
Through the dark Rurpling water, under
and: ever looking back-
ward, they toiled away from Paradise.
Without greeting she had come, and with-
out farewell she went away ; but when
poor weeping mother put on her glasses to
read the evening chapter, she found be-
tween the leaves a little message, written
in a cramped, unaccustomed hand. ‘‘God
will reward you,” it said, ‘‘for being good
to a broken-hearted woman. I have re-
membered who I was and where I came
from. I have gone back to my duty.
Good-by.”’—Harper’s Bazar. :
. Black Diphtheria.
The Disease has Appeared at Miners’ Mills and
the Neighborhood is Scared.
Some days ago some Hungarian children
were taken ill at Miners’ Mills near Wilkes-
barre, with a strange malady. Home
remedies were applied, but did little or no
good. One of the children gradually grew
worse, and a physician was finally sum-
moned, who pronounced the case a very
malignant case of black diphtheria. There
were several children in the family aud the
physician ordered them sent away, so that
they would not: contract the dread disease.
The sick child died and was buried at
once. One of the children sent away was
taken to relatives in Kingston. The little
one was taken ill on Thursday of the same
disease and died that same night. The
residents of that section are highly incensed
because the borough authorities allowed
the child to be brought within the borough
limits.
Forced To" It.
“Yes,” admitted the King of Bokipo to
the new missionary, ‘‘I did eat your prede-
cessor, though cannibalism” had been bad
form for nearly a decade. But when he
came to us on his arrival and said that
even in far away America he felt that he
could only be happy in our midst what
could a poor savage do ?’’
neighborhood, the lover of her girlhood, all |
a long*tiiie after, I was on the island, and-
Hands Off the Moon.
A Telescope That Will Bring It Within a Few Miles
of Us.
The huge block of crystal which will be-
come the mirror for the great telescope has
safely arrived in Pdris. If all goes well,
the exhibition of 1900 will be able to boast
of a distinct feature. ‘Whether the moon’s
features will be equally distinct is another
question. Professor Loewy thinks not,
but M. Deloncle is still determined to car-
ry through his idea.
“The moon one yard off.”” It was thus
the scheme of the gigantic telescope was
spoken of in the papers, but M. Deloncle,
however ambitious he may be in central
Africa, protests that he never had so pre-
posterous a notion. He claims that it will
be possible to throw on to a screen views
of our satellite brought within a distance
of 38 miles. This remains to be seen.
However, everybody will wish M. Deloncle
—and still mére especially his shareholders
—every success in what one must still re-
-gard as an experiment.
The new telescope mirror is the largest
ever made. It was cast at Jeumont, a
manufacturing place and the last French
station on the line to Liege, Cologne and
Berlin. This splendid block of homogene-
ous crystal weighs 3,000 kilograms. Its
diameter is 2.05 meters, and in its present
nearly rough state it cost $4,000. Of
-course it was conveyed to Paris in a special
train. It was wrapped up in heavy felt
blankets, protected by hoops of soft wood,
with metal tires, mounted on pivots.
Thus packed, the mirror was tightly
wedged in a case that was placed in the
Pagan ona bed of hurdles and layers of
hay.
For greater safety the train stopped only
once—at Tergnier—and went at as slow a
pace as a royal train, escorted by a royal
| inspector. It was insured to its full value.
| The same afternoon it was removed from
the northern terminus to the workshop.
The mirror before leaving Jeumont went
through a second grinding of its faces, be-
ing as smooth asa fine plate glass. But
for telescopic purposes this sort of smooth-
ness is roughness itself. The finishing
| process will take two years and six months
and ‘by more expeditious processes than
| any hitherto in use, which, moreover, will
| give greater accuracy than anything known.
| Hitherto astronomical mirrors and lenses
| have been polished by hand by slowly rub-
| bing the glass with the naked hand some-
{ times, but not always, moistened with oil,
| albumen and other substance which are the
maker’s secret. The drawback of this
‘process is that the mere heat of the hand
may cause the surface to warp.
~ The new mechanical process. of which
particulars are not given, will produce a
surface approaching a true plane within
one ten-thousandth part of a millimeter.
Even this marvelous finish will leave a
margin, astronomers tell us, for errors.
The whole finishing process will cost
£6,000. The silvering will not cost any-
thing to speak of.
The mirror will be mounted on two arms
by machinery of the usual sort. The rays
gathered from planetary space will be re-
flected horizontally through a mammoth 60
meters long laid on piles of masonry. The
lenses of flint and crown glass will be 1
meter 25 centimeters, the largest in the
world, and the images, enlarged 6,000
_| times, will be thrown on to a screen, which
thousands of people will view at a time.
The moon will, if all goes well, he
| brought within 38 miles,* but it is most
doubtful whether images on this scale will
prove correct. M. Loewy, the assistant di-
rector of the Paris observatory, who has
submitted some splendid photographs of
the moon, believes that the limit of 94
miles he has reached is the utmost practic-
able for along time tocome. Larger images
will be indistinet.—London Daily News.
Fiend Righter Still at Large.
The Mad Slayer of Little Jimmie M’Connell Eludes
the Police.—Killed for Making Noise.—Love for
his Babies Averted a Wholesale Butchery.—
More Facts of the Tragedy.
Little Jimmie McConnell, the victim of
madman William J. Richter’s assault, died
shortly after 1 o’clock Sunday morning at
Pittsburg. With the usual cunning of a
maniac Richter has baffled the Allegheny po-
lice department for nearly 48 hours, and
there is nothing to indicate that he will not
doso for many more hours. Hardly afoot of
territory within a radius of several miles of
the scene of the horrible tragedy in Woods
| Run Saturday has not been gone over more
| than once by the vigilant officers of the de-
| partment. Clue after clue has been taken
up, and all have had an ending like a soap
bubble striking a stone wall. There seems
to be no doubt that the fiend, who crushed
out the life of the innocent lad has crawled
into some small space and will there remain
until hunger alone drives him to justice.
This is a trait of the murderer, he having
once before hid in a manner strange to sane
criminals. It was about three years ago,
when he nearly crushed out the life of his
partner in the real estate business, Howard
Lutton, by hurling a paperweight at him.
At that time he eluded the police for some
time-by crawling into a coalhole on Me-
Clure avenue.
The child’s father blames McKinley free
beer for the death of his boy. He said
Richter had been spending considerable
time about the McKinley headquarters in
Woods Run, drinking the free beer on tap
there.
“It was Republican beer that killed my
boy. Richter had been drinking for some
time. There is no motive for the deed that I
can possibly think of. Jim and Richter
seemed to be the best of friends, and only a
half hour before he assaulted him they sat at
the table and joked together. There did
not seem to be any signs of the demon in
the man at that time. My theory of the
affair is that he assaulted Jim while the
children were just outside of the play-
house door. When he -went up there he
told the children to go down into the
house, and I believe that he struck the
blows just as soon as they were out of the
door, then came down with them. He did
not have time fo return and do it, as was
t supposed by some.’’
All Went Together.
“I’ve come to ask for your daughter's
hand, Mr. Herrick,”’ said young Waller,
nervously.
“Oh—well, you can’t have it,” said
Herrick, ‘I’m not doling out my daughter
on the installment system. When you
feel that you can support the whole girl,
you may call again.”
——The Republicans talk a good deal
about our ‘bankrupt treasury,’”’ ignoring
the fact thst the treasury it not bankrupt
and the government had over $171,000,000
in cash May 1, inclusive of the gold reserve.
But the Republicans are doing their best to
make the treasury bankrupt by extrava-
gant and useless appropriations, and if
jhe fail in so doing it will not be their
ault.
10 meters long and will be set in motion |»
FOR AND ABOUT WOMEN.
Miss Bertha G. Lamme, of the Westing-
house works in Pittsburg, is the only wom-
an electrical engineer in the country.
The warm weather damsel should have a
skin like peaches and cream. She would,
too, if she only knew how to improve her
opportunities.
Why doesn’t she take advantage of the
fruit season ? Why doesn’t she scorn pas-
tries, puddings, creams and candies during
the few months at least, when for the mere
choosing healthful fruit dainties are hers ?
, Would she aid her digestion, clear up a
muddy skin and secure all around health
let her become an apple eater.
Pears are health aids, but better when
cooked. Peaches are calculated to beauti-
fy, and grapes are declared the healthiest of
all fruits. Cherries, an authority says,
frequently restore health and strength to
the weak. Strawberries, though a cold
fruit, have the virtue of healing rheuma-
tism. Pineapples are said to be the best
cure for dyspepsia known. Oranges are an
excellent cure for dyspepsia and lemons
serve as a fine fruit tonic.
Although sleeves and skirts and bows
and belts may vary after their own pecu-
liar fashion, the coat-and-skirt suits, the
shirt waists, and above all the adjustable
collar, will stand firm in the fashionable
world as do low shoes, sailor hats and a
few other absolutely indispensable things
in the summer season.
For an inexpensive party gown nothing
is prettier than pure white dimity, which
may be bought of really good quality for
25 cents a yard. The first important point
to be considered is the lining, and as silk is
expensive, the best lining—though this
seems paradoxical —is none at all. Have
instead a pretty petticoat of linen lawn,
which must be of the same length, or near-
ly so, as the dress skirt. The latter may
be of the graceful bell-skirt pattern, or the
full round skirt, which, perhaps, is better
for wash materials.
The bodice should be full in the back,
while the front should be made in the Ma-
rie Antionette or fichu style, the long ends
being brought round to the back and tied
in a simple knot. This, of course, leaves a
small V-shaped opening at the neck, and
the fichu, if edged with narrow lace, has a
much prettier effect. The elbow sleeves,
made very full, should also be finished
with lace.
A white Swiss gown worn over a linen
lawn petticoat is also suitable and costs but
little.
Make the round skirt perfectly plain,
finishing it with a’ deep hem. The full
bodice and elbow sleeves should be finish-
ed with wide crush bands of bias white
taffeta silk, tied in big bows, while the gir-
dle at the waist should be of the same,
pointed back and front and tied slightly
to the left of the front in a large bow and
pointed loops. A more expensive gown is
of white canvas made over white taffeta ;
this skirt, too, should be perfectly plain
and the full bodice should have a very full
vest of white chiffon, ending with a stock
and belt of crisp taffeta ribbon. The el-
bow sleeves have a twist of taffeta ribbon,
tied in full bows on the inside of the: arm.
bow sleeves of taffeta ribbon, tied in full
bows on the inside of the arm.
For the white and dainty summer room
nothing is prettier or more appropriate
than linen. The linen novelties are
unusually pretty this spring, There
is an exquisite connterpart in lilies
which would delight the heart of any wom-
an who has a home of her own. Both the
centrepiece and the doilies were round in
shape and the lilies encircled them. Linen
picture frames were shown in effective de-
signs. A frame of deep purple linen, on
which a spray of lilies were embroidered,
was perhaps the most effective, though the
green linen frames on which lilies and vio-
lets were embroidered were very pretty.
Court plaster cases of white linen are use-
ful and convenient tokens of regard for the
bicycle fiend. Embroidered with small
spring flowers, buttercups or white and
gold daises, they will be most acceptable
and handy ‘‘on the road.”
A beautiful woman must know how to
put on her clothes or she loses half her
beauty. So many women who have regu-
lar features, good complexions and other
essentials of beauty entirely nullify their
good looks by wearing ugly, shapeless
clothes and colors which do not suit them.
It is all very well for novelists and writ-
ers of short stories to say that the heroine
looked beautiful in a filmy white garment
-with a fresh rose in her belt, but women
know perfectly well that unless the sleeve
of the filmy white garment had been suffi-
ciently puffy, unless the skirt hung well,
she would have looked a guy, and the rose-
bud in her belt would have been powerless
to suggest a charm had the same belt been
untidily finished off.
Miss Mattie Collins was elected superin-
tendent of the Cameron county schools last
month.
" Simultaneously with the advent of the
white chamois glove and the white canvas
slipper, pipe clay becomes an important
dressing room adjunct. It removes stains
and. soil readily from white leather, kid
and coarse canvas. The woman who wears
white belts will also find it valuable.
The old-fashioned ribbon belt had an un-
pleasant habit of growing limp and wrink-
led after a few weeks’ wear, but it could
be pinned securely over skirt bands. . The -
new leather belt is properly stiff and trig,
but it will not consent to be fastened over
the bands in the back. An enterprising
manufacturer, however, is providing the
leather belts with a sort of hook on the in-
side, which needs only a corresponding eye
on the dress band to fasten it firmly in
place. 3
Linen gowns of every description are all
the rage just now. They are made in every
style and can be either cheap or expensive
just as you want.
There are wide bishop sleeves, with a
flaring cuff, also fastened with studs, and a
stock of the linen fastened in a bow-knot
at the front. A Nanon belt of tan suede,
fastened with a small leather-covered buck-
le, finishes the waist.
A stock of scarlet satin and belt of scar-
let suede gives a smart finish. . Such a lin-
en gown is quite inexpensive, as the goods
cost but 12 cents per yard, and the designs
are so simple an anateur might attempt
them. Smart Jats, in the sailor shape, of
the same linen, heavily stitched, are made
to match, and shoes are to be had of the
same tint in linen. x
Linen Parasols are also the rage this sea-
son. The appropriate one for such a cos-
tume is entirely plain and without lining,
having a simple natural wood handle. A
smart gown of grass linen has a bodice con-
fined with embroidered linen in whiig.
~
i, astm A