TT ———
Visa,
Bellefonte, Pa., November 21, 1902.
THANKSGIVING.
O men, grown sick with toil and care,
Leave for a while the crowded mart ;
O women, sinking with despair,
Weary of limb and faint of heart,
Forget your years today and come.
As children back to childhood’s home.
Walk through the sere and fading wood,
So lightly trodden by your feet,
When all you knew of life was good,
And all you dreamed of life was sweet,
Aud ever fondly looking back
O’er youthful love's enchanted track.
‘Taste the ripe fruits from the orchard boughs.
Drink from the mossy well once more;
Breathe fragrance from the crowded mows,
With fresh, sweet clover running o'er,
And count the treasures at your feet,
Of silver rye and golden wheat.
Go sit beside the hearth again,
Whose circle once was glad and gay;
And if irom out the precious chain
Some shining links have dropped away,
Then guard with tender heart and hand
The remnant of thy household band.
Draw near the board with plenty spread,
And if in the accustomed place
You see the father’s reverend head,
Or mother’s patient, loving face,
Whate’er your life may have of ill,
Thank God that these are left you still.
And though where home has been you stand
Today in alien loneliness;
“Though you may clasp no brother’s hand,
And claim no sister's tender kiss;
Though with no friend nor lover nigh,
The past is all your company.
Thank God for friends your life has known
For every dear, departed day;
The blessed past is safe alone—
God gives, but does not take away;
He only safely keeps above
For us the treasures that we love.
— Phoebe Cary.
THE LITTLE WEAVER.
‘If you please, Mr. Avery, I shall have
to run father’s looms while he is out.”
The overseer looked over his desk in sur-
prise at the diminutive figure standing just
within the office door, with a tightly rolled
check apron and a weaver’s belt in her
hands.
‘‘Who is your father ? and why isn’t he
doing his own work ?’’ he questioned sharp-
ly.
*‘Sam Weeden, sir, and he sent—"?
‘‘He’s drunk again, I suppose; and what
kind of substitute are you to send into the
shop? You can’t see over the breast beam
of a loom. Itold him the last time he went
on a spree that I would not bother with
him ,any more. You can tell your fath-
er—
Just then one of the loom fixers claimed
the overseer’s attention, and the child, for
she was little more, sped swiftly down the
long alley of the weaving shed to her fath-
er’s looms. In another minute they were
clattering and banging as bard as the rest;
and she was flying all about them, chang-
ing the shuttles and mending broken
threads, doing the work as handily as the
oldest weaver in the shop.
It was nearly noon before the overseer
again thought of Weeden’s looms, and then
he went in search of his second hand, work-
ing himself into a passion all the way down
the room.
‘‘How have you managed about Weed-
en’s work, Mr. Morse? Have any spare
hands come in? I want you to give those
looms to the first one who is capable of run-
ning them.”
Having given his order, Mr. Avery turn-
ed to go back to his office, expecting no
reply; but his adjutant detained him witha
light touch on the shoulder.
*‘Come down to Jack’s bench,” he said;
‘I want your opinion of the weaver who is
ranning Weeden’s work. I can’t send her
out, as things are. If she goes, you must
tell her so yourself.
The two men were accustomed to stand
by that particalar bench for many of the
conferences which the work made necessary ;
so little Annie Weeden did not know that
she was being observed. She stood with a
shuttle in her hand watching the flying
one in the loom narrowly. As it laid in
the last thread that it carried, she stepped
on the frame of the loom, drove the shuttle
that she held into its box, and catching the
empty one out of the warp in its flight
across the web, dropped back to the floor,
where she quietly removed the empty bob-
bin, and replaced it with a full one. Then
she turned to repeat the process as the fill-
Ing ran out on the other loom. This she
did again and again, executing the series of
motions with incredible swiftness and skill
in the brief instant while she balanced on
the bar of the loom, not being tall enough
to do the work standing on the floor.
The looms were thus kept busy without
losing a single heat till a warp thread snap-
ped or some other accident occurred. If
she had allowed the loom to stop. changed
the shuttles, and started it again, a large
fraction of time would have heen lost; and
she would have gotten a lame side and
swollen wrists by wrenching at the heavy
bar that shifted the belt eight times in
every ten minutes; for the shuttles only ran
two minutes and a half.
Aunie’s slight-of-hand trick of changing
her shuttles without stopping the looms ar-
rested Mr. Avery’s attention at once. He
stopped grumbling about Weeden’s intem-
perance, and watched her with interest.
The looms were large and low speeded,
weaving a double width of heavy flannel :
and the thing was quite possible for any one
with efficient quickness of eye and hand.
But not half a dozen weavers in the whole
shop had caught the knack of it; though it
saved muscular exertion equivalent to the
lifting of five or six tons’ weight in a day.
‘*She may keep the work up for a day or
two; bus a child like that can’t run those
two looms for a steady job. When did she
learn ?”’
*‘Oh, she’s been in here nights for ever so
long, helping Sam. Stops on her way home
from school, and works till speed goes
down. Then she goes home with her fath-
er. She and her mother put up the job on
the old man to get him by the saloons on
fis way home. I thought you had noticed
er.
“She didn’t steer Weeden by the rum
shops this time, it seems.”
The overseer smoothed his beard to hide
a smile as an ingenicus device of the little
weaver to overcome the disadvantage of her
short stature caught his eye. He liked ef-
ficiency, and enjoyed seeing Annie prompt-
ly invent a way to do things when she was
not tall enough or fstrong enough to follow
the usual methods.
Presently he discovered that the child
was crying, though she did not for a mo-
ment neglect her work. If she had time,
she darted behind the great looms, and wip-
ed her eyes. If both hands were hasy the
a il
tears fell unheeded, dropping down on the
cloth as she reached over to draw broken
threads into place, or running down her
cheeks when she was changing the filling.
Morse answered the quick change of ex-
pression in his saperior’s face. People
never wait to say everything in werds in a
mill. They haven’t time ; and they save
their voices on account of the noise.
‘‘Probably she’s worrying about her
mother. Mrs. Weeden is in a had state.
My wife was there all night, after it bap-
pened. It came near being a murder.
He'll get six months at the very least.’’
‘‘What are you talking about?’ inter-
rupted the overseer.
Morse looked at him in astonishment.
‘‘Weeden is in jail for half killing his wife
in a fit of drunken fury. Didn’t you read
the account in the Bulletin ?”’
The elder man smiled. ‘‘I don’t read
every word of every paper,’’ he said ; ‘‘life
is too short. And I've seen no one this
morning. Came straight to the mill from
the train. I was in New York yesterday,
you recollect.”
‘‘I’ve got a paper in my coat pocket, and
I’ll leave it on your desk. Max laid it on
pretty thick, seeing that nobody knew but
the woman was done for. Annie is four-
teen, and quite mature enough to feel his
peculiar style. I hope she hasn’t seen it;
but she will, of course.”
The men separated; and when the over-
seer got back to his office, he found the pa-
per on his desk, and read the report of the
tenement row through to the end. This
man Sedulously cultivated indifference,and
prided himself on being ‘‘business-like’’ on
all occasions. Now, however, when the
coarse band of a professional sensation
monger tore aside the last shred of privacy
that veiled that brave young girl in her
stricken home, and used her Shame and
grief and horrible suffering as material for
amusement, trying with all his might to
turn a penny by holding it all up to ridi-
cule, and set the town in an uproar, Mr.
Avery found it hard to maintain his favor-
ite mental attitude. He had laughed
heartily, times without number, at just
such clever indecency ; but this somehow
made his gore rise. He laid the paper down
just as Morse re-entered the office with
some report connected with the work.
“Who is taking care of Weeden'’s wife ?"’
he asked, abruptly.
**The neighbors will look out for her
through the day; and Annie can manage to
get along after working hours. That’s a
very capable girl. Mrs. Weenden is pretty
badly hurt; but she will probably be abont
again in a few weeks.”
‘Is she a weaver ?”’
Morse nodded, and then added : ‘‘Tip
top. I worked with her in the Borden be-
fore she was married.’
‘Well, we’ll worry along with the child
till her mother can work. Perbaps, be-
tween them, they can run the looms. Isn't
there a platform 1n the storeroom ? Shorty
Briggs used one, didn’t he ?”’
‘*That’s only four inches high,” said
Morse. ‘‘Anctie needs one at least eight.”’
**See Bently about it, right away. She’ll
get hurt climbing all over the looms.’
Morse nodded again, and withdrew. It
was a much easier victory than he had an-
ticipated.
Late that afternoon, when three men
bore a long, narrow platform down the al-
ley, and laid it between the looms so that
she could reach her work at all times as
easily as the grown up weavers, Annie let
the filling run out, and sitting on the end
of it laid her head on a great soft roil of
flannel, and cried for joy. She kuew then
that she would be allowed to keep her fath-
er’s work.
Although she was so tired Anuie ran ail
the way home that night to tell her mother
the good news. But Mrs. Weeden was not
well enough to be troubled with anything.
The neighbors had been very helpful, and
there was little for her to do, beside hold-
ing the basin while the poor bruised head
was being sponged and rebandaged. For
many weeks the invalid’s condition was
critical. Then she began slowly to gather
strength. Annie made alittle feast of hat-
ter cakes to celebrate the event when she
could sit up and be made comfortabe in the
rocking chair. Her mother ate the cakes,
and after a while walked feebly to the
kitchen door, and looked about the room as
if in search of some one.
Annie had been cautioned not to speak of
her father till she asked about him, and
her heart gave a great throb of apprehen-
sion. Was memory returning? Would
she have to tell where he was and why?
Could her mother bear it then ?
But no questions were asked and the in-
valid returned to her chair in apparent con-
tent. A strange, placid quietness had fall-
en on her. Curiosity, surprise, interest in
the daily happenings at the mill, at home,
or in the village of factory tenements which
had constituted her little world, there was
none. She smiled when Anvie came in
from her work, replied to her pleasant chat-
ter in a some what vague but fond way,
and lapsed intoa sort of cheerful impas-
siveness.
Annie watched every phase of her moth-
er’s convalescence with an anxious and bur-
dened heart. She was far too conrageous to
practice the least self deception, and long
before their simple friends would admit it,
she knew the terrible truth. Her mother’s
life was spared. She would get well in
time ; but she would always be a helpless
imbecile. When this became a certainty,
Anuie’s sonl was filled with a smouldering
fary of griefand indignation. The months
were slipping by; and in two more the man
whose iusane brutality bad reduced her
mother to this pitiful state would return,
and again rule the house with absolute au-
thority. How could she endure to see her
mother once more in his power? How
could she bear his hulking presence in the
house? He would drink harder than ever,
not only to drown the memory of his crime
but to put himself beyond the reach of snch
expressions of disapproval as would inevi-
tably be given him in the neighborhood.
The feeling against him wasstrong ; and he
would undoubtedly encounter it at every
step, except before the bars of the rum
shops, where he would naturally take ref-
uge. When he came home—a sullen growl-
ing brute—and wrought himself into a
fury, how could she protect her mother from
his fist and foot ?
Day after day as Annie worked with su-
perhuman energy to provide shelter and
food for her charge, this storm raged with-
in her; till sometimes she felt that anything
would be welcome which wonld rid them
of the monster once for all.
The storm raged itself still at last. No
greater victory was ever won than that of
this slight girl who fought her battle out
all alone amid the din and roar of the clash-
ing machinery and came to the quiet reso-
lution to make the best of the dreadful situ-
ation.
The watched-for time approached and
passed, by several days. Annie began to
breathe more freely. He might have gone
away to some other manufacturing town.
Perhaps he wonld never come back.
One day the looms were stopped for lack
of yarn ; and as it would be two hours at
least before any more could be distributed
she ran out through the back yard and
climbed the steep bank littered with rub-
bish behind the row of tenements. It was
a much nearer way than going around to
the front; and she could always unlock the
basement door by slipping a broken panel
aside.
Through this small opening she could
look through into the kitchen ; and what
she saw made her pause with a sick feeling
of despair. Sam Weeden had returned;
stealthily, for he had not wakened his wife,
who slept peacefully in the rocking chair,
as was her habit in the afternoon when the
house was still. He was carefully search-
ing the little corner cupboard, and present-
ly brought out a tin baking powder can.
From this he poured a quantity of speckled
beans on a red tablecloth and then pulled
out a wad of paper which he unrolled and
disclosed a half handful of silver—all the
hard-won savings Annie had hoarded, a
dime or a quarter at a time, for other nec-
essities besides the weekly bills for food,
fire and rent.
She clenched her hands hard and with
difficulty restrained herself from loudly and
bitterly denouncing the thief. But a loose
bundle of clothing on a chair canght her
attention. Weeden was dressed in the
rough, heavy winter clothing that he wore
when arrested; and a thick, shapeless cloth
cap was on his head. It looked as though
he had come for his things and intended to
go away.
Thank God ! Let him go. It would be
a cheap price to pay for the blessed deliver-
ance. If only her mother would not
waken. But this was not to be. Weeden
put the money in his pocket, and returned
the box to its place; but in doing so he 1at-
tled some of the dishes. Mrs. Weeden
opened ber eyes, and looked at him with-
out the least surprise.
‘‘Are you hungry, Sam ?”’ she asked,and
the man whisked around, confronting her
with a threatening look.
“I ain’t no thief. It belongs to me.
Whatever you earn is mine, and I can do
what I please with it. But why ain’t you
in the mill? I thought you’d both be
working.”
His voice was harsh, and he watched her
warily; but what he said did not seem to
reach her. She seemed remote and strange
though she smiled, and was evidently glad
to see him.
*‘If you are hungry I'll get you a lunch.
There’s no hot water, but it will boil in a
few minutes on the oil stove. Sit down,
Sam, and don’t—don’t be cross.’’
Annie caught her breath and sank down
in a heap on the back steps. Here was a
miracle. Her mother had never offered to
do anything of her own accord since her
illness, though she would pare apples or
potatoes, or perform other simple tasks if
the materials were set before her. Thesight
of her hushand had supplied same mental
stimulus, and her locked intelligence he-
gan feebly toassert itself. That put a new
face on the matter. Annie arose and en-
tered the house, but so absorbed was her
father in staring at, and trying to under-
stand, the subtle change in her mother,
that he barely glanced at her. He was pale,
and the three days’ stubble on his face
looked black and wiry.
*“What’s—what’s wrong with Marthy 2’
he asked, tying to speak naturally. He
had thrown himself in her chair when she
arose and went cheerfully about preparing
a meal for him.
“You peunded her head a little one
night last winter,”” said Annie, bitterly,
‘‘and she has been a fool ever since. She
doesn’t know enough to comb her own
hair. It is pretty hard for me to get along;
and I need the money you swiped to buy
shoes and a wrapper for her. I have to
plan and work every way to make her com-
fortable.”
Weeden banded her the money, search-
ing faithfully for it all, his face working
with some strong emotion which he repress-
ed, or tried to repress, by shutting his jaw
hard, and scowling.
Annie gave him back a half dollar. “Go
and get shaved after you’ve changed your
clothes, pa. Things will be better, per-
baps, now you are home again.”” There
was a note of relenting in this, and a prom-
ise to let by-gones go, and begin anew the
broken family life. Then Sam Weeden
broke down completely, and sobbed with
his head on his arms on the kitchen table.
Mrs. Weeden caught Annie by the arm,
and drew her away. ‘‘He’s going to be
awful this time,’ she whispered. ‘Keen
out of his way. I'm never afraid of him
till he begins to cry, or starts to praying.’’
“I'll be careful, mammy; he won’t hurt
us today, I guess.”’ Annie watched these
evidences of renewed mental activity with
a keen joy of hope trembling within her.
There was a possibility that her mother
might get well; nay, she felt sure of it.
Weeden moved and sat up, mopping his
face quite frankly with a dingy handker-
chief. ‘I guess I'd better light out before
the crowd comes out of the mill,”’ he said.
Annie sprang to his side as he stooped
forward to lift the bundle which had fallen
on the floor, and caught him firmly by the
shoulder. She jerked him back in the chair
with surprising strength, and shook him so
that his head waggled, which punishment
he submitted to like a lamb.
“Of all the stupids! Talking about
lighting out! Where? I'd like to know !
Aud how long do you mean to stay ? Don’t
you see that she is beginning to think, and
do things witaout being told? ’Stead of
lighting out, go down on your knees and
shank God for giving you the chance to un-
do what you’ve done.”
*‘Do you mean that, Annie? How can I
make ber right again, same as she was be-
fore?”
‘‘By staying right here and going to work,
and acting just as if nothing had happened.
Do you mean to say that you ain't man
enough to do that? Of course some of ’em
will guy you ; and some of em will try to
get you to drink up every cent of your pay;
but what’s that side of this help you can be
to mother ?’’.
Annie bad spoken rapidly and intensely,
but she almost whispered the words in her
father’s ear. Weeden had made no effort
to talk to his wife, and he shrank visibly
when she again approached to draw Annie
away from him. He had the popular re-
pugnance and fear of the insane to an un-
usual degree.
*‘Dad won’t hurt us today, mother. See
how good he is,”” said Annie. Then she
put her palm under his stubby chin, and,
holding her breath, stooped and kissed the
tobacco stained lips. Then a new and un-
expected feeling began to assert itself. An-
nie stepped away and looked at the tramp-
like figure in the chair with a man’s im-
prisoned soul trying to reveal itself through
the coarse, criminal face, and meagre, igno-
rant language natural to his kind.
‘““You look like a hobo,’’ she said candid-
ly; ‘‘and I ought to hate you, but I can’t.
I’ve been trying to get you to stay, and let
the sight of you around the house bring
back mother’s senses if they ain’t complete-
ly gone. But there’s something else. I
want you tostay ; and if mother was all
right, it wonld be just the same. Look
here, dad! You half killed mother, but
you was drunk, and didn’t know what you
was about. But you ain’t drunk now; and
if you kill the decent man that you always
wanted to be, and turn hobo, that’ll be a
thousand times worse.”
Something like superstitious dread
seized Weeden as he listened to Aunnie’s ar-
gument. He did not know that she had
been learning to think in a very superior
school for years and years.
Who told her that he loathed himself,and
that he always meant to be a decent man,
and win numbers of genuine friends some-
time ?
Annie saw that he was unable to reply in
words of his own choosing. ‘‘Don’t you
want mother to get well, all well, just as
she used to be ?”?
“I'd give my right arm,” he began,
catching at a convenient current phrase.
Annie laughed. “Nobody wants your
right arm,” she said, picking up the gar-
ments on the floor and tossing the bundle
into the bedroom.
‘‘Go and change your horrid old winter
duds and get shaved before anybody sees
you,’’ she said.
It was far from a miracle of sudden re-
form. Weeden fell and fell again; but An-
nie was vigilant and resourceful, and she
usually traced and rescued him before the
brutal stage of drunkenness supervened.
Her mother’s steady improvement was an
incentive to large patience and loug suffer-
ing, and the battle was finally won. It is
difficult to believe that the sober, indus-
trious workingman, who spends his even-
ings quietly in his comfortable home, or at
the meetings of the clubs or orders of which
he is a respected member was only a year
ago the disreputable Sam Weeden, whose
drunken frenzy furnished the police report-
er with such delectable copy ; or that his
comely, energetic, capable wife is the la-
mentable mental wreck who sat all day im-
passive in her chair comprehending nothing
of the life around her.
Annie is only fifteen, and the last time I
saw her she was entirely happy in the pos-
session of a new shirt waist ; which is as it
should be. The levers which huilders use
are laid aside;and when the building stands
complete all these things are gathered up
and put in the tool house; neither does any
know itself save as a common bar of wood
or iron.—By Gertrude Roscoe in The Pil-
grim for November.
Tons of Chewing Gum.
Vast Quantities used by Feminine Jaws in America,
Cleveland, O., claivs to be the greatest
gum-chewing city in the United States,
with Chicago second and St. Louis in third
place. This conclusion is reached by the
manufacturer, who knows to what cities
the most of their goods ure shipped. Two
of Cleveland's merchant princes are guw-
makers.
The first gummaker of importance in this
country hore the name of Curtis. He found-
ed an establishment to make =pruce gum
in Portland, Me., in 1836, and his child-
ren, trading under the name of Curtis &
Co., still turn out a large amount of the
old-fashioned kind. But nohody knows
who started the fashion. Chailes F. Gun-
ther, who is better posted on such subjects
than any other man in Chicago, says that
ancient Egyptians, way back in the time cf
Cleopatra and the Pharohs, used to chew
gum, and perhaps Abraham and Isaac and
perhaps Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
had the habit, but there is no exact infor-
mation on the supject.
Being the head quarter: of the chewing
gum trust, Chicago has become the great
distributing point, and handles about half
of the entire product of the combination,
which is annually about 8,400,000 boxes of
100 pieces each, of a total
resents a payment of $8,000,000 for the gum
trust alone for a total of abont 4,000 tons.
These statistics include only the chewing
gum manufactured by the trust, which is
less than half of the total product of the
country. They take no account of white
and spruce gum, of which a large amount
is sold, or the product of local druggists
and confectioners throughout the United
States, of which no reliable information can
be obtained. Nearly every town has a fac-
tory. Chicago has several outside the
trust, which make their own special brands
for a local market. The agents of the trust
in Chicago handle about 150 cases, valued
at $9,000 a day. The retailer’s profit is
about 4¢) per cent.
The gum sold on the market now a days
is made from a substance called chicle,
which exudes from the zapote tree,a tropic-
al fruit cultivated in Cential America.
Southern Mexico and the countries along
the Spanish main. It hears a fruit that
looks like a russes apple, and contains a
juicy pulp that tasts like custard. If you
put a zapote on the ice until it is thorough-
ly chilled it is a good.
Dewey Salls on December 1st.
Will Hoist his Flag on the Mayflower and go to
Culebra Island,
Admiral George Dewey will hoist his
flag December 1st on the Mayflower, now
at the Washington navy yard, and will
sail the same day with an imposing staff
direct for Culebra Island, where he will
exercise command over the combined squad-
rons during the winter exerscises. The
admiral’s plans have been completed, his
staff selected and the Mayflower made ready
for her work, which will last probably three
months. None of Admiral Dewey’s present
personal staff will be with him during the
manceavers, and instead he will be sur-
rounded by a large number of officers com-
posing the general board.
No special instruetions will be issued the
admiral, but he will have wide latitude in
determining what the fleet shall do and
how much time is to be devoted to certain
subjects. The general board has so com-
pletely outlined the work that the navy
department does not regard specific instruc-
tions as necessary. : :
Permission has been given the war de-
partment to have four officers detailed with
the fleet for observations and study of
naval tactics. These officers will be select-
ed by Adjutant General Henry C. Corbin
and assigned to duty on some of the ships
of the fleet. No request so far has been
made for foreign naval attaches to witness
the maneuvers.
Cameron County Farmer.
Had His Arm, Head and Leg cut off by a Saw.
H. P. Spence, a well known farmer of
near Emporium, recently built a saw mill.
A few days ago he was on the carriage when
his foot caught on a dog throwing him
forward. He put out his arm to save him-
self and it was caught by the circular saw
and severed from his body. This threw
him further off his balance and next his
head was cut off, the saw throwing it over
twenty feet. Then one of his limhs was
mangled by the fast revolving saw. It was
a most horrible sight for those who witness-
ed it and the tragedy was about the only
thing talked of on thestreets of Emporium
thatday. The man killed lived about four
milesabove Emporium.
of 840,000,000 |
pieces of gum, which at 1 cent a stick, rep- |
A Strange Sect.
A Flight of the Doukhobors, a Remarkable Rus-
sian Fanatical Sect. The Invasion of York-
town. The Sufferings Endured by these People
in the Canadian Northwest and Their Belief.
Incidents in their History.
The siege of Yorktown by the Doukho-
bors has been a pitiful, if picturesque, epi-
sode in the colonization of the Canadian
northwest. The news dispatches of
last week have told how an army, varying
according to report, from 1,300 to 2,000 of
these peculiar Russian emigrants, have left
their farms in Assiniboia and have de-
scended upon Yorktown, where they ar-
rived in the utmost destitution; while on
the way and preparing to follow are hun-
dreds more. What the colonists have in
mind in thas, on the verge of winter and
the thermometer already far below the
freezing point, leaving their settlement, is
not clear It is said that the leadersthem-
selves have no definite plan of further
action, Their march seems to have heen
caused by some fanatic religious idea. To
one of the officials they said that they were
going to meet Jesus Christ and that they
were leaving all to follow him.
When they arrived at Yorktown their
plight was most desperate. More than half
the band were women and children, ill able
to stand the rigors of the march and the
cold. Babies suffered from exposure, and
some were said to have been left dead on
the road. Some of the travelers had warm
clothing and protection for their feet, but
more were scantily clad and some even
bare-footed. This lack of protection is
partly due to their religious beliefs. Wool
they will not wear, for it is grown on the
backs of animals. Leatber is objectionable
because it is an animal product. Milk and
other animal foods are refused by them for
the same reason. It is reported that
mothers would not allow their suffering
babies to drink the milk or even eat the
biscuit that the people of Yorktown offered
them. The sick, the women and children
were housed much against their will in
sheds and other buildings but most of the
Doukhobors camped without shelter in the
brush three miles from Yorktown. Parties
strayed through the scrub, picking the
**‘God-given and greaseless’’ fiuit of the
rosebush to satisfy their hunger. No labor
of animals helped to produce this fruit, and
they eounld eat it without sin.
It can be seen from this exhibition of
fanaticism that the Doukhohois may have
been difficult subjects for the czar. They
left the Caucasus in 1899 because, it is
supposed, of the persecution to which they
were subjected. Their wvame signifies
“spirit wrestler,’ and was used as long
ago as 1785. At that time cerfain mem-
bers of the Greek church who objected to
the uze of icons were called ‘‘iconobors.”’
or image wiestlers, Then the term ‘‘do
Khobot,”? or spirit wrestler, was used to
designate those whom the orthodox Rus-
sians regarded as wrestling against the
Holy Spirit. Like the terms Quaker and
Methodist in England, the nickname ad-
hered to the sect and came into general
use. The Doukhobors in Russia did not
consider themselves Russians, but had
their own religious ceremonies, govern-
ment, castoms and ruler. The latter was
Peter Verigen, who is now in exile in
Obdorsh, in the north of Siberia, whose de-
cisions are regarded as law, even when sent
from Siberia, from which they only come
under the espionage of the Russian police.
There were four years of bitter conflict,
from 1895 to 1898, hetween the Russian
government and the Doukhobors, who
made only passive resistance, hot refused
to submit to enforced service in the army.
The Doukhobors, 2,300 in number, the
largest party of immigrants ever landed at
a Canadian port, went ashore at St. John,
N. B.,. January 23rd, 1899. They were
described then as a fine, intelligent-look-
ing lot of people, the men being of fine
physique and to every appearance ideal
settlers. Ina twenty-nine day voyage no
sickness of consequence developed, which
is good testimony to the excellent physical
condition of the men, women and children.
About 2,000 more of the colonists arrived
in Canada a short time after, and each fam-
ily was supplied with 160 acres of land in
the northwest territory, a shanty and farm
implements by the Canadian government.
They were welcomed as the most desirable
body of settlers the Dominion had ever
had. But quiet and inoffensive as the
Doukhobors were, they adhered steadfastly
to peculiar doctrines that began at once to
make tronble, and wanted the laws of the
land to be changed so as not to apply to
them.
The first thing they butted their heads
against was the land law. They are not
satisfied with the individual grants of land,
bolding that no individual should own
land and that all property should belong
to the community. It was pointed out
that each individual could transfer his
property to the ccmmunity if he chose,
but this they regarded as a compromise,
and compromise they abhorred. Also,
they would not admit the right of the law
to regulate marriage. They held that
when persons had a pure and moral love
for each other, they should marry, and any
interference by demanding that they should
have a license, or civil contract, or cere-
mony was interference with nature. The
fact that conforming to the law of the land
did not prevent them from marrying
through pure and moral love was pointed
out. They would not obey the law. In
the matter of divorce they again objected to
the interference of any regulation. If par-
ties, after they were married, discovered
that they did not have a pure and moral
love for each other, it was sinful for tbem
to live together and they should separate.
This was a matter solely for themselves to
decide. They firmly refused to give out
the vital statistics of birth and deaths, re-
quired by the government.
The Canadian government refused to
make the desired concessions, and the
Doukhobors cast about for other fields of
colonization, the United States being con-
sidered among other places, meanwhile
asking permission of the Dominion gov-
ernment to stay in Canada until they
found a country with less oppressive laws.
Now, nearly two years since the friction
and in a plight that must inspire pity, in
spite of the fanaticism that, has caused it.
It may be that the persecution of the
Doukhobors in Russia was caused partly
by their fanaticism. It is also probable
that this persecution developed intenser
religious feeling among them. One of
their tenets was vegetarianism, but after
they settled in Canada many of them re:
turned to the use of fish and meat.
Some of them, however, repudiated not
only the use of meat, but went so far as to
say it was wrong to enslave domestic ani-
mals, and turned them free, yoking them-
selves to the plow.
A recent English writer said of the sect :
The present circumstances of the Doukho-
bors are such as to suggest the possibility
of the sect disintegrating or at least divid-
ing into two or more separate bodies. Such
splits have occurred in the past, and may
occur again. At the present time, besides
the question of vegetarianism and the use
ana GL
of domestic animals, there is great diver-
gence of practice in the matter of commun-
ism. Some villages are more or less strict-
ly communistie, other villages are on an
individualistic basis, while some Doukho-
bor families have settled in their own sep-
arate ‘homesteads,’ and a considerable
number have established themselves in the
towns, where they are getting a living as car
pentersand blacksmiths. Every Doukho-
bors knows some handicraft, and one possible
solution of the cattle question is that
those who believe it to be wrong to use
domestic animals will move into the towns
and remain there. It is such an unusual
thing nowadays to come across any con-
siderable body of men who are willing to
risk their material prosperity for the sake
of their principles that the interest aroused
by the ‘‘mad colony’’ is natural enough.
The Doukhobors have undoubtedly given
some trouble to the Canadian government,
and they have at times shown a cantanker-
ous spirit which bas disappointed some of
those who took part in arranging their
wigration from Russia; but. looked at all
around, and fairly judged, they are a very
worthy folk, industrious, sober, honest
and taking their religion seriously as a
Shing that should guide their practical
ife.
a ——————
What the Nurse Said.
The nurse was an old friend, and had
seen years of duty in maternity and child-
ren’s hospitals, “I would not give haby
the milk of one cow,’” she said; ‘‘on your
country place you have a herd of cows, and
the milk is evently mixed, which is always
better than that of one cow, although it
has been hard to explode that notion. If
the milk alone does not seem to agree with
baby, change it to a mixture of one half
milk and one half barley water or oatmeal
gruel. This is very nourishing, and often
suits the digestion of a young baby better
than the richness of unskimmed milk,
which frquentiy makes a baby constipat-
ed, Make the gruel very carefully, and
pour through a fine strainer, then mix with
the milk. Occasionally try the gruel alone,
with a few teaspoons of pure cream in it.
A bottle of this once a day does much to
regulate a baky’s bowels, adding a gentle
massage from your warm bands on bis lit-
tle abdomen, morning and evening. The
best plan isto prepare enough of baby’s
food the first thing in the morning, when
you receive the pure; fresh, .chilled milk.
Fill it into perfectly clean bottles, then cork
tightly and put on ice. Five or six bottles
will probably be required before the next
morning. I believe in following this plan
rather than the haphazard way of some
mothers. If made in quantity it is easier
to follow exact measurements, and in this
case exact measurements are a nevessity.
Then, too, there will he no scurrying after
an emptied bottle, and a hurried, nervous
washing of it while baby howls fora meal.
“The good housekeeper takes the utmost
pains to sterilize her fruit cans, because
the fruit will ferment if she neglects this
precaution the painstaking mother ought to
remember that the same process takes place
in baby’s stomach if a particle of sour
cheesy milk is sucked in with the food.
Frequently the result is colic, summer
complaint, vomiting, and all sorts of small
‘distresses’ which mothers ascribe to every-
thing except the real cause. The only way
to make sure of thouroughly clean bottles
is to take them as soon as baby’s meal is
finished and rinse well with cold water.
Never allow them to stand five minutes
with milk iu them, and throw away any
milk that has not been drunk. It is no
economy to force left-over food on a baby at
a later meal. The opening of the bottle and
the heat of the baby’s hands and body dur-
ing the previous feeding have started a de-
terioration of the food which, though slight,
makes it quite unfit for baby’s stomach.
After the bottle has been rinsed, if you can-
nos clean it at once pus in a pinch of car-
bonate of soda and fill with cold water; this
will sweeten it. When ready for the clean-
ing prepare a strong suds of hot water and
soap powder and wash thoroughly with a
stout hottie brush. Rinse with hot water
and borax. then leave it filled with cold
water until filling time.
“Don’t every time baby cries give Lim
the bottle. Learn first of all if hes thirsty.
Be as particular about the water he drinks
as about his food. Have it filtered and
cooled, but not ice cold, and never give a
baby ice water, which is enough to para-
Iyze the tender little stomach. If vou can-
not have filtered water, boil it, taking it
from the fire as soon as “it bubbles, then
cooling.
‘“There is a mistaken idea that a bath
every day will weaken a baby. The little
body needs more every morning thau a
mere sponging off. The sponging exposes
him more to the air than a good tubbing
does; besides, it is a good exercise. He
grows to love the water, and kicks and
splashes in glee. Plan bath time about one
hour after he has been fed. Have the room
fairly warm—at 78 degrees. In the chill
morning* before a furnace is running, light
a wood or coal fire in the nursery. If that
is impossible, a bath in a warm, comforta-
ble kitchen is not to he despised. Have
the waterabout 93 degrees. Use a soap
you are perfectly sure of. Rinse the soap
off thoroughly with a soft sponge and dry
his face and head at once. From three to
five minutes is as long as he should be al-
lowed to stay in the water; then lift into a
dry, soft flanuel apron and wipe the little
tender body gently with a linen towel. At
bedtime bathe his face, hands, and limbs
with warm water and change day clothes
for a loose, comfortable nightie. Give the
last meal of the day in your lap, then lay
him in his erib—one of the worst habits a
baby can learn is to go to sleep with a nip-
ple in his mouth. Tuck him in comforta-
bly, see that the littie feet are warn, and
that there are no wrinkles or safety pins
anywhere to harm.”’—Good Housekeeping.
. Schwab Helps a College.
Donates $25,000 Bu:lding to University of Southern
Pennsylvania.
One of the Trustees of the University of
Southern Pennsylvania, located at Mar-
tinshurg Blair County, was in Altoona re-
cently and announced that C. M. Schwab,
President of the United States Steel Cor-
poration, would erect a building for the
use of the university at a cost of $25.000.
The gentleman stated that the donation
of Mr. Schwab would be used for class-
rooms and for scientific purposes. The
plans for the new structure are now in Mr.
Schwah’s New York office and show that
his contribution to the University is a
handsome stone building which conforms
architecturally with the remainder of the
buildings, which are constructed of brown-
stone.
The university is a new school, this being
its first year, and but a few of the neces-
sary buildings are ready for occupancy.
The work on Mr. Schwah’s gift will be
commenced as soon as that on the large
dormitory now being constructed is com-
pleted. The building will be a two-story,
fireproof structure and will he completely
fited up.
es