Bellefonte, Pa., March 6, 1903. A BREAKFAST FOOD FAMILY. John Spratt will eat no fat, Nor will he touch the lean, He scorns to eat of any meat— He lives upon Foodine. But Mrs. Spratt will none of that: Foodine she cannot eat. Her special! wish is for a dish Of Expurgated Wheat. To William Spratt that food is flat On which his mater dotes. His favorite feed—his special need— Is Eata Heapa Oats. But Sister Lil can’t see how Will Can touch such tasteless food. As breakfast fare it can’t compare, She says, with Shredded Wood. Now, none of these Leander please— He feeds upon Bath Mitts, While Sister Jane improves her brain With Cero-Grapo Grits. Lycurgus votes for Father's Oats; Proggine appeals to May; The junior John subsists upon Uneeda Bayla Hay. —Chicago Tribune. THE PINCHIN' OF HOBO McDADE. Say, fellers, Hobo’s pinched !”’ The breathless announcement was fired by a ragged, red-headed urchin who pre- cipitated himself like a thunderbolt around the corner from North Hoyne Avenue into the very midst of the Lee Alley gang. Its effect was no less startling than the abpear- ance of ‘“‘Redney” Rundley himself, and the members of the gang, forgetting for a moment that stolid indifference to all mat- ters to which they carefully schooled them- selves, crowded around their mate with demands for fuller information. ‘‘Dat’s right,”’ he said, when he had caught his breath and had found a resting place on a convenient garbage box. ‘‘Ob, gee, fellers, where'd yer git de can? Shove dat beer over. Hen.—Dat’s right about Hoho. Iseeit inde paper. Dey got it all in. He gits somewhere dey calls G’lena, an’ swipes a watch off a guy an’ dey pinches him. Dey got his mug in de paper an’ all about him. Says he b’longs to de Lee Alley gang. Wouldn’t dat jar yer? “I git it from a reporter as is waitin’ fer me down by Niedelman’s saloon. He comes up big as life, an’says: ‘Say, do you know Artie McDade ?’ “‘Who?’ says I. ‘“ ‘Artie McDade.’ ‘“ ‘Naw,’ I says. aroun’ here.’ ‘‘ ‘He belongs to de Lee Alley gang,’ says de reporter. ** ‘I don’ know no such gang,’ I says, ‘an’ I ben Iivin’ on Lee Alley all my life. I know every feller in de aliey.’ ‘‘He gits out dis paper an’ looks at it. Den he shows me de picture. ‘Dey calls him Hobo,’ he says. ‘‘ ‘Hobo ?’ I says. ‘Oh, gee, I bet I know who he was. Dey’s fellers I know knowed him. You wait here till I git one of ’em.’ So I leaves him a-settin’ on de fence by Niedelman’s, an’ come over here. ‘‘Come on, fellers, an’ see the reporter. But no names, now, an’ don’t let on we was mixed up wit’ Hobo.” The gang filed out of the alley into Hoyne Avenue, and a moment later were surrounding a tall young man who was perched on the iron railing that guarded the stairs to a basement pool room beneath Niedelman’s saloon. “Wat's dat about Hobo ?’ mediate demand of all. *‘Pinched,’’ said the reporter, who did not appear to be as slow as Redney’s de- seription had implied. ‘‘What do you know abous him 2” “Damn little,” declared ‘‘Mouthy”’ Peterson, who was the recognized spokes- man of the gang. ‘‘We never had not’in’ to do wit’ im. He lived over on Lincoln Av’noo, an’ ginrally went wit’ a gang of fellers dat h’longs on de udder side of Su- perior street. Wat's he tooken fer ?’* ‘‘Stealing his father’s watch hefore he ran away.’’ ‘‘Dat’s Hobo, all right. Say, dat feller is allus stealing. Never had no sense about it, nieder. Used ter brag about it. I bet I seen dat watch; he bad it over here one day. He says den dat he stole it, bust I t’ought he was jes’ a-talkin’. He had a big er’volver, too, an’ a bunch o’ dough. Dey ought to pinch all dem tough guys dat thinks dey’re smart. Wat station’s he at ?”’ ‘““He’s over at the detention hospital— comes up before the juvenile court on Wed- nesday afternoon. Guess he'll go to Pontiac all right, though the Bridewell may get him.”’ After gleaning a little further information from the boys, and their names from a patrolman, the reporter went back to his office to write a faithful description of the ‘‘Lee Alley gang’’ from which Hobo had graduated, while the exceedingly ‘‘tough’’ members of that organization returned to their favorite haunt in the loft of a barn behind the saloon to discuss the great event. One has not even to cross the river to £0 from the haunt of the Lee Alley gang on the northwest side to the Detention hos- pital on Wood and West Polk strests, but in the latter building conld have been found at this very hour a very tearful small boy, to whom everything about him was as strange as a foreign Jand. He was in a white-walled, almost hare room with balf a dozen other boys of varying ages, none of whom seemed to care for the society of others, except two very small urchins who played together in a corner. Hobo Me- Dade sat alone in the very farthest corner from them, and though he would have scorned to have heen caught ‘‘bellerin,’’ be kept his face to the wall most of the time, and frequently rubbed his sleeves across his eyes. He was a very little boy to be twelve years old. One would have thought bim nine or ten. His head was small, his features small. He looked only half developed—half starved. There was in bis face, when you got a good look at it, none of the animation, the spirs, the latent power that shows through the face of a manly, well-grown boy of twelve. Neither was there wickedness there. Almost all his life Hobo McDade had gone in a cer- tain evil way, basing his action on a set of maxims universally followed in his set : that it was wrong to show any tender feel- ing, to speak softly or kindly, orto doa kindly act ; that it was also wrong to do anything shat any one in authority—par- ent, teacher or policemen—would have compelled him to do; that the saloon loafer and vagrant {the better if he be a hold-up man), being free of time and opinion, and out-spoken in his contempt for honesty and honest labor, is really in the right,and is envied and admired by other men. These ‘Never no such feller was the im- may see very strange principles to you. but if you had spent your life as Hobo bad his, you would have known that they are un- - | deniably true. It was with these maxims of life that Hobo had gone forth on his journey. He had lived as he bad planned—a Hobo cub —until the hand of the law bad grasped him in a little city on the banks of the Mississippi, and, holding firmly to him, had carried him back and delivered him in Chicago. So far, all was as Hobo had ex- pected. He was roughly treated, sworn at, locked up. These were the fabled steps toward greatness, and showed that already the authorities had a certain fear of him. But, arrived in Chicago, he came intoa very different state of things. He was first turned over to Officer Phelan, a big, red- cheeked Irishman, with a wife and boys of his own on Marshfield Avenue. Officer Phelan looked at him with a kindly eye. ‘‘Hobo,’’ said he, ‘‘Oi’m yer friend. Oi got ye in charge, an’ they’s no useav yer thryin’ to escape. Oi’d git ye annywhéce. But Oi’'m yer friend, an’ mane well by ye. Come along now an’ have some breakfast.” He took the boy to a cheap eating house, and gave him his fill of coffee and hot wheat cakes, and oatmeal and milk—things Hobo had not tasted in many days. Then the two got on an electric car and were carried to the Detention hospital. Hobo was taken in charge here by a pleasant- faced Irish matron. She exclaimed in dis- gust and pity at his dirty condition, usher- ed him quickly intoa room in which were many old, but clean, clothes, from which she selected ‘an outfit for him; and then fhe took him to a bathtub, and scoured him thoroughly from head to foot, to all of which Hobo submitted pascively, without relaxing the attempt he had made—and which was characteristic of him—at a much admired stolidity that bordered on ef- frontery. But after his bath, when he was for the first time in years well fed, well clad aud clean at one and the same time, Hobo met his downfall. And as to most men, it came through a woman. She was a motherly sort of woman, not very large, with a face so full of wrinkles that another could not have found place there. But throvr h her gold-rimmed spectacles beamed such a wealth of mother love that it went straight to the heart, and no brazen or stolid front could bar it. She was clad in a plain brown dress that would have been correct on the Lake Shore Drive, and yet which was so simple that Hoho could see it was quite like those of the women of North Hoyne Avenue. She didn’t waste any words that could have forewarned Hobo of her intentions. She didn’t even call him “Arty,” as the wom- en he knew—and hated—did. She came straight ap to him, and took one of his hands in one of hers, and said : ‘‘Now, Hobo, I want you to come right over here to the window and tell me all about it.”’ A hundred people have said that and got no answer. But when she said it, the words seemed to go somewhere deep into the boy and bring their own answer out. He stumbled into a settee by the window with her, and there he told her his whole life story, brokenly, but truthfally, in truth and in detail as he had never before told it even to himself—as he did not, in- deed, know he knew it. And the little woman, hearing it, glowed with heare warmth that she had heen interested in thr newspaper account of this young offende and bad decided to take up his case. .So she left him, while she completed a tour of investigation, and Hobo, consigned to the common waiting-room, sought the corner of it to hide his tears. That is why, when we found him there, we found him for the first time lacking his expression of indif. ference and defiance. The Lee Alley gang bad planned io be in the juvenile court on ‘Wednesday alter- noon to witness the trial of their erstwhile pal, but they had reckoned that it was no farther away than the West Chicago Ave- nue police court. When they found that it was miles away, in the yet unvisited heart of the city, they abandoned the idea. So when Hobo, from an arm chair in the jury box of the court, looked around the great room that day, he saw in the audi- ence but two familiar faces—the two of all faces he would least have desired to see— those of his father, John McDade, and of John McDade’s wife. Officer Phelan soon came into court, however, and the matron followed, and then, just before the judge took his place on the bench, SHE came out of the judge’s chamber and took a seat on the platform beside the judge, and looked over to smile at Hobo. The judge, too, had a glance especially for him, when he entered. Tarning to the clerk he said : “*Call first this little McDade hoy’s case.’ “Arthur McDade! Arthar MecDade ! Witnesses in the case of Arthur McDade please come forward. Hold up your right bands, all of you—you do solemnly swear, each and every one of you, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing bus the trath, 80 help yon God. Take the stand, please, you first witness!’ — There were but three of them to testify —John McDade and his wife, and Hobo’s Lady. It was the latter who took the stand, and facing the court, began : ‘Iam a probation officer of the javenile court. “I find, your honor, that the father has absolutely no love for the boy, treats him as a beast, beats him, and makes home life unendurable for him, and has done so for years. The boy has not been to school since a year after his mother died. He went only partly through the second grade. Since then he has roamed the streets, going with a gang of tough boys who live in Lee Alley. Tt is one of the most pitiable cases I have ever met with. The boy is ahso- lately forlorn. I wish you would question the father.” She stepped down, and John McDade took the chair. : ‘‘Is this your boy, Mr. McDade ?’’ asked the judge. *‘Yes, your honor.’ ‘Is this his mother ?"’ ‘I should say not !”’ broke in Mrs. Mo- Dade, in a shrill voice. ‘‘Me be mother to a devil like that? I’Il not have him in the house, and I've told him so many a time when he come around with his evil ways, the brat !”’ “Keep silent, madam,” said the court sternly. ‘‘Your turn will come in time. Mr. McDade, have you ever done anything to help this boy grow up into an honest and intelligent citizen ?”’ “Your honor, I’ve done for that hoy everything a man can. I’ve licked him when he lied and when he stole. I’ve told him that if he ever done them things again I'd thrash him in an inch of his life. I've done everything for him, but it never done no good. He’s incorrigible, your honor. He’s a born devil.” The judge looked from McDade to his wife, and then to the boy. ‘‘Come up here,” he said to the little fellow, and Hobo came, hanging his head and fumbling with his buttons. ‘Would you behave if I let you go home with your father, Arthur?” “I won’t go wit’ ’im !’? “You won’t? Why not?” me. She scolds all the time an’ won't gimme nothin’ to eat.” “Do you starve ?”’ “Nit! I goes wit’ a gang an’ we eat free lunch in Niedelman’s saloon on Hoyne Avenue. “Would you like to go to school 2’ ‘Naw, I wouldn’t go! “Wouldn’t you go if your own mother came back and asked you ?” Hobo looked up at the judge and then at Her, sitting close by,and his eyes strug- gled with two big tears. He gulped and nodded. The judge looked at him keenly. ‘Step down, ’’ he said, and Hobo retreated. ‘*How much do you earn, McDade 2’ ‘Four dollars a day.”’ *‘Well, I am going to take this hoy away from you. I have had many specimens of fatherhood in this court, and many of just your type. You are a disgrace to man- hood. If the law allowed it I'd punish you for the theft of your own watch, instead of tha boy. As itis I shall send him toa good school to be made into a man, and I will enter an order that you shall pay ten dollars every month into this court for his support. And as for you, madam,’ turn- ing to Mrs. McDade, ‘‘there is no way in which I can punish you, but I intend to look into the care of your other children. This lady here is an officer of this court. She will call on you from time to time and see how the children look. If they are treated as this one was I will bring you up here again and take them all away.” The judge looked at the well-fed, well- dressed man and woman and at the peaked faced boy. ‘“That’s all,” he said. John McDade and his wife waited until they were in the hall hefore their pent-up wrath broke forth. They could not realize what their fault had been, and their anger at the judge was great. But those who spend their days in this court and learn what manner of children come into it, and what manner of homes they come from, knew and sympathized with the judge. John McDade could never have understood. But had the Lee Alley gang seen Hoho, as he was led from the court with his hand in the band of his Lady, they would have known that their idol bad fallen and had been shattered, and that instead of becom- ing a great and noble criminal Hobo was merely going to grow up into a despised and hardworking. honest man.--By John Swain, in the Pilgrim. Small-pox Spreads in Conemaugh Basin. Contagion Spreading. What will the State Legislature do in the way of aiding the State Board of Health to stamp out the scourge of small-pox which is lowly but surely spreading in the counties drained by the Conemaugh river ? This is the question which all the school boards, all the local health hoards and the physicians of that part of the State are ask- ing. New cases of the disease are developed almost daily, and every week additional towns go upon the hst of infected places. At India, near Bolivar, several new cases are repoited. “Uncle John’’ Parlor, who contracted the disease by preparing the body of his namesake and nephew for burial, when no undertaker could be secured two weeks ago, succumbed to the plague and was buried beside the boy for love of whom he risked his lifeand lost it. Barney Henry’s log camp, near Strongs- town, has heen placed under quarantine because William Lloyd, an inmate, has small-pox. Isaac Detwiler, of Nolo, has developed a cage. As his children continued to attend school, the latter has been closed, and the community is in a state of fear and unrest. Vintondale has eight cases and Blairs- ville three, one of which developed within a few days. i A deputy sheriff of that place went to Nolo to serve a warrant, bui as he found that his man was in bed with the small- pox he returned home empty-handed. An epidemic of measles has closed the public schools and well nigh prostrated business at Armagh. There are thirty- three cases in the town, the population of which is only 130. Bridegroom Fell to His Death. Charles A. Martin, a prominent business man and a leader in society, who returned to Baltimore from his wedding trip on Fri- day, was instantly killed that afternoon. He fell down the elevator shaft four stories in the warehouse of J. D. Kremelberg & Co., of which firm he was a member. His neck was broken by the fall. Mr. Martin was the consul for Austro- Hungary and a prominent explorer. His marriage to Miss Mary D. Rogers, of Ger- mantown, Philadelphia, daughter of the late Charles Rogers, on February 21, was a society event. Mr. Martin left his bride in Germantown on Friday morning, and ex- pected to return to her Friday night. Mr. Martin was as cheerful and happy as a bridegroom could be when he arrived at his place of business. He had only heen in his office on the fourth floor half an hour when several employes on the lower floor beard a crash in the basement. Nothing was thought of it, but a few minutes later when one of the clerks went into the cellar be cried out in horror when he beheld Mr. Martin’s bleeding and lifeless body at the foot of the shaft. Besides his widow, Mr. Martin is snrviv- ed by a brother, Joseph Martin: a sister, Miss Catherine Martin, and two married sisters, Mrs. Edmund Schaefer, of Lynch- burg, Va., and Mrs. R. Dorsey Rogers, of Carroll county, Md. Mr. Martin was J2 years old. ——A pathetic yet beautiful ceremony occurred last Sunday afternoon at Glou- cester, Massachusetts, when the inhabitants of that old fishery town went down to the shores of the bay and cast into the waters, seventy-four flowers, emblematic of the seventy-four lives lost in the fisheries dur- ing the past year. Later a memorial serv- ice was held in the City Hall. These serv- ices. are conducted anvually, under the auspices of the Gloucester Seaman’s Bethel. The records of this organization show that in the past seventy-two years the sea at this point has claimed, 5046 lives. 1n the ancient cemetery there is a monument, a memorial to 200 fisherman who had perish- ed in a storm some years ago. These fish- erman pursae a hazardons calling and this annual ceremony knits together in a com- mon bond the inhabitants of the town, and serves to make heroic the sons and daugh- ters of those swallowed up hy the sea. ——A bill has been introduced in the House at Harrishnrg providing for a home for “Old crippled and helpless employees of coal mines and the admission of the wives of such employes thereto.’”” The hill provides also for the appointment of five trustees, constituted of one miner and one employer from the bituminous region, and the same number from the anthiacite re- gion, and one civil trustee, all to be appoint- ed by the gavernor. ‘‘He beats me an’ the old woman beats ‘tion of the torture would result in the Officers Accused of Slaying Prisoners. | Former Member of Funston's Regiment Tells of | Killing of Two Filipinos. Pleas for Mercy Vain. An informal meeting was held Friday morning at Senator Carmack’s office in the Senate annex at Washington for the pur- pose of hearing certain witnesses to atroc- ities in the Philippines who had been re- fused a hearing by Sznator Lodge, chair- man of the committee on the Philippines. A letter of invitation to be present was sent to Senator Lodge and all the members of the committee on the Philippines to hear the statements of these witnesses and cross-examine them if they desired to do so. None of them presented themselves except the minority members of the com- mittee, Senators Carmack and Patterson. There were three witnesses present at the hearing, and two others were heard by affidavit. These latter had been in Wash- ington, but having been refused a hearing had gone home. Of the three present, Lieutenant John F. Hall and William Moore were formerly of the Twentieth | Kansas, Funston’s regiment, and the other | was Daniel J. O'Connor, of Pitsburg, Pa., who was recently a machinist on the Unit- ! ed States gunboat Paraguay. The statement of Moore, which had been sworn to this morning, was 1zad as fol- lows : This is to certify that I, William Moore. of Aliceville, Kan., was formerly a mem- ber of Company E, Twentieth Kansas U. 8. V. ; that at the battle of Caloocan, Feb. 10th, 1899. I acted as orderly for a major, being detailed for that purpose; that I was with the major when our boys crossed the insurgent trenches before Caloocan; that among the insurgent dead in the trenches were found two live Filipinos who threw up their arms and surrendered, holding their hands up, clasped as if in prayer begging for mercy. A captain who was near said to the major : “What will we do with these prisoners?” A lieutenant who was also near said : ‘The only thing we can do with them is to send them to the rear under guard.’” Then the captain spoke up and said : ‘‘No, we haven’t got men to spare to send them to the rear; shoot them where they are.” Then the major turned to me and said : “‘Orderly, have you got a load in your gan??? I answered : ‘‘No.”” The major said : ‘‘Pus one in and kill these prisoners.” I said “I will not.”” Then the captain spoke up and said to the major : “You kill one and I will kill the other.”” Then the captain and major fired their revolvers each killing a prisoner. Daring this brief discussion the prisoners were begging for mercy, one of them throw- ing himself upon his knees before the major and putting his arms around the officer's legs, appearing to beg for his life. 1 was standing but ten or fifteen feet away when these prisoners were killed. I saw them point their revolvers, saw the smoke and saw the Filipinos fall dead, and know of a certainty that the two officers, and they alone, fired the shots that killed these two prisoners. In the church yard at Caloocan,a wound- ed Filipino prisoner lay on the ground as we passed through, hie musket lying some distance from him, quite out of his reach. A private passed near the prisoner, and the wounded man rolled over—to get out of the way, I thought, but the soldier said he rolled over to get at his gun. The private seid bo Lis captain. “What shall we do with this fellow.”’ “KILL HIM WHERE HE LIES." The captain replied : ‘You know your orders, kill him where he lies.”” The pri- vate immediately ran his bayonet through him pinioning him to the ground. As he started to pull his bayonet out it caught and dragged the Filipino along on the ground. The soldier put his foot against him and shouted : ‘Get off; I don’t want to lug you around with me.” The man was then dead, and I saw and heard it all. Daniel J. O'Connor, of Pittsburg, told of what he bad witnessed of the kidnapping of Father Augustine. An affidavit was read, signed by Albert L. Cross, of Burlington, Vermont, who swore that he was one of the detail that administered the water cure to Father Augustine twice, that when ordered to turn out to assist in giving the third ‘‘dose’’ he asked to be excused from the duty, stating as his reason that another applica- priest’s death. Lieutenant John F. Hall, emphatically denied the story that General Funston ever swam rivers under fire or did any other heroio feats of that kind. Hall declared that just before the battle of Caloocan or- ders were passed down the line to burn all the houses and take no prisoners, and that officers who killed prisoners undoubtedly did so under orders from Funston. All the houses were burned. The prisoner killing question was laughed off and treat- ed lightly. Hall stated that on the occa- sion of a meeting of the officers at regi- mental headquarters, after the battle of Caloocan. as they were about to advance against Malolas, Lieutenant Wisner: said to Funston: “What about prisoners, colonel? Funston replied: ‘Don’t kill any more than you have to.”’ —North American. Germany Asks for Cash. The German government, through its representative here, Baron Speck von Sternburg, has made a request of Mr. Bowen for the immediate pay ment of the £5500, which it was stipulated in the proto- col signed on Feb. 13th should be paid within thirty days from that date, asa preliminary to the raising of tl.e blockade against Venezuelan ports and the agree ment to send the question of preferential treatment of the blockading nations to the Hague for determination. Mr. Bowen promptly declined to accede to the request, but informed Baron von Sternburg that, as provided in the proto- col, the money would he paid to the Ger- man representative at Caracas thirty days from Feb. 13th, which would be on the 15th of March. The reason that animated the German government in making the request is not disclosed here, nor is Mr. Bowen aware of it. The matter, however, has some signifi- cance, perhaps, in view of the fact that the ships taken by the Germans during the blockade have not yet heen returned to Venezuela. Arsenic is a Necessity. Arsenic—that terrible poison, abhorred of all people for ages; the chief ingredient of the philters of antiquity of the middle ages, when they were desirous to get rid of a tronblesome enemy—arsenic is neither more nor less than a constituent element of the tissues of all living beings, vegerable or animal. Without arsenic no life is possibie; this purveyor of death is one of the great supporters of life. Such is the apparent paradox affirmed hy Prof. Armand Gautier, as the result of physiological and clinics] observations. Queer Change of Climate A Once Habitable Part of Turkestan Now Deserted. Sigus of civilization which existed cen- turies ago were discovered by Sven Hedin, the Swedish explorer, in Central Asia dur- ing his last journey through that region. He told the Royal Geographical society about it the other day in London, and thus raised some puzzling questions about the chauges which drove away the people who once flourished there. Off to the eastward of the Russian pos- sessions, which bave lately been disturbed by earthquakes, lies a district known as Eastern Turkestan. In this the mapshows a wide area desiguated as the Tamir Basin. This is a sandy desert, with small oases distributed about through it, the latter be- ing fertilized either hy smali streams from mountains or by the larger river whose name has been attached to the whole de- pression. The general course of the Tarim is northeastward and it terminates in the shallow remains of a lake, Lob-nob, whose waters are said to be fresh at one end and salt at the other. It was the immediate vicinity of Lob-nob to which Dr. Hedin referred and he found evidences of other lakes which had formerly existed, hut are now utterly dry. He associated with that discovery two others. Forests that have long been dead were found in the Lob-nob region. There were also traces of a road, ruined villages, coins, manuscripts and other relics of a fairly civilized race, which has since com- pletely disappeared. From clews which are not indicated in ‘“Nature’s’’ brief sum- mary of his talk, Dr. Hedin concludes that the occupation of the region terminated about 1,500 or 1,600 yearsago. Just when it began to decline, it was of course, a hard thing to say. The culture of the inhabi- tants was not so advanced perhaps as that of Greece or Rome, nor so ancient as Chal- dea and Egypt, but it constituted a hither- to unknown chapter in human history. One phase of the subject which has im- pressed T. G. Bonney, a prominent British geologist, is the evidence afforded that some permanent change of climate has been effected in the Tamir basin. In individual cases a shortness of water supply in some places has been caused by tapping the river farther upstream for purposes of irrigation, but a number of circumstances suggest the possibility that there was formerly a great- er rainfall in Turkestan than now, Clima- tologists are familiar with great differences in precipitation during shor periods. Even where rain is abundant it is easy to detect such eccentricities. Some authorities believe that drouths, separated by compensating excesses, occur at comparatively regular in- tervals of 35 years. Bat, taking a whole century through, it is believed that the annual average at the beginning and end is practically the same. If a slow general change, sufficient to render a once prosper- ous region uninhabitable, has taken place i1 the Tamir basin, therefore the phenome enon is curious, and almost unique. Paralled cases will probably be found when it is possible to obtain the data. To-day, however, records of close resemblances are scarce. Prof. Bonney, in discussing the matter, is reminded of climatic changes which have occurred on a far grander scale. The glacial age left its marks over Europe and North America, and was not a local affair. Moreover from its first development to its close it lasted many, perhaps a hundred thousand years. So, too, the early Tertiary period, possibly a million or two years ago, was marked by abnormal heat. Tropical vegetation and animals then thrived in what are now ‘‘temperate zones.” Geol- ogists and astronomers have speculated as to the causes of those wonderful thermal oscillations. - None of the explanations which have been suggested, though, seem to clear up the mystery of a cessation of rain within a few hundred years in an ex- tremely limited district. Historically, the destruction cf the forests mentioned by Dr. Hedin appears to have followed, not pre: ceded, thedrought. Moreover, few Ameri- can meteorologists now believe that trees promote rainfall. Soil which is covered by an extensive forest retains the water of precipitation like a sponge, and releases it more slowly into adjacent streams than do hillsides, which have been cleared. Some check is thus put on floods. But the theory that the total amount of rain received in a locality in the corse of a year is influenced hy forests is less strongly held now than it was 40 or 50 years ago. At present the change described by Dr. Hedin is a bard nut to crack. ; Clever Politics Seen in the Iaiser’s Confession. German Conservatives Satisfied, and Even the Lib- erals Pleased. The Times’ Berlin correspondent says that the Kaiser’s confession of faith has produced a considerable impression in Germany, though less of a sensation than it would have caused in other countries, becanse the Emperor is summus episcopus of the Prussian Protestant Church, and is known to have been long interested in dogmatic controversies. In high quarters it is believed that the Kaiser has cleverly succeeded in reassuring those whose feel- ings had been offended by Delitszoch’s lec- tures, as the Orthodox Protestants seem to have apprehended that the foundations of the State, as well as the Church, would be undermined if the summrs episcopus en- couraged heterodoxy. The question has a deep political bear- ing also, because the Social Democrats are professedly anti-Christian in a doc- trinal sense, and because nearly all the Liberals are free thinkers. The Conserva- tive Press is satistied that the Kaiser holds to the essentials of orthodox Protestantism, and the Liberal Press is pleased because the Kaiser’s statement upholds the freedom of research and speculation for scholars. The Catholic Kolnische Volks Zeitung sees danger in this distinction between the learned and the ‘‘people,’’ and the Radical Berliner Tageblatt comes to the far fetched conclusion that the Kaiser’s fearless initia- tive will produce the greatest and most trinmphant impression in England and America, and may help to inspire friend- lier feelings there for ‘‘our Germanic cousins.’’ Stopped for Bicycle and is Burned to Death. One life was lost and six persons suffered severely from burns and smoke at the fire, which partially destroyed the Burbank block in Lowell, Massachusetts on Fri- day. The victim was Mrs. Sarah F., Kittredge, a newspaper correspondent about 60 years old, who, although aroused with the other 75 lodgers in the building, stonped to get her bioyole, and in doing so was overcome by smoke and perished. Ow- ing to the nnmber of lodgers in the Bur- bank block it was many hours before all bad been accounted for. Mrs. Kittredge’s boiy being found ornshed under falling timbers. ] The Hostetter Fortune, How it Was Built on a Drug and Gradually Grew Into Vast Proportions—Millions Piled Upina Few Years. The Suit Over a Famous Secret. Says a Lancaster special of Monday of last week : Of peculiar interest here are the sensational revelations in the matter of the late Theodore Hostetter and hie rela- tions with the gamblers of New York, among whom he seemed bent on distribut. ing his share in the Hostetter millions. Here the foundation of that great fortune was laid, and here, after the deaths of David Hostetter and his partner. Geo. W. Smith, allegations were made in a suit by the heirs-at-law of old Dr. Jacob Hostetter that the millions were by right the prop- erty of such heirs because of fraud on the part of David Hostetter in getting control of the business and medical secret of Jacob Hostetter, his father, after the latter had become an imbecile. Jacob Hostetter was a resident of East Hempfield township, Lancaster county. He had some knowledge of medicine, and amorg the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers of his neighborhood” he was known as Dr. Hostetter. He was very poor. He bad a son, David, who came to Lancaster about sixty years ago and became a clerk in adry goods store. In 1846 he had saved enough to start, in company with a partner, in the dry goods business himself. The firm fail- ed in the course of a few years, owing a great deal of money. z SOLD GINGER BEER. The California gold excitement was then at its height. David Hostetter started for the Pacific coast to seek his fortune. His money gave out at Panama. To obtain money enough to continue his journey he made and peddled a ginger beer peculiar to the Pennsylvania Dutch, with the composi- tion of which he was familiar. The beverage became so popular in that region of thirst that Hostetter was soon able to manufacture it by wholesale, and hire agents to sell it. In a short time he made a good deal of money, but disposed of his beer business to go on to the gold regions. Arriving in California, he quickly decid- ed that there was more money to be made in selling fresh meat than there wasin gold hunting, and he invested his capital in a market. On the day he was ready to begin business a rival in the same line set fire to bis shop and burned him out, stock and all. This lefs Hostetter penniless. He wearied of California, and worked his pas- rage back ‘‘around the Horn’’ and he re- turned to Lancaster poorer than when he went away. Old Dr. Hostetter was still practicing among his farm neighbors, and was as poor as ever. Soon after the return of his son, David, however, he made up a formula for a patent medicine, and, in partenership with a Lancaster druggist named Green, who put his money against the Hostetter formula, began the manufacture of the medicine. He gave David Hostetter also an interest in the business. The medicine soon had a local sale, and after two or three years David Hostetter drew his profit out of the business, retired from the firm, and went to Pittsburg, where he enge.cd in whisky speculations. He prospered so well that in a short time he paid, with in- terest, all the debts both of himself and his partner that were owing from the unsuc- cessful Lancaster dry goods venture in 1846. SELL THE MEDICINE. While David Hostetter was a clerk in the dry goods store in Lancaster George W. Smith and Charles Bougher were fellow clerks. When David returned from Cali- fornia Bougher was President and manager of the Lancaster Saving Bank and Smith was its cashier. After David Hostetter had retired from the medicine firm and gone to Pittsburg old Dr. Hostetter interested Charles Bougher in the business, and Bougher capitalized a company for the ex- tensive manufacture and sale of the Hostet- ter medicine. David Hostetter came into it as confidential agent. The secret of the formula was still known only to old Dr. Hostetter, who guarded it sacredly. In i857 he became a helpless imbecile, and in 1858 he died without a will. David Hostetter than formed a part- nership with George W. Smith to carry on the business, and removed it to Pitts- burg. In afew years the business that had sprung from the old Dutch country doctor’s formula became one of the greatest in the world of its kind. ‘Robber’s Torture a Family. Apply Blazing Torches to the Feet of Children and Parents. Ten masked robbers entered the home of Christian Joehlin. near Toledo, Ohio, re- cently, after they had battered down the door with clubs. In the house were Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Joehlin, Mr. and Mrs. Christian Joehlin, John Anderson, Joseph Joehlin, also a three-years-old hoy and an eighteen-months-old girl. All, including even the baby boy and girl, were clubbed into insensibility, bound and gagged. When the Joehlins recovered consciousness, the robbers demanded $20, - 000, which they said they knew was secret- ed in the house. When told that no such amount was there, they applied blazing torches to the faces and feet of all their vic- tims, blistering even the infant’s little feet. Christian Joehlin, an aged paralytic, was beaten so frequently that there is not a spot on his head that is not bruised and raw. The robbers, leaving their victims tied searched the house, securing $300 in cash and several articles of jewelry. They drank several gallons of wine, which they found in the cellar, prepared a meal, in- cluding meat, potatoes, coffee, and wine, and ate and drank. They were in the house five hours, leaving at 4 o'clock on Thursday morning, after telling the family they would return for the $20,000. No trace of the intruders has heen found. “The Garden of Lies” in The Phila. delphia Press. A Fascinating Love Story of a Beautiful American Girl. The romance of a beautiful American girl, in which the fight for a throne figures prominently, is the basis of ‘‘The Garden of Lies,” the most fascinating love story since the ‘‘Prisoner of Zenda.” From start to finish the tale teems with adven- ture and excitement. The plot is novel and well handled and there is not a dull line in it. Though it is a story of valor, it is first of all a love story that will strike a sympathetic chord in every reader. Be sure to read this striking romance in next Sunday’s “Philadelphia Press.” Order it of your newsdealer in advance. Mrs. Charles R. Buckalew Dead. Mrs. Parmelia Buckalew, widow of the late Charles R. Buckalew, ex-United States Senator, died at the home of a relative in Wilkesharre last Friday night, aged seven- ty six years. Mrs. Buckalew was former- ly Miss Wadsworth, a lineal descendant of the famous patriot who placed the charter in the oak.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers