Deworalic; Wad Bellefonte, Pa., April 14, 1905. SPEEDAWAY. Now you take it in one of these factory towns—there’ll be a heap of carious cus- tomers drift in. A feller with capital, like the boss, finds a place, bere in the back country, where there is a river running fast enough to twist a turbine, and he’ll build a mill and put up a dam like that yonder, and there'll be ten flat-cars of machinery, and then, for every native that has failed at farming or lumbering and comes in to run a racing machine, there’ll be twenty lasters for the bottoming-room and ten girls for'the sewing machines, half of em experienced and half green, and all coming from the cities because the cities won’t feed ’em any more. We get low tide out of both—ocity and country. Two hote’s, six bars, four pool-rooms, thirty-two boarding houses, one church, and no public library. That’s a factory town. I was thinking of Speedaway. Funny ouss. Hecame into my mind because— well these factory windows are pretty dusty, but juss look out there up the val- ley ; see how blue them mountains are; look at that red line where the maple trees are turned; get onto those streaky clouds that look as if somebody had spilled shoe-black- ing on the sunset. Then smell that air that’s coming up the elevator shaft. Frost to-night. Is was about this season that Speedaway used to turn up—every year on a day like this. His real name was Benson. I thought I’d told you about him. The first year he showed up was just after the first snow,and he was no dude. His coat was shiny and showed the lining under the arms, and what with the blue of his stubble beard and the tan of his skin, he looked the color of a plate that’s been used for baking pies. We were short of hands and the boss gave him a job on the McKay machines. I guess he wasn’t sorry he done it either, because Benson was as good a man as we've ever had. He could make the cases walk along and it’s nothing easy wish hot wax spatter- ing, and the machines heaving and pound- ing like a human being out of breath, and the heavy steel needles snapping like tooth- picks. Iremember the first time I ever talked to Speedaway—they called him that because of his yellow streak—I found him after hours bending over his machine with a three-pound wrench in one hand, and his arms and face covered with machine grease till be looked like a nigger minstrel. ‘‘We’ve had a bad day of it,’’ says he, pointing his finger at the machine. ‘‘Me and it. Bat if I went away now I believe the darn thing would think it had got the best of me. A machine like this is some- thing like a man, ain’t it ? Some days it acts sour and peevish, and hasn’t got any sense at all. You've noticed how there’s a particular kind of east wind that’ll blow bere some days when no one says ‘good- morning’ to anyone else when they come in at seven o’clock. Maybe there’s some kind of a wind or something that makes this machine feel just assore. Then there'll come a day when the old thing will have a certain kind of sound and sing away as happy as a twenty-cent cigar.’ That’s the way Speedaway would talk, and I got to like him first-rate. If it hadn’s been for the fever that started him away in the spring,he would have been a sizzler. Never put liquor in, and from the middie of October till the days when the sun had turned loose the last snows off the pastures, he’d work hard as any of us, and never get docked for being late. Then it would come along about the time when the ice busts on the top of the river, and the boss would come to me and say : ‘‘Jim, don’t you sup- pose we can keep Benson this year? If he’ll stay on over the summer, I'd make him a foreman.’” And I'd say, ‘“‘All right, I’ll speak to him,’’ bat all the time I knew the only thing would hold him would be a jail or a graveyard. You could talk your teeth loose and not do any good. I tried it. Sometimes during the winter evenings when the snow would be six feet deep in the woods, I'd drop in to smoke with Speedaway, in the little room where he used to hang out. Maybe there’d be the snapping and howling of a storm on the windows, and then Benson would shift his pipe into the corner of his mouth and peep his eyes and tell me how he had bummed uis way on top of a mail-car from Chicago to Topeka, or how he’d gone down the Mississippi on a lumber raft, or nearly cashed in, riding the trucks of an express across the alkali deserts, and how a thun- der storm looked at night on a Kansas prairie, and how he’d found an eagle’s nest on the shores of Lake Champlain last sum- mer. I'd realize a bit that he saw more things in life than I saw, and what thiogs he could make me see of the life he led, looked bright and fascinating like a six- colored lithograph. Bat then I’d get mad for listening to him and I'd say, ‘That's boy’s tricks, Benson, and if you’d only fight off the fever you get every spring to go tramping, and be a man—"’ Then he’d take the pipe ous of his mouth and look at me wide-eyed. ‘‘Jim,”’ he'd say, ‘‘you aren’t telling me anything. I know those things better than you do—I know just how much I ache to get loose and see places, and never know where I'l] get the next meal. That's something you don’t know anything about. And then, again, I know why I onght to hitch down and be somebody, and there’s nothing you can say that I don’t tell myself a dozen times a year. I’ve made up my mind to stay bere next summer anyway. Just wait and see.” That’s the way he’d talk—just as if be was a drinking man promising not to touch liquor again, but when the first warm days would come with those breezes that smell like the woods juss after rain, I'd know the Jig was up. Speedaway would try. Bat it weren’t auy nse. The fever was in his blood. I'd’know, because he'd begin to wear the look of a rat that’s fallen in the molasses, but perhaps it’s only fair to say he’d put up a good fight. He would stand there in front of his ma- chine and try not to look out the windows, and try not to fill his big chest with those soft airs that came sneaking in across the valley. Sometimes I'd stop on my way through the room and try to prop him up, because I'd know that he was all wobbles and fever to get going again. I'd say, ‘Anything doing?’ and he’d say, ‘Fine. If I felt any better I'd have to see a veteri- nary,’’ for he was trying to put in a few props himself. And shen perhaps he'd smile and say, ‘‘Jim, take a look at the new shoots on those pine-trees—just as bright as pickles, ain’t they ? Snow’s most gone and we’ll have a great summer. I'll bet it’s fine down in Virginia now.”’ ‘‘Benson,’’ I'd say, “I know what ails you, and a fool is too gnod to call you. Suppose you started off. What of it? Why, now vou know where yon’ll sleep tonight.” : Sf “And I wish to God I didn’t,” he'd say, and then I'd bave to see that I'd been left at the post. Perhaps the next day he’d be gone with- out even asking for his pay, he'd be so ashamed to face the boss. One spring I found out he left his bed in the middle of the night, and another he didn’t come back after the one o’clock whistle. Then we’d know the fever of the spring had flang him down—we’d get next when he did'nt show up prompt, and the. men would say, ‘‘Speedaway’s off again,” just as if they were saying, ‘‘Yesterday was Friday.”’ Then it would be along the fall—about the time I'd see horse-chestnuts on the ground, and perbaps laler when there'd been the first spit of snow, and the flies had begun to die on the ceiling. Speed- away would turn up again on a day like that, dirty and with the listle cough he’d get from sleeping out of doors, and with a growth of beard that looked like the front of a hair brash. I guess it was the fourth winter he’d been with us when Nellie Conroy came up from the city to work in the sewing room. That’s the way things happened. You oughter see Nellie Conroy—it would do your eyes good. She had bair as black as a new piece of patent leather, and big, sad, gray eyes, about the color of that streak of river you see yonder, and her bands were thin like my Annie’s was when I married her, and not coarse and stuffy like moss of the girls. She was a good girl too—which kind of points outa girl ina town like this—and it wasn’t because she didn’t have the old human badness, and I always have thought there weren’t half enough girls like that, and that when you found that kind you’d found the difference between a specimen of the other sex and a woman. She'd come up here into the woods to get rid of what a girl who is playing a lone hand has to go up against in the city, bus the first week she was here she went on her back with pneumonia, and my Annie was sitting up with her at all hours, when their kerosene lamp was the only light in the village. She told Annie how she’d work- ed in a store for five dollars a week in com- petition with girls who were living at home, and who’d work for the five so as to buy a seat to the theater and a new hat for two ninety-eight, and bad somebody tak- ing them out to dinner while she was eat- ing a ‘‘quick-lunch’’ under a tailor shop and doing balf her own washing evenings in a china wash basin. And how she was stuffed into the kind of corner where every- body was razzled with the glitter and hotelsand the mean things of the city. When Annie told me, I thought—‘‘Here’s where you get the worst part of the city, out here under God’s hills.”” But I was telling about Speedaway. Speedaway might have worked out his winter without ever speaking to Nellie Conroy if it hand’ been for Henry Cowan, who runs the edge trimmers. You know a good many men oan tell a girl, just as if it were written on their forehead with a stencil. Well, Henry’s too vain to be that kind. I remember just as well as if I could see it now—that the girl had stayed a few minutes after the factory had shut down. I saw her come out from the stitch- ing room door over there and turn into the hallway. Then I heard Cowan’s voice : ‘‘Hello, Nellie,”’ he says, kind of fresh, and I thought it would be just as well to let him know I was around, so I started for the door. When I got there I saw the girl was standing sort of scared on the top landing, and he was coming up toward her. °'A feller bet me I couldn’t kiss yer, little girl,”’ he says, ‘‘but I guess yon will whether you like it or not.”’ Bat right then, before I could say a word, she slam- med her little fist under his chin, and the punch set him off his balance so that he went clawing with his hands down to the next landing. Speedaway was standing there—I badn’6 seen him before—and he stepped aside as if Cowan was something dirty. Henry picked his carcass up and as he started down the stairs he said some- thing to her I couldn’t hear, and she turn- ed sort of white, and stiffened her arms down at her side. But all she said was, ‘‘I was afraid I had killed him.’ And she fell back straight like a flag-pole being blown down, and I caught her in my arms. Speedaway came up the stairs cool enough on the outside, and went to the wash room for a bit of water. He chucked it in her face, and she opened her big gray eyes and looked straight at him. And it was funny —he was half down on one knee and just getting up, but he never moved but just kept right there, looking at her till she said, ‘I’m all right now,’’ and the blood ran back into his face and he kind of gulp- ed as if he’d swallowed a fish bone. A fool could tell what had happened,—in just those few seconds. He got up and pulled a big breath. *‘I’m in a hurry,’ says he, with his lips put hard together, and the girl didn’t know what be was going to do, bat I kind of guessed that Speedaway was going after Henry Cowan, and it wasn’t in my heart to call him back. When I went by the window yonder, I knew I was righs, for there’d been a fresh fall of snow that afternoon, and Cowan, who was the only band in the factory who lives up on Maple Hill, had tracked his way across the fields,and I could see Speed- away following right on those tracks with a thirty-four inch stride and his breath showing on the cold air. Benson was one of those loose built fel- lers, with a mild brown eye and stoop shoulders—the kind of man that surprises vou when he gets busy, and when he gets his clothes off, liis back looks as if it was stuffed with peach-stones. So it wasn’t startling when Cowan came in Monday with a wad of cotton over his ear and one eyebrow higher than the other. For a general diet, I keep my mouth shut, but I told the whole business to my Annie, and she’s a woman—and there yon are. Everybody was next. And then Nellie Conroy heard it, and she met Speed- away when he was going through the hall, wearing a pair of greasy overalls, and his face spotted with machine grease. ‘Mr. Benson,’ says she, with a red spot on each cheek, ‘‘it was wrong—what - yon did.” But she smiled kind of soft, and put out ber band, and be took it and said, just like a fool, ‘I’m much obliged,’’ and that was the way they got to speaking to each other. There was quite a time that Speedaway hung off. Iguess he was one of these fel- lers that knows it quick enough when men like bim, but perhaps a girl would have to make an affidavit before a justice of the peace before he’d believe she ever even looked at him. So Nellie—maybe she’d meet him coming in the front door and emile—why, she’d smile with the whole business, the big gray eyes and the cor- neis of her mouth, the kind of smile that would brace up a bunch of wilted flowers. And there weren’s any boldness in it eith- er, you understand, bot just the trick of a good, old-fashioned smile. Then Speedaway would smile too, and stare right into her eyes,and that day he'd turn so many goods over his machine it would have made him rich if he’d been on piece-work. It uster kind of vex a man to watch him. Bat after a month I saw he was buying a new necktie now and then. I says to him, ‘Benson, I saw you at church yesterday, and yon’re studying the fashions a bit. Am I right?” : ‘*‘No,”” says he,scowling, ‘‘yon’re wrong, and your head is light.’ It wae the scowl that gave him away,but in a week he was walking home with her, and the factory was full of talk about how she was teaching him to skate evenings on the river, which probably might be true, and just as likely not, this being the kind of town where people talk just to keep their band in, and when there’s no talk, they make it. So, of course, they had all sorts about Speedaway and Nellie Conroy. And then there was jealousy broke loose in the stitching room—not because of Speedaway exactly,. but more becanse Neliie could look better than any of the other girls who spent more money on clothes, and learned the trick of some simple little bow or something that would catch a feller’s eye without smashing into it with something gaudy. Besides, some were jealous be- cause Nellie had the knack of saying little and speaking mo bad word for anyone. “Stuck up,’’ they called her, which is often called to people who mind their own basi- ness. One day in March sometime, I guess they thought they’d take a fall out of her, so, at the noon hour, three or four of the girls came over to her machine and perch- ed up on the bench. Katie Jordan, the girl with the big yellow pompadour, did the talking. ‘“Nellie,”” she says, ‘‘I should think you'd dread the spring to come.”’ ‘Why so, Kate ?’’ says Nellie. “Oh, then you don’t know. Say, it wasn’t white in him not to tell you—your particular friend gives us the good-by every year in April. Goes tramping. I'm sor- prised he didn’t tell is to you, he having known yon so well,” says Katie, just like that and scornful. I was fussing over some scrap leather and I saw a flash in Nellie’s eye. “Katie,’’ says she, *‘if the subject don’t interest you so much you can’t keep still, let’s talk of something else.”’ “Oh, well,’’ says the Jordan girl, toss- ing her head and twisting her mouth at the crowd of girls who'd gathered around, ‘‘perhaps it’s nothing to you, but if you want to keep him, I should think you'd have more life in you and not act so mousey,’’ says she, ‘‘and it’s against my own interest to tell it, for I’ve just taken a bet with Mary Clews that Speedaway would go this year just the same as ever.”’ Nellie Conroy stood with her back to a big case of uppers, and looked from one to another, so if she were a man she’d look as if she weregoing to say, ‘‘Open to the world. Give or take five pouands,and color no bar,”’ and then she smiled—just a quiet, contented little look around the eyes, and she says, ‘‘He’ll not go away this year,”’ and walked out of the room, leaving them looking as each other, like a lot of losers at the races. : Bus still there were a lot of the girls and men that thought Speedaway would leave her when the spring came. Sometimes I thought so myself, and as the weather got warmer, there were bets going a!l over the factory. Perbaps somebody at the lasters’ bench would look out of the window, and see Nellie going up the hill from work with Speedaway walking alongside of her, and sort of bending down to hear her. Then perhaps one of the men would say, ‘‘It’s too bad —it’s a ehame,’’ and perhaps Teddy Donovan would say, ‘‘What’s a shame ?”’ ‘“That Speedaway’s got to leave he:,’”’ says another feller, and Teddy looks up with his bits of blue eyes. ‘‘I’ll het you an even pay day,”’ and the other feller would say sort of thoughtful—*‘It’s worse than liquor with him, and I’ll take your bet.”” That's the way the whole factory would do—some taking one side and some the other, until we got to feel just as if it was a presiden- tial election or a prize fight. It was a mill between the old fever and the new—the love for his old life and the love for the irl. 2 Of course, Speedaway didn’t know how the others were watching,but knowing him better than any of them, I watched him closest. The time came when all the snow bad gone, and the clouds began to look fat and cottony, and maybe you’d see a V of geese flapping to the north up the valley, and when you’d go across the flelds to work, you’d see a woodchuck riting in the sunlight, with his nose a-sniffing and his eyes kind of half shut and lazy, and it would sort of make yon want to lie down beside him, and run your fingers through the new sprouts of grass and such things. And when you'd go. home at night, the frogs along the river were peeping like a rusty shafting, and the smoke that came out of somebody’s cottage when they were cooking supper would stick op into the sky, juss like a strip of black paper. The fight was on with Speedaway, and I knew it. I could see his eyes getting a dreamy look to them, and instead of going home to lunch at the noon hour he’d go out on a rock near the hank and smoke and look down into the water and wait there until be paw Nellie coming back down the hill, then he would jamp up quick to mee ber. Besides, I could see him kind of fighting it out when he was at his machine, with a look on his face like a new member of a state's prison. Nellie Conroy knew what was doing all right. She wasn’t so cheerful and bright, but her lips were shut tighter together,and I guess there was nothing the matter with her sand. She was fighting it out with him, and afterwards, when the end came, I found cut she’d had the sense to fight it out with her mouth shat. I remember well enough the day when Speedaway didn’t come to work. It was raining, too, ever since the early morning, with the south wind slapping the water up against the windows just as if it were a wes towel. Benson wasn’t ‘at his machine when I looked into the bottoming-room, so I didn’t say anything, but I went down to the office and telephoned to Nick Johnson, the clerk of the Midland house, and asked him to step over to Speedaway’s lodging- place and get wise. And he telephoned back that Benson hadn’t slept there that night, and the last the landlady bad seen of him he was sisting out on the front steps in the moonlight, smoking his pipe. I knew then there was no use and that Speedaway was gone, and it most tarned me sick when I thought of the girl work- ing away at her machine upstairs, It was tough to go up and tell her, tougher than a funeral, but I did it. She got ap when I walked over to her, and she put her hand out, right before the whole roomfal of girls, and took hold of mine,and she says in a sort of a whisper, *‘I know.” Her eyes were kind of red and her lips were pulled in ztraight, just like they had been pulled over a last and tacked down, and I had to look out the window, and Katie Jordan turned from her machine and grin- ned at me until T got so mad thas if I could have found Benson, I'd have pound- ed the teeth out of him. ‘‘Do you think he’ll come hack ?’’ says Nellie, and it sounded to me just like a crazy woman asking about somebody who was dead. “No,” says I, “‘he won’t come back,” and she sat down, grabbing at the bench with her hands, just as if I'd struck her in the face. *‘He won’t come back to me,’’ she says over again, and I was thinking how a good woman can love a man, and I just bad to leave her. I went back to my room with the feeling that there weren’t avything much good in things, anyhow. The boss came up during the morning, looking mad as I've ever seen him, and he cursed at the new lot of leather that came in the day before, and raised a fuss about some mistake I'd made in the tags, and blew up everybody and complained about the rain and mud, and finally he says, ‘‘Well, Speedaway’s gone again ?”’ And I says, ‘‘Yes, he’s gone. Same as ever,’”’ but the boss scowled and says, *‘It ain’t the same! Anybody who has eyes knows that. You talk like a fool, Jim.”’ So I just went on with my work. Then Dave Houston passed on with an armful of vamps and says, ‘‘Speedaway’s lit out. I bet ten dollars he'd go,but, say, Jim, I'd give twenty to see him back again. What ?”’ I guess a good many of them felt like that—even those who bet ou the other side. It rained all that day and the next, and it was a kind of relief when the clouds lifted on the next afternoon and the sun came out about five o'clock, and flang a yellow light all over the fields and trees that looked so bright and green from the storm. We opened the windows, for the air was moist and warm and pleasant, and we could hear the birds piping up on the other side of the river. Nellie Conroy left the factory just before we shut down—I never knew her to leave early before, except those two days, but I guess there was an exouse for her,good and plenty. You could see it in the curve of her shoulders when she walked out of that door there, and she stepped as if she’d been traveling barefoot for two days on a brick sidewalk. I saw her when she left the factory and started up the bill through the mud, and I watched her until they shut down the mill wheel, and the machinery stopped with the regular sigh that sounds like the sigh you give when you get into bed after a hard day. You’ve heard it yourself. Then there was the hurry of everybody getting ready to go home, and running down the stairs. Of course, one of the mien generally walks home with some other, and there’sa good deal of waiting around for each other in front of the office, so when I got down there was quite a little gang standing around the doer. And then somebody says, ‘‘See !"” as if he noticed a house on fire, and everybody looked up the hill. Nellie Conroy was walking up through the mud all alone, but at the top of the hill was Speedaway. He walked down to meet her, with his back straight and his head high, and none of us even moved until he came right up to ber and put his arm around her, and then no one could stand it any more and we broke loose and just yelled ! Everyone of vs. Then those inside the factory came to the windows to see what the fuss was and, by thunder, they just bust right out, too, just like a crowd yells when a batter knocks out a home run, and the boss put his head out the window and says, ‘‘Jim, is that Speedaway ?’’ And I says, ‘‘You bet your life it’s Speedaway !”’ and he says, grin- ning, ‘Well, I'll be darned !"’ We kept right on a-looking and Speed- away just waved his band to us, and then he said something to the girl, I guess, be- cause they both laughed and all of us langhed too, and Katie Jordan sang out the window to Mary Clews, ‘‘The money’s yours.” And it seemed as if there was a lot of decent things about all of us. The girl had won the game—that was it. See here ! Just look out there at that red house, with the trees back of it—that’s Benson’s house. See that kid on the piazza —fat and pink as a piece of ribbon ? That’s Benson’s kid.—By Richard Washburn Child, iu MeClure’s Magazine. Forest Fires. The Canadian Saoperintendent of For- estry in his latest report declares that, though the Dominion has Jost vast quantities of timber by fire, it undoubs- edly stands at the head of those coun- tries from which a fnture supply may be expected. The official sounds the warning note that if adequate means are not taken to preserve the virgin forest growth Canada will ultimately cease to be the best ‘‘wood lot’’ of the world. The United States has a direct inter- est in the preservation of the Canadian forests, for its own supply of timber is rapidly diminishing. The Secretary of Agriculture in his report says that the science of forestry needs all the encour- agememt it oan receive hecause of the vastness of the interest involved ‘‘and the critical point which forest destruction bas reached.”” The subject is of im- mediate importance to the house-builder and renter. The price of lnmber is rising rapidly, and this induces the lumberman to extend his operations into new forest areas. The Federal Forester notes that the general consumption of lumber isgrow- ing steadily with the increasing population and prosperity of the United States. “We have never been so near the exh aus- tion of our lumber supply, and itis evident that vigorous preventive measures have never been so urgently required as now.” The Bureau of Foresty is making an in- telligent effort to encourage reforestization, to prevent waste by lumbermen, and to limit the ravages of fire. It is urged that the exclusion of fire depends on local sen- timent and State or local police and patrol. The fires in the Adirondacks from April 20 to June 8, 1903, burned over the enormous area of 600,000 acres of timber land. The loss from the distiucticn of trees and the burning of the soil, direct, and indirent, was incalculable. The season has arrived when extraor- dinary precautions should he taken to extinguish forest fires in their incipiency. A number of rach conflagrations have been already reported from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, in nearly every instance the result of carelessness. The appropriations for forestry in most of the States are too meagre. The Federal Secretary of Agri- culture declares that the whole cause of forest preservation hinges upon the inter- est of the State Governments. *‘Becanse no matter how fully pursnaded the private owner may be that forest man- agement promises to yield him good returns, without fair assurance of safevuard against fire and of equitable taxation of forest lands he can make ro headway.” — Public Ledger. ——Willie—Teacher told ue today that there’s a certain kind of tree that grows out of rocks. I can’t remember what it was. ? His Pa--It’s a family tree, T guess. — — The statement in a literary journal that a certain well known anthor ‘‘writes hy candlelight?’ is not surprising. Very few of em can afford gas now. --_ Sinking of the Maine, NEw YORK, March 28.—That the bat- tleship Maine, through an error, was de- stroyed by a homb of his manufacture was the statement made by Gessler Rossean in the Tombs prison. Rosseau has just been convicted of having sent explosives to the Cunard line pier, this city, in May, 1903. He made the following state- ment: “For several years, while the Cuban patriots were struggling against Weyler, I watched the contests with deep interest and sympathy. I decided to go to Jacksonville and do what I could to assist the revolu- tionists. ‘“‘Before leaving St. Louis for the South I got together the material for the con- struction of two exploding machines of tremendous power, so arranged that they could be wound up and left in a selected place, with the certainty that they would go off with terrible destruction within a few hours. ‘‘At New Orleans I rented a room and put the hoxes together, after which I went on to Jacksonville. There I became ac- quainted with a party of Cuban leaders, who were planning a filibustering expedi- tion. They had engaged the Destroyer, a small vessel, to take them to Cuba along with a number of American and European adventurers who were anxious to strike a blow for Caban freedom. ‘‘Several of the leaders of the party are men now well known and 1 will not mention their names, although I Have among my papers a lis of them all. ‘I suggested to them that they use my machines to destroy Spanish warships in the harbor of Havana and in other ports on the coast of the island. They readily seized upon the idea and when the De- stroyer sailed with the filibusterers they took my two machines with them. ROSSEAU REMAINED IN FLORIDA. ‘It was my intention to go along with the party so as to direct the work of sink- ing the Spanish ships, but they dissuaded me, urging that I could be of greater use in Jacksonville preparing other machines if the first proved successful. ‘It was planned to have sume members of the revolutionary party join the Spanish navy so to get the machines abroad. It that failed it was decided to fasten] one of the boxes to the hull of a ship under the water line, for I had constructed my ma- chines so they could be exploded under the water. . ‘“That was in the the fall of 1897. The next spring the Maine was destroyed. ‘‘Only one of the men in the secret of the machine ever returned to America. I saw him some time after the war with Spain bad hegun. *‘He told me he had nothing to do with the boxes after reaching Cuba, but had heen told a mistake had been made. “The wen who had been instructed with the task of destroying a Spanish vessel attempted to fasten a box during the night to one of Alfonso’s warships and blundered into blowing up the Maine. ‘I was told that the man, immediately after learning of the error he had made, committed suicide.’’ Rossean said he had attempted to blow up the statue of Frederick the Great in Washington because he did not wish to see the statue of a king in America. He added that he was not an avarchist or a pihilist and that he had made no effort to supply exploding machines to the Russians. Unlucky Friday. BY BISHOP CHARLES C. M’CABE Ounce upon a time I was in a railroad ac- cident. It was one of the only two I have ever experienced, and I bave traveled over seven hundred and fifty thonsand miles on traine and steamers, three times as far as from here to the moon. A broken wheel threw the train off the track. The car I was in was shattered very much, Seated just ahead of me was an elderly lady suffering with rheumatism. It was necessary to change cars. I belped her off the car, carried her valise. and gave ber the support of my arm. Behind us came a noble-looking Englieh lady with ber busband by her side. She was scolding him well for starting on their journey on Friday. ‘I told you, James,’”’ she said, ‘‘something would happen if we should start on Friday.” ‘‘Madam,’’ said I, ‘‘do you know that Columbus set sail to discover America on Friday?" She locked at me with indignation and said: ‘‘Sir, in my opinion it is a great pity America was ever discovered at all.” So she held to her opinion that Friday was an unlucky day. The old lady who bad the rheumatism was convulsed with laughter, while the English lady went on ahead of us, scolding James for daring to Sisrsgard her warning not to start on Fri- ay. If there is such as luck surely the American republic has had its full share among the nations’ of the earth, and this republic was oreated~ by thirteen colonies of the mother country. 1t can be proved that thirteen is the most lucky number there is, if interesting coincidences may be considered indications of ‘‘luck.”’ There i8 no such thing as lack. There issuch a thing as Providence. ‘‘Commis thy way unto the Lord; truss also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” Essays of Little Bobbie. lawyers is men wich git foaks in trubbel & then charge the saim whether thay git them out or not. lawyers is of 2 kinds: 1. good lawyers. 2. cheap lawyers. the cheap lawyers cost you more than the good lawyers, the only trubbel is that you never know the good lawyers til you try them and then may be they aint vary good after all. lawyers is made in 2 ways. One kind goes to college and plays foot ball & the other kind works for a lawyer & studies law books at nite. ‘Mister Lincoln was the last kind and the first kind is easy to find anywhare, you can git them %o try a case & lose it for you any day. Sam of them is good, tho, but not a grate many. lawyers git mad at eech other when thay are trying a case, but after the case is over thay call eech other Old Chap and say Lets go in & have a drink. Then thay stay thare till they bave 8 moar drinks and then they call eech other‘'dere old chum.” The Lull in the War, There is a lull in the fighting in Man- churia. General Linevitch has been rein- forced by fresh troops from Rassia and in- structed to oppose the Japanese advance at the broad river Sungari. It is said that Harbin, the Russian base, i8 so congested with supplies and wounded, and so exposed to Japanese attack,that a new base is being prepared at Twitsihar, on the Siberian Railwav, to which headquarters may be removed in case of emergency. Simplon Tunnel is Opened. The Simplon tunnel, the longest in the world, was inaugurated Sunday morning, when from the Swiss and Italian sides the first trains passed through, meeting at the centre, where there was the iron door which originally prevented the overflow of a tor- rent of hot water, and which was Sunday opened for the first time. The weather at the entrance to the tuunel was springlike, though the surrounding mouatains were covered with snow; but once inside the temperature became very high. The train from the Italian end was the first to reach the iron door, but a little later the train from the Swiss end was heard on the other side of the door. Final- ly the door was knocked down, amidst frantic applause and cries of ‘‘Long live Switzerland’’ and*‘Long live Italy ;” bands played the Italian royal march and the Swiss anthem. The Swiss bishop then preached a short sermon, in the course of which he said, ‘“The church blesses progress.” In the name of God he blessed the tunnel. What Russia Has Sacrificed. The newspaper of Saint Petersburg which if looked upon as the special organ of the army, admits that when the war broke out Russia’s force in Manchuria was only nominal. 1¢ states that from Feb. 6, 1904, to March 12, 1905, the War Office had dis- patched 13,087 officers, 761,467 men, 146,- 408 horses, 1,521 guns, ané 316,321 tons of munitions and supplies to the front, there- by straining the Siberian Railroad to its utmost capacity. Itis further ad mitted that though the War Office was correctly in- formed of the organization and strength (on paper) of the Japanese, the ability of the generalsand the spirit of the soldiers were sadly underrated. As the present effiective Russian force in the East is not far from 300,000 men, it would appear that between four and five hundred thousand men have already been swallowed by the greedy maw of war. Funny Figures. Prof. Rangler, who dreams in figures, has evolved the following curious specimen of figure gymnastics: 1 times 9 plus 2 equals 11 12 times 9 plus 3 equals 111 123 times 9 plus 4 equals 1111 1234 times 9 plus 5 equals 11111 12345 times 9 plus 6 equals 111111 123456 times 9 plus 7 equals 1111111 1234567 times 9 plus 8 equals 11111111 12345678 times 9 plas 9 equals 111111111 1 time 8 plus 1 equals 9. 12 times 8 plus 2 equals 98. 123 times 8 plus 3 equals 987. 1234 times 8 plus 4 equals 9876/ 12345 times 8 plus 5 equals 98765 123456 times 8 plus 6 equals 987654. 1234567 times 8 plus 7 equals 9876543. 12345678 times 8 plus 8 equals 98765432. 123456789 times 8 pl. 9 eqnals 987654321. Town Quarantined Because of Smallpox. Mount Union, a small town on the Mid- dle division of the Penusylvania railroad in Huntingdon county, is suffering from an epidemic that has caused the railroad com- pany to quarantine the horongh as far as the company is concerned. Some time ago several cases of shallpox developed and the people of that town did everything in their power to suppress the spread of the disease, but all their combin- ed attempts proved futile. The germs of the disease continued to spread and one case after another in rapid soccession fol- lowed. There were 140 cases in the town Mon- day and General Superintendent George W. Creighton of the Pennsylvania railroad issned an order restraining the sale of tickets from any point on the line to the town and, furthermore, prohibiting the stopping of any trains whatever at that place. : . ——Some men’s ideas of charity is to contribute to a campaign fand. ——Abous all the suburbanite raises in his garden is blisters. HiGcH PRESSURE DAys.—Men and wo- men alike have to work incessantly with brain and band to hold their own nowa- days. Never were the demands of basi- ness, the wants of the family, the require- ments of society, more numerous. The first effect of the praiseworthy effort to keep up with all these things is com- monly seen in a weakened or debilitated condition of the nervous system, which re- sults in dyspepsia, defective nutrition of both body and brain,and in extreme cases in complete nervous prostration. It is clearly seen that what is needed is what will sus- tain the system, give vigor and tone to the verves,and keep the digestive and assimila- tive functions healthy and active. From personal knowledge, we can recommend Hood’s Sarsaparilla for this purpose. It acts on all the vital organs, builds up the whole system, and fits men and women for the high-pressure days. Baby Rattlesnakes. The fallacies surrounding the rattle- snake begin with the very coming of the reptile. Many suppose that, like the garter snake, the bull snake, the members of the “racer” family and our other nonpoisonous snakes, the rat- tlesnake is hatched in broods number- ing from forty to eighty. Not so. Rat- tlesnakes are born into the world, as are all members of the viperoid fami- ly, in litters numbering from seven to twelve. Between the middle of July and the middle of August the babies appear. Lively, self reliant, dangerous little fellows they are, fourteen inches long, no thicker than a lead pencil, marked like the adult snakes and provided with a single button at the end of the tail, the first link in the series of rat- tles to be developed, ring by ring, with each shedding of the skin. Motionless, eyes gleaming, the long mother les extended across the back of a sand hummock beneath the fan- like leaf of a dwarf palmetto, glaring coldly at her active, squirming ba- bies. For a brief half hour she tar- ries; then she drags herself away, for from the first moment a young rattler enters the world he is independent of his mother and eminently able to shift for himself. Fach young snake is a full fledged rattler, ready to hunt and ready to defend himself with the sting of death. Each flat, triangular little head is provided with the long, sharp poison fangs containing the identical venom of the reother snake.—Pearson’s Magazine, :
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers