Demaoraic: Walcipons Bellefonte, Pa., June 7, 1907. OPENING. Cold Mrs. Earth was wrapped in gray When Spring came dancing along the way: Carrying a basket of brilliant hues From which each tree and twig may choose. The Maples, which looked so dry and dead, Covered themselves with tassels of red; Shrubs and bushes chose orange and yellow Till each seemed gayer than its fellow; The Crocus offered her chalice bold To catch some gleaming bits of gold. The gay Dutch Tulips snatched two rays And flaunted in Andalusian blaze; Violets, wet with morning dew, Selected mantles of purple and blue; Timid Arbutus, hiding from sight, Enveloped itself in pink and white; Pansies thought it the greatest fun To take every color under the sun, And from their freshly made brown beds Gaily lifted their smiling heads, Fair Spring has brought every shade of green And flung them now over all to be seen, Till the fields in emerald brilliance shone, And every plant wore a different tone, Having thus adorned the trees and flowers, Spring hastened to bring refreshing showers. Cold Mra, Earth, in new robes bedight, Was warm and young, to her heart's delight. -By B. 8, A, THE-HAUNTED-COAT, On the afternoon of ber graduation day Betty went up in the garret, because she felt uncertain and new, needing the grave com- panionship of things that had stepped aside with honorably rounded careers, to medi- tate among cobwebs. The June sun was warm on the roof, bringing out the smell of old resin from the knots in the rafters. Cobwebs here and there catching the sun- light upon their dust, demonstrated some- thing geometrically with golden lines and angles against dark corners. A mud-wasp grumbled up and down the dim window, and in the street a haod-organ droned a march. Betty, as cleen and new in her white gown and elippers as a butterfly still hang- ing to its cocoon with creases in its wings showing bow it was packed, perched awk- wardly upon her old high-chair, and won- dered what she ought to be thinking about. Life was solemn. Everybody had said so that morning. Her own essay had been to that effect, with many quotations to prove the point. ‘‘Life is real, life is earness.’” The world, in effect, needed a number of things done to it, and young people who were just commencing bore heavy respon- sibility. The discarded furniture and rubbish seemed taking counsel together. ‘‘Is it so solemn?’ The cradle asked that, and a cross of wax-flowers under a glass shade answered: *‘Why should is be 0? Oue lives ae long as one is pretty or useful, or thought to he 80; then one comes up here. That is all.” ‘It is very quiet,”’ eaid a broken toy dram, across whose bead lay a dejected doll in hoop-skirts; but a haircloth sofa re- plied with dignity: ‘‘Well, what then? Quiet ie a good thing.” The opinion of an old leather trank, hardly perceptible in a dark chimuey-cor- per, seemed less simple of interpretation. Her mother had shown her what was iu it, crying, and that grief bad bewildered Betty to whom all time before she was horn seemed remote. The devire of idle hands to pry and seek came upon her, the lid went back with a shrill cry, and the smell of faded disintegrating things came up. She lifted the yellow lined cloth and ad- mired the martial glitter of the uniform Debts, paviiog the smooth black broad- cloth, running ber fingers over the yel- low buttons. How five that young uncle of hers must bave looked iu it! The girls in the queer dresses of those days must bave thoughtso. When he wore it he was only afew years older than Betty, and he bad died before he knew anything about being old and bald, when he looked as he did in the Patury downstairs, like the yoang men y knew, except for wear- ing odd-looking collars and those locks of rin front of his ears. She folded the coat over the trunk lid so that the rows of buttons presented a mar- tial front. The long tails showed white silk lining; the epaulets must have been gorgeous when his trim young shoulders were under them. This was the sort of coat one wore to balls; had he loved to dance then as much as Betty did now? Had he been very sorry to die? Once that coas bad been an unimportant part of him—now it was all that remained, stitches, shounlder- padding, a little spot thas might bave been . wine, the huttonboles showing how they had been buttoned and unbuttoned—bat be was guise unreal, who had once been as real as Betty herself. Did one stop being real? Weald Betty's graduating gown ont- Jast Betty? A young man stood by she trunk looking ig upon its contents with a thoughtful air. ‘‘You are a—dream, aren’t youn?” whis- pered Betty. . *“That’s all.” But his voice was wistful as he wished he were more than that. Then he smiled dimly. “‘How fine I used to feel in that! There’s nothing like a little gold braid to set a fel- low up.”” He touched the epaulets cares- spy, There was a ball—do they play the ‘Blue Danube’ now?" ‘‘Not often, but we're going to. bave it to-night.” *“To-night? What’s to-night?’ ‘‘My graduation reception. We have a little dance afterward, you know.” ‘‘Is that so! I'd bave liked to go firss- rate—thirty years ago—you'd bave Shes me a dance, wouldn't yon? I forget that night in June?’ ’’ he hummed. ‘‘And it’s as real to you now as it used to be to me—Isay—" He was putting on the coat. “The silk is diag to pieces, and the moths have been at the sleeves.’’ He sigh- ed as he buttoned it over his chest. ‘‘It’s odd how fond one is of the little things one leaves behind; they aren’t of any real con- sequence, yet we keep buzzing about like bees over honey it’s foolish to come , yet we're always doing it. ‘Can I forget that night in June?’—May I have the honor?" ait bowed Velvie her with Srooked el- w. og happen to garret; there were glimmering lights and shadows of another place, as when you take two otographs on the sawe plate, and these Bh aod brightened until there was a great room banked with flowers and palms: an orchestraat one end of the room played the ‘‘Blue Danube,’’ and there was such a crowd of people in gay queer clothes as Betty had never seen in all her days. “May I bave the hono1?'’ said the trim young officer again, still bowing and offer- ing his arm. His coat locked very new indeed. One could not imagine moth holes and tattered linings, She slipped ber hand under his elbow and was whirled into the rustliog crowd—all drifting together like autumn leaves while the band played the “Blue Danube.” “How do you like i1?"’ whispered her uncle. “It’s my first official ball. I couldn’t come to yours, yon see, so I've taken you to mine. It’s old-fashioned, I koow—but once it was real!” “I'm just dreaming i1?"’ said Betty doubtingly. “Of course. What else could there be now? What are you looking sad for? It's not gloomy. Why should things be sad just because they're over?” Yet the dream ladies, though they smil- ed and bowed and waved their fans as they circled softly about in their funny hoops, might have been saying to themselves or whispering to their partners: ‘‘How nice it would be if it were only real.” ‘‘You mustn’t cry,’”’ said her uncle anx- ously ; ‘please dov’s ! It will go —whisk —il youdo, for it’s only a dream—about— There she is ! Look quick ! That dark girl with red roses at her breast, and one in her hair. She had to come. It was her dream, too. She had promised me a dance, and I can’t give it up, even for you, thongh yon are real. Stay here, Betty, and keep the dream steady for vs.”’ Betty stood by a piliar while he departed swiftly, and tried stoutly to hold the dream to its moorings, though sometimes it would waver, like a fog before a wind, showing a garret rafter through the chan- delier, or an outcropping of the leather trunk where should be a red sofa with two pale ladies sitting on it. Her uncle and the dark girl did not dance together long, but went out under an archway which looked cool and dim, and Betty was left alone, watching the people. At first she had to langh a little at the Loops; presently her opinion changed, the hoops seemed the only proper dress in the world, and it was she who was absurd and out of date. One’s hair, more- over, should be parted in the middle, brought down over the ears with a rigid smoothuess, then curl aconrately in the neck, and have a moss-rose or camelia tucked into it. Betty gathered her slim skirts even more tightly about her and stood close to her pillar. How real they seemed ! Woald Betty's graduating re- ception ever be like this ? ‘‘Here she is !'’ said her uncle. He was smiling. The dark girl was on his arm, and no longer wore a rose in her hair, for it bad changed to the buttonhole of the young officer’s coat, and smelled so sweet that Betty's face suddenly quivered and wrinkled. ‘‘Yon musn’t cry !"’ said ber uncle anx- ously. ‘It's the music and the rose !"’ gasped Betty. “It you ory, you'll spoil everything,’ pleaded the dark girl, clasping her bands. “Oh, please don’t ery !"’ ‘There isn’t anything to be sorry about, Betty. I thought it would give youn pleas- ure.”’ *‘But—it’s all over, and you died. Youn were happy about her and the rose, and all, but nothing ever came of it, and it’s sn long ago !"’ *'‘We bad this eveping, didn’t we ?—be. sides—"’ The girl caught Betty's uncle around the neck and pointed at Betty's face. ‘It's rolling down her cheek—when it falls—"" The tear splashed from Betty's chin to the floor, the room wavered and hroke into ripples like a lake with rain on it, and the brown rafters shut down. Ove ghmpse of two reproachful young faces looking back at her, aud then there was only the open leather trunk with the coat thrown across it, one empty moth-eaten sleeve dangling to the floor. The sleepy sunlight still lay on the cobwebs, and the wasp grumbled up and down the window.—By Georgia Wood Panghoro—in Collier's. : Chinese Gambler's Penance. A Chinese cook named Chin Kam bad been engaged by a wealthy Chinese in Ho In Street in Canton. All the money he earned bas been lost in gambling. On one occasion bis master paid him some money for provisions he supplied. The cook lost all the money at one stake. Finding thas his debts were accumulating day by day,on the twenty-fourth day he went into the kitohen and chopped off the forefinger of his left hand as a self-punishment and warning in order to relinquish this evil habit of gambling in the future. He be- came unccnscions through the pain, but was brought round again in a few minutes, —Two Northerners, traveling in the moun- tains of Kentucky, bad gone for hours and hours without seeing a sign of life. At last they came to a cabin in a clearing. The bh lay in their dirt holes, the thin ecluyban mule round and round in a circle to save the trouble of walking, avd one lank man, whose clothes were the color of the claybank mule leaned against a tree and let time roll by. ‘‘How do you do?'’ said one of the North- erners. “Howdy?” ‘‘Pleasant country The native shifted his quid and granted, Tey here all your 3 gh ne e native spat vely in the dust. ‘Not yit,”’ he lia Natare's Object Lesson. In almost every community will be found some one woman who is a splendid exam- ple of perfect health. She knows nothing of diseases which afflict most women. Motherhood to her is pure joy with scarce a pain-pang to mar it. She can enjoy life to the full, eat heartily, sleep soundly and throw her whole energy into work or play as is m . That woman is Na- ture’s object lesson. She has no Privilege above any other member of her sex. No Hie that do not belong to every woman. is fact has been proven in thousands of cases in which women have been lifted from m up to the high level of robust health by the use of Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescription. The possibilities of perfect health inbere in every woman. Its develop- ment ia obstructed by local diseases. ‘‘Fa- vorite Presoription’’ removes the obstruc- tion and makes weak women strong and sick women well. ~—In ordering eggs from advertisers or in filling mail orders great care should be used to avoid mistakes. Be sure you are right and then go ahead. VERSES FOR “THE BLUES" Just being happy Is a fine thing to do; Looking on the bright side Rather than the blue; Sad or sanny musing Is largely in the choosing, And just being happy Is brave work and true, Just being happy Helps other souls along; Their burdens may be heavy And they are not strong; And your own sky will lighten If other skies you brighten By being jast happy Witn a heart full of song. THE PROFESSOR'S WAY. By Exsuy Lewis. Professor Sweetzer, naturalist for a certain New England college, was a little man. He was round shouldered. He was awkward on his legs. He wore goggles for his weak ey and he arrived at the age of fifty-five with- out having loved. As between bugs and beetles and women, the bugs and beetles were ahead. It was only on rare occasions and when under the stress of excitement that he took the slightest notice of the other sex. Even when he did sit up and take notice of them he could not have recalled half an hour later what he said or whether they had red hair or black. On a certain day it came to the ears of Professor Sweetzer that a portion of the vertebrae of a whale had been found on a farm in Connecticut. He arrived on the spot next day and veri- fled the find. On an occasion thou- sands of years before an old bull whale had decided to take a trip inland and through some error of judgment had left his bones in a gravel pit. A piece of the backbone six feet long had been uncovered. The professor wanted to excavate for the rest. Where there is six feet of whale you can take it that there is more. He engaged board at the Widow Webb's and hired a man to wield the pick and shovel and thus went to work. The Widow Webb was fat and forty and childless. She was worth a stony farm and $600 in cash. A still older sister lived with her, and the farm work was done by a hired man with the good old fashioned name of Hiram Stebbins. Hiram was thirty-five and drank nothing stronger than cider, but he thought deeply. One of them was that if he married the widow he would become the possessor of the farm and $600. He had been thinking of this and taking the farm work easy when Professor Sweetzer put in an appear- ance. Hiram looked at him and grin- ned. If any one had told him that within a week he would be jealous of that little dried up and humpbacked specimen of humanity, he would have roared with laughter. As soon as the professor had inspect. ed the bone and become enthusiastic, he was a changed man. He became a fluent talker. He became fatherly to- ward the widow. He called her “my child,” and often took her hand and held it while he tried to make her un- derstand that 2a whale was a cachelot and that a eachelot could stand on his tail in the water as well as on his head. When Hiram witnessed the hand holding act, he quit grinning. He was mad all that day as he hoed corn. He was mad when he came up to supper. He was mad when one of the cows kicked him at milking time. While the professor took a ramble in search of beetles, Hiram carried the milk into the kitchen ard began: “Widder Webb, how does it feel to have a baboon holding your hand?’ “Hiram, what do you mean?’ was demanded. “I mean that I have seen you and that little runt of a man squeezing hands a dozen times. and neither of you seems to care who stands by. Fell in love mighty quick, didn't you?” “Look here, Mr. Stebbins, you have no right te talk to me this way. You know who the professor is. He's a great man. He has taught me more about whales in the last three days than I knew in all my life before. He elso knows all about birds and bugs and bees. It's twice as interesting to hear him talk as it is to hear a ser- mon." “Has a feller got to squeeze your hand to talk to you about whales?" asked Hiram. “He hesn’t squeezed it. That's sim- ply his way. He is a fatherly man. When he gets to talking he don’t know whether he Las got hold of my hand or the leg of a chair. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk as you do. I always thought there was a mean and jealous streak in you, and now it’s come out.” “Oh, it has, eh?’ muttered Hiram. “Perhaps if 1 went around looking for the bones of an old whale, I'd be all right.” “I guess it would be better than grunting around. You don’t care for educated folks, but I do. I was born that way. If I was to ask you about whales, you couldn't tell me anything.” “But the professor could?” “Yes, sir, he could. Hiram Stebbins, do you know that the Latin name of whale is Physeter macrocephalus? Do you know that we get spermaceti and ambergris from its body? Do you know that he sometimes reaches the length of seventy or eighty feet? You stand there with a mean look on your face, and yet let me tell you that the sperm whale can swallow a man at a gulp. There are no teeth in the upper Jaw, but the lower one has from twen- ty-five to thirty on each side. The eyes are small and placed far back in the head.” “Well?” grunted the hired man. “Well, the cachelot feeds upon fishes and cephalopodous mollusks. You prob- ably thought he fed upon turnips. The whale is gregarious. Five hundred or more have been seen in a single herd. Terrible conflicts often take place among the males, and it is not unusual | to find the lower jaws deformed. The | ing bugs and bees and butterflies. Teo . tical, hard headed, juristic, while Greece left eye is said to be smaller than the ! right, and the whale cannot see behind | him.” “All from the professor!” sneered Hiram as he bowed and walked out to fusten the bencoop for the night. When the professor wasn't assisting his man to dig for bones he was hunt. his great joy, he discovered a seven spot bumblebee. As all of us know, a bumblebee is of dark color, with yel- low spots on his back. There are of- ten from five to six spots and only rarely a seven spotter. This bee, along with a dozen others, was placed in a pasteboard box, and when the house was reached the box was deposited on a window sill of the veranda. The ! prefessor had told the widow all about whales. As soon as he had a little spare time he meant to tell her all about bumblebees. Two days had gone by when the moment came. The bone digging labors of the day were over | and supper disposed of when the pro- fessor and the widow took chairs on the veranda. He had found the shell of a small turtle In the gravel that day, and he set out to first explain about that. Hiram Stebbins was greas- ing his boots and chewing the rag in the kitchen and could hear every word. He also knew all about that box of bumblebees on the window sill. According to Professor Sweetzer, tur- tles had hearts and lungs, hopes and aspirations. IIe would even go so far as to say that turtles loved and were loved in return. They did not sing like a bird nor bellow like a frog, but they | were supposed to have musical ears for all that, In his earnestness the man got hold of the widow's hand. It was only his way. If he had got hold of her ear it would have been the same, | He had called her his dear woman and his dear child half a dozen times, and in his lecture he had got as far back as the turtle’s markings when Hiram Stebbins could restrain himself no lon- ger. He saw red. He thirsted for gore. He rose up to do murder, but checked his onslaught and walked soft- ly into the sitting room. The window was up and the bee box before him, while the backs of the sitters were to- ward him, He lifted the cover and stepped back. The dozen bumbles had been hopping | mad and calling each other names for the two days. The cover was no soon- er off than they swarmed to get room to square off. As they caught sight of the professor and the widow, however, the hatchet was Instantly buried There was a wild swoop, followed by wilder yells. Old seven spot led in the | fray. He it was who lifted the pro- | fessor over the veranda rail and let | him drop among the hollyhocks while | the rest were paying the widow atten- ! tions. The professor ran and was fol- i lowed, the widow shrieked and was | stung again and again. It was not un- til Hiram rushed out with smoke and flame that she was rescued and a neighbor woman sent for to treat the i lumps and bumps and put her to bed. | The professor returned not. Old seven | spot wouldn't let him. No news came | from him as the hours of night wore | on, and Iliram wondered, but next morning the widow received a note | reading: | “My dear child, please send my : satchel by bearer. I'm off after more bones. The turtle, as I meant to have told you, is utterly without ambition.” “Waal,” said Hiram to himself as he worked in the cornfield that day, “there was the professor and me and the wid- der and the whale and the bumblebees, and if I hain't come out top o' the heap, who bas?” The Ship's Log. The ship's log consists of a log chip and a log line. The log chip is a piece of board. shaped like the fourth part of a circle, loaded with lead on the round side, so that it will stand up in the water. The log line is 150 to 200 fathoms long. It is wound upon a large reel, so held as to let it run out easily. The line is divided into equal parts by bits of string run through it, each marked by the number of knots in it; hence these divisions are called knots. The log chip when thrown into the wa- ter stands still and draws out the log line as fast as it unwinds, and the speed of the ship is shown by the num- ber of knots that run out in half a min- ute. The usual length of a knot is 47.3 feet. When it is known how many of these run out in half a minute, it is easy to calculate how many would run out in an hour by multiplying by 120. The record of the heaving of the log, as well as all important things happen- ing on shipboard, is made in a log book.—Clincinnati Enquirer. Our Debt to Ancient Greece. Greece and Rome were at the oppo- site poles of the human world, and equally opposite are their Influences upon modern times. Rome was prac- was intellectual, emotional, artistic, abounding in what may be called the forebrain versus the brain behind the ears. Rome's empire was lengthy, ma- terial, matter of fact, while Greece banked on the intellectual and spirit- ual, finding her greatest conq. ests in the realm of mind rather than in that of matter. Rome produced no great original thinker, her greatest men shin- ing, like the moon. by borrowed light— light reflected from the sages of Ath- ens. Rome taught 1 law, order, obe- dience, but the moter of ideas and sentiments was Greece. From the Eternal City we have inherited our jur- isprudence, but it is from the City of the Violet Crown that we have derived our art, science and philosophy. In a word, to quote the substance of Dr. Johnson's saying, eliminate froin our modern civilization all that it owes to Greece and the residue would be bar- barism.—New York American. ~—Subscribe for the WATCHMAN. en RR on WOUND DISEASES. The Effect Produced When One Is Hit by a Bullet. A New York surgeon who saw serv- ice ‘un Cuba and the Philippines as a volnuteer in his profession was discuss- ing the subject of bullet wounds when he was asked, “What makes a man die when he's hit by a bullet?” “There are three reasons,” he replied —*shock, hemorrhage and blood poi- soning. A bullet cuts its way through kin, muscle, nerve, bone and artery. Then the wounded man falls to the rround. That's nature's little plan, cou kuow, for getting him on his back and relieving the heart of the heavy work of forcing blood against gravity into the brain.” “What happens when he gets a bul- let through his brain?” “Dies generally. If the bullet is a Mauser, however, and if its velocity be great enough, it is quite apt to pass clear through the skull, piercing the bone plate on one side, traversing the intervening brain and breaking out through the other side without killing. i I attended a number of such cases dur- ing the war in Cuba. “You see, if these bullets are travel- ing at a high rate of speed they cut through bone as clearly as does a tre- phine saw, leave no splinters in their wake, destroy very little tissue and cut their way neatly through the side. In fact, it is an Injury and a surgical op- eration all in one.” “Why are lung wounds so serious?” the surgeon was next asked. “Is the brain not as vital as the lungs?” “Quite. Dut when a man Is shot through the lungs a number of big blood vessels are cut, and he dies from loss of blood. Or the blood pours into the fine network of the lungs @ind the victim dies of pneumonia, just as he would do if he caught a chill. As a matter of fact, wound diseases, in the majority of instances, are merely well known diseases suddenly and violently induced. “Shoot a man through the head, and if he outlives the shock he dies as he would do from apoplexy or inflamma- tion of the brain. Shoot him through the heart, and he dies from the same | pathological cause as if he had rup- tured ancurism of the heart. If it is an abdominal wound, the man would prob- ably die of peritonitis, resulting from the release of the stomach contents into the cavity. In such a case death would be due to the same cause as in some cases of ulcer in the stomach. Such a patient would die from blood poisoning.” “What's the danger in flesh wounds?” “Septic poisoning mainly, and the severing of any important artery.” “What about flesh wounds in the | thigh?” “Well, a man might bleed to death in- side of five minutes if his femoral ar- tery were cut.” “What of the hole where the bullet went in and the other where it came out? “With the average revolver bullet— that is, the 32 caliber—they are too small to matter much. They are only dangerous inlets for poisoning mate- rial. As to bone injuries, a rifle bullet in full flight may nick a bone without seriously damaging it, but in most cases, as with the 38 caliber revolver bullet, the hone is badly splintered, and there's nothing for it but amputa- tion. No milder course has yet been effective.”—New York Press. When Dickens Was Reporting. There is no doubt that Charles Dick- ens when in Bath on a reporting ex- ploit picked up the name of Snodgrass, as he did so much else immediately afterward introduced into the pages of “Pickwick,” writes a correspondent of the London Chronicle. Alexander Snodgrass was mine host of the Raven in Quiet street from 1826 (if not earlier) until about the year 1832, when he moved to the Caledonian tavern in Trim street. There he lived, and there he died, in May, 1853, at the age of fifty-nine and was laid to his rest in that famous little burial ground on the heights of Lansdown, of which the tomb of Beckford. the eccentric author of “Vathek,” is the central monument. In the same graveyard lie Elizabeth Snodgrass (she was a milliner), died August, 1850, and Robeft Snodgrass, probably son of Alexander, who died in 1852. Dickens was in Bath in the carly thirties. “1 could choke the Chronicle with notes on Dickensian Bath,” threatens the correspondent. “Only this morning I was assured that the prototype of Barnaby Rudge was a Bath tradesman of the same name, who is well remem- bered and whose grandson carries on business still, and we all know that Little Nell was a little Bath Nell.” Afraid to Risk It. When the Hon. Beverly Tucker, min- ister to the court of St. James, was presented to Queen Victoria she indi- cated that he be seated by that slight motion of her plump hand which all England obeyed. Tucker was portly and heavy, and the only available chair was fragile and small. He appeared not to notice the invitation. A moment later it was repeated, for even at that first interview began the queen's lik- ing for Minister Tucker, which ripened into such an intimate friendship as no other American ever enjoyed with her majesty. Still the weakness of things terrestrial was more potent than the finger of Victoria, and Tucker again ignored the command. Then the queen put it in words, when Tucker, with a profound bow, replied: “Your majesty, I never sit in the presence of royalty.” “I accept the compliment at your bands,” replied the queen, “and now you must accept comfort at mine.” “Comfort!” exclaimed Mr. Tucker, “Why, I should break both my back and your majesty’s chair if I attempt- ed to sit in it!”"—Lippincott's Magazine. DETECTING A FORGERY. Pen Scope and Slant Cannot Be Imi- tated With a Frea Stroke. In many criminal trizls the charge of forgery is proved or disproved by aandwriting experts. A man may be convinced that a signature is his own, when along comes a handwriting ex- pert who never saw him before to tell him that it was written by some one else. How does the expert know? Appar- ently by a few general principles, by a marked power of deduction a la Sherlock Holmes and by a measure of common sense. Harold N. Sandberg, a well known expert, explained some of the methods of his profession in the Chicago Tribune: “The expert in chirography may put a juror to the proof that out of a dozen signatures of his own name no two will be alike in general form. Then he may turn to the authenti@® and forged signatures in almost any case and show to the layman that the first question of forgery arose from the fact that these two signatures at a first glance are identically alike to almost the minutest detail. With ali the skill which the forger puts into his crooked work, he keeps to the old prin- ciple of copying the authentic signa- ture which he has in hand, and the more nearly he can reproduce the sig- nature in every proportion the more readily the forgery can be proved. “One of the most important facts from which the expert may begin his investigations of possibie forgery is that every man using a pen in writing has his ‘pen scope.’ This technical term describes the average stretch of paper which a man may cover without lifting the pen from the paper and shifting his hand to continue the line. “In the case of the signature of one's name, it should be one of the easiest and least studied group of words which he is called on to put upon paper. In writing a letter, for example, the pen scope through it may show an average stretch of one inch for the text of the letter, while in the signature the whole length of the signature, twice as long, may be covered, but if the writer cov- ers this full stretch of his name in this way the expert may prove by the shorter pen scope of the copyist that the studied copy is a forgery on its face, for, however free of stroke the forger may be, naturally his effort to produce a facsimile of another man’s signature will make his scope shorter than that of the original signer. “One of the commonest means of re- producing a signature is to put the genuine signature on a plece of glass, lay another piece of glass on top of it and fasten the piece of paper that is to receive the forgery on top of that. Then by holding the glass strips to a bright light the original signature casts a shadow through, which may be traced in pencil. From this tracing the ink forgery is completed. “But when a forgery doue in this way Is put under a strong magnifying lens it will not bear scrutiny. If the original has a strong down stroke on the capital letters the movement will be free and will leave the pen lines with smooth edges. The man who is tracing such letters cannot trust him- self to the same free moveme:t of the pen, and the result under the glass shows hesitation and uncertainty.” Trailed by Indians In New York. Bishop Hare of the diocese of South Dakota was sent west many years ago as a missionary bishop of the Episcopal church. He founded the mission at the Rosebud Indian agency, and it was his custom to give each Indian that he confirmed a silver cross of a peculiar pattern. A number of years ago a lady from New York was visiting in South Da- kota, and the bishop gave her one of these crosses. Some years after that there was a general convention of the Episcopal church held in New York city, and sev- eral Indians were sent as delegates, all wearing Bishop Hare's crosses. Arriving in New York, they were dazed and at a loss to know how to find the building where the convention was to be held, but stoically they started out upon the street. Soon after they met a lady, whom they immedi- ately began to follow. Whenever she turned, wherever she went, they went too. The lady became much annoyed and finally thoroughly frightened to find that wherever she went a line of red men was trailing behind her. But Investigation explained it. She wore their cross, and they, seeing It, had believed her one of their number who would surely go to the meeting they wished to attend, so they had taken her for their guide. How a Road In Ireland Was Made. The way in which the Irish imagina- tion accounts for the curious notch in the Devil's Bit mountain, Tipperary, is indicated in its very name, But there are two versions of the legend. Ac- cording to one, it is said that Nickie Ben, just to try how sharp his teeth were, bit a piece off the upper edge; but, finding it rather too hard even for s digestion, he threw it up at Cashel, the same county, where it has re- mained ever since. In confirmation of the story it is gravely asserted that the rock of Cashel would exactly fit into the gap left in the aforesaid mountain. In London Notes and Queries the tale is told as follows: “In the Barnane mountains, near Templemore, Ireland, there is a large dent or hollow, visible at the distance of twenty miles and known by the name of the ‘Devil's Bit. There is a foolish tradition that the devil was obliged by one of the saints to make a road for his reverence across an extensive bog in the neighborhood, and so, taking a piece of the mountain in his mouth, he strode over the bog and deposited a road behind him!”
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers