AN ODD KIND OF CLUB.
IT RESCMSLC3 A FULL FLEDGED
TCLCSRAPH COMPANY.
Aa Amateur Otcftnlullnn, th. Ketnbera
of Which liar Their Iloanes Connect
ed bjr Wires, So That They MJ Com
Bianlcatc irllh Hacti Other by Telegraphs
Ono of Iho most novel or nnlquo or
ganisations iu Brooklyn is on that has
recently jraiueJ a new lease of life
through tho infusion of new and vig
orous blood and by a thorongh reorgan
ization. It is called the Phcnix Morse
Telegraph club, and is perhaps the only
ono of ila kind la tho United Stated.
The old orfcaniaation was formed iu
1879 and ftartod ia life tinder the name
of tho rhenix club. It was inangnrattnl
by a number of young people, some of
whom were engaged in occupation as
telegraphers, and others of different vo
cations, who took pleasure in studying
the mysterious language of dots and
dashes. A private telegraph lino was
established and connected with Uie res
idences of the members. A busy wire
it was too. The hum of conversation,
if it can be termed snch, was constant
throughout the evening. Stories were
passed over the electrical current, jests
and jokes bandied, chess and checkers
played by individuals who liked this
sort of recreation, and in fact as good
a time was usually pulsed as if the mem
bers were brought in contact with each
other by person in one room.
Jokes of an innocent character were
also carried on over the circuit, which
had the advantage in so far as to allow
the perpetrator to remain unknown or
making it unnecessary to flee from the
wrath of the person upon whom it was
inflicted. Quite a number of these are
stock property among the old members,
who relate them to friends with ns mnch
justo anil enjoyment as if they had oc
curred only yesterday. One of these is
to the effect that two members after
practicing with another iu tho early
evening, dtiriug which the sender trans
mitted the Morse characters as fast as
he could, or as telegraphers would say
"rushed'' the receiver, notwithstanding
the protests of this unfortuuate disciple
of America's noted inventor. The latter
promised himself that a speedy revenge
would follow, and sought to find some
means whereby he conld make the
"rusher" as uncomfortable as he had
been previonsly.
The practicing finally came to an end,
and the receiver waited until an un
earthly hour of the morning, when he
supposed his victim had gone to bed and
when the click of a sounder would strike
the gloom and quiet with the distinct
ness of a blow from a trip hammer. At
about 3 o'clock in the morning he went
to the instrument and legan to call his
victim in a manner which would indi
cate that a fire had perhaps broken out
or that the transmitter had serious need
of aid in some dire calamity. He called
in this furions style until he had awak
ened the sleeper, who jumped up out of
yd and went to the instrument, ex
pecting to hear that something dreadful
had happened. He answered the call
rruakingly. His indignation can be im
agined when the query came slowly and
distinctly:
"Will you please tell mo the time; my
clock has run down."
His answer is not recorded, bnt it is
iafe to assume that the immediate vicin
ity became as warm as a hot box of an
overheated wheel.
The organization went on in the even
renor of iu way until two or three year
ago, when it began to lauguish, partly
m account of a defection of members
Tho moved away from the city or be--iause
tho remaining persons would not
shoulder in the projier or necessary man
ner the worry and expense of conduct
ing such and organization. Then came
mother club which was purely social
la its character and which was also !
called tho Phenix club. It may have
jeen that the similarity of names caused !
i bond of friendship to be established
;ir that some of the members of this
body were capable of handling a key
ind working the electrical current,
tfowever this may be, the two organ
izations were amalgamated and a new
rder of affairs brought about thereby.
Tho name was changed to the present
jne, and under which it started out with
bright and prosieruns auspices.
A flat, corner of Marcy avenue aud
Fulton street, has Wen made the head
piarters of the club, and which may be
:cnned the main office of this amateur
lelegraph company. Here are located
.ho battery room, which furnishes tho
vwwerful fluid by which the wire is
worked, and another, which is called the
operating room , in which are placed four
etsof instruments and a double practic
ing outfit. A galvonoineter, whereby
.he wire is measured, so that the where
ibouts of any trouble on the line can be
letected, U also included iu this tpac.
Mectiugs anil Micial gatherings are held
la a larger room running off from this
ue. Eighty cells of battery work tho
circuit, which covers a distance of near
fy eighteen miles i:i this city, mainly in
the upper reaidence section.
The old "string" wai- overhauled by
uu experienced lineman recently and
;ut iu sufiiciently substantial shape in
jrder to enable it to more readily resist
. Lho wear and tear of a line in a large
ind busy city. The circuit is placed
along the housetops on the route, und
trouble of any kind or, as an operator
vould say, "bugs" are rarely met with
.r cxperieiicjd. Twenty-three so called
"offices'' are on the circuit, all of which
have their calls in tho same manner as
do tho stations of a telegraph company.
Among the present members of the
club are practical telegraphers of skill
aud feoords for sending and receiving.
Considerable rivalry exists between
them', and it is proposed at some future
time tt have a tournament for fast trans
mitting aud also for skill and ability in
receiving the Morse characters. Classes
will be established in order to give every
ono ax'hance. One of the fastext senders
iu tho country is the secretary of the or-.
guuizatioiK Mr. Frank L.Ctttfan.liroek
Ivn KtMrleJ 3 ' 1 ' ' ' " v ;
HEADING A SHELL SCREAM.
A nideoni ftoand That Trie the Nerves
of the New HoMlrr.
Tho talk turned upon personal conr
ngo in a conversation I had tho other
day with an aid-de-camp of Ueneral
Alexander Hnys. The veteran, who had
tho name of loing tho most daring aid
on Hays' staff, said: "Yon ask me how
I felt when I first smelled powder, so to
ppeak. ell. after the lapse of all these
years I'm almost ashamed to tall you. I
was panic stricken, scared o?t of my
lenses, my courage oozed out of me in
r.n instant, and a Miiall bov could have
captured me without trouble. This aw
ful experience came after I had been
about a year in the army. The regi
ment of infantry in which I was was pre'
imring to go into camp. VTe wore a few
miles outside of Yorktown. which was
in the ponsession of the Confederates,
but none of us, not even onr officers,
realized tho proximity of the enemv.
There were some cattle with the army.
ana some no w or other some of my com
rades and I were part of the crowd that
drove the beeves to the place where they
were to be slaughtered.
"We formed a circle, a sort of bull
ring, and fell to skylarking and firing
our pistols at the cattle as they ran
hither and thither. It was all laughter
and shouting. Suddenly, without the
slightest warning, a sound that we had
never heard before rose above t he clamor.
It was a sort of whirring howl, lasting a
few seconds only, but long enough to
strike terror into our hearts. The men
who had been as gay and noisy as school
boys a minute before were dumb. I
don't remember how they behaved. My
own affairs kept me busy. I felt as if
my lwots were nailed to the ground.
They wouldn't move, neither would my
legs in fact I had lost control of my
body. I was perfectly limp and my
knees sagged out.
"That was the first strango sound, as
of somo hideous, deadly bird firing over
head. I hardly realized, mind you, that
the enemy was shelling us. All I knew
for sure was that somehow my life,
which I had enjoyed so mnch a minute
lefure, was iu danger. I wanted to run.
but my legs wouldn't obey me. Two
shells passed over me before I could
shake off the paralysis. Then I ran as I
never ran before or since, with u profes
sional sprinter's speed, to the shelter of
the woods from which our regiment had
only just emerged. A second terror
seized me as I reached tho first scatter
ing trees. I had selected one, a big fel
low, as my refuge, and when I reached
it three other men who were crouched
behind it pushed me violently away,
saying thero wasn't room for more.
Shells were still in the air. and with ter
ror I pursued my flight. When at last 1
fell exhausted upon the ground beyond
the range of the enemy's artillery, I al
most lost consciousness for awhile.
"Nobody was killed by those shells,
but the Rebs' must have laughed to see
us run, i;nd laughed louder yet when
our cattle ran into their lines as they
did. I felt more or less uncomfortablo
always in going into battle afterward,
but never again lost my nerve as I did
at my fire baptism before Yorktown."
Pittsburg Dispatch.
Why We Have I-rap Tears.
Why is it that thero have to be leap
years that all our years ore not of the
same length? It arises from the fact
that the year does not consist of an ex
act number of days. The length of the
day and that of the year are the meas
ures of tho motions of the earth. The
glole we live on moves in two ways. It
turns itself around like a spinning top,
and at the same time it goes steadily
forward like a bullet shot from a gun.
It turns itself once completely around
in twenty-four of our hours, as shown by
the clock; this amount of time we call a
day. Its forward or onward motion
carries it around tho sun in a path that
is nearly a circle; the time it takes to go
completely around we call a year. The
first motion gives us day and night fol
lowing rath other in turn (the word
"day" here having now n different
meaning namely, not twenty-fonr
hours, but the time of daylight.
The second motion gives us days (that
is, periods of daylight) growing gradual
ly longer aud then gradually shorter,
one end of the earth turning more to
ward the sun fur half the time aud the
other end for tho other half; and this
brings us summer and winter and tho
Reasons. Now the l.-ngth of tho year is
found to Ik? nearly times the "length
of tho day of twenty-fonr hours; that is,
the year is SO.") days long and nearly six
hours more. It is these six hours that
give us our leap years, and it is in tho
"nearly" that we find tho reason for
1100 not being one of their number.
Rev. George Mc Arthur in St. Nicholas.
Cripple ut the Capital.
Strangers in the capital express niiu-h
surprise at the number of cripples to be
seen here, and offer various explanations
of the sight. The majority of maimed
citizens are office holders, who were crip
pled during the late war. The form in
which they pre mostly injured isthe loss
of an arm, oftener the left ono, as olser
vation shows. Many have parted with a
leg, and the suppliers of substitutes in
willow, cork or rubber in Washington
aver that this is ono of the liest markets
in the country for their profession. Bo
sides these injuries received through
violence, there are scores of people in
tho government service who are afflicted
with natural deformities. They are to
be found particularly iu the treasury de
partment. Kate Field's Washington,
A ."Mirror in Your Clove.
Without merely desiring to remind
herself of her good looks a woman has
often need of as much looking glass as
she can see her face in.
Iu the street, at a hull, at a theater, iu
the sIhijis, all sorts of little disarrange
ments may occur, and to set them right
with a mirror is an absolute necessity,
Tho very handiest form of portable mir
rors is tho new "mirror glove." A little
flap is buttoned np into the ilm of one
glove. - When it is let down a small eir
cularTrtiitrai U dlscloslKv York
J-HiruM.
.Bhc'ecDVi
Th Wjr Women Pn,
"If men wcro as economical In their
jocir.l relations as women tiro wo would
not bo such a retion of rpendthriit,"
said T. B. Rw, of Minneapolis. "I was
impressed with tho force cf this idea to
day by an obsorvat ion legun inacablo
car and pursued through a dry goods es
tatmstimont ana a restaurant. I saw
two ladies chatting together intimately
on a car, and when tho conductor ap
proached them to collect the fares one of
them had no change. The other offered
to pay for her companion's rido, but tho
latter wouldn t submit to tho proposi
tion. Instead she borrowed a nickel
from her friend, remarking as she did
bo that she would break a bill as soon, aa
she got down town and riay her. My
curiosity was excited to see if women
really dealt that way with one another
so I followed the two after they got off
the car. They first entered a dry goods
store, where tho borrower made a small
purchase, and as roon as she got her
change she handed her friend five cents
which was received without tho slight
est protest.
"Then they went into a restaurant to
get lunch. Each gave separate orders
and tho bill of each amounted to thirty
cents. They marched up to the cashier
and each paid her own biH. Now, these
are small transactions, but they are in
dicative of the difference iu tho charac
ters of men and women. Had the objects
of my observations been men instead of
women, the man who offered to borrow
a nickel for car fare would have insulted
the other, and one of them would have
ordered that dinner for both and paid
the bill, which, I may as well say, would
have amounted to dollars instead of
cents." St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
The True Artist.
nenry Norman rives the following
instance of modest self estimate in the
case of a man who is ono of the. most
skillful and original artificers in the
world, and whose works nro everywhere
admired:
This ivory carver sat in his little room.
open to his little garden, chiseling upon
a magnificent tusk, from which was
just emerging a very graceful female
figure. The ivory he held lx tweea his
knees, and the tools were spread out at
his side.
'How long will this take von?" I
asked.
"AlKiut four months," he replied.
"And what is the proportion In-tween
the value of the material and the value
of tho labor in such u work as this when
completed?"
"I paid $1-10 fortius piece of ivory."
said he. and four mouths' work, at $.10
a month, is $200."
And this man was estimating his work
at less than forty American dollars a
month! His was the true artist's tem
perament, for he was willing to accept
only what would supply him with tho
necessaries of life, depending for his
actual reward on the joy of seeking to
do a perfect work.
"Are you not very sorry sometimes.'
asked I, "to part with ono of these works,
that have been companions and a part
of your life for so long?"
He looked up for a minute at a great
white lily nodding above him in the
garden, and then gently shook his head.
'.No," ho said. "I expect the next to
bo more beautiful still."
A 8nggmtlon About Dinners.
The next time you give a dinner give
a good one. Do not feel that because
you can afford it your dinner must con
sist of complex, mysterious, rich, indi
gestible dishes. No one wants them.
All men hate them. When a man goes
to a restaurant he never orders such a
medley for himself. He never wishes
them on his own table. Few women
care for them, and not one person in fifty
can digest them with comfort. Al
though such dinners are very common
in New York, they ure not given be
cause we desire or respect them, but be
cause we are a rich and vulgar people
without the ability to realize our vul
garity. Thero are many people in this city,
and happily tho class is growing, who
have tho good taste and courage to offer
a simpler dinner to their guests. Such
dinners can be as long and as dainty as
the most fastidious may desire, and they
are infinitely more satisfying. Try t"
bear in mind that a dinner consisting of
complex and mysterious dishes is only a
development of American vulgarity.
When a woman gives such a dinner yen
are correct iu supposing that either her
own taste is vitiated and falso or that
sho does it because she thinks it "the
proper thing." In either case it indi
cates the presence of more money than
intelligence. Life.
Tlifjr Agreed Then and After.
A Baptist minister took charge of a
parish near Boston where ho knew that
ono man wiw decidedly opposed to his
pastorate. Soon after his arrival the
Rev. Mr. X. called upon Mr. A. .
"Brother," said he, "I hear that you
think I am the wrong man to be tho
pastor of this church."
"Well, to be frank," replied Mr. A.. "I
do think that another would have filled
the place better."
"Now that is just what I think," said
the pastor. "But us long as we hold this
opinion in opposition to tho majority of
the parishioners, let's try to be unselfish
and make the best of it."
After that call Mr. X. never had a
firmer friend nor more faithful cham
pion than Mr. A. Boston Herald.
Why I'etrureh Ik Remembered.
Petrarch t nought it a disgrace that
his verses should be sung in the streets.
and ho regretted that he had written
anything in tho vulgar tongue. No one
now reiuls his Latin poetry, but every
reader of Italian is churmed with the
jKX'ins that attracted und suited the pop
ular taste, which is made kin by a touch
of nature, whether from the lyre or tho
pen. Note and Queries.
The Ivory of Solomon's Time.
it is not impossible that ivory and apes
in Solomon's time may havo come from
Somali land and not from India. Scot-
tosh Review.
"A woman
best understands
a woman's ills."
Thousands cf women have been
benefited by Mrs. I'inkham's ad
vice, and cured by her remedies
after all other treatment had failed.
Lydia E. Pinkham's
Vegetable
Compound
has been more successful in cur
ing Female Ccvnrlainis than any
rcmcdv thi v.tv!'.! !..s ever known.
Hq Yqu Mmw
Keystone
It is one of the greatest inventions of the age, and no Fahjikr can afford to be withont ono.
DRILLS! DRILLS! DRILLS.
iJUCKEYE,
RICHMOND CHAMPION,
and the FARMERS FAVORITE.
They are the Best ; If you
want a Drill
pay you to
our line.
We have just received a
tionable. If you expect to use salt on your Spring; crops, we want to sell it to you
P. W. KITCHEN, BLOOMSBURC, PA.
-THE-
RELIABLE CLOTlilG AS
Comes to the front with the
LARGEST ASSORTMENT
AND
MAKING AND FITTING
.'.OF THE.-.
Best, the Newest ami Most Stylish, lowest In
Priec ; anil to prove Satisfaction is
our Endeavor
The best value for Money is to buy your
Clothing, Hats, Shirts, Neckwear, Trunks and
Valises of ,
Corner 4 of Main and Centre Streets, BLOOMSBURG, PA.
UNEXOEL&ED GLQTMING MADE
TOOSDEB.
Largest Clothing and Hat House in Columbia and Montour Counties.
J. R. Smith &Co.
i.i.viTt:n.
MILTON, Pa.,
DEAI.EHS IM
PIANOS,
By tho following well-known makers:
Chiclccrittg,
KnnTiC)
Wcbcr,
Hallct & Davis.
Can also furnish any of the
cheaper makes at manufact
urers' prices. Do not buy a
piano before getting our prices.
Catalogue and Price Lists
On application.
That We Are
it will
see
MORGAN SPADING If ARROW
All
car of Land Salt ; The Price is
IB HAT
THOMAS GORREY
Hi n,
I'lans and Estimates on a
kinds of buildings. Repairing
and carpenter work promptK
attended to.
tain Builder's Supplies.
Inside Hardwood finishes a
specialty.
Persons of limited means who
desire to build can pay part and
secure balance by mortgage
PATENTS
Pnl-nt bilsiliu'tui toiuliicteU (or MuHKKatj
ori'lOFFICK JSOPPOPITKTIIK f. ,
F.NT oKKh'K. Wo hnvi no Hiit-n(f''iii.i a u
liuslnosH direct. Iirni-e rim lninni't lull, , , .',,
ncsH In liwllmc and nt Lefts Cost tliiiti ti , . . '
mntpfrorn WnHlilnirtnn.
Send model, drawing or photo, with
linn. v.- .irtviso if patpniiiniP or ,,, " rlf.
cbarifp. (itirfpp not rltin till potent 1, , ,',ih
A lok. "Mow to obtain I'afentv with S
pnci. m npt .i.il clients in j our Mate, county i
town, wnt free. Address . "nij,
C. A. SNOW A CO.. WuHhlnKtnn, 1). C
(Opposite r. H. l'at-nt om?e.)
Selling The
Hay Loader !
Here it i?, the latest thing out.
They are selling fast and we have
only a few left. Remember that
we carry a full line of
r
from reliable Manufacturers
whose names are a guarantee
of their goods.
Salt, Salt.
right and the Oualitv is unoues.
House