CONCERNING CATS. THE WORLD WOULDN'T BE WHAT IT IS WITHOUT PUSSY. Incidents That Prove That Cats Have a Serious Side Besides Furnish- ing Lots of News. The cats of the country have been doing good service the past month in furnishing their share of news and humor. Moreover, the cat has a seri- ous side and a business aspect worth considering. For example, there is money in owning a eat like that be- | longing to Robert Lynn, of Danville, | Va.. which went out the other day and brought back a live rabbit, on | which Mr. Lynn made a hearty sup- | per. Frank Low, of Bath, Me., also | has a cat that proved himself of some use in the world, for he howled so | vigorously when smoke poured out into the room where he had sleeping that the household woke up and the fire was put out after but a few hundred dollars’ worth of dam- age had been done The Richmond avers gome mischievol urchins of that Virginian city gave a mail carrier the surprise of his life by putting a cab- inet size boy cat’’ in one of the par- cel mail boxes. The State's reporter tried to learn which of the carriers it was. but though somebody had the cat out of the box, nobody would let the cat out of the bag. Une car rier. though, admitted that he might occasionally have taken a dead cat or two out of a parcel box. In fact ‘88 a mau- State that is 1 iet he seemed to think that soleum for defu domestic animals not larger than a goat the parcel mail box is regarded as a in some -of-the-way hoods.”’ In Bridgeport, Conn. Bess railroad bridge cat, was struck killed by the same train that a fow nights before had killed the bridge dog Jack, and at nearly the spot. But a more cheerful cat story comes from Bridgeport about a Williams street cat which from its youth up has been in the habit of keeping late hours, often not coming home till long after its loving owners are abed. As the cat has no pocket for a night key jump and hit t its paw, when s down stairs Bridgeport { story : “ Recently it was observed by servant that er of jaunts his coat was not so sleek fore, and the suspicion of some wrong was further night after night T wiping his feet ont in with a rakish and ger and proceeded to cuf esting family of four kittens which are kept in the cellar. ““ The logical result of a profligate career like Thomas's night or two Thomas as usual th: fur jaunty as usual. About 1 a. next-door neighbors of the where Thomas makes his hi awakened by foe desultory ringing of bell Go down the lady of the house, in. 1H t howling success tt neighbor- Olt the and same it has been taught to he electrie button with ymebody always comes and lets Thomas in. ’ ion thus continues ti aft ne thesa as be- thing when instead of confirmed homas door mat, came insolent swag- his inter- came went ou a ¥. it t 3 wwening smootl a jerky stairs bet that's James, The lady of pared to say whie frightened, she or when the openi: followed by t James, of a parently inebriated cat. “It was Thomas realized wrong house, and he did his tongue was so thick that his apolo- getic mew sounded more like ‘set ‘em up again, boys,’ in cat language than anything else ‘““The explanation strange conduct was found next after- noon when it was explained that had been making free with punches made for a gick man in the next bloek. but not used. The story seems strange, but it is true, and vouched for by two reputable Wil. liam street families.’ A mysterious disappearance ported was that of Jack, a ful attendant at the sessions c! the St. louis Merchants’ FEx- change for several vears. He was viewed with something like awe by those members superstitiously clined. Some one had noticed that the house is not iT was the servant girl of rance, instead and the door was § ¢ ’ he of ¢ irteen-p yund ap- before was in the goevoral ane ds nat when if Oi Thomas's milk re. faith- in- at once followed by a decline in wheat, and after he left ‘Change the market advanced. This story was handed around until there was quite a number of believers in this ‘point. er.” But what confirmed the belief in his power over the market was an act he performed indicating his con- tempt for wheat. From that very moment wheat began declining, finally selling lower than it ever had conts a bushel below where it was when Jack showed his disregard for the cereal. produced by the Marion, Ind., Chron- attachments sometimes, Robert Wiley, of Jonesboro, has a big black eat that associates entirely with chickens, and roosts with them at night. The old cat frequently has some neighborhood matters to settle, and doesn’t always retire with the chickens, When he stays out late they always leave a place for him on the roosting pole in the coop, and when he comes in he jumps up on the pole and sleeps on it like a chick- en. His long black tail hangs straight down, Sometimes he will lay his head over on one of the ohickens, but usually the chickens erowd up aga.nst hie on both sides, and the happy family sleeps without a word of disagreement.” In Brighton is an institution where friendless cats and other domestic animals are given refuge. Several hundred cats are maintained by the United States Government, and the cost of their support is a regular item on the accounts of the Post Office Department, They are distributed among the post offices in the chief cities, where they perform their duty of keeping rats and mice from de- stroying postal matter and mail sucks. —[ Boston Globe. TRAINING SEALS. They Show a Remarkable Degree of intelligence. “There is no mit to the capabili- ties of seals,’’ satd Professor Wood- “They no* only learn to imi- tate, but they alse reason. Unlike animals, the seal trained without punishment. In fact, to use is which is the timid and tion. It will most learn by imitation, and ever lived long enough to test for acquiring none its ca- pacity knowledge. { i i | them until they die. it is to provement in A seal understands that be re. warded if it performs what is expect ed of it, and that it not to warded if it falls, which reasoning faculty. If a performing seal has done its work, and by an) oversight fails to its fish, it will flap it the foor and cry attract the attention of it but if it has is get s tail on not done he fish is expected, and when it any, no object In the exception to usual ’ : It is never well to begin The baby stand the st rirt BE training is made. too early. and human expression ' : seals are weak cannot rain. has often been o it is not strange 0% good deal of position them are In view of life, ile ot Ous hers appre- ciate a joke. have a great degree of intelligence than others, and they all display an affect] which approaches the human. hey have been Some trained to remarkable however Fr particulartune, ill operate the instrument, come and They anil i mencing stopping g command. them i he m1 ke away from ther i the appes #nce of its coming # pi ' i yer “ii AON sm % Sing |Ongs DY emi Oy sounds of them inp command, iniment one accomps mant - i Arry a adrift to be done on Clobe-Demoers Native Fodder. David T. Little. of Illinois, Washin Post, is stant habitue of ( in Washington Hon. a the art XY & On 8H Co hamberlain’s when He is ¢ v +} the axing easy now and liv fat of land. He has which raises ing on a farm out in Illinois the and cattle in the got tired of the imported custom and a against it finest corn, hogs He has country. of ceurse dinners emphatic Inst week, entered his He says it is a to his farm death. So he sent oul for 150 pounds of pork ens, turkeys, sweet celery and John Chamberlain cook half of them dinner. toes nto a good, square meal. he had the rest cooked and invited all his old Confederate friends in. He didn’t care to mix them, for there ia no telling what brave men will do when they get a good meal {under their belts. There were Joe i Blackburn and half a dozen more old- timers of the same sort, and every- thing was brought in and put on the | table at once, in the good, old-fash- joned way, so they could tell what | there was to eat and plan their cam- | paign accordingly. And the way they {ate was a caution. It seemed as though none of them had had a square meal for three months. The sparerib and turkey and chicken and “fixins'’ simply disappeared like a snowbank in July. Senator Black- burn was telling a friend abou® it afterward. ‘I was having a good time,” said he, “with my face up against as fine a bit of backbone as ever 1 tasted, with the dish right in front of me, when in slid a little scrimp of a fellow from Missouri, named Vest, who just fell on that dish of backbone and I didn’t get an. other smell of it the whole evening.’’ Vest tells another story, Lut it doesn’t matter. —{ Courier-Journal. ——— Troy, N. Y., makes over 8,000,000 worth of stoves every year. i i i i NOTES AND COMMENTS. Tur Hartford Journal sagely re- marks: ‘Make the dullest man in the world suspicious and he soon becomes remarkably sharp.” Powerrulr and large as are the greatest of modern United States war ships, they are all of low stature com- pared with the towering structures of sixty or seventy years ago. The 1 8. 8. Pennsylvania, built about 1828, and supposed at the time to be one of the largest war ships ever launched, was 220 feet long and 58 feet broad. She carried 220 guns, and towersd aloft with five decks. Her comple- ment of men was 1,400, MINING engineers in the far West complain that, even where the mines have not all closed, there is little or nothing for men of their profession to do. It the opening of new work that provides employment for the mining engineer, and there are parts of the West where much ore is still coming from the mines bus where the mining engineers are either preparing to depart or waiting idle and turn of prosperity. is constant almost in despair for a re- AMERICAN workingmen lightly shod those of Europe, and nothin - i i Are mogo than excites on the average Nora warn and i £ hmon vs thi more scorn and aston men in ins country than } ex hrought ove boots and grants hob-nalis long as Ameri- himself by such foot QUICK) handicap he : Spry Amer adopts [aotwenr y¥ perhaps before his heavy re Worn out. mm hoes thickly stud inst perhaps three he lighter footgear, but the workingman would feel and hampered nn clogged compete witl ABOUT a year ago the largest 1 lit} { t ponoiith Of ie which there is I ree Axhl {in the world was quarried ns Wik. The stone is 115 feet and was intended for exhil World's Fair, bu t there was the projec was proposed and It in a park at Chicago, but ti ni sary funds could no 16 s raised. | NE Are ne to take ntwerp ravages pis were rila frozen #ny pia wg had 1 were ruin Petersburg ather of Ir we put uIn has lon i i Bro sklve Yard to digel pe ti against accident, an wir powder Hee ! regulations war's powder magazine nost stringent iimes happens that a single aution as to entering a are « eninst ro. character phe is responsible for extra precau- tions that become permanently im- in nas and doubtless the destruetion of the frig ate Fulton the Brooklyn Navy Yard sixty-six years ago was respons sible for the stringency di charging powder. The Fulton was a temporary receiving ship, and day while the officers were at dinner a gunner entered the magazine with. out proper precautions. The result was an explosion that blew up the ship and killed forty out of 100 per- sons on board. regulations at as to ane Tie most noteworthy features of the Midwinter Fair are by all odds the county exhibits. They may not seem ax novel to Californians as handsome vases and other manufac- ed earefully, says the San Francisco pression of profound surprise on the minds of the best informed, No one, for instance, could enter the Northern California counties’ building without being struck by the almost infinite range of products displayetl. Locals ities that are supposed to place their chief dependence on wheat, exhibit ra fine oranges, olives, figs and other rare products as the counties which make a specialty of them. The only inference that can be drawn from these exhibits is that there are pre. cious few part of California in which sity his crops and add to his own and the State's prosperity by so doing. | Dr. Louis Rosinsox is an adept at { killing two birds with one stone, He has found out why drowning men catch at straws, and discovered what is to him. no doubt. an incontrovert- ible proof that man is of monkey an- cestry, He had already found con- elusive evidence in the formation of a baby’s hands and toes, but he has now discovered strong corroboration in the fact that man has no inherent knowledge of how to swim, In mo- ments of wild terror man falls back on his primitive in ‘* This,’ says Dr. Robinson in the Nineteenth Century, “is a probable reason why the drowning man in the manner which is at once 0 character- istic. 80 senseless and so atinets, t gies sir disastrous He acts exactly as if he were endeav- oring to climb. His hands are alter- nately thrust upwards, with clutching fingers, as if to grasp some- thing above his head, and move in unison with his arms in the same way a8 do those of an ape which is mounting a tree. That ix the limbs on the side are lifted coincidently, as they are when a sail- or is going aloft. The agility ump open iis 10 say Rane with which some men at a sion shows powers that vie of the monkeys. Ti York e The Adirondack proposed resery {ont $130) wr great Orn Now ywers an area of 3.088 808 acres . i 1 ii WiC is 1K 760 acres, irs n primeval acres has been lumbe i hemlock ard iferous trees to «and hao 3 ing the | owns 751,459 a should al as the care whicl to these forests permanent $ s} ’ 3 1 inder present Hotments bared uffice for t of th x : wien : ar I $3 1 i ie aan inanintenance ply will Cars enc augmented In sae ng r vield adequate returns for sance of its owners To Harness the Tides. of Wood a scheme which colossal returns. He in utilizing tidal energy for lighting, tramways and railways, The notion is not entirely new. In 1881 Professor Thompson pointed out that no fewer than twenty billion foot-pounds of energy wer wasted each yvearat Bristol alone. One-tenth part of thiz energy would, it is «tat. ed, Jight the eity with electricity while one-tenth part of the tidal force of the Severn would be sufficient to illuminate every city in the em- | pire, Scientific men have all agreed that the only vossible mode to have immense reservoirs. which would fill at high tide and run out on the ebb into the tidal way through tur- bines. Tothis there has always been | one disadvantage. No inventor could i show a greater length of cofficient | working power than six hours daily. Mr. Davies claims, after an immense amount of thought, a deal of experi- ment and considerable outlay, to have invented apparatus by which he ean work turbines from the rise and fall of the tides every minute during | the twenty-four hours, at a saving of | 400 per cent, over steam engines of | similar power. His experiments, on in small seale, off the Cheshire const, incline him to believe that it will | speedily become an immense com- | mercial success and an affair of nae | tional importance.—{ London Figaro. (sree. has rome is electric Mr. Davies, embarked on ) i90s ten is SIAL AS SNR SATII Lo Almost fivewighths of the steamers in | the world are under the British fag. JESTS AND YARNS BY FUNNY MEN OF THE PRESS. Under the Spell of the Past-~-No Mat- ter~- Physical Proof~ ~ Between Girl Friends, Etc., Ete. UNDER I'll give your breakfast if you'll saw that wood,” she announced in un ultimatum tone of voice Madam sid the tramp I'd admire to chop that wood for you immensely, on’y fur one thing. What is that “When 1 my mother fur company, and I said ‘Woodman, Spare over the into anythin HE SPELL OF THE PAST, youl 9 little me recite was uster a boy make nn idee of puttin’ a axe the shine of wood my nerves, = Wash- OYer Ro many times that in totally wrecks ington Star, MATTER and vit en I wanted to take and ma (o see the seven leg you said I was a valgar old Indianapolis Journal A DELICATE MENTAL Tom] notice that since anid he would go near his place. Dick—N+no mayb I Record thrash you you don't Are you afraid? Only I'm afraid that might be afraid. —{ Chicago ADITNOTS, Mrs. Nuwife—What would suggest have for dinner lovey besides that pie I'm going to make? Mr. Nuwife (saddened by experi- ence =A kit of miner's tools. —={Chi- cago Record. il we A FORLORN HOPE. “1 wish was '* gaid the young man who calling, “that time you same different styles of bonnet trimming.”’ “Certainly,” she answered. But oveasion when | thy matinee.” interest out of the go with you to {Washington Star. a TOO MANY FOR HIM, “In the matter of family,’ sighed the poor man who had married a widow with nine children, “I seem shoe.” «| Chicago Tribune. OVERWORKING THE PRINCIPLE. Wickwire=1 have given up that hommopathic doctor I had and have gone back to the old school. Yabsloy—What was the matter? Wickwire—<He’'s a crank, My sunt has a cataract developing in her left eye, and he recommended her to go to a waterscure establishment, —{In- dianapolis Journal. THE #77 WAR POSTED, Mrs. Gabb (hostessi—Your little son does not seem to have much ap- Mrs, Gadd—No: he’s quite delicate Mra. Gabbe of anything you'd Little made an't you think you ke, my little man? Man--No'm. You see, mam me eat a hull lot before we I wouldn't make a nig of Tid-Bits, HE ENEW HOW Where isthe be cashier ARK A Pavan, Io other handsome lady hire? jee hoed our pardon lady a twenty dollar It i le afraid i mil will let And she i he said. HAITI I wanted tog bill chanead , me short, | but I ive In guess I MOTHS Mrs Nabor-Johnnv to do sums ir mg day. Mrs | { as : 4 man. | ard those old stories of yours life. «=! Detroit Free INTERIOR= the orati around srior d the sure ==! Detroit FOO Jom ons! table jee. Free What lovely int He (looking lightful, 1 Press, am CLOSE FIGURING NCTERSARY. tiderly Maid fee | Ni% ix #0 UNDEX- pected Mr Wella ong hs fet last you must give Elderiy bocon? ix met Lover = Time Miss Re. you think there is any to EARY ** And do you ever invite your poor relations to visit you?’ “Oh, yes, indeed. You see they are all too poor to get herve.—{ Truth, RIM PLE. Claire=<How extremely simple that gown was Miss de Vere wore at the bail. Marie~Yos; almost idiotic. NOT 80 FAR ADVANCED Unele George—-I trust, Henry, that you are out of debt. Henry—=No, 1 haven't got so far as that; but I'm out of everything else. FORTUSE FaAVORR THE BOLD. Wandering Willle—When de lady set sich a dandy meal afore me | wuz sorry I'd sneaked in de back way, Steel Rydes—Felt rather ashamed 0 yerself, eh? Wandering Willie—=Naw, ot wan't dat. Yer see de sight o’ de woad pile in de back yard spoilt me appetite, — (Judge.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers