2ST I> jno. S. Mjnr, . __ S. F. Hamilton. jntisNKTs ITBK. • lOLUKiE MV. I the POTTER JOURNAL AND >'id\V lT 1-31. rr ,USHE E"-" 1 AT L'OCpKH s POUT, PA. office O. M'tinand Third.) Iu I 7*. pen Ybak in Advance. ' ' S. F. Hamilton, Ijuo. S. Mat" • publisher. proirUlri, -v., ..roinntlT attended w. K"oU Stahling attached. JOHN B. PEARSALL, PAINTER, COUDERSPORT, PA. £ is? Painting, (.lazing, Graining, Cmlcini. t: k- i '• filliping, Psper-hangtitg, etc., done with neati:es>. firmuiituess and dlspatel: iu all cases, and satisfaction guar antied. KlEh PA I NTS fcr sale. 242H-1 iNItIuaPSON J. 8. MANN THOMPSON & MANN. KF.AI.EKS TN h.'s Medicines, Books Stationery, 'WCt GCOOS. PMNTS. OILS. VY6LL PAPER, SC., j . . ,1 - pairing Machiaen ant) General Custom Work * V) order. 24*J2-tl John Grom, 5 0 use, Si?n, Jlcroratirc & irc.src PAINTER, c OUDEPSPOF:T, pa. ami i'.v. 1,1; HANGING dot Wl "i neatness and dispatch. "•''faction guaranteed. ,i, akku not Si * proinjttiy attended to. C. BREUNLE. lA hu Lic vv < i, ( Ul'DEiispOßT, PA *fe nt YeaGn~.t.. ; j.... *'* JgV.iri''" l ." at j he-•flee oi .f;u . *ll i r -celre prompt alientton A Country Walk. 'Twas earliest autumn: up tl.e road Tu wlieie tiie shade trees blended. And where t!ie gat e ing subbeuios glowed, My willing steps I wended. Around the barn the trodd- n way Curved carelessly, and drifted j YVhiihe in iuks the ro ven lay, i By sv-ar.hy hands up.ifted. ! And farther on, a little space, ; It passed a neighbor's dwelling, j Where thrift bare sign of rustic grace, A humble peace foretelling. 1 p, speeding o'er the stony path To gain the st m nit si a ed. My foot, I'm sure, not ofteu hath | Been sweetlier persuaded. And so we reached the bower of shade Through which the sun was gleaming, | And in its dappled ambuscade Yielded to pleasant dreaming; i And dreamed this dream—that he who w ill, Kinds peace in lowiiest places i And if he seales the stoniest lull I Alert, but for its graces, I His eye, grow n quick to nearest things, Shail read the wider pages | Of distant vision, as though wings Were ids to spaa the ages. Not idie then my morning walk, That led me, by rise sweetness Of simple wid fiowers' simple talk, 1" learn of life's coinp.eteness; To we that in the homeliest ways, Which tend to higher glories, God's love is there, and cheers the days YV ith myriad charming stories. JFroni Godey's Lady's Book.] A Tale of ChrißLmas. It was Christmas Eve, ami one of the loveliest of w inter evt nings. The streets were dry and clear, the moon shed her soft radiance over ali ob jects. and the stars twinkled and winked j yously at each other. In the great city of C the air rang with sounds of holiday merriment. Houses were brilliantly illuminated, and gorgeously decked trees were surrounded by wide-eyed groups of little ones. Stores were crowded with the representatives of Kriss- Ktingle, where lite patron saint of the day was supposed to cling to the good old-fashioned tint rn of stock ing filling. Smiles lighted faces that were grave or sad on other days, and happiness gr- eted the yearly festival in many scenes. There was one house, however, where no lights illuminated the win d"ws, where no Chr st'o sl ee was waiting for ei.ilch u'- greeting, where only tears and. sobs fell upon the ear of any listener. Not for poverty. Tue house was large and handsome, and within every room bore token of the wealth of' its possessor. But the grim destroyer who stays not for poverH or riches, w ho conies now stealthily, now triumphantly to high and low, had placed his chill aand upon the heir of the state 1 y j home, and a little coffin had only: j fortnight Inf. ,e passed out of the j wide door, having letter grief and ; desolation behind. He was the only child of a wid owed mother; the sunny haired, blue-eyed boy of four t ears, w ho had sickened and died, though all that love and riches could compass was given for his recovery. And when he was gone, the world darkened for the p le mourning mother, who shut herself up alone to weep, refusing all com foil. While the tide of merriment swept along the streets of the gay city, Mrs. Hilson, in her heavy mourning garments sought the room of her lost boy, and there sobbed and prayed for death, to bring her to her loved ones. Site was young, not thirty, and very lovely, in spite of the traces of grief upon her pale lace and as she knelt by her boy's little bed to weep and pray, the light fall ing upon her seemed to illuminate some saintly face and form. The room where she knelt was a large one opening from her own, and had been fitted up expressly for the petted young heir. The fu nitureof delicate coloring and soft satin wood, was all small to suit the little figure of the boy. Running across one end was a shelf full of toys such as boys love: drums, horses, whips, and many more. A small bookcase held gaily colored books oi nursery liter atim, tales of fairi'.s aid giants, Mother Goose melodies, and S'Oties of good boys and girls. A little table .tnd chair were standing near the win dow, as if waiting for the young oc cupant to come and draw childish pictures upon the slate in the diaw r, or make wonderful combinations of paste aud paper. En rytliing was he to make childhood happy, the carpet was strewn with hmh flowers, pictures of children hung COUDERSPORT PA., WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1874. upon liie walls, statues of children stood upon the mantle-piece, and on brackets. The small wardrobe in the : corner held dainty suits of tine eloth ; ing, the fur trimmed coat and cap ! the boy had worn when he last walk j ed beside his fond proud mother, the | tiny tassel led cane, the shining boots, i In t ie bureau were piles of dainty | linen, little socks, pretty pocket handkerchiefs, the gay little neckties that were worn with such a jaunty air. Only one dark spot was in the room, and it had been its brightest sunshine; the kneeling mother. She had wept herself quiet, and w as rest ing her white, beautiful face upon her boy's pillow, when the door opened softly, and a lady nearly her own age, and closely resembling her, came in softly. "Is this well, Sybil?" she asked, kissing die fair sad face on the pil low. Wearily the mourner rose, and tried to smile a greeting for her only sister, whom she loved very fondly. "He was my all, Elsie," she ans wered; "you have three, and I had j but that one. Let me weep, for 1 | am very desolate." "Darling, I know it," was the re ply, "but we shall lose you too. if i you shut yourself up here to inourn I i constantly. I have come for you to j I take our Christmas drive. 1 am | alone, and George will stay with the I children. You will come?" "1 cannot! I cannot!" "Our poor folks will expect us.; it is some years since we have spent; Christmas Eve in visiting the poor, j j and it w ill comfort you, to think you I went." "Oh, Elsie, T cannot. I will give ' you the money, but it will kill me to I go. Do you not remember last year j we took Freddie? 1 can see him ! now us he gave my contribution to I 'one and another, his face Hushing witii pleasure, as lie said '.Mamma and Freddie wish vou a merry Christ-1 mas! " "I remember dear. Try to think he will be with us to-night. Come i ' with me! If the trial is too much for vou, I will bring \on home, and go * 1 | again alone; but make the etl'ort, : Sybil, for my sake." It required much urging and many I lender, loving arguments to conquer j : S\ bil's morbid desire to rt main aione j in Freddie's room, and even after] : she had submitted to have her cloak ; i and bonnet on, she iiirgered there. Opening a closet she said:— "Here is the sled that was to b j for Christmas, Elsie, and the pair of | rubber boots to tramp in the snow. | j iike a man! You shall take them for I ' Willie, when you come back. I have j not forgotten your little ones, though 1 could not promise to join you, to j morrow. Ail their gifts are in my. 1 room." I Elsie thanked her with a loving ] kiss, and then led her to the carriage,; which was piled with packages and baskets. It had been for many years the habit of the sisters to distribute personally a portion of their large wealth amongst the poor of their na tive city, giving money, food, cloth ing and orders for fuel, and giving what was as highly prized, gentle sympathy and kindly counsel. Since Sybil had last been amongst these humble friends she had lost husband and child, and many a rough hand trembled, many a tear dimmed the eyes of those to whom she spoke, as they proffered words of sympathy and comfort. Yet, as her sister had hoped, it was doing her good to leave her home, and feel that there was work for her hands to do. She realized full}', as she passed from one poor home to another, that her generous gifts were increased fourfold in value, by the fact that in her own sorrow she had remembered the wants of her ; fellow-creatures. Many a li nrt\ i "God bless and comfort you, ma'am,' | though it was answered with tremb ling lip aim tearful eye, yet left its healing influence upon her heart. Elsie spared her too much talking, by a few whispered words to those who would have torn her heart by references to her grief, and she did tiot claim the prorui-e to return if the eff it overt x d km stren tu. It was after nine o'clock, aud the j carriage was lightened of most of its load, when Elsie said:— "There is one new family to visit, Sybil, and then we will go home." "Who are they ?*' "A poor woman living on the out skirts of the town, who lias been do ing some sewing for me. ller h mse i-* a tiny one, but she rented one floor to a widow, who is dying in consumption, if not already dead. It was her kindness to the suffering lodger, in the face of her own pover ty, that drew me to the woman. Sewing hard to support an aged mother, and four little ones of her own, she has given this still poor er sister the rent, put food into her mouth, and nursed faithfully at her dying bed. I have comforts here for both, and some toys, fruit and candies to make Christmas for the children." "What is her name?" "Nlaloney! But her lodger I think ] lias seen brighter days. Site speaks ] like a person of refinement and edu- > cation, and told me her husband had been a wood engraver. This is the I house, aud we are expected." Entering the small lower room,; the ladies found an Irish woman] poorly clad, who was evidently watch- ] ing for them. She spoke at once t> ; Elsie. "You are too late, ma'am. She's gone." "Dead!" "She died at four o'clock, as easy j as a baby going to sleep. I'd have! sent you word, if you hadn't said you ' would be here this evening." She led the way to an upper cham ber, where it was evident there had been many comforts added to the; dying bed. Everything was decent j aud in order, the wasted form upon j tiie Iwd clothed in clean white gar- j inents, the hands folded, and the j fair hair smooth. But Sybil gave a i quick gasping cry, and would have 1 fallen, but for her sifter's arm.! For across the dead figure, asleep as j if in the utter exhaustion of weeping; was a golden-haired boy, who seemed | her own lost darling restored to her. ( The long fair curls shaded a face i beautiful as a cherub's, :uid the poor clothes covered a noble litde form, j He was four years old, and alone in the bleak world. All that had been his of love and tenderness, lay dead under Ins extended arms. "Dear, dear!" said the kind Irish ! woman, "if tiie poor boy ain't up \ here again. It's three times the night I've put the poor ciathur to bed with me own childer, and he j slips up here again, when 1 think lie's j slaping. Oh, ladies, if yees could have heard the prayer he made this: Christmas night!" "What was his prayer?" asked Elsie. "lie heard the childer ali talking; of Kriss-Kringh. ma'am, and see] their stockings all hanging fornist I the fireplace, und he knelt down and j sez he, "'0 God! please send Kris-Krin-j trie to eive nie a warm room and I a e> I some clothes, and make dear mamma ; alive again."' "What will become of him ?" asked Elsie. "Indade ma'am, I'm afraid it's the almshouse! I'll try a spell, but I've more mouths to feed than I've food to give already. I'm fearful it will be the almshouse at last." "1 do not think so," whispered Elsie, and they both looked towards the Ikhl. Sybil was bending over the boy, softly unclosing the baby fingers from their clasp on the dead mother's hand. She had lifted her heavy black veil, and m her sweet face was a look of heavenly mother love as she gently j loosened that hold. Then, still so' softly that the weary child slept on ; all unconscious of her tender touch, site folded the round limbs, so cold in iheir ragged night garments, in hr own heavy shawl, and lifted tiie boy to her own mother's breast. "1 will ea*'e for the child, Mrs. Maloney," she said, in a sweet, low voice. "God has siuel\ sent us to each other this Christmas night." Still sleeping heavily, the golden haired child was carried to the luxu rious loom of the d> ad s >n of his Item factress, clot .ed in a dainty night drei-s aud put in the little snowy hed. When the pillow was pressed once more by a child sleeper. and Sybil had folded the soil covers over him, she knelt where she had bent a few hours before over the va cant be.', and prayed Gc kind to the little kittie now, for it hasn't got ait}' mother!" Later in the evening, Willie lay asleep on the carpet, in one hand a knife, and in the other a half eaten apple. Directly the kitten came in, and went whining around, until it saw Willie, when, without delay, it ceased its piteous mewing, crawled up close to his bosom, and went to sleep too. I"A Rough World, My Masters!" "Two children named Mary Brady and Joanna Dunn, seven and nine years old, were charged with stealing lead pipe from an unfinished house. Being proved old offenders they were committed. Neither of them could read, and they evidently belonged to the lowest rank of our dangerous classes." This edifying paragraph we copy from the public report of a daily ; journal. We have not heard wheth-1 er it is proposed to exhibit our pris-! on system at the Centennial, as the j bright consummate flower of Ameri can justice, statesmanship and Isu-! inanity. If it l>e, we suggest the p.< - auction of Mary and Joanna as its perfect illustration. There remain n arly three years of preparation, dining which they may te safely wanned to become as hopelessly bestial as a livety alternation of gut ter, euiii t-roora, and prison can make t em. Mot cover, the happy certain ty exi-ts that in due course oi time, though too late, unluckily, for the, interests of the Centennial, they will mainfe into the fruitful mothers of a long line of Mac. -* d Joannas, heirs to a like inheritance. Malthas is popularly regarded as a calculating King Ilerod. Hut that gentle country clergyman at least gave much prayerful thought and a most humane answer to the social questions that beset his conscience; and if the polite world still insist that the subject of the reckless mul tiplication of the pauper class must not be discussed, it is certainly bound to see that thai va>t population is not born to the alternative of starva tion or crime. Vet this is precisely the only future which beckons tlious ; amis on thousands of American eltil • dren to-day. In the state of New York the depredations of criminals are reckoned greatly to exceed the sum of thirteen millions of dollars 'annually. This loss represents the injury through one form of crime on ly. The number of "jail-birds" rep resents ten per cent of the actually dangerous classes. Our three state prisons discharge over one thousand prisoners annually. Our six peni tentiaries send out neatly nine th/U --sand. The yield of the workhouses and county jails is vastly greater. The Bridewells of this one state cost some three millions a year. Inhumanity is a costly laziness truly. For it is because we permit Mary and Joanna and Tim and Ter ence to be born to the nature of the street and the gin-shop, and trained i in the schools of thieving and vaga -1 bondage, that they coine to demand the higher and dearer tutelage of jails and penitentiaries. Societies assume that crime and degredation are alien to it, and legislates for them with ignorant indifl'erencc. In reali ty, they are the wretched fruit of its loins, claiming parental consideration , and help us other deformed and 'dreadful births claim it of natural parents. The Children's Aid Socie ties, noble and successful as they are, can do little more than point the way which the state should take, Their usefulness is limited; fiiot. by nar row means: second, by their attitude of charity. For the kindly service that they do is the true birthright of every pauper child, guaranteed not by generosity but by justice. Mary and .Joanna educated to r.o nice perception of nu uvi and tuum, barter what seems to them useless lead-pipe for useful bread. Society holds up its hands at such juvenile depravity and, at best, packs ilum off to the Reformatory. This huge dreary barrack where an anny of, graceless children goes through a te dious routine of moral and industrial drill, is to these wild little Arabs, an abomination of desolations Ever afterward virtue, industry, re spectability, stand l'or the symbol oi this doleful place, and are scorned , and feared of them. They come back j to the outer world of busy occupa tion. Virtue has no use for them. Vice wants them and will pay a cer tain wage. To thieves and pimps and swindlers of all sorts they have a market value. More crime, more short sentences in merciful consider ation of their youth, more vengeful hate of that law and that society which to them seem simply tyran nous and vindicative, and by and-by state prison for them aud evergrow ing taxes for ourselves. But suppose that the state held all children of pauper or of criminal or drunken or notoriously dissolute pa rents, as well as deserted children, to be her wards. Suppose that at birth they were placed in homes, not in reformatories, the domestic and not the military idea inspiring the whole discipline. Suppose that up to the age of sixteen they were to be held as infants in the eye of the law, no penal sentence following offenses, but simply a remanding to these homes of purity and patience. No sane person doubts the result. Are the difficulty of finding the right guard ians and the enormous expense urged as objections? But among the multi tudes of motherly, intelligent, unem ployed women, hungering for work, these tender, patient, and judicious I step-mothers stand waiting for just : such a call. And for the expense,if we paid three millions a year as we pay for our prisoners, and thereby made of the waifs and estrays honest citi-; $1.15 A YEAR Zens instead of jail-birds, we should save money, not to speck of that higher saving which few of us count as of equal moment. Nearly half of our convicts arc mere youths. AtMettrayin Fiance there is a juvenile reformatory which saves over ninety-live per cent of its inmates. And it pays as it goes. Surely then the family system could rescue the whole pitiful multitude of destitute vagabonds whom now only their father, the devil, looks after with observant care. That there should be "dangerous classes'' in the nine teenth century of the Christian era is jail amazing scandal. That they ! should exist in America is a grave I peril as well, for our institutions fin ally rest 011 the virtue of the whole people. i The First Result under the Now Constitution. • The New Constitution, ratified as it has been by the people, becomes the supreme law of the State and goes into effect on the first of Janu ary, Ix74—"for all purposes not j otherwise provided for therein," as stated in the schedule attached to ' the instrument. Among the imrac 'diale results will he the following: The Legislature, which is to as semble on the first Tuesday of Janu ary, 1 ST4, must be governed by it. , I pon that body will devolve the pas sage of the necessary laws to put the New Constitution in complete | working order and effect. It will thus be one of the most important sessions held for many years. The General Assembly is required j at its "next session after the adoption ot this Constitution" to designate : the several judicial districts of the State umlcr the new instrument; al so to determine the compensation of j the judges of the Supreme Court and | of the District Courts; when thejn . dicial apportionment is completed, the Governor will appoint Judges in all new districts entitled there to, these to serve until the next election, the question being referred to the ; people next November. Also to ap -1 portion the State into Senatorial and | Representative districts agreeably to 'the provisions of the New Constitu j tion, which provides for fifty Sena tors and two hundred Representa tives. The members elect of the present i incoming Legislature when sworn j . into otlice will take the old oath. | The article on legislation generaliv j.ind prohibiting special legislation, j goes into effect at once. The first election under the New Constitution will take place on the ; third Tuesday of February neji, for j city, ward, borough and township I officers throughout the state. No election for local or municipal officers j can be held at any other time, (ex cept to fill a vacancy,) in any city, borough, ward or township of the State. The general election for State and county officers is changed from the second Tuesday of Octolier to the J ucsday after the first Monday in November of each year. This fixes the next State election on Tuesday, Nov. 3d, 1371. The voting is to be by ballot, as heretofore, but each ballot, as pre sented, is to be numbered ly the election officers in regular order, so as to correspond with the number 011 the tall}' list. The voter may, if he chooses, write his name on the back of the ballot before voting. All present officers are to serve out the terms for which they were elect ed. All new elections for officers aro to bo under the New Constitution. At the general election in 1374, and 1875, Senators shall be elected in alt districts where there shall be vacancies. Those elected in 1874 to serve for two years, and those elected in 1875 for one year. At the general election in 1876, Senators shall be elected from even numbered districts, to serve for two years, and from odd numbered dis i tricts, to serve four years. We may j remark here that the terms of State ! Senators, Eli.sha W. Davis, A. K. 1 McClure, Francis D. Collins, Lafay ette Fitch, Butler B. Strang, William A. Wallace, James M. Weakly, Will an McSherry. James L. Graham, i 51. S. Humphreys, and Harry Whit#