Country Life. Not what wo would, but what wo must, Miikn up the imm of living; Heaven in both more and lone limn Jnnt In taking and in giving. Mwnnl* cloavc to haadn that sought tho plow And laurt-ln mis* tho Holdior'a brow. Hoar country home ! Can I forgot Hi.' leant of thy sweet triiliw ? Tho window vines, whioh clamber yet, Whom' blooms tho bee still rilles ? Tlio roadaido blackberries, growing ri|>o. And in tho woods tho Indian-pipe? Happy tho man*who till* tho Hold, Content with mstio lalmr; Karth dooa to him hor fullness yiold, Hap w hat may to his noighimr. Woll days, sound nigh to Oh, can there t>o A life more rational nnd free ? % lioar country lifo of child and man ! For loth tho best, tho strongest, Tliat with tho oar 1 loot race 10-gan And has ontlivod tho longest. Their cities perished long ago; Who tho brut fanner* woro wo know. % Porhapsonr Babels, too, will fall, if ao, no lamentation*. For Mother Karth will shelter all And food tho unborn nation*; Ten, and tho sword* that monaoo now Will then ho boston by tho plow. ll. 11. StnthUiril. MY MIDNIGHT PERIL Tho night of the seventeenth of Octo ber—shall I ever forget its pitchy dnrk neti,*, tho roar of tho antnmnal wind through tho lonely forest and tlio in cessant downjionr of the rain ? " Thia comes of short cute," I mut tered petulantly to myself, as I plodded along, keeping cloae to the trunks of the trees to avoid the ravine throngh which I could hear the roar of tlio tur bulent stream forty or fifty feet below. My blood ran cold as I thought what might be the possible consequence of a misstep or a move in the wrong direc tion. Why had I not been content to keep in the right road ? Hold on ! was that a light, or my eyes playing me false? I stopped, holding on to the low res inons boughs of a hemlock that grew on the edge of the bank, for it actually seemed that the wind would seize mo bodily and hurl mo down the precipi tous descent. It was a light—thank providence—it was a light, and no iffnis fu/uus to lead me on to destruction and death. " Hallo-o-o-o!" My voice rang through the woods like a clarion. I plunged on through tang ed vinos, dense briers and rocky banks, until, gradually nearing, I could per ceive a figure wrapped in au oil cloth cape, or cloak, carrying a lantern. As the dim light fell upon his face I almost recoiled. Would not solitude in tho woods be preferable to the compan ionship of this withered, wrinkled old man? Bnt it was too late to recede now. " What's wanting !" he snarled, with a peculiar motion of the lips that seem ed to leave his yellow teeth all l>are. " I am lost in the woods ; can yon direct me to R- station 7' " Yes, R— station is twelve miles from here." " Twelve miles !" I stood aghast. "Could you tell mo any shelter I could obtain for the night?" " No." ""Where are yon going?" "To Drew's, down by the maple swamp." " Is it a tavern V "No." " Would thoy take me for the night ? I could pay them woll." His eyes gleamed ; the yellow stomps stood revealed once more. " I guess so; folks don't stop there." "Is it far from here 7' • i' Not very ; al>out half a mile." "Then make haste and let us reach it. lam drenched to the skin." We plodded on, my com j>anion more than keeping pace with me. Presently we left the edge of the ravine, entering what seemed a trackless wood, and keeping straight on nntil lights gleamed fitfully throngh the wet foliage. It was a ruinous old place, with win dows all drawn to one side, as if the foundation had settled, and the pillars of a rode porch nearly rotted away. A woman answered my fellow trav eler's knock. My companion whispered a word or two to her, and she turned to me with smooth, voluble words of wel eoM> Hbe regretted the poverty of their ac commodations; bnt I was Welcome to them such at tbey were. "Where Is Isaac 7' demanded my „ guide. "He has not oome in yet." ir I sat down on a wooden bench beside the fire, and ate a few mouthful* of bread. " I should like to retire as soon as possible," I said, for my weariness was excessive. "Certainly." The woman started up with alacrity. " Where are yon going to put him T asked my guide. " Up chamber." iks' i " Put hint in Isaac's room." "No." " It's the most comfortable." " I tell yon no." Ilut here I interrupted the whispered colloquy. "I am not particular—l don't care j where you put me, only make haste." Ho I was conducted up u steep bidder thnt stood in the corner of the room into an apartment coiled with sloping beams and ventilated by one muall win dow, where a cot bedstead crowded close against the board partition, and a pine table with two or three chairs formed the sole attempts at furniture. The woman sat the light—an old oil lamp—on the table. " I hope yon will sleep well, sir. When shall I eall yon ?" "At 1 o'elock in the morning, if you ! please. I must walk over to 11 sta tion in time for the 7 o'clock express." " I'll be sure to eall you, sir." •She withdrew, leaving me alone in the gloomy little apartment. I sat down nnd looked around me with no very agreeable sensation. " I will sit down and write to Alice," I thought; " that will soothe my nerves and quiet me, perhaps." ' I descended the ladder; the tire still glowed redly in the hearth beneath; my companion nnd the woman sat beside it talking in a low tone, and a third person ' sat at the table eating a short, stout, i villainous-looking man, in a red tlannel I shirt and muddy trousers. I asked for writing materials and re turned to my room to write to my wife. " My darling Alice—" I paused and laid down my pen as I concluded the words, half smiling to think what she would say eon Id she know of my strange quarters. Not till both sheets were covered did I lay aside my pen and prepare for slumber. As I folded my paper I hap- i pened to glance toward the conch. Was it the gleam of a human eye ob serving me throngh the board partition, or was it my own fancy? There was a crack there, but only blank dark new* beyond, yet 1 could have sworn that something had sparkled balefnllv at me. I took out my watch—lt was 1 o'clock It was scarcely worth while for me to undress for three hours' sleep. I would lio down in my clothes and snatch what Nltimlier I could. Ho placing my valise at the head of iny bed and barricading the look less door with two chairs, I ex tinguished the light and laid down. At first I was very wakeful, but grad ually a soft drowsiness seemed to -teal over me like a misty mantle, until all of a sudden a startling, electric thrill coursed through my veins, and 1 sat up excited and trembling. A luminous softness seemed to glow throngh the room- no light of the moon or stars was ever so jienet rating and by the little window I saw Alice, my wife, dressed in floating garments of white, with her long golden hair knotted back with a bine riblmn. Ap parently she was coming to me with ontstretched hands, and eyes full of I wild, anxious tenderness. I sprang to my feet and rushed to ward her, but as I reached the window j the fair ap|>arition wemrd to vanish into the stormy darkness, and I was left alone. At the self same instant the sharp rejiort of a pistol sounded—l could see the jagged stream of tiro above the pillow, straight to the very spot where ten minutes liefore my head had lain. With an instantaneous realization of my danger I swung myself over the edges of the window, jumping some ten feet into the tangled bushes In-low, and as I crouched there, recovering myself, I hoard the tramp of footsteps into mv room. " Is he dead 7' cried a voice up the i ladder—the smooth, deoeitfnl voice of the woman with the half-closed eyes. "Of course he is," growled a voice lmck; "that charge would have killed ton men certain." • A cold, agonizing shudder ran through me. What a den of midnight murder- j era I hail fallen into! And how fearfully j narrow was my esca|>e I With the sjecd that only mortal ter- j ror and deadly peril can give, I rushed through the woods, now illnmined by a faint glimmer of starlight. 1 know not what impulse gnided my footsteiw —I never shall know how many times I crossed my own track, or how close I stood to the deadly ravine—bnt a merciful Providence encompassed me with a guiding ami protecting care, for when the morning dawned with faint red bars of orient light against the stormy eastern sky, I was close to the high road, some seven miles from B—. Once at the town I told my story to the police, and a detachment was sent with me to the spot. After much searching and many false alarms we succeeded in finding the ruinous old house ; hut it was empty— the birds had flown ; nor did I discover my vilise, and watch and chain, which latter I bad left under my pillow. " It's Drew's gang," said the leader of tho police, "and they've troubled us for two yean. I don't think, though, they'll come back here just at present." Nor did they. lint the utrangost part of my story in yet to coma. Some three weeks afterward I re ceived a letter from my sister, who wan with Alice iu her English home—a let ter that filled me with surprise. " I mnnt toll you something very singular," wrote she, " that happened on the night of the seventeenth of October. Alice had not been well for some time—in fact she had been con fined to her bed for nearly a week—and I was sitting beside her reading, it was late the clock had just struck one —when all at once she seemed to faint away, growing whito and rigid as a corpse. I hastened to call assistance but all our efforts to restore animation were in vain. I was just about sending for the doctor when her senses returned as suddenly as thev had left her, and she sat up in bed, pushing back her Lair and looking wildly around her. "Alice," I exclaimed, " bow you have terrified us all' Arc yon ill now?" "Not ill," she answered, "but I foci so strange. < truce, I have been with my husband I" "And all our reasoning failed to con vince her of tlie impossibility of her assertion. Hho persists to thin moment that sin- saw you and was with yon on the morning of the eighteenth of Octo ber. Where and bow she cannot tell, but we think it must have boon a dream. She is better now. and I wish yon couhl nee how fast sue is improving." This is my plain, unvarnished tale. I do not pretend to explain or account for its mysteries. I simply relate facts. I am not sujierstitions, neither do I lielicvein ghosts, wraiths or upparit ions ; but this thing I do know : that, although my wife was in England in Ikmlv on the morning of the eightoonth of October liro spirit surely stood liefore me in New York in the moment of deadly peril that menaced me. It may be that to the subtle instinct and strength of a wife's holy love all things are possible, but Alice surely saved my life. The Return from Mecca. While at Damascus I was fortunate j enough to witness the return of the pil grims from Mecca. The whole city was in the streets, a bright sun lighting up ; the brilliant variety of dresses and cos tumes which jostled ono against the other. Now and then a dervish would ' force his way through the erow.l ask : ing alms, or a confectioner would pass I along with his tray balanced marvel ously anil immovable on the top of his head. The procession of the pilgrims was heralded by the sound of a trumpet; then marched the troops, travel stained and "shabby," who hail formed their escort on the way; after these came about lon of the garrison, mounted on horses, with swords drawn, and a few cannon, and the )>asha'n palanquin in their midst. Next followed the sacred copy of the Koran beneath its canopy of green and gold, under the folds of which, as it swayed uneasily to and fro on the camel's back, a liov's head and shoulder* appenred. Behind was a second camel bearing tho green and gold banner of the prophet, and ac companied by the three sheiks in white turban* banded with gold. Tho first was envelo|>ed in a robe of purple and gold; the last in one of green and gold, mnrking his descent from the family of Mohammed. After the sheiks came the pilgrims and their families on camels, all equally ragged and dirty. These wcro foliowey any other means heretofore used. A paper on the presence of alcohol in the earth, in water and in the air was read reeently before tho French Academy of Hciences. The author, M. Muntz, has developed tho method de pending as the ehange of alcohol into iodoform, so that one-millionth of alco liol in water can lie detected. Alcohol is found in all natural waters except pure spring-water, and in greater quan tity in snow. Rain-water and the water of tho Heine contain uls.ut one gramme jht cubic meter. Alcohol no doubt also exists as vapor in the atmosphere. In soils, especially those which are very rich in organic matter, there is a con siderable quantity. The wide diffusion of ulcohol in natnre is due to the do struct ion of organic matter by various agents of fermentation. •Stammering, according to M. A. t'hor vin, generally originates in a sudden nervous shock which the victim of tho affection has received in i-hililliood ; sometimes it is a habit which has been acquired by the practice of imitating other persons who stammer, or by con stant association with stammering mem bers of tho family. I'rofeasor Chen in | resorts to singing, or tho use of the i cadence for preventing stammering and | has lieen very successful. Whipping | has sometimes been resorted to. Perhaps the l-st linguists in the world are the Dunes. They are also near) v i its exjicrt telegraphists as the operators of the Western I'nion, and that is saving a great ileal. Of these two im | jsirtaiit fie ts the Chinese government j have become aware, and have, conse quently, and very late ly, signed a con- I tract with the Great Northern Telegraph I company of Copenhagen fur the cstab i lishment of n telegraph line IhHwi-i n I Shanghai and Tientsin, u distance of I aliont a thousand miles. There are ■lifiiculti) •-. in the way of accurutclv transmitting messages in the Chinese language which even the telephone fails , to surmount. Rr. Canudly ha-, recently lieen muk ing some exjicrimentM upon hot ice, which have excited a great di al of inter est in scientific circles. Reclaims to have shown that, in a vacuum, ice m*v In heated far above the boiling |oiiit of water without melting. Of course, the ice evaporates rapidly at its surface, without passing into the liquid state, j just as camphor does in the air, and so far there is nothing new; but it has leen hitherto supposed that the ab sorption of In at by tbis surface evapo ration would prevent the ten)|>eraturc of the ice from nsing materially, and this appears to lie a mistake. A ther mometer, having its bulb inclosed in a lump of ice, frozen upon it by a process analogous to that nd in the Hansen calorimeter, has lieen made to mark a temperature as high as :Jsirar*elf." There wa* another man in the jm-w, a deacon with a smi*tei expression a* the policeman thought, and he snpjioaed that was the man the-, wanted arrested, so h<- tapped the ib a eon on the arm and told him to come along. The deacon turned pale and edged along as though to get away, when the ||olieeman took him by the collar and jerked him out into the ai*l<> The deacon struggled, thinking the police man was crazy, and tried to get away, but be wa* dragged abng. Many of the congregation thought the dcac-.n hail ticcn doing something wrong, and some of them got behind the deacon and helped the officer put him out. Arriving at the lock-up. the policeman saw the man who told him he was wanted in the church and asked him what the charge was against tho deacon, and lie didn't know, so the sexton was appealed to, and lie didn't know, and finally the pris oner was asked what it wa* all aliont, and he didn't know. The policeman was asked what he arrestisl the man for, and he didn't know, and after awhile the matter wa* explained, and the jiolioo man. who hail to aire*! somebody, took the man into enstody who told him he was wanted in the chnrch, and lie wo* fined Jt.'i and costs, lfe says he will never try to convert a policeman again, and the jmliecman say* he will never go to church again if they get to knocking each other down with hymn-hooks. /Vi A'H .S'mi. How to tiet Along. Never stop to tell stories in business hours. If yon have a place of Vinsiness lie found there when wanted. No man can get rich sitting around stores and saloons. Never " fool" in business matters. Have order, system, regularity, and also promptness. Do box meddle with business yon know nothing sliout. I)o not kick evory one in your psth. More miles ran lie made in a day by going steadily than stopping. Fay as yon go. A man of honor respects his word as he does his bond. Help others when you can, but never give when you cannot afford to, simply because it is fashionable. I earn to say no No nseessity of snapping it out dog fashion, but aay it firmly and respectfully. Use your own brains rather than those of others. Learn to think and act for yourself. Advertise yonr business. Don't be afraid of a liberal use of printer's ink. • THK FA*ILY DOCTOR. To Iti.MovK I>awi>hi;kk.~ Thin is ,i natural m-oration but become* a cutn neou* complaint ly neglect. Take n ounce of pnw<|crcKsihle, and thilH press firmly on the agitated diaphragm. In a f.-w second* the spasmodic action of the mnscle will cease." This may ta true of ordinary hiccough: but this symptom occurring in ao short-lived if the wr-mg were only on one side. Good temper is like a sunny day ■ it sheds a brightness over everything ; it is the sweetener of toil and the soother of disquietude. Affectation in any part of our i&rriage is lighting up a candle to our defects, and never fail* to make us to l>e taken notice of, cither as wanting sense or wanting sincerity. Stories first heard at a mother's knee arc never wholly forgotten, a little spring that never dries up on your jour ney through scorching years. A sail truth, half of our foreboding aliout our neighbor* are but our own wishes, which wc are ashamed to utter in any other form. The worthiest men are most injured by slanders: as wo usually find that to bo the best fruit which the birds have been picking at. Sincerity i* like traveling in a plain beaten road, which commonly bring* a man sooner to hi* journey'* cnl tha?' byway*, in which men often lose them *elve*. I/ot u* not forget that every Matron in life is necessary: that each deserve* onr respect: tliat not the station itself, but the worthy fulfillment of its duties does honor to man. A jwnipbiet on the Mississippi river and its tributaries gives the following interesting statement of the mileage of the navigable ]>rtion of each of the fol lowing named rivers atmvc its month : Missouri. 3,121 ; Mississippi, 2,161 ; Ohio, 1,021 ; lied, SUsti; Arkansas. fW ; White, 771*; Tennessee, 7HI; Camber land, 000; Yellowstone, 474 ; Ouachita, :W4 ; Wabash, .1(15 ; Alleghany, 325; Osage. MKi ; Minnesota, 215; Sunflower, 271; Illinois, 270; Yaaoo, 38*; Black (Ark.), US) Oreen. 200 ; Bt. Francis, 1H0; Tallahatchie, 175; Wisconsin, 1(10; Deer ('reek, 110; Tensas, 112: Monon galiela, 110; Kentucky. 105; Bartholo mew, 100; Kanawa, 04 ; Muskingguni. 04; (Tiippewa, 00; lowa, HO; Big Hatehie, 75 ; HI- Ooix, 65 ; Bock. 65 ; Black (La.), 61; Macon, 60; Ibenf, 55 ; Big Horn, 50; Clinton, 50 ; little Bed. 04 ; Big CJjrpneaa and lake, 44; Big Black, 15; Dauchitte, H. Total num ber of rivers, 11; total number of milea of navigation at present, 15,710.