LADIES' DEPARTMENT* A llriormtnrd Urrnid Darke**. The German wife of the Grand Dnke Vladimir ban a will of ner own, and is not disponed to snbmit to the peouliar regulations of the Russian government. Sho discovered not long ago that a let ter which sho had written to her family, and in which it is said that she com plained of the dullness and insecurity of lifo at tho Russian court, had been opened by her own personal aid-de-camp before delivery to the post. Tho angry grand dncbens complained to tho em peror, but to her astonishment met with no sympathy from him. Still more en raged blio delivered her emphatic de cision that if the offender was not im mediately dismissed sho would make a ptiblio scandal and quit the country. The aid-de camp was dismissed, but only to receive a much moro lucrative appointment. rmilnliip Finnnrp. The London World says " that specu lation of the riskiest character is stead ily on the increase. It is a habit which, once formed, is as difficult to eradicato as the drinking of odd glasses of sherry. Latterly it has spread with im mense rapidity among women. Tho 'feminine liuanco' which Sidonia dis liked io one of the features "of tho epoch. Tho ladies' clnbs at the West End of London, which are the growth of tho last few years, havo given an ap preciable effort to feminine specula tion. It would bo a mistake to suppose that lady financiers am exclusively a London growth. They abound in tho most tranquil districts. It is a natural instinct to wish to con vert sixpence into a shilling, and the possessors of fixed incomes—retired civil servants, < fiicers, widows with dowers, unmarried ladies whose life is dull and whoso timo hangs heavily on their hands—swallow with avidity the offered bait. Speculation of this kind, whether it fills the purso or empties it, is certain to yield socio ex citement; and that is not tho least of its attractions. But in tho long run it means ruin and misery." nnd Notr for Women* It is saitl that there are 2 202 women engaged in farming in the State of In diana. The wife of a Unite! States Senator says that her bill for flowers during the season is 82.000. Lillian Began, of Brooklyn, has got 8'>,000 damages out of a man who prom ised to marry her but didn't. After next January women taxpayers will possess the same voting privileges in Scotland as men taxpayers. Mrs. Clara M. Beebe, a student at the Harvard divinity school, has been in stalled pastor of a Boston church. The Woman's Suffrage association of St. Lonis has decided that Mormon women ought not to be granted any " rights." Ultra rrsthetic maidens in London are affecting the Greek sandal and un compressed foot, and form instead of size as the standard of beauty. There are seven school superinten dents, twenty ministers, twenty-six physicians, four lawyers and three edi tors of the feminino sex in Kansas. There is a woman's national hospital for the treatment of women drnnkards j at Hartford, Conn. Tae trustees are the leading physicians in ten States. The Presbyterian Sunday-school at; Conneautville, Pa., awards a handsome bonnet every month to the scholar who stands best in her class and chnrcb and Snnday-school attendance. Ellen MeCanse, who was arrested in Rochester, N. Y., and "sent np" for three years, is said to have been con victed nearly COO times in Ireland and America. She is fifty-six years old. A yonng widow in Stanford, 111., hav ing jnst attained h* majority (eighteen years) is abont to be married. She was first married at the age of eleven years, and left a widow a few weeks later. The woman suffragists of New York think that women onglit to be attached to police stations to .take charge of female prisoners and lodgers. They accordingly applied to the New York police board on the matter, bnt were met with the reply that there was no appropriation for the payment of female policemen. Fsablsa Panrlr*. Bnff tints are revived. Scarf ringa are worn by ladies. Bine grenadine veils bsve white polks dots. New bonnet pins have hammered gold heads. Fern white snd tinted batistes are worn. Very little jewelry is worn in the street. The stylish pale shade is Hsvane brown. Faille ribbons trim bonnets lor spring. Linen-gingham ie an old fabric jnst revived. Red straw hats will be popular next season. Brass ball buttons are used for flan nel suits. Gray-haired ladies arc wearing silver hairpins. Metal buttons have Watteau scenes upon them. Very long ribbon streamers hang from bouquots. .Silver jewelry is worn with black Lenten drosses. Bilk fringes once more assert their right to bo aeon. Everything Oriental pleases the woman of to-day. Among new things for tho ballroom aro plush slippers. Jet ornaments continuo to be much worn on bonnets. I\>ecock-feather fans in round and oval style aro in fashion. Poke bonnets aro to bo worn tilted far forward on tho head. Louis quinze slippers are worn over pale yellow silk stookings. Deep cardinal, pale blue, crevotte and heliotropo aro tho new colors. Plain sloeves aro proferrod to puffs by fashionable young women. Spring costumes—some of them— represent Marie Antoinette styles. Ostrich feather bands aro being used with good effect to outline largo hats. Less elaboration and moro simple elegance are noticeablo in spring novel ties. Mantelets of black satin, trimmed with ruffles or lace, aro worn with black dresses this spring. French and India foulards will be much worn next summer, in place of striped and checked summer silks. A delicate tint of blue, rose or lemon color is seen in many of the rich white bridal fabrics of this spring's importation. Cassimores, corduroys, Scotch tweeds and English suitings and homospuns are tho materials used for small boys' school suits. Among eccentricities in lingerie are black, blue and lemon-colored hand kerchiefs of sheer linen embroidered with contrasting colors. The best English round hats aro copies, somewhat modified, from the oid portraits of Reynolds, Lely, Van dyke and other famous artists. Little girls' dreis<wi grow longer, thanks to the Princess of Wales, who attires her young daughters in skirts i reaching to their ankles; and so the short skirt dress is now dubbed the "lackey style." Hurled Alive. The Rov. Dr. Field ears in a letter from Rome, Italy: In an old part of Rome, not far from the Coliseum, one who knows tbo way tnrna aside from tho street into a narrow alley which seems to come snddenly to An end in a t lank wall, on which there is a paintiug of the ornciOxion, bnt follow it to the end and there steps lead tip to the pic tare, and a side stain aso to a second story, where tho visitor can proceed no farther. Here, behind barred doors and gratings like a prison, is a convent of nans who are fitly called the Sepolte Vive, the Buried Alive, bocatise those who enter there never come forth again till they are borne to the grave. Communication with the interior is by an opening, in which there is a ronnd be-, like a barrel, though it was covered with sheet iron. While I stood before it a man came np tho steps, who seemed to be a servant, and rapped on it, to which a mntiled voice answered from within. His voice being recognized, the barrel turned slowly aroand till it disclosed a shelf on which he deposited a paper, when it was tamed again, the paper disappeared the voice from within ceased and the sheeted iron presented the samo blank surface as before. Should a priest knock, or any one who had a right to lie admitted into the convent, the barrel tnruing ronnd would present a key by which he conld open a door and let himself into a small room in the interior. Rat even then he would not see the inmates, who are closely veiled even when they oonveme. II ire, in his "Walks in Rome," says: "In one of the walls is an opening with a doable grille, beyond which is a metal plate, piercod with holes like the roee of a watering pot. It ie beyond the grille and behind this plate that tho abbess of the Sepolte Vive receives her visitors, hat she ie even then veiled from head to foot in heavy folds of thick bnre. Gregory XVI., who of ooorse could penetrate within the convent, and who wished to try her, nald: • My sister, raise yoar veil.' 'No, my father,'she replied, ' it is forbidden by our ord> r.' "The nnne of the Sepolte Vive are never seen again after they a*snme the black veil. They never hear anything of the outer world, oven of the deaths of their neareet relations. Daily they are said to dig their own graves and lie down in them, and their remaining hours are ooenpied in perpetual adoration of the blessed sa.-rsment." Nevada has 5,41(1 Chinese, 2,803 In dians and 400 negroes. TOPICS OK THE DAY. The London World speaks of a won derful preparation from tho eucalyptus plant, whiob is raid to ho marvelonsly effective in cases of consnmp i n and particular phases of lung disoaso. It is the invention of the Hon. Wyndham Stanhope, who is at present residing in Madeira for tho benefit of his health. A touching tributo was paid to tbo memory of tho late Delano A. Goddard, editor of tho Boston Advcrtir, by the Omaha Indians for the effort ho made to assist thom in their struggles for titles to thoir lands. Ilis name was not mentioned in any of the remarks, Indian et'qnette forbidding such in .tion, but ho was spoken of as one belonging to them, a high compliment for Indians to pay, and his worth was described in terms th„t wcro eloquent from their simplicity. Beneath most of tho villages in tho coal regions of Pennsylvania aro cav erns made by the process of mining, "Sooner or later," tho Philadelphia 'limn predicts, "somo of these towns will suffer from caving in. The mines depend npou artificial and in somo cases exceedingly flimsy contrivances to keep them open and tbo stirfaco in place. As tho timbers decay or become displaced it is only reasonable to expect that a collapse will follow." The United States produces one-third of the gold and one-half of tho silver which are taken from tho earth in tho whole world each year. Tho gold pro duced in this country in the census year 1880 amounted to five ordinary car load, and the silver would bavo loaded a train of 109 freight cars of the nsnal capacity. O; tho total annual bullion product of tho world, amounting to 8182,092,351, NOTth America supplied 8101,558,084; Europe, including Russia in Asia, $89,607,271; Australia.B29,olß,- 220; South America, $8,5.01,701; Africa, 81,993,800, and Japan, 31,082,948. From the Turkish province of Kpirtis the Christian (though not Greek) in habitants have of late been emigrating in largo numbers. Unable to endnre, on the ono hand, tho depredations of the robber bands still infesting the country, and, on the other hand, the hardly lest cruel treatment of their Mohammedan fellow subject*, the na tivoa in question have for some time past been unobtrusively, and generally at night, abandoning their farms and villages, and crowing the frontier into the new Greek province of Tbesaalj for the purpose of taking up there their permanent residence. Tho Chinese automaton "Kn? Foo," after bewildering Berlin with its mys terious power*, was in the midst of a successful season in Vienna, when a too inquisitive spectator having given em phatic expression to hi* conviction that the automaton had " human htaina in aide of him somewhere," found mean* to aaanro himself that he was right. An exceedingly email boy, seventeen year* old, was fonnd concealed within the body of " King Foo," and the owner wm provocated as a cheat. With un blushing effrontery the man who had mado it the chief bnsino** of hi* life to convince the pnblio that hia curiosity was pnrely mechanical turned about and a*ked the following question* in hi* own defense : "Whom have I cheated ? Can the people of Vienna be snch fool* a* to believe that a piece of clockwork c*n talk Chinese, Persian, German, French and Koglish ? That it can tell whether Hnez canal shares will rise or fall ? That it can predict the exact day on which arichnnole will die!" 'lhis defense was apparently regarded as a good one, for the showman was ac quitted. Tho discussion of electric light dan gers springs np or breaks ont often snd in nnmerons places. A Providence scientist and expert wan asked if a man's life was in danger whon hia body waa exposed to the current of electric ity necessary to feed the electric light. His reply was that no man know the ex tent of the danger, or rather the extent of the injury that might be incurrod. If a man should place his hands npon the wire before the generstor started sod keep them there nnttl the machine •topped, as he might be obliged to whether he wanted to or not, sines the mnaclos wonld contract very strongly—if he did this, it is be lieved he wonld bs comparatively safe; bnt if his hands were removed, if thov conld be, or if thewir should break w)iUe the generator waa in operation, he would receive an indnc tion spark that might kill him and might not. That wonld depend upon what part waa affected and npon the man's physical condition. It might paralyze the heart, it might cause strangulation, and in any case wonld be likely to oanae more or leea derange ment of the nervons system. But the positive or definite result will not be known, cannot be known, except by •ctael experience. Some light may be thrown npon it by expert msnte on lower animal. Even then man may not be satisfied and proceed to test and per haps kill himself. Then shall we know and possibly not till thon. An Egyptaln Village. An American, traveling in Ilgypt, writes: A village consists of a number of cubes, parallelepipeds and other rec tangular shapes that answer for habi tations.' This geometrical architecture is followed, I suppose, in memory of Euclid, who was a native of Egypt. These rectilineul houses are built mostly of mud or mud bricks, and have a doorway and several other small openings in the side walls. I observed somo of thom were constructed of palm branches interwoven and plastered also with mnd. At any rate one of these villages looks moro like a geological formation than a human one. Ono of them in particular tbut I passed, somo fifty miles from Alexandria, looks like a landscape from the terrace epoch. Most of those communities are situa ted beside a pool of stagnant water. This site, I suppose, is especially chosen as it affords easy means of getting water for culinary purposes. As the rate of speed on tho Alexandria and Cairo railway is rather slow, I many times caught a glimpso of a maiden standing on the l nnks of one of these miasmatic pools doing a little washing. They used for tho purpose large shallow stone !owl*. In some instances the water is led abont tho place in a ditch ; in others I saw girls carrying water to tho village in large stoneware vessels, generally upon their heads. The snnny part of tho town is patronized at this season of the year (January) by the male portion of the inhabitants, who do a tall amount of sleeping. Life is however better displayed upon tho roof. This is the general camping-ground for both animate and inanimate objects. There are innum erable siestas, commencing at snnrise and prolonged till snnsot. The matron hangs her clothes here, attaching one end of the line to tho chimney and the other end to one of tho male sleepers. The dogs retire hero after eating till they are stupid from a carcass that lies near the house. Tho cat and dog are here on good terms, which was prob ably not the case an honr before in the ■pace abont the carcass. The chickens and goats occupy that part of the roof not occupied by the slee|>ers. Ono thing I never remember to hare seen on the roof, and that is the Arab's patient little donkey. Tho canine pcrtions of these com munities may be divided into those that are white and those that are black. If the white dogs are in the minority at any particular time, they aro very pro miscuously chewed by the blacks and vice versa. A canine color fend ! Sad Incident of the Mood. Alexander Jasper, an old man from Crittenden county, Ark., arrived in Little llock, bringing with him his wife and two children. He seemed to be in groat distress, and when questioned by a (Jfwitt man he told the following s#d atory: " Yon know," ho aaid, "that tho whole country was tinder water. I am one of the sufferers of the flood. I lived in the Mississippi !>ottom, not far from] Madison. I set tlod there several years ago and opened a small farm. I had heard of high water, bnt the placo where I settled seemed to be high, and I did not feel any fear. Well, high water came repeatedly, bnt it never reached roe. One night, while myaelf and fam ily were at sapper, wo wore startled by a terrible roar. I went to the door and looked ont, bnt could see nothing. My wife suggested that ho noise might be caused by water, but I did not pay mneb attention to the remark, for I did not see bow water conld break throngh with snch force. While I stood lis tening there came a mighty rush, and before I knew it tho whole country was flooded with water. I called to my wife to help me secure the children. The houae was foil of water. I seised one little girl and my wife aeiaed the other. The house moved. The lamp fell and was extinguished. I called to my little boy and received a strangled reply. I rushed throngh tho flood toward the place from which I thought the aonnd came, and called again, but no reply. The honae went to pieces. 1 seized my wife and struggled with her to a alight elevation. Tho roar waa deafening. We remaiood there until morning. When light came a rushing torrent swept over the site of onr home. My little boy was gone." Potato flour, or the dried pnlp of the potato, io attaining conaiderable im portance in the arte—ao mnch eo, in fact, that in Lanoaahire, England, eoma 20,000 tona of it are aold annually, and ita market value ia ataled to be much greater than that of wheat flour. The article ia extensively used for tiling and other manufacturing l urpoeea, and, on being precipitated with acid, ia con verted into ataroh. After having been calcined it ia need with an advantage ae a dreading for ailk. Ht'IEXTIPM.' SCRAI'S. The mean depth of the aea is 1877 fathoms. Toads, tortoises, turtles and some lizards are entirely destitute of tooth. Choose is really bnt coagulated milk in a moro or less advanced stage of docay. In the swamps surrounding the " salt licks "of Kentucky, buffalo bones are found packed in the soil in great quan tities. The tarnishing of silver when exposed to the air is doe to snlphnrcted hydro gen, the metal having a strong attrac tion for sulphur. The conversion of radiant beat inta sound was the subject of one of the recent lectures of Professor Tyndall. lie proved nnd illustrated his theme by a number of beautiful experiments Hpecial poisons are recreted by the toad, salamander, newt, frog, etc. M. Paul Bert has collected a liquid frcm the glands on the neck of the frog, which cansed the death, with convul sions, of a sparrow to which the sub stance had l>cen administered. The suggestion is made that air for ventilation be drawn into buildings through tubes sunk about ten feet in the ground. By this means it would in winter be warmed to sixteiu degrees Fahrenheit and in summer cooled to twenty-three degrees Fahrenheit. The chief constituent of the tea leaf is proved, by analysis, to be the alka loid theine. W hen separated so as to be seen in its perfect purity, theine apj<ears|in snow white, silky, illifrom crv-itals, flexible and fragile, without odor, but having a mildly bitter taste. Becent observations on light con ducted on the summit of Mount Whitney yield the curious result that the sun is in reality of a bright blue color, and would so appear to the eye were it not for the filtration of the light rays through our atmosphcro which by ita different action on the various rays finally blends them into white light. Jesko Jtmr* Mot Iba<l. A groat sensation has been created among tho police and county officials in the vicinity of Kansas City, Mo., by the fart that George Hhephord, ex-guerilla and bank robber, who claimed to have abot Josae Jamea, the notoriona ontlaw, at Joplin, Mo., jaat after the Glendale train robbery of IS?!', had proved traitor throagh all that tronble. Shep herd knew the Jamea brothers well, and offered to go among th-ra and lead them into an ambush where they were to be killed or raptnred. His offer was ac cepted, and for several weeks he wrote letters to the detective* ar.d at last a special train over the Fort Scott rail road carried a large posse of men to Galena, Mo., where a bank was to be rehired. The day previous to tho talked-ot rob!>ery Shepherd cam<- tearing into Galena on horseback, claiming to have killed Jesse James, saying tho gang became suspicious of him. He was himself shot clean through the left leg below the knee, and said two memlrera of (be band followed him a mile and Camming* hit him. Tho report was believed, and every paper in the country sounded Shepherd's praise; but it haa become public that all the time Shepherd was standing in with the robbers and that a scheme was entered into whereby the offi cers were to be made to think that Jesse was killed, and then the lkrge reward for his body, dead or alive, oould be obtained by Shepherd and divided with Jesse. In order to square himself with the ofTuers Shep herd had to be slightly wounded, and he deliberately held out his leg and allowed Jesse James to shoot a ball through it. The plan to get the re ward failed, and Shepherd, who haa been hanging about Kanaas City ever since the reported shooting, has ad mitted the whole thing was a put up job, and saya he wonld no more shoot Juese Jamea than he would hi* brother. An Alliiratorial Fight. A citisen of Jarkaonville, Fin., haa boon hooping a couple of large alliga tors in a tank chiefly for the benefit of travolera from the North. A visitor recently atirred np the oreatnrea with a atick in order that he might derive all poaaible pleaanre from the ahow. Enraged at being diatnrbed they fell to fighting with each other with oreat fnry and mnch loaa of blood. The fight began at 8 o'clock in the after noon and neither wan wilting to throw np the aponge until 11 at night, when the older of the two acknowledged that he had had enough. The STent proved that he had had a great deal too much, for he died the folloeing day. A price ia eat upon the head* of wild horeee in three of the Australian oolo niea. They hang upon tha outaklrta of civilisation, and are a oaaeelaae cause of annoyance and lota to outlying squatter*. They arevidoua, physically weak, and worthlea# MM work horaea sulking them with tha rifle or running tham down ie a favorite aport Be Can-fiil I Ob, My Km f Ton *r f<Ann away from homo, my He careful bow you're led. For we all muet He an the engr-u say- As we hare made our bed. You carry away a Ix/y'a true heart, And a strength through lore attained; Ob I bring oa back In Ita |<laoe, my am, A manhood all unatained. You are going away from home and frfrnlla g From a mother's loving care - • From a father'a council wiaely glren— From a hearth of praise and prayer I Ooing away to the gar, bright tccnea That will Arc your bounding lieart - That will tempt, perhaps, your untried fwsl From the better way to part, " Whatever we now we nhaU reap," my son. Be it grains or noxious weeda - lie il laurel wreaths or cypreaa bo i;;ba, Then scatter the goodly needa. ITJiUENT I'AKACKAI'HH. Music long drawn oat—That by the accordion. May not a jary be said to be selfiak when they have a greed ? " I can't account for it f" exclaimed the defaulting bank oaahier. The poll on which no t.x has ever bec-n levied—The north pole. There in something wrong about • Clay etatue made of bronze. Nerer ask a woman her ago— that in, not that woman. Aak acme other woman. Tommy asked his mother if the scbool teacher'a ferule was a piece of the board of edn cation. Patients do more for doctors than doctors can do for patients. The pa tients enable the doctors to live. The cat is the great American prima donna. If bootjacks were her nine lives would be atrown with roses. When you see a lot of old soldiers smoking around a stove you may ba sure that there are piping times of peace. Alyee Carlysle is a writer in the Chi cago /oxer- Ocean. Wo hope she ys not the gyddy gyrl her spellyng would yn*- dycate. Tbey say an alligator is incapable of nausea. This will afford a comforting reflection to the man who has just been swallowed by one. When a subject has been debated upon at a ladies' convention, and it is about to be put to the vote, tbey call it " popping the question." No circus is complete without a beau tiful woman, and Fogg, who is posted, says wherever a beautiful woman is yon -uay look out for a circus. In the initial* of Quiteau, C. J. G., the successive stages of a criminal's career are readily traced. First the C rime, second Justice, third G allows. witiph on * CST. " Hers lias a rnewer immured. Fells in felicity, Her molars immolate! many a mole, A mioer, my sir, was she." The New York authorities are very careful of their police force. They never put two officers on the same beat, because it is said to be unhealthy for two persona to sleep together. "Well," says a canvasser, "I must keep walking and talking. That's the wsy 1 got my living, and that's the way I got my wife. But she has done the talking ever since. Good-day I" " Now,'* said the book agent, in order to get the gentleman's attention, "if you will allow me to read the pros pectus of the work; it is short—" "So am I," interrupted the gentleman. "Good-day!" Fox hnnting ia an old English inati. tntion and a lively sport to those that like it; bnt we do not believe that it can ever come up in interest, exoito rnent or endless variety to the great American citypastimeof househunting. Amelia—"Yon may talk about yonr city fellows, but give me a beau from the country!" Juliet—"And why do yon want a country beau, I should low* to hear?" Amelia—" Because, si*. he's very likely to become a husbandman!* —Louisville Crmrier Journal There had been a seeming cooloeee between the lovers. One day Emily's schoolmate ventured to refer to the •object, and asked bar: "When did you see Charley last T " Two 'weeks ago to-night" " What was ha doing F* "Trying to get over the fence." "DM he appear to be much agitated V "80 much so," returned Emily, "that M took all tha strength of pspa'a new bulldog to bold him." AI way* Head Copies. The parents of original Terse* to newspaper* frequently ak that tho verses be retnrned in oaaa t Ley an not need. This is asking too mnoh. It would be mnoh safer to keep them aft home in the first place. They newer would be missed at the newspaper office, and in oases where there is tho •lightest desire on the part of UM author for the possession of original poems, it is best not to trust said poena to the tender mercies of mail carrisa% or editors, ewe a. Always send ooptoh and rest the heart as to thsir fate.— ye OnVa a /Vtowt.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers