®etoe gmuwat BELLEFONTE, PA. Tfc* Largest, Cheapest and Best Paper PUBLISHKD IN CENTRE COUNTY. Gotham Gossip. Return of Summer Excursionists.—Ski/par lors in Fflh Avenue.—Coming fashions. —Decollete Dresses Coming in Vogue Again.—Oscar Wilde said to have Se cured the Affections of a Young Western Widow.—New Tenor and Love Among the Roses. —Mr. Bonner and his Trottevs. Special Correspondence lo the DEMOCRAT. NEW YORK, Aug. 21,1882. The first harbingers of the coming cooler season are making their appear ance. Every incoming train brings back thousands of New Yorkers who have spent the summer days away from the city, and expressmen and hack drivers are kept busy from early morn until late at night in removing them and their luggage. As yet the returning contingent comprises mainly those who have been to the mountains. These worthies come back with won derful tales of how cold it was where they have beeu. Overcoats it seems were the rule by day and three or four blankets with a bone obligato, played by chattering teeth, the correct thing at night. As a result of their men dacity, or to give it a milder term, wealth of imagination, the heat is again growing inteuse within Gotham's precincts, and the presence of a cool wave is looked forward to with all the eagerness of the ancient mariner look ing for a cloud. Of course the season is not yet ended, and most of the peo ple who have returned thus far, that is those who have wealth and leasure sufficient to make time their own, will round it off with a brief sojourn at Long Branch, Coney Island or other seaside resorts which *ire never more attractive than at this season of the year. But how close we are to the end of the term of enjoyment is best seen by the fact that the boarding house keepers have commenced to raise their prices nearer to the winter schedule, and as a result the young man who intends to own a sky parlor in Fifth Avenue during the winter must needs be quick if he wishes to make at all favorable arrangements for the next ten months. It is really remarkable how this eagerness to live in fashionable quarters has spread among those whose means are limited. Not only single men but small families forego comfort aud real economy in order to be able to have their letters addressed or their friends call at No. Fifth Avenue. A small room under the roof of a five or six story house in a noisy street and an absence of all homelike enjoyment, brings a fancy price to satisfy the occupant's vanity. As population iucreases thus on the Avenue, the wealthier residents are beginning to move further uptown, and iu less than a year we will see the fashionable and classic precincts of Murray Hill transformed into a region of boarding houses. The modistes are naturally busy putting the fiuishiug touches to their designs for the new fall and winter fashions. As yet of course it is a bit too early to peep into the sanctum sanctorum where La Mode reigns and imparts to her menials those cun ning devices which cost husbands and fathers such ocean's of money, hut chic will require this winter that in the matter of full dress, ladies will have to follow the English fashion. At the summer resorts this year, high necked dresses were all the go at evening re unions, and very comfortable they were to ladies whom nature has not endowed with plasticity of shoulder and arm, or the contour of whose neck does not show the true lines of art. In fashionable London however decol leteism is growing more and more pro nounced. The amount of material for the corsage is growing less and less; sleeves are giving way almost entirely to invisible shoulder straps, and even the old fashioned bit of lace is getting too much for the ultra fashionable wearer. Of course such ladies who have very little divinity in the forms which nature has given them will find such attirement very tryiDg, but fash ion like death, makes all alike in her presence, and thus they will have to put up with the inevitable, while those gifted by nature will have every rea son to rejoice in the fact that the same dictatorial goddess of fashion, which has frowned upon them so long, will no longer sternly forbid them to hide their resplendenco under a bushel. At the same time the length of the skirt in front is increasing while that of the waist is decreasing. Thus it seems we are again reviving the bizarre fashions of the Directory days in France, when the waists of ladies began almost un der the arms. Perhaps this is intend ed as a compromise with the mandates of sestheticism, which has held a limited sway ever since its apostle Oscar Wilde commenced the crusade in its behalf. By the way Oscar Wilde in this country is about* passe, or to use a much more expressive Americanism, "played out!" He has made the round of fashionable water ing places and failed to arouse the inter est which he anticipated. If rumor is to be credited however, his pilgrimage has not beeu entirely profitless, for he is said to have gained the affections of a widow who claims the great and ex pansive West as her birthplace. She is young, aud gay, and, what mav interest Oscar more, her first husband who made money in lard, had the kindness to resign the owner ship of this treasure and die before an adverse turn in the tide landed him high and dry on the sand of financial failure. This happy creature is said to be not overburdened with book learning and spells the name of Os car's favorite period, iuediieval, in the rather unusual way medievil. The poor thing thinks the name is meant to designate those wicked days, when the monks used to roast men alive for not buying new vestments for the statues of the saints. This of course ought to make no difference to the hirsute evangelist of kneebreeches arid sunflowers. In his leisure moments, for she has money enough to secure him many of them, he will have plenty of time to instruct her and even if he would not care to waste his spare hours he ought to be able to endure such slight defects in a picture other wise perfect for the sake of the solid gilding of the frame. If the new tenor means to succeed from the outset he should not fail to appear in a role requiring military shoulder straps and brass buttons. It is passing strange that in this free country where we nominally have such a horror of the pomp and pageantry of war, it needs bnt the sight of bul lion and gold lace to make a band of love-sick maidens out of girls other wise quickwitted and sobcrraiuded enough. The most recent escapade in militia life is a case in point. It is melodrama, tragedy and comedy all in one. The scene is the camp of the Twenty-second Regiment N. G. S. N. Y. at Peekskill, Dramatis persona': Private Rosenheim and Cora Lent a fine healthy Peekskill girl. 'I he argu ment tells us that Private Rosenheim is a descendant of a very ancient family which came from the Last and at one time emigrated from Egypt without the aid of the Russian He brew Relief Society. Rosenheim's im mediate ancestor makes his living by dispensing nicotine to the gentiles in the shape of cigars, and in his leisure moments, when he does not wear the military buttons, young Rosenheim devotes himself to the humble avoca tion of stripping tobacco at live dol lars a week. Though his purse was weak his love was strong and aided by the wealth of oriental imagery and eloquence he succeeded in persuading the fair Cora that happiness was to be bad only when he was near. Cora was persuaded ami followed him to New York. Here they lived on milk and honey like Rosenheim's ancestors in Canaan. Rut unfortunately milk and honey cost nioi.ev in the nine teenth century and thus in a few days, they became scarce for the young peo ple. Rosenheim had an "uncle," who in consideration of his watch, studs, and rings advanced him cash wherewith to prolong the agony. When that gave out Rosenheim thought it was time to ring down the curtain, inter esting as the play was. S.> he brought her to the Grand Central Depot, bought her a ticket for Peekskill and kissed her goodbye. The poor thing wept bitterly at being thus obliged to depart from her oriental lover. In this condition she was found by a friend of her family who informed her folks of her plight. She is now home again, and if the gossips are to he, I relieved, busily engaged on a lec ture entitled "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The trotting track is likely to he made additionally attractive this full by the prcsftice of Mr. Robert Bon ner. The smashing of records both in single and double harness by Mr. Vauderbilt's and Mr. Work's horses seems to have aroused the veteran and in September it is more than likely that he will allow some of his cattle to appear at the Gentlemen's Driving Park and show that when it comes to racing they have a word to say. The turf proper will also be next season enriched bv the appearance of a num ber of gentlemen whose colors will be sported for glory and not for gain. Among the more noted ones are those of Commodore Kittson who has pur chased the celebrated Erdeuheini stock farm of Aristides Welch, and who will enter his yearlings for next years stakes. It is just such men that are needed to keep up the turf, for other wise the Waltons and that ilk who regard it only as a variation on piore unpretentious methods of gambling would soon drug it down to the level on which the trotting turf' was before the present revival. The Influence or Forests oil t'lliuate,. Man is a destructive creature. For his present benefit he destroys the fu ture of continents. The tree-cutting axe has played an important part in the travel of civilization westward with the sun. Now that the circle of the globe has been made by civilized man a halt is called and philosophers and scientists go back to the comtem plation of causes and effects. The problem of weather generation ig an old one. The ancient inhabitants of a little oasis in the province of Numidia tried to break the spell of summer by flogging a serpent and centuries before the days of Romulus the Etruscans had attempted the problem by establishing a temple in a grove where an effort was made to chase winter from the lap.of spring by incantations and charms. To-oay man has captured the lightning and utilized the elements. He can predict the weather; his next business is to control it. The effect of forest culture upon the climate and the soil of continents is by fur the nios serious problem of modern civilization* I)r. Oswald in au able easay on " Weather Factories " in the current number of the International Review gives the results of some historical re search into the subject which are start ling in the warning they give to mod ern man. The denudation of the for ests has turned Asia Minor from a luxuriant garden to a howling, blind ing, thirsty desert. The past and pres ent condition of Asia Minor can be approximated if one imagines what would be the appearance of Massachu setts after a twelve days visitation from a sand storm. The luxuriant vegetation of Central Asia even in the days of the Roman Empire of the West surpassed anything of the kind that can be attained to-day 011 the American continent by cultivation. In an area of thirty thousand square miles Mithridates raised armies that for twenty-two years defied the all conquering bests of Rome. Cyrus the Great passed his vacations in Babylon, in *' a region of perpetual spring," where now the sand storms have cover ed the gigantic ruins of that once mighty city. There was a time when Greek emperors located their country seats in Central Asia and enchanted by a delightful climate anil perfect scenery a Greek could forget bis na tive laud. But the destroying axe worked steadily on the protecting for ests and to-day the meadow brooks aie gone, the lovely dells and cool retreats are no more and the rich stretches of productive land have vanished. The traveler meets only weary wastes of waterless deserts, blinding sand storms and insufferable heat. Asia Minor no longer needs armies to repel her ene mies. The tire-wind of the Arabian desert is an effectual protection against invaders. Europe in the destruction of her forests has been following in the foot steps of Asia. There was a time in Italy when winters were sharp and cold, when it was a yearly occurence to sec the yellow Tiber ice-bound. Now the winter season brings warm, wet, unhealthful weather and the sum mers are hot and dry. Southern Eu rope is fading as Africa did twelve centuries ago. Italy is preparing the way for visitations from Siroccos. Portions of the once fertile coasts of Spain are degenerating into treeless deserts. The sand drifts struck the west coast of France near Cape Bre ton in the seventeenth century and their encroachments drove half a hun dred hamlets from arable soil to loca tions further landward, until the pro prietor of an endangered farm stopped the work of destruction by protecting his garden with brush wattles. The abundance of forests in America has thus far prevented any serious climatic changes although the effects of strip ping the hills of trees are already be ginning to appear. Within the last forty years the temperature of the five mountain states of the Alleghanies has steadily moderated in winter and increased in summer. Streams in the j southern states, which in the first half of the century were solidly frozen j every winter have been ice covered but j once or twice in the last fifteen years. ! In Western Pennsylvania and We t Virginia heavy snow storms have be come shorter in duration and come at longer intervals. In the gulf states and the West Indies the clearing of 1 the forests has already produced ex- I tensive sand barrens. Experience dearly bought has taught the value and necessity of tree culture. The manufacture of weather is des tined to become a science. The de stroyer has already turned too many lands of Eden into uninhabitable des erts. The imperial council of Russia has sanctioned amendments to legisla tive acts which provide for the taking of measures to improve the climatic condition of southern Russia. The destruction of trees has reduced the lowlands in France in value at least one-half, and those of Africa, Asia Minor, Syria, Armenia, Persia, Greece and Spain eighty per cent. A scien tific system of tree culture has enabled the dwellers on the coast of Europe to reclaim ten thousand acres per year in Denmark, Belgium and eastern Prus sia. The planting of umbrella pines in portions of Belgium has more than doubled the average monthly rain fall in summer, and decreased it in winter. In 1832 Mehemet Ali undertook to reclaim the sand plains on the coast of Egypt. Fifteen millions of fruit and forest trees were planted, eightv per cent, of which took root and flourished. The result has been that the averuge yearly rain fall has increased from 0. to 14 inches, and the average tempera ture at Suez decreased from 92 de grees Fahrenheit to 80 degrees. If the increase of population in this coun try continues at anything near the present rate of six hundred and eighty thousand foreigners a year, in another century there will be as many inhabi tants to the square mile here as in the most thickly populated portions of Europe. Climatic influences will then he a matter of vital importance, but it then may be too late to give them at tention. Now is the time. Laws are needed in all the states of the Union looking to the preservation of the for ests. To use the expression of an an cient Roman, the destroyer of a tree nymph should be held as guilty as a murderer. The forestry associations which are here and there being organ ized should be encouraged aud their number increased. They may prove the saviours of the nation. Trees pro pagate themselves. They assist in the fertilizing ofthe soil, they are the na tural defense against heavy winds and they regulate the climate. With the proper cultivation of the climatic science the age may not he far distant when men will blame themselves for permitting a drouth and when the weather may he controlled as lightning is utilized. AFTER DI'RNBIDE'S HOARD. IVolcome News to the Claimants. Lawyer llrumier Returns From Ireland Con fulent That His Clients are John Jiurnside's Heirs—The Contest for the Sugar Plant er's Fight Millions. Henry U. Brunner, ofthe Montgom ery county bar,who early in June sail ed for Ireland to inquire into the his tory and family connections of the lute John Bumside, the millionaire sugar planter and speculator,of'New Orleans, iias just arrived at his home in Norris town. His investigations in Ireland were attended with difficulty and re quired hard and protracted work, hut lie lias satisfied himself that the clients who he represents are in right and law entitled to a share in the dead man's millions. John Bumside, according to his own statement, made to numer ous living witnesses, left County Ty rone, Ireland, for America, in 1819, being at the time about eighteen years old. He came to Louisiana and, shrewd, well educated and with the touch of a Mides, lie soon acquired a large fortune as a sugar planter. Sever al of his partners retired with hand some fortunes, but he still stuck to his business. The war found him one of the richest planters in the South and the possessor of over three thousand slaves. These were of course freed, hut as he had retained his allegiance to the British Government his property was not confiscated and by giving him the opportunity to buy up at nominal pri ces the land taken from Confederate planters the war greatly added to his wealth. Shortly afterwards he took out naturalization papers. On June 29, 1881, he died of apoplexy,at White Supliur Springs, the richest sugar plan ter of the United States, his fortune being estimated at from eight to ten millions of dollars. THE CLAIMANTS FOR THE MILLIONS. In 18.17 lie made a will disposing of about 8300,000 of his estate, hut con taining no residuary clause. As he was a bachelor and had 110 known rela tives the State of Louisiana laid claim to his fortune. Several other claims were soon pre sented. The would-be hairs, represen ted by Mr. Bunner, are the grandchil dren an