jBSShf g-.15 j ' TOTHE LAND OF SO Fromtlie Land of Snow Hasn't as Much Poetry in It as One Expects. A YOYAGE IX MID-TCIJSTER Described for Readers of The Dispatch by llurat Halstead. A XIGHT 1YITE WARRIXG ELEMENTS Ecenes Amusing and Tathetic Among the Bollowinj: Niagaras. TIIE AEEITAL AT THE AZOBE ISLANDS IKisinxjf ron Tire dispatch. i Letter "o. 1. . & il-i HE way to be out VMfeSsfS I of the -way of let ters and telegrams for a week is to put to sea and spend the time crowing the At lantic, -which has recently, through excess of newspa per enterprise and telegraphic facili ties, gained a great er reputation for boisterous conduct than it desencs; &$r and yet one must not expect in the north temperate rone, just at this time, to sail on cilken summer seas, under blue and gold and silver satin skies, as it is said some good folks "Would like to go to heaven on flowery beds of ease One must expect to have under his eyes the grand and sombre picture so strongly sketched in Bryant's fine line, "Old ocean's grey and melancholy waste," and to hear in the iron rigging of the steamer the deep moan of the stormy winds. There is a theory that there are softer airs Mid smoother waters to be encountered dur ing midwinter in approaching Europe througth the southern rather than the northern gates, and hence the Xorth Ger man line's happy thought of boats painted white and running every fortnight to the Mediterranean. The immediate success of the enterprise is the proof of the sagacity of the suggestion. Seir York Seen X"rom the Sea. At the Eoboken docks there was an au thoritative German who flung open the doors of the carriages and asked, "Fulda or Ems?" Starting together, the Fulda wrs for Genoa and the Ems for Bremen. "Fulda" was the response in my case. I was this time for the Mediterranean rather than the North Sea. There was an immense and intense crowd; the tragic partings that arc never commonplace. Xou can Eee for half a minute the blur of faces and hats and bonnets and handkerchiefs, and then they are swallowed up in a mist so faint you had not noticed it. Then 2sew York is seen as in a Turner picture; the new and lofty structures far down town pass as a panorama the golden Muscovite dome or the World, the familiar , spire of Trinity, the towering arches of the Bridge, and the steel web that "con nects them with a wonderful combination of prace and strength; the Arbnckle flats on Brooklyn Heights; the Ion? rows of massive stores that seem to tell of Brooklyn as the great city; the famous statue of Liberty En lightening the World, that no one believes is 323 feet high, for it is dwarfed by the im rnrnsi'y of its associations, and you do not behold its majesty and beauty until the pleasant hills of Staten Island are seen on the right, and the dim towers and gigantic hotels of Coney Island loom like a mirage on the left. Here is Sandy Hook, where the wind has such a mild way of flowing in the weather reports: and yonder is the dark line of the coast of Long Island, and the stonnv sea is right ahead. Ah! There is Pilot Boat 15, and crawling across the swelling waters like a bic cricket is a heavr yawl. The pilot is about to leave us, and it we live we shall see Gibraltar, barring accidents that drive us into exile on the Azores. 1'inal Farewells by the Mnilv. There have been busy pens and pencils in the cabin, and the pilot has a bag of letters that he sends into the boat first; and that is the last of it on one side of the big pond. The impression 1 had a" we moved down New York Bay and it had been produced "by the able weather reports was that when we ventured from the sheltering influences of the Banks ie would enter a tremendcus sea; but it is the unexpected weather that one generally sets, and the Atlantic did not display a whitecap as we passed the line of shore jurisdiction. The ocean was unquiet, as forever, and there was merely the long, solemn swell, and the ship was almost as steady as a steamboat on the Hudson or Mississippi. The night fell quickly, and we realized that the great objection to ocean voyages in the midwinter months is in the lonir ni'-hts. There was not a star in the sky, and the darkness of the water was deep and impene trable, and there was the sense that the ship was rushing through space upon some darksome errand. An hour later there was a sudden spark of fire northeast, and lo! the Fire Itl-nd lighthouse. Still later there wrc two bright lights in the northwest.and they moved along with lis, one gaining, and the other going at jast about our gait. They were our partner, the Ems, and the grand old Cuiarder, Etruriu. In the morning the Etrnria was gone, and the Ems was famtlv visible far away to the north, her smoke like a pencil mark on the horizon, her fun nels and masts racing along the horizon where sky and ocean were blending, and as her course was northward she w&s soon out of sight, and we were left to pursue our lonesome wav. He lio from zone to zeno Gulden ihr-ragh the boundless atr Thy certain fl:ght, Illih,?,lt,ne wa" that x ""''"' tread alone, HI lead my steps aright. Horrors of th? First Se.-.-TTrislit. Snrday and Monday there was not a glinnise obtained ot the sun or of a star. The thip was singularly ensv.but the breeze grew strong aud the rain" tell constantly. The number oi people who are unseaworthy is something wonderful, and they still more surprisingly lack experience. Scores of our passengers were helpless iu their beds, holding the general opinion thatahurri carc was prevailing and that they were at any moment liable to he swallowed up. They were parched with thirst, harassed with terrors,beggmg for lemons and cracked, ice, and in a pitiable state of pallor and disquietude. Monday evening there was a sudden com motion on deck; several persons sprang from their sea chairs and hurried to the c--ne of excitement. It a moment it was ascertained that a man wasoverboard; some one said it was not so, but a hat was seen on a passing wave. Another said two Italians were fighting, and one had thrown the other into the sea. There was a rush to the bridge; the ship was turned on her course the screw throwing up a sparkling green letter S in getting around; a boat was made ready for launching, but there was no speck then to be ieen on the slopes of the multitudes of waves, and after lingering on the spot where the tragedy occurred until jv it n rrn ri-."v v ji all hope was necessarily given ttp, tha voyage was resumed. Some were dissatis fied that the boat was not lowered, but there was not the least use oi putting it in the water unless some object to pull could be seen from the deck. The Tragedy or tho Trip. After a few hours it became known that the nitn lost was Mr. Oswald Jackson, of Kew York, a gentleman who had recently sustained grievous losses and was taking a journey for nervous prostration. 'Exactly how he happened overboard has not been clearly stated, if known to anyone, as it probably is not. I was sitting within 20 feet of the spot where he disappeared. It is known that he had been taking a despond- -o-2?3SSlF?v M mmm WmJ (g&M ffin 2Turat Halstead. ing view of his affairs. 2fo one noticed him leave the deck, and perhaps he might have fallen, as one can grow dizzy and pitch over a precipice. A young man saw liim swim ming. It may be grateful to those near and deaf to him to know that there was sincere grief in the company on the Fulda thata fellow passenger had been swallowed up in the abyss of' the sea, and that there was painful sensibility excited by the casualty that closed his life. Mr. Jackson was a descendant of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, and a distant rela tive of ex-Sccrctarv Bayard. His wife is of a Philadelphia family of celebrity, and his daughter the wife of a distinguished profes sional gentleman in Xew York. It was an incident having a pathetic charm that Mrs. Jackson wrote her husband letters, and ar ranged that one of them snould be handed him each morning. There is a sacred pack age of those letters that he did not see to be returned to the bereaved writer. Were Tooled on the 'Weather. The great cause of dissatisfaction was the weather. When we no longer saw the Ems scooting alone the northern sky, leaving us to make the COO miles of northing to get into the British Channel, while we held steadily east, we dismissed our friends on the distant and vanishing ship with the compassionate reflection, that while they were bound for the cold and bitter Northern seas, to roll and plunge in fierce wintry blasts, we were of the happier ship of which Thomas Buchanan Bead sang in his song of drifting, that sailed not from lands of sun to lands of snow, but from climes of spow to clime? of sun, there to rise and dip with the blue crystal at her lip. We were bound for the sunny seas, the soft Southern airs, the lands of languishing; and yet for us the mighty winds came out of the north, and then began the wailingchant in the rigging that is accompanied with stinging sheets of spray, lashing the wet decks as with whips of ice; and as the hours passed, the waves grew grander, until they were as mountains of iron tipped with snow and edged with shifting curtains of glowing lace. The sunshine that came upon the stormy scene enhanced the magnificence of the ocean, turning the rolling ridges of iron to a broad and billowy splendor of molten and blazing silver. The ship groaned and sighed, but the engines moved with cease less throbbing, and the sound of them reas suied the observant that we had in hand the giant forces onature, giving dominion over, the monstrous scope and whirl of the angry waters. There was another change, and our" long plume of smoke, blown swiftly away southward, turned north. We were getting the Southern air we longed for, the tropical balm we had prayed for when the cold winds came fresh from frozen Labrador; but the winds now came charged with rain, and the decks, though sheltered by canvas, became slippery. A Xight Chock Fall of Terrors. Elderly gentlemen, anxious to display their activity before an appreciating audi ence largely composed of ladies, did so at the expense of uncouth awkwardness aud falls. There came a night of horrors. The sea became extravagantly high. The dark hills roared and fell around us. with such portentous surges that, though the winds were loud in their wailing, we were sure of their inefficiency to account of vast succes sion of cataracts like Kiagara among which we were plunging; and the conclusion was we were in the wake of a West India hur ricane on the way to ravage Northern Eu rope, and we thought with pity of the poor people on the Ems and Etrnria far away to the north, though possibly they were hav ing a better time than we. The darknes around our ship grew dread ful, broken only by bursts of whiteness, telling in the overwhelming gloom that some tremendous roller had burst into a fountain as of snow. The screw caught the old doleful habit of springing trom the water and shaking the iron edifice on which we rode as if resolved to break it in many pieces. The violence of the sea came in sharp shocks. The screw talked, and it was easy to interpret it to say, "I shall break before morning," repeating the phrase with endless iteration and diabolical assurance. And we were more than ."500 miles from a speck of land, the nearest being the Azores, aud the storm-tossed and weary passenger could only sav back to the screw, articulate in frantic struggles: "Please Mr. Propeller, do not break short off away off Here, it Would be so inconvenient. Please, Mr. Propeller, don't do it this time some other time and plase, dtrar Mr. Propeller no: here, not now, beloved Mr. Propellor. Go on and propel, please at least for a few days." A Cattle of Inanimate Things. The noises of the night augmented inces santly, and became agonizing. The wood w ork'screeched against the iron. The screw had no compunction, and its jars were like jolts in a wagon on a corduroy road. As the ship tumbled upon a wave and plunged the screw gave the whole structure a horrible shake and made each passenger squirm in his Equirming berth. I had thought the upper berth the better one, but the rolling was so great I feared I should be flung to the floor, and there were strange goings on by the sound upon that floor 1 I turned a button, and the electric light revealed the situation. My trunks and traveling bag, iron bootjack, boots, new hat and hairbrush were at it like the witches in the Tamo' Shanter iig. I admired the agility of the hat and hair brushes; and as for the trunks, they swung corners according to the old quadrille call, and faced partners; then hands all round with the bag and the boots. It was an animating spectacle. I attempted to restore order; and when one trunk was forced into its proper place, the other would rush forth with a hop, skip and jump, seeking whom to devour. It oc curred to me that I would go on deck and see to the navigation for a tew moments. A lady in the door ot her stateroom, holding on with both hands, her beautiful hair float ing long and free, and to the best of my knowledge and belief forgotten, her face white and drawn, the flash of her night dress seen under her secluding ulster, asked pitifully: "Do you think there is any im mediate danger? "About what, madame?" was my brutal response. "Oh, this awful storm.3' "But, madam, there is no storm. The night i6 squally, that is all. We are in the safest place in the world. It is dis agreeable, to be sure, but not dangerous in the least, I assure jou." "Oh, thankyou," said the lady, with deep gratitude for my brazen story. "The sound was so awful," she said, "I thought we must be in a fright ful hurricane." "Indeed, no," I said, with (I thinK) quite the air of a superior old sailor: "a hurricane ismuchmore amusing." This time she seemed to detect a twang of insincerity. Clear as a Bell OverheaJ. In the dining room there was a group ot crouching figures ladies on the way to the South of France ladies ot high social con sideration going for pleasure "from lands of snow to lands of sun" bnt they had found the terrors of lonesomeness in their rooms intolerable, and fled to the saloon, awaiting the worst, as they believed. Their alarm was most touching. The thundering thumps of waves against the broadside of the ship were not agreeable indeed, had passed far beyond the range of complacent humor. I said I would report from the deck. The panic-stricken ladies said: "Bnt is the deck accessible?" Certainly it was. I found, when ascending, that, while the ocean was truly dismal and in a grand passion; there were men washing the deck, and behold, the heavens were resplendent with innumerable stars. Indeed, the stars never looked more solemn nnd glorious. The ladies would not believe in the calm sailors at work above, and the starlight, until I persuaded them to go up and" see for themselves. They felt better for a few minutes, and descended with comparative composure. A few minutes later we shipped a slamming sea, and the green water rushed in a torrent down the alt stairway, at the very spot where the pale watcher had asked me if there was immediate danger. I sup posed at the time that she must have perished with fright. But she afterward stated that she had sunk for a time into a stupor of exhaustion which resembled slumber, and she had not had the energy of intelligence to be interested in the con version of the stairway into rapids, and the clamor of the servants wiping up the water had not troubled her in her nightmare. A hnmorist said in the morning that he had 'accounted to his wife for the sound of many waters in the ship and some of the state rooms by saying that an ice cooler had ex ploded. " Only two persons could be found w ho had slept through the night. Bevels for a Rainbow Chaser. It was the night of our desolation. After it came a day of condoling, quieting of the sea, the waves softening away, though there were sqally showers that, as the sun shone, decked the heavens in a superb array of rainbows. If a rainbow chaser had been on board he would have had some hours of un paralleled temptation. One rainbow, acom plcte arch on the Western sky, was far the most splendid that I have seen since a boy, when the rainbows were bigger than now. This one was a marvel of glory, as the rain bow show began in the morning and lasted all day. The signs answered all the require ments ot the old song "A rainbow in the morning is a sailor's warning; a rainbow at night is a sailor's delight." The casualty list on the ship was large. One gentleman, leading his wife tenderly to her sea chair, slipped, and there was a roll and a bump, and they sprawled altogether against the bulwarks, with sprains and hurts innumerable, a spectacle of discomfiture and confusion. Another man was carrying his wife a plate of grapes and oranges, when his legs departed awkwardly and quickly from under him, and he terribly sprained his left hand; and the -fragments of the broken plate, and the grapes and all the rest, were flung in the gutter as if fired from a shotgun. A stout lady ventured to occupy a chair, and when there was a fearful lurch rose from her seat instead of sitting down it, and she became as a great football, and tumbled into an unintelligible mass against the iron shrouds. Her groin would have been a scream if she had had breath enough. Blaine's Doable Doubled Up. An elderly gentleman,who bore a strange resemblance to both Robert E. Lee and James G. Blaine, iitood upon the sofa bed to look through the port-hole upon the ocean landscape, and was flungbackward upon his berth, his head cut open so it had to be fas tened with several stitches and hound in cloth until his fine and venerable face seemed tb belong to a partially prepared mummy. A military gentleman thought himself sure-footed, though he was mis taken, and on his fourth fall succeeded in striking his head on the deck with the sound of a sledge, and he was carried below in a chair. A young man whose-mother believes .in his bad health and the education of travel, and sends him abroad with plenty of money, smote the edge of a bench with" his shinbone, and had a limp that would have alarmed the good lady, whose happiness and hope he is. That young man, wearing an expression of robust innocence, is, I must say to his credit, a man of affairs at the card table, pJaying a most cold-blooded and consummate game of poker with an air of juvenile simplicity. Another young gentleman, elegantly ap pointed and an artist in posing before the glauces of admiring beauty, slipped and passed to windward and starboard, as the young ladies going to Italy to perfect their musical education said, spinning on his classical car, and his recently polished boots seemed, to sputter as they were dragged through the wash of the deck. Associations or thn Azores. A good deal of interest was manifested in the approach to the Azores. The climate is delicious. Ou the principal island, St. Michel, there is a high mountain, the old crater of which is a lake at a great eleva tion, and the lake is full of goldfish. It was in the neighborhood of one of these isl ands that in 1811 an awful explosion oc curred tinder the sea, and smoke and flames burst forth in tremendous volumes. Count less fish were thrown up iu all stages of boiling and broiling, and huge stones fol lowed, with incredible quantities of blacc sand. Soon there was an island formed, which, before tho eruption ceased, wns 350 feet high. After some months it disap peared, but there remained a dangerous reef. This eruption has been one of the wonders of the world. Beyond this region, toward Gibraltar, in the dark blue waters, is the enchanted ocean wherein the fabled island, Atlantis, should be found if science ever dives so profoundly as to prove the truth of one of the fancies as interesting as the facts that are perverted in what we call history. Through these glittering waters Columbus sailed to immor tality, and was sent home in chains, and here the navies of the great powers have spun the threads of history. We cross be tween the Azores and the rock of Gibraltar, the pathway of Columbus to the Indies he discovered, and the track of the British ship that sailed with Napoleon to St. Helena, and that of Childe Harold in his pilgrimage that ended in Greece, and of Nelson going to the shores of Egypt and Spain, to mako the most brilliant chapter of her historyfor his country at Aboukir and Trafalgar. Mubat Halstead. THE AGS OF JIAMKOU.. I2ren the Youngsters Look on Small For tunes 'With Contempt. Tooth's Companion. Freddy is the son of a millionaire, and has from his earliest childhood lived in an atmosphere of pomp anH pretence. He hears a great deal about money and what it will buy, and he is under the impression that "poor folks" really have very little busi ness in the world at all. One day, his long-sntfcring governess gave him a little sum in percentage, the result of which would show now much capital a man must have to gain a certain income. Freddy worked away with determination, but evi dently to no purpose. The answer would not come, and his face contracted an earnest scowl. "Well, Freddy," said his teacher at the end of 15 minutes, howare you getting on?" "Not at all," was the reply. "I can't make it come out right. I don't know how I can do it any differently, and I keep get ting the same answer every time" "What answer doyou get?" "Fiftv thousand dollars." "Vhy, that's right! What made you think it wasn't?" Freddy looked at the figures in some dis gust "Anybody would know it couldn't be right," said he, haughtily. Nobody would think of having such a small capital as $50,-000!" OUR OVERLAID MAIL. 1 Something About tho Six Star Routes in Allegheny County. TJNCLE SAM ISN'T VERT LIBERAL. One Carrier Drives Thirty Jhles on Awful Eoads for $1 44. WANAJIAKER'S PLAN FOE THE FAEJIER rwniTTix ron the dispatch. 1 T was a skittish mare that hauled the United States mail out. to "Brimstone Corner" one af ternoon last week. The driver asked me to hold the reins. With a couple of let ters in his hand, he jumped out of tha buggy and ran to Farmer Jonathan's gate, upon tho post of which there was a small wooden box. Into this he dropped the envelopes, and "Whoa! Whoa!" and in spite of all my strength the mare made a vicious bolt for ward, and out of the vehicle went, not me, but the heavy bag of mail matter. The precious burden was gathered out of the mud by the pony-expressman. "It's not my regular horse for this kind of work," he explained. "I had to leave him at home and take this mare for this trip, because the roads are so. bad that 30 miles a day would spoil any valuable horse." He's Certainly Kot Overpaid. "And the Government pays the pony ex presses very poorly for such hard and ex posed life," he added, climbing up into the buggy. "Look at this road, and then look at that horse already beginning to sweat from dragging "us through the ruts and sinkholes. I left home before daylight this morning; it is now 2 o'clock P. ST.; it will be long after dark before I see the lighted windows of my own house, beyond Brimstone, again. I will then have covered SO miles, collected mail at three postoffices one way and delivered it to them on the road back, besides stopping at several farm houses to get or deliver mail. And for all this toil for all this wear and tear on my horse and vehicle I receive 5200 a year. In a year I make 15G round trips of 30 miles cach.in all sorts of weather, and am sup posed to never let sickness, death, fire or water stop the "United States maiL Figure it out for yourself. Would you care to drive 30 miles every other day and receive only 51 44 for it?" We were jogging along one of the "Star Boutes" of Allegheny county, as the Post office Department styles postal routes on which overland modes" of locomotion must be used. This route begins at Sharpsburg and extends to Culmerville, or "Brimstone Corner," as it is better known up that way. This northern terminus is close to the bor der of Butler county. Culmerville is a post office, though it only possesses two houses. Carries Mail for n Thousand People. The other two postoffices along this route are Bural Kidge, where there are not more than three houses and a blacksmith shop; and Dorseyville, with a group of perhaps eight dwellings. The latter postofBce is 8 miles from Sharpsburg, Dorseyville is 11 miles and Culmerville is 15. At these three postoffices mail is left for perhaps a thou sand people. They only get it three times a week. On the mornings of Tuesdays, Thurs days and Saturdays George Love, the hardy mail carrier, leaves Culmerville with his valuable horse, or his skittish mare, as the- case may be (regulated, you understand, by the condition of the roads), and arrives at Sharpsburg about noon. He leaves there on his return trip at 1 o'clock t. sr., arriv ing at CulmervilK about 6 or Rowing, also, to the amount of conscienee orlackofcon tcience'the Road Supervisors have mixed this year with their repairs along the roads RidmgSO Jlilct for $1 U. of West Deer, Indiana and O'Hara town ships. This section of vast agricultural ter ritory lies midway between the West Penn and Pittsburg and Western Bailroads, but many miles away from either. "Well, but I "see you deliver mail indi vidually to farmers along the road," I re marked. "How is that?" "It is purely a matter of accommodation," replied the pony expressman. "Three and four miles out from Sharpsburg I stop to deliver mail from the Sharpsburg office to farmers who otherwise would have to go to Sharpsburg for it. This I also do in the vicinity of the other postoffices. My own house is a mile or two bevond the Culmer ville postoffice, and I deliver mail to farm ers along there. Farmers for whom I do this pay me a little for my trouble." A Free Delivery for Farmers. "Why wouldn't it be possible for the Government to pay you more salary for de livering mail to ail the farmers along your route? I asked. "That would save the few farmers now able to pay you from going down into their own pockets, and would give all the grangers the same free de livery." "Ah, there, my friend, you've hit it," replica the mail carrier, "enthusiastically. "There would be no better move on the part of the Government than some sort of tree delivery for the farmers. Possible? Well, I should say so." "Don't you think that to make the scheme of free delivery nmong farmers more prac ticable, the farmers themselves ought to help by bettering the condition of country roads generallj?" For a minute the mail-carrier was silent. He spat a mouthful of tobacco juice which landed on the bay mare's tail, and as that animal resented the bath by a frisk of the tail, thetobacco liquid was distributed all over us in a fine spray. "Say, stranger, that's not a bad thought of yours," exclaimed the driver, picking a particle of tobacco out of his eye. "I never thought of that before. Yes, it's true as anything that,if we had better roads, farm erswould.be in better shape not only tor easier mail but in every other way." Have Discussed WanamaScr'j Flan. This little seed had evidently fallen on good ground, and content to let "it lie, hop ing that perchance it might take Toot among the farmers of West Deer, Indiana and Q'Hara townships, the writer resumed the conversation direct upon the idea of a postal innovation in the rural districts. "You know, perhaps, that Postmaster isle General Wanamaker js thinking of propos ing some measure of relief tor farmers per haps free delivery from the larger country postoffices?" I remarked. "Yes, -indeed," answered Mr. Love. "The idea of the Postmaster General has been pretty well talked about among the farmers along the route here. They have heard that the Postoffice Department has grown so rich that it expects to reduce let ter postage from 2 cents to 1 cent. They want the postage kept up to 2 cents,and the surplus thus secured spent in some system by which people living in agricultural dis tricts may have better postal facilities. Free delivery is entirely practicable, I think, dividing up the country so as to take in roads in opposite directions from nearest railroad villages. See tbat farm house which we are approaching? It has a wooden box at the gate. Oh, no, there is no lock or key on it. Not necessary no one steals out here. No tramps, because the railroads are too far away. Well, farmers generally could erect such boxes, and it is entirely practicable for a common box in partner ship to be put up by, say, live or six farm ers at cross-roads here and there and save the carrier from going off the main road. The time of arrival being known, it would be easy even for representatives of each family "to be at the box on any day they are expecting mail. Some such sjstcm, I am told, is in vogue in Scotland. The rarmer Gets tho Worst of It. "But, not' only in free delivery, but in other ways could the farmer be relieved by the Postoffice Department .if it would consent to spend a little money on us. You people in the city have your letters brought to your doors free of charge.' A farmer must first go several miles to get his letters and then pay fifteen or twenty-five cents per quarter rental of a box in that postoffice; that is, if he wishes to maintain any degree of privacy for his mail at alL Again, how many ot the farmers' families along my route can take a daily paper in Pittsburg. I knew lots of them w'ho want to read The Dispatch or some other good paper, but with a mail only every two days, how is it possible for them to" keep' abreast of the times? One farmer takes a load of produce 'TrJrjSHBWr A Typical Country Postmistress. to his neighboring village, and he must rely upon the mouth of storekeepers there to give him the latest market quotation for his butter and eggs. With a daily paper, he w ould know all that before he left his barn yard." And this all in Allegheny county! thought I, preparing to leave tho rig and strike out for a bracing walk, six miles across the fields and forests to the valley of the Allegheny river. Yes, and not only one such route, but six of them in the same county in which rises the symmetrical heights of Pittsburg's new postoffice. Six Star Bontes in the County. One of these traverses many miles of fer tile agricultural territory from Allegheny City along the Prrysville road and clear on to Ogle, Butler county. Shooting off this at Perrysville is a smaller route to In gomar. From Pittsburg to Greentree is a route south of the Monongahela, and from Alt. Lebanon another, to Banksville. The P. & L. E. II. B. drops the mail for farmers along the Washington border at Imperial staJon, and from there a star route dis tributes it as far as Murdocksville, Washing ton county. Undoubtedly a very large number of farmers right here athom'e would profit by Wanamaker's advanced ideas. "Ah, my friend, that's where the post office ought to spend some money," said my friend, as I started away. 'It should raise our salaries and then send us out every day on these long routes instead of every two days." The drumming of the quail did not startle me as I walked homeward through many a bushy cover. Babbits often crossed my hether-lined path, but they did not disturb some busy thoughts. I was trying to re call something I had read in a late Consular report about inhumanity in the mail system of China. And out of my library that night I searched this paragraph: Not Much Bettor Off Than China. A cruel enstom prevails with reference to the official courier service in Thibet. The express courier from, Gartok to Lhara, a dis tance of SCO miles, travels nizht and day. Ha is not relieved en route. Ills clothes are sealed onto him and can only he removed after tho seal lias fceon broken bv the proper official. These messengers are lifted at the post stations from one horso to another nnd nrrive at their destination with cracked faces and eves bloodshot and sunken. They sometime dio on tho way from exnoiire and fatigue. Tho elaDorate system of posts for imperial messages in China seems never to have suggested tho establishment of a Gov ernment postal service for tho public at large. That's in heathen China.. But here in Allegheny county, amid a population of 530,000 enlightened people, there is a part of the elaborate S.tar Koutesystem by which a man is compelled to brave all kinds of weather, riding 30 miles a day in roads as bad, almost, as China's, and for the paltry sum of SI 44 per ride 1,000 Intelligent farmers discriminated against in postal facilities. The economic faults of such a system, and the inhuman wages paid for it, "seem never to have suggested the estab lishment of a Government postal service for the farmers at large," but they warrant drawing this parallel with heathen China. L. E. Stofiel. GETTING USED TO THE COLD. The Natives ot Siberia Expose Themselves in a TTay Truly Astonishing. How much usage will do in toughening the human body is well shown by some facts about the natives of Siberia, as recorded by the author of "Reindeer, Dogs and Snow Shoes." Cold, he says, seemed to have no effect upon them. Frequently, he says, when we could not expose our ears for two minutes without having them frozen, the natives would go for an hour at a time with their hoods ' thrown back from their heads; and when it required constant watchfulness to keep our noses from freezing, they did not appear to notice the temperature at all. One morning in January I stood in per fect amazement at their disregard of the low temperature. They worked for at least half an hour with hare hands., packing up the tent and utensils, handling the pack ages and lashing them together with icy seal thongs, without experiencing the least apparent inconvenience, while I partly froze my fingers striking a light for my pipe with a flint and steel, the whole opera tion taking not more than three minutes. Who It Is. Tom Masson In Clothier and Furnisher, Who is- It stands for fonrteen hours Within a drygoods store. And cometh home at night so tired She scarce can ope the dooi? Who Is it entertains her friends Each night in gorgeous style, And when the breakfast comes in late SUe gicets you with a smile? Who Is it wears the newest gown And puts yoar wife to shame, And makes you feel so small at times You long to change your naraet Taar servant gixk CATCHING A COUGH. ya J, o hkti I Foyel Use-of the Phonograph in Di agnosing Chest Diseases. KEC0RDS MADE UP0K CYLINDERS Bj 'Which the Doctors Can Study a Man's Cough After He Js Dead. LOCAL rHYSICFAX'S rXFEEIJIEMS IWRITTEN FOE THE nlSPATCK.l The use of the phonograph as an instru ment for recording disease has been effect tively introduced by a local physician. In a lecture delivered a few days ago in the Wsetern Pennsylvania Medical College the records of a variety of coughs, which had been faithfully preserved upon the cylin ders of a phonograph, were presented to the students and served as a clinic Monday evening last, at the meeting of the South side Medical Society, very .remarkable in terest was created by a practical demonstra tion of the important strides possible in the 6tudy of chest diseases by recording in the phonograph the auditory characteristics of various phases of disease, thus permitting of deliberate study of phenomena now ob served only in a transitory manner. The credit for the addition of this adjunct to the paraphernalia of the physician is due to Dr. W. T. English, professor of physical diagnosis in the medical college. Speaking yesterday, after some persuasion, of what he had accomplished, the doctor said he be lieves that the phonograph is destined to become an important instrument in the clinical laboratory. the Coash Is Diagnostic. "It will become important," he said, "as a recorder, not only of history and facts, but as a preserver of those auditory phe nomena belonging to certain cases and maladies, and which are characteristic The perfection of its records and the realistic character of the reproductions make it superior in many, if not most cases, to any former method. It affords opportunities for analyzing sounds, normal and abnormal, with deliberation and at our leisure. The teachings of authorities are that cough is not and cannot be diagnostic However, the deliberative study of the elements thejr include betrays the fact that there are modi fications incident to each malady, and changes which are characteristic ot the vari ous stages of the same disease. "The phonograph enables a repeated study of these elements, which include quality, intensity, duration, pitch and rhythm, and which familiarize these modifications to audition so thoroughly that once acquired they can be instantaneously detected. The more carefully we stndy coughs the more certainly they appeal to us as characteristic and diagnostic In the presence of some one or more elements they will differ, and with greater constancy than hitherto be lieved. Distinguishing Stages of Bronchitis. "At the meetingof the Southside Medical Society recently I presented through the phonograph the dry cough of the earlier stages of bronchitis, and upon the same cylinder, in contrast, appeared that moist or mucus reproduction of the later stages of the same malady Another cylinder pre sented pertussis of the adult and also of a child 15 months old. The violent expiratory efforts by which the special anditory phenomena were produced, which we de nominate 'cough,' were in marked contrast with that inspiratory crowing or 'whooping' which gives to this malady the appellation, 'whooping cough.' 'The record of cases of true croup, mem braneous or diphtheritic, were reproduced in such a manner as to make it possiblo to separate these dangerous diseases from spas modic or simple croup through the medium of audition alone,, though not in the presence of either. These ailments may be studied without the unpleasant necessity of unduly forcing the patient to cough, and saving the disappointment of failure to secure the sounds when they are most desirable; for it is well known to every clinician that when we most wish a patient to cough or exhibit characteristic signs, the very knowledge of such desire postpones their production and causes the spasm to subside. Especially is this the case with children. A Man's Congh After He Is Dead. "Severe maladies, which, from their rarity, cannot often be studied, may thus, by means of the phonograph, appeal to the hearing, and diseases may continue their clinical representation long after the sub ject has passed away. The laryngeal rales are reproduced, though the patient is not in the land of the living. The distinctive 'death rattle,' which intimates to the ex perienced ear the approach of dissolution, still teaches us how to distinguish this sign of impending death. I expect shortly to obtain records by which it may be possible to separate the various forms of rales and also those chest noises which will suffice to familiarize us with heart abnormalities as well as respiratory changes, that may be studied deliberately and leisurely." The doctor is convinced that the study of coughs from the cylinders of a phonograph will enable the student to acquaint himself with the special auditory signs of each par ticular disease with much increased facil ity. By the use of resonators SDeciall v con structed, the sounds, both on receptio'n and delivery, are amplified to such an extent that these which are not now received by the instrument may be recorded. Within this realm are included the heart sounds and cardiac murmurs, also the normal and abnormal noises of the lungs. This adjunct to the clinic cannot be overestimated in its advantages to the student of medicine, as caes may be presented at any time and as often repeated as is essential to a perfected knowledge. The doctor is constantly re cording interesting cases, making compari sons aud noting the differences which he hopes mav be of advantage to the profes sion. ' Fkask J. Kelly. WHEEE IT D05'T EHD IK SMOKE. How the Smoke Problem Was Solved at a Charcoal Kiln In Michigan. There is a blast furnace up in Michigan. Of course it requires charcoal. They make their charcoal right there in the largest bat tery of kilns in the world, with a capacity of 4,000 cords. It made a huge smoke and bad smell; in fact, was a downright nui sance. So now they catch said nuisance, and, cy condensation, they turn 75 per cent into liquid. The- other 25 per cent being found incondensible, is forced under boilers and burned over again in connection with sawdust and the tar which they get out of the liquid 75 per cent F.acn day they get 90 tons of this liquid, from which they reduce 15 tons of tar, 300 gallons of alcohol, and G tons of acetate of lime. The alcohol is used in the arts; the acetate forms the base of all the acetates of commerce, such as corrosion or lead in niac in" paint. Xou wouldn't think when look in!? at the smoke from a charcoal furnace that the black nuisance was painting the at mosphere to the- tune ot" so great a sum per dpv." Tho furnace is at Elk Rapid?, on the Ch'icago and West Michigan Hallway's new extension. How the Fas System Works. A farmer occupied a seat in a railroad car with a lawyer. The conductor came; the farmer gave him his ticket, which he had purchased at his station. The lawyer took a card out of his pocket, and showed it to the conductor, who glanced at it and went on. The lawyer saw the farmer eye his card askance. '.'Don't you find tickets pretty cheap on this road?" asked the lawyer. 1 '"Tolerably cheaD, I suppose," answered the farmer, "considering that I have to pay "your farje as well as my ownl" WniTTEN FOR THE DISPATCII 3Y MARK TWAIN, Author of "Innocents Abroad," "Tom Sawyer;" "Huckleberry Finn,' Etc., Etc. SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. The story opens with a scene between Lord Berkeley, Earl of Eossmore, and his son Viscount Berkeley, fn Chalmondeley Ca'tle, England. The yonng man has studied tha claims to tho estato made by Simon Leathers, of America, and become convinced that he la the rightful heir and his father and himself usurpers. lie announces his intention to chango places with Leathers, whereupon the old lord pronounces him stark mad. A letter arrives from Colonel Mulberry Sellers, of Washington, announcing that, by the death of Bimon Leathers and h! brother at a log-rollinfr in Cherokee Strip, he has becomo the Earl of Eosmore and rightfnl heir to Chalmondeley Castle ana the vust estate. Colonel Sellers and his contented old wife live in an old frame house before which hanss a sign announc ing that lie is an attorney at law, claim agent, hypnotist, mind-cure specialist, etc, etc His old friend, Washington Hawkins, arrives. lie has been elected delegate to Congress from Cherokee Strip. CHAPTER III. Mrs. Sellers returned now with her com posure restored and began to ask after Hawkins' wife, and about his children, and the number of them, and so on, and her ex amination of the witnesses .resulted in a circumstantial history of the family's ups and downs and driftings to and fro in the far West during the previous 15 years. There was a message now lrom out back, and Colonel Sellers went out there in an swer to it. Hawkins took this opportunity to ask how the world had been using the Colonel during the past half generation. "Oh, it's been using him just the same; it couldn't change it's way of using him if it wanted to, for he wouldn't let it." "I can easily believe that, 3r. Sellers." "Yes, you see he doesn't change, himself not the least little bit in the world he's always Mulberry Sellers." "I can see that plain enough," "Just the same old scheming, generous, , good-hearted, moonshiny, hopeful, no-ac-' count failure he always was, and still every body likes him just as well a3 if he was tne shiningest success" "They always die, and it was natural, be cause he was so obliging and accommodat ing, and had something about him that made it kind of easy to ask help of him, or favors. Ton didn't" feel shy, you know, or have that wish-you-didn't-have-to-try feel ing that you have with other people." "It's just so yet; and a body wonders at it, too, because he's been shamefully treated many times by people that had used him for a ladder to climb up by, and then kicked him down when they didn't need him any more. For a time you can see he's hurt, his pride's wounded, because he shrinks away from that thing and don't want to talk about it and so I used to think now he's learned something and he'll be more care- WRIfel Y MUST XRT TOUR PATIEKCE SOMETIMES. ful hereafter but laws! in a couple of weeks he's forgotten all about it, and any selfish tramp out of nobody knows where can come and put up a poor mouth and walk right into his heart with his boots on." "It must try your patience pretty sharply sometimes." "Oh. no. I'm used to it; and I'd rather have him so than the other way. When I call him a failure, I mean to the world he's a failure; he isn't to me. I don't know as I want him different much different, any way. I have to scold him some, snarl at him you might even call it, but I reckon I'd do that just the laneifhewas different it's my make Hat I'm a good deal less snarly and more contented when he's a failure than I am when he isn't." "Then he isn't always a failure," said Hawkins, brightening. "Him? Oh, bless, yon, no. He makes a strike, as he calls it, from time to time Then's my time to fret and fuss. For the money just flies first come first served. Straieht offhe loads up the house with cripples and idiots, and stray cats and all the different kinds of poor wrecks that other people don't want and he does, and then when the poverty comes again I've got to clean the most of them out or we'd starve; and that distresses him, and me the same, of course. Here's old Dan'l and old Jinny, that the Sheriff sold South one of the times that we got bankrupted before the war they came wandering back after the peace, worn out and used up on the cot ton plantations, helpless, and not another lick of work left in their old hides for the rest of this earthly pilgrimage and we so pinched, oh, so pinched, for the very crumbs to keep life in us, and he just flung the door wide, and the way he received them you'd have thought they had come straight down from hwven in answer to prayer. I took him one side and said: 'Mulberry, we can't have them; we've nothing for ourselves; we can't feed them.' He looked at me kind' of hurt, and said: Turn them out? And they've come to me just as confident and trusting as as as why, Polly, I must nave bought that con fidence some time or other a long time ago, and given my note, so to speak you don't get such things as a gift and how am I going to go back on a debt like that? And, you see, they're so fcoor, and old, and friendless, and .' But I was ashamed by that time and shut him off, and somehow felt anew courage in me, and so I said softly, 'We'll keep them the Lord will provide.' He was glad, and started to blurt ont one of those over-confident speeches of his, bnt checked himself in time and said humbly, 'I will, anyway.' It was years and yeara'and years ago. Well, you see those old wrecks are here yet." "But don't thev do your housework?" "Laws! The idea. They would it they' could, noor old things, and-nerhaps they think they do, do soma of it. ',2; Jit's a J superstition. Dan'l waits on the front door, and sometimes goes on an errand; and sometimes- you'll see one or both of them . letting on to dust aroundin here but that's because there's something they want to hear about and mix their gabble into. And they're always around at meals for the same reason. But the fact is, we have to keep a young negro girl just to take care of them, and a negro woman to do the housework; and help take. care of them." "Well, they ought to be tolerably happy, I should think." "It's no name for it. They quarrel to gether pretty much all the time most al ways abont religion, because Dan'l's a Dunker Baptist and Jinny's a shouting Methodist; and Jinny believes in special providence and Dan'l don't, because he thinks he's a kind of a free-thinker and they sing and play plantation hymns to gether, and talk and chatter jnst eternally and forever, and are sincerely fond of each, other and think the world of Mulberry, and he puts up patiently with all their spoiled ways and foolishnesses, and so ah, well, they're happy enough if it comes to that. And I don't mind I've got used to it. I can get used to anything, with Mulberry to help; and the fact is, I don't care much what happens, so long as he's spared to me." "Well, here's to him, and hoping he'll make another strike soon." "And rake in the lame, the halt and blind and turn the house into a hospital again ? It's what he would do. I've seen a plenty of that and more. 2f o, Washing ton, I want his strikes to be mighty moder ate ones the rest of the way down the vale." "Well, then, big strike or little strike, or no strike at all, here's hoping he'll never lack for friends and I don't reckon ho ever will while there's people around who know enough to " "Him lack for friends!" and she tilted her head up with a frank pride; "why, Washington, you can't name a man that's'' anybody that isn t lond or mm. rnteu you privately that I've had Satan's own time to keep them from appointing him to some office or other. They knew he'd no business with an office, just as well as I did, but he's the hardest man to refuse any thing to a body ever saw. Mulberry Sellers with an office! Laws goodness, you know what that would ba like. Why, they'd come from the ends of the earth to see a circus like that. I'd just as lieves be mar ried to Niagara Falls, aud done with it" After a reflective cause she added, having wandered back in the interval, to the re mark that had been her text: "Friends? Oh, indeed, no man ever had more; and such friends Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Johnson, iongstreet, Lee many's the time they've sat in that chair you're sitting in" Hawkins was out of it instantly and con templating it with a reverential surprise, and with the awed sense of having trodden shod upon holy gronnd. "Thev!" he said. "Oh, indeed, yes, many and many a time." He continued to gaze at the chair,fasci natcd, magnetized; and for once in, his lifa that continental stretchof dry prairie which stood for his Imagination was afire, and across it was marching a slanting flame frout that joined its wide horizons together and smothered tho skies with smoke. He was experiencing what one or another drowsing, geographically ignorant alien ex periences every day in the year when ha turns a dull and indifferent eye out of the car window, and it falls upon a certain station sign which reads "Stratford-on-Avon!" Mrs. Sellers went gossiping com fortably along: "Ob, they like to hear him talk, espe cially if their load is getting rather heavy on one shoulder and they want to shift it. He's all air, you know breeze, yon may say and he freshens them up; it's a trip to-the country, they say. Many a time he's made General Grant laugh and that's a tidy job, I can tell you, and as for Sheridan, his eya lights up as he listens to Mulberry Sellers the same as it he was artillery. You see, the charm about Mulberry is he is so cath olic and unprejudiced that he fits in any whsre and everywhere. It makes him pow erful good company, and as popular as scandal. You go to the White House when the President's holding a general reception some time when Mulberry's there Why, dear me, yon can't tell which of themit is that's holding that reception." 'Well, he certainly is a remarkable man, and he alwavs was. Is he religious?" "Clear to h:s marrow does more think ing and reading' on that subject than any other, except Kussia and Siberia; thrashes -J around over the whole field, too; nothing' -! bigoted about him." 'What is his religion?" , "He" She stopped, and was lost It if M. i i 1 .i 1
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers