ram HENRY A. PARSONS, Jr., Editor and Publisher. NIL, DESPERANDUM. Two Dollars per Annum. VOL. XI. RIDGWAY, ELK COUNTY, PA., "THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1881. NO. 25. A Sermon In Rhyme. If you have a friend worth loving, IiOvo him. Yes, and let him know That yon lore him, ere life's evening Tinge his brow with sunset glow. Why should good words ne'er be said Of a friond till he is dead ? If you hear a song that thrills you, Hung by any child of Bong, Praise it. Do not let the singer Wait deserved praise long, Why should one who thrills your heart, Lack the joy you may impart ? If you hoar a prayer that moves you By its lmniblo, pleading tone, Join it. Do not let the seeker Bow before his God alone. Why should not your brother share The strength of "two or three " in prayer? If a silvory laugh goeB rippling Through the sunshine on his face, Share it. 'Tis tho wise man's saying For both grief and joy a place. There's health and goodness in the mirth Iu which an honest laugh has birth. Bcatter thus your seeds of kindness, All enriching as you go Leave them. Trust the harvest Giver, He will make each seed to grow. So, until its happy end, Your life shall never lack a friend. "AIT OLD NUISANCE." Mind, I quote those three words. They aro none of mine. Only, thinking overt hive or four equally appropriate titles, I chose the one I use as being the oddest, and I always had a fancy for odd things. And now for my story. On what my aunt (by marriage) and her family founded their claims to aris tocracy I never could discover. My uncle had been a merchant, it is true, and one of considerable prominence in his day, I had been told, and so had been his father before him, and his father's father before that. That his business in his most prosperous time was intimately connected with China is impreused upon my mind (I became an inmate of his house when I was about six years of age, in consequence of the death of both my parents within a week of each other, leaving me with no means of support, and no other relative) by tha fact that every first of June saw bright new mattinus laid on our floors, to remain there nntil cold weather came a.iain, and th.it uur mantels and what nots weve decorated with many pretty, dainty little porcelain cups, thin as egg fibrils rarities in those days, but in these plenty und cheap enough. Now, according to all I have learned on the sut ji'r-, real Simon Pure aristo crats lonk down upon trade even on the grandest, sole, and never have anything to do with it further than once in a while marrying one of its sons or daughters who have come into possession of mil lions enough to offset tha honor. However, our family (I venture to in clude myself, none of my cousins being within hearing) assumed all the airs of the " blue bloods" of the old country. Eleanor, our second, wore a look of deep indignation for several days after a manly, clever, good-looking fellow, the brother of one of her old school mates, with a considerable income, but who was junior partner of a firm keep ing a retail store on Sixth avenue, pro posed for her hand. "The presumption of the man I" she excluitced, raising her arched eyebrows in astonishment, and curling her full red upper lip in scorn; "to imagine for a moment that because I honored him with my company to the opera two or three times, I would marry him I If his business had been wholesale, it would have been bad enough; but fancy a per son who sells pins and needles by the paper and lace by the yard I Never 1 I would die first." Minerva, our fourth, was equally horror-stricken at the effroEtery of a young bookkeeper whom her brother Lau rence had introduced into the family circle- a rare thing for one of her brothers to do, for, like all other men, as far as my limited experience goes, they scarcely ever thought their companions to be good enough to bj the compan ions of their sisters when he ventured to express his admiration for her. The young man soon after succeeded to a very handxorne property, and became a great swell " a perfect too-too," as I believe the fashionable way of express ing it now is a kind of being after Mi nerva's own heart; but she was never invited to ride behind his fust horses, and what; was much worse, never again asked to take the head of his table. And in like manner the graceful and enthusiastic professor of music, the stout, good-natnred proprietor of the extensive iron-works ("wholesale and retail") on the next block, the young artist, who has since risen to wealth and fame, and sundry others, all falling short of the aristocratic standard Bet up by our family ,were snubbed by my lady cousins, aided by their brothers, and not wholly unassisted by their mother. I never had had, at the time this story commences, being then in my eighteenthyear.achance to snub any one; for, lacking the personal attractions of my relatives, as well as their "high-toned" natures truth to toll, having decidedly democratio ten denciesI was kept in the background on all occasions. Let it be remarked in passing that Eleanor eventually married, when rather an old girl, a widower, in the milk business very wholesale, however the father of four children. At the same time Minerva, a few years younger, deigned to become the wife of an elderly bachelor, somet hing or other in a shoe manufactory. Cut they held their heads as high as ever, and declared they had sacrificed themselves for the family, uncle having failed for the second time through no fault of his own, dear old man a few months before the double wedding. That their "sacrifice" was for the good of the family I don't deny; but there still were left at home to be taken rare of after their departure three old maids, a young one, and two helpless young men, who, having been brought up to ao coining, aia it 10 perieotion, After the failure uncle got a situation as superintendent of one of the many departments in the large establishment of tho gentleman who sold ' pins aud needles by the paper and lace by the yard" (he was now head of the firm, and had a pretty, lady-like wife and two pretty children), and we dismissed one of onr servants and moved into a much smaller house. Hut in spite of all our efforts at econ omy our income proved vastly inade quate to our expenses, and this was the cause of so much bewailing and bemoan ing that our house seemed to be bereft of all gladness and sunshine. And one evening after Ethel, our youngest daughter, had burst into tears because aunthaddeclared itwould be impossible to have ice cream, meringues, jellies and similar dainties every day for des sert, for the two sufficient reasons that we couldn't afford them and our present cook couldn't make them, I ventured to suggest to the weeping damsel that if she found life positively unbearable without the above-named luxuries (all the Egberts, by-the-bye, were extrava gantly fond of good things to eat), she might knit and crochet some of the worsted articles she was in the habit of making so artistically for herself and sell them to " Mr. Lee, uncle's em ployer, I was about to say, when I was interrupted by a shrill shriek. " Work for a store 1" she cried. " I'd starve first." "You wretched girl 1" added my aunt. "'How dare you even think of such a tiling ? Ethel, my darling, calm your self." " It is not enough that strangers should presume upon our poverty," joined in Cleanthe, also frowning upon mo, " but one bound to us by ties of blood, though it must be confessed more alien than many a stranger would be, must advance ideas that shock and wound us. Imagine" turning to her brother Roland, who lay on the only lounge iu the room, complacently re garding himself in the mirror on the opposite wall " that impertinent Mrs. Biadshaw coming here this morning with the air of doing a kindness, too, to offer me a position in her academy I" " ureal heavens I exclaimed Kolantl, springing to his feet and the cause must be a mighty one that brings Ro land to his feet. "One of my sisters a teacher ! Great heavens I" and he went stamping about the room in the new suit of clothes aunt had just paid for by parting with her handsome pearl ring. " Whatever is done, we can do noth ing," sobbed Ethel. " Of course not," replied Roland, grandly; "the women of our family never work." 1 thought to myself, " Nor the men neither, except poor old uncle, who is fugging at a desk from morning until night." " But our income must be increased," siiid Alethea, looking up from her novi-1 and joining in the conversation for the first time. Alethea was our eldest, and still wore her hair in the fashion of her youth, a loose curl dangling over each cheek-bone, being fully persuaded that no other fashion was half so graceful or becoming. " Discharge the chambermaid," pro posed Ethel, "and let Dorothea" (I am Dorothea) " do her work. It is about all she is fit for. She never had a bit of fine feeling or style about her." "No, she never had; she always would bite her bread," sighed my aunt, "and she has seemed sadly out of place among my children. She comes of a working race, and her ideas and tastes all smack of trade trade trade." I discovered in after years that my aunt's grandmother on the maternal side made a fortune out of tobacco. " But discharging the chambermaid won't help very much," said Alethea. "It will not," agreed Roland. " What is saved thereby will no more than find me in the little extras no society man can do without." "Dear! dearl" aunt took up the burden again, "could I have forseen that your father would have come down iu this way I never would have married him. I really don't know what is to be done, unless we emigrate to some coun try place where we are unknown and where it don't matter how we live." " The country ?" screamed the chil dren in chorus. "Better death at once." I can't imagine where I got the cour age to do so after my late sharp rebuffs, but at this moment I blurted out some thing that had been in my mind for several weeks : " Why could not Ale thea and Ethel room together, and Ale thea' s room, which is the pleasantest in the house, be let to a lodger? one who would " But here I paused abruptly. Alethea had fainted in the arms of my aunt, who, glancing at me over the top of her eldest daughter's head, commanded me in her deepest tone (aunt has rather a bass voice) to "leave the room in stantly." But in a short time, during wnien things had been getting worse and worse, and we had been reduced to rice puddings for dessert on week days and apple tarts on Sundays, I was allowed to prepare an advertisement for the morning's paper, in which was offered to "an elderly gentleman, who must nave excellent references, a tine room in the house of a lady of refinement, who had never before taken a lodger, for the privilege of occupying which he would be expected to pay a liberal equivalent." I disapproved highly of the wording or this can ior Help, but my aunt and cousins insisted upon its being couched in these very terms, and so I was com pelled to yield, inwardly convinced that it would bring no reply. But it did. The very afternoon of the morning it appeared, a carriage with a trunk strapped on behind drove up to our door. An old gentleman got out, hobbled up our steps and rang our door-bell. " You must see him, Dorothea," said my aunt, leaving the parlor, followed by a train of her children. " It is your affair altogether. I will have nothing to do with it. " We none of us will have anything to do with it," chimed in my cousins. " We were not born with the souls ox lodging' house keepers ;" and away they sailed m I opened the door to the second a little louder than the first ring ot the callor. lie was a short, slightly-formed old gentleman, with big, bright black eycM, buRhy white eyebrows, and a long white mustache and beard. " You have a room to lot?" he asked. " I have," I answered, ushering him into the parlor, where he glanced keenly around, and then as keenly into my face, while he annonucod in n decisive tone: " I have come to take it. My luggage is at the door. Bo so .kind as to tell mo where to direct tho man to carry it." " But " I began, in a hesitating way, ntterly confused by tho stranger's brusque, not to say high-handed man ner. '"But me no buts,'" quoted tho old gentleman. "1 am Amos Griffin, lately from England, whore I have boon living for the past twenty years. Sineo I landed in New York, a month ago to day, I have been boarding at the St. Nicholos. But whore's your mother?" I hastened to assure him that I was empowered to negotiate with him. "Ah, indeed I Well, then, I'll go on, though it strikes me that you aro rather youug for the business. Yon ' have never taken a lodger before.' I am glad of it, for reasons which is not necessary to explain. You want a ' liberal equiva lent' for your fine room; I am prepared to give it. That leaves only one thing to be arranged. I should like my break fast at eight precisely every morning." "But we did not propose to give breakfast." " I know yon didn't; but I'll give you another liberal equivalent ' for it. You can't be very well off, or yon wouldn't take a lodger; and the more liberal equivalents you can get from him the better. Will you be kind enough to show me to my room?" " Yes, sir," I replied, meekly, com pletely succumbing to the big black eyes and strong will-power of the frail looking old man, and totally forgetting to ask for the " reference " insisted upon in the advertisement. Whereupon he stepped to the front door, and beckoned to the man outside, who, taking the trunk upon his back, followed him, as ho followed me, to the second story front room. " Ah," said our lodger, as he entered it, "this is not bad not at all bad." And it wasn t. As I have said before, it was the pleasantest room in the house, and I had arranged it as prettily as I could with the means at my com mand. Fortunately these included a number of nice engravings and vases, and a capacious bamboo chair with a crimson cushion, and foot-stool of like color. And the fragrance of the honey suckles that stole in at tho window from the balcony, and the two or three sun beams that had found their way through the half-closed blinds, and danced in triumph on the wall, and the half-dozen gavlv bound books (mine) on the mantel, nnd the ivy growing from a red pot on the bracket in one corner, all combined to make the room a pleasant place in deed. Mr. Griffin had been our lodger ex actly two vears, during which I had prepared and superintended the serving of his breakfasts, and taken entire charge of his room, " as well as though I Lad been brought up to that sort of thing," as my cousin Cleanthe remarked, and tho rest of the family, with tho ex ception of uncle, who became quite friendly with him, had only met him some dozen times at which times they assumed their most dignified dignity when he was taken sick. "It's an old complaint, which will carry me oil some time," said he to me; but I hope not this time. Anyhow, Little Honesty " (a name he had given me from the first I hopo I deserved it), " live or die, I intend to remain here. Nowhere else could I be as comfortable. You must engage an extra servant, and you and she together must nurse me. I should certainly die of a professional. By-the-bye, who is your family physi cian ?" I told him. " If I am not better send for him to morrow. I am going out now only a few steps," meeting my look of surprise. " 1 want to see my lawyer, and 1 shan t take to my bed for several days yet." That afternoon, taking care not to re peat the old gentleman's exact words, but putting his remarks in the form of request to bo allowed to remain, I stated the case to the family. " Going to be ill i exclaimed Alethea. " Dear me ! how disagreeable I" " i m sure I don i want him to Btay: he might die here," said my aunt, who had the. utmost borror of death. " He's an old nuisance, anyhow," pro claimed Ethel, " and always has been, and I blush that any relative of mine should have degraded herself so far as to become his servant-maid." Here I will mention that my cousin Roland, a montli or so before this, had married a young lady with a large for tune, and out of this fortune he gener ously proposed to make the family a liberal yearly allowance, besides which came many gifts from the married sis ters. whose husbands had crosnererl. and thereupon been obliged by their wives to snare their prosperity with us. that we might live at least, as Minerva expressed it, "with elegant economy." And so we were not entirely dependent upon our lodger for desserts and sev eral other things. But to go back. " He is not an old nuisance," said I, indignantly. " He is a kind-hearted old man, and I'm very iona oi mm. " Good gracious I" "Yes, Miss Ethel," I went on, "I am very fond of him. ' And if my aunt will allow me l am sure my uncle will i win take an the extra care resulting from his sickness upon myself, and no one else shall be annoyed in the least. After living beneath our roof for two years and contributing so boun tif all j to our comforts you needn't glare at me, Cleanthe; he has, for I am quite certain no one else would have paid us so liberally it would be the basest ingratitude, not to say cruelty. to send him among strangers now that be most needs care and kindness." "Are you auite through. Miss Rev. nolds?" asked my aunt, sarcastically, " I had no idea yon were so eloquent, never having heard you preach before. cut oi one lamg i am determined: yon shall not call in our doctor to your patient, no is a perfect aristocrat, and has no idea we keep a lodgor, and I do not wish him to know it." " There's a yonng saw-bones a few doors below," drawled my youngest gentleman cousin, who resented my waiting upon any one but himself; " hn'll do for your fine old nuisance." That very evening Mr. Griffin had a bad turn, and I sent for the " young saw-bones a few doors below" in great haste. Ho proved to be a Dr. Rice, a frank-looking, brown-haired, gray-eyed, broad-browed yonng man, with gentle voice and quick, light step. And the old gentleman, taking a great fancy to him, decided on retaining him a deci sion that relieved me greatly, bearing in mind as I did my aunt's embargo in regard to our family physician. And from that time for three months, although very seldom confined to his bed, our lodger never had a well day. At the end of the three months, how ever, ho began to mend slowly, and at tho end of two more was on his feet again. And then he told me he had made up his mind to return to England. "Iam sorry, very sorry, to part with yon," I replied. "But it is right that yon should go." "Well said, Little Honesty. And now lot's begin to pack," said he. Dr. Rico and I went with the old gentleman to tho steamer that was to carry him away, and waved a last fare well to him in the midst of a crowd also waving last farewells from the pier, as the vessel slowly moved out into the stream; and then we returned to our respective homes to read the letters he had placed in our respective hands with his final good-bye. Mine I read in the privacy of my own room at first; and when I had partly re covered from my astonishment and delight I flew downstairs, called the family together, and read it to them. It was as follows: " Dear little Honesty Had I died which I didn't, thanks unto God to yon and Dr. Rice I should have left each of my dear young friends ten thousand dollars in my will. But having lived, am going to rto a nnteh pleasanter thing I am going to give them the ten thousand at once. My lawyer will see you both to-morrow. " Amos Uriffik. "P. S. I have also left a slight bequest to Mi ss Ethel Egbert. She wil find it on the lower shelf of the closet in the room I occupied when I was her cousin Dorothea's lodger." Ethel for once forgot her . graceful. eliding step. She started hastily for the stairs, but her youngest brother was oetore her, and sue was lam to turn back again as he slid down the baluster, and landed iu our uiidst with something in his arms. It was a large framed photograph of Amos Griffin, with a card attached bear ing these words, "An excellent picture ot 'An Uld .Nuisance.'" I married Dr. Rice. Harper' Weekly. Weighing a Hog. A dog-fight sends the pulse of a vil lage up to 130, and a foot-race or a knock-down will almost restore gray hairs to their natural color; but for real excitement let a man come along iu front of the tavern about sundown driving a hog. " Hay, where yon going?" "Going to sell this hog." " Hold on a minute I What does he weigh V" "Oh! about 223." " You're off; ho wou't go over 200." Every chair is vacated on the instant. Every eye is fastened on thehogrooting iu tho gutter, and every man flatters himself that he can guess within a pound of the porker's weight. " That hog will pulldown jist exactly 195 pounds," says the blacksmith, after a long squint. " He won t go an ounce over 185," adds the cooper. "I've got a 552 mil that says that hog will kick at 210," says the hardware man. "You must be wild," growls the grocer. " I can't see over 150 pounds of meat there. Twenty men take a walk around the porker, and squint and shake their heads and look wise, and the owner finally says: "If he don't go over 220 I shall feel that I am no guesser. " Over 220? If that hog weighs 200 pounds I'll treat this crowd 1" exclaims the owner of the bus line. " I dunno 'bout that," muses the 'squire, who is on his way to the grocery after butter. " Some hogs weigh more and some less. What breed is this hog?" " Berkshire." "Well. I've seen some o' them Berk sheers that weighed like a load o' sand. and then agin I've seen 'em where they were all skin and bone. Has anybody guessed that this hog will weigh COO ?" "Ho." " Well, that's a leetle steep, but I've kinder sot my idea on zoi). By this time the crowd has increased to a hundred and tne excitement is in tense. The 'squire lays half a dollar on 250, and the owner of the hog rakes in several be ts on " between 220 and 225." The porker is driven to the hay scales, aud the silence is almost painful as the weichins takes place. " Two hundred and twenty-three 1" calls the weigher. Growls and lamentations smite the evening air, and stakeholders pass over tUe wagers to the lucky guessers, chief of whom is the owner of the hog. " Well, I'm clear beat out," says the 'squire. " I felt dead sure he would weigh over 300." " Oh, I knew you were all way off," explains the guileloss owner. " When we weighed him here at noon he tipped at exactly 223, and 1 Knew he couldn have picked up or lost over a pound I" Detroit tree fress. The jersey glove is in high favor for traveling. It can be bought in old gold, gray and tan, so that it is easy to find a pair to harmonize with any gown. They are long enough to reach the elbow and have bo buttons. FACTS ASD COMMENTS. M. Munkacsy. the Hungarian painter. liiis just declined to take less than 8160,- 000 for his new picture of " Christ be fore Pilate." It is not so long ago that this brilliant and now wealthy artist was a cabinet-maker's apprentice, and was thankful to earn small sums in his leisure hours by painting flowers upon the furniture of the peasant farmers of his native town, taking his commissions from them as he stood in the market place with his master's wares. A chance talk with two art students, who stood with him under a gateway during a heavy shower, first opened to him the way to a regular academical education. "If it were only possible," Mrs. Gar field said, " for my husband and me to go around and see all these dear people who have been so grateful in their re membrance for us here of late days, I would be so happy; and I know he would, too. I want to thank them to tell them all how kindly I feel toward them for what they have said to me. I never could understand anything about poli tics, and if I liked a person it made no difference whether they were Republi cans or Democrats; and now I have grown to think that there is not much difference between the two great parties, for one says just as kind words in our present affliction as the other. It makes me feel like forming an opinion as to what I would do were women permitted to vote as well as men. I believe I would get two tickets, fold them together so as to look like one, and drop them back in the ballot-box." Lieutenant-Governor Tabor, of Col orado, owns from four to eight millions, all acquired within four years. But his sudden wealth was preceded by eighteen years of poverty, deprivation and strug gle for himself and his wife. ihey went West from Maine during the Pike's Peak excitement, spent all their money, found no gold, and thereafter roughed in border settlements, working for small wages at first, and afterward keep ing stores in mining camps. In 1877 he bought in Denver $2,o00 worth of goods for a Lcadville storo, and fried to induce the firm to take hfif of the Little Pittsburg claim in payment, but they preferred to take his note. That mine yielded him $150,000 in three months, find eventually $1,300,000. The orig inal cost was " grub stakes for the two prospectors, the bargain boing that he should have half of whatever they dis covered on the trip. A wealthy land-ownei at GonesBe, France, has founded upon his estate a private asylum for superannuated ani mals, which, except for his protection, would perish oi neglect. Many of tne inmates of this strange establishment have attained extraordinary ages; in deed, the figures representing the num ber of their years, which their bene factor carefully records, severely tax credulity. The patriarch of the family is a mule in his seventy -third year; next come a cow thkty-six years old, a pig of twenty -seven, and a goat of eighteen summers. In the quarters assigned to fowls the visitor is introduced to a goose in its thirty-eightu vear, whose paunch touches the ground and whope feet are disfigured by countless waits. In the aviary are a sparrow in his thirty -second year, and a bullfinch re puted to be . twenty-eight years old. Young and frolicsome creatures need not apply for admittance to this asylum, for only the aged are received. A curious provision of the criminal code of Germany, for which there is no analogy in English or American legisla tion, makes deliberate homicide, where it is perpetrated at the request of the victim, a lo -ser grade of crime than murder, and places it within the dis cretion of the court to impose as low a sentence as three years imprisonment for tho offense. Under this law a mil ler's apprentice of Berlin has just been sentenced for cutting his wife's throat. He was out of work and money, and he and his wife formed the resolution to commit suicide by taking poison. His wife, However, drained the cup contain ing the mixture alone, leaving none for him, and after a while begged him to kill her at once, to put an end to the suffering that ensued, lie complied with her request by making several gashes in her throat. This state of facts was deemed sufficient to warrant a sen tence of only four years' imprisonment. The Atlanta Industrial exposition, to open October 5, promises to be a great success. The entries already number over 1,100, representing all branches of industry and production, Foreign ex hibits are being offered freely, and two steamers are under charter to sail from Liverpool for Savannah with goods for the exhibition, while other exhibits will follow either in specially chartered ves sels or by the regular channels of com merce. Some of the machinery and processes to be exhibited will be of an unusually interesting character, and ome will be entirely new development of industry. The exhibition of cotton and silk fabrics will be especially attractive. The associated railroads of the South will make a representative display of woods, sous and minerals from all sections of the Southern States, and the planters of the Mississippi valley will make a typical exhibition of sugar, cotton and tobacco. The last will j be seen in all stages of growth and manu facture, from the springing plant to the finished cigar and plug. One of the largest and most active displays will be a competitive exhibition of fifty cotton gins, by as many different manufac turers. The influence of this exposition upon the prosperity of the South, and indeed of the whole country, in the stimulus it will give to enterprise and invention, and the enlargement of ex isting fields of competition, will un doubtedly be very great. Mayor Richmond, of Pueblo, in the mining region of Colorado, tells the Philadelphia Timet that many pf the stock companies are operated without honor or decency, being merely schemes to beguile unsuspecting people in the East, He gives the following account of how the trick is usually played : " A company will be formed representing a cash capital of perhaps $100,000, for the purpose of opening now mines and of carrying on the business of mining generally. A claim is bought and opened. Suppose the mine shows up or 'sights' for $100,000, the capital stock. The company then proceeds to put the mine on the Eastern market at a capital of $1,000,000, or possibly, if the company is unusually sharp, at $5,000,000. This is done by going to a few prominent capitalists and saying, ' Here, we will let you in on the ground floor of this company if you will take some stock and help us along by your influence.' The capitalists buy the stock and lend their names, and in a short time the entire stock is taken by East ern investors, who are deceived by see ing the prominent capitalists as heavy stockholders. When the stock has all been taken the money is divided between those on the ground floor,' and opera tions go on as in all well-regulated com panies. The concern never pays a dividend in the world, and the second class of stockholders never see a cent of their money." John Chinaman has made, literally, a new departure in which we are more interested perhaps than anybody except himself. The Sydney (Australia) Her W states that in a fortnight over 2,000 Chinese arrived at that port, and that they described themselves as but the pioneers of an immense body of emi grants who were en route from Hong Kong. Both pioneers and main body were of the poorer class, "who hail scraped together the 8 for their passage and landed penniless." They received almost as cool a reception in Sydney as they would have done in San Fran cisco, and were as unwelcome to no one as to the rich Chinese merchants and traders in Sydney, who were compelled to keep them from starving until work could be found for them. These traders declared that 20,000 of their less lucky brethren would pour in on them before the year was out, and that there would be no cessation to thiH flood of panpers unless prompt and decisive measures wore taken to stop it. No books have evei given us an idea of the insufferable poverty which eye-witnesses describe as existing in the rice district of the north of China, a poverty so extreme that fathers not lacking in domestic affect iou sell their children for less than a dollar to save them from slow starvation, aud strangle the new-born babo to keep it from further knowledge of a life which has in it nothing but torture. It is no wonder, says a New York paper, that this torrent of misery eeeks every outlet of possible escape. It will escape, no matter how it is driven back. It has never been found iu history that any starving horde remained within enforced limits to die while there were fat un filled spaces of the earth's surface lying vacant. Odd Way of ."Waking n Living. For that matter, though, there seems to be money in all sorts of things in New York. There, for instance is the second-hand furniture trade, which bus grown to enormous proportions, and is now one of tho leading lines of business iu tha city. It is hardly worth while to mention tho fashionable 6icond-hand clothing trado which every one knows everything about that is worth knowing. Aside from these there are dozens of different kinds of Reeond-hand business going on all the time, and generally at a large profit to the dealer.. Wo have one class of meu dealing in old lead, another in old iron, another in old brass, another in old building material c.l ail sorts, an other in broken glass, aud so on through a long list of things that seem to have served their only purpoto and to be no longer of any use to any one. (iather- ing old rags and old papers is, of course, a largo business in itself, and a profitable one, too. Tho latest industry is that of collecting the small tin cans that are thrown out after their contents of preserved fruit, meat or vegetables, as the case may be, are used. The tin is of scarcely any value, but it pays to melt down the cans lor their solder, and this is now done as regularly as sending rags to a paper mill. Gathering up cigar stumps around the hotels is an old business. I he chewed and nicotine soaked enos are dried, broken up and utilized either for fillers in making new cigars, or worked in with the cheaper kinds of smoking tobacco. There are thousands of men in New York who make a living by merely gathering np the refuse of trade and of the house hold, and putting it in shape to be utilized over again, and some of them not only making a living, but getting ahead in the world, too. New York Letter. The Line of Beauty. Professor Mailer, in a course of lec tures in Berlin, offered a simple and mechanical explanation of the univer sal admiration bestowed on circles. The eye is moved in its socket by six muscles, of which four are respectively employed to raise, depress, turn to the right and to the left. The other two have an action contrary to each other, and roll the eye on its axis, or from the ontside downward, and inside upward. When, therefore, an object is presented for inspection, the first act is that of circumvision, or going round the boun sary lines, so as to bring consecutively every individual portion of the circum ference upon the most delicate and sen sitive portions of the retina. Now, if figures bounded by straight lines be presented for inspection, it is obvious that but two of these muscles can be called into action; and it is equally evi dent that in curves of a circle or ellipse all must alternately be brought into ac tion. The effect then is that if two only be employed, as in rectil linear fig' ures, those two have an undue share of labor; and by repeating the experiment frequently, as we do in childhood, the notion of tedium is instilled, a dis taste for straight lines is gradually formed, and we are led to prefer those curves which supply a more general and equable share of work to the muscles, Life's Harvest. Was it not said by some great sag That life if an unwritten page? We writo our fate; and when old age Or death comes on, We drop the pea For good or ill, from day to day, Each deed we do, each word we say, Makes its Impress upon the clay Which molds the minds Of other men. And all our acts and words are seeds Sown o'er the past, whence future deeds Spring up, to form or wheat or weeds; And as we're sown So reap we then. HUMOR OF TnE DAY. "All things come to him who waits," but a quarter judiciously bestowed on a waiter will hurry the things np a littlo. Picayune. The Policeman is the name of a new London newspapor. We will wager a ten-dollar bill (counterfeit of course) that it never appears when the people want it. Witliamsport Breakfast Table. A circus proprietor in Canada has ap plied for the admission of his elephants to this country free of duty, on the ground, we presume, that their trunks contain no valuables. Norristown, Her ald. "Mabel, why yon dear little girl," ex claimed her grandpa, seeing his little granddaughter with her head tied np, "have you got the headache?" "No," she answered sweetly, "I'se dot a spit turl." A circus acrobat who can tie himself in a knot and hide away in a corner of his vest pocket receives only $30 per week salary. This should discourage a large class of politicians, but probably won't. "Why is it your loaves are so much smaller than they used to be?" asked a Galveston man of his baker. "I don't know, unless it is because I use less dough than formerly," responded the baker. If a great many yonng men's clothes didn't fit them till they pay the tailor, wo would see lots of noble young bloods going around like a loaded clothes line Hupping in tho idle breeze of a sum mer day. After a Michigan farmer had com mitted Mticnlo because there was no show for his corn, a soaking shower started every kernel into life and guar anteed a big crop. Some folks are always a day too late. Probably the meanest man on record keeps a boarding house in San Domingo. Last winter an ear hqnake turned the edifice clear upside down, and the very next morning ho began charging the garret lodgers first floor prices. "At Bordeaux," Faid one, "if yon let a match fall to the ground the next year there will grow a forest." "At Mar seilles," cried the other, triumphantly, "you let a suspender button fall, and in eight days you will have a pair of pon taloons ready made." Thoy woro a sunflower at the side. Their bangs were in a nutter, And as I looked on them I cried, "Those maidens are too utter." And that was no. Tor that samo night These fair young Yastiar scholars Caught victims twain each hill was quite Forwike and cream, t i. Wittiamxport lirwkfnst Table. Garments of Spiders' Webs. "Have you seen the dress of spun glass aid to have been made in Pitts burg Y" was asked a Broadway dealer in curios. "No, I have not. I have tried to get one for my display, Vint failed. Some years ago I learned of a dress that was made in Brazil out of spiders' web, and I would have tried for that, but its probable rise and its delicacy made the task a foolish one to undertake. I had kept informed upon the use of the spi der's web, and had heard that .all of the attempts to employ it in the manufac ture had failed. The Spaniards tried to make gloves, stockings and handker chiefs of thread spun by the spider, bnt although? fabulous sums were offered the articles proved so troublesome to manufacture that they could not be made at a profit. A traveler told me that it required 700,000 spiders to make a piece of silk. I have heard that in some parts of South America garments made of spiders' web are worn. It may be true, because the spiders are large there, but I doubt the story." " What id the greatest curiosity yon ever saw ?" " That is a very broad question." " Well, the most curious article of a lady's toilet." " It was a fan. It was in a collection of fans now famous. This particular fan was of fine yellow lace, and had richly carved wooden sticks, each stiok inlaid with a crescent of clear shell-like substance. It was made by a lady of Normandy. The lace was made well, what do yon think it was made of ?" "Spiders web? ' "No," said the collector, laughing. " It was woven from her own golden hair, and the tiny crescents, so highly polished, were the tips of her finger nails." Aeto York Hun. A New Specific. Bromide of sodium is Dr. Beard's specific for sea-sickness, and the flatter ing encomiums he bestows upon it will make the drug singnlarly attractive to others than those about to engage in a wrestle with Father Neptune. When he declares that if thirty to sixty grains are taken three times a day for three days they produce an unconquerable drowsiness and imperviousness to out side influences, he furnishes a prescrip tion of which many a harassed and anxions debtor will promptly avail himself. When he has a note coming due which he cannot pay, or expects a dun, he will promptly dose himself with bromide of sodium and drowcily submit to the inevitable. Detroit Fret Preu. . Secretary Eirkwood has appointed Frank La Fesche, a brother of Bright Eyes, the Ponca maiden, to a clerkship in the Indian bureau.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers