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.