HENRY A. PARSONS, Jr., Editor, and Publisher.
NIL, DESPERANDUM.
Two Dollars per Annum.
VOLrXI.
RIDGWAY, ELK COUNTY, PA., THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 1881.
NO. 2;
The Morning World.
Ile coruei doivn from youth's fnoiintain,top; .
'Tlfffuj'fl him Manhood's glittering plain
Lio$" :i tretehosU--T!ev hamlets, towers - and
Huge cities, diniitnd silent downs,
Wirlo unreaped field of shining grain. ' '
ll sonnis a landscape fair as near;
flo easy to be crossed and wonl " -No
mist the distant ocean hides,
And overhead majestio'rides
The wondrous, never-setting sun.
Gaze on, gaze on, thou eager boy,
' For earth is lovely, life is grand;
Yet from the boundary of the plain
Thy faded eyes may turn again
Wistfully to the morning-land.
How lovely then oe'r wastes of toil
That long-left mountain-height appears!
How soft the lights and shadows glide; .
How the rough places, glorified,
Transcend whole leagues of lovel years.
And Btanding by the Bea of Death,
With anchor weighed and Bails unfurled,
Blessed the man before whoBe eyes
The'Tery hills of Paradise
Glow, colored lilie his morning world.
MRS. MANCHESTER'S HOUSE.
For how long a time Mrs. Manches
ter had been my friend ! I was younger
than she, and altogether different, for
Blie was one of those born to rule the
race, and I was utterly devoid of any
courage of self assertion. Perhaps our
very difference explained our friend
ship. It often seemed to me that only
the great women of history were quite
her equals, and I often thought of the
part she could have played had circum
stances thrown her into any ' heroic
situation, instead ot ruaiuug ner merely
a rich woman of good family. As for
me, I was always an applauding audi
ence, an admiring worshiper, delighted
, with her beauty, her grace, her ease, de
lighted that anything so good should bo
a woman ; I watched her, I listened to
her, I loved her.
My own delicate health would have
hindered my making acquaintances, or
entering into gayeties, if nothing else
had ' d,one so ; and when we came,
Harold and I, to live' in'-' the splendid
city where, she mado her- winter home,
her house was the only place where 1,
et I: -list, had any view of the great
world. Harold, of coursej had many
more opportunities, for he was a strong
and brilliant man, full of wit and charm
' anil, dating, only, as such men often
are,' unfortunate in everything he
touched relating. to money.- . We wore
absolutely alone in the world, and we
sustained ' toward each other a very
touder relation, for. I had been- given a
bibv into his mother's arms when, my
,.own mother died, and we had been
brother and sister, in all but blood,
since tliat hour. Harold represented
the. whole of mankind to me, who had
never .had a lover ; and I used to think
he cared for me all the more because
his untoward fate kept him apart from
the girl he had loved so long so long,
DUO IJKU HUtiU UUL bWHULJ'LWU HUUI'
mers now, and she had promised her
self to him six years ago. She had
promised ; but her father who knew
the advantages of money, its comforts
and blessings, pnd had no idea .of sac
rificing the thing he loved best in the
world to want and care he had en
forced another promise, this promise
from Harold, and to the effect that he
would not' claim her hand till he could
'give her as fine a home as that from
which he took her.
And so we lived on, he always hoping
to seize fortune tor Amy McNeil s sake.
fortune always eluding his grasp, and I
waiting and watching, hoping and pray
ing, for his sake, to have the little sun
beam come and brighten my life by
brightening Harold's lovelier than the
.first wild rose, fresh as the violet, happy
as a bird upon the bough, the sweetest
little morsel of beautiful flesh and
"blood, I thought then, that ever trod
-the c-arih, and loving me. almost before
she knew Harold, with one of the pas
sions which young girls sometimes feel
for stout-hearted old maids, and loved
by me first on her own account, and
afterward on Harold s. Every year we
hoped for tho good luck to crown
Harold's enterprises that should entitle
him to bring her home, that should
give him a home to bring her to, and
eveiy year the luck fell short.
Xow they had discovered oil on his
waste land in Pennsylvania there were
millions in it; the oil took fire, and
burned the rpgion out. Now he bent
eveiy energy toward procuring the run
ning of a railway through his Michigan
wood lots, whose cutting would furnish
a life-long income; the railway ran miles
to tho south of it. Now he plunged into
stocks, relying on sources of informa
tion that affected the market; his broker
made a fortune, and not only stripped
him of oveV-y penny, but left him in
debt to a point that, with his finely-
nightmare. At last he had settled down
to the practice of his profession,- with
its slow returns, economizing in every
way, in order that he might pay each
quarter some installment on the in
debtedness which galled him so, and
which now seemed to make such an im-
Eassable barrier between him and his
appiness, unless the great windfall of
success that never came should come at
last. Once in a while t he went and
visited the McNeils for a day and night;
once in a while he sent me; he limited
himself to a weekly letter, both because
Amy v.as not a letter-writer, and be
cause he thought it the wiser way; and
ti late Amy had been a little reproach
ful that he should think more of honor
than of love, and should be spending on
his indebtedness what might be amassed
into a home, spurred on, I saw on the
occasion of my last visit, by her
father's.talk about the Quixotic folly of
"Harold's refusing to take the poor
debtor's oath, and bo get rid of his
wires and begin life anew. And Harold
Bat evening after evening at his desk,
not writing leaders or reviews, I knew,
but poring overt he little ivory minia
" - f - . T- V 1-V.i
turethat thing of beauty which was
all there was to represent to him wife,
home and future. It used to make my
heart ache for him, and sometimes I
felt as if, were he only relieved of the
burden of taking care of me, with my
At-J V.'.Ml- J - 113 . i l"
wu niiu iuvuuu wants, ne
would do better; and once I hinted as
much. But he wheeled about angrily,
as I ought to have known he would.
- ' Pauline 1" ho cried, " do you dare
to say such, a thing to. me?"- Do you
think life would be worth a farthing to
me," ho went on, more softly, "or to
Amy either, without my sister Polly in
the house?" ' "
" Ton would not miss" me, Harold
dear, so much, after you had that little
sunbeam in the house," I faltered.
" She is a sunbeam," he said. " God
bless her I But you are the light in the
window, the fire on the hearth, Polly.
Don't let me hear any more such stuff.
I've trouble enough now, God knows,
without feeling that you are turning
over such thoughts as that."
Time fled, and Harold still plodded
on. Sometimes, when I ' was well
enough and I had been gaining lately
he dictated an article to me; sometimes
I went to the libraries and gathered him
data for his work, that brought him
much praise and little pay. "We lived
in our three rooms; we studied Spanish
together for the sake of some Spanish
records of use to him; we found a cer
tain quiet and healthy pleasure in every
day. My only dissipation in these
times were my evenings with Mrs.
Manchester, seldom going on those of
her grand receptions, but on the off
nights, when some cluster of distin
guished people dropped in, or when she
had music of a rare sort; and if there
were only herself and myself, then en
joying the time all the more, for the
hours that I spent with her alone gave
me glimpses into her nature that were
like traveling in unknown regions. She
knew my circumstances, but, of coarse,
she could offer us no such indignity as
to urge upon us any other assistance
than her friendship, although she did
more than once beg us to give up our
little rooms and come and share her
lonely splendor. But that would have
been Harold's surrender of independ
ence, and was out of the question.
" Well," she said at one time, " it is
absurd. It deprives you of comforts
and enjoyments, and gives you no pleas
ure but the gratification of your pride.
Still, I like your pride; it is healthy.
Au reste, I bIirII be of use to you when
you little dream it." And she sat think
ing moodily for awhile, and waving to
and fro her feathered fan like the dark
wing of some dream. Often, then, when
oho nent me h6me in her sumptuous
carnage, I half wished that Harold were
not so healthy in this matter of pride,
for house and equipage were all exactly
to my taste, that loved surroundings of
state and beauty.
I was going down to the McNeils to
spend a day, when I bade Mrs. Man
chester good-bye one morning.
" Take me with you," she said, impul
sively. "I should like to see little
Hop-o'-my-Thumb again," which was one
of the names she had given Amy, varied
of late, v,ith Her High Fligh tineas and
Miss Hoity Toity. When wo came back
that night Mrs. Manchester brought
Amy with her for a visit.. And such a
visit as it was I Mrs. Manchester seeined
resolved that the child should have all
the gayety she could lake, and there
was no doubt that the little beauty could
take a good deal.
It was all new to her, just from he
country town. At first it dazzled and
then it delighted her. She had the
world at her feet, for she was fresh as a
dewy wild flower where one tires of
wilted exotics. At first, too, she would
have none of it without Harold and my
self; but at last one person or another,
it seemed to make little odds. Perhaps
this was somewhat duo to Harold's open
ly expressed objection to her waltzing
repeatedly in one evening with young
Peixotto, who seemed to clasp her more
closely as they whirled by Harold,
standing near, and to glance with a sort
of insolent triumph at the lover with
his love in another's arms; and to her
morning rides with Mr. De Maury
through the woods beyond the city; and
to her appointment to meet Captain
Merriam in the gallery, and all the rest
of it. Then Amy would accuso him of
trying to prevent her pleasures, and
would pout a little, and perhaps cry a
little, and then laugh a little, and end
by dancing away to get ready for an af
ternoon stroll and a call at Mrs. Gen
eral Vance's with somebody else.
" Great heavens !" Harold said to me,
on coming home one night for I did
not go to the routs after a little "how
this business rubs the bloom off a girl I
What did Mrs. Manchester mean by ask
ing Amy into this inferno ?"
But 1 knew full soon what she meant.
She meant that Harold should see how
little it takes to strip the down from the
wings of a butterfly. "But," I said to
myself, " it is useless, for there are none
so blind as those that won't see."
One night Harold had it out with Amy,
after a fashion. We had gone up to dine
with Mrs. Manchester and a small com
pany, and I fancied that Harold hoped
for a quiet lour or two with Amy after
ward. How lovely she was I Judge
McNeil had given the pretty spendthrift
a check-book, and bade her use what
she wanted; and his money was never
spent to better advantage, inappropri
ately splendid as some of her at tire was.
That night in her close-fitting, long
trained robe of purple velvet, with one
yellow rose in the knots of creamy lace
at her open throat, with her yellow hair,
her apple-blossom face, she was so beau
tiful that one looked again to make sure.
But it was no quiet hour or two that she
wanted that night.
" Why, what nonsense, Harold 1" she
laughed, at something he whispered as
they stepped into the conservatory to
gether. "As if we shouldn't have all our
lives together, for you to be grudging
me this first and last outing 1"
" Of course I do. This is the world"
'But, Amy, it is no world for you.
I can never give you anything like this.
Our life must be very different from
this festal life."
"Then I don't want it," she cried, pas
sionately. "Amy!"
"I mean Oh, Harold, I shouldn't
think you needed to interfere with thjs
one little bit' of pleasure. And I'm
going to Mrs. Colonel Torrance's in an
hour, and my eyes will be red. I never
saw anything so hateful and selfish as
men are. There I kiss me and let me
uo." And that was the end of it, she
thought. But not so.
" I will kiss von. Amv. and I will
let you go," said Harold, gravely; " but
I am g .ing to tell you that I think a
longer term of this pleasant life will put
an everlasting barrier between you and
me. If you do not want that you will
bid Mrs. Manchester good-bye, and go
home to-morrow. It is not only ruining
you, but me. I cannot endure to see
you again in Peixotto's arms; I cannot
endure to know "
" You cannot endure, and you cannot
endure I" cried Amy, in a sudden tem-
Eer; and she flung herself away from
im and he saw her no more.
But the next morning she went home
to her father, having left Harold a pen
itent little note in which she said noth
ing about me, however, except to re
mark that if it were not for good-for-nothing
prudes there never would have
been any 'trouble between them, not
having quite gotten over a word
or two I had ventured to say to my
little sunbeam in all gentleness and
desire for hers and for Harold's happi
ness. And Harold went down to spend
the night at the judge's, and it was all
serene again.
One evening Mrs. Manchester handed
me a linen envelope. " I want you to
take care of this for me," she said. " It
will be worth your while. It is a mem
orandum of something I wish to do for
you. Only the half of what I wish to
do, thougn remember that. When
you have opened this envelope, which
you will not do while I live, you are to
make personal use of that to which it
relates, and exactly as I do, and only on
that promise is it yours. And when you
have done that you will find in it the
means to obey my wish. I shall leave
you nothing in my will, for those grasp
ing Manchesters would be sure to bieak
it if 1 did."
" Why do you talk so ?" I exclaimed.
"As if there were any chance of my sur
viving you !"
"But supposing there were a chance,"
she continued. " You have been more
to me, with your guileless admiration
and faith, than you ever dreamed. I
love you, Pauline, and because I love
you I wish yon to have your share of
all that I have enjoyed."
"I hope oh, I hope," I cried, "that
I shall die first 1"
" ' I shall die first, whispered Hope
to the Rose,' " she sang. "And it looks
as if you would, doesn't it ?" Bhe said,
drawing up her stately figure to its full
height, as she waved her fan of black
feathers, and surveying the full superb
outlines and the dark, rich beauty of the
face in the mirror, and then turning
with Ler sweetest, rarest smile to me.
"Well, well, Pauline," she said, "I
have had all that this life can give me,
and 1 am ready to try the next. And
who knows what a day may bring forth
or a night either, for the matter of
that!"
Who knew, indeed i One week from
that time I looked on Mrs. Manchester in
her coflin. She had died of an inscru
table heart disease, of which only she
and her physician knew.
What an ineffable loneliness beset me
then 1 I had Harold at his desk, to be
sure; but Harold's thoughts, T saw,
were miles away from mo; and Mrs.
Manchester she knew me through and
through. It had been enough lor mo
to breathe, and she had answered my
thoughts; a thousand things I could say
to her that I should never dream of say
ing to Harold for I was willing, possi
bly, that she should know me as I was,
but wanted Harold to know me better
than I was. Oh, I did miss her inex
pressibly. "Have you opened the enve'ope that
Mrs. Manchester left in your charge V"
asked Harold, glancing one night from
the ring of light cast by the lamp to
where I eat in the shadow of the open
window, looking out at the niaht.
"I will get it now," I said. "If J
had not quite forgotten it, I have ha'I
dreaded it." .
I went and brought it down, and
opened it, and took out a legal-looking
paper and handed it to Harold. It was
the deed of the land and the house
where Mrs. Manchester had lived, and
of all that it contained, moreover the
house that she had rebuilt and fur
nished herself, and in which we had so
long known her. The whole thing was
properly executed and recorded long
before, a3 we subsequently found.
"Oh, Harold," I gasped, "see how
she blesses us from the grave I She gave
mo so much pleasuro, and now she gives
me this. See ! It is the home to which
you can bring Amy."
"The home!" exclaimed Harold.
" What have we to entitle us to such a
home as that?"
'WThy, that is the condition she
made, to make personal use of it ex
actly as she did herself. Don't you re
member ?"
" Yes. You have to live in it, I sup
pose, if you would keep your bond. It
was the condition."
" The condition on which it is ours"
" Ours ?" he said, in a bitter tone.
"Why, Harold! Harold! you don't
mean, when yours has been miuo so
long, that, you wouldn't take And
Amy need never know "
" Oh, Polly I Polly !" And there Har
old's head fell forward on his arms, and,
to my amazement, he had burst into
tears.
He was tired, and nervous, and worn
out, I said.
I could not tell what ailed me, but I
could no more go to him then, and take
his head on my shoulder and soothe
him, as once I could have done, than I
could fly.
"Harold, dear," I said, presently,
" we can as well live there as here.
What feeds us here will feed us there."
" What I can earn, Polly," he said,
after some further words of mine,
" would not keep that house in repair
would not pay the servants to keep it in
order. But you are so resolved, that
we can go up and see. We can, at any
rate, camp out in two or three of the
great rooms with our one servant; and
if we can't keep it, we can surrender it."
- - And so, after some slight difficulties
with the Manchester heirs, as Mrs.
Manchester had apprehended, we did
move lip; and for a week or so I en
joyed the oooupancy of the great rooms;
and enjoyed wandering through them
with the sense of possession strong upon
me. : At least 1 should have enjoyed it
immensely, it was so entirely to my
mind, the rest, . the luxury, the loveli
ness, the space of it all ; but every day
I grew more and more lonely, the rooms
were so vast if they were so beautiful,
and Harold sat now by himself so much.
I seemed to hear Mrs. Manchester's
step on the stairs, the sweep of her
train on the carpets ; for all the rich
furnishing of satin draperies and Ax
minsters and paintings and cloisonnes
and carvings had staid with the house.
I turned twenty times a day, expecting
to see that majestic figure, with its dark
sweeping silken robes about it, with the
diamond arrow in the hair, move up the
room, waving the old fan of black
feathers.
We had been in the house a month,
when I ventured once more to open the
subject to Harold, and say to him that
here was a home as good as nay, far
better than her own home for Amy.
" It is entirely beyond reason," said
he. " To live in this house requires
dress, equipage and style that are utterly
out of my power."
" And do you mean that even you and
I, Harold, ought not to stay here ?"
" Yes, to tell the plain truth. If we
could sell the house, that would be
another thing; but as-we can't, I think
it will be cheaper lor us in the end to
surrender it to the heirs. It is a white
elephant."
" That would be violating Mrs. Man
chester's wish just as much as if we sold
or rented it," I urged. " 1 wonder I
do wonder what she meant when she
bade me remember that this was only
the half of what Bhe meant to do for me.
Well, Harold dear, we will do exactly
as you think best, of course. But it is
too bad, too bad so beautiful, o charm
ing a home, and so filled with Mrs. Man
chester's presence as it is ! And how
perfectly Amy would fit it all 1"
" With her love of pleasure, it would
be Amy's ruin," said Harold, hoarsely.
A few nights after that I was sitting
alone in the gray drawing-room, a vast
and lofty room hung with gray satin,
Here and there a marble gleamed from
a dim recess; here and there the ray of
a street lamp flashed up and played a
second on fresco or portrait, or glinted
in the mirrors between the long open
windows, through which occasionally
there drew a breath of welcome air, for
it was an intensely hot summer night;
too hot, it seemed to me, as I sat not far
from the windows, for the stars to shine.
As I opened my fan I thought if I was
so warm in these spacious rooms, what
were people enduring down in hovels
and shanties, and I thought with a pang
of regret of the necessity of rurrender-
ing it, and l studied again and again
tho meaning of Mrs. Manchester's words,
" only the half of what 1 wisu to do
remember that." I could not help a sen
Ration of meanness, a feeling that I was
sordid, although I knew it was without
thought or hope of anything of the sort
that I had loved Mrs. Manchester; but
I repeated and repeated the woids,
wishing bitterly that if the gift of the
house was but the half of wh.it she
meant to do, she had had time to fulfill
her intentions, not for my sake, but for
Harold'e. And then my mind dwelt on
the rest of the sentence, " and when
vou have done that, vou will find in it
the means to obev mv wish." What had
that implied ? Harold had hunted the
house over, but we had found nothing
to give us a clew to ner meaning.
Perhaps I closed my eyes a moment ;
perhaps there were tears in them I
don't know. All I do know is that the
next moment they wero wide open, for
I could have affirmed that I heard the
trail of a garment over the carpet.
started and half turned, and my eyes
were caught by something like the
sparkle of a diamond in the long mirror,
and there, as distinctly as ever L saw
her in my life, was Mrs. Manchester,
sweeping down the suite of parlors in
her dark robes, and waving her fan of
black feathers, and as she glanced over
her shoulder at me tnere was the dia
mond arrow in her hair. I was spell-
bound. I dared not move ; I hardly
breathed. . It was all in a half-dozen
heart-beats, but she had moved slowly
up the parlors, turned to the mantel
shelf that carried its splendid old
colonial wood-carvings to the ceiling,
and rested before the armoire of Floreu-
tine mosaic in one of the niches at its
side. Then she had taken the diamond
airow from her hair, inserted it in some
invisible crack of the work , displaced
with it a leaf and blossom t f the mar
bles, taken from the interstice a bundle
of papers, run her thumb over the edge.
put them back, and replaced the stone
spray of leaf and blossom, put the arrow
iu her. hair again, and with her eyes on
me, coolly waving her fan of black
feathers,, had moved down the room
again and suddenly there was empty
air in the mirror where she was.
I don't know what time had passed
when Harold came into the room with
an open letter in his hand, in all the
heat I was icy cold.
"You have been dreaming," said he,
when I had stammered out my story,
"or you saw the darkness and the street
lamps in the glass."
" Maybe so," I murmured. Only
light the gas and let me see."
I gathered my strength, and ran, as
he obeyed me, and with my own plain
hair-pins dislodged the mosaic spray in
the front of the armoire, and took from
the interstice a bundle of papers.
"This is. it, Harold," I almost
screamed. " She has come back from
heaven itself to tell me what she had no
time to tell me here. This is what she
meant by her words about finding the
means to obey her wish." I ran my
thumb too over the edges of the parcel
as she had done. A little cloud of dust
flew out, but not enongh to hinder my
seeing treasury notes and gold certifi.
cates to an amount that put want for
ever behind us. Bound the parcel was
a little stran. and on the strap was writ
ten Harold's name. " Oh, look, Har
old!" I cried; "it is yours. She gives
it to you. Now tnere is no trouble
here is . your fortune; you are richer
than we ever wisnea. Ana we need not
go away, and Amy can come now to. a
home far surpassing her father's." .
"Amy will never come into this
ho'iie, Pauline," ho said, toeing the
new-found wealth on the table; aud he
gave me the letter in his hand.
Truly, she never would. ne nad
been married to young Peixotto the day
before.
" Hnsh 1" he said: " don't pity me. I
should have married her all the same,
but from the time of her visit here it
has hung over me like a cloud, for all
my love of her burned out in the fire of
the pain she gave me here."
" Harold I "
"That is so. Great heaven 1 it is the
lifting of a load from my heart. Can
you imagine what it is to marry one way
and love another V For, Polly, Polly,
do you suppose I am a bat and mole
thus to live with your goodness, your
angelic goodness, and not to see it ? Do
you suppose that after my eyes were
open I could do anything but love you,
Folly? And he stretched out his arms
to me, and held me in them as if he
never meant to let me go again. And L
So we live in Mrs. Manchester s house.
I think she hid the money with some
idea of the want of it and the trouble
for it bringing us together. But she
ha3 never walked up the gray parlor
waving her fan of black feathers again,
and Harold says she never did, but that
excited and unconscious cerebration
worked on some dimly remembered
hint, with gas-lights and wind and star
beams to make a ghost for me.
"And a fortune for vou," JL say.
"The best of all fortunes," he
answers, " would have been mine with
out it. For that letter set me free to
seek it to marry you, Pauline. Har
per's Bazar.
WISE WORDS.
Cheerfulness is an excellent wearing
quality. It has been called the bright
weather of the heart.
Impoliteness is derived from two
sources indifference to the divine and
contempt tor the human.
Faith has a vision of its own, but no
light in which it can distinguish objects
except the light of prayer.
Each man sees over his own experi
ence a certain stain of error, whilst that
of other men looks fair and ideal.
They that will not be counseled can
not be helped. If you do not hear
reason, she will rap your knuckles.
Thev say fortune is a woman, and
capricious. J3ut sometimes sue is a good
woman, and gives to those who merit,
Count up man's calamities and who
would seem happy ? But in truth ca
lamity leaves fully half of your life un
touched. "To acquire a few tongues," says a
French writer, "is the task of a few
years; but to be eloquent in one is the
labor of a life.
The dishoneRt man gives no more
lirrht in the world than a tallow candle,
and when he dies he leaves as bad an
odor behind him.
Considering the unforseen events of
this world, we should be taught that no
human condition should inspire men
with absolute despair.
Be willing to do good in your own
wav. We need none of ns be disturbed
if we cannot wield another's weapons
But our own must not rust.
- Cod-Fishing.
We have been out on the briny deep
after fish, and the Hmckeve distinguished
itself as usually. The Jester caught the
first fish. And it was the only fish of
that kind taken all day.
Wo went out after codfish. It is
pleasant fish to catch. Catching cod iu
like drawing water with a rope and
bucket. It is a very camey fish; after
it is cuTed for the Western market,
Limburger cheese isn't much gamier
It keeps up & perennial smell that grows
stronger and more decided as the years
creep by, Ltorena. When the spring
time comes, gentle Annie, the old cod
fish that hangs on a nail away back in
the darkest corner of the cellar discount
the noisy onions piled up on the middle
of the floor, and then it doesn't half try.
The drver it gets the louder it grows,
You must be blind if you couldn't hear
the navor oi a iwo-year-oiu couusu.
But when he is new he i3 quiet, and
vou miss the old familiar bouquet,
When you go for codfish you must first
get your herring, for bait. ve ap
proached a lone fisherman for this pur
pose, and besought him that he would
lend us a lew herring. But He wasn'
doing a discount business then, andsaid
he had only a lew on, sucn a very.
verv few.
"Well, couldn't you let us have
three or four ?"
But he shook his head sadly, as one
who should say he only had four or five,
Then we shouted and cried aloud and
said unto the lone fisherman:
" Lo. here is twenty-five cents, but
what is .that to you? ' Will you see us
die for three small herring ?'
And the lone fisherman dropped his
line and made a reach for that quarter
even as a drowning man reaches for
a crowbar, and spoke with great
alaority:
" Oh, yes, I have just about a quar
ter's worth." And he gave us a peck,
The sinker on the cod-line is a piece
of lead about the size and shape of
corn-cob, and it weighs as much as an
old-fashioned family Bible. You fish
very close to the bottom five feet or so
from it; and the only labor involved is
hauling up that deep sea-sounding ap
paratus at the end of your line. When
vou catch a codfish, it doesn't add
the weight at all. Oh, no; the cod
helps you to pull the sinker up to the
surface, and that makes, your load
lighter. That's the way you know when
you have a fish on. That's just how
gamey the cod is. Burdette.
A Detroit young man denounces the
poke bonnets ' ' because they chafe his
ears." Here, now, is a question for
scientists. Can they explain how it is
that a bonnet worn by one person can
chafe the ears of another person not
wearing it? Eh? How's that? Oh
well, well, now, that may be it. How
stupid not to see it before. Detroit
Fret Fres$. . -
FACTS AND COMMENTS.
The TJnUed States dollar of 1804 sells
for $80(1. K the government official
had known how highly these coins were
to be valued they might have made a
grand speculation by turning out a few
millions of them. As it was they
thought eight would " meet the busi
ness wants of the country," and eight
they made.
A correspondent of a London paper
warns people against throwing broken
bottles among sun dried grass or heat
at this time of the year, as the bottoms
of such bottles frequently act as burn
ing glasses. The Australi ns know that
extensive and ' damaging brush fires
have taken place in Australia in conse
quence of broken bottles having been
carelessly thrown down among the dried
scrub.
From the year 1875 to the present
date 176 murders have been committed
in Chicago. Of these, as is the case
generally, nearly one-half were com
mitted in the hot months June,
July, August and September, chiefly in
July and August. Only two of the 176
murderers were hung for the crime.
But in that year, 1878, one of the hot
test summers known, the number of
murders decreased, from thirteen in
the summer of 1877, to six; increased
next year to nineteen, and this year
bids fair to exceed it. .
The Main Exhibition building at
Philadelphia, which cost $1,600,000 to
erect, was recently sold at auction for
$97,000. Its sale calls to mind the long
and disastrous effort to maintain a per
manent exbibition within its walls with
some of the shells and vestiges of the
great Centennial fair. The scheme
was doomed to failure from the begin
ning, but it was heroically supported
for four years by a company of Phila
delphia gentlemen who have paid dearly
for their enthusiasm. JNowheie has a
large permanent industrial and art ex
hibition been successful save at Syden
ham, near .London, and that has in its
favor the attractiveness of the Crystal
palace and its park as a point for ex
cursions, and the immense population
of the British metropolis close at hand.
A handbook giving a general account
of the Jews, iust issued by Dr. It,
Andree, estimates their total number
throughout the world at about 6,100,000.
Only 180,000 of the race are to be found
in Asia, 400,000 in Africa, 300,000 in
America, and 20,000 in Australia. The
great maionty of the race, more than
5,000,000, live in Europe. Boumania
contains a far larger number of Jews in
proportion to its population than any
other European country, namely, 7.44
per cent. ; while Norway contains only
34 individuals of the race. The local
distribution of the Jewish population in
different countries is traced out with
great pains by Dr. Andree. Thus, in
some of the government districts of
Russian Poland the Jewish inhabitants
constitute from 13 to 18 per cent, of tho
population. Although for the whole of
Germany the Jewish element is only
12 1-2 per cent, of the population, in
the city cf Berlin it has increased to
nearly 5 per cent.
There is nothing small about
nawab of Gondal in India. He
the
has
chosen seven youthful and lovely brides
from among the daughters of the lion
dal aristocracy, and has made arrange
ment to lead them to the altar, one
after another, upon seven successive
days. It will be the pleasing duty of
each bride, progressively andinregula:
rotation, to attend the weddings cele
hrated subsequent to her own, so that
tho first lady of the series will enjoy
the unusual privilege of witnessing
seven nuptial ceremonies, in all of
which she will be more or less directly
interested, within the limits of a single
week. The seven-fold bridegroom
however, has bestowed upon all his
brides wedding dresses and ornaments
of identical material, design and value,
The rooms they are destined to occupy
in his palace are all furnished exactly
alike; and the accident of seniority, as
regards the mere date of their respect
ive marriage ceremonies, is not to carry
with it any precedence at court,
The time is not far distant when, ac
cording to scientific geographers (who
certainly ought to know), the passage
across the Atlantio will only occupy
four days. This will not be, as one may
hastily suppose, on account of improve
ments in steam power, electricity or
any such out of the way attempts, but
simply because in time the American
continent will be something quite dif
ferent from what it is to-day. The
coast of New Brunswick and Prince
Edward Island is rising, the land round
the Bay of Fundy is sinking. Green
land is slowly sinking along a line of
600 miles; New Jersey and the coasts
to the east are rising, and on the Pa
cifio there is a subsidence of water.
The American continent must in time
project to the North Pole. Hudson's
Bay will be a fruitful valley, with just a
lake or two to keep up the watery
character of the place, the Newfound
land banks will become . arid and St.
George's bank will be part of the main
land. The coast line of all oceanic
States will be carried out to the ipner
edge of the gulf stream.
Spiders Obstruct the Telegraph.
One of the chief hinderances to tele
graphing in Japan is the grounding of
the current by spider lines. The trees
bordering the highways swarm with
spiders, which spin their webs everywhere
between the 'earth, wires, posts, insula
tors and trees. When the spider webs
are covered with heavy dews they be
come good conductors and run the
messages to earth. The only way to re
move the difficulty is by employing men
to sweep the wires with brushes- of
bamboo; but as the spiders are more
numerous and persistent than the brush
users the difficulty remains always a
serious one
The Paris Jockey club pays its chief
eook $5,000 a year, and has done so for
a dozen years. His specialty is soup.
How Farmers nre Swindled. ' '-
The Cincinnati Enquirer has an article '
describing how many Western farmers
have been : swindled by an organized
gang of sharpers. The Enquirer Says :
The farmers have often been warned
against these gentry by the press, but
they readily change their tactics and
assume all sorts of protean forms tor
entrapping the unwary, and scarcely a
day passes that some countryman is not
made a victim of the wicked wiles ot the
ubiquitous scamps. The latest heard
of is a gang who go about selling an
alleged seeding machine, and these
ha-e victimized a number of people.
The Enquirer reporter has been shown
acopy of an exceedingly ingenious docu
ment which these fellows use in their
operations, and by means of which they
have caught more than one who thought
himself entirely too smart to be dnped
by any city sharp. The reader is here
by presented with a- fae-simile of the
'contract drawn by these patent seed-
in -machine fellows, which, they in
duce farmers to sign, and which shortly
afterward turns up as a plain note of
hand in the possession of some
paper-shaver in his neighborhood who
has purchased the same of the swin
dlers. It is as follows :
The swindlers, says the Enquirer: go
to a well-to-do-farmer and tell him he
has been recommended as a . good man
to sell their machines, and ask him to
become their agent. He is persuaded
that they sell rapidly and that he can
make a large per cent, profit. He is
told that he will not be expected to risk
any money or pay anything until he has
sold 8325 worth of the machines. ' He
is induced to sign the contract above
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given, which, it will be seen, sets forth
this agreement when read straight
across. It looks fair and innocent
enough, and soon the farmer, typified
in the foregoing document as John
Smith, puts his name in the blank
space just before the words " Sole agent
for Company." Afterward the
scamps easily change the document
from a contract to sell into a promissory
note by tearing off that part to the
right of the line drawn through the
agreement as printed. In the original
presented to the farmers, of course, no
line appears; and it is given here sim
ply to show where the division takes
place, and the separation at which point
so radi- ally changes the nature of the
document. It will be seen at a glance
that this is liable to deceive any one
without close inspection, and a number
of Indiana farmers have been cheated -with
them this summer. After the
farmers' notes get into the hands of
"innocent purchasers," there is no re
course but to pay them off, as they can
not well go back on their signatures.
This description is got up to warn all
readers ot the Enquirer to sign no.
papers whatever that are presented to'
them by strangers, however innocently'
worded or plausibly pressed for their .
acceptance.
Home Life lor the Blind.
In an address before the college for
the blind at Upper Norwood, Henry
Faweett, the blind postmaster-general
of Eng land, said that, speaking from
his own experience, the greatest service
that could be rendered to the blind was
to enable them to live as far as possible
the same life as if they had not lost
their sight. They should not be impris
oned in institutions or separated from
their friends. Few who had not ex
perienced it could imagine the inde
scribable joy to them of home life. Some
persons hesitated to speak to the blind
about outward objects. The pleasantest
and happiest hours of his life were those
when he was with his friends . who
talked about everything they saw just
as if he was not present, who in a room
talked about the pictures, when walk
ing spoke of the scenery they were
passing through, and who described the
people they met. When wiih the blind
people should talk to them about and
describe everything they saw. The
speaker concluded by remarking that
there was plenty of good-will to assist
the blind, but what was required was '
better organization.
How Snakes are Shipped.
Snakes are shipped-from Africa and
South America to the United States in,
bags. These bags are inclosed in tight
boxes so that the serpents have neither
food nor sea air during their passage..
Their chief ailment at their arrival is
canker in the mouth. Treatment con
sists in grasping the snake just back on
the head, forcing its mouth open by
pressing on the nose, and then taking a
sharp buck, removing vuo imiw uu
applying British oil to the wound, .
The average age at which students
enter American colleges is seventeen; a
century ago it was fourteen.