SINE PIGS FOR A BRIDE. A MATRIMONIAL, AUCTION SALE AMONG SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS. Girls Are Secluded for Years nnd Then Sold to the Highest Bidder —Fat Girls in Demand. Every New British community is sharply divided into two clans, known respectively as the Maramara and the Pikalaba. They arc most intimately associated in all the business and pleasure of life, they live in the same houses, in fact, no household can exist without having representatives of each clan. That there may never be any doubt of the clan to which any par ticular individual belongs the device of the clan is prominently displayed iu tat tooed lines upon his back and breast. Far from being a division of tho com munity, these two clans tend toward its closer union, for no person may marry a member of his own clan, but must choose from the other. This plan is still further complicated by the subdivision of each clan into four co-ordinate groups which are named respectfully after some tish, plant, bird or beast. The natural object whoso name is borne by each group, be comes in some sort its totem and in tat tooing upon the body and in rude carving upon the doorway is displayed as a de vice. The group in each clan which bear a kindred device are looked upon as too closely related to allow of intermarriage between members of each although their clans are indistinct. Likewise the in dividual must not marry into the group of either parent or one cognate therewith in the other clan. This may seem far from clear— a concrete example will serve for illustration. Remember that there can be no doubt about the clan and group of any individual, for the most cursory glance at his body will at once show his position. Lumie we will take for example, a young man who has built himself a house, who owns a wholfc fishing net and has the equity of a yam plantation or so and many cocoanuts. His house seems lonely and he wants a wife. This is how he goes to work. His own father belonged j to the Pikalaba clan and the fish group, ! his mother was a Maramara of the plant group; thus, he, inheriting nothing from ! his father and everything from his mother, is likewise a Maramara plant. He is therefore debarred from marriage with any member of a plant or fish group, ! but must restrict his choice to the Pika laba birds and beasts, say to one fourth j of the girl population of his town. This ! is indeed no great hardship to him, for ! he has known from his earliest child hood that some of the maidens were i positively prohibited to him, nnd by the the time his thoughts bend toward matrimony he must huve become re- j signed to his fate and is prepared to con fine his attentions to every fourth girl. A j young man so prosperous as Lumie seems \ to be could not be expected to mate with any but the daughter of a family equally ! as wealthy as his own. The poorer girls ! whom he will sec about the town may ! become wives to him, but they must wait; until he has made selections of his chief j wife and then they without any cere- > mony are summoned to take the minor positions, which are in little different from slavery. But of the maidens of high 1 degree he has 110 view, for they arc all i carefully caged at their seminary in the | bush under the protection of the dread tabu. Upon a morning early the women ! of the town arc in commotion; the}*have learned through some mysterious channel that a girl will on that day be brought home from her seclusion of from six to eight years. Who the debutante may be they do not know, but they gleefully i spread their news about the towu. All other plans must yield to the great j event; the fishers on this day draw no I nets, the warriors grant one day's respite to the towns on either hand—all busy : themselves with guessing who it is whose education has been completed and in ab-! surb speculation as to what she will fetch, j As the sua climbs high and nearer to j its midday point the villagers flock out I along the path which leads to the girls' , rotreat and crowd about the latticed ! hedge from which dangle the cloth streamers and fillet or hair which mark the tabu; well to the front will be found Lumie and any others who may be ready for marriage. Upon tho other side of the slight bulwark people are heard mov ing about, and at tho moment of high noon the guardian of the young girls ap- j pears and leads into view her charge,who j perhaps would blush if she were not as , black as a bag of soot. After one mo-! incut of interested inspection, a murmur j of dissatisfaction arises from many of the young men, who find her to belong to a clan and group prohibited to them. But j not from Lumie. He spies upon her! breast tho Pickalabu mark, and tatooed I above it the outstretched wings of a | bird; by this he knows that she is eligi ble. Led by the chief and by all the young men who seek to marry her, the young woman goes down to her old home in the village, and nods and speaks to those -whose faces are yet familiar after her long absence. She sits upon a small mat before her father's door to receive her friends, and at her side sits her guardian, who now and again conde scends to a gratified sinile when one and another compliment her upon the fatness of her charge. Meanwhile a feast is prepar- j ing in the house behind her, to which all \ tho village is invited. In the high post j of honor sits the maiden just about to I make her entry into the world of so ciety, thus placed on exhibition that her chance of finding a husband may be better. The morning nfter the feast she is put up at auction on the village green. The bidding begins at two pigs, for that Is the amount which has been expended upon her education ; pig by pig it runs up to seven or eight and then, if Lumie has any earnest competitor, it may creep slowly up now by a bid of an additional cowrie or a palm of shall money until nine pigs is reached and the girl is knocked down to tho highest bidder. That is all the ceremony there is. Lumie drives his pigs to the house of his father in-law, leads tho girl to his own house aad she in his wife. To bring as much aa nine pigs a girl must be very fat and be furthermore the daughter of a mmi wealthy enough to be a chief; seven pigs is a high figure and few run ovei six. But if the amount realized by the auction does not satisfy the father of the property sold he can show his scorn of the higher education of women by quietly throttling the schoolmistress. These new British marriages are more matters of bargain and sale, sale, too, by the public auctioneer. The buyer pays so many pigs or their equivalent in cow ries or strings of shell money, he takes his purchase to his home and looks to her domestic services to make good the amount which he has paid. Such a sys tem affords no room for any of the softer sentiments, it would seem; no such thing as love, it would appear, could exist where marriage is a mere matter of pigs. Yet husbands and wives in New Britain display great affection and are as true a3 though their marriage had been sol emnized with the most elaborate vows. After marriage tho clan division is ceremonially perpetuated in the house, not to the extent of interfering with do mestic harmony, but upon certain sol. emn occasions. The doorway is in tin middle of one of tbc sides, the fire-place directly opposite on the other. Between the two a lino is drawn; one side of the house is the husband's side, the other is the wife's. Each retains the individual ownership of their separate property; he keeps his possessions on his side the line, she on hers, and nothing is moved from one sido to the other without an equiva lent. The children belonging to each are said to be "in.the door," and it is only as they grow up or in the event of the father's death that they definitely go over to the mother's side.— Ac\o Or leans Picayune. WISE WORDS. Genius, pluck, endurance and faith can be resisted by neither kings nor cabi nets. Generosity, wrong placed, becometh a vice} n princely mind will undo a private family. Sustained enthusiasm has been tho motor of every movement in the progress of mankind. What is birth to a man, if it shall bo a stain to his dead auccntors to have left such an offspring. Columbus stands deservedly at tho head of that most useful band of men—The heroic cranks iu history. The persistent enthusiast whom one generation despises as a lunatic with one idea, succeeding ones often worship as a benefactor. Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires, makes a wise and a happy purchase. It is always a sign of poverty of mind, where men are ever aiming to appear great; for they who are really great never seem to know it. It is the peculiarity of every individual that he wishes to be thought distin guished for something other than that upon which he has mado his reputation. It is in disputes, as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy beheve them more numerous and strong than they really are. Caution in crediting, reserve in speak ing, and in revealing one's self to very few, arc the best securities both of peace and a good understanding with the world, and of the inward peace of our own minds. Intellectual effort in early years of life is very injurious. All labor of mind re quired of children before the seventh year is in opposition to the laws of na ture, and will prove injurious to the physical organization and prevent its proper and mature development. The Original Buffalo Bill. There is probably no better known name throughout the entire length and breadth of this country than that of Buf falo Bill, and at this time there arc but few who do not know that William F. Cody is the bearer of the title. Mr. Cody,however,is not the original Buffalo Bill. There is nothing underhand or illegitimate in his bearing it. He is fully entitled to it, but for all that, he comes by it second handed. The original Buf falo Bill is now living, an aged, wealthy, prominent and highly respected citizen, and the President of a savings bank at Wichita, Kan. Ilis name is William Matthewson. He is a thorough Demo crat, and is high up in the Order of Odd Fellows. Years ago Mr. Matthewson was a bold frontiersman on the plains, en gaged in hunting and trapping for a liv ing. He supplied the forts of Kansas and Nebraska with buffalo; aud his suc cess in this work was so great that he was given the title of Buffalo Bill. Dur ing this time he engaged a boy to work for him, and the lad was so diligent and faithful that he remained in Matthew son's employ until the latter quit the business to settle down to a more quiet life. As a reward the employer turned over the hunting contracts to the em ploye, who then followed in his late master's footsteps. That he was success ful, that he earned honor, fame and wealth for himself, cannot be denied when it is told that his name is William F. Cody. With the business rights he was given the title his employer had borne. The world knows he has kept it bright, and that neither stain nor tarnish has touched it.— Chicago Herald. The Value or Life. The statistics of the official Lift Insur ance Quzettc show that Saxony leads the world in the percentage of suicides, her annual average being 337 per 1000 in habitants. Next comes Denmark with 290; France, 150; Bavaria, 127; Turkey stands at the bottom of the list, with thirty-two self-destroyers to every mil lion of inhabitants, but in neighboring Croatia that rate already rises forty, and in Hungaria to tifty-two. Measured by that criterion, over population would seem to be a ten times greater evil than despotism.— New York Vain, SELECT SIFTINGB, A talent of gold was $13,804k. A finger's breadth is equal to one inch. A cubit was nearly twenty-two inches. The area of New Orleans, La., is 227$ miles. A Biblieal shekel of silver was about fifty cents. A hand's breadth is equal to three and five-eighth inches. Canaries fed with cayenne pepper ac quire a ruddy plumage. The first American library was founded in Harvard College in 1638. There are 13,000 different kinds of postage stamps in the world. Over 500 music leaf turners have been patented in the United States. A petrified bat was recently discovered by railroad laborers in Arizona. There arc more farmers in the United States than any other nation possesses. More girl babies were born during 1863 and 1873 than in any ten years since. A walrus hide weighs forty pounds, is one inch thick and as hard as an oak plank. The first newspaper printed in England was the Englinh Mercury , issued in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. A cigarette carelessly thrown aside caused the burning of 135 acres of wheat in California a few days ago. Black ice cream is a new Philadelphia daincy. It is colored by the addition of charcoal and the juice of Turkish prunes. The Mongolian pheasants introduced into the State of Washington have in creased largely, and are now thoroughly acclimated. At a depth of thirty-seven feet, at Springport, liid., a vein of water was struck which gushes several feet above the surface and is clear and cool. During a storm in St. Louis, Mo., a hailstone fell that was measured at the Signal Service station, and is said to have been nine inches in circumference. Judge Gunto, of Pary, Flu., has a camphor tree on his place. The cold docs not seem to injure it at all, and ho believes the trees can be successfully raised. A Frenchman lias discovered how to make silk straight from the mulberry leaf without resorting to the silk worm. But it is inferior in richness and gloss to the present silk. It is said that from the summit of Mount Blanc, Switzerland, one can see the Tyrol, portions of France, Germany and Austria, tho Mediterranean and Italy as far as the Apennines. The luckiest tenderfoot in the Leadville (Col.) mines was an Illinois farmer from the back districts, who, after prospecting in the mountains for three months started home with a bank account of $380,000. A postage stamp was recently found by a Connecticut physician in the car of a little patient, and on its removal a severe pain, from which the child had suffered and which caused the visit to the doctor, disappeared. The finest Australian eucalyptus of its age in California is probably one that grows on Alameda Creek, about thirty miles from San Francisco. Vick says that it is seventeen years old from the seed, and girths nine feet eight iuches. Among the immigrants landed at the Barge Office in New York city the other day was an Irishwoman seventy years old, whose face was adorned by a long, silky, curling mustache, two inches in length. She was iu America nearly for ty jears ago. Isaiah Powers, of Curtis, Neb., lias an orchard of Russian mulberry trees that are gifted with a second bVosioming. The trees blossomed out nicely at their proper season this year, but frost com pletely destroyed the blossoms, and then the trees again bloomed. The fastest time made by an American train is calculated to bo 107 miles in ninety-three minutes net (or 107 miles in ninety-seven minutes,including fourmin utcs stoppage for water) on the Canadian division of the Michigan Central Rail road, St. Clair Junction to Windsor, No vember 16, 1886, and of 69.3 miles an hour. A Cub Driver's Joke. There is an old story told of a Lon don dandy who was so self-conceited that every time a "cabby" shouted "hansom'' at him he took it as a compliment on his personal appearance and threw the fellow a "bob. A cab driver who has n stand at the Pennsylvania Railroad Ferry at West street heard the story, and is using its point in a way partly amusing and partly offensive. When the people are coming off the boats he takes his place in the line of shouting Jehus,and in a voice that rises high above the general din cries. "Hansom lady! Hansom lady!" The fellow takes particular pains to ac cent tho "hansom." The effect on the crowd is instantaneous. Everybody turns to see who is so demonstrative in his nd miralion. The sight of the liveried Jehu gives them the joke, and old as it is, though iu a new dress,it generally causes a laugh. The objection to it is that many women, like the London dandy, take it as a personal remark, and naturally re sent it as a piece of Impertinence.— New York Time*. Cures Promptly and Permanently LUMBAGO, Bheumatlim. Headache, Toothache, SPRAINS, Neuralgia, Swelling*, Fro#t-biteit B B U IS E S - THE CHARLES A. VO6ELER CO., tatUlMr*. M. "Grlddllngr" the Beggar'* Fad. Sunday begging appears to be grow ing popular and flourishing in Lambeth, a London suburb. Two sturdy fellows, Spinks and Wilkins by name, who were brought before Mr. Biron, belong to a gang of beggars who have introduced a little novelty into their professional call ing by singing or shouting hymns in the streets on Sundays. To this system the name of "griddling" has been applied, and, according to the evidence, it is a paying line. The defendants had col lected some pennies from passers-by in a very short time, and the "griddlers,'' it was stated, were known to boast, as they returned to their haunts in Deptfoid and Southwnrk, "how much they could make in a few hours, and how they had gulled the benevolent."— New York Journal. Moro diseases lire produced by UHing brown unci perfumed soaps thau by anything eUe. Why run such torrflile risks when you know Dobblns's Electric Hoap Is pure and perfect. Dobbins's prevents hands from chapping. AIX the Governments ot Europe are making active preparations for a general war. J. A. Johnson. Medina, N. Y., says: "Hall's fat nrrh Cure cured iue. Sold by Druggists, 75c. FIFTEEN States have, within about three years, enacted Ballot Reform laws. Conflnned. The favorable impreesion produced on the first appearanca of the agreeable liquid fruit remedy Syrup of Figs a few years ago has been more than confirmed by the pleasant experl enceof all who have used It, and the success of the proprietors and manufacturers, the Cal ifornia Fig Syrup Company. FITS stopped froo by DR. KLINE'S OREAT NKRVK RESTORER. No Fits after first day's use. Marvelous cures. Treatiso and S2 trial bottlo froc. Dr. Kline, Kll Arch St., Phua., Pa. Heeclinm's Pills»ct like nutgic on a Weak Stomacl). Health and Strength Soon replace weakness and languor If that reliable medicine. Hood'sSarsaparl 11a, lsfalrlyand faithfully tried. It Is the best medicine to overcome that tired feeling, purify tho blood and cure scrofula, salt rheum, dyspepsia and ait other diseases arising from impure blood or low state of tho system. Give It a trial. Hood's Sarsaparilla Sold by all druggists. $1; six for $5. Prepared only by C. 1. HOOD k. CO., Lowell. Mass. too Doses One Dollar DAD WAY'S II li«DV RELIEF. A CUBE FOB ALL SUMMER COMPLAINTS! Dysentery, Diarrhoea, CHOLERA MORBUS. From 30 to 00 drops In halt a tumbler of water wia In a few moments cure Cramps, Spasms. Sour Stom ach, Nausea, Vomiting, Heartburn, Nervouaneas, Sleeplesaness, Sick Headache, Diarrhoea, Dysentery. Cholera Morbus, Colic, Flatulency, and all Internal Palna. For severe cases of the foregoing Complaints see our printed directions. Applied externally It Instantly relieves Headache, Toothache, Neuralgia, Rheumatism and all pains arising from Colds, Sprain*,» Bruises or any canoe whatever. Price 50 cents per bottle. Sold by druggists. DADWAY'S » PILLS, An Excellent and mild Cathartic. Purely vegeta ble. The tafesr and beat medicine In the world for the cure of ail ditto rdors of the Liver, Stomach op Bowels. Taken according to dlreotltn* they will restore health una renew vitality. Price 35c. a box. Sold by all druggists, or mailed by HAD WAY & CO., 32 Warren Street, New York, on receipt of price. N Y N U-'i» WM. FITCH & CO., 1 o*2 Corcoran Bulkltng, Washington, D. C. PENSION ATTORNEYS of over UH years' experience. tiueoassfully prose* cute pensions and claims of all kinds In shortest poasibte time. tWSo KKK uitu— wjoc—tul. A Jt MONEY INOUICKRNX. W" m For 26c. a 100-page book, experience of a practical poultry raiser during WKm 2years. It teaches now to detect and cure diseases; to feed for eggs and for fattening; which fowls to save for breeding, Ac., Ac. Address BOOK I'UB. HOUSE, 134 Leonard St., N. Y. City. MTll&lflAlCfc 340.000,000 to be paid rrNAISINN out this year under the new I IslV VP 14JIIW Disability Pension Act Ev ery soldier included who served 90 days and Is now disabled, no matter what the cause; or In oase of his death his widow and minor children. Dependent parents also benefited. Write at onoe for blanks and advice to OEO. D. MITCHELL, SoltolWr of Pen sions and Patents. Dox 253, Washington, D. C.. Clerk Committee on Pensions of the U. b. Senate for the last sevon years. EPMP..NVMJH honorably discharged Soldiers and Sailors of the late war, who are Incapacitated from earning a support. Widows the same, without regard to cause of death. Dependent l*arent« and Minor Children also Inter ested. Over 20 years'experience. References In all parts of tho country. No charge If unsuccessful. Write at once for "Copy of Law," blanks and full in structions am.fkfkto R. McALLIHTKKdtCO. (Successors to Wm. Conard A Co.), F. Box 715, \\ Wellington, I>. C« The New Pension Bill. Every soldier who Is disabled from any cause, ev ery soldier s widow, father or mother, should write tie at once for blanks and instructions. Ten years' experience. Small fees. No charge for advice. Ad dress CHAS. E. FAIRMAN A CO., Washington, D. C. 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