SULLIVAN REPUBLICAN. W. M, CHENEY, Publisher. VOL. XIII. 11 is said that tho late patent de cision is likely to cheapen telephone service amazingly. Athletics Are said to be languishing in our colleges. Footboll is under ban and baseball is too slow. There are about 12,000,000 houses in this country, with less than six people to each on the average. "Ninotv-six per cent, of our trade is confined to the homo market," es timates the Atlanta Constitution. An educational qualification will hereafter be required of men seeking enlistment in tho United States Army. Tho world's chief supply of alabas ter comes from the quarries of Vol terra, some thirty miles southeast of Pisa, in Italy, where this industry has been handed down for genera tions. Schools of stenography and type writing turn their pupils to use by doing at rather low rates typewriting for lawyers and others. The copying makes good practice for the pupil and incidentally brings in consider able revenue to tho school. The Boston Transit Commission will relieve the narrow, crooked and crowded streets by a subway, begin ning in the Pnblio Garden and ending at Park street. The subway will bo partly double-track and partly quad ruple, and will bo lighted by elec tricity. England is not generally thought of as a gold producing country, but Knowledge says that there are per haps few. countries in the world in which tho metal is more genorally dis tributed. The principal mines in Wales, now abandoned, were worked as long ogo as the Roman occupation. Tho Southern Florist and Gardener soys: The last census shows that tho earth yields to tho Southern farmer twenty-five per cent, on his capital annually, against a yield of only four teen per cent, to his Northern brother. If the value of machinery and live stock is included as capital, the dif ference in favor of the Southern far mer ifl even greater. Says the New York Observer: The death of John Stuart Blackie removes one of Scotland's most interesting oharaoters. While a loyal subject of Her Majesty of Great Britain and Ire land, he was pre-eminently a Scotch man, and opposed with decided earn estness all influences calculated to ig nore or lessen tho distinction between things English and things Scotch. His services to his own country have been very great; his influenco for good upon the young men who have como in contact with him during his long professorship is beyond computation. The Boston Transoript says that the British Iron and Steel Institute has just awarded the Bessemer gold medal, the highest prize to which metallur gists may aspire, to Henry Howe, of Boston, a son of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. "This honor," it adds, "has been conterred on only four Ameri cans hitherto—Peter Cooper, Abram 8. Hewitt, Alexander L. Holley, who introduced the Bessemer process into this country, and John Fritz, who de eigned and built the great Bethlehem iron works. Mr. Howe reoeived the medal for his writings and investiga tions into the soientiflo features of steel making. Among the European recipients of tho medal are Sir Will iam Siemens, the inventor of the open hearth steel-making prooess; Sir Joseph Whit worth and Lord Arm strong, of gun fame, and G. S. Thomas, the inventor of the basic Bessemer process." The St. Paul Pioneer-Press remarks: While the farmers of the Northwest are deploring the advent of the Rus sian thistle, a new forage plant, also of Russian origin, has made its appear anoe, whioh promises to prove suoh a blessing to farmers as to more than atone for the damage done by its pestilent compatriot. It is known as saoaline. It requires no cultivation. Once planted, it propagates itself in any soil, in dry, sandy, barren or in wet, alluvial swamps. It stands the drouth, for its roots strike deep. It drinks in the rain, when there is any, like a camel loading up for a journey through the desert. It is as nutritious as any of our grasses. It possesses a combination of remarkable properties, which adapt it wonderfully well for the conditions existing in Minnesota, and especially the Dakotas and beyond. Our impression is that tho Minnesota agricultural college is trying it, or has arranged to try it on the State experimental farm. CRADI.E SONO, The maple strews the embers of its loaves O'er the laggard swallows nestled 'noath the leaves. And the moody erioket faKers tu his cry— Baby-bye! And the lid of night is fulling o'er the sky— Baby-bye! And the lid of night is falling o'er tho sky. The rose is lying pallid aud tho cup Of the frosted ealla lily folded up, And the breezes through the garden sob and sigh—Baby-bye! O'er the sleeping blooms of summer where thoy lie—Baby-bye! O'er the sleeping blooms of summer where they lie. Yet, baby—oh, my baby—for your sako This heart of mine is ever wide awake. And my love may never droop a drowsy eye —Baby-bve! Till your own are wet above me when I die— Baby-bye! Till your own are wot above mo when 1 die. —James Whitcomb Riley. STOPPING AN" EXECUTION, NE spring r g r. K z t living in se nboutthirty- SofTwas the town where I was living, and for five or six weeks had scarcely seen anyone to speak to. So engrossed was I with my task that I had no timo to read even the newspapers, aud was quite ignorant of what was going on in the world. Tho only relaxation I allowed myself was a good brisk walk into the country every afternoon. With this exception I had hardly stirred from my house, except to run up to London onoo or twice for the purpose of visiting the docks and making certain technioal investigations concerning them. This I did, as a good portion of the novel I was working at wos about the life of dock surroundings. It was a little after 8 o'clock one evening in April that I finished the second volumo of my work. I put on my hat and coat and started oil' for an evening stroll. I had no sooner stepped into tho street than a boy ao costed me with n bundle of papers under his arm with tho request: "Buy an evening paper, sir?" I bought one, put it in my pocket and resumed my walk. It was a fine night and I went some little distance, reaching home a little after half-past 9. I had laid down the newspaper on the table when entering the room, in tending to read it during supper, but my appetite had got the better of my craving for intelligence, so it was not uutil I had lit a pipe and subsided into a cosy armchair by the fire that I unfolded the sheet of printed matter. I opened my paper —nay, lazily. I looked at the "leader." Something about anew "Greek loan." That didn't intorest me. I skipped through the little item of news and hurried jottings and summaries pecu liar to our evening papers. Presently my eye was oaught with the following paragraph heading: "Impending Ex ecution. " There is a morbid fasoination for most people in an execution, and, so, yielding to this feeling, 1 proceeded to read the paragraph. "The murderer of the unfortunate James Renfrew will be hanged to morrow morning at 8 o'clook. The wretched man, whose name—Charles Fenthurst —is now in everybody's mouth, still insists in his plea of in nocence." Here I became deeply interested. The name of Fenthurst was most fa miliar to me. I had formed a deep friendship with a man of that name. He was a good fifteen years my senior and had died two years previously. I knew he had a son named Charles, a young fellow, who had emigrated to South Afrioa early in life and who was generally supposed to be working at the diamond mines. Could this be the same man? I read on. "It will be remembered that at the trial the strongest circumstantial evi dence was brought to bear upon Fent hurst. The murder took plaoe in a house on the outskirts of the small town of Clinfold. It was proved that Fenthurt was in the habit of frequent ing Renfrew's premises, and that ap parently he was expected there on the evening in question. He was seen near the place soon after the crime was committed, and several other proofs of a strongly condemnatory character were also laid against him. He has persisted from the first, however, in maintaining that he was absent from Clinfold at the very time tho murder took plaoe. This was about 7 o'clock in the evening. At that hour, he says, he was returning irom London, where ho bad been spending part of the day. Only one witness, he says, oould prove this, and that is an individual who traveled with him us far as P— and entered into conversation with him. Advertisements have been inserted in all the papers by Fenthurst's legal ad visers for the purpose of discovering the individual in question, but as no ansiver has been forthcoming'.it is gen erally believed that the whole story is a myth. At any rate, there seems but small chance of the alibi being proved at the lust moment. Tho murder was committed February 6. Since his con demnation the murderer has been con fined in SilkmiiMfoi- jail, where his ex ecution will take placs." Astonishment and dismay confront- LAPORTE, PA., FRIDAY, MAY 3. 1895. Ed me os I laid the paper down. I was the missing witness they had so vainly sought. I distinctly remembered, enrly in February, running up to town rather late in the afternoon, spending just half an hour there, and returning by the first train I could catoh. My landlady didn't even kuow but that I had been for rather a longer walk than usual. I had entered into conversa tion on the return journey with the only otber oceupont of my ooinpart ment, a young man with a small black bag, on which was priuted the letters "0. F." I remembered all this dis tinctly. In order to make sure I snatched up my diary and quickly turned to the date of the murder, February 6. There was tha entry: "Ran up to town in afternoon. In quired concerning material for chap ter vii. Saw B— for half hour. Re turned by 6.42 train." The horror of the situation now flashed upon me. A man's life—the life of my old friend's son---depended upor me. I looked at my watch. It was just 11 o'olock. Hurriedly I dragged on my boots, thinking the while what I should do. My first impulse was to rush to the telegraph ollioe. Then, with dismay, I remembered that it was shut for the night after 8 o'olock and that tho postmaster took the 8.30 train to tho largo town of F—, about five miles off, where he lived, leaving the office for the nisht in the charge of a caretaker and returning by an early train the next morning. It was impossible to telegraph. Thou I thought of going to the police (there were just twojconstablea and a sergeant in our little town,) but what could they do more than 1? Country police are provorbial for the leisuroly "rou tine" manner in whioh thoy set about any inquiry and it would never do to trust them. I was in despair. Madly I threw on my hat and rushed out. Iran in a mechanical way to the postoffice. Of course, it was shut, and if I had aroused the caretaker he couldn't have wired. Besides, all our wires went first to F—, and, as I have said, all communication was shut oil after 8 o'clook. Then I started for the railway station. This was about half a mile from the postoffice and well outside the town. Aas 1 hurried along I thought, with fresh dismay, that this would also prove a fruitless errand, for the last train to Silkminis ter was the 8.30 p. m., by which I have mentioned the postmaster always traveled. Silkminister, I must men tion, was nearly 150 miles down the line. Should I wait till the morning and telegraph? I remembered that the office did not open till 8 o'clock. I had by this time, reached the station. Of course, it was all shut up and all tho lights were out, except those in the signal lamps tor the night ex presses. It was bow past 11.30. Was there no hope? Yes! At thi9 moment my eye caught a light in the signal box, about a quar ter of a mile up the line. I could see the signalman in his box, tho outline of his figure standing out against the light within. I looked at my watoh; the down express from London was almost due. I would make a rush for that signal box, and compel the occu pant to put the signal against it and stop it. It was a desperate game; but only get that train to stop for an in stant and all would be right. By get ting into it I could reach Silkminster in the early morning, and what .cared I for any action tho company might take if I saved my friend's son. If the signalman refused to put baok the levers, the strength born of despera tion would enable me to master him and relax them myself. All this flashed across me in an instant, and I clambered over the railings on the side of the station, and found myself on the line. Even as I reached the rails a sema phore signal that was near me let fall its arm, aud the light ohanged into a brilliant green. The express was sig naled! Would there be time? I dash ed along over the rough ties toward the signal box. It was very dark, and I stumbled over and over again. I had cleared about half the distanoe, when I heard the ominous roar ahead, and in a few seconds could distin guish the glitter of tho engine's head light bearing toward me. The train was just over a miio from J me, rushing on at express speed. With a groan I ejaculated, "Too late!" At that instant my eye fell upon a ghastly looking structure by the side of the track, laming grimly through the darkness. It resembled a one armed gallows with an arm hanging from it! For a moment I thought it must have been a fearful fanoy con jured up by the thought of Fenthurst's dreadful fate, but immediately I re membered that this strange looking apparition was none other than a mail bag suspended from a post—in fact, part of the apparatus by which a train going at full speed picks up the.mails. The express train thut was coming had a postal oar attached to it. From the side of the oar a strong rope net would be laid out; catching the bag I saw suspended before me. As a bag would bo deposited from the train in a somewhat similar man ner, there ought to have been a man on guard. 1 afterward found he had left his post and gone to have a ohat with his friend in the cheery signal box. A mad and desperate idea took pos session of me. The train that was bearing down, and which would reach me in one minute, should pick me up with the mails I 1 grasped the idea of the thing in a second. If I oould hang onto that bag so that it came between me and the net it would break the force of tho shook, and the not would reoeive me as well as the bag. Fortunately lam a small man. The bag hung just over my head. I jumped at it, seized it, drew myself up parallel with it, held it firmly at the top, where it huug by a hook, and my le«s up so iu> to present as small a compass as possible. It did not take me half a minute to do all this. Then I waited. It was but a few seconds, but it 'seemed hours. I heard the roar of tho approaching train. Then the engine dashed past me. I shall never forget the row of lighted carriages passing about a foot away from me—closer than even that, I suppose—and I hanging and waiting for the crash to come. And it came. There was a dull thud —a whirr and a rush, and all was dark. When I came to my senses I was ly ing on the floor of the postal van. Two men in their shirt sleeves were busily engaged in sorting letters at a rack. I felt bruised and stiff all over, and I found that my left arm was bound in a sling made out of a hand kerchief. "Where are we?" I asked. They turned around. "Oh, you've como to, have you?" said one of them. "Now, perhaps, you'll give an account of yourself. It's precious lucky you're here at all, let me tell you, for if you had been a taller man we should only have got part of you in tho net. As it is, you've got your collar bone broken. We've tied it up a bit. Now, perhaps, you'll speak out; and look here, if we find you've been dodging the police, don't you go thinking yon'il give 'em the slip any further. The mail van au't a refuge of that sort." I told them tho motivo that had prompted mo to take the desperate step I had done. Thoy wouldn't bo lieve it at first. Luckily, though, I had put the evoning paper and my diary in my pocket, so I showed them the paragraph aud tho entry. Thoy were civil enough then. "Well, sir, wo shall be in Silkminis ter about threo or a little after. I liopo you'll be able to save tho poor beggar. You must excuse our turn ing to work again, and the best thing for you will be to rest yourself." They piled a quantity of ompty mail bags on the floor and made me a rough shake-down. Before he went to his work again the other one said: "What a pity you never thought of a better way out of the difficulty than coming in hero so sudden like." "There was no other way." "Yes there was, sir." "What was that?" "Why, you should have got the sig nalman to telegraph to Silkminster; ho could have done it all right." What an idiot I had been, after all! However, I should be in time to stop the execution. A little after 3 we drew up at Silk minster station. There was a police man on the platform, and I at ouco told my story to him, the result being that we drove around to tho jail and insisted upon seeing the Governor. Oi course, ho was deeply interested in what I had to tell him, and at onco made arrangements to stop the execu tion. The Home Secretary was com municated with by means of special wire. Fortunately, he happened to be in town, after a couple of hours of anxious suspense a reprieve was re ceived from him. "Well," said the' Governor, "I don't know which I ought to congratulate most, Mr. Fenthurst or yourself, for you liavo both had a most narrow escape." Little remains to be told. I soon identified tho condemned man as the person whom I had met in the train. He also turned out to bo the sou of my old frioud, as 1 had fully expected. After the due formalities he was dis charged. Suspicion having strongly attached itself to his name, however, he was very miserable, uutil about a fortnight afterward the real murderer was discovered and captured. Charles Fenthurst and myself became fast friends, aud although I was fearfully shaken and upset for some weeks after the adventure, I never regretted the night on whioh I was picked up with the mails. —Strand Magaziue. The Deadly Candy Bar. There is an immense amount of non sense uttered in the guise of scientific advioe, and nothing more thoroughly foolish than the perpetual attacks up on candy and confeotionery, says Margherita Arlina Hamm. The argu ments are the same as those employed fifty years ago, when two-thirds of the bonbons of the market were made with terra alba and other abominations. At the present there is scarcely a pound of candy in tho market that is not pure and wholesome. Good candy in mod eration is heatliful aud nutritious The desert Arabs of Africa use as thoir ohief article of diet the dried dates, which are so rich in sugar as to be al most candy in themselves, and thoy are about the strongest and healthiest men in the world. Every child who is healthy craves oandy, and the craving merely repre sents the food value of the thing de sired. To forbid a little child a feu bonbons now and then does far more harm than to gratify its natural and unobjectionable desire. Oandy in oxoess is injurious, but no more so than ripo fruit, roast beef, plum pudding, or even inashed pota toes.—Now York Mail and Express. Dressing Wounds Willi Ashes. Recent wounds should be dressed, says Dr. Paßhkoff, with a thin layer of ashes prepared extempore by in cinerating some cotton stuff oi linen. The ashes mingling with the blood form a protecting scurf under which the lesion heals very rapidly. This simple and convonient method lias been praoticed by the Cossack peasantry from time immemorial, and the doctor mentions that in his own experiense of twenty-eight cases of outs, stabs, ornshes, etc., twenty-six healed without any suppuration. Ho also recommends that dirty-looking wounds should be washed with a boracio solution before being dressed. —New Orleans Pier land fro m William Dent, and the timber and hemlock bark on , another traot of 4000 iww. Those tracts are estimated to contain 1,000,000,00') feet of I standing timber. The price paid W as .112 150,- I 000. The timber lands of l'otter County aro I now all practically in the hau'lsof the Good years, whose sawmills are at Austin. NO. 30. THE AFTFR- VISION. Sometime, when nil life's lossons have been learned, And sun and stars forevermoro have set, Tho things which our weak judgments hero have spurned, The things o'or which we grieved with lashes wet, Will flash l>eforo us, out of life's dark night. As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue; And wo shall see how all God's plans are right, And how what seemed reproof was love most true. —May Biley Smith. HUMOIt OF THE DAY. So long as your gray hairs can bo counted they don't count. A man can earn a fortune on paper in twenty minutes.—Atchison Globe. The saying that "silence is golden" probably originated with some black mailer.—Puck. It has always been a mystery how straight an insane murderer can shoot. —Cleveland Plain Dealer. It is better to be alone in the world than to bring up a boy to play on the accordion.—The South-West. Cupid isn't any moro like the pic ture we 600 of him than courtship is like marriatre. —Detroit Free Press. If you do not believe there is an ex ception to every rule, consult some lawyer who has lost his case. —Adams Freeman. A doaf mute student recently broke three knuckles wliilo conjugating the Russian verb "to love" with his left Land.—Puck. Hank checks are considered the best kind of note paper for absent hus bands to use in corresponding with their wives.—Syracuse Post. Mr. Usher—"l have always been afraid of being buried nlive." Dr. Pulser—"No danger, man; I am your doctor.Philadelphia Inquirer. A man is always proud of his chil dren who are large for their age, ex cept when ho is trying to pass them on half-fare tickets.—Atchison Globe. Traveler (inquiring at famous castle) "Can I see the autiquities to-day?" Servant—"l am afraid uot, sir. My lady and daughters have gone to town." —Household Words. Figg —"I guess you would have been glad to get a slice of pie when you were in the army?" Fogg—"lf I could only have been at home to eat it."—Boston Transcript. Wife—"Do you really love me, my pet?" Husband—"l adore you, my sweet, and am prepared to give you any proof of the fact not. exceeding a hundred francs!"—ll Carlino. Little Miss Freckles (proudly)—"Mv now doll winds up and walks." Littlo Miss Mugg (airily)—"lf I'd a-known that kind was bein' sold, I'd a-got one for a waiting maid for my dollie."— Good News. Mistress (on the second day to new cook)- "Kathi, just be so good as to lend me live marks." Cook (aside) — "Ha, hal that's why she said yester day the cook in her house was treated as one of the family !"---Der Schalk. Mrs. Small wort—"l don't know what has come over my husband. He eoorus to bo suffering from an attack of pessimism." Old Mrs. Beddoe— "Law, me ! Why don't you give hiin a jood dose of tansy and bitters?"— Ci ncinnati Tribune. felted by Cold Fire. Lieutenant John P. Finlev, ono of the best-informed meteorologists in the service of the United States, tells a wonderful story of a most remark able snowstorm which he once encoun tered in making the ascent of Pike's Peak, and whioh, he says, could bo best described as a "shower of cold fire." In reality, the "shower," as he explained to a Republic reporter, was a fall of snow, in which every flake was BO charged with electricity as to present a scene that can be bet ter imagined than described. At first the flakes only discharged their tiny lights upon oorning in contact with the hair of the mule upon whioh the Lieu tenant was mounted. Presently they began coming "tbioker and faster," each flake emitting its spark as it noiselossly sank into tho drifts of the same substance or settled upon the clothing of the observer, or the fur of the beast upon whioh he had essayed to make the ascent of the peak. As the storm increased in fury and the flakes of snow became smaller each of the icy partioles appeared as a long blaze of ghostly white light, and tho roaring produced by the electrio ex plosions conveyed an impression of nature's grandeur, which Mr. Finley declares he will never fqrget. When the electric storm was at its height, and each flake was as a streak of fire, sparks of the electric fluid escaped in streams from Mr. Finley's finger-tipe, as well as from his ears, beard and nose. Amusing Admiralty Blunders. Admiralty blunders are not, says the Paris correspondent of the London News, a privilege of Great Britain alone. The Frenoh Minister of Ma rine kept at St. Pierre Miquelon, near Newfoundland, a stock of empty bar rels whioh had contained lard, wine, and salt meat. The Colonial Gover nor, not Knowing what to do with these "empties," which wore rotting and falling to pieces, asked that they might bo removed. The Commissioner of the Minister Marine ruled, how ever, tbat tbey mint be sent to Frano« As no transport is to be found in tb» Newfoundland waters, it was neces sary to charter a sailing vessel, the Seaflower, which was on its way to St. Malo. The vessel landed, the other day, its precious freight, a sum of #SOO being paid by the Admiralty to the owners. The barrels -.vere sold by auotion the other day, and fetched (lie sum of S3O.