| THE REAL CKB-SEHI BEHIND THE CANVAS. I Vicissitudes of Life on the Road Pictured From Real Life. Circus day in any Western town at the present time, according to the New York Herald, is very much like the circus day of old, except that there is vastly more of it. It is as much a holiday as Christmas and the Fourth of July thrown into one. The poor, benighted little New York boy who goes to Madison Square Garden and thinks he has seen it all would have some of the conceit taken out of him could he be transported to some one day stand on the Western prairies on the day when the circus is billed to appear. The first gray slreaks of dawn find the town already astir, with the rail road station as the centre of interest. In the old days it used to be turnpike, but the time when the circus traveled from town to town in caravans is no more. Nowadays it is a very one horse show indeed that doesn't own its own rolling stock. The small boy of course, pre dominates. He has secured the loft iest perch within the rauge of his in ventive genius. Suddenly, from the dizzy height of the tallest telegraph pole he shouts, "Here she comes!" The cry is taken up below. Half a mile away, around a curve, a column of smoke is seen, trailing away toward the horizon and a few minutes later the powerful locomotive, snorting and puffing like a spirited horse, conies into view. Behind it is a long line of yellow cars, and far off, at the rear end, glimmer the lights of the caboose, which have not yet been extinguished. Then comes the unloading of the iro ; prosaic paraphernalia—the lingo ten poles, the acres of canvas, and all the other homely objects which are quite essential in the rapid transforma tion so soon to follow. Gangs of men scurry hither and thither, apparently all getting into each other's way, but really working like the one great machine of which each man is really n part. Wagon after wagon comes off the train with military precision. Two, four, and even ten horse teams are coming from the direction of the stock cars, all ready to start for the show TIIE MEN'S DKESSIXCJ ROOM. grounds. The townspeople are agape. When Obadiah Jones's new threshing machine had arrive a few days before it had taken almost an entire day to unload it from the train, if they had undertaken to unload that pole wagon it would have taken them a week. Meantime, away out ou the prairie, toward the east, a faint cloud of dust has arisen. Toward the south a simi lar cloud is seen, and toward the west are others. The thrifty farmers, com ing from far distant points, many of them having been en route all night, begin to come iu and look for suitable camping places for their families and their teams. The dust cloud grows heavier and heavier as each moment passes, until by the time the warning whistle of the locomotive drawing the second train is heard gray streaks line '' ' ' IN^ ont toward the horizon in every direc tion. Two trains have been unloaded and the eyes of the multitudinous small boy are fairly bulging from their sock ets. Where will it all end? A third train conies puffing in, an ,j on this is the menagerie. The «mall boy is now in a state bordering 0 n nervous frenzy. It is doubtful if he knows his own name. Off toward the show ground goes the morning crowd. Surei - they will be in time to see all the tents put up, for has not the last train just come in? To their surprise, however, the men agerie tent, with its six great centre poles, is up and finished. The horse tent is in position, the mangers are filled and the horses are munching away at that breakfast which the townspeople forgot to get. The cook tents, one large tent for the working men and another of similar size for the performers, have been erected and the choicest of steaks are broiling on the ranges, whilst the fumes of steaming coffee and hot biscuits, wafted upon CLOWNS MAKING UP. the morning breeze, smells sweet and savory to the hungry throng now fill ing the vacant spaces around the tents. The camp cooks have already lighted their fires and the great caldrons are sizzling upon the cranes. This means preparation for the midday meal, which even now has all been arranged and is bound to be ready for every one shortly after return from parade. That free glimpse of the enchanted land behind the swelling canvas is given at about 10 o'clock. Who that has ever, seen it on a clear, Western morning can forget the gorgeous bauds of music, the'cavalcade of equestrians, the opeu cages of wild beasts, the funny band of clown musicians, the general atmosphere of a voluntary holiday, when every boy has money iu his pocket, when his whole object in life is to spend it. But what of the streets in town dur ing this interval? Excursion trains have been coming in from every point within fifty miles of the show town. Every train has been crowded to the very steps with eager, expectant peo ple. Their tickets are in their hat bands, where they will remain until the conductor deniauds tliein at night, for who has time to think of tickets when there is a big show in town? Thousands upon thousands of farmers have come in from the surrounding country. Their teams, unhitched, line the sidj streets upon every side. Vacant lota are filled with them and tlio alleys and lanes of the town are impassable. The sidewalks and store doors are sought as places of vantage, and an hour before the band strikes up at the show grounds there is a solid line of humanity from one end of the town to the other. By noon every face is turned toward the show grounds. The side show properly seen and its myriad of curios and freaks explained, the tide turns toward the ticket wagon. Another pandemonium, in which each individ ual iu the vast throng imagines he must get his ticket first or be forever debarred. A struggling, surging mass °t humanity, with hands and arms high iu air, clutching tightly to the mouey which is to be invested in the pas* >boards that will admit them to the Anders of the big show. The crowd carries itself along until each of its component parts has reached the goal. The money is snatched from the uplifted fingers and tickets placed in its stead, so quickly, yet BO accur ately, that the bewildered, perspiring purchaser scarcely knows how it was done. Yet, he has his tickets, and then begins a battle for exit from the crowd. There is no relief however, until the doorway to the menagerie is passed, and then the orowd spreads out within its spacious arena and be gins the real enjoyment of the day. A circus is a circus the world over, and to describe the performance in this particular Western town would be but to repeat an old story. And yet there are some old stories that are always new. One is love, another is the circus. The lithe limbed man, who twists himself almost inside out; the airily clothed women, who fly through midair while you hold your breath; the clowns, who make you laugh in the same old way that they made you laugh years ago—who can resist the glamour of it all? And the strange sights behind the scenes! Lucky the man or boy iu that town who rejoices iu the acquaintance of somebody connected with the show. He is the hero of the year. Countless times does he retell the stories of what he saw in the dressing rooms. The evening performance is but a repetition of that of the afternoon. Within all is a scene of gayety, with myriad lights blazing. Outside a dif ferent scene presents itself. A few minutes after the performance begins, hundreds of hurrying men attack the DOSING A SICK ELEPHANT. menagerie tent. Its side walls come down with a rush, its poles are carried out in a steady line, its cages picked up by waiting teams, who, at a trot, start the procession of canvas covered dens toward the railroad yards. The great- top comes down with a run and is unlaced into sections, rolled into htige bundles aud loaded into waiting wagons, almost before the last cage has disappeared iu the gloom around an adjaceut corner. The herd of ele phants has stalked off into the night, majestically and silently, following a man who carries a lantern half a square ahead. The cook house, stable, tents, blaok sinith shop, barber shop, band tent, side show, together with the number less other smaller tents, have been ex peditiously, yet silently packed aud taken to the cars. In three-quarters of an hour the "big top" stands alone, its gaunt poles reaching far up into the darkness of the sky. At the rail road yards everything is bustle and activity. The night show is out; the concert is finished, and the last of the per formers skurries toward his trunk, which has been left upon the open space where the dressing tent once stood: a quick cliauge of costume, a banging trunk lid, and tho last mem ber of the company takes his way to tho train. By midnight the show is on its way to the next town. Town Where Everybody is Irish. Of Benedicta, Me., Professor Bate man writes: "If there is another town in this country like it I am unable to locate it. The peculiarity of the place is the fact that the population is com posed exclusively of Irishmen. There is not a family in the entire township through whose veins courses any other blood than that of the Emerald Isle." —Lewiston (Me.) Journal. An expert declares that he knows of at least 600 counterfeits of the old masters which are now hanging in pri vate galleries in the United States, all purchased at high prices. SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS, A Brazilian dootor says that coffee is a certain cure for anaemia. Trolley car ambulances arc to be in troduced in the city of Pittsburg, run ning independently over all the street car tracks as called for. Miss Eleauor Ormerod declares that the English cockroach is in danger of extermination before the hordes of imported German black beetles. What is probably the largest loco motive in the world has just been com pleted and weighs, with the tender, over 285,000 pounds. It in for use in Mexico. Munich used to be notorious for its excessive typhoid fever death-rate, it being twenty-nine per 10,000 in 1856. With the introduction of a pure water supply and improved sewer system it has fallen to less than two per 10,000. The Semaine Medical publishes de tails of the successful experiments made in Naples by Cantaui in making guinea pigs immune against the influ enza "'Hjn by vaccinating them with steri. Vtures of the influenza * Professor Lincoln Goodale of Harvard university says that there are now about '200,000 species of plants, divided into flowering and flowerless plants, and although nearly all of the flowering varieties might be used for food, only about 1000 are so used and only 300 are frequently. In a paper read before the Paris Academy of Sciences, M. Jacquemin communicated the results of experi ments showing that leaves of fruit trees, vines, etc., develop a strong bouquet of the fruit when soaked in alcohol. He thinks the quality of a poor vintage might be improved by the addition of some leaves during fermentation. The Islrtli of a In the new number of the British Central Africa Gazette a correspond ent gives some interesting particu lars of a new language which lias sprung up within recent years in Central Africa. It is, he says, "a weird jargon, or perhaps language, on a par with 'pidgin English' of the far East, or the numerous other tongues by which travelers and so journers in strange lands make their wants known to the natives. Many may not know of the language, but it is spoken by hundreds daily, and flourishes mostly where the white man has built a boma, anil in which there is a Sikh garrison. The origin ator of it is the Sepoy from over the 'black water' (sea). How was it first introduced? When he first came into the country did ho buy Dr. Scott's grammar and dictionary and endeavor to learn the language grammatically and comprehensively, as the patient Europeans do? No; although here toduv and there tomorrow, as we are in conjunction with his comrades, the conservative Sikh evolved from his inner consciousness a language which is learned by his relief from India in turn. Its component parts are Hin dustani, Gurmukhi, broken Swahili, broken Mauganja, possibly a little l'ao and Sepoy English, forming a whole curious in the extreme. Though, of course, chiefly the military lan guage of the country, it is occasion ally the medium of communication be tween the European and the Sikh, and of when the white man's highly grammatical book Mauganja fails the Sikh will step boldly into the breach, and with a few chosen words make the native understand. Power of the Marseillaise Hymn. Nothing of the kind in this world can be more impressive than the way in which an audience of six thousand French radicals receives that wonder ful air, (the Marseillaise), says Col. T. W. Higginson in the Atlantic. I observed that the chorus of young men who lead the singing never once looked at the notes, aud few even had any, so familiar was it to all. There was a perfect hush in that vast audi ence while the softer parts were snug, and no one joined even in the chorus at first, for everybody was listening. The instant, however, that the strains closed, the applause broke like a tropical storm, aud the clapping of hands was like the taking flight of a thousand doves all over the vast arena. Behind those twinkling hands the light dresses of the ladies and the blue blouses of workingmen seemed themselves to shimmer in the air, there was no coarse noise of pounding on the floor or drumming on the seats, but there was a vastcryof "Bis! Bis!" sent up from the whole multitude, de manding a repetition. The moment the first verse was sung through for the second time, several thousand voices joined in the chorus; then the applause was redoubled, as if they had gathered new sympathy from one an other, after which there was still one more great applauding gust, and then an absolute quiet. lint the Dog Would Not Keep Still. A dog caused some commotion at a prominent East Side church Sunday evening. He sneaked into the church aud kept fairly quiet until the bass so loist was singing a beautiful selection, "Wait Thou Still." But the dog did not heed the injunction of the singer. He barked right out in meeting, and some of the audience smiled. Just as the singer concluded his song the dog gave forth one sharp vigorous bark, as if of approval. The singer did not show any signs of interruption, but it certainly was somewhat tryiug on his nerves to sing while this dog was walking up and down the aisle. The preacher saw the dog before he barked, and so ludicrous was the situation that the preacher coutd not refrain from laughing. The dog was hustled out of church, but not until he had entered a protest in the shape of balk* and growls.—Columbus Dispatch. AMBULANCE DOCS. A Regular Canine Battalion For Service in Military Movements. One may see any day circulating in the streets of the village ofLechensch, near Cologne, a regular battalion of A DOG OF WAR (NEW STYLE). dogs. Their master is training them for ambulance service in military movements. Each animal carries upon its back a little saddle hirnished with pockets, containing all tSliat is necessary for the tirst dressing of wounds, as well as a bottle of stimulant. The dogs are taught to recognize the wounded and to stoop down to them, in order to permit them, while awaiting the stretchers, to quench their thirst aud to alleviate their suf ferings a little. A large red cross is marked on the saddle, and leather straps serve to fasten around the neck of the animal a little lantern that is illuminated for uiglit service. The ambulance dogs figured at the German manoeuvres last year, where their usefulness was appreciated; so this year their instructor has been en gaged to train a whole pack. He has chosen Scotch dogs, of medium height, whose docility and intelligence in learning are said to be remarkable. The IHnmoml. The diamond was not appreciated by the most ancient people. Diamonds are not mentioned in the Bible, nor did the Romans, when in the zenith of their splendor, Keem to know of them; even the "Medes and the Persians" seem not to have known of them. The Jewelers' Review states that the stone called adamant may be noted as a possible exception. Adamant like the diamond was distinguished for its hardness, and it may have been the diamond under that name. This be lief is strengthened by the fact that the diamond does not display its in comparable brilliance except when properly cut. Little seems to have been known about the diamond until as late as the seventh century. The first absolute study of tUe art of diamond cutting was made by a French monk as late as 1500. Up to that time what cutting had been done was very wasteful, the facets beiug formed by tediously grinding off the diamond at a loss of the material now saved by proper cutting. It may not be gener ally known, but the finest diamond cutting in the world is accomplished in this country, the cutters being im ported from Europe, where practically all of the diamond cutting of the world has been done up to within the past twenty-five years. This superiority is due to the progressiveuess of the American, the workmen in the old world being afraid to adopt new and improved trades. The art of diamond cutting is carried on in such rigid lines that the difference in stones cut in Antwerp aud Amsterdam is easily noted. The commerical source of the diamonds to-day is the marvelous Kimberley nines of South Africa. Diamonds will always remain tho most popular stones. Fashion's whim sometimes sets them to one side for the pearl, ruby, emerald, sapphire and turquoise, but their banishment is always brief. Shall Men Fly? A flying machine has just been tested near Berlin, and the observers, including army officers, agree that if selves the problem of aerial navigation. It needs only a little tiukering with the steering gear. It is a peculiarity of flying machines that each, at its trial, is a success, and needs only a slight change in the guiding apparatus to fit it for commercial uses. Yet with the end of the century in sight, the century of science, man is still tied to the earth, derided by the humblest thing with wings. After sitting up nights with the problem and achieving everything except the little change in the steering apparatus, the man of science is not able to soar,except when he happens to be blown through the roof by an explosion of his chemicals. —Washington Post. Novel Knee Between a Moose and a Pacer. The moose is owned by Mr. Ger maine, of Newark, Mont. He is a peculiarly gaited animal, and at first glance he did not appear to possess A MOOSE OUTRUNS A HORSE. nearly the speed that he displayed in the race. It is really a long, low, sweeping trot, and is not unlike the gallop of the horse. After an exciting race the moose, who showed signs of nervousness when the crowd cheered, won by a length. The above out was made from an instantaneous pho tograph. HELPS FOR HOUSEWIVES. Both for Dreiaed Fowl*. In preparing all fowls for the table, after the pin feathers are removed scrub the skin thoroughly with warm soapsuds, theu riuse with clear cold water an