jpBsBsB!SSBsBtB 1 HAVANA I rn ,\ AND .•. 8} 1 . ITS PEOPLE). 1 gj & A City of Pleasure Lovers, Who Attend Bull Fights z§ With Half a Million Dead or Missing and Dance |g and Gamble in the Face of Death. ||§ No city in the world is just now so much in the American eye as Havana, in whose harbor our noble battle ship was blown up, says the New York Herald. Here is a vivid picture of life in the Cuban capital as it is to day: "This sport is purely Spanish. We Cubans do uot enjoy it, and who knows that before long it may be pro hibited by an act of Congress?" The speaker was a handsome man, with a strong, thoughtful face, as he looked down into the ling in Havana several Sundays ago. Mazzintini, Spain's great toreador, had just brought a magnificent, Mexican bull to his knees by a quick, daring thrust. The thousands of spectators who lined the ampitheatre, tier upon tier, were applauding frantically. Hats were being shied into the ring with reck less generosity, only to be disdainfully thrown back to the seats and scram bled for by the owners. It was not such a crowd as one sees in Madrid or Seville. As the speaker I have just quoted remarked, bull fighting, or bull butchering, is not a Cuban sport; it is essentially Spanish. Cubans love baseball. They do not play it now, because, silly as it may seem, Weyler forbade the game. This only makes them love it all the more. All through the eager, excited crowd on that Sunday afternoon sat sad eyed boys in the uniform of Spain, with their Mauser rifles over their knees. Next to the President's box lolled A TYPICAL, srANISH SOLDIER. half a dozen officers high in command. It had been rumored in Havana that there was to be another popular out cry against autonomy, and the sad eyed boy soldiers were there with their Mauser rifles to see to it that the dignity of the latest Spanish experi ment for holding the island was not insulted. The last bul! is butchered and the crowd files peacefully out of the ring aVid starts on a trot for the ferryboat that runs across the bay. There was no outcry, and Havana's narrow streets swallowed up its bull fighting population only to disgorge it on the promenades of tho Central Park when the lights are lit and the military band plays inspiring martial airs. Around and around the park the crowds stroll, smoking strong cigarettes or occasion ally breaking ranks to eat ico cream at one of the numerous cafes. All Havana eats ice cream. They make it of tho most unheard of fruits ENCAMPED NEAR THE PUNTA. ctar straight sword. They are all admir 1, ably set up, and their arms, equip < meats and uniforms are the very pink 112 rmrfection, in striking contrast to " and dilapidation of thing that characterize " of the line. ' ive had occasion <vitli an Order testify to his s this corps y with Bern- H-8& ing; plantations are burned and de vastated; the tramp of armed men and the rattle of gun carriages awaken all from morning slumbers; food is scarce and becoming scarcer; the bare neces sities of life are d ear and becoming dearer; yet the music and the dance goon. There is money to gamble at the clubs and pennies for the poor to riek in lottery schemes. Spain has spent £50,000.000 to put down the re bellion; yet the National pastime—the bull fight—goes on every Sunday as if there were no hungry, fiercely de termined men in the hills. In fact, people are tired talking war; in society TITK TOAD 0 - ritlNCirAL BTBEET IN HAVANA. they talk of something else unless some novel incident occurs. Widows and mothers seem to have drained their dregs of sorrow and go about sad eyed, but composed, as if their grief were too deep for tears. What is left of Cuban society wraps itself in exclusiveuess and awaits its time. The wealthy land owners at the beginning of the war sought refuge in Europe or the United States. Most of them had no thought of reduced in comes. Then came burned fields and impoverished tenants; edicts of the government, forbidding the foreclosure of inortgagos, but always taxes more and more. Incomes were reduced, many stopped. In order to protect what they had, many once rich re turned to Havana with scarcely enough to buy the coarser uecessities of life. But it is still an exclusive'aristocracy. There is no doubt about where the na tive Cuban aristocracy stands in this war. They were never frugal people. On the contrary, the men spent money like drunken sailors. Nor were they good business [men. The commercial control of the island passed away from them years ago, and the American, Spaniard, Englishman and German be came their masters. Several scions of the old regime were comparing notes on old times one evening in my hear ing. "Why," said one, "we sometimes came into Havana with big wagons and drove out to the plantations a whole band of music. Wo would then invite hundreds of our kinsmen and friends, and keep up a jollification for two, three, and sometimes four weeks." The best troops in the Spanish ser vice do not belong to the line, but to that admirable corps of military police known as the Orden Publico. This is a corps d'elite, composed of young soldiers, Spaniards to a mau, all of whom have been selected from the regular army on account of their su perior intelligence and physical quali ties. They perform regular police patrol duty and do it with a degreo of dig nity and courtesy that might well serve as a model for deportment for tho Greater New York police force. Their uniform is distinctively military, consisting of a dark blue tunic faced with red, wido blue trousers with red stripes, and a jaunty cap, something after the fashion of the French fatigue cap, until recently worn in our army. Ordinarily they are armed with a huge revolver, worn on the left side in a buff leather sheath, and a short, ington rifles, distinguished itself by the masterly manner in which it handled the mobs during the riots, SPECTATORS AT A BULL FIGHT. •without once having occasion to fire a shot. Although the evidences of war to be seen in Havana are scanty enough, it is amazing how frequently the insur gents manage to run the guard of the outposts and make forays into the suburbs. Hardly a week passes that a squadron of a dozen or so reckless horsemen does not make a night raid on the little town of Casa Blauca, across the bay, and a scant quarter of a mile from the Palace itself. These raids are mailo half in bravado and half for the purpose of looting the few stores in the place to procure supplies of liquors and provisions, and as a finale, before retreating across the hills to the westward, the raiders gen erally discharge a few raudom shots at the city across the bay. To M»kr Slioen Last Lone. A man who has been a patron of boot stands for thirty years has learned something about shoes and how they should be cared for. "I do not buy the most expensive footwear," he said, "because I con sider it to be a waste of money, but a pair of shoes will last me two years before they show a sign of a break. They have to be relieeled always and sometimes half-soled, but the nppers are good generally when I get tired of them and throw them away. It is all a matter of supplying the leather with the oil that it got from the animal in a natural way when it was hide and untanuod. If you will remember, tannic acid is used on the hide in preparing it for commerce, and that is very drying. Indeed, leather in which too much of it has been used can never be made durable. It cracks and breaks ins, little while. lam talking now of black shoes. "Insist always that your bootblack use a slight quantity of oil when giving you a shine. Rubbing a little of it on with a rag will do. It sinks in readily and, as it prepares the surface, you get a better and more lasting shine. No bootblack will do this unless you tell him. After the oil and blacking have been put on, see that the final polishing is done with a piece of canton tiannel. Never allow any one of the prepared polishes. They are all injurious. Three oil shines a week, and you will find your shoes lasting as long as mine do."— Chicago Times-Herald. Drinking Without Cups. The campaign for the sanitary baked pencils for use "ti'e public schools will not end thocg- o' g<jf one of the health officers to S .e the ways of the microbe. Dr. Unrty, Secretary of the State Board of Health, has been interested in read ing of public drinking device which goes the individual communion cup ono better in disposing of cups alto gether in driuking. It is a drinking fountain placed on a pedestal, so as to be in the reach of the average human mouth. From the midst of the basin projects a little nozzle, shooting up u jet of water not very large nor violent. To drink a person simply lets the little water jot play into his mouth and takes his till. The jet may be turned on or off. As there are no cups, and the same water never touches two pairs of lips, there is no chance for microbes which seek to travel from one mouth to another. The argument is that, as long as the water itself is pure, this is an absolutely safe method of public drinking.—lndianapolis News. Apiilp# HS Bruin Food. German analysts say that the apple contains a larger proportion of phos phorus than any other fruit or vege table adapted for renewing the essen tial nervous matter of the brain and spinal cord. Scandinavian traditions represent the apple as the food of the gods, who, when they felt themselves growing old and feeblo, resorted to this fruit for renewing their powers ot mind and body. A modern maxim teaches us "To cat an apple before going to bed, the doctor then will bee his bread." SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS. There was recently opened at Leices ter, England, a new municipal techni cal art school, in which there is a de partment devoted to instruction in ho siery and knitting. One of the heaviest locomotives of ordinary pattern ever made is now running over the Great Northern rail road. It weighs niuetv-five tons, ex clusive of the tender. Draughting compasses are being made with a flexible rubber suction cup on one end to fasten to the paper and hold tho instrument while the circle is being drawn. A statistician affirms that the major ity of people who attain old age have kept late hours. Eight out of ten who reu. ii the age of 80 have never gone to bed till after 12 at night. The Belgian government is contem plating the establishment of an over head single rail between Brussels and Antwerp. It is expected that a speed of about ninety miles an hour will be obtained. If dry ropes are soaked for four days in a bath containing twenty grains of sulphate of copper to a quart of water, they will be preserved for a consider able time from the attacks of animal parasites and rot. Coal is not only a source of heat and light, but a storehouse of colors, medicines, perfumes and explosives. From 140 pounds of gas tar in a ton of coal over 2000 distinct shades of ani line dyes are made. A device for the prevention of ves sels from foundering, recently tested with success in London, consists of gutta percha bags fixed under the decks which, when inriated with car bonic; acid gas, raised a vessel loaded with brick and sunk to the deck level. Green is the color most beneficial to the eye iu diffused light, and reds and pinks the most harmful. In a stroug direct light, however, blue and neu tral tints are the best for the eyes,and pure white the most harmful, as is proved by the phenomena snow blind ness. The president of the Agassiz associa tion, H. 11. Ballard, recently caught an ant near its hill, ohut it up in a box, carried it 1 r>o feet away, and set it free iu the middle of a shady road. What followed he thus describes : "It seemed at first bewildered. Then it elimed to the top of a ridge of sand, erected its body as high as possible, waved its antenn:e for several seconds, and then started in a straight line for home." A London hospital physician has sent a circular to all the London hos pitals, protesting against permitting cut flowers to be kept in hospital wards or in sick ro mis. A pot of growing plants he believes to be free from germ-collecting possibilities. A small bunch of violets, or a few pinks, which the patient, can handle, would be per missible, but not large bunches of flow ers kept in water. These he would bar from sick rooms. The Cricket a* a Thermometer. Professor A. N. Ddlbearcontributes Co the American Naturalist the fol lowing interesting uote regarding the variation of speed in the chirping of crickets. He asserts that the varia tion of speed depends so closely on the temperature that the height of the thermometer may be calculated by counting the number of chirps to the minute. Says Professor Dolbear: "An individual cricket chirps with no great regularity when by himself, and the chirping is intermittent,espe cially in the daytime. At night, when great numbers are chirping, the regu larity is astonishing, for one may hear all the crickets in a field chirping synchronously, keeping time, as if led by the wand of a conductor. When the numbers are so great the resting spells of individuals are unnoticed, but when the latter recommence they not only assume the same rate, but the same beat as the rest in that field. The crickets in an adjoining field will have the same rate, that is, will make the same number of chirps per minute, but with a different beat, as one may easily perceive by listening. "The rate of chirp seems to be en tirely determined by the temperature, and this to such a degree that one may easily compute the temperature when the number of chirps per min ute is known. "Thus at (50 degrees F. the rate is 80 per minute. "At 70 degrees F. the rate is 120 a minute, a change of four chirps a min ute for each change of one degree. Below a temperature of 50 degrees the cricket has no energy to waste in mu-ic, and there would be but 40 chirps per minute." S<»np Mml<> From the Peanut. A thrifty woman once discovered that the salted peanut and the salted almond are not very unlike except in the matter of cost. So that the plebian nut lias already had a more or less good domestic standing. Now comes Professor S. P. Sadler with a statement that will insure it a high place in trade. Its oil, of a pale yellow color and "of agreeable flavor," is to supersede olive oil. "When once freed from the acid found iu it in its raw state," says the professor, "peanut oil does not tend to become rancid as easily as olive oil." Not only are we to dress our salads in peanut oil, but we are to wash onr hands with soap made of the oil. Castile soap, with the Spanish name, will be banished from all patriotic American households, and peanut oil soap is to take its place.—New York Journal. I>escrit>pd If Not I>eflned. Teacher—What is velocity? Pupil—Velocity is what a man puts a hot plate down with.—Philadelphia ■all. THE MEDAL OF HOKOR. Greatest Prize Which the United States Bestows Upon Its Soldiers. The American Medal of Honor, it self of no intrinsic value and bestow ing no rank or privilege, has been the sole reward of many of the most thrilling deeds in American history. The deeds which this medal recognizes are not familiar to the public, but it is more difficult to win than the Vic toria Cross of England, the Iron Cross of Germany or the Cross of St. George of Bussia, though it is hardly so famous as these even iu onr country. The American Medal of Honor, as all the world know, or should know, is presented by the War Department, and will continue to be, upon all who "distinguish themselves iu action." The order was founded by Washing ton, so that the country has never been without thin power bestowing a mark of distinction on its heroes. The simplicity of American institu tions has been responsible perhaps for the fact that this order is not morj famous than it is. Unlike the cerj monies in European countries, there is no parade of troops in presenting it and no official ceremony of any kind. It is sent, to the hero through the mails, and the name of the man who wears it does not appear iu the Annual Register or the almanac. The original order was founded by Washington in the year 1782. At first merely badges were used, which usually consisted of a narrow piece of white cloth worn on the left arm. The order at that time carried with it the privilege that the wearer should be permitted to pass all guards and sen tinels as the officers were permitted to do. And Washington added to this order this characteristic sentence: "The road to glory in a patriot army and a free country is thus opened to all." In the year 1802 the order empower ed to confer the American Medal ol UNITED STATES MEDAL OF HONOE. Honor was created and was amended iu 1803. In this year the sum of 820,000 was appropriated, and tho interest of this has ever since been used for this purpose. The American Medal of Honor has up to the present time been conferred upon about ;"iOO heroes, many of whom are still living. Uemedies For SieeplesMiess. Sleep with your head high. Eat a light supper before you goto bed. Take a hot bath before you retire. Apply a rubber bottle of cold water to your forehead. Apply cold compresses toyourliead. Apply electricity to your head. Take plenty of exercise, and avoid excitement. Lie with the back of your neck on a hot-water bottle. Have plenty of cool fresh air in your bedroom, avoiding draughts. lloucli on the Florist. Orchids must bloom as they aro ad vertised to, the English Court of Ap peals lias decided. A man who bought a bulb for SIOO, which he was told would produce a white flower, amd after cultivating it for two years ob tained a purple blossom, has recovered §250 costs from the vender. Oldest Banknote. The oldest European banknote is Swedish, dated 1(561. But the British Museum, in London, has a Chinese note three centuries older. A Rocking Stone Weighing !i7O Tons. About u league distant from the town of Tandii, India, stands a bal ancing rock. It woiglis 270 tons and THIS BOOKING STONE WEIGHS 270 TONS. is so nicely posed that it may be made to Jcrack a walnut, and so firm that when an ambitious man once yoked a thousand horses to it he was unable to displace it. The richest Princess in the world is the Crown Princess Louise Josephine of Sweden and Norway, and married to the Crown Prince of Denmark. A TEMPERANCE COLUMN. THE DRINK EVIL MADE MANIFEST IN MANY WAYS. Seven Stages of Hum—Only One Fault, or the Bad Story of a Man Whose Great Ability Did Not Prevent Him From Landing In the Pooi-hoiiae—A Lesson. All the world's a tavern, And all the men and women ineroly drinkers; They have their cocktails and thoir whisky straight, And one man in his time drinks many quarts. His course being seven stages. At first a clear head. Sober and steadfast in all good resolves; And then thi morning bitters, with cherry red And slice of mellow pine, creeping like snail Unwillingly to work. And then the tippler, Sneaking back again, with a woeful story About pains internal. Then a toper. Pull of strange oaths and loaded to the guard. Jealous in potting, soddon, and nulek to imbibe, Seeking the bubbling repetition Even at the bottle's moutli. And then the drunkard, In grumbling bolly with poor liquor lined. With eyes bleary and beard for days uncut. Full of rash words and prone to quarreling; Aud so he plays bis part. The sixth stage shifts Into tho grim ami ragged roustabout, With carbuncles on nose and patch on head, His shrunken face unshaved, while bar to bar He beats his way; and his once manly voice, Unhinged by sloth and thirst colossal, pleads And whimpers for a drink. Last scone of all. That ends this sad and shameful historv. Is beastly sottishness and foul oblivion— Sans rum, sans beer, sans pipe, sans every thiug. —J. W. Postgate, in Chicago Times-llerald. Only One Fault. I was riding through a pretty country town named H—, when I chanced to no tice a concourse ot people in the church yard, evidently encircling au open grave. It was a warm day, and I had ridden ten miles, so I drew rein under some trees that arched the road, to allow the horse to cool and rest. Presently a villager came towards me and I said, "There is a funeral to-day in your town?' "Yes—Stephen. Ho was one of tho larg est-hearted men lever leuow. Wo all owed something to Stephen." Then he added, ia a tone of regret, "He had only one fault." The light fell in pencil rays through tha trees. I sat in silence,enjoying tho refresh ing coolness. The man resumed the subject: "He had great abilities, Stephen had. We sent him to the Legislature three times. They thought of nominating him for Gov ernor. 15ut," ho added, sadly, "Stephen had one fault." I made 110 answor. I was tired and watched tho people slowlv disperse. "A very generous man Stephen was. Al ways visited thesiok—he was feeling—when any one was in trouble. The old people all liked him. Even the children used to fol low him in the streets." "A good man, indeed," said I indiffer ently. "Yes, he only had one fault." "What was that?" I asked. "Only Intemperance." "Did it harm him?" "Yes, somewhat. He didn't seem to have any power to resist at last. Ho got behind hand aud had to mortgage his farm and finally had to sell it. His wife died on ac count of the reverse; kind of crushed, dis appointed. Then his children, not having the right bringing up, turned out budly. His intemperance seemed to mortify them and take away their spirit. He had to leave politics; 'twouldu't do, you see. Then we had to set him aside from the church, and at last his habits brought on paralysis, and wo had to take him to the poorhouse. He died there, only forty-live. There wore none of his children at tho funeral. Poor man, ho had only one fault." Only one fault! The ship had only one leak, but it went down. Only one fault: Tho temple had only one decaying pillar, but it fell. Only one fault! Home gono, wife lost, family ruined, honor forfeited, social and religious privileges abandoned, broken health, poverty, paralysis aud tho poor house. One fault, only onel—Sacred II"arl Re view. Quite a IMfferenee. A correspondent of the New York Sun, pointing out tho difference between a com munity wheroin tlie drink truffle Is re pressed by law, backed by a strong public sentiment, and one within whose boun daries there Is no such aversion to drink and drunkenness says:"l live for eight or nine months every year near a New Y'ork village of u population of say "000. The other four months I live near a New Eng land village of about the same size. In the New Y'ork village there are twenty-odd saloons or bars; in the Now England no saloons or bars. In this same New Eng land village the savings-bank has $1,100,- 000 on deposit. It has a public library of (iOOO volumes, splendidly housed, as Is Its public reading-room. It has a paid lire department, concreted streets and side walks, two largo anil elegant hotels in which, if any of your readers can find a bar or other evidences of liquor-selling, they are smarter tbau tho wealthy and public-spiritod citizens who are so known and determined in their support of tho pro hibitory law that nobody dares run the risk of un attempted violation. This vil lugcV'ig Its high school in one of tho ilnest bulldi.. ' 'u tlie country; Its intermediate school In another elegant edifice, anil Its primary school and kindergarten beauti fully housed. It picks up in u carriage the smaller children aud conveys them to and from school at tho public expense." "The writer then describes the New York village'with its twenty-odd saloons, anil states that it has no public library or read ing-room, no paid lire department, no con creted streets or sidewalks, aud only oae school building. A l'owerful Sermon. A powerful sermon was preached the other day in a police station In Brooklyn. A woman of sixty years of age was picked up In tho street helplessly intoxicated, and taken to a police station. She was allowed to remain unconscious iu a cell for live hours, when she was removed to a hospital, where she soon died. The woman was tho widow of a hotel-kepper in Philadelphia, and had been a hard drinker for twenty years, a frequent inmate of the almshouse, and the penitentiary 011 Blnekwell's Island. If that was not an eloquent temperance ser mon, wo do not know what telling preach ing is. lndependent. The l'rcsl>3-tcriuitA :tlld Temperance. Tho new circular adopted at Pittsburg by tho Permanent Temperance Committee of the Presbyterian General Assembly to bo issued to the presbyteries, suggests to church courts that it is thoir duty to "fore warn parents of the temptations that may beset thoir sous as they enter upon college life," but does not name or suggest any col lege In which those temptations seem to be more potent than in another, it does state that "the Presbyterian Church has long been teaching that temperance is total ab stinence from intoxicants—not their mod erate use—and that the traffic (In Intoxi cants), licensed or unlicensed, is a curse to be constantly combated by every Christian citizen."
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers