HYMN BEFORE ACTION. The earth Is full of anger, The sens are dark with wraths The nations in their harness Oo up against our path! Ere yet we loose the legions— Ere yet we draw the blade, Jehovah of the Thunders, Lord God of Battles aid! Prom panic, pride and terror, Iterenge that kuows no rein- Light haste and lawless error, Protect us yet again. Cloak thou our undeserving, Make firm the shuddering breath, In silence and deserving To taste thy leaser death! E'en now their vanguard gathers, we face the fray. As thou didst help our fathers, Help thou our host today! Fulfilled of signs and wouders, In li e, in death made clear— Jehovah of the Thunders, Lord God of Battles hear! —Rudyard Kipling. | itzig: "A Reporter's Boy." | Some of the best reporters cannot write a sentence correctly. They are Dot expected to do so. It is their business to collect facts, which they telate to others who put them in form ts a"news story." Something is lost, of course, by this method of second-hand telling,for the writer cannot reproduce a scene from imagination so well as he could if he had seen.it, but the assistants, or "re porter's boys," as they are called, are not seut out alone on any incident that promises much importance. Their work is the small news of the day, which is intended only for short para graphs. That their results are often interesting enough for long accounts is due, in part, to accident; in part, however, to the industry and the un derstanding developed by long train ing of native intelligence. Isaac Hofstein, or Itzig, as he was called for short,was such an assistant. He was a child of the East Side tene ments, and his work, at police head quarters, was chiefly among the Jews of the New York Ghetto. Shrewd and accurate, he was always to be trusted to fetch all the facts and to Btnte them correctly. None of the other boys could "beat" him,and none was so accurate as Itzig, who never failed to get names and addresses, and never get them wrong. This devotion to completeness and accuracy made his accounts sometimes a bore, for he brought in details that were of no use, but it was an invalu able trait, of course, and very rare, except among first-rate men of all sorts. His work was libel-proof, and no other paper could go over his inves tigation and add new particulars to his story. When he came back he was done; and he would sit down with his notes and tell all about the fire, acci dent or crinie, with swift ease and un hesitating assurance. One day, however, there was an ex ception. He had been to a fire. To cover so commonplace an incident was child's play for him,and sometliiug he liked, because he rejoiced in descrip tion and the heroic. It was a never failing pleasure to him to discover and eelabrate a bold rescue by a police man, a fireman or a neighbor. ".Say, it was great!" he used to say, when he came to tell about such a deed. "William J. McGlory, number four truck, tweuty-eiglit years old, No. 17 Cannon street, he—" then,lay ing down his notes, Itzig would repro duce with gestures, grimaces and lan guage, often slangy, a vivid picture. The picturesque details were always as complete as the names, initials, addresses, etc. But oil this day,while several repor ters were waiting for his fire story, he was shu Hing and hesitating over a fire. His sense of"the great" was evidently struggling with some other feeling or observation, and it was im possible to make out what was the matter. "It wasn't much, only a two-alarm fire, and it didn't do no damage to speak of,"he said. "'Twasn't in a good neighborhood, either—just a tenement house, No. 16 Essex street, five-story, red brick, full of families with kids, kids by the hundreds, eighty-seven. But you see there was a panic and a—somebody had to— you know how it is when 'the geese'— the East Side Jews—get a scare trun into 'em! Just describe top-floor families out by way of the roof to the next house, third and fourth cooped up iu halls, some of 'em rushing to the fire-escapes, others too askeered to move, just shriekin' and 'rending their garments,' as the Bible says. "Across the street," he hurried on. "the other 'Motzes' " another slang word for East Side Jews —"out on fire-escapes, with their hands and faces raised to the sky, crying, 'Ei wei, ei wei!' You know how it is. Yon can, describe it an' I'll give you the names. But the firemen were late, 0:1 account of no one knowing how to ring iu an alarm. Samuel Bernstein, forty-two years old, No. 16 Essex, next door to the fire, tried it first, then—" "Oh, come to the point!" I inter rupted. "What about it?" "Well, there was a fire rescue. It . wasn't very hard, either. You see " "Give us the name of the rescurer, while you're about it. "Oh, it was just a fellow passing by ran in and saved some people, mostly children." "Didn't you get his name?" "I got the names of them he saved, which was the most important." "Well, goon." "The fire," resumed Itziff, "started in the basement, shoemaker shop, Abram Koswinky,thirty-six years old, married, three kids, oldest four—do you want names and ages?" "If they did or suffered anything." "No, they got out easy by the rear window, through the area to No. 22 la;k. But the flames were just climb ing up the stairways. Escape oy the front door was cut off when I got there. I—l happened to be over that way on a suicide and heard the wails, you know. Somebody had to help, or we'd had a big story with a dozen roasted to death. Putin, 'Scared, white faced looked out of the windows each second, then disappearing back in the smoke.' It was tongh, I tell you. There was a way to get to the third story by the next house. You ' could climb from one fire-escape to the other and get in the window. Inside, the flames was cutting the floor in half. A man and woman and two children in the front room were passed out by the way the man came. Their names were—" "Keep them till afterwards." "The thing to do was get to the rear rooms, where there was more of 'em. The man—the fellow that had come up to save the whole crew—had to get down and crawl ulong the floor tinder the flames, aiul they licked his back hair off and set his coat on fire. But he got there. And he found two men, three women and five kids huddled in one corner,one woman and two babies unconscious from smoke. The others were getting air by breath ing low down on the floor. "The men had to be made togo down the rear fire-escape with the womeu and jump. This took time, and the flames burst out of the-rear, cutting off that way out. So there was the five kids. I—l think the man said that he grabbed two and was going to throw them out to the old people, but they had run away. So he had togo front. "He started to run for it; but he was set fire to and had to lie down and roll the flames out and crawl again. The firemen had come, and they caught the kids all right. The firemen who caught 'em was Jerry Sullivan, Truck Eleven,the first there, and—" "Give us that later." "The fellow inside sneaked back the same way and got two more. The firemen had a ladder up to take the children. One was left. As he went: back for that he seen the gnuie was up. He had to shake his coat, which was burned, so he whacked it against a wall till it was out, aud wrapped the last kid in it. "Then came the fuu. The flames covered the back of the house and coming in the window. House full of smoke, floors hot, hallways ablaze, solid, you know, 'hemmed in by Ave, babe in arms'—that's the feature of the story! The stairways fell, the hall floor curved, the whole building shook. The fellow thought of a lot of things, but they didn't hive anything to do with getting out of that hole. There was an awful crash, and he just sank in a heap." Itizg wiped his face. The perspira tion that had started to it dampened his handkerchief. "The nest thing that man knew, he was in a drug-store, No. 28 Esses,and the fire was out." "But did he escape?" asked one ot the reporters. "Didn't he go down with the walls when the crash came?" "No, that part of the house didn't fall, and you see, the firemen knew him. When he didn't show up they crossed the air-well from nest door, got through a window and battered down the door to the room where he was. "They found him asleep and—a feature of the story is they couldn't get the kid out of his arms to save the two separately. They had to carry them out together." The reporters laughed at Itzig. "What's the hero's name?" asked one. • "Oh,he wasn't a hero. He wouldn't have done it if he hadn't started to, being there first. Besides, he didn't save the last child, you see, but had to be rescued himself." "Did you interview him?" queried Chapman, who was writing the story. "No, not much; he wasn't able to talk." "Not even to tell his name?" "He didn't want to," said Itzig. "But the firemen, you said, knew him." "Yes—not very well—only his first name." "What was that?" "I—well, I didn't think to ask." "Didn't think to ask! Didn't think to get the most important point in the whole story! Are you losing your mind?" cried Chapman,in amaze ment. But one of the other men was of quicker perception. "Was his name Isaac?" he asked. Itzig flushed. "Itzig," said a reporter who had gone behind him, "your hair is all burned off aud your neck is blistered. "Yes, and you've got on your Sun day coat," cried another. "Oh, get out!" said Itzig. "It's so disgusting when you reporters go sticking your noses into other people's affairs!" Sensation of Hanging. A captain who was rescued from the gibbet at the intercession of Vis cooat Turenne, after being partially hanged, related that, having lost all pain in an instant, by being rescued lie had been suatched from a glorious light, the charms of which defied all -'description. All victims of partial hanging agree that the uneasiness is quite momentary; that a pleasant feeling succeeds, and that various colors start before the sight. The mind, averted from reality, is engaged in scenes most remote from that which fills the eye of the spectator —the hideous gallows and the struggling form. £lieep and Mole*. It is a noteworthy fact that sheep thrive best in a pasture infested wuii moles. This is because of the better drainage of the land. SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS. The polar currents are said to con> tain less salt than those from the equator. Experiments in England have proved that fine coal is an excellent material for sewage filtration. Glaciers are formed by the accumu lation of snow on mountains or ele vated table lands. The snow is com pressed into ice by its own weight. Lord Kelvia puts the age of the sun at 100,000,000 years. At its pres ent rate of combustion the sun will last from 7,000,000 to 15,000,000 ol years before burning itself out. Certain butterflies have very trans parent wings and these are thought by .Haase to be even more effectual foi protection than conspicuous "warn ing" stripes or other markings. Bacteria are found everywhere in the air and in our homes, they are so minute that 250,000,000 could be ac commodated on a penny postage stamp, and they multiply with incredible rapidity. Twelve thousand mail cars of the German railroads are now lighted by electricity, storage batteries being em ployed. The light has given full sat isfaction and is also said to be cheaper than the gas light used hitherto. Experiments made in compressing flour show that the bulk may be re duced two-thirds without injury to the quality. It is molded by hydraulic pressure into bricks, which are sweet, wholesome and proof against damp. A musket ball may be fired through a pane of glass, making a hole the size of the ball without cracking the glass, if the glass be suspended by a thread. It will make no difference, Bud the thread will not even vibrate. Suustroke generally occurs to per sons laboring in the open air and sun shine, but it would be better named heat-stroke, for it can occur even in winter in a close, darkened room where the temperature is for a long time above the normal. Astronomers generally now admit that the more recent studies of the planets Mercury and Venus tend to confirm Schiaparelli's opinion, ad vauced some years ago, that both of them turn on their axes once while revolving about the sun. A new life belt is made of sho*t rubber, which passes round the neck, across the chest and round the waist, and can be iuflated in one minute by the mouth; its weight is about oue pound, and it is alike flexible, light, and easily placed in position. It is estimated that a human being takes in by respiration 30,000 germs each day, or 101) millions a year. Not only are most of them harmless, but they give flavor to butter, cheese, game, etc., and they are the scaven gers of nature. They are absolutely necessary for the "round of life." Carving as an Art. Only persistent practice and defi nite knowledge make carving a pleas ure and a success. Neither illustra tion nor diagrams are of much assist ance in learning this art. As a dis tinguished authority on carving savs in his monograph on the subject: "Il lustrations cannot prove hopeful be cause the actual thing before us bears faint resemblance to pictures, these being able to give us only surface with no hints of what may be inside." By right of precedence, the carver's chair belongs to the head of the house, either father or mother, but weariness, preoccupation, or, more often, a par ent's pleasure in contemplating the in creasing deftness of a clever son or daughter in presiding over and prop- : erly distributing a joint, fowl or fish, ! leads the elders to resign in favor of i the youth when guests are not pres ent. Carving at the table, it is said, is now considered not only a useful art, but a social accomplishment as well. A practical knowledge of its process should be a part of the education oi all young people. Children should know how to carvq by the time they are fifteen years old. In Fiance a boy is required to take his turn in cutting and serving meats at the table as soon as he is strong enough to handle the knife and tall enough to readily reach the joint or fowl. Sometime he stands upou a broad stool made for the purpose, and he is proud when he is successful, and ashamed when found imperfect.— Philadelphia Times. Fin Motors for Propelling lloats. A curious device for propelling boats automatically against the waves is the fin motor of H. Linden of Naples, which has given to the little wooden boats of a Berlin maker the name of "autonauts." The motor imitates the tail fins of dolphius, etc. Each fin consists of a steel bar, from which flat blades, tapering in thickness, pro ject backward like the teeth of a comb, and each end of the boat is fitted with one of these fins, placed horizontally so as to rest on the sur face of the water at right angles to the keel. The waves bend the steel blades, which, reacting, press the water backward, and thus move the boat forward against the waves. The fins have been successfully tried on boats up to eighteen feet in length, a boat fourteen feet loug having been found to require a total active fin sur face of teu square feet, and a speed of about three miles au hour has been obtained in a sea stirred up by a strong wind. The oue use thus far found for the "autonauts" is that of dis tributing oil to calm the water to windward of fishing smacks. The little boats are readily steered by changing the position of the fins, and are made to move backward by re versing both fins so that they point forward, or made stationary by point ing the fins toward each other. V w xas;