LITTLE TRUAHTI.i l [ How the City Tries to | , > form Them. Cj JOOOOOOOO 0000000000000000C1 Boys and girls in the upper walks of life rarely come into close contact with the at tendance officer of the truant school, but among the poor, where every non-earning mouth is a drag upon the other, the attendance officer Is a person of importance. The work of looking after truants is under the general supervision of Mr. Valentine M. Collins. His corps of assistants embraces twenty-one attendance offi cers. Mr. Olllns is very earnest and thorough in his work. lie contends that in a country where citizenship means so much every young man is under ihe obligation of becoming a good citizen. ' KIXI)K- TRUANT SCHOOL. "The young men of the city of New York," says Mr. Collins, "are its glory and hope. Any work or influence that tends to elevate and strengthen them in character and intellect deserves the support and encouragement of all good citizens. Tnis is what the truancy department seeks to do." The Compulsory Education law ap plies to private schools and parochial schools, as well as public schools, and nil come under the care of the depart- TRUANT OFFICE!! ARRESTING A BOY ON THE STREET. ment of truancy. A boy or girl of fourteen whose parents are in such a position that the money he or she would earn is vitally necessary may apply to the Board of Health, obtain an employment certificate and goto work. Any factory, mercanti'e house or business firm of any description em ploying child en under sixteen without such a certificate is amenable to the Truant law. The New York Truant School is es tablished at No. 210 East Twenty-first street. Complaints are lodged here wilii Mr. Collins. A child committed to tlie truant school can only be held until ihc expiration of the school year. However, a child sent to the Catholic Protectory or the Juvenile Asylum is confined until the end of his school in struction. Mr. Collins by committing a boy to th>' truant school reserves to himself the right of parolling him in the course of the scholastic year. Mr. Collins never holds out hope of such a pardon, liut it always comes without previoiut announcement. For the sake of gooa discipline the parole is never given without the consent of the principal to take liis former pupil hack and tlie knowledge of the attenilanee officer, and the whole school is made to feel that tlie pupil lias won the prize by his own efforts. A probation card is given. Willi which the discharged prisoner lias to present himself at the truant TEACIUNi; TiIVA NTS TO UK N KAT. •clinol fur tiiiiHWllnn. Brut we kly, nf I lerwaitl mini monthly, until uutilljr h«* | i» wholly iflfa. «>il. Mr, l olliiiii Ik I •■'■Uiiis forward to j tin- t-recllou of a II unlit m liool lit tin cc uiiry, Willi grout"!* nml linilillnu's Bi ijilß enough for u well a|>lNiluit'il 11'UlUiU. bl'huol fol uiauit.ll UL.ll lUtiUk trial Instruction. The present build ing will be used as the receiving house for the new school. The plans for this new truant school have been submit ted by C. B. J. Synder. Superintendent of School Buildings. Although the In stitution will be distinctly reformatory In Its object, every effort will be made to avoid the appearance of a reforma tory or a place of coutlnement. The course of study In the truant school Is the public school curriculum. The ages of the Inmates run from eight to fourteen years, but there are a few at fifteen years. The sleeping arrangements are on the dormitory system. A man sleeps in each room occupied by the boys, aud a watchman patrols the whole night. The discipline is firm, but mild. Under the law no corporal punishment may be admin istered. One officer, a woman, has been so efficient In her gathering in of truants that the boys ail over the city hold her iu terror. For a long time she wore a pray felt Alpine, with a. long white wing at one side. Like the password of a secret society this peculiar head gear was described, and became so well known that she was forced to buy a new hat. The boys she was after would spy this white wing at a great distance and would then take to their heels. As the attendance officer, ow ing to her skirts, was not very fleet of font, her truants generally got away from her. The boys in the truant school are happier than one would suppose they would be, and the majority give little trouble, as they are on probation, and if the rules and regulations are ob served their time is shortened. So each boy has an object iu view, for which he works hard, and the boy whose time is shortened is rather a "big bug" will the rest of the school, and tlie boys who remain behind are spurred onto greater efforts to be as big JIS he was.—New York Herald. STONE SAILS. A Curious Monument at tlie Villuge of (i initial upe. About two miles to the east of the City of Mexico is the village of Gua dalupe, writes a contributor to the Strand Magazine, where, at the foot of the hill of Tepeyacae. is a hnnd some church in honor of tl\e Virgin of Guadalupe. On the summit of tlie hill, t —' > A I} 4 \f|L THE STONE SAILS OF GUADALUPE. to which a series of stone steps leads, is a chapel named "The Chapel of the Little Ilill." Half way up to the chapel is a most remarkable monu ment in stone and mortar, represent ing the foremast of a full-rigged ship. The monument was erected by a sail or, who, being caught in a storm at sea, vowed tlmt, if he reached land safely, he would build a stone ship to the glory of the Virgin. Either hlr run< 1 M run uliort or IIIH unilllinlt> foi Itih grt'iv li-**, for lit* ijoi no furtln-r In ill of tliu Hitll' than (lit* foreman!, Din nails nml m-f I>o 1 iitM. nil tif which art* rviillttli'ally r* liriMlut'iHl. Till* IN itroluiltly iln* only filmy In ktout* of [tan of u »lni> lu utii uiul »tlv. | The Fashions off ! [he Century. | *i $■ 4T ECCENTRICITIES OF THE TAST ONLY Y». *■ W" 4 AUR LACKING. K V9*9999*9'J999*99***9V99V*» T~ OOKING back through the 1 r* history of clothes Droit) the ferent phases have repeated them selves front time to time, the fashions of to-day combine the beauties of the various stages of the past, omitting the eccentricities. The graceful, cling ing; skirt of the beginning of the last century, almost the same bolero, fliul a copy in tile gown of I'.MX). The grace ful flcl.tt of 1838 serves as a model for our day while the voluminous skirts are happily passed by. Though expen sive, it was not yet the crinoline, but the petticoat that was responsible for this particular feature. It is said that the skirls widened themselves to bal ance the width of the shoulders for this was the time of the pelerine. Sleeves, too, were larger, of necessity. Early in the '3o's was an interesting epoch in the manners of the mere man, for then be was settling down to the simplicity of the present-day attire and dispensing with his elegant kuee breeches—this, however, only after a struggle between the practical and the ornate that hud lasted since the close of the eighteenth century. By 1842 all gowns were trailing again. This was the time of the lace mitten and of the odd little parasols with long fringes and double hanules. OUTDOOR FASHIONS OF THE I. AST CBNTUBY • P,v 1800 the tide had turned, the skirts were wide and tne shoulders narrow. By 'OS the crinoline hail ceased to ex ist. and the revulsion from width re sulted by about IS7O in the peculiarly monstrous costume of that day. In the crinoline our grandmothers could scarcely sit uown. In '7O their (laugh ters could neither walk nor sit with any ease. Even so late as IS! >5, the huge over balancing sleeves put to flight the ideas of grace and symmetry. The ac companying illustration Is froui the Gentlewoman. In men's attire, 1840 was the age of the gorgeous waistcoats, while nt that time the tall silk hitt supplanted the beaver, the new species coming from Paris and very rapidly becoming a permanent institution, though abused during all these intervening sixty years. A l*r«*lilntorlc Elopeiupnt* Faster and faster sweeps the glisten ing cave-man to and fro; lower and tenser grows the erooniug-song. Dazed with the motion of her head from side lo side to watch the ever-chnngiug love-play, she does not heed the play er's gradual approach, when with a sudden spring he dashes in upon her, seizes her with Ills strong arms, ami drags her screaming, struggling dowu the sloping path. Hut the glamour Is dispelled, and. alive to the instinct of self-defence, the woman lilies and struggles, and In her young strength proves no easy conquest. Driven lo desperate meas ure#, the cave-mau seizes from the ground a stone, stuns her with a sud den stroke, and as she throws up her arms to fall, seizes Iter about the waist, and, casting her lightly across Ills shoulder, hastens down the path. Down through the leafy, sunlit glai'.es he strides, bearing tlio warm and yielding burden of senseless He»h, the nerveless arms nilown his limit, anil the yellow hair streaming lo ihe ground; mid Hie forest, with lis green depths, closes iilsiut I hem l>r. Mer rick Wliltcoml- iu "New" I.lpplucutt. Majulia Bill nt LMt. Tills Illustration furnishes convlnc* Ing proof that the British have at least reached the great goal of their desires—Mnluhn Hill—for here is the picture of one standing on its summit. He might be taken for patience on a monument, so rigid and erect he stands, but, no, he is only a plain, every day adjutant of the Nineteenth Ilussars who attained to this proud eminence by the skilful use of his legs. But what a memory to Britishers is Majuba Hill, where General Joubert, leading an undisciplined mob of Boers, broke a British square and at the same time almost broke the British heart. Here it was that independence was won, though it has since been lost, and here the "embattled farmers" of the Transvaal drove the British sol diery like sheep before them. Much has happened down iu South Africa since that time, and despite their sharpshootlng, which won them the victory at Majuba, the Boers have in the main been defeated, and at last Majuba has been "avenged," though the memory of Its disaster can never be effaced. Quaint CuHtoiiis in Slietlan I. The only part of the United King dom In which the old style of reekou -Ins thne Is adhered to is the archipela go of Shetland, and there Sunday, January 15, was New Year's Day. But Sunday being with the natives a strict dies nun for business or for pleasure, the next day witnessed the high jinks Incident to the occasion. These included processions of "gttls ers," or mummers, and the drinking of various strange toasts, such as "licit toman and death to da grayfisb," and the health of the twelve apostles. lu Shetland the remnants of the old Norse language linger to such a de gree that the dialect is almost a sealed book—even lo Scotsmen. The last specimen of the great auk whose eggs are now valued at something likv 100 guineas apiece, was done to death there, liut the little auk still retains a precarious footing on the lonely Islet of Foulu.—Loudon Dally Mall. Ah! Mr*. (Jreene —"Notwithstanding Mr. Sunrlcr is a man uf good Judgment, I notice that everybody is going into ec static* about that picture of Mahl stick's, iiinl you know Siiarler said it was a perfect ilaub." Mr. Greene "1 didn't say his judg ment was good 1 merely said he was a distinguished art critic." liostou Transcript. A new electric railway Is under con struct ion lu Geriuuu)' due hundred and sixty miles in: hour i» the uiuvl -11111111 of speed which. It Is hoped, MiU be attained uu the loud. DR. TALMAGFS SERMON SUNDAY'S DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED DIVINE. Subject: The Ministry of Tear* ft Out Misfortunes Are Kurne in the Right Spirit They May Prove to lie Ailvan tages—Soul Chastened by Sorrow. [Copyright lfloi.] NEW YORK CITY. A vast audience crowded the Acaderay of Music in thiH city to hear Dr. Talmage. Discoursing on "The Ministry of Tears" he put forth the misfortunes of life in a cheerful light, showing that if they were borne in the right spirit they might prove to be advan tages. His text was Rev. vii, 17, "And Goil shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." What a spectacle a few weeks ago when the nations were in tears! Queen Vic toria ascended from the highest throne on earth to a throne in heaven. The prayer more often offered than any prayer for the last sixty-four years had been answered, and God did save the Queen. All round the world the bells were tolling, and the minute guns were booming at the obse quies of the most honored woman of many centuries. As near four years ago the Knglish and American nations shook hands in congratulation at the Queen's jubilee, so in these times two nations shook hands in mournful sympathy at the Queen's departure. No neople outside Great Britain so deeply felt that mighty grief as our people. The cradles of many of our ancestors were rocked in Great Bri tain. Tliore ancestors played in childhood on the hanks of the Tweed, or the Thames or the Shannon. Take from our veins the Knglish blood, or the Welsh blood, or the Irish blood, or the Scotch blood, and the stream of our life would be a mere shal low. There are over there bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. It is our Wil berforce, our Coleridge, our De Quincey, our Robert Burns, our John Wesley, our •Tohn Knox, our Thomas Chalmers, our Walter Scott, our Bishop Charnork, our Latimer, our Ridley, our Robert Emmet, our Daniel O'Connell, our Havelock, our Ruslnn, our Gladstone, our good and great and glorious Victoria. The language in which we offered the English nation our condolence is the same language in which John Bunyan dreamed and Milton sane and Shakespeare drama tized and Richard Baxter prayed and George Whitefield thundered. The Prince of Wales, now King, paid reverential visit to Washington's tomb at Mount Vernon, and Longfellow's statue adorns Westmins ter Abbey, and Abraham Lincoln in bronze looks down upon Scotland's capi tal. It was natural that these two na tions be in tears. But 1 am not going to speak of national tears, but of individual tears and Hible tears. Riding across a Western prairie, -wild flowers up to the hub of the carriage wheel and while a long distance from any shelter, there came a sudden shower, and while the rain was falling in torrents the sun was shining as brightly as I ever saw it shine, and I thought what a beautiful spectacle is this! So the tears of the Bible are not midnight storm, but rain on pansied prairies in God's sweet and golden sunlighf. You remember that bottle which David labeled as containing tears and Mary's tears and Paul's tears and Christ's tears and the harvest of joy that is to spring from the sowing of tears. God mixes them; God rounds them; God shows them where to fall; (>od exhales them. A census is taken of them, and there is a record as to the moment when they are born and as to the place of their grave. Tears of bad men are not kept. Alex ander in his sorrow had the hair clipped from his horses and mules and made a great ado about his grief, but in all the vases of heaven there is not one of Alex ander's tears. I speak of the tears of God's children. Alas, me, they are falling all the time! In summer you sometimes hear the growling thunder, and you see there is a storm miles away, but you know from the drift of the clouds that it will not come anywhere near you; so, though it may be all bright around about you, there is a shower of trouble somewhere all the time. Tears, tears! What is the use of them, anyhow? Why not substitute laughter? Why not make thi'. a world where all the people are well and eternal strangers to pains and aches? What is the use of an eastern storm when we might have a perpetual nor'wester? Why, when a family is put together, not have them all stay, or, if they must be trans planted to make other homes, then have them all live, the family record telling a story of marriages and births, but of no deaths? Why not have the harvests chase each other without fatiguing toil? Why the hard pillow, the hard crust, the hard struggle? It is easy enough to ex plain a smile or a success or a congratula tion, but come now and bring all your dic tionaries and all your philosophies and all your religions and help me explain a tear. A chemist will tell you that it is made up of salt and lime and other component parts, but he misses the chief ingredients —the acid of a soured life, the viperine sting of a bitter memory, the fragments of a broken heart. I will tell you what a tear is. It is agony in solution. Hear, then, while I discourse of the ministry of tears or the practical uses of sorrow: First, it is the design of trouble to keep this world from being too attractive. Something must be done to make us will ing to quit this existence. If ft were not for trouble, this world would be a good enoi jjh heaven for us. You and I would be willing to take a lease of this life for a hundred million years if there were no trouble. The earth, cushioned and up holstered and pillared and chandeliered at such expense, no story of other worlds could enchant us. We would say: "I.et well enough alone. If you want to die and have your body disintegrated in the dust and your soul go out on a celestial adven ture, then you can go, but this world is good enough for me. ' You might as well goto a man who has just entered tin- Louvre at Paris and tell him to hasten off to the picture galleries of Venice or Flor ence. "Why " he would say. "what is the use of my going there? There are Rem brandt* and Ruhensea ami 'l'itians here that I have not looked at yet." No man wants togo out of this world or out of anv house until lie h»s a better house. To cure this wish to slay here God must somehow create disgust for our surround ings. How shall He do it ? He cannot af ford to efface llis horizon, or to tear off a tier.v panel from the sunset, or to subtract an anther from the water lily, or to banish the pungent aroma from the mignonette, or to drug the robes of the morning in mire. You cannot expect a Christopher Wren t<> mar his St. Paul's cathedral, or a Mi chael Angelo to dash out his own "lai-t Judgment," or II Handel to discord his "Israel in Egypt," and you cannot PMHvt God to spoil tin- architecture and music of Ills own world How, then, are we to be made willing to leave? Ilere is where trouble come* in. After a man ha* had a good deal of trouble he sa\»; "Well. I am ready togo If there is a house somewhere whoso roof d ii < not leak. I would like to live there If tlit re is an atmosphere somen that don not .listr. -» the lungs, I would like to breathe it. Ii there is a so-ietv some win re "here there is no tittle tattle. I would Id,.- to live their If I here- is .1 home i ,r. 'e v oni-whtie v. here I ca'i tin.' in\ 10. friends. I.»>!.! lit..to no thi" II 11.. 1 lo ~ ..I the lift l l-t of til- Hible elm tlv \\ n\ has he iiuin*.-d lictic»o<i t o It. n '.lf O Ml. h • II- I I • 1..- - elm -K to know how tills world was made and >ll shout Us geological construct ion Now h" is iSnrti an nous to know how tin' nr\| world w#« made, and how it looks Mid who live lle-re. and how th»v dress lie ra-..1i Itrvvlst ml ten Hints now where tic Had* Uvttesis uuee. the old story, "hi the , beginning God created the heaven* andl the earth." doe* not thrill hiin half ar the other story, "I aaw a new heaven and a new earth. The old man'i hand tremble* a* he turn* over till* apocalyptical leaf, and he ha* to take out hi* handkerchief to wipe hi* spectacles, l'he book of Revelation i* a prospect ll* now of the country into which he is soon to immigrate, the country in which he has lots already laid out and avenues opened and mansions built. It is trouble, my friends, that make* us leel our dependence upon God. We do not know our own weakness or God's strength until the last plank breaks. It it contemptible in us that only when there is nothing else to take hold of we catch hold of God. Why, do you know who the Jjord is? He is not an autocrat .seated far up in a palace, from which He emerge* once a year, preceded by herald* swinging swords to clear the wav. No; He is a father, willing at our call to stand by u* in every crisis and predicament of life. I tell you what some of you business inen make me think of. A man is unfortunate in his business. He lias to raise a good deal of money and raise it quickly. He borrows 011 word and note all he can bor row- After a while he puts a mortgage on his house; after a while he puts a second mortgage on his house. Then he puts a lien on his furniture; then he makes over his life insurance; then he assigns all his property; then he goes to his father in-law and asks for help. Well, having failed everywhere, completely failed, he gets down on his knee* and savs: "O Lord, I have tried everybody and everything; now help me out of this financial trouble!" He makes God the last resort instead of the first re sort. A young man goes off from home to earn his fortune. He goes with his mother's consent and benediction. She has large wealth, but he wants to make his own fortune. He goes far away, falls sick and gets out of money. He sends for the hotel keeper where he is staying, asking for le nience, and the answer he gets is, "If you do not pay up Saturday night you'll be re moved to the hospital." The young man sends to a comrade in the same building; no help. He writes to a banker who was a friend of his deceased father; no relief. Saturday night comes, and he is moved to the hospital. Getting here, he is frenzied with grief, and he borrows a sheet of paper and a postage stamp, and he sits down, and he writes home: "Dear mother, lam sick unto death. Come." It is twen ty minutes of 10 o'clock when she gets the letter. At 10 o'clock the train starts. She is live minutes from the depot. She gets there in time to have five minutes to spare. She wonders why the train that can go forty miles an hour cannot go eighty miles an hour. She rushes into the hospital. She says: "My son, what does all this mean? Why did you not send for me? You sent to everybody but me. You knew 1 would and could help you. Is this, the reward I get for my kindness to you always?" She bundles him up. takes him home and gets him well very soon. Now, some of you treat God just as that young man treated his mother. When you get into a financial perplexity you call on the banker, you call on the broker, you call on your creditors, you call on your lawyer for legal counsel, you call upon everybody, and when you cannot get any help then you goto God. You say, "O Lord, I come to Thee! Help me now out of my perplexity." And the Lord comes, though it is in the eleventh hour. He says: "Why did you not send for Me be fore? As one whom his mother comfort eth so will I comfort you." It is to throw us back upon God that we have this minis try of tears. Your troubles are educational. I go into the office of a lapidary, an artificer in precious stones, and I see him at work on one precious stone for a few minutes, and he puts it aside finished. I see him take up another precious stone, and he works on that all the afternoon, and I come in the next day and still find him working on it, and he is at work on it all the week. L say to him, "Why did you put only twenty minutes' work on that one precious stone and put a whole week on this other?" "Oh," be says, "that one upon which I ppt only twenty minutes' work is of but little worth, and I soon got through with it. But this precious stone /upon which I have put such prolonged and care ful work is of vast value, and it is to Hash in a king's coronet." So God lets one man go through life with only a little cutting of misfortune, for he does not amount to much, lie is a small soul and of compara tively little value, but this other is of great worth, and it is cut of pain, and cut of bereavement, and cut of persecution, and cut of all kind* of trouble, and through many years, and I ask, "Dear Lord, why all this prolonged and severe process?" and God says:"This soul is of infinite value, and it is to flash in a king's coronet. He shall be Mine in the day when 1 make up My jewels." You know, on a well-spread table the food becomes more delicate at the last. I have fed you to-day with the bread of con solation. Let the table now be cleared, and let us set on the chalice of heaven. Let the King's cupbearers coine in. "Oh," says some critic in the audience, "the liible contradicts itself. It intimates again and again that there are to be no tears in heaven, and if there lie no tears in heav en how is it possible that God will wipe any away?" 1 answer, "Have you never seen a child crying one moment and laugh ing the next and while she was laughing you saw the tears still on her face?" And perhaps you stopped her in the very midst of her resumed glee and wiped oft those delayed tears. So I think after the heav enly raptures have come upon us there may be the mark of *onie earthly grief, ana while these tears are glittering in the light of the jasper sea God will wipe them away. How well He can do that! Friends, if we could get any apprecia tion of what God has in reserve for us, it would make us so homesick we would be unfit for our every day work. Professor Leonard, formerly of lowa University, put in my hand* a meteoric stone, a stone thrown off from some other world to this, llow suggestive it was to me! And I have to tell you the best representations we have of heaven are only aerolites flung off from that world which rolls on, bearing the multitude of the redeemed. We ana lyze these aerolites and find them crystal lisations of tears. No wonder, thing off from heaven! "God shall wipe away all Uar* from their eyes." Have you any appreciation of the good and glorious times your friends are having in heaven'.' How different it is when they get news there of a Christian's death from what it is here! It is the difference be tween embarkation and coming into port. Kverything depend* upon which side of the river voii stand when you hear of a Christian's death. If you stand on this side of the river, you mourn that they go; it you stand on the other side of the river \on rejoice that they come. 1 >.■ you not thi< moment catch a glimpse of the towers? Do you not hear a note of the eternal harmony? Some of )nu may remember the old Crystal Palate in this city ot Ni w York. I came in t'roin my country home a verdant lad and heard lit ihat Crystal Palace the first great musir t had ever heard. .liillieu guve a concert there, and there were .'MOtl voices and ;MUt player* upon instrument*, and 1 was mightily impressed with the fact that «'ul !leu controlled the harmony with the mo tion of In* hand and foot, heating tim* with the one and emphasizing with the other. To me it was over»helmuig. But all that «ai tame compared with the scent iud the »oand vli-ii the run*ouicd shall come troin ihe >.ist, and the west, and th* north. Mid t li*- MUM. MM "it down in th* k iu'dun ot God, initial's above myriad*. .t!.<i is above gallciic- and t lirist will rise, and all he.t\cii will rise with I Inn 'lid Willi llis Mounded hand and woundrit ...l tie will conduct that harmony. "Like ihe \••ir ot many water*, like the voice ol mighty thundering*, worthy is the l.ainb that wis slum to receive re lies and liono| Hid glory and power, world without end.'"
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers