ij T4 B K' n S D ' S« am 3; and flis family. This Ruler of H Strange Coun- trj' rropoK'i to Mnkii u Visit «4» •y* to the United States. T" LEOPOLD of Belgium is I/{ not the only royal personage | who is contemplating a visit C % to this country. It is on the Cards that lie King of Slam and his family are to journey to the United THE SIAMESE KING'S EIGHTEEN CHILDREN, BY HIS VARIOUS WIVES. —From Harper's Weekly. States some time in the near future. If the ruler of this strange country does pay us a visit it will be with all the accessories of Oriental splendor. We do not have togo back many years to find Siam almost, if not quite, as exclusive 1o European influences as China is to-day. One of the most remarkable Illustra tions of the changes which are taking Pi ace in the Orient is furnished by the Crown I'rincs of Slain, who is now a student at Oxford University and IHC QUEEN OP SIAM IN NATIVE COSTUME about to publish a book on the war of the Polish succession. Phya Charoon Raja Maltrl, who 13 Coming here as first Envoy Extraor dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from Siam to the United States in order to pave the way for his royal master's visit, has had a career prob ably more remarkable than any of the other diplomatists in Washington. Co'")in of his King as he is, he has , | n i THE KING OF SIAM IN ROYAL ATT IKE. —From Harper's Weekly. 'been Trlnce, priest, beggar and final ly not onlj Prince again, but one of the most trusted advisors of the vthroue. | I'hya Cliaroon Is about thirty-seven years old. Like most Siamese he is below medium size, according to our standards, but is of tine physique, ' deep chested, muscular and straight. ! He will be a particularly gorgeous i Minister. In Slam his collection of jewelry is no finer than that of many . other men of high rank, but Slam has been amassing gems for many genera tions. He lias emeralds, rubies, pearls and sapphires sewed into some of his ceremonial costumes. Besides these he has his more personal jewelry; dia monds, pearls, in rings, pins, belts and pendants. With all his decora tions on, chief among them blazing the blue-white diamonds of the Order of the Whi' elephant and the pris matic go* jfisness of the Chinese Crown, jis literally a dazzling cen tre o radiance. His home in Bangkok Is a spacious palace by the river side, tilled with retainers and slaves, who serve him, his several wives and their numerous children. The carvings anil bronzes and other works of art would furnish :i museum. lie has a separate slave for each detail of service especially trained and the bearer of the betel-nut box would never be expected to carry the parasol, or the steersman of the ceremonial boat to tend a door. Not always has I'liya Clinroou lived thus. Siam is the home of the most rigid Buddhism, and the envoy is a pious Buddhist. By the precepts of that religion as practiced in Sinm, every nobleman must serve in the priesthood a certain time. The King himself has been a priest. Phya Charoon spent his allotted time as a novitiate in one of the monasteries, where he became so imbued with the religion that he donned the yellow robe of the mendicant, renounced his riches ana begged his food from door to door. After completing his priesthood he studied diplomacy, and then traveled. He speaks English. It is not likely that he will bring any of his wives with him. Shaving In Public. The most public barber shop in New York has just been started in a room in the Grand Central Station which opens into the main passageway from the elevated railroad platform to the main waiting room. It is a small, shallow room, and the side toward the passageway is almost entirely glass. The chairs are within five or six feet of the passersby and every expression on the faces of the men in them can be seen plainly. Thousands of people pass this glass fronted barber shop every day and since the barbers have begun work not a few of these people have stopped to stare at the men being shaved as if they had never seen a barber shop before.—New York Sun. Of the 1557 towns in New England 101 manage their schools under the district system, eighty-one of them being in Connecticut. GUUUUUUUOTTMUUUUUUG g Curiosities of Ichthyology- 3 & a B RF Oharlas Minor Blackford, Jr., M. D. Q| THE study of Ichthyology Is at tended with greater practical difficulties than is that of any other branch of natural his tory, and on account of this It is far behind its sister sciences in the de gree of completeness to which It has attained. Land animals may be tracked to their most secret lairs, pa tient research will reveal the most cunningly hidden nests, but it is im possible to pass beneath the waves to watch the habits of "all that dwell therein." "The way of a fish in the sea" is almost as much a mystery now as in the days of Solomon, and what is known but shows the extent of the unknown. Suppose that a visitor from some other planet were to come on an ex ploring expedition to our earth, but that ids vessel could come no nearer than several miles, while our atmos phere was opaque to his vision and unfitted for his respiration. Under such circumstances his position would not be unlike our own in regard to the sea, and it may be perceived that in either case the knowledge to be gained must be scant and fragmentary. The astral explorer might capture a few of the lowest animals in his nets and dredges; lie would probably obtain some worms, but he would lie unlike ly to take a bird, quadruped, man or any other thing that has the power of locomotion. For the same reasons the investigation of the sea has been slow and unsatisfactory, and but little has been made out of even the common est fishes. Many species and some genera are known by single specimens, and in several instances these have FIO. I—BONES OF A "SEAI. FISH.'' (Therobromus callorhini.) been found by what appears to be the purest chance. Quite a number of rare specimens have been obtained from the stomachs of other aquatic animals. The greater number of fishes are carnivorous and most of them are voracious feeders, greedily swallowing anything of a suitable size that presents Itself. A shark's stomach sometimes contains a remarkable assortment of objects, and sometimes rarities are discovered, for sharks are more intent on the quan tity than the quality of their food. There is a genus of fish called the Tarlelonbeanea, in honor of Dr. Tarle ton H. Beau, a distinguished ichthy ologist, but of it only three specimens are known to exist. Of these, one was taken from the stomach of an Albacon off the coast of California, one came from a Sebastodes miniatus, and the third was blown on board of a boat during a storm. A still stranger example is that of the "seal flsh." In making some in vestigations into the life of the fur seal a few years ago, it was necessary to determine the character of the food on which it subsists. To do this, the stomachs of numbers of seals were opened and their contents examined, and in them the remains of a new kind of fish were found to very com mon. Nothing but the bones (Fig. 1) have been found, but these in such numbers as to show that there must lie vast quantities of these little fish, although up to the present time no one has seen one in life. The sea is the great home of aquatic life, but the fresh waters well repay research. The "lung fishes," that can breathe atmospheric air, and thus avoid polluted waters, or the mud lislies, that are captured by digging them up, are interesting variations from the general rule, but the subter ranean spceles are most wonderful. The blind lislies found in our great limestone caverns and those from ! the ditches of the rice-fields are fain- illar, but the secrets of"the watera under the earth," are not yet made plain. A few years since a station was established by the United States no. 2 TTPHIiOMOIiOE RATHBUNI. (Drawn from life.) Fish Commission at San Marcos, Tex as. An artesian well was bored, and a llow of 1200 gn lions of water per min ute obtained at a depth of 18S feet. The boring was through almost solid limestone, the "log" of the well show ing that one tunnel some two feet in diameter was pierced, but the flow has brought up numbers of living or ganisms, all new to science. So far four species of shrimps and a sala mander have been described, but these have been abundant. Dr. Jatnes E. Benedict, of the Smithsonian Institu tion, described and named the shrimps, and Dr. L. Steiner, of the same estab lishment, did the same for the sala mander. He gave it the name of Ty phlomolge Rathbunl, in honor of Mr. Richard Rathtbun, the assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institu tion. The accompanying illustration gives an accurate conception of this strange animal. Its head Is large and pro longed forward into a flattened snout in which is tile mouth. The eyes are covered by the skin and are visible only as two black specks. Behind the head the external gills form festoons about the neck, their vivid scarlet making a sharp contrast with the dingy white skin. The four legs are in two pairs, the anterior ones having four lingers, or toes and the posterior ones having five. It terminates in a flattened, cel-like tail.—Scientil'" American. Automobile to I>rlve With Itetna. While there are several kinds of au tomobiles it is only an export who can distinguish them, the ordinary lny i man seeing in an automobile merely a borsaless carriage which is moved by some unseen power. Now, however, an automobile has been invented in Massachusetts which differs widely from those in use at present. It consists of an ordinary four wheeled carriage, in front of which is a traction motor. The latter is mounted on separate wheels and Is connected by couplings with the axle of the carriage. It is also provided with reins, by means of which it can be guided and controlled. As the accompanying picture shows, this motor is driven very much in the same manner as a horse, and for this reason it is claimed that it will com mend itself specially to women. The reins are so adapted that when either L pulled the motor is at once guided to that side and when both are pulled a brake is set in motion. Tills arrangement is certainly more simple and artistic than the ordinary method of guiding and controlling an automobile, but whether it will work in practice remains to be seen.—Chi cago Record-Herald. New Uoe For tlio Lump. Hot water bags have grown to be a positive necessity In the household of late years, one great advantage of this being that they retain the warmth for an extended period of time. But the heat will eventually diminish be yond the point, where the water bag Is useful, when the water must be re newed. As this cannot always be done conveniently it has occurred to Sam uel A. Gotcher that the water might be constantly maintained at the re quired temperature by an arrangement attached to an ordinary lamp. He has applied the thought in the manner shown, simply connecting two bags with a coil of pipe in conjunction with the flame. As the latter can be readi ly regulated it is easy to vary the temperature to suit requirements. The —~i i l . i i i mmmmd WATER HEATER FOR TUE FEET. inventor does not confine himself to the use of the heater for indoor pur poses, but applies the same principle to the heating of foot-warmers in carriages and sleighs, obtaining the heat from a lantern carried on the dashboard for lighting the roadway. DR. TALMAQUS SERMON SUNDAY'S DISCOURSE DY THE NFOTED DIVINE. Subject: The Swsct Influences IV« Aro Affected For Good or l£vll Isy Forces That We Seldom llccugitize—lmport ance of Good Actions. (Corrriiflit, 1901.J WASHINGTON, 1). C. —In this discourse Dr. Talmage demonstrates that we are afiected by forces that we seldom recog nize and enlarges upon human accounta bility. The text is Job xxxviii, 31. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades'.'" VVhat is the meaning of that question which God put to Job? Have we all our lives been reading it, and are most of us ignorant of its beauty and power and practical sucgestiveness? A meaningless passage of Scripture many thought it to be, but the telescopes were busy age after age, and astronomical observations kept 9n questionii g the skies until the mean ing of my text come.s out lustrously. The Pleiades is a constellation of seven stars appearing to the naked eye, but scien tific instruments reveal more than 400 properly be onging to the grou;>. Alcyone is the nr.mo oi the brightest star of tiiat group called the Pleiades. A Russian as tronomer observed that Alcyone is the centre of gravitation of our solar system. Hugh Maemillan says that the sun and its i planets wheel around that centre at the rate of 422.000 r.iiles a day in an oruit which it will take 19,000,000 years to com plete. The Pleiades appear in the spring time and are associated with flowers and genial warmth and (rood weather. The navigation of the Mediterranean was from May to November, the rising and the setting of the Pleiades. The priests oi Belus noticed that rising and setting 2000 years before Christ. Now, the glorious meaning of my text is plain as well as radiant. To give Job the beautiful grace of humility God asked him, "Canst thou bind the sweet influ ences of the Pleiades?" Have you any power oyer the laws of gravitation? Call vou modify or change an influence wielded by a star more than 400,000 miles away? Can vou control the winds of the spring time? Can you call out the flowers? How little you know compared with omnis cience? How little you can do compared with omnipotence! The probability is that Job had been tempted to arrogance by his vast attain ments. He was a metallurgist, a zoolog ist. a poet, and shows by his writings he had knowledge of hunting, of music, of husbandry, of medicine, of mining, of astronomy and perhaps was so far ahead of the scholars and scientists of his time that he may have been somewhat puffed up; hence this interrogation of my text. And there is nothing that so soon takes down human pride as an interrogation point rightly thrust. Christ used it mightily. Paul mounted the parapet of his great arguments with such a battery. Men of the world understand it. Demos thenes began his speech to the crown and Cieero his oration against Catiline and Lord Chatham his most famous orations with a question. The empire of ignor ance is so much vaster than the empire of knowledge that after the most learned and elaborate disquisition upon any sub ject of sociology or theologv the plainest man may ask a question that will make the wisest speechless. After the pro foundest assault upon Christianity the humblest disciple may make an inquiry that would silence a Voltaire. Called upon, as we all ave at times, to defend our holy religion, instead of argu ment that can alwavs be answered by argument let us try the power of interro- f cation. We ought to be loaded with at east half a dozen questions and always ready, and when Christianity is assailed, and we are told there is nothing in it and there is no God and there never was a miracle and that the Scriptures are un reasonable and cruel and that there nev er will be a judgment day, take out of your portable armory of interrogation something like this: What makes the condition of woman in Christian lands better than in heathen lands? Do you think it would be kind in God to turn the human race into a world without any written revelation to explain and en courage and elevate and save? And if a revelation was made, which do you pre fer—the Zenda-Vesta of the Persian or the Confucian writings of the Chinese or the Koran of Mohammed or our Bible? If Christ is not a divine being, what did He mean when He said. "Before Abram was, T am?" If the Bible is a bad book, what are the evil results of reading it? Did you see any degrading influence of the book in your father or mother or sister who used to read it? Do you not think that a judgment day is necessary in order to explain and tix up things that were never explained or fixed up? If our religion is illogical and an imposition upon human credulitv, why were Herschd and Washington and Glad stone and William McKinley its advo cates ? How did it happen that our religion furnished the theme for the greatest poem ever written, "Paradise Lost." and to the painters their greatest themes in the "Adoration of the Magi," "The Transfiguration," "The Last Supper." "The Crucifixion." "The Entombment," "The Last Judgment." and that all the schools of painting put forth their utmost genius in presenting "The Madonna?" Why was it thnt William Shakespeare after amazing the world as he will amaze the centuries with the splendor and pow er of"The Merchant of Venice." and "Coriolanus." and "Richard III.," and "Kinit Lear." and "Othello," and "Mac beth." and "Hamlet" wrote with his own hand his last will and testament, begin ning it with the words: "In the name of God, amen! I. William Shakespeare, of Ptratfcrd-on-A von. in the County of Warwick, in perfect health and memory (God be praised!) do make and ordain this mv last will and testament, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Sav iour. to be made partaker of life ever lasting and my bodv to the earth whereof it is made?" Had Shakespeare lost his reason when he wrote his faith in Christ and the great atonement? Put your an tagonist a few questions like that, and you will find him excusing himself for an encr." gem en t he must meet immediately. These words also recognize far-reaching influences. Job probably had no adequate idea of the distance of the worlds men tioned from our world, but he knew them to be far off, and we, who have had the advantage of modern sidereal inves tigation, omrht to be still more impressed than was Job with the question of the text, as it puts before us the fact that worlds hundreds of thousands of miles distant have a grip on our world. There are sweet influences which hold us from afar. There may have been in our an cestral line perhaps 200 years ago some consecrated man or woman who has held over all the generations since an influ ence for good which we have no power to realize, and we in turn by our virtue or vice may influence those who shall live 200 years from now. Moral gravitation is as powerful as material gravitation, and if, as my text tenches and science con firms. the Pleiades, which are millions of miles from our earth, influence the earth we ought to be impressed with how we may be influenced by olhers far away back and how we may influence others far down the future. That rill away up among the Alleghanies, so thin you think it will hardly find its way down the rocks, becomes the mighty Ohio, roll ing into the Mississippi and rolling into the sea. That word you utter, that deed you do, may augment itself as the years go by until rivers cease to roll and the ocian itself shall be dried up in the burn ing of the world. Paul, who was all the time saying important tilings, paid r>-' ing more startling!}- suggestive he declared. "None of in livct' - .ieth to himself." Words, thougl actions, have an eternity of flight. As Job could not bind the sweet in fluences of the Seven Stars, as they were called, so we cannot arrest or turn aside the good projected long ago. Those in fluences were started centuries before our cradle was rocked and will reign cen turies after our graves are dug. Oh, it is a tremendous thing to live! God help us to live aright. Astronomers can r ily locate the Ple iades. They will tal you into their ob servatories on a clear ight and aim their revealing instrument award the part in the heavens where thaie seven stars have their habitude, and they will point to the constellation Taurus, and you can see for yourself. But it is impossible to point to influences far back that have affected our character nnd will affect our destiny. We know the influences near by—pa ternal, maternal, conjugal—but by the time we have gone back two generations, or. at most, three, our investigations falter and fail. Through the modern, interesting habit of searching back to find the ancestral tree we may find a long list of names, but they are only names. The consecration or abandon ment of some one 200 years ago was not recorded. It would not be so important if }'ou and I. by our good or bad be havior. blessed or blasted ' ■>' those im mediately around us, but our goodness or our badness will reach as far as the strongest ray of Alcyone—yea, across the eternity. Under this consideration, what do you think of those who give themselves up to frivolity or idleness and throw away fifty years of their exist ence as though they were shells or peb bles or pods instead of embvro eternities? I suppose one of the greatest surprises of the next world will be to see what wide, far-reaching influence for good or evil we have all exerted. I am speaking of ourselves, who are only ordinary peo ple. But who can fully appreciate the far-reaching good done by men of wealth in Oreat Britain for the working classes —Mr. Lister, of Bradford; Edward Akrovd, of Halifax: Thomas Sikes, of Huddersfield; Joseph Wentworth. and Josiah Mason, and Sir Titus Salt? This last great soul, with his vast wealth, pro vided 7."G houses at cheap rent for 3000 working people, and chapel and cricket ground and croquet lawn and concert hall and savings bank, where they might deposit some of their earnings, and life insurance for those who looked further ahead, and bathhouses and parks and museums and lecture halls with philosophical apparatus, the generous example of those men of a previous gen eration being copied in many places in Panada and the United States, making life, which would otherwise be a pro longed drudgery, an inspiration and a joy. If something appears against us, they say, "Wait till I hear tne other side." 1; disaster shall befall us, we know from whom would come the lirst condolence. J-.i in ily friends, church friends, business friends, lifelong friends. In our heart of hearts we cherish them. When the heirs of a vast estate in England wished to establish their claim to properly worth $100,000,000 they offered a reward of 8500 for the recovery of an old Jlible, the family record of which contained the evidence requisite. But any iiible, new or old, can help us to a vaster inheritance than the one spoken of, one that never fades away. The sweet influences of the heavenly world, which many wise men thought for a long while was Alcyone, the centre of the constellation oi the Pleiades — world of our future residence, as we hope; world of chorus and illumination; world of reunion; world where we shall be everlastingly complete; world where our old faculties will be itensified and quick ened and new faculties implanted; world of high association with Christ, through whose grace we got there at all, and apostles and poets, Habakkuk, and St. John of l'atmos, and Edward Young, his "Night Thoughts'' turned into eternal day; and Horatius Bonar of modern hymnology, and Hannah More, and Mrs. Jiemans, and Mrs. Sigournev, who struck their harps till nations listened; and David, the victor over Goliath with what seemed insufficient weapons; and Joshua of the prolonged day in Cilieon, and Havelock, the evangelist hero, and those thousands of men of the sword who f.night on the right side. What company to move in! Wnat guests to entertain! What personages to visit! What choirs to chant! What banquets with lifted chalice tilled with "the new wine of the kingdom!" What victories to celebrate! The stories of that world and its holy hilarities come in upon our souls some times in song, sometimes in sermon, sometimes in hours of solitary reflection, and they are, to use the words of my text, sweet influences. But there is one star that affects us more with its sweet influences than the centre star, the Alcyone of the Pleiades, and that is what one Jlible author calls the Star of Jacob and another Bible author calls the Morn ing Star. Of all the sweet influences that have ever touched our earth those that radiate from Christ are the sweetest. Horn an Asiatic villager, in a mechanic's home, living more among hammers and saws and planes than among books, yet at twelva years of age confounding robed ecclesiastics and starting out a mission under which those born without optic nerve took in the clear daylight and those afflicted with unresponsive tympa num were made to hear and those almost doubled up with deformities were straightened into graceful poise and the leprous became rubicund ana the widow's on.y son exchanged the bier on which lie lay lifeless for the arms of his over joyed mother and pronouncing nine bene dictions on the Mount of Beatitudes and doing deeds and speaking words which are tilling the centuries with sweet in fluences. Christ started every ambulance, kindled every electric ray, spread every soft hospital pillow and introduced all the alleviations and pacifications and rescues and mercies of all time. lie was the loveliest that ever trod our earth —more beauty in His eyes, more tenderness in His manner, more gentleness in His footsteps, more music in His voice, more dignity in His brow, more gracefulness in the locks that rolled unon His shoulders, more compassion in His soul. Sweet influences of the Holy Ghost, with all His transforming and comforting and emancipating power. When that power is fully felt there will be no more sins to pardon, and no more errors to correct, and no more sorrows to com fort. and no more bondage to break. But as the old-time ship captains watched the rising of the Pleiades for safe navi gation and set sail in Mediterranean waters, but were sure to get back into port before the constellation Orion came into sight—the season of cyclone and hurricane—so there is a time to sail for heaven, and that is while the sweet in fluences are upon us and before the storms overtake and delay. Open all your soul to the light and warmth and com fort and inspiration of that gospel which has already peopled heaven with millions of the ransomed and is helping other millions to that glorious destina tion. Ho not postpone the things of God and eternity until the storms of life swoop and the agitations of a great future are upon us. Do not dare wait until Orion takes the place of the Pleiades. Weigh anchor now and with chart un rolled and pilot on board head for the reunions and raptures that await all the souls forgiven. "And they need no candle, neither light nor the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, aud they shall reign forever and ever."
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers