' CHING W HER COMPANION. |M mB - W u sqdHer [?liargEs| NothiiiK Approaching the Kiot of "* Color Ever lioforo Seen in 'J City of Washington. J4 w —|~r HE two pretty girls taken to 1 Washington by Mmc. Wu, I wife of the brilliant and pic turesque Chinise Minister,! have stirred Washington society more than anything that the quaint Ori ental representative lias done since he had been in the capital. The girls are exceedingly pretty, even to the American eye, and the gorgeous gowns which they brought with them add to the interest and curiosity they .have awakened in Washington social circles. The youngest and prettiest is the adopted daughter of the Chinese Min ister. Her name is Miss So Ching Wu, and as the debutante of the Chinese mansion will be the recipient of a great deal of attention. But what has startled Washington to its very foundations is the extrava gant gorgeousness of the costumes that cn:::e with Mine. Wu and her young charges. Those who have been privi leged to see them in advance of their appearance at social functions declare that they are simply wonderful in their creation tyul that nothing even approaching tbffr glory lias ever been seen'' in any American city. Colors have been most wonderfully blended in the creation of these gowns, v.'hile gold and silver trimmings, aud the most amazing embroidery work lias made them incomparable. Miss So Ching Wu's jewels are an other feature of her advent in Wash ington's exclusive diplomatic circles. Mis Wu is well versed in English, MME, WU. reads and writes the language well. She is a charming musician, not alone in the Chinese acceptance of the term, but has studied under foreign tutors. She will not have much trouble in captivating those at the functions to a, - hieli she will be introduced by her lo;>ter father, himself a prime favorite. New Speeles of Caribou Discovered. The American Museum of Natural History lias just placed on exhibition the magnificent head and antlers of a new type of caribou, hitherto un known to science. It is the result of an expedition recently sent out by the museum for the collection of large mammals, which, owing to their rapid extermination by white and native hunters, are rapidly passing away. The specimen obtained is considered an important contribution to our knowledge of the distribution of cari bou in Northern North America. It was found in the Kenai I'eninsula, Alaska. The technical name of this new specimen is Itengifer Stonei. Un fortunately the entire body of th" • caribou could not be preserved. The measurements of the animal in flesh ■were as follows: Full length, seven feet one inch; height to withers, four feet four inches. The two distinctive features which mark this niw member of the caribou group are its colorations and the large and unusual form of antlers. The color description is as follows: "Front of ncse back to middle of nostrils, chin aud edges of lower lip .grayish or silvery white; top of the nose, from the white muzzle back to a point opposite the eyes, black, pass ing into dark (blackish) brown poster iorly and on the sides of the head to below the eyes; cheeks and throat still lighter brown; a narrow space sur rounding the eye and tear duct gray ish; top and sides of neck dark gray ish brown, becoming lighter aud grayer at the base of the neck, and then abruptly darker in front of the shoulders (skin of body not preserved); front of neck white, forming a longi tudinal sharply defined baud four to five inches wide, of greatly lengthened white hair, iii strong contrast with the sides of the neck." This heavy fringe o* white hair on the front of the neck with its striking contrast in color with the adjoining portions of the neck forms an easily distinguishing mark from all other ex isting t; pcs. The antlers are much heavier, with better developed and more numerous tines than the regular species, while a special point of dif ference is found in the large size and peculiar form of the front branches of the antlers.—New York Herald. To Study Weapons of Filipinos. The anthropologists of the Smith sonian Institution at Washington will shortly take up for study the subject of Malay aud Filipino weapons, es pecially that class of knives or small swords known as the "bolo," "kris," "pira," etc. The study and investi gation of this subject promises results of a character highly interesting. One branch of the study has to do with the peculiar serrations at the head or beginning of the double edged blade. As a matter of fact, these ser rations are of uo use whatever, the bolo, or kris, being quite as effective without them, and, what is more, it is worthy of remark that the weapons thus ornamented are worn, or carried, by the chiefs, persons of rank and no bility only, the weapons of the com mon herd bearing no such ornamenta tion. Furthermore, no two weapons are ornamented alike. Every family of standing in the Malayan area has a distinct design, differing from all oth ers in the ornamentation of the bolo blades, so that a Malay, Moro or Tagul is able, on reviewing a collection of such arms, to tell at a glance the fam ily to which the weapons belong. To the ordinary person these serra- V) jjf^ tions on the blade of a Malay Uria would appear as simple ornamentation, but to the anthropologist they at once suggest a meaning. The serrations are a sort of symbol language, and each distinct serration, in addition to being a family mark, conveys a sentence or two. puaoouoouooaooccooooocooco § INSTANTANEOUS X-RAY PICTURES g a o Dr. Pratt, of Chicago, Makes Xcj- 2 O atlveß lH Lemt Than a Second. Q O O OOOOCCwOOGOOCCCOOOGOCOOCOO Dlt. H. P. PKATT, of Chicago, has perfected the art of X-ray photography so that it is pos- sibie to make an instantan eous picture of any part of the human foody instead of the long and tedious process heretofore necessary. Re cently, in the presence of witnesses, Dr. Pratt took a snapshot of a woman's spine, producing a perfect negative, tlie exposure being less than one sec ond. With this he will foe enabled to tell exactly the cause of the woman's Illness. In speaking of his wonderful prog ress, Dr. Pratt said: "By the new method I can take pictures of the bones of the hand in less than one sec ond, where it formerly required twen ty-five or thirty minutes. It now takes less than a second to send the rays NATIONAL HCME FOR DISABLED VOLUNTEERS, JOHNSON CITY. (The hospital buildings.) clean through the pelvis, the thickest part oi the body, and produce an abso lutely perfect picture of all the bones and ligaments. This formerly took from one to two hours. I can snap shot every part of tile body, heart, lungs, and even the brain. One of the greatest features of the new discovery is tiie aid it gives the surgeon, because when a patient is very ill or nervous the long exposures frequently resulted badly. "I use a very powerful machine aud extremely sensitive plates. But the secret of the snapshot does not lie in the invention of some new machine, but simply iu learning how to use the old one. I merely use in addition to what I have said before tlrst-class C'rookes tubes aud coils aud increase the current iu the tube, being careful not to make it too strong nor too light. I can take pictures of the heart or lungs in any positiou of respiration. This will be of the greatest value iu determining lung troubles, showing the relationship of the diaphragm to the adjacent organs. "By this quick work it is also possi ble to determine the smallest gall or kidney stone, which formerly would be obliterated by the muscular changes in the body." Dr. l'ratt was the tirst to use the X APPARATUS FOR MAKING INSTANTANEOUS X-RAY PICTURES. rays as a therapeutic agent. He used them in April of IS9U as a cure for cancer and lumps, and has since been u firm believer in their efficiency as a destroyer of various germ diseases. He has been constantly experimenting with a view to reducing the time of exposure, which has been a serious question in many cases.— Philadelphia Record. Mere Opinion. There is a marked difference between opportunity and a vacant lot. The former seldom lias a sign on it. "Faint heart never won fair lady," but it undoubtedly lias often saved it self a lot of trouble. There are only two classes of people in this world—the envied and the en vious. When a man inherits a great name he seldom adds anything to it. The world is full of people who would do wonderful things if they could only get started. Some people are so lucky that if they fell in the sewer they would come up with their hands full of pearls. Nothing succeeds like success, ex cept the smile of a pretty woman.— Chieago Record-Herald. The United States natural gas pro duction lust year, was equal to the heat from 5,u0U,0t)0 tons of coal. Ten years ago it was equal to 15,000,000 tons. Michigan's school fund permits of a per capita appropriation of $2. P A Great Soldiers' Home. | ID Both Union and Spanish War Veterans to Q £3 Be Cared For at Johnson City, Tenn. C 2 THK Home for Disabled Volun teer Soldiers at Johnson City, Tenn., which Is now being built, will, when completed, foe one of the most notable groups of buildings in the State. Aside from its architectural value, the home will foe remarkable because of the broad and liberal plan on which it will be con ducted. This one will be, according to the plans which have been adopted, "a shelter for 2500 men who volun teered in the Civil War and in the war with Spain." The contract for erecting the build ings and laying out the grounds was awarded, after a competition In which six architects took part, to J. 11. Freed lander, whose scheme comprises thir ty-five buildings. Congress nppropri- atcd $1,000,000 toward the project, and the borne is to be completed in three years. The site comprises a tract of land a mile and three-quarters long, and three-quarters ol' a mile wide, sit uated in the heart ol' the Tennesseo Mountains. The place is so dellght lully situated that it is believed it will eventually become a popular health resort. Among the larger buildings of the group will be a memorial ball, mess hall and chapel, and a canteen similar to those which were maintained at army posts many years ago will be one ol' the features. The grounds will be laid out in parks, groves and drive ways, and the landscape features will add to the picturesque appearance of the home. General John T. Richards, of Maine, has been appointed Superintendent of Construction. The plan includes a large parade ground and a group of twelve barrack buildings. These buildings will be in a semi-ellipse and within easy walk ing distance of the mess hall. Each barrack building will have its own park, and everything about the place will be so arranged that the inmates may spend their days in perfect com fort amkl surroundings that are natur ally beautiful.—New York Tribune. , Tliisllorse Rliles us a Passenger. In Colorado is a unique street rail road. It runs down a hill. The dis tance is short aud the fare is small. There is only one car and that is in a most dilapidated condition. It is hauled by one horse. When the car reaches the top of the hill the merciful driver unhitches the I Will Pl#! horse, which takes its place on the platform of the car. Then the driver goes to the other platform and starts the car down hill by gravity, the harse becoming a passenger to the other end of the route. A large share of the rev enue of this road is drawn from those who ride to the top of the hill for the purpose of seeing the horse ride down. —New York I-lerald. The 42C colleges in the United States represent an Invested capital of $230,- 000.000. DR. TALMAGES SERMON SUNDAY'S DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED DIVINE. Subject: TXi"> World Grown Better The Time in Which We Live is Wonderful For Dl.iaster uud Wondeiful For Bless iiij;s— Infidelity Dwindling:. WASHINGTON, D. C.—ln this discourse Dr. Talmage recites some great events and shows that the world is advancing in the right direction; text, Joel ii, 30, "I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth." Dr. Cumming—great and good man — world have told us the exact time of the fu'fillment of this prophecy. As I stepped into his study in London on my arrival from Paris just after the French had sur rendered at Sedan the good doctor said to me: "It is just what I tad told you about France, People laughed at me because I talked about the seven horns and the vials, but I foresaw all this from the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation." Not taking any such responsibility in the in terpretation of the passage, I simply as sert that there are in it suggestions of many things in our time. Our eyes dilate and our heart quickens in its pulsations as we read of events in the third century, the sixth century, the eighth century, the fourteenth century, but there were more far-reaching events crowded into the nineteenth century than into any other, and the last twenty years eclipse any preceding twenty. We read in the daily newspapers of events announced in one paragraph and without any special emphasis—eve-its which a Herodotus, a Josephua, a Nenophon, a Gibbon, would have taken whole chapters or whole vol ume. to elaborate. Looking out upon our time, we must cry out in the words of the te::t, "Wonders in the heavens and in the earth." 1 propose to show you that the time in vhich wo live is wonderful for disaster and wonderful for blessing, for there must be lights and shades in this picture a» in nil others. Need 1 argue that our time is wonderful for disaster? Our world has had a rough time since by the hand of God it was bowled out into space. It is an epileptic earth —convulsion after convul sion; frosts pounding it with sledge ham mer of icebergs and ares melting it with furnaces seven times heated. It is a won der to me it has lasted so long. Meteors shooting by on this side and grazing it and meteors shooting by on the other side and grazing it, none of them slowing up for safety. Whole fleets and navies and argo gosies End flotillas of worlds sweeping all about us. Our earth like a fishing cmack off the banks of Newfoundland, while the Mjjcstic and the St. Paul and the Kaiser \\ iihelm ver those three is'anda, and cf a population of 310,C00. -15,00J were crowned. Only those t..ved who had climbed to the top of the highest trees! Lid you ever see a cyclone? No? Then I pray (led you may never see one. 1 saw a eye'ono on the ocean, and it swept us ir'oo miles back from our course, and for thirty-sis hours during the cyclone and aft .' it we e::peeted every moment togo to the bottom. They told us before we re tired at 9 o'clock tbet the ba-ometer bad fclleu, but at 11 o'clock at night we were twakened with th? shock of the waves. All the iiu'hts out! Crash wewi all the life boats. Wate-3 rushing through the sk;:- 1 glats down i.ito the cabin and do* non the furnaces until they hissed and smoked in the c'.elvgc. Eleven hundred people prayii , shrieking. Our great ship poised r. moment on th 3 top of a mountain of phosphorescent tiro and then plunged down, down, down until it seemed as if she never would again be righted. Ah, you never want to see a cyclone at coa! But I was in Minnesota, where there was one of those cyclones on land that f.ve it the city of Rochester from its foun dations and took dwelling houses, barns, men, women, children, horses, cattle and tossed them into imliscr minate ruin and llfte 1 a rail train and dashed it down, a mightier hand than that of engineer on the airbrake. Cyclone in Kansas, cyclone in Missouri, cyclone in Wisconsin, cyclone in Illinois, cyclone in Iowa! Satan, prince of the power of the air, never made such cyclonic disturbances as he has in our day. And am I not right in saying that one ot' the characteristics of the time in which we live is disaster cyclonic? But look at the disasters-oceanic. Shall I call the roll of the dead shipping? Ye monsters of the deep, answer when I call your name*. The Ville do Ili.vre. the Schdler, the City of Boater., the Melville, the President, the Cimbria, the Oregon the Mohegan. Hut why should 1 goon calling the roil when none of them aa swers, aud the roll is as long as the white scroll of the Atlantic surf at Cape Hat teras breakers? If the oceanic cables could report all the scattered life and all the bleached bones that they rub against in the ocean, what a message of pathos and tragedy for both beaches! In one storm eighty fishermen perished off the coast of Newfoundland and whole fleets of them off the coast of England. God help the poor fellows at sea and give high seats in heaven to the Grace Darlings and Ida Lewises and the lifeboat men hovering around Goodwin sands and the Skerries' The sea, owning three-fourths of the ear„h. proposes to capture the other fourth, and is bombarding the land all around the earth. The moving of the hotels at Brigh ton Beach backward 100 yards from where they once stood, a type of what is going on all around the world and on every coast. The Dead Sea rolls to-day where ancient cities stood. But HOT I turn the leaf in ny subject, and I plant the white lilies and the palra tree amid the nightshades and tiie myrtle. This age no more characterized by won ders of disaster than by wonders of bless ing—blessing of longevity: the average of liunttn life rapidly increasing. Forty years now worth 400 years once. Now I can travel from Manitoba to New York in less than three days. In other times it would have taken three months. In other words, three days now are worth tiiree months of other days. The average of human life practically greater now than when Noali lived, with his 850 years, and Methuselah lived his 809 years. Blessings of intelligence: The Salmon P. Chases and the Abraham Lincolns and the Henry Wilsons of the coming time will not be required to learn to read by pine knot lights? or seated on shoemaker's bench, nor will the Fergusons have to study astrono my while watching the eattle. Knowledge rolls its tides along every poor man's door, and his children may go down and bathe in them. If the philosophers of a hundred years ago were called up to recite in a class with our boys and gins, those old philosophers would be sent down to the foot of the class because t'ley failed to answer the questions! Free libraries in all the important towns and cities of the land. Historical alcoves and poetical shelves and magoziue tables for all who desire to walk through them or sit down at then. So I rejoice day by day. Work for all to c'o, and we may turn the crank of the Christian machinery this way or that, for we are free agents. But there is the track laid so long ago no one remembers it —laid by the hand cf the Almighty Go I in sock ets that no terrestrial or satanic pressure can ever affect. And along the track the car of the world's redemption will roll and roll to the Grand Central depot of the millen nium. I have no anxiety about the track. I ara only afraid that for our indolence and unfaithfulness God will discharge us and get some other stoker and some ether engineer. The train is going through with us or without us. There is a house in London where Peter the Great of Russia lived awhile when ho was moving through the land incognito aid in workman's dress, that he might learn ship carpentry, by which he could supply the needs of his people. A stran ger was visiting at that house, "What's in that box?" The cwner said: "I don't know. That box was there when I got the. house, and it was there when my father got it. We havn't had any curiosity to look at it. I guess there's nothing in it." "Well," said the stranger, "I'll give you £2 for it." "Well, done." The £2 was paid, and the contents of that box wera sold to the Czar of Russia for $30,000. In it the lathing machine of Peter the Great, his private letters and documents of value; beyond ail monetary consideration. And here are the events that seem very insig nificant and unimportant, but they incase treasures of Divine Providence and eterni ties of meaning wh ; ch after awhile Gcd will demonstrate before the ages as being of stupendous value. When Titans play quoits they pitch mountains, but who owns these gigantic natural forces we are constantly reading about? Whose hr.nd is on the throttle valve of the volcanoes? Whose foot, sud denly planted on the footstool, makes the continents quiver? Cod! I must be at peace with Him. Through the Lord Jesus Christ this God is mine and He is yours. I put the earth quake that shook Palestine at tha cruci fixion against all the down roekings of the centuries. This God on our side, we may challenge all the centuries of time and a:I the cycles of eternity. Those of you who ere in midlife may well thank God that you have seen so many wondrous things, but there are people alive to-day who may live to see the shim ne-ing veil between the material and the spiritual world lifted. Magnetism, a word with which we cover up our ignorance, will yet Vie an explored realm. Electricity, the fiery courser of the sky, that Benjamin Franklin lassoed and Morse and Bell and Edison have brought under complete control, has greater wonders to reveal. Whether here or departed this life, we will see these things. It does not make much difference where we stand, but the higher the standpoint the larger the pros pect. We will nee them from heaven if we do not fas then from earth. Years ago I was at Fire Island, Long Island, and I went up in the cunola from which they telegraph to New York the approach of vessels hours before they come into port. There is an opening in the wall, and the operator puts his telescope through that opening and looks cut ana sees ves sels far out at sea. While I was talking with him he went up and looked out. He said, "Wc are expecting the Arizona to night." I said: "Is it possible you know all those vessels? Do you know them as you know a man's face?" He said: "Yes. I never make a mistake. Before I see the hulls I often know them by t masts. I know them all —I have watc—d them so long." Oh, what r. grand thing it is to have ships telegraphed and heralded long before ihey come to port, that friends may come down to the wharf and welcome their long absent ones! So to-day we take our stand in the watch tower, and through the glass of inspiration we look eff and see a whole fleet of ships coming in. That is the ship of jeaee, flag with one star of Bethlehem 112 oa.ing above the topgallants. That is the ship of the church, mark of salt water high upon the smokestack, showing she has had rough weather, but the Captain of Salvation commands her, and all is well with herl The ship of heaven, mightiest craft ever launched, millions of passengers waiting for millions more, prophets and apostles and martyrs in the cabin, con querors at the foot of the mast, while from the rigging hands are waving this way as if they knew us, and we wave back again, for they are ours. They went out from our own households. Ours! Hail, hail! Put off the black and put on the white. Stop tolling the funeral bell and ring the wedding anthem. Shut up the hearse and take the chariot. Now the ship come-, around the great headland. Soon she will ctrike the wharf and we will go aboard her. Tears for ships going out. Laughter for ships com ing in. Now she touches the wharf. Throw out the planks. Block not up that gangway with embracing long lost friends, for you will have eternity of reunion Stand back eiid give way until other mill ions come aboard her. Farewell to sin! Farewell to struggle! Farewell to sick ness! Farewell to death! "Blessed are all who enter in through the sates into tac city." [Copyright, UU. L. lilopscii I