Hereafter the United States will ap pear upon nearly all the maps of the world that are used in European schools. The Transsiberian railway gives the cheapest rates in the world. It is pos sible to buy an emigrant's ticket, cov tiing 0000 miles —nearly three week 3' iourney—for about $3. The Galveston Daily News thinks that there will be a field, but a limited field, for wireless telegraphy. It will be of great use for short distance sig nals of a general character. It can hardly be expected to interfere in the least with cables across the ocean or with wires by which city is united to city the world over. The Museum of Natural History at JMayence has added to its collection the ckull of a prehistoric marmot, which was recently excavated at a consider able depth in the deluvial loess n?ar that city. One remarkable feature about the skull is that it appears to be identical with the skulls of the bobac, the still living marmot of the Siberian steppes. Sir Robert Ball, who, like all scien* tifie men in England, is a profound pessimist, announces that some day another glacial period will freeze this poor old world. Fortunately he pre dicts this calamity for a date sufficient ly remote. It will not come in our time, and when it does come it will rot be an unmixed blessing, for it cer tainly will bring ice within the reach cf all, muses Collier's Weekly. There is a row over the beautiful castle of Heidelberg. One set of archi tects declares that the ruins are in a dangerous condition and proposes tho restoration of the greater number of buildings to the condition in which they were when the French burnt the castle in 1789. Others assert that the ruins will stand forever and that the projected restoration is an act of van dalism, as no trustworthy description of the castle before its destruction is to be had. The ruin is the chief ait.ac tion in the town of Germans and for eigners. Tunnel accidents are prevented in novel ways by some foreign railroads. In Saxony, for example, there is a rail road tunnel through which no train (an pass unless its engineer has a cer tain staff. As the staff has no dupli cates, only one train can go through the tunnel at a time. In our own coun try there has been at least one stop sig nal which has proven safe, but its use has not been popular with the railroads, perhaps because it causes too many re pair bills. It is a long arm which 'comes down across the track when there is danger ahead and smashes the headlight and some of the upper works of the engine. For locomotive building 1801 was i» lecord year. Leaving out of account the work of railroad shops, there were constructed in the United States last year 3384 locomotives, of which 331 were for export. About 3000, there fore, were required to meet the demand c,f American railways for more motive power and to provide renewals —not an excessive proportion of the total num ber now in use, which is not far from 40,000. Should the demands of ship pers for transportation retain their long-time urgency the capacity ol American locomotive building concerns ■would doubtiess be overtaxed during the current year as in the past twelve month. The interesting things about inven tions is the way in which the same idea will occur to different minds miles and perhaps years apart. A woman whose mind runs in the peculiar channel of inventions thought out, not so very long ago, an envelope that was calcu lated to appeal to the business man. It provided for a return letter, the re turn envelope, addressed and stamped, being combined with and hidden under the long flap of the first envelope. The whole worked out rather well, and when it was finished the woman ap plied for a patent. The very same en velope, identical in every detail, had been patented just 17 years before, so she found. The last attempt she has made has been to invent a garbage pail lor the kitchen which can be covered neatly and uncovered by a mechanical device. The small model which she bad made was perfect so far as a gar bage pail could be. But the interest ing fact has come to light that garbage pails like tho one she considered so novel had been invented by a man sev eral years before. The bright side ol the difficulty is that some one else has made the attempt to get both these articles Into general use and has failed, and that, therefore, the fact has been shown that they wouldn't have been Euccessful, anyway. It Is again feared that there may be a revolution in Spain. The Spanish revo lutionists, however, seldom become so rash as to pass the threatening point. Compulsory education and the re striction of child labor are being agi tated in lowa, where it seems no law on either now exists. It has been started by the discovery that children not over six years old are being forced there to work on the farms at a time when they ought to be attending school. An enterprising banker has invaded New York City, selling bread at two and one-half cents a loaf. He figures that, after paying all expenses of material, baking and delivery, there is a profit of one-fenth of a cent a loaf, and he looks for a comfortable income from the great number of loaves tliat will be sold in so large a city. Roughly, Great Britain exports about 50,000,000 tons of coal per annum to foreign countries, among her chief cus tomers being France, Russia. Spa 11, America, Sweden, India and th.-> East. The export trade is exclusive of "bunker" coal taken by steamships engaged in the foreign trr.de, which av eiages about 11,0'tO.COO tons per annum. With the opening of the new yesr the number of carriers employed in the rural free postal delivery service was raised to C3OO. There are now pending G7OO applications for the ex tension of the service, which is in creasing in popularity. It is estimat ed that 5000 of them will be granted by the establishment of that many new routes. Chicago no longer sells to the mM j die west alone. In every state and ter ritory of the Union last year, not even excluding Alas..a, Hawaii, the Philip pines and Cuba and Porto F.ieo, the Chicago commercial traveler has ap pearecl with wares for sale. More than that, he lias entered China an.! Japan and is again knocking at the ' doors of South Africa. He journey? : to Mexico regularly and spends mucti of his time in Canada. i An incident showing the value ol j quick wit in taking advantage of the situation in an emergency occurred on the coast of England, where a number cf pilot boats and fishermen, having been caught in a storm, ran for the ! harbor, but. failing to got quite into | safety made for the end of a long pier j which was being erected where there was a "Titan" crane. The boats were run under it and hitched onto the tackle, when five boats and 15 men in them were lifted bodily into port. In the Chicago Record-Herald Dr. George F. Shrady observes that the proper interpretation of the germ the ory as applied to septic infection lies at the bottom of all the. present possi- j bilities of cure by the knife, and has j made clean wound treatment the new i religion of safety for the countless number of otherwise doomed sufferers. ; The same doctrine of cleanliness must j necessarily infuse itself into all the comprehensive systems of sanitary re form and disease prevention. It is ap propriately placed next to that of god liness in its far-reaching bc-nefi<ial ministrations. In its widest sense it controls all the baleful conditfons o! unhealthy environment and stamps out pestilence by cutting off all opportuni ties for its dissemination. A good water supply, effective drainage, clean streets and pure air make any city healthy. The best of all is that the public appreciates these facts and con sistently seconds the laudable efforts ol the health authorities to such ends The chief object of the American whe travels is to "get there" in the short est possible time. The time lost by the stopping of trains at stations to let off or take on passengers is sorely regretted by the traveling public, which prefers the express trains to the slower moving accommodations. Con sidering the great demand for faster trains and the efforts to build engines which are capable of great speed, it is strange that there has been no inven tion which would do away with stops lor passengers, as has been done by the troughs for watering engines while in motion. A New York inventor now c-ffers to the railroads what he regards as a satisfactory method of letting of! and taking on passengers while the train moves at its usual speed. The in vention consists of saddle cars to strad dle the express train. By a system of raised and lowered tracks the saddle car is to be picked up at one station by the express and carried to the next station, the passengers being trans ferred frjm one to the other in transit. The inventor estimates that his ar rangement would cut down the time between New York and San Francisco to 50 hours. j A STRANGE EXPERIENCE * IN THE MAINE WOODS. I place this on record as the vazzt remarkable story that has ever come out of the Maine hunting woods —and I know considerable about the stories of the Maine woods. If it were not vouched 'for so eminently I would not tell it. It would be too much for cred ulity and wouldn't be worth the tell ing. I believe it, for I know the men who tell it to me, even though they cannot explain it. They bc'.ieve it and do not try to explain it, for they feel they cannot. Here it is. If the thing seems too much to believe, then don't believe it. But the facts are just the same. On the north side of Boarstone mountain, in the town of Eiliotsville, in Piscatauquis county, Maine, lives Trustrum H. Brown, who calls himself "The Mediator." He entertains the harmless vagary that he is the media tor between man and God. For some 15 years since his retirement to the wilderness of northern Maine he has been writing what he calls a new Bi ble, and he has a mass of manuscript piled a foot high. By the way, I have examined the "Mediator's" manu script considerably, and it is 'far from being balderdash. Much of his writ ing indicates real thought and consid erable ability. The "Mediator" is in no sense of the word a crazy man, de spite his hallucination on the subject of religion. Brown has a bit of a farm and raises potatoes and vegetables enough to last him through the winter. He traps a little and hunts a bit and never goes hungry. Early in December, just after the first snow of the season, he discovered one morning the fresh tracks of a moose near his house. By the man ner in which the creature's great feet had splayed into the snow. Brown saw that the moose war. a big one. In his capacity of "Mediator" he as serts that there are 10,000 spirits about hiin all the time. He alleges that he asked one of these spirits to tell him how big the moose was and that the spirit skipped along ahead and then came back and rendered him the information that the mcose was none other than the Ambajejus Giant that had defied the rifles of hunters for years. The spirit further de clared, so Brown avers, that the moose didn't have much of a start. So the "Mediator" tied on his snow shoes, grabbed his rifle and a bit of a snack, and started away on the lope into the forest. This was early in the morning. Well, the "Mediator" scuffed along till noon without com ing up with the moose. But the tracks still continued fresh and his spirit guide, so he says, kept breath ing into his ear that the animal was almost in reach. He ate his lunch of cold venison as he walked, for in a stern chase of a moose no time is to be wasted. His keen woodsman's eye noted that the clouds hung low and were massing darker and darker. Had lie not been so confident that the moose was just ahead of him and would "yard" at the coming of night fall, he would have abandoned the chase. At 4 o'clock it was du'sk, and still the splay tracks were stretching on ahead of him. Then he could see them no longer, and regretfully he brought to in a ravine and abandoned the chase for the night. He had not reckoned on the long pursuit and therefore he had not pro vided himself in the usual cautious manner. Above all, he had not brought his woods axe. Only a man accustomed to the woods realizes how serious an omis sion this is. The "Mediator" was able to collect some dry kye or limbs that had dropped from the trees and ha hewed off some low branches with his hunting kni-fe. He kindled a bit of a fire at the foot of a tree. He did not dare togo to asleep, for the cold was raw and piercing. So he stood and turned himself before the fire like an animated spit, moving constantly to keep awake. In the morning there was nothing left of his provender except one flat chested biscuit. Had he not been un duly fired with zeal to catch that moose he would have retraced his steps. But he felt that probably the animal had yarded a little way ahead, and so on he went. He did come across the trampled place where the moose had spent the night, and with Its great teeth had ripped off the twigs and bark. By the mighty reach the "Mediator" saw that the animal was a monster, and on he drove eag erly in a skurry of snow from his broad shoes. Still those monster splotches in the snow kept trailing away ahead of him. Then some unkind weather sprite Joggled the clouds overhead. The snow commenced to come in the fine, driving flakes that indicate a protract ed storm. Then, and not till then, did the reckless hunter turn about. But before an hour had passed the snow, driving faster and faster, cov ered his tracks. Night came on again. Once more he lighted his fire, and, dizzy for want of sleep, staggered about it, struggling to keep awake. The "Mediator" is nearly 70 years o!d, but his lithe little form is inured to hardship by many years of woods life A less experienced man or one witL less vitality must have succumbed. The snow came down damp anj heavy, and the sagging boughs above kept dropping clumps onto hb shou: ders and into his neck. At the first lightening that showed [ that morning was acprcaching, he ate the last crumbs of his biscuit and started away. But the snow drove hard in his face. 1-Ie was weak will* hunger antl sick for sleep. His limbs were stiff and his whole body ready to sink with fatigue. Accustomed though he was to the woods, it is not surprising that in a few hours he knew that he had lost his way. But still he kept on, hoping that he might come across some trail or water course, his chief hope of rescue, some logging camp. The snow ceased in the afternoon, but a sharp and driving wind succeed ed. It flung the drying snow P.nd shrieked with it through the trees and clearings. The fine particles cut his face like the dust of a sand storm. Few men have mads a fiercer strug gle for life than he. It is probable that partial delirium overtook him, for he insists that he could not only hear his spirit guides, but could see them as they flocked about him and beckoned him on. At dusk he was in a country whol ly unknown. There were mountains off to the right, but he did not recog nize the peaks nor the surroundings. About an hour after the dark came down with the wind still driving the snow into his eyes, he came out into a section that he recognized at last. It was"The Gulf." This is a canyon about three miles long, through which the west branch of Pleasant river rages. The wall are precipices. But a!ong the north side skirts a wood road leading to camps miles above, and into this read the "Mediator" staggered. Now. he war desperately weak. But lie knew that if he could round the foot of the canyon and scramble for three miles up the yide of the first Chairback be would come to Long Pond, whore there wero camps. It was now a race lor hfe. He stood his dear oid rifle against a tree and hung his cartridge box on a limb. Then he clinched the belt around his thin waist and started. He was in a 1-alf stupor when iie came down to the frozen ford at the foot of the canyon. Ho crossed, and striking the corduroy road that leads up to the first Chair hack he plowed on. He fell a dozen times, but he had sense enough left to struggle up and dig to his task again. When he made Long Pond his strength was nearly gone. But he knew that across the pond lay Hall & Davis's sporting camp, three miles away. The wind was stil! driving the snow, and he miscalculated his louts across. When he came to shore he peered in all directions and lis tened. There was no glimmer of light anywhere, and no sound indicating that any camp was near. His knees were doubling under him by this timo. His strength was gone, his eyes would not stay open, and he gave up. He stumbled and crawled up on the shore and fell across a log. His tongue was swollen in iiis mouth and his throat was dry. He says that he tried to shout but he could utter no sound but a gurgling whisper. Then he became unconscious. Now comes the strange part of the story. There was at tho Hall & Davis camps at that time a hunting party from the town of Dexter. Among them were N. E. Meigs, the leading clothier of the place, and Walter Ab bott, one of the proprietors of the large Abbott woolen mill. Mr. Meigs had been out that day with the party, and in trying to cross the pond had frozen both his ears, so bitter was the cold. He would have perished had not his guide beaten him to make him walk. He had desired to lie down and goto sleep on the snow, and had begged the others togo away and leave him. On this evening he was lying in his bunk wondering whether or not he was going to be able to save his ears. They were wrapped up and were ach ing fearfully, and Mr. Meigs wasn't taking the most intense interest in any outside matters. The others were playing pitch-pede before the fire. Suddenly Mr. Meigs raised himself on his elbow and cried, "I hear some one shouting for help." The others stopped their play and listened. Beyond the moaning of the wind in the chimney and the sough of the big trees outside there was no sound. . "Folks with frozen ears can hear 'most anything," remarked one of his comrades. "But I certainly heard some one shout," persisted Meigs. "Do you believe for a moment," said his friend, "that a man with his ears done up like a pound of pickled tripe could hear a sound that we didn't?" The clothing man admitted that it didn't seem very probable, but still he persisted in his opinion strenuously. At last one of the guides went to the door and shouted into the night. There was no response. "It couldn't have been,"he said, re turning. "I don't want to be stubtorn in this matter," said Mr. Meigs, "but I do think we ought to make some inves tigation. I can't goto asleep with the notion that some poor cuss is out their in the cold. Somehow or other I can't reason nr/self out of the no tion that then* is something the mat ter outside, and I wish you would look it up. I'd go myself if it were not for my ears." After poking some fun at the persis tent man arguing from his nest in the bunk, two of the guides put on their outer clothing and went out. "Of course, it may be that somo one has dropped into the water hoie down here a piece," said one of them, "but as that's more than a mile away it don't stand to reason that you could have heard any shouting with your eais done up in that manner." In the course of fifteen minutes one of the men came running back, and those in the camp heard him pulling the moose sled out of tiie lean-to. "There is something the matter af ter all down at the water hole!" he cried to those within. "Ed was ahead and he hollered back to me to bring the moose sled." And in a little while they came tug ging into the camp a stiff figure that the guides as soon as the man was in the lamplight, recognized as Mediator Trustrum H. Brown, of Eliofe.ville. <Vt first they thought he was dead, but they undressed him and set him bodily into a tub of ice-cold water. They rubbed him with snow and after some work he began to revive;. Then they poured whiskey and brandy dawn his throat, ancl at midnight he was sitting up and telling his story. In two days he was al! right and lively once more, and it may be stated here wliiie I am on the subject of re coveries, that Mr, Meigj saved his ears. Now the "Mediator" swears that the sound he emitted when he sank down on the log was only a whisper. Even a shout as loud as a foghorn would have scarcely been heard a mile away by men inside a log camp heavily banked with snow. That the sound should have been heard bv a man with his ears frozen and wrapped in bandages is more curi ous still. But for that. I have author ity that cannot be disputed. Boili sides have told me their stories. They do not try to explain it—nei ther will I. But. as I remarked in the first place, I set this down not only as one of the most remarkable stories of endurance that the Maine woods have ever re ported, but as a mystery that i-; al most uncanny.—Forest and Stream QUAINT AN3 CURIOJ3. In Woolwich, Me., a pine tree and a birch tree have grown so close to gether that their trunks have united. Pine branches grow on one side and birch on the other. The Saxons whose original settle ment is determined by the little king dom of Saxony, derived their name from the seax, or short, crooked knife with which they armed themselves. It is an extraordinary fact that men buried in an avalanche of snow hear distinctly every word uttered by those who are seeking for them, while their most strenuous shouts fail to pene trate even a few feet of the snow. The first great drought on record happened in 078 and the two succeed ing years, when, according to the re cords, there was practically no rain fail in England. In 879 the springs in England were dried up and it was im possible for men to work in the open air. In 593 ai.d 994 the nuts on the trees were "rcusted as if in an oven." Among the strict regulations of the German military code is one which for bids anybody to present himself be fore a recruiting officer with a cane in his hand. Some weeks ago a reservist so fur forgot himself as to enter the office of a recruiting sergeant major carrying his walking stick. For this henious offense the unfortunate re servist was promptly court-martialed, and sentenced to ten weeks imprison ment for insubordination. A Strasburg aeronaut says he hs* seen an eagle at the height of 3000 meters and again a pair of storks and a buzzard 900 meters above the sea level. On March 10, 1890, some aerou auts observer a lark flying at tho height of 1000 meters; on July IS. 1899, another bailoon met a couple of crows at an altitude of 1400 meters. These, however, are exceptions. Birds are hardly ever seen above a height of 1000 meters; even above 400 meters they are not frequent. 1 he Sultan'* Income. Of the Sultan's private income ana state grant M. Dory writes: For somo time the imperial ex chequer has been in such straits, ow ing to the frightful expenses at Yildiz —amounting to about $160,000 amonth —that the salaries of the lesser em ployes of the palace are paid irregu larly, and then only with the great est difficulty. The Sultan has a yearly grant from the state of? 3,080,000, and and an income of about $2,000,000 more from his immense estates, mak ing in all a yearly income of nearly $6,000,000. Nor is this all, for it does not include the interest on capital deposited in different banks abroad. No one knows the exact amount of these foreign investments, but they are approximately estimated at §lB,- 000,000. The allowances of the princes and princesses, meagre enough and paid irregularly, are deducted from the Sultan's civil list. Sometimes the payment of the grant he receives from the state is subjected to more or less delay, but it goes without saying that these arrears are settled before those of the salaries of the unfortunate offi cials and employes of the Turkish em pire, whom the minister of finance leaves more and more frequently in the deepest distress. —The Argonaut. On the trial trip of a new ship si.; runs four times over a certain course —twice with and twice against th>; tide. Thus her average speed is de termined. THE GREAT DESTROYER SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT THE VICE OF INTEMPERANCE. Poem: Tho Tippler** Vow-l)rlnlc anil Crime as Viewed by the Twelve City THnglM rates of New York—Liquor Ke sponsible For Most Cafes. I vow to drink no more, for well I know The more I drink tho thirstier I grow; And lie who drinks to know, too late lie iearns The fire he quenches mo3t the more it burns. This bottled stream has wet so many lips That were not dry in speech nor used to> sips; I-las made so many checks unwilling show The rose that ever keeps them blushing sot Look wise and shake your pretty head at fact? To play the fool so would the wisest act; Sweets of the twining vine, as sure as late Make loving woman too affectionate. Wine makes a man. his fancy for the fact, Believe he owns the earth, his wealth in tact. Here, beggar, take another sip and In For one brief hour a millionaire with me. I've owned (he earth; and I did pay for it (The gain of pleasure mine) with'shallow wit; And that same earth, the rent last falling due I've sold for an old story to'.d anew. Just one more drink? Alas, that just ono more Has been how many thousand times be fore? I break the glass that holds the crimson blush Of him who first taught man the grape to crush. —Lee Fairchild. Drink and Crime. The Defender. New York, recently sent to the twelve city magistrates the follow ing question; "To what extent does the use of liquor operate as the inspiration or cause of of fenses to the best of your knowledge and belief?" Here are the answers received from the magistrates who favored with a renly: Magistrate Mott: "Almost universal cause of crime." Magistrate Flammer: "Liquor in moat cases is the cause or aggravates the situa tion." Magistrate Olmstcad: "The abuse of liquor is the cause of a large proportion of minor offenses." Magistrate Duel; "From fifty-five to sixtv per cent." Magistrate Crane: "To a great extent. To my mind three-quarters of the offenses charged against prisoners brought to our courts come from the use of liquor." Magistrate Mayo: "To the best of my knowledge and belief the use of liquor op erates as the inspiration or cause of tho above specified offenses to the extent of about two-thirds of them." Magistrate Zeller: "In my opinion liquor operates only as the inspiration or cause for disorderly conduct, and this is mostly the case with the male offenders. My ob servation on the bench leads me to believe that liquor has been the cause of a limited number of crimes, and these crimes being only misdemeanors, viz., assault or disor derly conduct. Of course there are excep tions to the rule, but I say these exceptions are the rarest occurrence. T may say that drunkenness on the part of wonftin is rather increasing, and with few exceptions when a woman is arraigned for intoxica tion she is also charged with disorderly conduct, which is not tho case with a man." Magistrate Mead: "To a very larje ex tent. Probably ninety per cent." Don't Lna^h. How often have you seen a drunken man stagger along the street? His clothes are soiled from falling, his face is bruised, his eyes are dull. Some times he curses the boys that tease him. Sometimes he tries to smile, in a drunken effort to placate pitiless, childish cruelty. Hi.', body, worn out. can stand no more, and he mumbles that he is going home. The children persecute him, throw things at him, laugh at him, running ahead of him. Grown men and women, too, often laugh with the children, nudge each other, and acttsal'y find humor in the sight of a hu man being sunk below the lowest animal. The sight of a drunken man going home should make every other man and woman gad and sympathetic, and. horrible as the sight is, it should be useful, by inspiring, in who see it, n resolution to avoid and to helii others avoid that man's fate. That reeling drunkard is going home. He is going home to children who are nfraid of him. to a wife whose life he has made miserable. He is going home, taking with him the worst curse in the world—to suffer bitter remorse himself after having inflicted suf fering on those whom he should protect. And as ho goes home men and women, knowing what the homecoming means, laugh at him and enjoy the sight. In the old days in the arena it occasion ally happened that brothers were set to fight each other. When they refused to light they were forced to it by red-hot irons applied to their backs. We have progressed beyond the moral condition of human beings guilty of such brutality as that. Hut we cannot call our selves civilized while our imaginations and sympathies are so dull that the reeling drunkard is thought a funny spectacle.— New York Journal. Alcohol and Crime, The warden of the Allegheny (Penn.) county prison board says in his report that during the twelve months ending Decem ber 31. 1900, there were received UlB2 pris oners as against 8440 the previous year. The jail physician says that ninety-five per cent, of those committed were under his care for alcoholism, and out of 57*27 who were summarily convicted there was not one who was not a victim of the alcohol habit. Still there are people who look upon the saloon business as necessary to muni cipal prosperity. Such ignorance is bound t-.> I-.' banished by the blighter light of the twentieth century. Need of a Revival. While the average Frenchman drinks .11 (J gallons of wine and beer, the Briton 32.1 and the German 20. the American drinks but 13.6 gallons, and he drinks but a little more than half as much distilled spirits as either the Frenchman or the German. No wu.uier that a temperance revival has been veil started in Europe. Directory of Habitual Drunkards. At a mass meeting held in Exeter Hall, London, General Hooth, the leader of the Salvation Army, inaugurated a special tem perance campaign as a feature of the work o. the Salvation Army during the present year. General Booth said he relied confi dently upon the co-operation of saloon beepers it; this work, through their indi cating the habitual drunkards, insomuch a- the supplying of habitual drunkards wMi liquor endangered the publican's li cense, and that he intended to compile a drunkard's directory in each town, and follow the habitual drunkards home and uiorm tiiem there.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers