Japan has acquired the American dining car system at a jump without pausing at -~*e railway sandwich stage. Brocks Adams believes that wars, financial panics and revolutions are the efforts of society and readjustment after its equilibrium has been de stroyed. A crusade against the adulteration of milk has ben started in Paris, in the hope of decreasing the great nior talitv of infants, which is attributed to this cause. General Joseph Wheeler told a boy's brigade in Philadelphia the other night that his earnest hope is that we shall never have another war, and he added that there wil never be any necessity for one "if all persons will be good." The foreign born element in New York City numbers 1,270,009, of whom Great Britain has contributed 365,452, Scandinavia, 49,001; the Teutonic countries 397,042, the Latin races 161,- 596, the Slavonic countries 245,144, and Asiatic countries 8964. Who can set bounds to trolley ex tensions in these days? Within a wonderfully short time surface elec tric cars wiX be running without breaks, it is claimed, between New York City and Boston, Washington and other large cities. No "one of these lines, however, should be per mitted to ruin the boulevard's and. pleasure drives in suburban districts. The trolley companies should pur chase the right of way, "as the steam railroads do, contends the New York Tribune. Asia Minor suffers as greatly from earthquakes as Mexico, perhaps more so. The calamity which has now overtaken Shamaka, over near the Caspian sea, was paralleled at Achal kalek about two years ago. About 600 people were killed at that time. Only a few months before 1500 lives were lost in the province of Smyrna, on the Mediterranean. Shamaka has been particularly famous for such shocks, but in spite of them was long a place of official residence, and even now is the centre of a large silk industry. The story is told of a New England er, about 70 years old, and apparently a vegetarian, who, having learned that Henry Van Dyke, author of"The Hill ing Passion," made occasional expeli tions to Canada and elsewhere in search of big game, recently sent to him a p«n drawing made by himself of a stag—a charming piece of work for a man of such years—and under neath placed ihis motto in large let ters: "Thou shalt not kill." Dr. Van Dyke, in acknowledging receipt of tho drawing, thanked his friend for his kindness, and sugested that under cer tain conditions a more appropriate text would be Acts x, 13: "Rise, Peter, kill and eat." Anent Mr. Rockefeller's declaration that honesty, perserverance and indus try are the essential requisites for business, light on the accuracy of that contention may be cast by the follow ing facts: In a British colony close to t!*e newest of our insular posses sions there lives a certain Portuguese person who is a sugar planter, and who has made a remarkable business success. While his neighbors have slowly drifted down from wealth into something desperately close to hopc les ruin, this man has prospered, he has added estate to estate, and, de spite the competition and barriers, he has gone on steadily piling up money. He began life as a plantation laborer without a shilling; he is i?o illiterate that he cannot sign his name or keep even the rudest of accounts. His neighbors admit that he performs his contracts, but they credit him with no remarkable honesty, and neither his industry nor his perseverance is at all beyond the ordinary tropical standard. The fact is that he had a natural genius for raising sugar in that par ticular island, and fate was kind enough to carry him to what is prob ably the one place in all the world where his special ability could be fully developed. The world is full of just such cases, and side by side with them are other cases, of men honest, indus trious, and persevering, who haven't the knack of making lots of money. They are good men, but they are not good business men —and what real difference does it make if they are not? Certainly it doesn't prove that they are failures, nor does it give rich men the right to enrage them by de claring that men get rich by the exer cise of honesty, industry, and perse verance when they don't do any such thing, no matter how honest, industri ous and persevering they may be, ex claims the New York Times. There are 3546 millionaires in th« United States, and less than 150 ol them are known outside of their own counties. Santos Dumont's experiments hav» not yet reached a point where they in spire fear that an immense amount cJ capital has been tied up in the old fashioned craft. It is related of Samuel Alvin Sperry, who recently died in Reno county, Kan., that he was one of a family ol 14 children, all of whom lived to be more than 75 years old. Humanitarians progress throughout the centuries toward a speedy and painless mode of execution has been increasing. First came tortures un speakable. Then the axe, the noose, the garrote, the guillotine, the electrio chair. And now—the automobile. A Boston firm of dealers in china and glass ware that has ocupied the same site for a portion of three centuries, its store having first been opened there in 1798, is selling at auction its stock, said to be valued at $300,000, preparatory to moving further up town. A judge of the English high court has determined that a bicycle is legal ly "a vehicle hung on springs," and now the Kent county council has de clared that perambulators and chil dren's mail carts are carriages within the meaning of the by-law relating to the carrying of lights at night. Arctic Exporer Peary, whose leave of absence from duty in the navy de partment has been extended for an other six months, has been off duty al ready for nearly 12 years—and during all this time he has bean engaged in exploration in the frozen north. If patience, good fortune and everlast ingly sticking at it be talisman to conjure with, Commander Peary should surely be able to solve the mys tical polar problem. The French academy has appropri ated a sum for the maintenance of an album in which three photographs of every Immortal—one showing the full face and two the profile—will be care fully preserved. When an acedemi cian dies it is usual to adorn what may be called the literary Hotel des Inval- Idee with his bust, but occasionally the sculptor experiences difficulty in finding a trustworthy representation erf the departed great. The teaching of cookery in the Eng lish board schools is sometimes not ap preciated by those who would be most benefited by it. The teacher of one of these schools recently received the following letter of protest: "My Mary Ann is not going to be a servant. I wants her to be a lady, and the less she knows of how to cook victuals the better. When 1 sent my gal to the board school I aid not expect she was going to be taught undignified things like that." It is officially announced that th« government profited last year to tho extent of a half million dollars be cause of postal orders that were sent and never called for. 'We accept the fact, but not the explanation, says the Detroit Free Press. Americans are proverbially careless in money mat ters, but they have a thriftiness that would at least impel them to visit the postoffice and exchange a signature for ready money. As a rule those who get a remittance in this way need it and are sufficiently interested togo after it. It is a more reasonable ex planation that tho great majority oi these postal notes did not reach their destination, and upon this follows the conclusion that the government should provide greater safety for those de livering money to it for others. In regard to Great Britain's food supply and possible danger to it by reason of foreign war the British con troversialists seem to be substantially agreed upon the facts, and to differ only in the conclusions to be drawn from them. The facts are, briefly, that the United Kingdom needs abount 240,- (.'OO,OOO bushels of wheat annually, and raises les than 55,000,000 bushels by home agriculture. Of the home prod uct at least one-fifth must be kept for seed, so that the country is depend ent upon foreigners for about four fifths of its breadstuff supply. There is no effort to acumulate gran ary stores. The British millers buy options in wheat, which is drawn from foreign granaries as needed. It fro- j qucntly happens that the entire avail able stock on hand at one time in the United Kingdom does not exceed 15,000,000 bushels—about a three weeks' supply. Even after harvest' time there is never a four months' < stock of wbeat on the island. CURIOSITY OF A GIANT SQUID~J| 4 A TALE OF A DEEP-SEA DIVER. FT < > J BY ARTHUR E. MOFARLANE. G The N master diver was turning over some of his old helmets. Long aud corrupting acquaintance with salt wa ter had left the tiuned-over copper ! bulbs a rusty, greenish gray. • "Why don't 1 keep them polished : up?" he said. "Because they're a great i deal better the way they are. A shiny 1 new helmet is one eternal nuisance; i you never get any peace till it's coated I over. When I'm wearing one, I al ways feel as if my head was a sort of ' trolling spoon; anyhow, most fish re [ gard it that way. And 1 must say they ! do certainly seem to be trying their I level best to be caught. "I often think that with the ma jority of seabeasts life must be one long struggle between a natural wari ness and a more than natural curios ity. They've all been brought up to give a wide offing to things they don't understand; but it's bred in their bone to want to see and keep up with everytmng that's new. And when it's something that's got a glitter or polish to it, all that their parents and guar dians have taught tuem from the be ginning of time isn't going to hold them back. "And no one has such opportunities to find that out as the diver. At first, when you're being lowered, there's nothing but a flicker of tails disap pearing in every uireetion; but after a while, and very soon if you're wear ing a new headpiece, you begin to make out big pairs of goggle eyes staring at you from the under-sea twilight, and they gradually move in closer and closer. In a few minutes probably they'll be making little darts at your fingers and swishing their tails across your face. "And yet in some cases they may cot be at all hesitating about introduc ing themselves. Down in the West Indies there's a fish of the forward sort. That's the booby. Did you ever see a skate when a Ashman's tied a cord around his neck, bent his silly face forward, and set him up on a table to keep things gay and humor ous in the market? Well, a booby looks something like that "But with all his amazing ugliness, it isn't the booby's looks so much as his overwhelming suddenness that makes him unpopular with deep sea men. A diver goes down, and along with the other fish the booby hears of it. But is he shy and timid about coming forward? The minute he hears of a miraculous stranger in his midst, my, but he does more than 'want to know!' He's not even content to •wait for the extrys," as you might say; he's got to rush straight down town to see the bulletins! "The first thing the unsuspecting diver knows, he's hit plump in the forward face-plate; and between his being jarred like a ship in a bow-on collision, and his being given the firm belief that he's had a visit from the very old grinning demon of the under sea himself, he's ready to put for the surface like a stampeded derrick hoist. and do his recovering slow and at leisure. He's lucky if the booby hasn't tried the thickness of both his side-plates, too, before he's safe over the gunwale! "There's another sea beast that has his own peculiar curiosity, and that's the giant squid; but there's nothing so very humorous aDout their little prying inquisitiveness. Once in the Mediterranean one gave me a half hour which I thought would leave me gray-headed. Just how near it was tc being my last dive I'll never know. "It happened in the end of the sum mer, when I'd been on that job near Shanghai, and I was coming home by way of Suez when I got a wire at Port Said from headquarters direct ing me to take my gear and side track myself direct to Palermo, Sicily. When 1 got there —and I didn't lose any time making connections —1 found that a badly moored liner had pinched a big lighter between herself and the mole—the long stone wharf and break water the Palermese are so proud of— anu, smashing it abeam, had sent it to the bottom. It was a government lighter, and its cargo was an unusually valuable one —would run $40,000 or $50,000 in our money—and I was to do what I could toward hoisting a good fat salvage out of it. "It was simple, easy work. There were two or three hundred medium- Fized cases to derrick up, and for me it wasn't much more than snap-to the chain-hooks and >;ive the word to haul away. "In fact, there was only one thing which kept the job from being exactly the kind I like; I couldn't seem to make good tenders of the Italian sea men they'd given me to work with. They would pump steadily enough, but had no head at all for signal tak ing; and before long I was practically regulating my air supply, and timing my descents for myself. "I never got too little wind, and when I got too much I simply opened a wristband and llabbied out in no time. Then, too, I had a leaded ca ble ladder dropped from the side of the mole to the deck of the lighter and I climbed up and down that with out any useless telegraphing. After the first week I told them not to bother looking for any signals but those to let down and haul up the hoisting tackle. "For all the Italians were stupid about a diving 'hose and line,' they were mighty goou fellows; and in the evenings, when they could get off. I had great times with t'.icru and their friends. Queerly enough, too, most of my fun was ingoing fishing for the squid. They way of catching it was a new idea to me. They take 20-foot cane poles and fasten bunches of stur geon hooks to tne ends of them, like a lot of very short lashes on very long whip-stocks; and they manage to get 'Signor Pulpu'—as the polite Paler mese call the beast —tangled up in them pretty badly. "They do their fishing on nights when there's a moon, for squid make it their habit to spend their day out at sea and to come back inshore late in the evening. When it is moonlight they can be spotted very easny, for they swim just below the surface, and their pinwheel motion roughens up the water above them till the bright sil ver is in oxidized whorls. As soon as a pulpu has circled himself into strik ing distance a bunch of hooks is slid under him, and one fine Italian twist anu jerk does his business before he knows what's killed him. "And they're not slaughtered wan tonly, either, but the pot and oven, like any other fish. Although I was naturally rather stand-offish about them at first, after I'd tasted them boiled in oil and caraway seed, and lathered over with eggplant sauce, I couldn't help owning that Americans aren't the only people who know what's good. "I suppose, too, my eating them changed my way of looking at squid a lot; anyhow, even while we caught most of them off the very mole that I was working beside, I don't think I gave two anxious thoughts to them when 1 was in the water. More than likely that was because those I'd seen caught never weighed more than 25 pounds, and because I took it for granted that they were all out at sea in my working hours. Well, they weren't all under 25 pounds, or all out at sea at daylight, either! "I learned this one aftprnoon when something went wrong with the jerry rigged derrick we were using. For half an hour no tackle had come down to me, and at last I got tired of doing nothing. I d never been between decks at all, for as the boat was a common lighter, everything I'd had to handle was piled up above; but now that I had the time, I thought I'd like to see how the Sicilian lighterman had his living quarters furnished. So I climbed down the hatchway ladder. "You often hear people speaking of 'black darkness,' and, as I've had cause to know, its possible for some caves and mine cuttings to be pretty pitchy; but tney're nothing to what the hold of a wreck turn show. When you're down any depth to speak of, there's almost no such thing as re fracted light; if you don't get it in the form of direct rays, you don't get it at ail. "When I stepped out of the shaft of hatchway twilight into the 'tween decks shadow it was like passing through a curtain; and as I felt my way toward where the cook's galley ought to be, it was like thrusting my arms and legs into a new element — one thicker than water and not even liquid; it was kind of furry and seemed to slide and creep. "It had its enect on me, and the gloom and 'lonesome horrors' that no ulver working in darkness is ever wiiiiout, were beginning to craw over me, when suddenly something whipped and closed about my wrist. It was like a big roll of cold, slippery elastic. "It held me only a moment, but it left me water-kneed, goose-fleshed and swallowing. I don't Know where my blood went to, but I know it dropped out of my heart as if an exhaust had been opened in the oottom of it; and on my feet were the pigs of lead that hold you down in nightmares. "I stayed right there', listening to my pulse beating In my ears and feel ing myself grow sick; and when I did pull myself together enough to reach for the signal line, my arm was clutched like a flash. The next mo ment my other was a prisoner, too. Then the tentacles began to nose about all over me .«i\e eels. *'l did not need my eyes to know what it was. I'd heard of the curiosi ty of the giant rock squid, and I'd often watched the little ones in the Palermo aquarium. They'll lay hold of something new to them, and paw it over deliberately by the hour, squeezing and pulling it, and never letting go for a minute. "All this came back to me, and I could judge the size of the squid that hau got hold of me by t.e length of its arms. Its eyes told its ouxit, too; for when I'd got my strength again, and my struggling began to turn its curiosity into anger, they came out phosphorescent in the darkness. They were hideous anough danger signals, and as I wrenched and heaved they lighted up uglier and uglier. Eor all I could do the grip on me only tight ened. "But it wasn't the tightness of the grip that was sending uie crawling shudders through me; it was the kind of grip it was. For the suckers—and there were two rows of tuem on every arm—began to 'set' and 'draw.' They glued themselves to me all over, but I felt their mouth worst on my bare hands and wrists. ' Sometimes I would get hold of the end of an arm, and twist it off me; but it only gave and stretched like the elastic It was. I knew that as soon as I had to relax the tension it would sprln-, back again. And every minute or two the brute spat its sepia: I could cm ell it even through my rubber suit. I fought and yelled like a crazy maa. for my nerves had gone; but the thiCK 'hough! hough!' the beast makes wheD its blood is up was all the answer and heed it gave me. "Vet in that first terror it hadn't rightly come over me what my real danger v/as. It was only when I had struggled and screamed myself tire J and had gasping leisure for clear thinking that x realized what the end of it was likely to be. My first thought was, that, after all, I couldn't be choked to death nor my air supply shut off, and it would only be a mat ter of time till I and the brute would be hauled up together. "Then of a suuuen my mind went back to the aquarium again, and I re membered that whenever the little squids in it caught a fish, or anything else soft enough, they never failed tc finish handling it by pushing out tnat chisel-edged, parrot beak of tneirs, and ripping it up just as a child might an old rag doll. Its head had only to let go whatever it was holding to in the galley, the beak had only to reach the breast of my suit or even to slit up one of my sleeves to drown me as sure as if there weren't a diving pump with in a thousand miles of Palermo. "I think I went into a kind of de lirium then, filling my helmet full of senseless screeching till it rang like a Chinese gong, jerking and writhing the brute's arms, and flnging my head back and forward in the crazy hope of senuing up a signal that way; but I had too much slack, and I knew they'd probably not heed it, anyway. "All the time the suckers were draw ing steadily stronger; from the first nip and sting, I felt now a long burn ing ache. One arm was coiling itself more anu more around my neck. I could hear it rub squeaking about my copper collar, and as it tightened I knew it was bringing the head grad ually closer. "The sepia was now as vile as two year bilge. As I foamed and fought, the eyes stood out like great apols with candles behind them, and the lights in them turned c-rueler and crueier at every heave I gave. I couldn't think or pray. I could only rave at the Ital ians up above for letting me be done to death like this. "Suddenly I felt the hose and line growing taut. The next minute I was off my feet, and there was a terrific tug as the squid's anchorage in the galley was broken. But we were lifted steadily up, he still gripping to me, and so in one big clump we came to the hatchway. He tried to get a pur chase' on it as we squeezed through, but he didn't. I was in luck that lie had such other things to think of, for they kept his beak off me. "No, I didn't end up by fainting or anything like that When they'd un screwed my face plate, I just sat on the side of the mole and did a little laugh ing and crying both at once. I can remember yet the outlandish sound I made; It was for all the world like the squawking of an old rooster when you've laid his poor neck across the chopping block. "It was two days before I could key myself up to putting the armor on again. Even then you could still see the red marks all over my hands and wrists; you can make them for your self by touching your skin with a pneumatic nozzle for a second, or even by sucking hard with your lips. "My tenders said they had hauled me up because they'd felt a queer, steady pulling on the hose. Probably the brute had got hold of it with one cf his arms, and had reefed in the slack to see what it was; its curiosity may have been my salvation after all. However, my gang took all the credit for it.and they prepared to boil and eat two of Signor Pulpu's legs by way ot celebrating the event. But first they put him whole on the scales. He weighed only 79 pounds—but. as the celebration showed, it was all pretty solid muscle. "That feast petered out before it was really well started. Even 'fore-the mastjaws couldn't manage it; they cast anchor in the first chop. As for me. that was no great disappointment, for I'd been content to look on. Some how, ! still felt stand-offish toward that squid. Eating your conquered enemy is kind of un-American, any way."—Youth's Companion. An Age of Comfort*. Some people with elastic minds havo stretched theirs into thinking that boots can be blacked on the com munity plan, and have recently organ ized a company for the pnrpose of making money by sending uniformed attendants to private houses to clean and polish shoes while the wearer dreams peacefully. The slumberer awakes, plunges into a tliteiT oath, and then sees his glowing Image in liis glistening boots already blacked. Tru ly this is an age of contorts. Accord ing to a circular at hand, polished shoes are "indispensable to well groomed men and women." Through the lack of time or through the negli gence of servants, shoes are not al ways properly cleaned at home; con sequently many minutes are wasted in the boot black's chair, ana time is money. The blacking boys of this traveling system are not paid cash, but are given coupons which are sold by the company in hlocKs or JO, 20, and 40—in brief, the customer be comes a commuter. Another aovancc to that happy time when one can con tract with scientific- specialists to treat the smallest, household ailments. —New York Post. £nnlfTerent Nation*. Each day of the week is observed aa Sunday by some nation. The first day of the week is our Christian Sun day, Monday is the sacred day of the Greeks. Tuesday is the holy day of the Persians, Wednesday of the As syrians. Thursday cf the Egyptians Friday of th? Turks and Saturday cf the Jews. THE GRh/ix SOME STARTLINC FACTS ABOUT THE VICE OF INTEMPERANCE. Strong Drink tlie Curse of Millions I*. Our Moueru Civilization—lkying* Pro crastination and Self-Delusion Are In Kvery Glass of Spirits. "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end* thereof are the ways of death."—Proverbs, xlv, 12. This is to be no sermon un teetolaism. The desire is to discuss with young men and others, not a sentimental principle, buc the interest of each individual. Strong drink is the curse of millions in our modern civilization. There is throughout society what may be called a "whisky level." This level exists in every great city and in every small vil lage. There are men classed as whisky drinkers, bard drinkers, and, whatever they may profess to believe, they are and they know they are the i>ariahs of the community. Whisky has many apologists; there are many arguments offered in itr> l'avor. But these arguments are feeble compared with those that may be brought against it. You are told truthfully this: The drinking nations of the world are the great and successful nations. A small handful of drinking English can subdue and control the temperate millions of In dia, Egypt, etc. Perfectly true. The powerful races do drink. But the powerful individuals do not drink. The conquering armies are armies of drinking men usually—but their leaders arc sober, temperate men. If you want to be one of the ordinary crowd, no worse and no better than others, drink spirits "moderately," as whisky's friends put it. But remember that there is no such thing as drinking whisky "moderately." Immoderate drinking makes you a brute; it classes you among those in the picture; so-called moderate whisky drink ing takes the edge off your ability. It dis counts your mental activity. You can't be one of the really successful men if you Btart out to be a moderate drinker. What does a young man lose by not drinking spirits? In the first place it is necessary to culti vate the taste in the beginning. Why cul tivate it at all? Iri the second place, admitting all the usual sophistry about moderate drinking, whisky means the loss of time, loss of money, loss of clear mental thought. There is boasting, lying, vacillation, pro crastination, self-delusion in every glass of spirits. How many millions of men —on their dying bed have wished fervently and mournfully that they had never tasted spirits? Did any dying man ever regret a temper ate life? England drinks more gin—perhaps—than any other two nations. But the gin of England is drunk by England's failures. The successful of England don't know the taste of gin. The deeper you go into Whiteehapel the greater the number of gin bottles per capita. Young men should know and daily re member that whisky and all other spirits cheat their bodies and brains. Whisky does for the nerves what a lash does for a tired horse. Your system needs rest. Your brain to compete with others ought to sleep and re cuperate. Whisky lies to you. It makes you think that it can give the rest and the renewed strength. It creates an appetite in the nerves, and when you satisfy that appetite it makes you think you have found renewed strength, whereas you have only taken a new dose of poison. Your brain and heart are lashed by whisky into temporary activity. And you wonder that you are passed in life's race by the man of less ability. You need not wonder. He has given his brain, body and heart normal rest, while you have given yours a beating.—New York Journal. An Old, Old Story Told Acain. To be born with a good body, a pleasing countenance, quick intelligence, a fine voice and talent that wins early recogni tion—that, surely, is a heritage to be grateful for. A man who was thus endowed died in Boston on Sunday. Time was when people would crowd thea tres to hear him sing and see him dance and laugh at his fun. He made immense sums of money and might easily have retired with wealth be fore he was forty. Instead, he died penniless at fifty-six in a poor lodging house, separated from his family, ana all his friends were tired of trving to save lnm from himself. Whisky. That one word is the epitaph of Billy Emerson, the minstrel, rich, and famous in his way not so very long ago. And he differed from the countless wrecks whom he went to pieces only in his greater natural gifts and the larger oppor tunities for better things which those gifis brought him. He had plenty of brains and seemed to have good sense. But that was not so. No man with good sense will drink whisky when experience tells him that he likes it too well. _ That is the lesson which Billy Emerson and nil his unhappy kind bequeath to young men. —New York Journal. Is a Drunkard a Lunatic? Senator Trainor believes that an habit* ual drunkard should be sequestered and treated in many respects the same as a lu natic. The Senator has introduced a bill in the Legislature at Albany which per mits the commitment of a man charged with habitual drunkenness to an institu tion from which he cannot escape without an order from the Supreme Court. The bill in other forms has been introduced for the last three years, and has always been opposed for its drastic assumption that a drunkard is unable to take care of him self or manage his affairs. It has been pointed out by those averse to the Trainor plan that there are so many varying de grees of drunkenness that there might be danger of a wealthy man who drank free ly every day being hurried off by design ing relatives and locked up for an indefi nite period. Due to Alroholtpm, „ Europe is discovering that crime is in® creasing there far more rapidly among the young than among the adults. At the fifth congress of criminal anthropology, re cently held in Amsterdam, the startling fact was brought out that there are six times as many murders committed by young men between the ages of sixteen and twenty as by adults between thirty and thirty-five. The cause is charged to the in crease of alcoholism. The Crusade in Brief. More alcoholic liquors arc drunk in France than in any other country. In 1880 one person in every 1315 Prus sians became insane by means of drink. Habitual drunkenness is a direct cause for absolute divorce in thirty-five States of the Union. A great proportion of the epilepsy, idoey and mental deficiency are also due to the drunken habits of the parents or of the afflicted themselves. From 1882-01 there were 44.539 tramps in tha German labor colonies; all but twenty three per cent, of these were thus de graded through drunkenness.