The Johnstown Democrat. 'i *•<' ;y ' PUBLISHED EVERY TRIDAY MORNING, No. 138 FRANKLIN STREET, Jon 78 J wtf, CAMBRIA CO., PA. TEKMS—•I.oo per year,payable in advance ; oufatde tlie county, tifteen cents additional for postage. It not paid within three mont hs 8 Will be charged. A paper can be discontinued at any time by paying arrearages, and not otherwise. The failure to direct a discontinuance at the expiration of the period subscribed £qr will be cjtasldered a new engagement. AVm .subsiviii t itm* must be accompanied by the CASH. 1.. 1). WOOIIKI'FF, Editor and Publisher, FRIDAY DECEMBER 37, 1880. CHRISTMAS. "A happy Christmas to you all," says Santa Claus in that matchless production which opens Willi, " It was the night Ic fore Christmas when ull through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." And we have it iu our heart to say to all —to friend and to foe, to acquaintance and to stranger, and to the patrons of the DEMOCRAT especially, Slay yours be a happy Christmas, Just when tho custom of recognizing one day in the year as the anniversary of the birth of Him, whom the angels an nounced with the cheering words, " Peucfe on earth; good will to men," we don't know, nor does it matter. Nor are we particularly interested in knowing wheth er Mary's child was born in June, as some claim, or in September as others contend, or on 25tli December, It is enough for us to know that He was born, and came into the world on a mission of love, and that in view of Ilis nature and the work He performedjand is still accom- i plishing by making desert places to blos som as the rose, a day has been agreed upon as the anniversary of his advent. Without reference to the religious as pect of the day, and with no purpose or inclination to utter a word agaiust those who conscientiously observe it as a day for religious services, we arc glad that there is a Christmas when everybody tries to be happy, and does what he or she can to make everybody else happy. It is the day of ail the days of the year to manifest feelings of "good will" to all men. Hence, it is the custom all over the civil ized world to give tokens of friendship— tilings more useful than the old oblations of " frankincense and myrrh." lu view of the memories of early child hood, if for no other reason, we would deprecate any inuovatiou thut would rel egate it to a place among the tilings that have outlived their usefulness. What would winter be without Christmas ? A Christmas devoted to kind greetings, so cial interviews, hospitable entertainments, and the bestowing of Christmas gifts? Good and savory as a nice, big fat turkey is ou any day, it never seems to tit it so nicely as it does ou Christmas day. But much as the adult world would miss by bavins: no Christinas, what would the liMug generation do without it? Blot it out, and you would blot out h fof the little boys and girls happiness. With 110 Christmas to talk about, and to look fur •ward to for mouths prior to its coming, and to enjoy when it does come, a great part of their pleasure would be destroyed. To the little ones it is preeminently the toy day of the year. And without the Christmas trees, and Christmas presents, much of the interest in Sunday Schools would go glimmering. Bong live Christmas 1 Long may it be observed, aud blessings fall upon him who invented it! Again, do we say, A happy Christmas to all. WHY HIS HESITATION? Strong us have been some of the en deavors to get a measure through the United States Senate to liuve this country recognize the establishment of a republic in Brazil, they have, to the bitter shame and humiliation of our boasted free insti tutions, proved futile. And all because of the poky, dilly-dallying Administration at Washington. What if Dom Pedro was the most generous and liberal monarch on earth. lie was a monarch anyhow, liable to be succeeded some day by another less liberal. Instead of throwing the weight of our powerful influence on the side of a new republic accomplished without bloodshed, our government is wuiting to see whether there is any chance for the restoration of the monarchy. The Goddess of Liberty must surely blush at this indecision and hesitancy. Were we glad when the influence of Prance came to our aid during the Revolution? It's a great pity this administration didn't in herit a little National pride and zeal for republican institutions instead of Grand pa's hat. PRESIDENT HARRISON recommends the abolition of the tax 011 whisky and tobac co, leaving it as high as ever on sugar, wool and other necessaries. The Free Melhodtut, of Chicago, talks on that sub ject in this manner : "If the President and the Republican party think that, by making tobacco and whisky cheap, they can reconcile our intelligent, conscien tious people to continue to pav a high price for sugar and woolen goods and shoes and hats and printing paper and type and other necessary articles, they are greatly mistaken. TpERK are too many visible reminders of the flood disaster to permit our people to enter as heartily into the enjoyment of Christmas as they are wont. We per force think, of those lost to us since a year ago. BCBIBNKR'S MAGAZINE. Scribner's Magazine for January begins the fourth year and seventh volume with the promise that during the current year it will follow its well-approved course of printing articles of interest in themselves, by writers who really have somethiug to say ; and of a'ming that great variety shull be secured rather than that any single.undertakings shall monopolize its space. In the interest ofiimeliness mid variety a department has been added where, uu der the title " The Point of View," an opportunity is given to the best writers ifor a brief and familiar discussion of subjects of both passing and permanent interest; literary, artistic, and generol. These are, of as, indeed, the title of the department conveys, to be expressions of individual opinion. In the present issue the subjects discussed iu a bright, informal way, are " The Barye Exhibition," " Thackeray's Life," " Social Life iu Print," and " The French as Artists." A few pages are to be added to each number to give space for this new feature " Water-storage in the West," hy Walter Gillette Bates, is a lucid and com prehensive statement of a great material problem which is now engaging the earn est attention of a Congressional com mission, a Government liydrographic surveying-party, and many State Legisla tures. The promblem is, to rec'aim and make fertile vast tracts of land in what is called the "arid region," an area of 1,- 200,000 square miles, or more than two fifths of the United States. Artesian wells and canals have been employed in many places effectively, but their application is narrow and limited compared with the new method of water-storage by means of artificial lakes. "Sellect the proper valleys for water-basins," says the author, " close their outlets with dauis, store great lakes of water when the mountain-snows melt, and then let it out slowly and at will through flumes and ditches to the lands below—this is the essence of the new idea." He illustrates what private enter prise lias already accomplished by brief descriptions of four great dams—the Merced. California, the Walnut Grove Arizona, the Sweetwater, California, and the Bear Valley, California; The peculiar and picturesque conditions accompanying the construction of these great works arc described most entertaingly. The illus trations, which are of unusual richness, are from photographs of the work in all its stages. FVi RASES AND WORDS IN pop I- LAI! t S! Wonder if refilled ladies who use the expression of " putting your foot in it," know what it means. It comes from the French, and for the benefit of young Indies who are ambitiously trying to learu some of the French phrases, we print it. It reads, votis avct mis le pied dedans; which translated, us delicately us possible, means Hint something nasty lias, been stepped iuto. Why do some literary people persist in making the G. in the word Gerrymander take the sound of J ? Not long since we heard a dignitary, say that the Democrats in Ohio would Jerrymander the Congres sional districts in adopting a new appor tionment bill so as to give tlicm the ma jority. The word is derived from Gov ernor Elbridge Gerry ; who, while Gov ernor of .Massachusetts adopted a scheme of giving his party a political advantage over all others. Not many moons ago We heard a young lawyer, who is ambitious to stand rtctux in curia, use a word which means pre cisely the opposite of what he thought and wished to express. Bpcaking of a man who had cowardly submitted to an insult, he said he had showu a truculent spirit, thinking that the word comes from truckle. The word truculent n eans tierce, ferocious, savage. JOHNSTOWN'S LEAKING BUILDING. II can tie Straightened Again, .Say the Architects —To he Lx a mined by Ex nerts. The architects of the Dibert building were Messrs. Broderick & Gray, Pitts burgh. Mr, Broderick came here Mon day in response to a summons by tele graph. The building will not, in his opinion, like Pisa's leaning tower, have to be left the way it is and braced, uor will it have to be torn down. It will he examined by experts from Pittsburgh, who with the architect will determine what is best to be done. The architect thinks that the building can be brought back into the proper position, as the walls have not " set" yet. Mr. Scott Dibert, one of the owners, is determined that the building shall he made perfectly secure, aud will not take the extra expense, necessary to make it so. into consideration. The Holiday Trade. The jostle of business made our streets unusually lively Tuesday. Such crowds of people probably have not before been on our streets this season. The stores were crowded, and the amount of busi ness done was very great, the large stock of fancy articles in many of the stores having an unprgcedentedly large sale, and consequently many hearts are happy in the receipt of tokens of appreciation from generous friends. The Johnstown people are still'thomaelves. Ask Your Friends About 11. Your cough can be cured. We know it because Kemp's Balsam has cured so many coughs and colds in this communi ty. Its remarkable sale has been won en tirely by its genuine merit. Ask some friend who has used it what he thinks of Kemp's Balsam. There is no medicine so pure, none so effective. Kumple bottle free. Large bottles 50c. and $1 at drug, gists. 4tw-d37 A GLIMPSE OF WYOMING. TK£ STORY OF JIM BRIDGER AND THE FORT HE ESTABLISHED. A Description of the Bad Lands and Some of Their Curious Fossil Remains and Arclneological Treasures Looks Like Bome Ruined City of the Gods. Many years ago—way back in the forties, in fact —old Gen. Ashley, ac companied by the well known trapper and mountaineer, Jim Bridger, turned west from the Sheetskadee, or Greeu river. Aftor following one of its numer ous tributaries, called Henry's Fork, for the distauce of about thirty miles, they changed their course aud proceeded due north, to find themselves ouo day upon the ridge of steep bluffs overlooking the valleys of Smith's aud Black's Forks, and upon the latter stream they decided to establish a trading post. Gen. Ashley was supposed to have been at that time in the employ of the American Fur com pany. and fur some reason or other soon retraced his steps eastward, leaving Jim Bridger in possession of the valley that now bears his name. Jim, with a spirit of pardonable pride, called his camp "Fort Bridger." lie married a wife, built a hut of woven willows ami logs, after the fashion of Ids Indian neighbors, and for several years carried 011 a most successful traffic with the Indians .and the emigrants, chiefly Mormons, who began to settle in the vi cinitv. Among the guides and trappers who, during the years following its establish ment, made Fort Bridger their head quarters, were two Frenchmen, named Gosha (presumably a contraction of Gau tier) and Mariano, known by their com rades as the "toad eatin' parley voos." They were perhaps the first to discover certain very minute weapons and crude tools of stone and iron upon the plateau of Smith's Fork, and interpreted to trav elers the following fantastic Indian leg end concerning their origin and utility. A race of pygmies had formerly inhabi ted the valley and heights, and waged eternal war upon the eagles. They fash ioned and stored away in numerous mountain caves and crevasses the tiniest arrow heads and spears, and fought va liantly for their existence. But in the end tho eagles were victorious, and de voured their lillipntian adversaries with pitiless voracity. Then iu after years the rains washed down the weapons,and the Indians made use of them for petty traf fic and various games. Since 1868 tho tertiary beds in the vi cinity of Bridger have proved of primary importance to geologists and paleontolo gists in all parts of the world, and Pro fessor Geikie, of Edinburgh, in tho inter esting sketcli he published of his journey through tho United States, speaks of tho intense eagerness with which lie had al ways looked forward to visiting tho "most wonderful fossil beds of the world—tho cretaceous and tertiary de posits of northwestern America." Tho yield of fossil specimens, in fact, has equaled that of the famous terres uiau vaises of Dakota, and extensive research by Professor llayden, Professor Marsh, Dr. Leidv and other noted scientists have brought to light an especial fauna, the former existence of which was un known. Among the earlier anil more unim portant fossils discovered in the Green river and Bridget- basins were flies, fishes, insects and shells—especially the long, gracefully shaped oyster shells, so abundant in central and northern Europe, known as "Ladies' Fingers." A most re markable specimen was the feather of a bird which Professor Marsh regarded as unique and of great value. Many species of turtle were discovered, the vertebrte of crocodiles, and, ill the intervening years, the cranial hones of a mammoth extinct animal to which Professor Marsh gave the generic appellation of Dinoce rata, and which Dr. Leidv. on the oilier hand, designated as the Uintatherium. Some impression of the size of the speci mens may be gained when it is stated that the finely preserved tusks arc twenty inches long and the jaw hones, showing the perfectly enameled teeth and deep fangs, measure over a foot in length. To Dr. J. Van A. Carter, residing at Fort Bridger, and Dr. Corson, ftf the army, is due the credit of having dis covered many of the finest fossil speci mens to be seen in the paleontological collections of the Smithsonian Institution and the Academy of Science, of New York, and to the remains of a small ani mal similar to the European hedgehog, forwarded by Dr. Carter to Dr. Leidy, was given the name of Omomys C'arteri, in honor of its discoverer. The "moss agate" beds are especially numerous around Bridger, and occasionally stones of great beauty, which would take an extraordinary ]>olish, were sold for SSO and $75. Bits of amber, resembling the murky gems found on the coast of Pal estine, are now and then picked up, and a few beautiful specimens of opals have been found among the Uintah mountains. In appearance, the "bad lands" of Bridger basin more nearly resemble the ruins of the Nile, near the confines of the desert, than any other natural forma tion or artificial constructions visited by the tourist of the present day. Though deficient in great historic interest, the indescribable grandeur and picturesque ness of the locality, apart from the curi osity excited by scientific research, make exploration in the "bad lands" a delight to all artists and lovers of beauty in its most savage form. Professor Denton's brief but graphic description cannot he improved upon, so I give it hero: "Looking from the summit 6f a high ridge ou the east, a tract of country con taining 500 or GOO square miles is dis tinctly visible. Over the whole surface is rock, baro rocks cut into ravines, canyons, gorges and valleys, in magnifi cent relief, terrace on terrace, pyramid above pyramid, rising to mountain heights, amphitheatres that would hold a million spectators, walls, pillars, tow ers, castles everywhere. It looks like some ruined city of the gods, blasted, bare, desolate, hut grand 'beyond a mortal's telling."'—Fort Bridget (Wyo.) Cor. Omaha World-Herald. A BALLADE OF YOUTH. AdowD tin? road the red rose bustles Are budding and blooming here and there; And the clean, cool wind. It laughs, and pushes Over ray forehead and through ray hair. Life is a lightsome weight to bear; Youtli is cot such a weary load; Wouldst thou deprive me of my share, Death, that art lurking down the road? My steed Is fresh; the ways are plensant, I am not old nor weary yet. The post wus good, as good the present, Nor is there much I need regret. Wilt thou not Blumber, and forget To harvest grain so newly sowed, O lean, aud longing, and sharp set Death, that art lurking down the road? Nay! I shall pray thee not, lamenting The end of me, and the end of all. Thou hast 110 soul for tears, repenting Thy sweeping blade, when mortals fall. At some lane's turn I'll hear the call, "Stand!" and as grass I shall be mowed. Strike then; thou shalt not me appall, Death, that art lurking down the road! Only—strike sure, if strike It must be, What time 1 forget thy dues are owed. Seize them suddenly, thine so justly. Death, that art lurking down the road! —P. Y. Black in Overland. Older Than the Pyramids. With an antiquity rivaling, probably exceeding, t'.mt of the pyramids of Egypt, and a reputation scarcely inferior, it is remarkable how little notice has been taken of the death of tho colossal dragon tree of Oratava. This gigantic, hoary headed vegetable veteran died almost suddenly a few years ago, and may be said, liko the deacon's old masterpiece, to hftve gone "to pieces all at once—all at once and nothing first—just as bubbles do when they hurst." After a babyhood of centuries, dec.-ules of maturity and a decadence of ages, it does seem piti able that the departure of this wonder of the world should have evoked little or no comment. When Alouzo de Lugo, the conqueror of Teneriffe, came to Oratava, in 1493, he spared the tree, but, scandalized at the profane mysteries which had taken place in its interior, he converted its liol lowness into a chapel for holy mass. Humboldt, in 1799, gives its hc-ight as "appearing about fifty or sixty feet, and its circumference near the roots at forty five feet, and the diameter of the trunk at ten feet from the ground isstlil twelve English feet," and he computed its age at 10,000 years. The opening was so large that a table was placed in it round which fourteen persons could seat them selves, and a staircase in the interior conducted tho visitor up to the height whence the branches sprang.—London Globe. A Few Men Kim the House. Thus it appeared that of the 330 mem bers of tho house not more than a couple of dozen, or at tho outside two score, have anything more than a local or state reputation. As a matter of fact, the business of the house is in the hands of a half dozen meu. aud when my friend asked mo to point out to hiqiithe men who during the next two years will con trol, or largely control, the lawmaking of that body. I showed him Reed in the chair, alert and self complacent; McKin leyon the floor, pale and reserved; Bayne, of Pittsburg, bearded nud strong willed; Cannon, of Illinois, studiously reading the revised statutes and chewing the end of a Wisconsin cigar; Cabot Lodge, young, strong, clean limbed, athletic literary, pacing to and fro in the rear oi the seats like a lion in a cage, eager tc be off to tho jungle; Burrows, smiling and tillable, and with his shoes—the shoes which it is a matter of principle with him never to blacken—stuck in his favorite altitude upon the tup of his desk, and one-legged Henderson, of lowa, hard at work, as usual, with pen in hand and a formidable array of law books beside him.—Washington Letter. The Human Kar. Few people realize what a wonderful ly delicate structure the human ear real ly is. That which we ordinarily desig nate so is, after all, only the mere outer porch of a series of winding passages, which, like the lobbies of a great build ing, lead from the world without to the world within. Certain of these passages are full of liquid, and their membranes are stretched like parchment curtains across the corridor at different places, and can be made to tremble like the head of a drum or the surface of a tam bourine does when struck with a stick or with the fingers. Between two of these parchment like curtains a chain of very small bones extends, which serves to tighten or relax these membranes, and to communicate vibrations to them. 111 the innermost place of ail a row of white threads called nerves stretch like tho strings of a piano from the last point to which the tremblings or thrillings reach and pass inward to the brain. A wonderful piece of mechanism, in deed!— St. Louis Republic. Order of the Garter. "Houi soit qui mal y pense," said the gallant English monarch Edward 111, as lie picked up a silken baud of blue, clasped with silver, which the beautiful Countess of Salisbury lost as she stepped a stately measure with his majesty at the great court ball more than 500 years ogo. "Iloni soit qui mal v pense," and lie clasped the ribbon about his left leg just below the knee, thus creating him self the first knight of the Order of the Garter, whose emblem, a dark blue, gold bordered band with a buckle and pendant of silver, bearing the old motto, has been and is still worn by aLI the great knights and famous men in Eng land. —New Y'ork Sun. A Useful Temporary Hriilse. M. Eiffel, the builder of the great tower in Paris, has recently invented a bridge which promises to "till a long felt want" of the railroad companies. It is to be used temporarily in the place of the or dinary bridges when they have been damaged. It is made of steel, carries a track, aud weighs, with a length of 150 feet, about eighty-six tons. It can be put in position from either end without the aid of machinery or any preparation, simply by human hands. At a receut trial in Paris M. de Freycinet aud many officers of high rank and officials of the railways from several countries ex pressed their hearty admiration of it.—New York TRUTHFUL TARS. Some y SUIT Varna Concerning; Fof from the Fo'cas'le Cheat. I was sitting r>:i the stun'sails secured on the starboard side of the to'gallant fo'cas'le one night during our run from Cape Horn, when the trades blew stead ily, and the watch had nothing to do bul spin yarns. We were homeward bound from a three years' cruise in (ho orient, and had settled down to the monotonous life of a run up the trades. Yarn spin ning was the principal occupation of the men, and they let no moment that could be filled with this pass unimproved, their great endeavor seeming to be tc reach the height of the improbable. Three of the most inveterate yarn spinners of the crew were seated on the fo'cas'le chest, just opposite me. They were Jack Kelley, the captain of the port fo'cas'le watch; Tom Hutchins, the chiei boatswain's mate, and Bill Williams, the signal quartermaster. It was diamond cut diamond with tliem always, when yarns were being swapped, and I knew I had a treat in store the moment Will iams siiid: "Well, boys, we'll be on the coast it time for the March fogs. Hope they won't bo so bad as I had them once in the gulf, when I was on the blockade, it tho Tioga." "And you had a fog experience in tht gulf, did you? Well, let us hear about it," sai 1 Kelley. "It was in June," said Williams; "we had left Key West, bound for Mobile, with important dispatches, so we could not hold up for anything, and the morn ing after we sailed the fog met us. Well, it was so thick that we had to have a matt with a shovel at the binnacle tc scoop the fog away, so that the wheels man could see how to keep his course." "And you call that a thick fog?" said Hutchins. with a tone of contempt in his voice. "Well, it don't compare with one I met coming from the Mediterranean, in the Brandywine, in the forties. 1 was an apprentice then, and it was my first cruise, and, of course, I was anxious to get home, so every day I got the reckoning. Well, we were going along about ten knots, with tho wind on the quarter and all sail set, when, just aftei meridian, we bucked up against a fog. The wind kept fair, however, and the sails were full, so we thought nothing oi it, though we did not get a sight of the sun for five days. It cleared off about 11 in the morning, and the sailing master, fls we called the navigator then, came uj and took the noon sight, and I'll bo eter nally smashed if we were not exactly in the same place we were at noon five days before. That confounded fog was sc thick that it had just held us fast, and we with till sail set, and a fair tea knot breeze to help us." "That was something of a fog," said Kelley, "and yet I don't know that il can quite come up to one that I mado the acquaintance of when I was sailing in tho merchant service just before the war. I had been home, up the Kcnncheck, and they had just finished a new 3,000-tou clipper for the New York tea trade. She had taken in ice to carry as ballast, and I was asked to help take her round. We set sail, with a strong north wind blow ing dowu tho river, aud just before we got to the mouth we met a fog. Out skipper was an old cruiser in that lati tude, however, so lie keut on. I noticed the ship had a curious sort of bobbins motion, but the fog was so thick you couldn't even see tho water, and as the sails kept full, though the wind slack ened, and we kept going ahead, why, J didn't pay much attention to it. "Well, we sailed along for nearly a week, with the fog as thick as pudding, and then all at once we gave a dive and dropped nearly fifty feet. The shif swayed and cracked, and we were all knocked off our feet. Luckily she was a new craft and the damp weather had kept her rigging taut, or her masts ruusl have gone by tho board. When she quieted down and we could get on oui legs once more we looked back, and there was a thick wall of fog, that we had tumbled from, and you can believe it or not, just as you like, but that ship had been sailing on a fog bank for a week, and when she reached the edge ol it she jumped off and dropped." "It's time I hove the log," said Will iams. and with that the party broke up, aud Kelley, with an air of great satisfac tion, walked over to tho rail and gave the jib sheet a critical examination.— Ocean. The Possibilities or Life. We aro put hero to secrete something everlasting out of nature. The oppor tunities are rich, but it is the capacity, the fiber, that determines whether we shall do it, for nature contributes to oui life, not primarily according to ite bounty, but according to the filaments in us that will solicit and incorporate its bounty. One man absorbs mathematical truth out of the heavens, while side by side with bim a mortal exists that organ izes nothing grand or stately into his constitution—just as the mushroom can do no more than hoist its plaited parasol out of the same ground, and in the same sunlight, from which the oak seed im bibed slowly its tremendous strength. Another man draws to himself the wis dom printed in the granite leaves be neath us, which earthquakes have turn ed for our benefit, and shows that he has ennobled his life Iby it. A third wins a divine thought, hinted in the old bones which the globe entombs; whilo a fourth fastens 011 history, and compels tho laws of it to filter through facts into his reason.—Starr King. A Poet's Princely Revenue. The late Martin F. Tupper was ridi culed a good deal during his lifetime, but his poetry was pure and his life was cleanly, aud now that 110 is dead even his critics have some kindly words for him and his work. It is understood that Tupper nevef received but $-100 from America, but it is estimated that if he had had a copyright 110 would have got fully half a million. For many years he enjoyed a princely revenue from his English publishers, considerably in ex cess of tho profits accruing to Tennyson, the Brownings and Longfellow all put together.—Frank Leslie's Newspaper. Reed Ilird and Mocking Bird. The reed bird of the Delaware and the rivers and regions south of that stream is the rollicking bobolink of our New England fields. Here is his true home, even if his residence in it is not so long as it is in the south. Here he is adorned with a gay piebald coat, instead of the somber suit of black in which he appeal's when in more southern latitudes, and here ho nests and sings and rears his brood. Here in the sunny green fields of New England, through all the charming May and for some way into June, he pours out the most peculiar, the most over bubbling, frolicsome, swaggering, rollicking and tipsy of all bird music. He is not so abundant here as he was in the days before lie was shot by the thou sand by sportsmen as the reed bird of the lower Susquehanna and the lower Dela ware, and before a set of worthless men and boys here in southern New England acquired, through somebody's ingenuity, a trap which catches him. Connecticut fields are not so filled as they were fifty years ago with his swag gering and most peculiar tinkling song. It may he said of him and the mocking bird that if both or either had been known to Europo for the last two thou sand years, and particularly to Italy, Greece and England, there would have been a greater fame for either than the nightingale now has. But the pothunt ers for the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Now York markets are destroying the bobolink as tho reed bird, and the negro with his shotgun blazing away at the mocking bird (ho can't shoot him except when tho bird is at rest) is fast com pleting what tho nest robbing young ne groes who supply northern buyers had long ago begun—the destruction of the superb mocking bird, the finest songster as well as the most spirited and intelli gent of our American birds.—Hartford Times. Dreamlif<\ While it is well known that the most abstruse problems have been worked out in sleep, and the most astounding plots fouud in dreamland, stijl the majority of dreams yield nothing that can bo con verted into every day power. A fool is not turned into a wise man when lie goes to sleep, though the opposite of this does sometimes seem to bo true. Said a distinguished woman: "I made up tho most exquisite bit of poetry in rny dreams. It comforted me unspeak ably, and as I awoke I repeated the words mechanically over and over again: 'The cow was struck with an inverted toadstool, and there's the end of it."' That was tho poeui! An artist of repute heard terrible groans, followed bv piercing yells from tho nest room, where a friend was sleep ing. Thinking a burglar was murdering the man, ho jumped to tho rescue. He found his friend sitting up in bed, asleep, but sobbing and crying like a baby. Af ter a few vigorous shakes, and stern ap peals to his manhood, he managed to bring forth the following appeal: "Don't you come! It will get you, too! Get out of the way! It's dreadful!" "What is the matter?" demanded the artist. "800-hoo!" wailed the dazed dreamer. "I have been in such awful danger 800-hoo!'' "It's all right, old fellow! Tell me what it is." The crying man sat up in bed. He wiped his eyes with tiro sheet, gulped down a sob, and feebly said: •'Oh, I'vo had such an awful time! I've been chased all around by a piece of brown paper!"— Youth's Companion. Personal Journalism. Apart from the value of personal journalism as historical material, I hold that the desiro for personal details with regard to public men is healthy, rational and should be yielded to. Statesmen are not ciphers, without form of blood or passion. Their utterances and acts are not pure intellectual secretions. If you want to know how such and such an act of weakness or folly is intelligible at some crisis in the history of a politi cian, you must have learned something more of the politician than you can get from the verbatim report of his speeches or the colorless and dry language of his public documents. Behind every speech and every act there is the man—a weak man or a strong man, high or low, gen erous in purpose or baso in intrigue. You cannot get rid of this background, if you want to describe the event accu rately. You cannot do so when you are listening to the man, though you should never have to describe him. —T. P. O'Connor in New Review. Photoramic Lantern. The photoramic lantern is the name of a new device by which a photographic artist claims to be able to project upon a screen or wall, not mere fixed objects, but scenes of life and movement, such as are observed on the white table in the camera obscura. The invention includes a peculiar sort of photographer's camera of about a foot square. The instrument is pointed at a particular moving object, and by turning the handle a number of photographs are taken every second. These successive phases of a scene in movement are then converted into trans parencies and placed in succession upon a long strip, which is wound on rollers and passed through the photographic lantern, with results which appear to be similar to the well known philosophical toy, the "zoetrope."—New York Com mercial Advertiser. Figures oil Watch Dials. American Notes and Queries being asked by a correspondent why tho fig ure 4 is marked 1111 and not IV on the dials of watches, answers: Tho story runs that the first clock resembling our own was made in 1370 for tho con ceited Charles V, king of France. When Henry Yick brought it to him he said that to mark 4 o'clock by IV was a mis take. On being told by the maker that ho was wrong, he thundered out: "I am never wrong. Take it away and correct the mistake." From that time to this, as a tradition, aiock and watch makers: have invariably used 1111 instead of IVi on the dial.—PliiladelDhia Ledirer.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers