SOME ANCIENT PUZZLES.
THEY SEEM TO BE INVESTED WITH
A VIGOROUS IMMORTALITY.
E°" •
Reviving n Conundrum Which Was Satis
factorily Solved Flirty Year* Ago—Tricks
i That Are I'laycd with Numerals—lnter
esting Problem* in Arithmetic.
■ There are certain problems, chiefly
arithmetical, entitled with a vigorous
immortality. No matter how often the
r " solution is printetl, or how widely an ex
haustive answer is published, the ques
w tion comes up again, before the ink is
fairly dried, to the lips of hundreds who
have not seen the reply, or who either
cannot understand it or will not accept
it. There are several of these which we
i| have printed so often, but which stiLl
kept coming, that to save further time
we struck oil a hundred proofs of each,
and mailed ono to the inquirers in suc
p - cession without comment. These proofs
I, are exhausted, and we liavo accumulated
from a score or more of correspondents
*tho same old questions, with urgent re
quests for a fresh solution. We notico
that The Brooklyn Eagle has been strug
gling with one of these. The editor who
has charge of that department is very
clever, and we think he is playing a little
with his inquisitor.
The original question sent to us forty
years ago and involving the same point
submitted to The Eagle was, how to find
the product of i'l9 19s. lid. 3f. multi
- plied by itself. Of course if the parts of
the pounds were stated as fractions, and
the pounds as whole numbers, then
19 959-9Golhs could be multiplied by
itself. But money of account has not
two dimensions. If a table is 4 feet wide
and 4 feet long, then 4x4.= lG feet,
and we have the number of square
feet on the surface. Five times live
pounds are £25, but five pounds times
five pounds is unmeaning, as money
H does not measure itself iu that fashion.
Twice two children are four children,
but twice children two children has no
. meaning. So "nineteen pounds, nineteen
shillings, eleven pence, three farthings
times nineteen pounds, nineteen shill
ings, eleven pence, three farthings." is
utter nonsense.
TROUBLESOME MILLS.
The next puzzle on the list, and ono
which comes the oftenest to our desk, in
some form of a problem which proposes
to divide a whole sum into fractions that
together did not make the dividend.
The original of this in our columns was
an answer to an actual case where a
man in his will had devised one-third,
one-fourth, one-fifth and one-sixth of
his properly respectively to his four
children, supposing that he had thus de
vised the whole of his estate. The frac
tions mentioned only made nineteen
twentietliß of a whole number. This is
easily seen if they are reduced to a com
mon denominator. One-third is twenty
sixtieths, one-fourth is fifteen-sixtieths,
~one-fifth is twelve-sixtieths, and one
sixth is ten-sixtieths, which together
make but fifty-seven sixtieths, leaving
' three-sixtieths (or l-20th) to make up
the whole number.
This puzzle reappears in some form
every few days the year round. It is
answered on the same principle involved
in the interpretation of the Arab's will.
He had fifteen horses and four sons. He
devised his estate, giving one son a half,
another a quarter, another an eighth
and the last a sixteenth. Thry found it
impossible to agree on a division. The
eldest son insisted that as seven horses
"■ would not ho half of fifteen he should
have eight; but the other sons objected,
and as neither one-half, one-fourth, one
eighth nor one-sixteenth would give
either son an even lot they had a fierce
dispute over the division. A venerable
sheikrodeup just as the quarrel was at its
height, and to compose their differences
dismounted and generously offered to
add his mare to the fifteen belonging to
the estate, agreeing that each should
take liis allotted share from the whole
' sixteen, only stipulating that his should
be the last selected. The addition made
'an easy solution of the difficulty. The
first then took eight as his half of
the sixteen, the next took four for his
quarter, the third took two for his
eighth, and the fourth took one for his
sixteenth. As this made but fifteen the
sheik mounted his mare and rode away.
The Arab boys regarded it as a miracle,
and exclaimed that Allah had given a
horse to the sheik for his generous inter
ference. In spite of this oft told tale the
problem still survives and annually puz
zles hundreds of our countrymen.
JCOOLLN'O WITH FRACTIONS.
A more recent problem which we have
already answered several times, but
which is repeated every week from some
quarter, is the division of one fraction
by another. The original question which i
we answered several years ago was:
"What is the quotient of two-thirds di
vided by one-half?" The unthinking per
-1 son would say that as the half of two
tliirds is one-third, this must be the solu-
I tion of the problem, but Dabollwill easi-
I ly refute it. The quotient of 2-3 divided
f by 4is 1 1-3; that is, 4 will go in 2-3 one
and one-third times. The last form of
the problem, received as we write this,
is to find the quotient of 1 divided by 4,
"1 two partners in a leading banking house,
having disputed, as they say, all one day
over the result, the senior maintaining
that 1 divided by 4 is 4> and defying any
J one to refute it. We answer that when
1 is divided by 4 the quotient is 2; that
/ is, 4 will he found two times in 1. If 0
be divided by 4 the answer is 12; that is,
I there are twelve halves in six. We
I should beg pardon of our readers for re-
J peating these demonstrations if it were
, not for the character and magnitude of
the disputes which occur every day con
cerning them.
We have reserved for the last of the
puzzles the century question, which will
never be laid to rest, we believe, as long
as the world stands. We printed 250
proofs of a former answer, and they
liave all been distributed to parties who
have quarreled over it. A writer whose
initials are E. E. B. asks us in a letter
just to hand whether the Twentieth
century begins with Jan. 1, 1900, or Jan.
i, 1901, and declares lhatof all whom ho
ao'Jressed for an answer about half took
ono daw" and half the other. There
should be nO question about it. This
century ends witjj the last moment of
the year 1900, and the next begins with
Jan. 1, 1801.
The muddle grows out of the fixed
idea which some people have that the
| reckoning of time begins with a cipher,
i and that one is counted when the hour,
day, month or year has closed; whereas
all the counting of time begins with one,
and at the end of the first period two
begins to count. Thus, when a child is
born, he enters on his first day of the
first montli of the first year of his lifo.
His f "ii years are finished, not when he
enters in his tenth year, hut at its close;
and bis hundred years are completed,
not when the hundredth year is begun,
but ended. When we write 1900 we
have begun the last year of the century,
not ended it. The centuries do not
begin with 0, 100, 200, but with 1, 101,
201, and thus the Twentieth century
begins with 1901 at the first moment of
that year. The quoted date comes with
the beginning, not the close of the twelve
months; and therefore, while we quote
the year 1900 as we do every other year
at its beginning, wo must wait till it
ends to close the century.—Journal of
Commerce.
Fighting Parson.
During the Eighteenth century Pres
byterian ministers settled among the peo
ple of northern Scotland needed to be
men of great strength, piety and zeal.
The Rev. Eneas Sage, whoso story is told
in "Parish Life in the North of Scot
land," belonged to the order of muscu
lar Christians, being more than six feet
in height and stout in proportion.
A year or two after he had become
minister of Lochearean, he announced
one Sunday his intention of holding "a
diet catechising" at the house of a dis
solute man, a desperate character of
great physical strength.
The minister's friends remonstrated
with him, but lie went to the man's
house, and was ordered to go away.
"Easier said than done," answered the
minister; "but you may turn me out if
you can."
They were both powerful men, and
neither of them hesitated to put upon
the other his ponderous strength. After
a short but fierce struggle, the minister
became the victor, and the landlord,
prostrated upon his own floor, was with
a rope coiled xound his arms and feet
bound over to keep the peace.
The people of the district were then
called in, and the minister proceeded
seriously to discharge the duty of cate
chising them. When that was finished,
ho set himself to deal with the delin
quent present. The man was solemnly
rebuked, and the minister so moved his
conscience that he afterwards became a
decided Christian.—Youth's Companion.
Early Use of Soap.
More than 2,000 years ago the Gauls
were combining the ashes of the beech
tree witli goat's fat and making soap.
When Marius Claudius Marcellus was
hastening southward over the Flaminiau
way, laden with spoils wrested from the
hands of Viridomar, the Gallic king lying
dead by the banks of the Po, Ins follow
ers were bringing with them a knowl
edge of the method of making soap.
The awful rain of burning ashes which
fell upon Pompeii in 79 buried (with
palaces and statues) the humble shop of
a soapmaker, and in several other cities
of Italy the business had even then a
footing. In the Eighth century there
were many soap manufactories in Italy
and Spain, and fifty years later the
Phoenicians carried the business into
France, and established the first factories
in Marseilles. Prior to the invention of
soap, fullers' earth was largely used for
cleansing purposes, and the juice of cer
tain plants served a similar purpose. The
earth was spread upon cloth, stamped in
with the feet, and subsequently removed
by scouring, it was also used in baths,
and as late even as the Eighteenth cen
tury was employed by the Romans in
that way,—Exchange.
I>icuson'* Home Life.
Wealth was unknown to the Ericsson
family, and Swedish country living at
that time was plainness itself; but love
abounded, anil the mother's cheerful
temper, with the father's good humor
and generous disposition, assured the
blessings of a harmonious and happy
home, Caroline was a child of unusual
beauty, Nils was spirited and engaging,
and the baby, John, a wonder to all. As
a child John was busy the day long,
drawing, boring and cutting. Providing
himself with pencil and paper, he would,
in the early morning, run to the mines,
and sit there until dark, watching with
deep, earnest eyes the motions of the
heavy engines, copying their forms and
studying into the secret of their motion.
—"John Ericsson, the Engineer," by Col.
W. C. Church in Scribner.
The Proper Form.
I am often asked what is the best style
of dress to be worn at a morning wed
ding by the groom. I can only say that
according .to "form" in New York if
the wedding occurs before noon, a double
breasted Prince Albert coat, silk hat and
light trousers. If after the noon hour, it
is more strictly the vogue to wear a
single breasted black cutaway coat and
vest, dark striped trousers, and carry a
black derby hat. Standing collars must
be worn with either costume, a four-in
hand scarf of rich and quiet colors,
gloves in harmony with the ensemble,
and a bunch of white flowers as a bou
tonniere. The ushers and best man must
be similarly attired, with the exception
of a distinctive variation as to gloves
and boutonniers.—Society Man in Globe-
Democrat.
Vaccination ou the Leg.
A French practitioner, in the course of
a large number of revaccinations, was
■truck with the fact that the operation
was far more successful when performed
on the leg than when the arm was se
lected. Among 177 aases the percentage
of failures was 45.45 *n the leg, as com
pared with 58.84 on the arm.—Medical
Circular.
GOOD 01.1) FAMILY WAYS.
OLIVER OPTIC TRIES HIS HAND
AT LOOKING BACKWARD.
A Chat of the Days of Wood Fires, Smoke
Jacks anil Tinder Dozes—The Grand
Old Spits for Roasting; 31 cut—Some of
the First Men Who-"Hievr Out tlie Gas."
One who has lived long enough to do
80, in looking back fifty or sixty years,
is greatly astonished at the marvelous
changes in the manner of doing things
in everyday life. Sixty years ago in
Boston anthracite coal was not in com
mon use, if it was in use at all. In cer
tain sections of the city there were wood
stands, where people from the country,
coming into town with a load of wood,
waited for customers. The best of
hickory brought §3 a cord, which is
about the price of the best wood at the
present day, though that of inferior
quality was sold at a lower rate. Such
a thing its a cook stove was hardly
known, and all the cooking was done
with wood in an open fireplace. Biscuit
and loves were baked in a bake kettle,
which had a cover with a rim around it,
BO that coals or hot ashes could be put
on it, In hotels and large pri vale houses
meats and poultry were roasted before
the fire. A "smoke jack" was used in
the former and it did its work a great
deal better than any oven can do it.
lioast beef and roast turkey at the pres
ent time are misnomers, as a rule, for
they are really baked.
THE SMOKE .JACK.
My young friends, and very likely
many of my older ones, do not know
what a smoke jack is, and I have not
seen one for forty years, though possibly
they are still in use in some large hotels.
Iks construction is very simple. In the
flue of the kitchen chimney a flange
wheel, something like the propeller of a
steamer, is placed so that it will turn
readily. When a smart lire is made the
hot air rushes up the flue and turns the
wheel. It may have been supposed that
the smoke turned it at a time when
young people did not study physics in
the day school, and this may have been
the origin of the name. The axle of the
wheel projected out through the chimney
wall into the room, about six feet above
the hearth. On the end of the axle was
a drum with four grooves in it over
which a chain could be passed.
Long spits, with a grooved wheel at
one end, were provided, over which the
chain, eight or June feet long, fastened
together so as to form an "endless
chain," passed. An iron stand, to which
four holders were attached, held up the
other end of the spit. Another stand
was placed near the grooved wheel by
which the distance from the fire could
be regulated. The fire was made in a
grate not more than six or eight inches
deep, but from one to two feet high.
From one to four spits were used as
needed, and the jack was so geared that
the spits turned very slowly all the time.
Pans were placed unde p the spits, from
which the cooks did the basting. Roast
ing is better done with this apparatus
than it can be done in an oven, for the
reason that the continued turning of the
spits does not permit the juice of the
meats to run out, as when they are at
rest.
Passing by a certain shop in the Latin
quarter of Paris, I used to stop to look
in at the window, for at the back of it
there was a great fire, before which
were several spits on which chickens
were roasting. The windows always
had on display for sale plenty of cold
roast chickens, and they were cooked in
the old fashioned way. The French
seem to believe in the method of former
days, for I saw an ingenious contrivance
for roasting in a window in the Avenue
de I'Opera. It was a spit, on which was
a dummy chicken roasting before an
imaginary fire. The bird was kept
turning all the time by an apparatus
composed of springs, which had to be
wound up like a clock. But the curious
part of it was the appliance for basting
the chicken. Over the spit was a small
trough with minute holes in the bottom,
through which the basting dropped very
slowly. The trough beneath the spit
was inclined so that the liquid ran down
to one end, where it was taken up by a
couple of revolving scoops and emptied
into the trough above the roast. It was
an admirable device, and could not fail
to do its work well as long as the ma
chinery was kept in working order.
FOUGHT THE COOK STOVE.
The first decided improvement on the
iron bake kettle that I remember was
the tin "baker," as it was called. It was
on the plan of a "tin kitchen," which
was also largely in use in the old time,
in which the spit was occasionally turned
by a crane at the end. The baker was
set before the fire with the biscuit or
loaf in it. The cover was inclined down
from the fire, so that it would reflect the
heat upon (lie bread. This and the tin
kitchen did their work very well as long
as open fires were available, butof course
at much greater expense for fuel. The
cook stove has nearly superseded all these
appliances, though the old ladies of sixty
years ago fought against it for a time as
a senseless innovation; but they learned
to use it and like it in the end. At first
wood was generally used in it, but when
hard coal came into general use it was
the fuel generally used in cooking. This
coal had a hard struggle to obtain a foot
ing in houses in those days. My father
hired a new man from the country and
told him to make a fire in the morning
in the grate. When we got up there was
no fire. The man had "given it up."
He could make a fire, he said, as well
as anybody out of anything that would
burn, but he could not do it with stones.
Gas was in use at this time, but I used
to be amused at the comments of people
from the country upon the lights in the
office of the hotel where I was brought
up. They all wanted to know what it
was that burned. It was air or in the
form of air, but they would not believe it,
and evidently thought there must be
some deviltry about it. The man that
"blew out the gas" was even more com
mon then than now.
I can reraemlrtT when I was a boy of
; being actually alarmeJ, or at least star
tled, when I saw a man >'ub a little stick
against the side of the hovse, obtain a
light and ignite his cigar from it. It
lookod like a specimen of the black art.
Now what should we do without matches
that we buy at a cent or two a bunch?
We used to rake up the fire nights and
keep a lied of coals to start the fire in the
morning. If we lost the fire we had to
use a flint and steel and hammer away
at it until we stmt a spark into the tin
der. Even then there was an outfit that
could be bought for a quarter at the
apothecary's called phosphorous matches.
It consisted of a round box, six inches
long and an inch in diameter. In the
top were the matches, and in the bottom
was a small vial into which they had to
bo thrust to procure the light. Bctore
present sort of matches we'.c tn I icing
they came in oblong boxei, each contain
ing it doubled piece of sandpaper upon
which to light them.—Oliver Optic.
A Play IK Animated Picture.
I remember that during the rehearsal
of "The School for Scandal" I was im
pressed with the idea tliat the perform
ance would not go well. It is always
a difficult matter to bring a company of
great artists together for a night and
have them act in unison with each
other; not from any ill feeling, but from
the fact thut they are not accustomed to
play together. In a fine mechanical
contrivance the ease and perfection with
which it works often depend upon the
fact that the cog wheels have their dif
ferent proportions. On this occasion
they were all it It nlical in size, highly
polished ami well made, hut not adapted
to the same machinery.
Seeing a hitch during the rehearsal in
one of the important scenes, I ventured,
in my official capacity, to make a sug
gestion to one of tiie old actors. He re
garded me with a cold, stony gaze, as
though 1 had been at a great distance—
which I was, both in age and in experi
ence—and gave me to understand that
there was but one way to settle the mat
ter, and that was his way. Of course, as
the company did not comprise the one
regularly under my management, I felt
that it would be becoming in me to yield,
which I did, not, however, without pro
testing that the position I took was the
proper and only one under the circum
stances, and when I saw the scene fail
and virtually go to pieces at night, I con
fess that 1 felt some satisfaction in the
knowledge that my judgment had been
correct. In fact, the whole entertain
ment, while it had been a financial suc
cess, was an artistic failure. People
wondered how so many great actors could
make a performance go off so tamely.
Harmony is the most important ele
ment in a work of art. In this instance
each piece of mosaic was perfect in form
and lieautiful in color, but when fitted
together they matched badly, and the
effect was crude. An actor who has
been for years the main attraction in his
plays, and on all occasions the central
and conspicuous figure of the entertain
ment, can scarcely bo expected to adapt
himself at once to being grouped with
others in one picture; having so long
performed the solo, it is difficult to ac
company the air. A play is like a pict
ure: the actors are the colors, and they
must blend with one another if a perfect
work is to be produced. Should they
fail to agree as to the value and distribu
tion of their talents, then, though they
be ever so great, they must submit their
case to the care and guidance of a master
hand. —Joseph Jefferson in The Century.
Not Tall Enough.
History has record I that a foreign
princess to whom Henry VIII of Eng
land offered his hand in marriage sent
back the pointed answer that "if she had
two heads she would gladly have placed
one of them at his majesty's disposal."
This allusion to the fate of Anne Boleyn
and Katherine Howard was a good speci
men of the epigrammatic smartness of
that period; but, says Mr. David Kerr,
an equally creditable performance has
been furnished by our own age.
Just at the time when vague reports
were lieginning to creep abroad that
Germany was meditating fresh extension
of her frontier at the expense of Holland
a Dutch official of high rank happened
to be visiting the court of Berlin, where
he was handsomely entertained. Among
other spectacles got up to amuse him a
review was organized at Potsdam.
"What does your excellency thing of
our soldiers?" asked Prince Bismarck, as
one of the regiments came marching past
in admirable order.
"They look as if they knew how to
fight," replied the visitor, gravely, "but
they are not quite tall enough."
The prince looked rather surprised at
this disparaging criticism. He made no
answer, however, and several other regi
ments filed past in succession; but the
Dutchman's verdict upon eacli and all
wtts still the same: "Not tall enough."
At length the grenadiers of the guard
made their appearance—a magnificent
body of veterans, big and stalwart
enough to have satisfied even the giant
loving father of Frederick the Great: but
the inexorable critic merely said, "Fine
soldiers, but not tall enough."
Then Prince Bismarck fairly lost pa
tience, and rejoined, somewhat sharply,
"These grenadiers are the finest men in
our whole army; may I ask what your
excellency is pleased to mean by saying
that they are not tall enough?"
The Dutchman looked him full in the
face, and replied with signifieent empha
sis, "I mean that we can flood our coun
try twelve feet deep."—London Tid Bits.
Hyroii at Ravenna in 1821.
Lord Byron has here splendid apart
ments in the house of his mistress' hus
band, who is one of the richest men in
Italy. Here are two monkeys, five cats,
eight dogs and ten horses, all of whom
(except the horses) walk about the bouse
like the masters of it. Tita, the Venetian,
is here, and operates as my valet; a fine
fellow, with a prodigious black beard,
and who lias stabbed two or three peo
ple, and is one of the most good natured
fellows I ever saw.—Life and Letters of
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Mrs. Mar
shall).
LITTLE STORIES OF ANIMALS.
A GPfody Horse—The End of an Exasper
ating Mule—A Bull's Vengeance.
A Scranton man owned a lank bay
horse that stood nearly nineteen hands
high. The long legged animal devoured
great quantities of food, and after the
Scranton man had made several un
successful efforts to sell him or trade
him off, he got a Waverly farmer to
winter the horse at a stated price. In
the course of six weeks the voracious
horse had devoured a whole stack of
hay, anil the Waverly man became
frantic. He straightway came to Scran
ton and told the owner of the horse that
the greedy beast would ruin him finan
cially before spring, and he begged the
man to take the horse away at onoe,
agreeing to take $5 a ton for all the hay
the horse had eaten and say no more
about it. There was a good deal of the
milk of human kindness in the owner of
the horse, and he made the discouraged
farmer feel happy by removing the
horse the next day.
The bay nag was an elephant on the
Scranton man's hands for a while, but
eventually he traded it oIT for a pair of
mare mules that he didn't know any
thing about. One of the mules proved
to bo a very gentle and docile creature,
while the other soon convinced her
owner that she had been foaled and
raised right in the center of the village
of lvickerville, as he express'd it. Tiie
man quickly concluded that it wouldn't
do to keep the mules together, and so ho
sold the gentle mule for $175. The bad
mule, whose name was Jen, was as big
an elephant on his bauds as the tall horse
had,been, and how to dispose of her
honorably racked his brain lor months,
he said.
Jen was sleek and handsome, but she
would kick everything to pieces that
wtts hitched to her. In the stall she was
as gentle as a kitten until some one
undertook to throw a harness over iter
back. Then her feet flew, and the har
ness and the man who tried to put it on
her didn't stay there long. Jen wouldn't
let any one ride her, either. Several
smart young men tried to get on her back
in the stall, but Jen's hind feet flew so
fast and furiously, and her rump bobbed
up at such a rapid rate, that the young
men wero glad to go to another part of
the stable and reflect for a while.
Along in the summer an unusually ac
tive young chap offered to bet Jen's
owner that he could ride the mule five
blocks on one of the business avenues.
"I'll bet you $5 you can't," the man told
the spry fellow, and the money was put
up at once. All that the young man
wanted on Jen when he rode her was a
blind bridle and a surcingle, and pretty
soon Jen was led out on the street in
sight of a crowd that didn't get very
near her heels. The athletic chap seized
the bridle reins in his left hand, grasped
the surcingle on Jen's hack with his
right, and spoke kindly to the mule.
Jen was standing still then, but the
expression in her moving ears, her owner
said, told him as plainly as words that
the old Harry would soon be to pay.
With a spring the young man leaped to
Jen's back, and at the same instant Jen's
hind legs began to play like drum sticks,
while her head went down, and the ath
lete was astride of her neck. Between
kicks Jen whirled around a dozen times
within a circle of twenty feet, and then
made a dash for the open door of a gro
cery, in front of which a low awning
extended over the sidewalk. Her would
be rider saw his danger, and grabbed the
eaves of the awning with both hands,
and Jen kited into the grocery and be
gan to eat apples out of a barrel. He
was the last person who tried to ride her.
In the fall Jen met a tragic fate on the
Delaware and Hudson canal, just below
Honesdale. The man who put her on
the canal knew all about her habits, and
had agreed to pay $l5O for her if he could
make her work. He hitched her behind
three other mules, and in going less titan
half a mile Jen threw herself into the
canal seventeen times. That exasperated
her driver to the highest pi tela The butt
of his whip was loaded with lead, and
as Jen lay kicking on the ground, he hit
her with the loaded butt, crushed her
skull and killed her.
A wealthy coal mine operator in the
Lackawanna valley owned a 6-year-old
Holstein bull that was cross and vicious.
Generally the bull was tied with a rope
in a yard by himself, but occasionally he
was allowed to run loose in a yard with
a lot of idle mine mules. The two yards
joined, and one day four or live of the
mules got in the yard where the bull was
tied up and began to act mischievously
around him. The barn keeper saw one
of them nip the bull on the (lank and cut
up other playful capers. The bull didn't
like to be played with, but one mule in
particular seemed to take delight in teas
ing him. After a while the old bull got
bellowing mad, and the barn keeper
drove the mules out and put up the bars.
A few days after that the bull was let
loose in the mule yard. He began to
nose around a manure heap, apparently
as contented as could be, while several
of the mules nibbled straw on either side
of him. At his right stood the mule tliat
had teased him a few days before. The
barn man was watching them. All at
once, without a bit of warning, the bull
made a vicious lunge at the mule on his
right, and thrust one of his horns deep
into its left side. The mule died in no
time, and when they cut it open they
found that the bull's horn had pierced
the center of its heart. After that the
bull tried to kill two men, and he got to
be so dangerous that the owner had him
shot.—Scrantcn (Pa.) Letter in New
York Sun.
The refusal of a Detroit street car
company to receive coppers from passen
gers brought out the fact not generally
known that one, two, three and five
cent pieces are legal tenders up to twen
ty-five cents, while ten, twenty, twenty
five and fifty cent pieces are legal ten
ders up to ten dollars.
According to the eminent physiologist
Bappey, the stomach contains 6,000,000
glands by which the gastric juice is se
sieted, and a few others which secrete
only mucus.
The Chinese Puzzle.
Imagine a language devoid of gram
mar or syntax; unhampered by declen
sions, moods, tenses or inflections of any
• kind; essentially monosyllabic; in which
the slightest change of pitch in the voice
completely modifies the sentence; subject
to no rules of logic or construction; a
language petrified into solid blocks and
representing human thoughts as a mosaic
represents a picture; a language in which
every sentence is a puzzle even to the
sons of the country; a lang.ie • which
once written can no longer b • read,
but must be wanned—and even then voir
have imagined but a few of the diameter*
istic pcculiariiiesof Chinese.
It has often been said, it is stili said
today, that the Chini se speak after the
fashion of children, directly, straight to
the point, with an energy of expression,
a directness of purpose, and a natural
logic devoid of the artificiality of occi
dental tongues. As an example of this
child like simplicity, which we may ho
pardoned for thinking |x>culiur, let us
take the following sentence. A China
man says to us:
"To have—one—(numerical particle)—
widow wife —he t > be—religion—
friend —house within ncoe-, ur —to
use—all—to have—although—forsooth—
not—to count—rich—noble—to arrive—
bottom—to pass—to obtain—day—prod
uct."
We see at once that in his simple,
straightforward way lie meant to say:
"There lived a Christian widow who
possessed u!l that sit ■ need si; though
not rich, site had enough to live upon."
If brevity be the soul of wit, our chil
dren of today have certainly improved
upon the Chinese rendering, though how
they might have expressed themselves
fifty or sixty centuries ago, when tho
Chinese language was being invented,
we have of course no means of knowing.
If the parents of that time at all resem
bled those of today, they would have al
lowed the children to prattle on unheed
ed until they knew better, or sent them
to bed—or— Well, whoever was right,
somebody was wrong. So much for the
vaunted simplicity of Chinese.—Har
per's Magazine.
Tliey Got tho Seent.
There is a miserly old lady living in
Oshkosk who, it is believed, judging
from circumstances, has chests and
chests, of gold secreted in iter house
somewhere. She is so penurious and
hates to part with her money so bad, that
when she is compelled from absolute ne
cessity to buy tho necessaries of life she
walks to tho store farthest from her
house so that she can keep in her posses
sion the money that must bo spent for
food a little longer, and pays for her
purchase with more reluctance than
Isaac of York could command while
parting with his gold.
It is told of this old lady that one day,
while counting over some money, a five
cent piece dropped in a big wood box
filled with wood, shavings, etc. Sho
searched for an hour in vain, and was
almost distracted by the loss, when a
bright thought struck her. She would
have a couple of little hoys, who were
playing near the house, seek it. Accord
ingly she called tliern in and told them if
they would find the money which had
dropped in the wood box she would give
them each a cent. The youngsters, eager
to earn the price of a stick of candy,
went willingly to work, and after hunt
ing for about two hours, gave a howl of
delight when they discovered the missing
coin.
The old woman eagerh snatched it
from them and, after carefully deposit
ing it in her pocket book, called them
dear little children and said they well
earned their reward. She then went
inlounother room, brought out a bottle
that had once been tilled with perfume,
and gave each one of the boys a scent of
the lingering odor, after which she called
them dear little darlings again and told
them to run away now and play. The
little fellows were so overwhelmed with
gratitude at the old lady's munificence
that they kindly thanked her in their
abstraction.—Oshkosh Times.
Kleetric Light* and the KyeH.
The men who made the electric light
the indispensable thing to us that it is
today must go a step further and invent
some means of softening it, or we will
become a nation of blind people in a few
more generations. No eye can sustain
the glare of the electric light that now
meets tiie gaze every where. It is ruin
ous to the sight and induces paralysis of
the eye. Any defect in the eye is readily
transmitted to children, and we can
easily see what weak and unhealthy
eyes people will have after the electric
light has been at work upon several de
grees of ancestors.
We are much too reckless in our use
of the light, when a little caution would
relieve the eye from the danger. Thero
is no good reason why a spectator in a.
theatre or ball should have to look at an
electric light or past one in fixing his
eyes on the stage, and yet this is what
lie must do now and then. Nor should
one read or write by the electric light,
yet there are a large number of people in
St. Louis and every large city who never
use any other light for night work.
The only light the eyes will stand health
fully is a soft lamp light, and people will
have to pay in the future for giving it
up contemptuously as they have done.—
Physician in St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 4
Happiness Assured.
rirst Paterfamilias—Beg pardon for
intruding, but the fact is your son has
proposed for the hand of my daughter;
and as the two families are almost
strangers, you knowing nothing of my
daughter and 1 nothing of your son, I
thought it would be a sensible thing to
come around and compare notes.
Second Paterfamilias—Excellent idea!
Has your daughter always bad every
thing she wanted—dresses, jewels, wait-'
ing maids, and so on?
"No. She has had to help her mother..
How old was your boy before you stopped!
thrashing him?" •
"Well, I thrashed him pretty regu
larly until he was nearly grown up."
"I am satisfied."
"So am I."—New York Weekly. t,