ABOUT WATER WITCHES. BMALL PEACH TREE BRANCHES USED AS DIVINING RODS. Whm Forked Branch the Ft rut Care of Its Owner—Doc Wise, the Beet Known Water Witch—How He Struck Lock and Became Independently EUch. j The articles in The Times in relation Co the extraordinary results obtained by the use of the divining rod in finding [water and mineral deposits have had no more interested or appreciative readers than the people in the mountain ranges of the Blue Ridge and Cumberland. The doings of the water witches have been part of the life of these people fur ther back than any one can remember. It is not every community that can boast the possession of one of these gifted per sons. The respect in which they are beld is in inverse ratio to their numbers. (Families willingly deprive themselves of comforts in order to provide them for [the water witches. In return they ex pect services in locating wells. If it may not be quite true that every well in the (mountains was located through this kind of agency, there is no doubt that the (majority were so located, and that the Ifaith of the people in the mystic power iof the witches is boundless. A SIMPLE COMMUNITY. So far as the natives are concerned this is a country of poverty. They do not call themselves poor, for all are nearly on an equality in the bare furnish ings of their houses, and the shotes that they raise on the free forage of the woods in summer aud fall, with the corn, hom iny, tobacco and moonshine they can lay up by smail trading with the valley farmers, supply their modest winter needs. Money is a thing that enters very little into tlieir calculations. A mountain (community enjoys more than average {prosperity, in which the cash earnings of the heads of the families reach as much as S6O per year apiece. But all being on about the same basis there is no compara tive poverty. They get along from year to year, and never having known any other condition they are content. ( As a matter of course, they cannot re pay the services of the water witches with cash. The most they can do is to make them comfortable. This is satis factory all around. In some way the impression has become general that a water witch is a supernatural sort of creature, not made for common toil, and ,whoee magic will be impaired by the kind of labor that ordinary mortals en dure. As witches airs too scarce to be •pared, they receive very good care, and as they are endowed along with their mystical gifts with the natural indolence of the mountaineer nature, they are ex pected and are entirely willing to save themselves always for the smail service required of them by those who bring them yearly tributes of stores. The witches thus get no richer tiian their neighbors, but they have an easier time of it Sometimes, months will pass in ■which one will not be called upon. Whenever a call is made, however, he must be ready to respond to it A forked branch of a peach tree is the only divining rod known in the moun tains. Every witch is as careful of his branch as if it were genuine treasure. He selects it when he begins to practice hiß magic, and never changes it willingly. When not in use it is carefully hung on the walls of the best room in his cabin. Whatever else may happen, that must not be disturbed. It would be the first thing to he saved if his cabin caught fire. Afterward ho might go back for the wife and babies. On every trip he carries it out of reach of the brush and rock that may line his pathway, and his mission ended he returns it as carefully to its banging place in the cabin's beat room. Whether from his own belief that he is gifted beyond men, or because of the awe in which he is held by his fellows, the water witch always means that his {work shall be impressive. When armed [with his t'wig and in search of water he seems to lose himself, as if he were lifted out of the common Bphere into a relation with something more than human. There are no incantations such as negro voodooism employs, but the scene be comes suggestive of that class of super stition. With his face set and apparent ly with no thought of his surroundings beyond the intensity with which he fol lows and watches his twig, he walks solemnly up and down, holding the twig by its forks in front of him, and seeming to let it lead him instead of being propelled by him. When the free end of the twig drops from the horizon tal at which it lias been carried to the perpendicular he stops suddenly. His mission is over. The twig points to ■water. Men mark the spot, and the water witch goes away. The well is dug through the markings. Tho mountain eers say that water never fails when (found this way. OLD DOC WISE. The water witch best known in this part of the country is old Doc Wise. He lives in the mountains over beyond Christianshurg, and rarely leaves home. Indeed, it is only with tho greatest diffi culty that the mountaineers can get him to point a well for them, lie is above the need of help from their stores, and of late years when he has gone out with his rod it was to oblige his friends rather than for prestige or pay in any form. The mountaineers understand that he is in some way related to the old family of Governor Wise and that he was chris tened Decatur. At any rate, the abbre viated twist of the name by which he is known did not result from any financial doctoring of the gentlemen from whom 'he got his money, although such a deri vation might be suspected by those who {date his record with his fortune. He was always Doc Wise, and whether the blood of proud aristocracy was in his veins or not, he came into the mountains after the war with as little of earthly substance as the most scanty native, and for sev eral years picked up a slender living as a water witch. About ten years ago a party of pros pectors otopped at Christianshurg for tho ■winter. They were looking for coal and iron deposits, in which the mountain re gions abound. When they were very nearly ready to give up the search aa a failure they met Doc Wise. Like other water witches, he could find minerals with his peach twig aa readily as he could find water. His talents in that direction had never been employed because the natives did not want anything except water. He was ready, however, to employ them for the visitors. They agreed to pay him well in case of success. He was shrewd enough to drive a good bargain. In a few days he Bhowed them a rich vein of coaL Then they wanted iron and he found it for them. It did not take them long to satisfy themselves that they had secured valuable mines. Wise worked for them well into the spring. By the time lie had done all they wanted of him he was $5,000 in pocket—agrand fortune for a mountaineer. —Roanoke (Va.) Let ter in New York Times. Marvelous Phenomena. At Rome, in 1232, it rained dust, mixed with blood, for three days, and when the heavy clouds drifted away it looked as if the sun was swimming in a sea of fire. Four years later, in 1226, a snow fell in Syria, which presently melted and flowed in carmine rivers of blood, or some fluid much resembling it in every particular. Many of tho old writers record a three day shower of blood red rain in the Island of Rhodes and throughout South em Italy in 1236. A monk, writing in 1251, tells of a loaf being cut out of which blood flowed as freely as from a fresh wound. In 1348 there were many great tem pests. Several towns and thousands of people were swallowed up and the courses of rivers changed or stopped. Some chasms in the earth sent forth poisonous fluids, as red as carmine ink, as at Villach, in Austria. Ponderous hailstones fell in many parts of Germany the same year, some of them weighing from twenty to seventy pounds. At Lamech it rained flesh, dust, comets and meteors; firebrands and coruscations were in the air; mock suns, with fiery tails, sailed through the skies. Soon after these terrible scenes at Lamech it began at Cataya, near the sea, and went sweeping throughout southern Europe. An igneous vapor or sulphurous fire broke from the earth at Caahery, Asia, and utterly consumed men, beasts, houses and trees, so infecting the air that a great plague followed. Young serpents and millions of venomous in sects fell from the clouds. In 1301 Burgundy experienced the novelty of a shower of blood red rain, which ensanguined everything it touch ed; and in 1508 the Antiura reapers found all wheat heads to be as red as bleed. In 1588 bread put in the oven at Nuremberg was taken out covered with a bloody sweat. Wurtemberg had a shower of brimstone and ashes in 1034. In 1095 Limerick and Tipperary, Ireland, had many showers of a soft, fattv substance resembling butter. It •> .is oi u dark yellow color and always leil at night. The people gathered it and used it as an ointment, reporting many astonishing cures. —St. Louis Republic. Novel Way of Propsgatiug KOMI. Recently I was conversing with a po liceman who is a rose enthusiast, and he told me he had strong bushes of some of the beat hybrid perpetuals upon their own roots, that he had rooted himself in away quite new to me. Having ob tained a suitable shoot, or several of them, they were p'w.J i -n 0.-dinary bottle which contained some water, and this bottle was hung upon the wall of the house in a sunny position and there left, water being supplied to make up the deticieney caused by evaporation. In this water, which often becomes very warm from the heat of the sun, the cut tings remained, and after a short period they calloused, when they were taken ont and dibbled into pots in the ordinary way, the formation of the roots soon taking place. The above plan was claimed as expedi tious, as the cuttings calloused much sooner in water than they did in the soiL It is known that many things root read ily in water, and oleanders are frequent ly propagated in that way, whilst some Bedum spectacle thst I have lately had in a cut state had rooted fi !y long be fore the flowers faded. With the ro6es, if cutting is once nicely calloused, success is almost a certainty, and if this needed state can be brought about by immersion of the base in water, we then iiave a simple and valua' b aid to rose propaga tion, because it is much easier to pi aervo alive a cutting placed in water t iaii it is one in the soil during its early stage.— Vick's Magazine. The 1 Tforn'-iV Itlet, According I > L'r. s much as this. A Dog's Friends. Did the reader ever see a dog perform the ceremony of introducing a human friend? The writer has himself seen the thing done in away, but never, perhaps, so plainly and prettily as a friend of his has lately witnessed it, the friend himself being the introduced "party." His friend —call him • Mr. J.— lives in Roxbury. For a near neighbor he has a man who keeps a carriage and also a fine setter dog. Mr. J. does not enjoy the acquaint ance of the neighbor, but he has come to be on excellent terms of friendship with the dog. Every day Mr. J sallies forth at about the same hour. Every day he meets the dog whose salutations have gradually passed from mere friendly formalities to affectionate greetings. Yesterday as Mr. J came out of his house, he found the dog—who always, when the carriage starts, goes circling about the horse 1 s head, barking with joy —waiting for him. The carriage, with the horses attached, stood waiting for its occupant. The dog at once came bound ing up to J , and then went bounding back to the horse. He licked the horse on the nose, and came back to J again, and again returned to the horse, evidently laboring under the stress of something that he wanted to say or do. It was quite plain, in fact, that he wanted his human friend to take notice of his equine friend; he was doing hie best to introduce the man to the horse, and make tlicm friends too. So J , whose big heart can include horses as well as dogs, yielded to the dog's earnest solicitations; he went up to the horse and patted its head and rubbed its nose. And then the dog's satisfaction and gay ety were simply inexpressible. He gy rated about until it seemed as if he were in danger of swallowing his own tail; and his affection, both for the man and for the horse, was plainly greatly in creased by the consciousness that they now knew each other.—Boston Tran script. A CoartMU Prlnoe. "Do not be afraid, Louis," said the Empress Eugenie, holding her son in hex arms. "I am not, mamma," answered the boy of ll; "I have not forgotten that my name is Napoleon." The cutter in which the empress and her eon were being conveyed at night from a steamer had struck a rock, and the waves were dashing over it at the time this conversation took place. The young prince, who afterward lost his life in the war between the English and the Zulus, had one trait not common to children—he treated his playmates and all who served him with marked courtesy. The favorite companion of his sports was Louis Conneau, the son of the emperor's physician. They were daily together, and many storms ruffled their intercourse. One day, when there was to be a state dinner at the Tuileriee, at which the prince was not to appear, he invited Louis Conneau to dine with him. Both lads were very fond of strawberry cream, and tho prince, in order to give an agree able surprise to his playmate, requested that dish to be prepared for the dessert. During the morning the two boys quarreled, and I/juis Conneau returned home. The prince, too proud to show any emotion at his playmate's departure, took his seat at the dinner table and tried to eat. But when the strawberry cream appeared his self control gave way. The tears rolled down his cheeks, as he said to .a servant: "Take the cream to Conneau, and tell him I haven't the heart to eat it without him!"— Youth's Companion. The Chinese 811k Festival, We, who are always grateful to our benefactors, honor the inventor of the art of silk culture with a real perpetual cult. Besides the temples which we have erected in all the corners of the empire, her majesty the empress goes every year at the hatching season, in person, with all her suite, and in great pomp, to the held of the mulberry, to sacrifice to the goddess who was the queen of the Em peror Uoang-Ti. After the ceremony at the temple, her majesty, followed by her ladies, goes into the field, and, surrounded by the farmers' wives, cooks some mul berry leaves and lays them on a basket containing the newly hatched worms. The festival is closed with her winding a cocoon byway of setting an example, in the presence of the people, and distrib uting gifts to those persons who have been reported by the authorities of their villages as most worthy by reason of their fidelity in attention to the care of the silk worms. This ceremony, which is one of the most important of those her majesty has to perform during the year, is a great incentive to the silk raising population, who cannot neglect their own work when they see their sovereign occupied in the same way. An old proverb says that "an idle fanner causes two persons to die of hunger, and a woman who will not weave will see ten dying of cold." The proverb illustrates the value of en couragement, and shows that silk worm raising and weaving are duties of the women.—"Chinese Silk Lore," by Gen. Tcheng-Ki-Tong in Popular Science Monthly. A IterahiiHceiice. In the state archives at Albany is a bill of expenses incurred by Abraham Lincoln in Albany while on his way to Washington to be inaugurated as presi dent of the United States, which shows that at least his suite were very patriotic if not demonstrative in their celebra tion of Washington's birthday. The bill was as follows: PEIJEVAN HOUSE, Albany, Feb. 22,1981. The state of New York, To T. Roselle & Son. J One day's board of Hon. A. Lincoln and | suite, parlors, rooms, dinner and break- I fast in parlor $576 80 I Wines and liquors 687 00 Segars 10 00 Telegraphs 1 13 Congress water $2.50, baggage 7 37' Carriages 12 00 Sundry broken articles—stoves, chairs, I etc., etc 150 00 $1,120 00 —New York Telegram. A MODERN HOME. The hearthstone and the home From ancient times came down. Like pedigrees of British peers That antedate the crown. The poet twinee his verse With grace around the theme, And plot or proee ts incomplete That drops them from its dream. But iu this age of change That cultivates the new. Patrician habits step aside And greet the parvenu. Improvement is its name, Convenience is its throne. And rhyming writers lose their grip When sentiment has flown. f or now ore countless homes Exiled within the flat; What facile poet has the nerve To try his charm on that? And hearthstones are but pipes. Back in the corner set; Rude foes to all alluring thoughts That dancing flames beget. The imagery of each Is banished from one's dream. When home is hired per month en suite And the hearthstone holds the steam. —J. B. Aldeu in Boston Transcript Something About Gnod-ltys. Every now and then, as we journey through this vale from the cradle to the grave, it becomes necessary for us to say good-by. Generally it is said in sad ness and with a sigh. We wring the band of the departing friend, the sor rowful tears are shed, then the bell rings and the train goes around the curve. This is the good-by that sticks in the throat like a large three cornered lump and persistently refuses to be swallowed. After this kind of a farewell we go home feeling that something has gone out of life. We are like the man who puts his foot for another step at the top of the dark stairway and finds suddenly that it isn't there. Then there is the farewell that is said with a hilarious chuckle of joy. We say it to the bill collector, whom we have with us always, or have had for a long time. We say it to the bore, the spring poet, to the man who reads the exchangee and to the writer who invariably refers to a bear as bruin. The sweetest good-by is that of the girl at her father's front gate, when only you or I and the girl and twinkling stars are present. To some of us it is only a memory, this kind of a farewell, but it is a memory that will remain freeh and green long after we have passed that callow age. Ths saddest good-by is the one that is said by the side of an open grave.— Hie hard 8. Graves in National Weekly. ■ ■ Split Gold Coins. "Two tens for twenty, please," said a gentleman to the cashier in the oounty treasurer's office. The cashier took the "twenty" and rang It on ths counter. It had that pe culiar dull ring that characterize# coun terfeit coins. He rung it a second time and then inspected it critically. "Is that bogus?" asksd the owner of the coin. "Oh, no," answered the cashier; it's geod ss wheat, but split." Continuing, he saidi "That is the first split twenty I ever ran across. The stamping machine at the mint some times comes down too hard on the coins and splits them; but it is seldom the larger coins split. It's mostly 'fives' that sutler. But they are very careful at the mint nnd stop every split coin they de tect. Now, in the thousands of dollars handled here every year I rarely find a split coin. I don't think I've found more than four or five In a year, and, as I say, the coins were mostly $5 pieces." The split S2O piece looked perfect, and, so far as the eye could detect, bore no flaw of any kind. The only fault with it was in the "ring," and the split made it sound "dead" when thrown on the counter.—San Francisco Examiner. Fno for Arithmetician*. Talk about mathematical puzzles! Here Is one that beats out the hen-and-a-lialf, egg-and-a-half algebraical nightmare. On a Rondo street car Alderman Patrick Kavanagh put a quarter into the change box in the front door. An instant be fore a young lady had deposited a dime in the same sub-treasury. The driver returned from the outside two change packages, a blue and a white one, simul taneously. With true gallantry Mr. Kav anagh waited for the young lady to help herself, which she did, inadvertantly taking out the blue one, and, by mis take, dropping two dimes into the "Pay Here" lock box. Kavanagh demanded his change, but the driver obdurately re fused to give any mo :e. Hard words ensued, to the great embarrassment of the lady, and the alderman refused to take the ten cent package, which re mained in the possession of the com pany. Kavanagh, of course, paid no more for his ride; the young lady paid twenty cents, and now how much was tho company ahead on the deal?— Che ster (Pa.) Local News. Cowliiflo Iloraehlioe*. In England, and on many parts of the continent, they have been for a long time using the Yates horseshoe, one made by compressing common cowhide. It is composed of three thicknesses of the cow Rkin pressed into a steel mould, and then subjected to a chemical prep aration. It is claimed for it that it is much lighter, that it lasts longer, and that split hoofs are never known in horses using it. It is perfectly smooth on the bottom, no calks being required, the shoe adhering firmly on the most polished ■uriace. Its elasticity prevents many sprains, the horses' steps being lighter and surer. Straw, treated with chemi cals unknown, has been used for horse shoes for centuries in Japan. Perhaps some American genius will give us a paper horseshoe, who knows?— St. Louis Republican. A writer in an eastern journal, talking about church choirs, says they have be- I come the training school for the comic opera stage. "The good deacons may not believe it possible, but a glance at the history of the most popular sou brettes and prima donne shows that they | gradu-i; •-! i -nm church choirs." A TALE OF LONELY GULCH. | TRUE STORY OF TWO GRAVES IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. Ai Old Proi>ctor Tells of an Affecting ! Separation Between Man and Wife. | "Over the Range" from a Miner's Cabin In North Park. "I noticed a few weekß ago in your paper a description of lonely graves in the mountains of Colorado," remarked a gentleman to the writer Monday. "At the time I read it I was traveling in the southern portion of the state, and it re called to mind two lonely graves that I know of which lie hidden in the recesses of the mountains in Routt county. Of course, tliere is a history attached to them, and if you have time I will spin the yarn." Being informed by the scribe that he always had lime to listen to a good story, the gentleman said: "In the year 1872 I was prospecting in the neighborhood of Hans' Peak and the Rabbit Ear range, and at that time very little was known of the rich silver veins which traversed that portion of the state, There were other prospectors in the coun try and the few of us felt elated over the finding of several leads that contained gray copper, and we went to work with a will to open the veins up. You have no idea of the many difficulties that one has to contend with in a new country and the privations one has to suffer. But the excitement attending the life of a prospector that some day he will strike it and be recompensed for all his trouble buoys him up, and he endures all hard ships and privations with good grace. The country at that time was well stocked with game, and we never had any difficulty in procuring all the fresh meat that was needed. 1 had built a rude cabin at the head of a small gulch and not far from my claims. It was a lovely spot, with groves of quaking as pen trees surrounding the cabin, and about fifty yards from the door stood two majestic pines that I named the sentinels. THE TWO VISITORS. "One day when I returnd from work I found two strangers, man and wife, had taken possession of my house, and was a little astonished at first to see a woman in that part of the country. They asked permission to remain there a few days, and it was readily granted. I was indeed glad to see strange faces, and welcomed them to my humble abode. From the very first I noticed that the woman was not strong, and this aroused my curiosity, as I could not figure out why a woman in delicate health should be in such a wild part of the country. She had been a very pretty woman once, but consumption, the mal ady from wliich she was suffering, had robbed her of most of her beauty. She bad a sweet temper, that won for her friends wherever she went. She was also perfectly resigned to the inevitable, and knew that her pilgrimage on earth was short. But she bore up with the greatest fortitude. "They had been at the cabin about a week, and everything about it bad been changed. Alice—that was the woman's name—had remodeled the place, and all things showed the touch of a woman's hand. Well, one evening after supper we were sitting in front of the cabin, enjoying the beauties of an August even ing, when the husband, Alfred, told me what brought him to that section of Colorado. His story was brief. He stated that after being married in the east for two years, his wife had shown unmistakable signs of consumption, and the doctors had advised him to take her to California, and, if possible to go across the plains by wagon, as he would find that journeying that way she would gain strength. They found a party of emi grants at a small town in Nebraska, who were going to the coast and engaged their passage. For the first week out Alice gained strength, but one evening she caught cold and this malady in creased with awful rapidity. When Laramie City was reached she could go no farther and the trip had to be aban doned. At that town they were ad vised to go into the mountains, as the fresh air ladened with the perfume of pine was beneficial to consumptives. A wagon was procured that took them to Nortli Park, and by easy stages on horse back they had reached my cabin. It was by the merest chance that they found it, and I was glad they did. TIIE LAST FAREWELL. "A month passed, the happiest in my life, but I saw that gradually Alice was sinking, and that she would never leave the gulch. Her husband noticed the change and was unconsolable. He ad ministered to her every want, which were not many, and realized what an awful change it would be when she was taken from him. One night the end came. She called me into the little room that I had partitioned off for their use, and in a feeble voice thanked me for all my kind j ness to her, and hoped that when my time came to cross the mysterious river that she would meet me in that land where i sorrow is unknown. She told Alfred it J was hard to leave him, hut that ho must | be strong and hear the affliction that a wise master had in his just wisdom sent | him to carry, and that all things were I done for the best. It was a scene the like [ of which I wisli never to witness again, i the feeble girl, full of hope for the future, i bidding good-by to the man she loved, j and the strong, powerful man, bowed down with grief at the thought of losing her who was the only tie which bound him to this world. The end came; with her head pillowed on the breast of her protector, her spirit winged its flight to eternal rest. Underneath one of the pino trees wo laid her, and carved her name and the date of her death on its trunk. "Alfred was broken hearted, and wan dered about tiie hills like one lost. He j had no purpose in life, so I used to ask ! him to do the chorea about the place to engage his mihd with something. One day I asked him to go out and kill a deer, as we wero out of meat. Whether he committed suicide or whether the gun I was accidentally discharged I shall never lie niu All Mu*ic. To the people who lived in Fsyetto forty years ago and earlier Aaron Wine low was well known. He hail u never failing ftirnj of wit and humor, and wa an inveterate practical joker. When bo was a boy. if there was any drollery or deviltry going on he was sure to have a hand in it. lie was a noted old time singing master and taught many singing schools in this and the neighboring towns. He would get so engrossed fct music as to forget everything else. Once be worked for Mr. Moses Walton, of South Chesterfield, in haying timsi A shower was coining up. One load ot hay was hurriedly put on and started for the barn. Aaron drove the oxen. Said Mr. Walton: "Don't go to sing ing, Aaron, for if you do you'll be sura to upset tlie load." He drove carefully at first, hut soon the musical spirit got hold of him and bs began to sing. The cattle went any way; one wheel dropped into a stone hole; the load of hay was overturned and drenched by the rain. When he lived on the farm where Mr. N. P. Fellows now resides he worked away one day in winter with his cattle and came home late. He turned the oxen into the barnyard and went into the house to warm himself. Ere long he took down the violin and singing book and commenced to play and sing. The poor beasts stayed, yoked, in the yard, without food or shelter, all through the long winter night, owing to the all ab sorbing passion for music of the absent minded Aaron.—Lewiston Journal. Mental Capacity of Splden. Experiments on the mental powers of hundreds of spiders have been made by Messrs. O. W. and E. Q. Peckham. Evidence was given that the faculty f smell is fairly developed in all but thim out of twenty-six species, but the por tion of the organ of smell was not found and is not known. Loud soontli were apparently unperceived; the epci rids wero sensitive to the sound of a tuning fork, while the spiders that do not make webs gave no heed to it. Love of offspring was manifested ia all spiders by eagerness to receive back cocoons within twenty-four hours, though few recognized them after a longer pe riod, and none seemed able to distinguish their own cocoons from--another spider's or from pith balls of the same sixe. Sight appeared to be good, though from familiarity only through touch ooooans were found with difficulty, even wheu within three-fourths of an inch. The color sense seemed fairly developed, with preference for red. The authors dis credit the notion that spiders feign death, accepting Darwin's explanation that the habit of lying motionless has been as quired in different degrees to serve dif ferent purposes.—New York Telegram. Told by the Sewing Machine Man. "Gentlemen," said the sewing machine man, "one spring father and I had a sugar camp down in the edge of the grove. About half a mile from us was a corn field owned by a widow, and this widow never picked her corn clean. Ou the other side was a man who owned a blind sow. She had one pig, and they used to go over into that corn field every day to eat corn. Right in front of our camp was a creek. At one place about forty rods from our camp there was a tree felled across the creek. This was the only place that the sow and pigcouU cross. Of course the sow could not nee to cross on the log, so the way they used to do was for the old sow to take hold of the pig's tail and the pig would lead her across. Well, one day we were sitting in front of our camp when the old sow and pig were crossing that log. I said to father, 'Hand me the rifle and see me cut that pig's tail off.' I took aim and fired, cutting that little pig's tail off smack smooth. The pig ran for the corn field, but the old sow didn't know which way to go. So father went over and took hold of the pig's tail and led the old sow clear into camp."—Lewiston Jour nal. When Woman Malls a Letter. Femininity in the postoffice is an amus ing study. In the matter of dropping a simple, ordinary, white, every day letter, for instance, she affords an insight into the character of the average woman. The looker on had nothing else to du the other day than to watch this little operation for five minutes. Out of thirty young women who went to cast their epistles in the slot, twenty-two, by exact calculation, withdrew the letter befosa quite letting goof it to scan both sides of the note to be "very" sure the letter wa■ securely sealed, properly addressed, stamped, and to be certain no one could look through the envelope to read its con tents. Out of these twenty-two ladies three had forgotten to put a stamp ou their letter, and two had to add some thing to the address on the envelope, while another carried off with her the i letter she had intended to mail.—Boston j Record. A Stove lined as a lied. I In the north of China the climate is j quite cold, and there are no stoves or i fireplaces in the wayside inns. In soma \ of the general rooms arc small charcoal j braziers, hut the bedrooms, which are very scantily furnished, contain neither stove nor bed. In their place is a brick I platform long enough for a man to | stretch himself at full length upon and I j raised a foot or two from the floor, with an opening in the side. Into this aper i turo the servant pushes a pan of burning j coals, and when the bricks arc thorougk ' ly heated the traveler spreads out upon them the bedding ho has brought with him, and lies down to rest on his stove. —Exchange. Apt Scholars. There have been only two train rob beries on the Mexican Central railroad i since it was completed. The robbeiij started in with great enthusiasm, but aoj did the government, capturing and kill-j ing every one implicated, and now up veteran brigand sits on a rock and sees is passenger train whirl by without evenj wondering how many drummers andj diamond pins are aboard.—Detroit Fresp P