plank . She baby said to ker in- 8 were o feed yut her sr bell, y times t when harf to ed him mks. 7, and f those ibbled, with a again, urried- mg the of the tonish- ble an- mother them!” second, basket wharf, use. wer Hal om and nutes, ed this 1ced up » late,” ~'cause she had it well, mother will al- ¢ why? largaret libristie re being parents on. the na- 5 below un and counts 1 on the essively L the chip one out, ted. outs, he making outli e ho pave- spaces. ch space e of the vilege of e he de- his ini- 1 of the » having ber wins nown as mn. n much, gone 6 place sweet— de 4 en rain boy, k, he cries, 1 cholas. blowing | of play| 18, said, § ven; it’s ‘but first » out of I did.” ption of] of gold, with de- 6 words, loveth or he said, [i out that now that zer thos esn’t it a Times. The Troubles Travelers Have, Especially With Books and Maps. Many amusing stories ave told of the trouble American travelers have had with the custom house authorities in Turkey, especially with books maps. In the old days one’s baggage would be dumped down on the landing place at Constantinople, and a turbaned old Turk, tchibouk in hand, would go through a pantomime of examining one’s effects, which would be abruptly brought to an end by the application of an appropriate eoin to the palm of his hand. But the political troubles that began some years ago in the Ottoman empire caused the government to insti- tute a more stringent system, and there is now at Constantinople a custom house more after the American style, where a number of effendis, in fezes and Stambouli coats of the regular offi- cial cut, pry into one's luggage with particular care in search of papers and books and maps of a revolutionary tend- ency or in which words forbidden to be printed in Turkey may be found. During the height of the Armenian agitation especially close search was al- ways made for anything with the word ““ Armenia’ in it, and whatever it was found in was summarily confiscated. On the occasion of my last visit to Con- stantinople I happened to have a map of Asia Minor among my papers, the discovery of which greatly agitated the examining effendi, who spoke in a lan- guage he thought was French. ‘Ab, Azeea Meenocor!” he exclaimed as he spread it out, continuing in his Turko- French, ‘Show me Erzerum,” " TURKISH CUSTOM HOUSE. hj and | Having | pointed out to him the spot where that | city was to be found, he began running | nia say that ghost fright did his finger over the map until he struck upon the letter A. This seemed almost to take his breath away, but when a short distance to the right of it he found the letter R he fairly gasped. The detection of the letter M following it was liks an electric shock, and a bomb explosion could not have startled him more than the discovery of the let- ter E. By the time he had deciphered the remaining letters, NIA, I saw that the game was up, and as he folded up my precious map and in stern and measured syllables announced to me that it was “de-fon-dew, con-fis-kay,” I knew that it was lost to me forever. A Review with an article alluding to the disturbed condition of affairs in the Turkish empire followed the map, along with some foreign newspapers.—Har- per’s Round Table. A SMALL MAN’S REVENGE. He Ruffles the Dignity of Two Women In a Cable Car. The small sized, unobtrusive maw gets revenge now and then, as was ex- emplified yesterday in a Broadwa cable car bound down town. He got on at Twenty-third street and saw only one vacant seat. Other passengers who .stood up were clinging to the straps in a semihypnotic condition and did not observe the vacant place. Two women, strangers to each other, richly clad and wearing diamond earrings, were the guardians of the vacant space, which was hardly wide enough to even admit the small man to a comfortable seat. Either of the women, by moving a lit- tle, could have made a larger space, but they chose to sit as impassive as statues while the diminutive man crowded into the place. He exhibited all the signs of being uncomfortable, but these implacable cosmopolitans moved not. At Tenth street a large woman, weighing about 200 pounds, boarded the car. With the air of a Chesterfield the small man lifted his hat and said: ‘Pray, take my seat.” “Thank you, sir,”’ she replied as she started to sit down. Consternation was depicted upon the faces of the two rich- ly clad women as they tried to edge away to make the space wider. It was too late, for the heavy woman crushed into the seat and came in contact with the other women. There were the noise of crumpling cloth and the swish of skirts as the two women tried to move from the weight pinning part of their dresses down. It was a scramble to give the heavy woman enough room, and all dignity was lost. The passengers smiled, and none more so than the small man, who had had his revenge.—New York Commercial. Marie Antoinette’s Books, The unhappy Queen Marie Antoinette possessed an important library of 4,712 volumes, consisting of plays and ro mances, little books a la mode, the works of Pascal, Bossuet, Fenelon, Bourdaloue, Massillon, Boileau, Cous- sean, Corneille, Moliere, Voltaire and many others. She loved music passion- ately and had a large collection of operas in 89 numbers. The bindings were by Blaizot and were uniform in red morocco, with the arms of France and Austria stamped upon them. The execution of the work was poor, aud the decadence in the art of binding evi dent. The glories of the art of Padeloup and the Deromes had passed away, and the revolution effectually killed what- rver knowledge remained of the anciei. skill of the bookbinders. Half a centur; later saw its revival in France, and the art has since flourished both there and on English soil. —Gentleman’s Magazine Couldn't Fool Mamma. Mrs. Younglove—Ob, 1 am sure that my husband has never told me a lie in his life. Her Mother—My poor child! You are married to a hypnotist. —Cleveland Leader. The air is so clear in the arctic re gions that conversation can be carried on easily by persons two miles apart. It has also been asserted on good authori: ty that at Gibraltar the human voice has been distinctly heard at a distance of ten miles. Cleverness is serviceable for every thing, sufficient for nothing. — Amiel. INCONSISTENCY. She loved a youthful minister; Her smiling rose lips told him so, { Until they sent him forth to preach At Lonesome Gulch in Idaho. y Then all the fervor of hor soul Subsided, and she would not go. What! Waste her life in howling wilds Consorting with the squaw of Lo? ort emote,’ Lehn Laho! | in Brooklyn Life THE SUPERNATURAL. It Briags Cut a Kind of ear, We wish the Psychical society wouald one day attempt an analysis of wh for wait of a Letter word, the dread of the supernatural ose who beliove and those whe 1eve in the notion that the veil between y world and the other is capable of Contact With Peculiar diste they believe to be the occurrence of su pernatural phenomena, There is here, therefore, a picce of ground whieh may be explored without any begging of the question as to whether the fear is caused by real ghosts or by trickery, by rats aud water pipes or by genuine glimpses of the people of another world. One would like to know whether the fear felt is akin to thut experienced when a man is {rigitened by a runaway horse or a {ire or any o * imminent risk of life, or whether it is something differ- ent in kind Speaking minute cousiueration of being lifted agree in cone thing They Re : . all récognize the fact that most people fear, or something akin to fear, what | | | broadly and without any the facts, one | liffer the fright which comes Most people have, time or other in their lives experienced that eerie, un- canny, creepy feeling which is associat- ed with the possibility of contact with the supernatural. Yet few would de- clare that it was in any sense connected | with the dread'of loss of life or limb The man or woman who wakes up in in kind fron from active danger we imagine, at some the middle of the night and hears | strange noises—thumps, raps, clangs and creakings—or sees lights or feels | the touch of unseen hands is probably very frightened, but the sense of bodily fear is not present. Ihere is no dread of being killed. People in the agony of terror caused by dangerous accidents | constantly call out that they are going to be killed, but we doubt if that is ev- er the case in the fright caused by haunted houses. Possibly this differ- ence may be said to be due to the fact that the dread of the supernatural is not nearly so acute as that caused by the imminent risk of death. People, it may be argued, only imagine themselves to be frightened of ghosts, as women pretend to be frightened of mice. In neither case is the fright quite genuine. It is only want of self control and could be mastered in an instant if the will power were in proper order. Unfortunately for those who argue thus there is plenty of evidence to show that occasionally the dread of the supernatural produces very serious re- sults. On the whole, we should say that more people had been frightened out of their wits by whut they believed to be supernatural phenomena than by acei- dents involving great risk of life. It is not often that one hears of insanity caused even by the prolonged agony of shipwreck. The fear caused by what is supposed to be a supernatural agency seems, then, to have in it some element not found in ordinary fear. If the haunt- ing phenomena cause fear, they seem to give a shock of special keenness. —Lon- don Spectator Best Time to In view of leep. the many changes which have been rung on the early to bed, early torise idea, the following opinion from an eminent medical authority ought to be of interest. He takes up the old statement that an hour before mid- night is worth two hours after and gives his opinion as follows: ‘‘I had an opportunity to make some study of this subject in my naval service during the late war. On shipboard, as is undoubt- edly known to most of you, the ship’s company—oflicers and men alike—stand four bour watches day and night, and to get the required amount of rest are obliged to get their sleep irregularly. To so arrange it that the same man shall not be obliged to take early or late watches continually, the ‘dog watch’ of two hours is interpolated, thus add- ing to the irregularity. In watching the results for over two years I could never discover that the watch, officers and men, were not as fully refreshed by their sleep as were the medical and pay officers, who stand no watch and bave hours as regular as those of any householder.” It seems to make but little difference to those who have giv- en careful attention to this subject whether people sleep at one time or an- other, so that they get a sufficient amount of sleep. —New York Ledger. A Brave Man. Nicolas, Chevalier d’Assas, a French raptain in the Auvergne regiment, born at Vigan in the Languedoc, while mak- ing a reconnoissance during the night of Oct. 15, 1760, at Klostercamp in Westphalia, met a column of the enemy which was advancing in silence to sur- prise the French army He was ordered to keep silent or else they would kill him. D’Assasat once cried out, ** A moi Auvergne-——the enemy is here!”’ He was killed on the spot. —Bouillet’s Diction- ary of History In Austria the man who loses both his hands in an accident can claim the whole of his life insurance money, on the ground that he has lost the means of maintaining himself. Loss of the right hand reduces the claim from 70 to 80 per cent of the total. A Californian claims to have invent. d a new machine which launders col- irs and cuffs without producing a saw loe. 1ge. {tr | sound i ter on the chron | therefore, t He Played Wlat Ho Saw. | An itinerant musiciaz. who played the trombone in a little Germro baud haled the leader of that organization to a London court and demanded thas a week's wages which he claimed were due kim should be paid. The leader de- clared that he had discharged the man for incompetency and that be had been | paid in fu The plaintiff insisted that be was a led performer, and in ex- plainiog the wucident that had resulted in his ejection {rom the band charged il ski that the discordant noises which he ad. | mitted he wus guilty of making on one | occasion were tho fauit not of himself, | but ¢f his employer. In elucidation of this mystery the aggrieved musician | said that the lexder, had dis- | as usual, uted the different y to the play ers and bad been eareleggenough to pass | | over the trombone part upside down. ! Being 1 ghied, the player did not notice the mistake, but proceeded to the notes as ho 1 them from the reversed score. !‘I blay vot I see, he declared in court, “‘and dere vasa .»' The leader smd the *‘‘nocise” dreadful, as may well have been the case, and that the plaintiff had re- ad was i fused to stop playing when ordered to Ing: nation, : as was the did not do so. ex ju attempted convince the it ge, and a verdict for the defendant was given.—Berlin Correspondence. Reilection of Sound. In come of the large cities of Europa the principle of the reflection of sound is very ingeniously employed in locat- ing the position of inaccessible obstrac- tions in the pipes of the pneumatic tube service. Thus, when a pipe is constrict- ed a diaphragm that is sn thin as to vibrate instantly under the force of a scund wave is attached to the end of the pipe and electrically with a chrone such a manner that when the } vibrates it will close the electric circuit and regis- :ph. A pistol loaded ridge is then fired into an opening just below where the diapbragm is placed. When, he shot is fired, the sound wave causes the diaphragm to vibrate 15 with a blank ¢ the tube throu | and registers the exact time on the chronograph. The sound wave will the tube until it meets the be reflected travel aloug obstruction and will then back. returning to the end of the = eration will correctly indicate the exact interval of time required for the sound to travel from the end of the tube and back. —Exch They Called Him Vanus. It is curious how inconsistent are the prejudices of people in regard to the use of heathen names. Mr. Payn, in his ‘““Gleams of Memory,” tells an amus- ing story of the late Dean Burgon, who objected to the name of the goddess of beauty, but found no fault with that of the god of the woods. An infant was brought to the church for christening, and the name proposed for it was Vanus. ‘‘Vanus repeated the dean. ‘‘I suppose you mean Venus. Do you imagine I am going to call a Christian child by that name, and least of all a male child?” The father of the infant urged that he only wished to name it after his grandfather. ‘ ‘Your grandfather!” eried the dean. ‘I don’t believe it. Where is your grandfather?’’ a poor old soul of 80 or so, bent double and certainly not looking in the least like the goddess in question. ‘‘Do you mean to tell me, sir, that any clergy- man ever christened you ‘Vanus,’ as you call it?” “Well, no, sir. I was christened Syl- vanus, but they always calls me ‘Va- pus,’ ” And Granite Nerve. A good story is told by an English tourist who staid for a week in apart- ments in Aberdeen, the Granite City. “I bad heard,’’ he says, ‘‘of the canny folk of Aberdeen, and my experi- ence, short though it was, proved that rumor had rightly estimated the char- acter of the people. The streets are granite, the houses are granite and the inhabitants are granite, and when they have a granite baby they give it a ball of granite for fear it should break any other toy. “I had a granite landlady, and one day when I was going fishing her son volunteered to accompany me. I pro- vided the lunch, the rods and the lines; he provided the worms—dug them up spade. I caught 16 trout; he ate the lunch and broke my best rod. When we got home, I made a present of 14 of the fish to my granite landlady and asked her to cook the other two for my tea. She did—and charged me three- pence for the dripping in which they were fried.’ —Edinburgh Scotsman. Englishmen and Scotland. The Englishman is looked on in Scot- land and regards himself as a foreigner. Though the literary language of both countries is one and the same, many of the most common Scottish expressions are quite unintelligible to him, while the laws and institutions of the country are entirely unfamiliar. “How, ’’ in this connection remarked the Edinburgh Press, ‘‘how is it that, after living 1,000 year: cide by side, after three cen- tories of union and in spite of the year- ly visit to beotland of tens of thousands of English, there are still among them people, even writers, who know less about our country than about Pata- gonia?”’ DE a i Found Repose Behind the Pulpit. Seth Payne, a newspaper character of Denver in other times, wus a victim of insomnia to a distressing degree, Hu finally obtained permission of Ton Uzzell to sleep in the Methodist church, und during the summer of 1879, wrapped in an ordinary blanket and stowed away behind the pulpit of the parish church, he found repose which he declared was denied him elsewhere. ~—Denver Times. 1 may be seen continually visi n.of constant ex On this reflected sound or echo | tube it | | causes the diaphragm to vibrate again | and make another registration on the | chronograph, which by this simple op- | in a neighbor’s garden with a borrowed | The Home of the Hut Devils, The greatest natural wonder in Java, if not in the entire world, is the justly celebrated Gheko Kamdha Gumko, or “home of the hot devils,” known to the world as the Island of Fire. This geological eccentricity is really a lake of boiling mud, situated at about the center of the plains of Grobogana, and is called an island becanse of the great emerald sea of vegetation which sur- rounds it and gives it that appearance, The *“island®’ about two miles in circumference and is situated at a dis. tance of almost exactly 50 miles from Sclo. Near the eenter of this geological freek immense columes of soft, hot mud r and fall- ing like great timbers thi ¥ through 18 !the boiling substratum by giaut bands and then quickly withdrawn, Besides the phenomenon of the boil- ing mud colin here are scores of gi- guutic bublics of hot slime that {ill up like huge | and keep up a series plosions, the intensity of the detonations veryiug with the size of the bubble. In times past, so the Java- nese , there was a tall gpirelike column of baked mud on the west edge of the lake, which constantly belched a pure stream of cold water, but this has long been obliterated, and everything is now a seething mass of { bubbling mud and slime, a marvel to the visitors who come from long dis- tances to sco it, | icons authorities | Weighing an Elephant. | An Indian writer relates an interest- ing anccdote concerning Shabjee, the father of the first ruling prince of Mah- rattas of Hiudustapn, who lived at about the beginning of the seventeenth century. On one occasion acertaintbigh official made a vow that he would d tribute to the poor the weight of his own elephant in gilver money, but the great difficulty that at first presented itself was the mode of ascertaining ‘what this weight really was, and all the learned and clever men of the court seem to have endeavored in vain to con- sirnet a machine of sufficient power to weigh the elephant. At length it is said that Shahjee came forward and suggested a plan which was simple! and yet ingenious in the highest degree. He caused the unwieldy animal to be conducted along a stage, specially made for the purpose by the water side, into a flat bottomed boat and then having marked on the boat the height to which the water reached after the elephant taken out and stones substituted in sufficient quantity to load the boat to i the same line, The stones were then taken to the scales, and thus, to the amazement of the court, was ascertained I the true weight of the elephant.— Ani- | mal Friends. But Little Danger From Lightning. Writing on ‘“The Needless Fear of Lightning,” Edward W. Bok, in The | Ladies’ Home Journal, says that ‘it | will doubtless surprise the timid to | know that only 200 deaths a year occur | on an average throughout this entire | country from lightning, or one person | in every 850,000 people. Now, in com- | parison, 15 times as many people are | killed each year by falling ont of win- | dows, over twice as many from being | bitten by rattlesnakes, while 25 per | cent more are killed with ‘unloaded’ pistols. More people are drowned | around New York city alone every year | than there are deaths from lightning all | He was produced— | over the country. by 50 per In fact, more people cent are killed die from lightning thoughout the whole of the United States. The casualties of | the south show the dangers of being | lynched and of being killed by lightning | are about the same. The trolley cars of | our cities kill a far greater number of | people than do the lightning storms. Now, these are facts. They are strictly | accurate and carefully computed.” The Doss. In a harsh, resonant voice the boss | was shouting bis orders over our heads | to the.farthermost portion of the works, His short, thickset, muscular figure seemed rooted to the masonry on which he stood. The mingled shrewdness and brute strength of his bard face marked him as a product of natural selection for the place that he filled. His restless gray eyes were everywhere at once, and his whole personality was tense with a compelling physical energy. If the work slackened in any portion of the ruins, Lis voice took on a vibrant quality as he raised it to the shout of ‘Now, boys, at it there!” And then a lash of sting- ing oaths. You could feel a quickening of muscular force among the men, like the show of eager industry in a section of a schoolroom that has fallen sudden- ly under the master’s questioning eye. —**The Workers,’’ by Walter A. Wyck- off, in Scribner’s, Publicity. Merely to stock a store and open it is ness rivalry. The merchant, in order to succeed, must make known his advan- tages through the newspapers that reach the people not only of this city, but of the surrounding towns as well, This is now called ‘‘publicity,’’ but it can be quite as well recognized under the good old name of advertising -— Scranton Truth, Long and the Short of It. According to an old French saying, ‘A man’s character is like his shadow, which sometimes follows and sometimes precedes him, and which is occasionally longer, occasionally shorter than he is,” —Kansas City Star. “The Year Book of Jews,’ published in London, estimates that there are in the world about 11,000,000 of that race, more than half being under Russian jurisdiction. There are in the several German uni- 7ersities 2,000 foreign students, of ‘whom mor« nan 400 are Americans—a larger number than of any other coun- had weighed it down the latter was | by being | kicked by horses in New York city than not sufficient in these days of keen busi- | How Thimbles Ave Made, hao Archibald Forbes, the famous war Dies of the different sizes are used, | correspondent, once told an amusing into which the metal, whether gold, silver or steel, is pressed. The hole punching, finishing, polishing aud tem- | pering are done afterward, Celluloid | and rubber are molded, The best thim- | bles are made in France, where the! viocess is more thorough, The first step in the making of a Paris thimble is the entting into a disk of the desired size a thin picce of sheet iron, This is brought to a red heat, placed over a gradi d hole in an iron bench and hanmered down into it with a punch, This hole is in the form of a thimble. The iron its shape and is removed from the hole, » little indentations to keep the needle from slipping are made in it and all the other finishing strokes of the perfect thimble put om it. The iron ig then made into by a process peculiar to the French thimble maker, and is tempered, polished and brought | toa deep blue color. A thin ‘sheet of | gold is pressed into the interior takes ' steal then of the thimble and fastened there by a | mandrel, Gold leaf attached to the outside by great pressure, the edges oi is the lcaf being fitted in and held by small grooves at the base of the thin ble. The article is then ready for usc The gold will last for years. The steel never wears out, and the gold can be readily replaced at ary time.—Dry Goods Chronicle. Her Awkward Nurse. Helen Hunt Jackson’s descriptive power was eloquent, even on a sickbed. I find this picture of her awkward nurse in a letter written in March, 1872: To Dr. Nichols:. A communication, 6:45 a.m. Can I endure the presence of this surly, im less cow another da, No! Why? She 1 less faculty than any human being 1 ever undertook to direct in sma t When 1 ask her to bring me anything, rises slowly with a movement like nothing 1 ever saw in life, unless it be a derrick. She sighs and drops her underjaw after ev- ery exertion. She ‘‘sets’’ with a ponderous inertia which produces on ne the most remarkable effect. 1 rbid impulse to fl hoes at sce what would cone t. She ¢ en dismal tones if I am well in other ways besides my throat, conveying the impression by her slow rolling eye that I look to her like a bundle of unfathomable diseases. She takes the tray out of a trunk to get some article at the bottom—where articles alwe are—and, having given me the article, helplessly if she shall put the tray back Happy thought! Next time I'll tell her: We keep the trays in piles on the floor.” Is this Christian? No, for she is well mean ing and wishes to do aright, and I don’t doubt every glance of my eye sends a thrill of unex plainable discomfort through her. But as a professional nurse she is the biggest joke 1 ever saw. I honestly believe a person seriously ill might be killed in a few hours by her presence. I ou ever wish to practice eu- thanasy with y on one of your hopeless | cases, send Mrs. B—— to nurse it, unless the ! patient has a sense of humer keen enough to { rise above all else. HELEN HUNT JACKSON. —Time and The Hour. she A Moslem Solomon. | Readers of the **Arabian Nights” are familiar with the manner in which the cadis dispensed justice with more regard to equity than to law, and it seems that instances of the same kind are of modern occurrence. An example is given in Golden Days: Not long ago a Turk, while repairing a roof, fell into the street upon a | wealthy old man, who was killed, without any serious damage to the workman, The son of the deceased caused the workman to be arrested taken before the cadi, with whom used all his influence to have the poor man condemued, and, though the inno- cence of the laborer was clearly estab- lished, "nothing could pacify the scn but the law of retaliation. The cadi stroked his beard and then gravely decreed that the workman should be placed exactly upon the spot where the old man had stood. ‘“Now,” said be to the son, ‘‘you will go on the roof of the house, fail down upon this man and kill him if you can.’ Of course the son declined to da any- thing of the sort, and the case was dis- missed. be Fog and Gaslight, story connected with a lecture which he delivered at West Chester, Pa, On ar- riving at the station in that place a ne- gro hackman pressed forward and coffer. ed his services to take the lecturer to the hotel, On arriving at his destina= tion Mr. Forbes asked the backman what his fare was “Well, sah,’ replied the negro, with | &a comprchensive grin, ‘if you'd jess gib me a ticket to de lecture, sah, dat’s all I ask, and I'd be right glad to get it." “Why, certainly,’ replied Mr. Forbes, feeling that here indeed was an unex- pected tribute, ‘I'll give you one. And haven't you a missis?’’ “Yes, sah,” was the prompt reply. “I’ze got a missis,”’ “Well, you shall have one for her, too,’ said the lecturer, who forthwith requested his agent to hand the man the tickets, That evening he locked about the hall for his colored admirer, but saw nothing of him. The next mornipg, on ordering a hack to go to the station, he discovered that the vehicle was driven by the same man, : “I didn’t see you at the lecture last night,’’ said Mr, Forbes. ‘“No, sah,” replied the darky frank- ly; ‘‘I was not dar.”’ “Bat I gave you tickets for yourself | and your wife,’ said Mr. Forbes in natural astonishment. ‘“Yes, sab,” returned the hackman, with one of his broadest smiles; ‘‘but, ! you see, me and my missis don’t know much about lectures, sah, and we! thought we’d rather hab de cash, so I done sold dem tickets for §1, sah.’ =| Sunday Afternoon. 4 Too Lazy to Walk In His Sleep. i ‘I certainly think that you should take steps to have your brother watched, | so that he does not come to harm,’ said Jinks. ‘‘It’s highly dangerous, yom know. Suppose he should’ — | ; ge > i “What are you driving at?’ asked | Blinks in surprise. ‘‘What is the mat- ter with my brother? Do jou thick he is a poet?’ { “A man who is given to somnambu- lism” — “What's that?’ asked Blinks anx- iously. ‘‘Is it catching? I didn’t kuow he was suffering from any infectious disease. ”’ ‘‘1 mean that your brother walks im his sleep.” Then Blinks smiled expansively, heaved a sigh of relief and shook his head. ‘““You’ve made a mistake,”’ he said impressively. ‘You don’t know my brother. He is the laziest man in the United Kingdom. Had you said he had ridden in a bus in his sleep I should not have been surprised, but as for walking, that’s altogether out of the question. He doesn’t walk when he’s awake if he can anyhow help it. You’re wrong, Jinks.”’—Pearson’s Weekly. Couldn't Fool Stewart. The late A. T. Stewart belonged to the Century club, although he rarely visited its rooms. The club once bought a carpet of his people, and when it bad been down for several months Stewart happened to come in. He seemed to be greatly interested in the carpet, study- ing it attentively. ‘‘Where did you buy that?’’ he demanded of one of the house committee. ‘‘At your place, I believe.”’ “Impossible!” rejoined the millionaire. ‘“We never had the pattern in stock. We have had a pattern exactly similar, except that those little violet flowers were white.”” The committeeman took the trouble to hunt through his vouch- ers and produced a receipted bill of A. T. Stewart & Co. Mr. Stewart shook his head. ‘‘There is some mistuke,’’ he said. ‘‘The little flowers on our carpet were white.’ It was found on investi- gation that the little flowers had been white—so offensively white and spotty to the eyes of some of the sesthetic mem- bers of the club that Louis Lang had gone over them with a stiff brush dip- ped in violet ink.—New York Letter. John Milton's Cottage. According to the statement of Pro- fessor Lewes, a London fog deprives coal gas of 11.1 per cent of its illuminating power, but this is not so astonishing as is the fact that, under similar circum- stances, the searching light of an in- candescent burner loses as much as 20.8 of its efficacy. The reason given by Pro- fessor Lewes for this phenomenon is that the spectrum of both the incandes- cent and the electric light approaches very nearly that of the solar spectrum, being very rich in the violet and ultra- violet rays. It is precisely these re which cannot make their way through a London fog. To this is attributed the fact that the sun looks red on a foggy day. The violet rays are absorbed by the solid particles floating in the aque- ous vapor of the atmosphere, and only the red portions of the spectrum get through. The interesting additional statement is made in this connection that the old argand burner is much | more successful in resisting a London fog than any of its later rivals. Engiish Dinner Orators. Twenty years ago the best dinner ta- ble talkers in England were thought to be Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, Queen’s Counselor Judah P. Benjamin, Mr. Gladstone, Cardinal Manning, Lord | Rosebery and Dean Stanley. Twenty years before that Macaulay and Carlyle headed the list. In Dickens’ time he ranked as the best after dinner speaker, and Sala enjoyed that distinction for a few years before his death. There is pow rather a dearth of talkers and speakers of the first luster in that coun- try. An Iron Mountain, | In the city of Durango, Mexico, is ran iron mountain 640 feet high, and the iron is from 60 to 70 per cent pure. The metallic mass spreads in all direc tions for a radius of three or four miles. | The entire deposit is safficient to sup ply all the irom required in the world tor 1,000 years. . One of the best preserved historie country houses in all England is Jehn Milton’s cetinge at Chalfont St. Giles, to which the blind and aging poet fled | when the great plague swooped down on { London. That was in July, 1665, and Milton had just finished ‘‘Paradjse Lost’ and received a £5 note for it, with a promise of three more £5 notes if the poem sold four editions of 1,300 copies each. The cottage stands at the top of the village, and it is in practically the same condition as when Milton left it. Here the poet received his distinguished guests during the lat- ter part of his life. It is now one of the favorite objective points of London bicyclists. Well He Might. Ethel—And what did George say when he proposed? Maud—He said nothing. He started to say something, gasped, turned death- ly pale and then fainted away. Of vourse I knew what that meant; so when he came to I told him he might ask papa. Ethel—And then? Maund—Then poor George fainted away again,— London Figaro, A Japanese Argument. Japan has an income tax, and this is {the way they enforce it: If a taxpayer | protests that he is rated too high by the | officials, he is thrust into a dark room | ana told to ‘‘think it over carefullyi™® | Sometimes a man stays there 24 hours, {buried in darkness and thought, and | finally he is apt to agree with the ofil- |cials that he is richer than he had at | first supposed. | Missouri produced in 1896 200, 000,000 bushels Jf corn, 13,000,000 bushels of wheat, 22,000,000 bushels of oats, | 8,600,000 tons of hay, 14,000,000 pounds of cotton, 7,000,000 pounds of tobacco, 500,000 bushels of flaxseed jad 6,000,000 bushels of potatoes.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers