Even little Belgium spends every | year so,ooo,ooooii her army. Ohio produces fully one-half of the total quantity of iron and steel rooting ; sold in the United States. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat states that the house property f Australia ! ! is more valuable, compared withpopu- j lation, than in Europe, "It is somewhat of a joke," thinks the Chicago Times, "for bankrupt , Spain to tnlk of building a navy big and powerful enough to stand any show besides those of England or Russia. ' The total value of the crops of the United States during IM'2 is estimated at $3,000,000,000, of which flu larg est item is $750,000,000 worth of hay. , The animal products, including meats, dairy products, poultry and eggs, and wool, arc placed at $905,000,000 more. A consignment of about thirty stall- j ions, broodmares and some, trotters for road and campaigning have just been I sent abroad, notes the New York World. Some of the animals have been already sold, and others are taken . on speculation. The idea is to intro duce the American trotter to the notice of foreign horsemen. Owing to the ruthless manner in which orchid hunters aud other Eu- j ropeans have devastated the fauna and flora of the domains of Sarawak, Rajah Brooke has decided to prohibit the collecting of natural history specimens within his territories. Many species of valuable plants native to that re gion were in danger of becoming ex tinct. Sixty per cent, of the Hungarians, more than half of the Italians, thirty- I five per cent, of the Austrians and Bo- i hemians, twenty per cent, of the British, eighteen per cent, of the Germans, forty per cent, of the Irish and ten per cent, of the Scandinavians who came to the United States between 1880 and 1800 returned to their native lands in tho decade. Tu spite of the substantial nature of the buildings of London fires in the great metropolis are not infrequent, observes the San Fraucisco Chronicle. The most destructive are those which occur in large store and ware houses, but they are generally confined to the premises or block in which they origin ate. The Fire Department of Lon don, although the English seem to think it is perfect, does not begin to approach the degree of efficiency reached in many American cities. Comparative drills show that Aineri- ] can lire laddies turn out with much more celerity than the British. Per haps when the latter cultivate spry - liess to the same extent as the VHlJ keen fires will In* less numerous and Jess de structive in London. The early and deep snows in the mountains of the Northwest arc caus ing a wholesale slaughter of deer. The animals, compelled to leave the hills, are the easiest kind of prey for the sportsman, the pot-hunter and the wanton slaughterer. Five hunters with four dogs killed twenty-four deer in one day, and a total of fifty-one in a six (lays' hunt in the Elk Creek dis trict, Oregon. The animals have been driven to the tidewater along Puget Sound, and great numbers are being killed all over the Sound region. The Indians over the border in British Co lumbia are slaughtering the deer in droves simply for their hides, leaving the carcasses untouched. A trapper found over two hundred fresh skins in one camp of Indian hunters a week or so ago. A French engineer named Boziu I comes to the fore with a scheme for a steamship on rollers •r drums. These 1 rollers are to be supplied with paddles, or creepers, and driven by engines, so 1 that the craft will progress more like a street roller or a locomotiw than an ordinary ship. This scheme is spoken of as something novel and startling. In fact it appears to be identical with a scheme invented and carried forward to an experimental stage some two or three years ago. The inventor ap- , peared somewhere in the West, and 1 later was engaged in building a craft 1 on this plan n >t far from New York. ' Of late nothing hat, been heard of | him and bin drum i-hip. Did if. Is,, z jn steal the idea from the American or is this another of tne instances in which great discoveries am made in dependently ami almost si:nultuncniiHl\ by different persons far r from one another? Be that as it rna\. w. may depend upon it that the Aineri can, if alive ami compos mentis, will bob up as n claimant in ease M p„, makes a success of his •.u, i,,.., fuller* BUBBLES. We blew two bubbles, one frJr day, My love and I. my love and T, And gave them, as they sailed away, Our names, my love and I. We said, "It these frail namesakes rls Together in tho sunny skies, Whole and unbroken, till we lose Among the clouds their changing hues- Then wo shall know that neither heart Will over break, nor over part From its one mate, our lifetime through, Until we die But each keep whole, and each keep true My precious love and I i 1 But all! should either sink or break, My love or I. my love or J, Ono heart will change, and one will ache Alas, my love and I We smiled to see the shining things Go soaring up on viewless wings, Fair '-rystal spheres of iris-light— \nd reeling through the dizzy air Flashed like a thought and vanished -where? "Alas !" we said, "how sad and strange? Why is it—why, That one must die or one must change, My happy love or I ?" 'Tis many a summer since we two, My love and I, my love and I, Thus sported in the bloom and dew, My merry love and I. bong years, with varying shade and light, Have passe I. like bubbles, out of sight; The old tradition that we knew, Vu I grieved because we thought it Iran, j Proved false, like many a one beside— For neither changed aud neither died. The constant hearts we had ofyoro Tine could but try— | Now we are one forovennore, My darling love and I! —T Akers, in WorthingtoiTs Magazine. TllblU WEDDING DAY. ' fwjipHE village of Toug i I looked fair enough . j . 3 II this June morning. The sun was bright, ' ; -! v Wit- •* f •11 .I - less. From the old w gabled, half-timber ' ( C J cottages near the i .—1 church the folks j had hung colored pocket ha n dke r y " chiefs, blue cloths, J rc, l flannel and what not —anything for a gala appearance. I 1 here was also a string set across from ! the elm by the lich gate to the house of old Gumm, the sexton, and real hunting, pennons, union jacks, aud so forth, hung from the string and flut- I tered gently in tho summer breeze, i Chief decoration of all, however, was the arch of evergreens studded with roses just outside the red brick house of the Darlings, It bore tho words, "Joy be with thee," done in white carnations. Eva Darling was the bride. Her mother had occupied the lletreat—as \ the red house with the high walls around it was called—for about ten years. She was a widow, and Eve was ; her only child. When tirst the Darlings came to I'ong the villagers did not half care lor the newcomers. Mrs. Darling kept herself to herself a deal too much for their pride's comfort. But as Eva I grew from a girl of ten to a girl of ' fifteen, sixteen and seventeen there was no standing against her charms. I here was u governess for her in those days. Despite the laws of the Re treat, however, on the subject of in tercourse with the villages, the girl 1 went to and fro with a basket, and in short, played the part of ministering angel extremely well. Thus she won the hearts of the simple but strongly prejudiced people. It was ouly with the gentry of tho : Great House that Mrs. Darling cared to Associate. The Great House stood a mile from the church, across a spa cious reach of undulating parkland, with a pond and a river in it, and some remarkably fine trees. "Great House" was just the phrase for it. There were about fifty windows in front for tk" sun to stare at. ft stretched like a white buttress between the green of! the parkland aud the dark wooded hill behind it. No one could say the Great. House I •was a handsome place. Mrs. Darling was not concerned with mere archi tectural beauties. From the first, when she knew there were two young masculine Dantins in the family, re spectively three and four years older j than her daughter, this ladv was re solved that one of them should marry 1 Eva. Of course the elder son was to 1 be preferred, but as the younger was . rich by inheritance from the mother it would not matter so very much , which made the girl Mrs. Dantin. They were young men of very op posite character, the Dantins. Jt is always the case when there are but two in the family. Nature seems de- | termiued that the type shall then be varied as much as possible. Philip, j the elder, was studious and fond of f-cif ntirii'. pursuits. At Oxford he had j kept, a in. uagerie, like Frank Buck ': "E H was a good-looking fellow, i.ut wor. tqieetacles slow to be angered, I but with ;i t-mj r that when roused was capable of dark deeds. He was | slowiti other respects also. Thus for ! a wuiJe ho w.is sorely distressed when be heard that his brother .lack had j wooed and won Eva Darling ere he i had settled in his own mind that he himself was ripe for marriage with the same girl. Anon he seemed to smother the resentment ho could hardly help feeling, but it was mere "seeming;" his jealousy burned his heart. As for .lack Dantin, lie was the verv fellow to secure a girl like Eva. He! cured nothing for insects and butter Ibi-s, but everything for athletic pur- j suits and pretty faces. lie was n handsome hul, frank and generous. H I n >\ eiirlv mi his courtship that I" had hut lo aal, Eva to marry him. iln uT dark eye- could not -p their secret; her cheek* too, told of it [ with ft blush every time they met. And so they had plighted their troth I and were duly to be married this June morning. They Were likely to make | a very comely couple fit the altar* with : the great tombs of departed Dantins I north and south of them. Meanwhile, though everything was cpiite. ready for the bridal procession I to leave the Retreat and cross the road there was delay. It was to be a quiet wedding. A dozen friends of | the Darlings were in the drawing-room talking and smiling and enjoying the ; perfume of the flowers which lay 011 I the table. Htill there was clearly a , hitch somewhere. The smiles were I somewhat forced, and the guests fell j silent suddenly now and then. Mrs. Darling made civil forays into | their midst at intervals. She was j evidently a strong-minded woman, as was indicated by her composed man- j uer, her hard, incisive tones and her J cold, searching blue eyes. Some one was caught whispering, "Will it not have to be postponed V The words reached Mrs. Darling's ears. "Oh, no," she replied promptly, wit han icy but sparkling smile. "Dear Eva is quite satisfied that John Dan- 1 tin will not fail to be present. He is a man of his word." "Yes, but, dear Mrs. Darling, it is so very odd, this sudden disappear- | anee," objected one of the guests. "Three days ago," added Mrs. . Darling. "Yes, there's no denying it. Hut Jack Dantin is an odd fellow, , though an excellent one besides." Here Eva herself entered the draw- I ing-room, and all eyes sped towards 1 her. An audible murmur of satisfac tion arose and certain men of the party ' euvied the bridegroom involuntarily. She was a beautiful bride undeniably. Though pale and disturbed, as any maiden in her place would have been, f there was such sweetness in her ex i pression that for the moment people . : forgot that she had cause for anxiety. , Three or four damsels of her own age - ! crowded about her, voluble with con- I grat illations. •| "My dear," said her mother, "it is . 1 a quarter to 11. We had better start." i I Eva's eyes asked the question that 1 every one else was asking "Has he | come?" ' "Do not fear,' was Mrs. Darling's : reply. "Of course he will be there, ij He will not dare"— Then she stopped. ' There had been a momentary flash in i her eyes of a very pugnacious kind. > And so the procession formed and 1 ■ walked over the crimson cloth which > stretched from the porch to the gar den gate, where the motto, "Joy he | with you !*'looked down on them. A gust of wind set the pocket handker chiefs and hits of flannel fluttering merrily. A murmur of voices also greeted the bride's appearance. About once in half a century Ton * saw a WJ 1- | ding of this kind. It was a spectacle by uo means to be lost. A certain i bedridden villager ha l been carried into the bit of a garden in front of his 1 cottage, bedding and all, to behold ! the sight. Twenty paces brought them to the ' churchyard gate. The graves were nice and green, and the sheep nibbling 1 among them did not seem at all fright : cued by so much human company. ! Thus they passed into the church, not I without many a furtive glance over the park towards the Great House, which, at Mr. Dautin's bidding, was living the royal banner in spite of young Jack's absence. Inside tliey were met with almost a I caressing tenderness by Mr. Dantin and A sad shake of the head. "I am sorry," he said to Mrs. Darling, "that your resolution was not to be shaken." | The lady tossed her heal slightly I aud seemed disposed to be angry. "It j is a most extraordinary thing," she , exclaimed, looking at the clock in the west of the church. It wanted eight lniuutes to the time. The old rector put a gay face on the business. Why, in truth, should he not? Ho had buried and wedded so many people that he had come to view neither ceremony as so very iinport ; ant. , "You have to come again another ■ day, my dear Miss Eva," he said, "that •is all. You must not mind. It is the linked sweetness of expectation, long drawn out, that is all." "Hut," and for once there was a| touch of petulance in the girl's voice, j as her eyes clouded with tears, "it is ! jso unlike him. I fear something must j j have happened to him. Philip," she , added, making a sudden appeal to the 1 man who was to be made her brother- . I in-law, "have you any idea w hat it j means?" I "I? Huw should 1 ?*' was the reply, I I as the elder Dantin shuttled away. Philip's face was unusually pale. I . There was no candor in his eye—even seen through his spectacles. | Outside the church and in the body of the building the whispers were of a j more emphatic nature. The village j • gossips claimed to have a very pro- | | found knowledge of the iniquity of ( ' young men. It was said openly that Master Jack ha l no doubt played the j gill a sad trick, was, as like as not, at that very moment marrying some one j else in London town, and that the best 1 thing they could do for Miss Eva was to take her home, put her in bed, and treat her for hysterics, whether she showed them or not. "Poor young crittur! So sweet-' tempered and nice looking, to be trickit in such away !" There were comments on Mr. Philip's white face, which led on to ! comparisons between the two brothers. ! I hese were not markedly adverse to the elder son, but upon the whole they i ! w-erc iii favor of "Master .lack," who , was tin. more free with his money. j "He'll marry she hisself, yo'll see,'' 1 said one wmtm v ry positively. "What u.wy Inst -nd of his own ! brother ! Ido call tliut—" '"i . v, >u sjliy w.iH the interposed 1 reply—"not jest yet, o' eoorse. They'll wait a bit—yo'll nee. 11 Three minutes tu eleven, and still no bridegroom ! For an explanation of this unusually dramatic scene in Torig Church we must go back three days. Philip Dantin had striven to keep his rage against his brother within due bounds, but had failed. His stuffed specimens in the subterranean rooms could not console him, nor could his live beasts either. These underground rooms were quite a remarkable feature of the Great House. They dated from the sixteenth century, if not earlier. For one hundred years or more they were disused. Philip, however, persuaded his father to expend money in making them tolerably habitable and very suitable for the kind of museum he had accumulated. The furthermost of them was the very "sanctum sancto. rum" of his operations. At its ex treme end there was an ancient door way of chiselled stone several inches in thickness, and beyond that utter darkness and the beginning of a laby rinth which had not been explored for ages and was left to itself. It was be lieved to have 110 issue. On this third evening before the lay that was to make him a happy fellow, Jack Dantin found his way into his brother's den to have a chat I with him. For a time Philip bore | with his high spirits uncomplainingly, though Jack's praises of Eva were like Iso many thorns in his side. Eventu- ! I ally, however, his patience gave way. I He uttered an exclamation which made j ! his brother start in surprise. ■ "Why, old fellow, what is the mat- | ter? You surely don't" — He stopped, j There was that in Philip's face which j told him much. "Yes; you have guessed it," said Philip, with a shrug of the shoulder. "It is rather hard, but the less said ' | about it the better. Twenty years hence it will not matter a straw." ; Jack was silent. He sympathized with his brother more than he could tell in words. Then it was that, like a lightning flash, the dreadful suggestion rushed j iuto Philip's mind. "Oh, by the way," I he said, casually, "I wish you would ! oblige me by giving a hand to this skinned thing. I want it out of my ! road for a time." I "Certainly, Phil. Where shall we j cart it?" was the reply as Jack sur veyed the gruesome body of a flayed alligator, upon which the elder Dan -1 tin had been operating, j "The passage is just the place for ' it. I'll tind the key." The key was fo ind, the heavy stone door was swung open, they carried their disgusting burden into the cor ridor, and then Philip, who was near est the room, slipped back, banged the door and locked it, and had sped up stairs and into the park iu a re markably short space of time. He j threw the key into oue of the ponds, | and then fell to congratulating him • self upon his diabolical conduct. Since then he had not visited his museum. The doors were all fast locked. No one could get access to ; them. If Jack Dantin shouted till his lungs burst 110 one would hear him. ; It 11111,' be imagined what a wretched yet fearfully glad time this interval before the wedding to-day was for Philip Dantin. He professed to be entirely ignorant of his brother's whereabouts, but hinted at having seen him striding across country to wards a certain large town whence there was a constant train connection ; with London. The elder Dantiu and the servants had every confidence in Jack's reap pearance in time for the wedding, and that until the eve of the day itself, Philip, too, expressed his agreement I with this view of the matter. I In fact, however, poor Jack, when ! lie realized what had befallen him, I gave himself up for lost. Jt was ter rible to remember where he was under ! such woeful circumstances, and stun ning to recall that it was his brother who had incarcerated him. As the 1 , hours sped by he saw clearly that he I was destined to die, and that Philip : I meant to profit by his death. Like | most habitual smokers, he carried matches with him. For a time he was lavish with them, then he husbanded j them. The hours passed. His watch told him that it was night. He wound j it up, slept, reawakened, and struck I more matches. I In the meantime he had thought of many things. But in oue thing only I did lie take any interest. The passion j of self-preservation was strong in him, 1 I for his own sake and Eva's. He re ; Holved to try the passages and see if haply he might prove the truth of the ! old legend which made them a sort of . nrterial connection between the church and the Great House. The first day 1 was spent in the grim gropings, which seemed likely to be only too futile. Their only result was to make him lose ■ himself in the stifling maze. That ! night he slept he knew not where, with | a block of chiseled stone for a pillow. A match light had shown him that he ! I was in a sort of cul-de-sac—a pile of j stone fragments, earth and bits of iron I barring the way, as it seemed, to future progress in that direction. This second night was a sorrowful one indeed. There were times when the poor fellow felt he should lose his senses. At last, however, he slept, and when lie awoke he struck one more match, and then, as Providence willed it, espied on the ground a morsel of | colored glass, as if it had fallen at some 1 time from a window. The sight in stantly made him forget his madden ing hunger and despair, and he set to 1 I work upon the barrier that was before J I him. i How he toiled at his task ! At first | I he burrowed with his lingers; latterly | lie used a sharp-edged piece of stone : i-Imped like a chisel. All (lay he worked. ! ' The wall diminished in thiekuess. A , mkluhi lev:.'- " ftir in his face 1 old I him he had made a clean breach seme where, though he could not feel where. He worked on through the night. His wedding day dawned above, and he was still boring in this noisome hole for dear life and his bride. Gradually the current of air increased in volume, and at length he had mad# a passage through which he could worm his way. Ho looked at his watch by the light of his last match but one; It was o'clock of his wedding morning. Though ready to faint from fatigue and exhaustion, he went on in this new passage, groping like a mole. It seemed to him that 110 had lived all his days in darkness. Ten o'clock! Half past 10! A quarter to 11! At a quarter to 11 he was suddenly dazzled by a faint streak of blessed daylight. It was far iu front of him, or seemed so. He ran towards it on hands and knees, touched a wooden door with his fingers, uttered a cry of joy,pushed the door, which yielded, and saw be fore him a thick red curtain, which he recognized in a moment as belonging to the vestry of Tong Church. Three minutes to 11, and still no bridegroom ! A second luter, however, Jack Dantin staggered from the vestry door into the church and saw and was seen by the wedding party—a sorry spectacle of mud and mire, bruised and bleeding, and with his clothing torn in all directions. "I am not too late, after all," he cried, and then down he fell by the altar railings. Home one also fell almost at the same instant. Philip Dantin went pale as a corpse when he saw liis brother. He made a step toward Eva, whispered "Forgive" in a hoarse voice and reeled I upon the pavement. ! Philip Dantin's mind was unhinged | by his crime and its consequences. He ; lived for several weeks and then died. | Before his death, however, Jack freely I forgave him the cruel deed which he 1 had wrought in a moment of jealousy that was close kin to insanity. The secret of it stayed in his own breast, - though others had inklings of it. Eva Darling was a bride in good earnest three days after her bride groom's startling entrance into the church. —Chambers's Journal. WISE WORDS. Work off in whispers your surplus words. Willful ignorance is an incurable ailment. Pedigree has ruined many a lino young man. There is nothing more contagious j than grumbling. I Do not force others to boar the bur- I den of your song. | Tt certainly takes very little to make vain people happy. , We follow precedent as long as it gives us the advantage. Take up the first cross you come to, and it will lie your right oue. i Tt is so easy to convert others. It is so di Hi cult to convert oneself. | It is much easier to be contented | without riches than it is with them. There is more help in an ounce of ' encouragement than there is in a ton i of advice. I To arrive at what oue really be ■ lieves, one must speak through lips different from one's own. j Home is the one spot where affec j tion dominates, the one school where i inimis become expanded and charac ters arc formed. Power will intoxicate the best hearts as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power. I As a inau may be eating all day, aud for want of digestion is never nour j islied, so endless readers may cram 1 themselves in vain with intellectual j food. i Home minds seem built iu water ' tight compartments, and the doors of I them are kept shut very close, HO that truths in the understanding have uo influence on the will. The Decay of Hooks. M. Delisle, the principal librarian at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, warns us that our modern literature is destined to perish. Of the 2000 and odd volumes published annually in France, not one, he thinks, will remain after H ' certain time. Cheap paper is a splen | did thing in its way, but this is the price we must pay for it. Old-fash ioned paper made from rags lias stood the test of hundreds of years, as the many line specimens of fifteenth-cen tury printing show, to say nothing of still earlier books in manuscript. Nowadays, however, paper is made of all sorts of material of a more or less perishable character. In particular, as M. Delisle points out, books printed on paper made from wood pulp, soon begin to rot away. At first the pages are covered by yellow spots, and these are replaced in course of time by holes. Even so-called hand made papers are often no more durable, being treated with chemicals that slowly destroy them. —London Daily News. She Shook." Queen Victoria is an excellent pian ist, with a remarkably correct car. The Baroness Bloomtield, in her "Re miniscences," relates how on one oc casion the queen asked her to sing, and she, with fear and trembling, wmg one of (Irisi's famous airs, but omitted the shake at the end. The queen im mediately detected the omission, and, similingly, her majesty said to Lady Normanby, her sister "Does not your sister shake, Lndy Xorinunby?" To which that lady prniuptlv replied: "Oli, yes, urn am ; she i shaking all over, "-'Argonaut, NEW YORK'S VINEYARDS. ONE OF THE WORLD S BEST GRAPE GROWING DISTRICTS. An Industry That Gives Employ ment to 25,000 People-Pick ing anl Packing llic Crop. THE wonderful growth of grape [ culture in New York Htatc I will come, we think, in the £ nature of a surprise to most | readers. The grape-growing districts of the Empire State are : The Hudson River district, situated in the counties of Orange, Ulster, Rockland, Putnam and Westchester, comprising 12,500 acres; the Lake Kenka district, in cluding Yates and Steuben Counties, of 14,000 acres; the Seneca, Wayne and Ontario districts, aggregating 6500 acres; the Chautauqua district, along the shores of Lake Erie in Chautauqua County, New York, and in Erie County, Pennsylvania, of 10,- 000 acres. As the grand total, New York with 43,000 acres of vineyard, is the second State in the Union in the extent and value of grape-growing, with Cali fornia in the lead. The grape industry in New York gives employment to over 25,000 people, and it represents an investment of $22,000,000. Some idea of New York's present and future wealth from grape-giowing can be gained from the figures col lected three years ago by the United States Census Bureau. The vintage of 1800 was a rare one. In that year the grape-growers of Now York sold over 15,000 tons of grapes to the wineries, and they shipped 49,000 tons, or 98,- 000,000 pounds of table grapes to Eastern markets principally, while several carloads went to England. Now, that portion of tho Empire State known ns the "lake region" is one of the best grape-growing districts in the world. We refer to the country | around the five lakes—Seneca, Kenka, Canaudaigua,Chautauqua and Erie. It is in this country that viticulture reaches its greatest excellence. Many vineyards are as clean and well kept us a garden, and the vines are not al lowed to run riot, but they are trained to climb about three lines of wire strung from posts, each about ten feet apart. The growing shoots are j trimmed back to the upper wire, 1 which is about four feet from the ground. Thus, the vineyard presents a very uniform appearance. The headquarters of the grape in dustry in New York are around Lake | Kenka, a beautiful sheet of water banked on either side by rows ami rows of green vines. Such is the landscape for twenty-fwo miles, and it puts one in mind of the grape districts of France and Germany. The vine yards on Bluff Point are worth going I miles to see. The vineyards look their best when the vines are ready to be stripped of their big clusters. The grape picking i begins early in September, after the berries put on their coats of many col ors. The fruit is strewn on a back ground, like the figured patterns of I an Axminster carpet. When the grape crop is ready for picking there is a call for "help." Ex ! pert pickers and packers are then in | demand. Young men, rosy-cheeked i girls and gray-haired matrons come to j tho vineyards from the neighboring i farms and villages. Most of the work - | ers look eagerly forward to the grape crop from year to year, and they de- I pend upon "grape money" for winter supplies. The gray dawn of the morning finds the workers in the vineyard while the dew is on the leaves. That is the time to see the picturesque side of grape i growing. The grape crop is picked in i boxes which hold from thirty to forty ; pounds when they arc full. ' The piek j ers cut oft' the grapes with a pair of j shears, which have a coiled spring in ' the handle to give strength. When the boxes havobeen filled they are car ried to the end of the lows, where there is a roadway. The boxes are gathered twice a day and carted to the packing-house. An expert picker will fill from twenty to thirty boxes a day. The workers are paid usually by the day, sometimes by the box. The wages paid to grape-pickers and pack ers average about one dollar per day and "board." The number of crates and baskets required iu a season to send the grape crop to market is enormous. The bulk of the Hudson River crop is shipped loosely in crates. The fruit from Western New York comes in five and ten-pound baskets. In the Lake Kenka district alone there are eight factories having an output of three million ! baskets. The number of cars sent from the New York lake region last year was j about 3800. As each car holds 2750 1 baskets, the reader can have some idea of the quantity of grapes that is raised I in the grape country. Few baskets are found misbing—the loss does not amount to one in one thousand. The grape industry in New York was started along the shores of Kenka j Lake about forty years ago. It be- j came firmly rooted' about war time, say 1863. The Hudson River grape! business also dates from this time, j After the war money was plenty, and grapes brought fancy prices. The re sult was a "boom" in the business. ! For several years the grape crop | yielded tho growers big returns. It ; was a time when "grape land" was j held at five hundred dollars per acre. | Hie same land to-day can be bought for less than half that figure. In those days the prices of the fruit ranged from fifteen to twenty cents per pound. Even the wine cellars paid ten cents per pounds for grapes. At the present time the average mar ket price for grapes is from three to five cents per pound, and the wine ! cellars do not pay over one or two cents per pound for grapes* and tliev . can get all the fruit they want at those prices. \ The New York grape-growers hare found it to their interest to organize, iu order to avoid competition. The Chautauqua growers have displayed' considerable energy in protecting their interests. They have organized a cor poration known as the Chautauqua and North-East Grape Union, with head quarters at Brockton. The object of the organization is a three-fold one, I t\, first, to obtain good prices for ! grapes ; secondly, to meet the comnhs , sion merchants and speculators onr I equal terms, and, lastly, to ship only I first-class fruit. Thus, every grower who is a member is required to put his name, together with the seal of tho union on his baskets, and each packer must place his number in the basket. If the paekihg is badly done, it can be traced to the person who did it; if the grapes are poor, they can be followed back to the grower. The bulk of the grapes grown in j New York nre used for table purposes. Only one-fourth of the crop is made ! into wines. It is just the reverse in l California, where four-fifths of the grapes are turned into wine. Now thai . the art of preserving grapes is under stood, the growers have a long range I of season in which to supply the mar kets. Home years ago grapes grown | out-doors could not be had for love or money after December.' If Mrs. Dia mond-Lace wanted grapes in midwin ter for her guests, she paid one dollar a pound for hot-house fruit. This . winter the lady can buy all she wants | at fifteen or twenty cents a ppuud. , Frank Leslie's Weekly. SELECT SI FT I > US. ~ j In 1882 Paris had 685,000 flats?"' The onion is one of the oldest\of j edible vegetables. j| One of the curious laws of the Koran forbids the faithful to read romances. There were 402,000 men on the field ! of Hadowo, of whom 33,000 were killed or disabled. Masked men in Mansfield, Mass., I entered a house and carried off itt j parlor organ. • | Down to the year 1870 Krupp had delivered to various European Nation! over 15,000 cannon. At Borodino 250,000 French anc | Russians fought, and the dead anu I wounded numbered 78,000. * In 1304 t he Royal Library of Franc* contained twenty volumes, and was th 6 | largest possessed by any King in | Europe. An employe of a Washington hotel ' is able, it is said, to wash and dry over 1000 dishes an hour and put them iu their proper places. \ The diamond, though hard, is one of the most brittle stones. A fall on a wooden floor will sometimes crack and ruin a fine specimen. The ouly instance of perfectly suc cessful collaboration ill English litera ture is found in the dramatic works of Beaumont and Fletcher. The manuscripts of Tasso, which j are still preserved, are illegible from the immense number of erasures, i changes and emendations. I Virgilius, Bishop of Salzburg, was i declared a heretic in the fourteenth i century for publishing a book to prove that there were antipodes. France, us shown by the window : tax, has 2,047,060 houses of one win dow each, 3,658,000 of two to four, and 3,376,000 of five or more, i Cedar City, Utah, boasts of over sixty young men who are over six feet tall, and the girls of that town are very proud of their stalwart protectors, j One of the most thoroughly original j works in English is "Bedlam," a play in twenty-five acts. It was written by Nat Lee when confined in a madhouse. Italy gives the world outside her borders 2,500,000,000 oranges ; Spain, ' 1,400,000,000; Portugal, 80,000,000; , Paraguay, 60,000,000; Florida, nearly i as many us Paraguay. ( i The first cab applied to a locomotive I in New England was put on the Tartar, • belonging to the Boston & Albany. It I consisted of corner posts with canvas ' stretched between them. . An Amsterdam lapidary lias a ! machine which can pierce a hole as small as one one-thousandth of an inch iu diameter. The holes are made iu diamonds, sapphires and rubies. A Good Horse Story. ' "Of courso horses cannot talk, but they understand each other just the same," remarked Peter Noell, one of ! the oldest and best known drivers on the Spring Grove line of cars, j "For a long time I have been driving a sturdy, solid old bay. There is nothing fast about him, but when it comes to pulling he can discount any other horse owned by the company. He kuows, too, when he is hitched up with a Via Iky mate, and it is from his actions on occasions of that kind that 1 am convinced that horses understand each other. When he is iu harness with a balky partner he will stand per fectly still and let the other do all the prancing and kicking. "When it quiets down a bit he will rub its neck and put his nose up to its ear, as if endeavoring to whisper to it. When it becomes quiet the old fellow will make a move as if to start. If the other takes the cue, well and good; but if there is but oue bit of rearing or jumping he will settle back in his place and repeat tho neck rubbing and supposed whispering operations. The second one is generally successful, and with a &ight neigh, as if his ef forts had proved successful, the old fellow starts the car all by himself. I tell you he can cure more balky horses of their bad habits and in quicker time Mian all the trainers in Cincin nati jmt together. "-—Cincinnati Com mercial Gazette.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers