Wages of school teachers in Connec ticut have doubled in the past thirty five years. It seems to be the irony of fate that Greece should now be compelled to pay handsomely for the ineffable priv ilege of beiug thrashed. Hard times or not, the price of pictures seems to keep. At a sale in London the other day a work by Gainsborough sold for $25,000. The world's agriculture occupies the attention of 280,000,000 men, repre sents a capital of $24,000,000,000, and has an annual product of $20,000,000,- 000. _________ An ordinance has gone forth in Japan exhorting the people to eat more freely of meat, with a view to in creasing the average height of the race. A traveling evangelist in the West has an assistant stationed outside his meeting places, and every time he brings down a fresh sinner he signals to this man, who sends up a sky rocket. The Marquis Ito repudiates the idea that Japan wants to annex the Ha waiian Islands. He declares that "Japan does not want the islands as a gift. It only wants to see treaty rights observed." Portland, Oregon, has l'oriqed a Cit izens' Protective Association. The city has been steadily losing population and wealth, and the object of the as sociation is to encourage home trade and industries. The silver to be used in plating the "silver palace" at the Omaha (Neb.) Exposition has been furnished by Western miners. The metal, it seems, is, however, only on loan, and will be given back to the owners when the show closes. Every war vessel built for the Gov ernment by private enterprise has won a bonus of from SBO,OOO to $350,000 for making a little more speed than tlie contract requirement. "Why not raise the standard and save the bonuses?" asks the New York Press. The Berliu National Zeitnng thinks the American apple lias come to Ger many to stay. It is not only good, but can be sold in the streets at less than four cents a pound, and, what is most important of all, it keeps much longer than the German apple. New Jersey has made more progress recently in road construction than any other State. As a result the price of farm lands in New Jersey has advanced and many farms which had been aban doned because of the difficulty in mar keting their crops are now tenanted and cultivated. An English officer at Canea re marked the other day to a Russian; "I should like to sink this island and wash oft' the whole crowd—Cretans, Turks and Greeks!" "Yes," replied the Russian, "and when the island came up again, you would like to plant the British flag on top!" It is prob able that the one officer was as disin terested as the other. Germany, says the San Francißco Bulletin, seems to be forging ahead in the race for industrial greatness, if not supremacy. She already stands second among the Nations in the value of her exports and imports. Official figures put her exports and imports for 1895 at $1,926,729,000; England's were $3,- 125,820,000; France's, $1,366,167,600, and the United States', $1,544,770,000 Says the Jacksonville (Fla.) Me tropolis: "A few years ago the region of South Florida was one vast orange grove. The cold weather came and swept away the beautiful and profita ble trees. Now that secrtion is a to bacco farm, and it promises to be more remunerative than orauge-growing. It is not packing houses that we once heard so much about being constructed, but tobacco bouses to prepare the leaf for the market. It is said that where there is a will there is away, and this seems to be true of Florida. If they can't have one crop they can another. The soil yields bountifully, aud the year 1897 is going to prove u success ful one to the tobacco growers. Much of the tobacco, it is asserted, will prove the equal to that heretofore imported from Cuba. In fact, many of the na tives of that island are now engaged in the culture of the plant in the south ern counties of this State. Calamities come and calamities go, but the re sources of Florida go on forever, and a hack-set does not discourage other efforts to retrieve losses. We should be, if we are not, a happy people when there are so many opportunities to-be happy presented." r&ffctW f "'TIS LOVE THAT MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND." A thousand years ago, or more, A maiden and a youth Discovered for themselves ane.w An old, yet living truth; For through their love these lovers found 'Twas love that made the world go round. As youths aud maidens had before A thousand years ago and more. A thousand* years from now, or more, A youth will know the bliss Of gazing into eyes that flash The love-light back to his; And send the world for many a day A-sj.inning gayly on its way, A-spinning faster than before. Another thousand years, or more. And. Love, have you and I not found •'Tis love that makes the world go round? G list a v Kobbe, in Harper's Weekly. | THE END OF IT ALL ! f HAT'S the last word, is it?" It was Bale who ! asked the question. He I had screwed his courage to the sticking point at "That's the last word," said Selina, 'and to my mind, Mr. Tolley, it's a Int of a pity jt ever went so far." "As how?" said Bale. He was very gloomy and quiet, and unlike himself, and she had ceased to feel ufraid of him. "In this wise, Mr. Tolley," she an swered. "I never chose your com pany, and I never liked' it. I look on what you've said to me as a liberty. And f defy you to say I ever showed you u sign of encouragement to it." "That's true enough," said Bale gravely, and without touch of irony. "I'll do you that much credit, You've made it pretty clear as you disliked me from the beginning." "And that," the girl retorted, "is why I look on what you've said in the light of a liberty, Mr. Tolley." "It won't be repeated," Bale an swered. "Goodnight!" He lingered as if in expectation of an answer, but the girl turned away without a word. The garden gate clicked behind her, and Buie was left standing in the roadway. "Well," he said to himself, "it's what I looked for, and it fits my merits." He pulled a handful of loose tobacco from one pocket of his jacket and a pipe from the other. * Then, having stood for a minute or two with out a movement, he filled his pipe, lit it, and walked away. The girl meanwhile had reached the cottage kitchen. She took a candle stick from tlie high cliinineypiece, and set it on the table with an augrv emphasis. She stirred the waning fire with the same petulance, and, having thrust a thin sliver or two of wood between the bars, she knelt down before the grate and fanned the embers with her apron. When they blazed she drew out one of the sticks and lit the candle. As the wick be gan to burn she looked up and gave a faint cry at the sight of an unexpected figure in the room. "Mother!" she said, with a hand upon her heart. "How you frightened me!" "Hast no cause to be afraid o' me, wench," her mother answered, "So Bale's got the sack, has he?" "Got the sack?" Selina echoed. "No. He was never in my service." "He never got any wages, poor lad!" said the old woman. "That's another matter, however. In your service he has been this three year." "Well," returned Selina, "I never had any truck with him, and I never wanted any. And now, if that's what he wanted to know, he knows it." "Yes," said the old woman, knitting away with the same tranquillity, "you let him know it." "Why, mother," cried the girl, "what would you have me do? Did you expect me to say 'Yes!' to him?" "No, ray dear. It would ha' given me a rare sore heart to hear it. But I've known him since the day lie was born, and I've been sorry for him many time. He's a nobody's child, poor Bale is. He was bred on charity, and lie was made to feel it. He's gone wrong, my dear, like a good many more, because he'd hardly ever the chance to go right; but there was the makin's of u fine man in him. You was quite right to say him nay, but I could wish as you'd been gentle with him." Selina lit a second candle and sat down beside it with her sewing. " His father was a travel in' conjur or,*' said the old woman, after a long pause. "I saw him once alive, and a liner figure of a man I never saw. I helped to lay him out, poor fellow, that same night. He broke his back bone with a cannon ball doin' some juggler's trick with it. They said at the time he was in liquor, and he'd no right to do a dangerous thing like that at such a time. He'd built a bit of a tent across the road there on the waste ground, and there was the wife a-wuiting her confinement. The child wasn't born half an hour when some blunderiu' idiot told her tba news. That killed the mother. Then poor Tolley's wife took in the child and kept it, and we all helped a bit; and he growed up to be called Tolley. And us if he hadn't had misfortune enough to begin life with, old Tolley must needs go an' christeu the poor little ereetui' by his own name of Balaam, as VP been a laughing stock for the whole o' Castle Barfield for 'ears an* 'ears. He learned himself to read'an* write without any help as iver T heard on. He was put, to work at the pit bank by tbe time he was eight 'ears old, and he lerned himself the engine drivin' by looking at 1 lie engine an' watchin' the chaps at work at it. Poor Bale!" A bright drop or two fell from the girl's eyes and glistened on the stuff she was sewing. In the meantime, Bale, the rejected, had walked down into the valley, had lingered for a while at the forge gates to stare in at the wliite-hot, half-naked figures that dragged the bloom from the surface, and ran it on its iron trolley to the steam-hammer, and had waited to see it beaten from its incan descent heat to a dull red glow. "It takes good stuff to abide that kind of handling," said Bale. "The good stuff's the better for it. But it's no use trying it. on slag. As a matter of fact, you can't have the good stuff without it, but it's a pity to treat all sorts alike." He was making a parable of the matter in his own mind, and he walked on thinking of it in a" sore-hear ted and rather empty-headed fashion. He passed the frowsy town and came out on the road to Quarrymoor, with its almost instant hint of country odors in the darkened air. It was late spring weather, almost summer, and the smoke veil hung high and thin. The stars shone through it vaguely, and a .dew was falling. He walked on for an hour, clean into the country, not knowing or caring where his feet led him, and suddenly he was aware that the moon had risen, broad and full, and that a nightingale was sing ing. "Why, Bale, old lad!" a cheery voice called out. "What brings you here?" "There's a nightingale in the copice yonder," said Bale. "Listen!" They kept silence for a minute, and the bird's song, which had been checked at the sound of the footsteps, began again. The new-comer tidgetted a little, and after a minute or two said: "It's a pretty music enough. But who'd ha' thought of your caring for it, Bale? Going home again?" "Yes," said Bale. "At least—l don't know about home. I shall drop in at the Sir Ferdinand." "Ah!" cried the other,?striding 011 again with Bale at his side, "I should think that was more in your line." "Well, yes," said Bale, "I suppose it is. Shall we set ourselves to walk toward u glass?" "Why, no," said his companion. "Not to-night. I've better work on hand. You've always been a 1 rust worthy sort of chap in away, Bale. You can keep a secret?" "I've kept one or two," Bale ans wered. "Why," said the other. "The secret's this, Bale. I'm goiug to get married." "Oh!" said Bale. "You've squared the old lady, have you?" "Yes. I've squared the old lady, and I'm off now to the top of Hill Road, my lad, to carry the news to the young 'un." "The young lady?" said Bale. "The young lady," said his com panion. "She's been rare and down hearted this six months past about the old woman's opposition. She'll cheer up above a bit when I break the news to her. And look here, Bale, old lad. You and me have always had a liking one for another. There's a bit of a difference in our stations in life, but I've never made a difference on that account. Have I, now? Come! Have I?" "No," cried Bale; "you never have." "When a man's married," said the other, "he's got to let his wife have something of a say about the company he keeps. Now, sometimes you are a most extraordinary racketty chap, Bale. You know you are. Selina's got a bit of a down on you, old lad." "Don't you trouble about me, George," said Bale. "I know what Miss Rice thinks about me, and J know what I think about Miss Rice. We're never likely to trouble each other." "Why?" said the lucky lover, check ing his walk suddenly and facing round. "What do you think about Miss Rice?" "Oh!' cried Bale, "don't let's have any misunderstanding. I've the very highest opinion of Miss Rice. She's made up her mind that I'm a wastrel, i and she's let nie see her opinion. She's quite right, George—quite right. I am a wastrel. I'm no fit society for her, and if, as a married woman, Hhe makes up her uiind as I'm no fit com panion for her husband, why, all 1 say is, her will be done. I shall never think the worse of her. It's a woman's business to keep her own man straight. Well, here's the Sir Ferdinand. Good night, George, and good luck." "Not yet," returned George. "We haven't got to the bottom of what I wanted. Try and be a bit steady, Bale. That'll bring Selina round; and I'd like to see an old chum at the fireside now and then. I don't want to lose you, Bale." "Oh, well! We'll talk o' that an other time. Neither Miss Rice, as she is, nor Mrs. Truman, as she will be, wants me about her. Good night, George. We shall meet to-morrow," How Bale Tolley, who had gone to the bad this three years, went head long to the worse from that evening forward, is not worth telling, and yet was told in a thousand households. There was good choice of blackguard society in the neighborhood for any uiai} who cared to seek it. Bale found the yvgrse, and played the uncrowned king among it. His name grew to be a byword. Aqxious parents warped their sons against hip?. Only the old woman who had sometimes "moth ered" him in his lonely and miserable childhood had ever a sympathetic thought about him. "Poor Bale!" she would say to her self, for she hardly dared say it to an other, Bale was so flagrantly a sinner. "He's got the very look of his father on him. It might be printed 011 his hack and he 110 plainer reading. Ruined dare-devil. It's wrote large all over him. But he's a beautiful flgnre of a man to look at yet, an' if iver a child's heart was i' the right place, that child's was when he was a child." George Truman and Selina Rice were cried in church, lmt of this Bale knew nothing, for he did not mix with church-going people. But George nnd Selina were married, and that fact came to his hearing. Except Selina and her mother and Bale himself, no soul had an idea that it concerned him in the least. The married pair took up residence in their own house after a three days' trip, and George Truman went back to the office of the milling engineer who employed him. Bale drove his engines at the mine, the Three Crowns Yard; and a year went by. Then the two men met again, Bale in his laboring grime at the engines, and George in his more respectable working gear. "Hallo, Hale, old lad," said the lucky man, "how art? I've come to have a business look at things." "Going down?" asked Bale. George nodded and looked about him, rather evading Bale's eye than not, said ail indifferent thing or two about the weather and so on, and went his way. "Ting!" said the little bell. Bale handled his levers, and watched the dial face. "I could smash him like an egg," said Bale, "and not a living creature would think it was anything hut an ac cident." George's mind was in his work, and lie had 110 guess of what was passing in thoughts of the man who at the in stant controlled his destinies. The descending skip swung to its stopping place like a feather. The married man stepped out and made his way along the workings in pursuit of his own busi ness. The bachelor above ground folded his smeared arms across his chest, planted his hack against an iron upright which ran from floor to ceiling, and pulled at his pipe, awaiting the next signal. "Here, yon!" he shouted to the hoy who passed the door. "What do yoii mean by letting all this cotton-waste lie about here? Clear it out," "All right, gaffer," said the hoy. "In a minute." "Ting!" said the little bell. Bale set down his pipe, and took the levers. The pipe fell over. When his im mediate task was finished he looked for it, and could not find it. He raked the cotton-waste here and there with his foot. No pipe. Bale cursed a lit tle to relieve his feelings, "Ting!" said the little hell, and he went hack to his work. He swung the skip up, the careful eye seeking the dial every now and then. Being free once more, he began his search again. He'kicked the oily waste savagely, and all at once, as if it had been a living thing, a flame broke out at him. He raced swiftly to the door and shouted "Fire!" "Ting! ting! ting! ting-a-lingle-ling-ling-ling!" The little hell was mad. "Shaft afire!" roared a voice from the side ol' the distant downcast. "My God!" said Bale, and dashing hack to the engine house, he fought wildly with the growing flames. He stamped out the blazing waste, and turned again to his levers. Round spun the shining wheels. Smooth and steady went piston and crank, round crept the hand on the dial. He looked behind him and the floor was smoul dering. "Fire here!" he shouted. "Engine house afire!" "Ting!" snid the little bell. There were a hundred and J fifty men below, and he was their one helper. He obeyed the hell, and then rushed once more into the open, truinpetting with all his lungs. "Help here! Help! Engine house afire!" "Ting!" said the hell. The floor was crumbling with flame, and the partition wall had caught. It was bnilt of thin wood, and was dryer than tinder. The fire raged, and he was back at his lev ers in the midst of it—scorched, choked, blinded. Then help came with a roar of voices. "Ting!" said the inexorable hell. He held 011 to his post, fighting against death. Outside, men, • formed in line, passed buckets from hand to hand, ami the contents being dashed upon the flames filled the room with scalding steam. He could not see the dial any longer, but he worked by instinct, and the instinct never be trayed him once. "Ting!" nnd the first stage ol' the cage was filled with rescued men. "Ting!" and the sec ond stage was filled. "Ting!" and the third stage was filled. Then he tore her up like fire, cheeked her, coaxed her, stopped her to a foot. "Ting" and "Ting" and "Ting" and the three stages were empty, and that hatch of thirty was hack to life again. Then he sent her down like a stone, and lived along the plunge in his own mind until lie felt she should-he there. Instinct proved true again by the hell's voice. His body was in hell, hut his soul leaped with a passionate intoxication of revolt and mastery to defy its pains. The men outside dashed water on his burning elothes. They howled ap plause at him. Some among them wept as they cheered, and one went shrieking, with both hands writhing in the air, as if lie himself were tor tured. It was all done at last,'and there went up a cry of triumph terrible to hear. Bale reached the open air charred, blackened, scarce human to look at, and as he fell into the nearest comrade's arms the roof of the engine house dropped in. They car ried him to the nearest cottage, and all that could he done for him was done, lie was conscious to the end. and lie made shift to ash for Selina She came, her mother with her. "I wanted you to know," said Bale. "T could't lia' gone through with it if your George hadn't been down." Selina stopped and kissed him, her tears raining on his face. *'There, there!" said Bale. "That's the end of it all." God has made nothing stranger than man, to be blackguard and hero, devil and angel in a broath.—New York Journal 1 ! SCIENTIFIC AND INDUt{TRIAL, Medical experts are of the opinion that, shyness is simply a form of in sanity. The new naval observatory at Wash ington is one of the linest scientilio plants in the world. Aluminum, in plates a quarter ol an inch thick, has proven a very dura ble roofing material in Berlin. A German statistician estimates that 17,000,000 human beings lost their lives from earthquakes between the years 1187 and 188(5. At Berlin the veterinary school has found that out of 154 sick parrots lif ty-four were suffering from tubercu losis. The disease is hereditary in the birds. A late mysterious explosion in n colliery in South Wales appears quite certainly to have resulted from a spark caused by a heavy fall of the gritty snndstone roof. The world's production of coal lias almost doubled within the last fifteen years. In 1880 the aggregate output was 864,787,000 tons. In 1895 it had risen to (>88,'805,000 tons. The dust collected from the smoke ! of some Liege furnaces, burning coal raised from the neighboring mines, produces, when dissolved in hydro chloric acid, a solution from which considerable quantities of arsenic and several other metallic salts may be precipitated. A Danish scientist, Dr. Joliannson, of the Agricultural High School at Copenhagen has discovered that chloroform and ether have a wonderful power in awakening the vegetable kingdom", while they put the animal world asleep, a closed flower can be reopened instantly by either of these age.n ts. A queer sight was the ladies' night of a London microscopical club, where the guests sat around 304 microscopes listening to a lecturer. One of the curiosities shown was a chapter of St. John written on the two-thousandth part of a square inch, on which scale the whole Bible would cover just one square inch of space. A remarkable adulteration of saffron has been discovered by a German mi croscopist, who has found barium sul phate within the cells, and concludes that the drug was first soaked in a so lution of barium salt and then in a sul phate solution. Barium sulphate was thus precipitated within the substance of the drug as well as on the surface, rendering detection difficult. The geological fault of the Jordan- Arabah Valley has a length of two hundred and seventy miles or more from the Gulf of Akabah to the base of Hermon, and is undoubtedly much longer. Another great line of fracture is now reported from South Afghanis tan, where Captain A. H. McMahon has traced a remarkable trench for one hundred and twenty miles in > north northeast and south-southwest direc tion, finding it to be clearly a fault line. Climbing High Altitudes. All persons avlio have climbed great heights are aware that respiration be comes more or less difficult, the heart beats either very irregularly or with great rapidity, and nausea, exhaustion and other unpleasant sensations are experienced. Just what is the highest limit to which man can ascend and live has frequently been questioned. A scientist reached 15,000 feet about sea level without great trouble. The idea suggested itself—could he not create a rarefied atmosphere by a me chanical process? He jjrepared a very large pneumatic air chamber and rigged it with all the necessary appli ances. He shut himself in, then the air was rarefied to a degree which would probably he found at the height of 24,000 feet above sea level, then he became so distressed that the experi ment had to stop. As Mt. Everest is a mile higher than this simulated alti tude, we may naturally conclude that unless there are means provided for ussisting respiration, feet will never read the height on this globe. A Difficult.v in Tunnel Const ruction. One of the greatest difficulties to contend with in the construction of the Simplon tunnel will be the tempera ture. In the Gothard'and MoutCenis the maximum temperature was about eighty-seven degrees. This entailed much sickness among the workmen owing to the defective ventilation. In the case of the Simplon it is expected that ninety degrees will have to he met. It is proposed to make two pas sages, of which the smaller will only be used for ventilating. This is to he connected with the main boring by air-tight galleries at regular intervals, so that any section may he swept by a ourrent of fresh air when desired. A fine water spray will also be exten sively employed. Source ol' the Miggouri. An explorer Hays that the Missouri's source is at the crest of the Rockies, 8000 feel above the sea level, just "with in the boundary of Montana. The stream is two feet wide and two inches deep, its water coming from melted snow. This source is 4221 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and 2045 miles from its confluence with the Missis sippi, making the river the longest un broken current in the world. A DESERTION EPIDEMIC. WHEN SOLDIERS TOOK FRENCH LEAVE IN THE FEDERAL ARMY. At First the PuuialiiiieiilH Were Compar atively Light, But Later the Death Sentence Was Inflicted—A Solemn Scene—Why Men Sometime* Deserted. "Do you ever recall the desertion epidemic in the army?" "I do. They are among tlie sorrmv ful things connected with the war." .Then we two fell to talking about desertion and punishment for the crime, writes J. A. Watrous in the Chicago Times-Herald. "When the desertion epidemic first put in an appearance the punishments' were comparatively light, hut later it became necessary to inflict the severest penalty—death. During the winter of 18(13, when the severe punishments were decided upon, there were not many regiments exempt, from deser tions. Home of the deserters were overtaken and brought hack within two or three days. Even at that time their punishment dope-' led largely upon their former conduct as soldiers. X