Lord Charles Beresford has startled
England by saying that money is tho
open sesame to tho highest society of
Great Britain.
The Minnesota Agricultural School
teaches our girls how to sow wheat,
but how many of them know how to
sew a cotton patch?
Those individuals who take pleasure
in statistics of the elongated kind will
he pleased to know that Lord Kelvin
calculates that the number of mole
cules in a cubic inch of any gas is
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. He
also declares that in each of those
molecules thero are several atoms
moving among thcmsolvcs at the rate
of seventy miles a minute. If any
man ought to know all this it is Lord
Kelvin. But is he quito sure of the
number of these little molecular fel
lows to within, say, a million?
An ludiauapolis paper states that
an investigation in that city has shown
lhat the prevailing epidemic of diph
theria among school children has been
spread through tho distribution of
pencils and penholders in the schools.
Under the system in vogue each child
is required to take its pencils and
pens to the teacher's desk in the after
noon. They are placed in a box to
gether, and the next morning are re
distributed. Each child may thus
have a different pencil and penholder
each day, and as children often hold
them in their mouths, tho doctors say
the disease is thus communicated.
Hereafter all pencils and penholdei'3
will be disinfected each afternoon.
Report comes to the New York Tri
bune on excellent authority that
"there aro hundreds of men in the
Klondike region who will not work
and earn a living when they bavo a
chance, but persist in remaining idle
and awaiting relief from the Govern
ment. They are the fellows who went
up there with the deliberate expecta
tion of being 'relieved' and brought
back at the expense of tho honest and
industrious taxpayers of tho Nation.
Probably it will be well to fetch thcm :
back in a chain-gang, and set them at
work for a year after getting here, to
pay for their food and exportation.
They might find breaking stono on
the highways a little different from
picking up nuggets on the Yukon."
Persons can usually tell how a
thing will feel by looking at it; the
smell ofteu reveals what the taste will
be like, and sound sometimes suggests
the appearance. Perhaps this all goes
to prove that certain nerves are com
mon to all tho senses; perhaps it
doesn't. Possibly the explanation
may be found in prior knowledge and
a skill of comparison coupled with a
little imagination. A Gorman profes
sor has found out that certain musi
cal sounds produce on the oyes of the
blind certain idea 3 of color; a high,
soft note producing pink; a high, loud
note, violet; a low soft note, red, and
a low, loud note, indigo, etc. Quality
and quantity of tone are always repre
sented by opposite sides of the pris
matic disk. This is very wonderful
and may lead to astonishing results.
It may bo found that certain colors
give to the deaf impressions*, of musi
cal sounds. Then one might sit be
fore a ribbon of variegated colors run
between two flywheels and on joy al'
the fascinating emotions produced by
the grand opera.
Is the English language destined to
become universal? This question is
suggested by tbo marvelous growth
which has characterized the language
since the beginning of present
century. While there were only some
21,000,000 people who spoke the
English language at the beginning o\
the century, there are now some 130,
000,000. These English-speaking
people are not restricted to Grea
Britain and America, but arc scatterec
about over the entire globe. As com
pared with other languages, the
growth of our mother tongue is all the
more significant. At the beginning oi
tre century the world's most populai
language was French, which was spok
en by 31,000,000 people. As to tho
o'hers, German was spoken by 30,-
000,000 people, Russian by 30,000,000,
•Spanish by 27,000,000, English by
21,000,000 and Italian by 16,000,000.
At the present time English is the
language of 130,000,000 people, Rus
sian of 75,000,000, German of 70,-
000,000, Fronch of 45,000,000,[Spanish
Of 44,000,000 and Italian of 35,000,-
000. According to those figures the
Engl'sh language has mounted during
the present century from the fifth
place to the first, and is to-day sjioker
by nearly fivo times as many people
spoke t in 1800. While the various
other languages have made some
progress during this period, they can
not begin to compare in point oi
Towth with tlje English. .
THE LAST SUMMONS.
I would not die fn springtime,
When nature llrst awakes—
When meu get out their wheelbarrows,
And spades, and hoes, and rakes,
And twist their backs, and plant their
seeds,
And wait to hear them sprout.
While yet they stone their neighbors' hens
That come to scratch them out.
I would not die in summer,
When everything is ripe,
And fallen man is writhing
In raw cucumber's gripe:
When baseball cranks are talking,
And all the landscape o'er
Is sprinkled thick with flowers
And "garden suss" galore.
1 A Romance of New York. 1
HH Hi
jd. HE habitues
g&gxO - (to °® a sma "
French re
— staurant 011
J*" Weßt
lap Side were
■ recently the
Qgf~ ttnD guests at a
humble wed
i_T© ding recep
tion, which was the upshot of one of
the most pathetic chance meetings
that ever were brought about by the
surgiug ocean of cosmopolitan life in
this greatest of cosmopolitan cities.
The customers of the restaurant con
stitute one of the thousands of little
worlds of which the American metro
polis is made up, and for two or three
mouths a Russian artist and a Polish
piano teacher formed a separate micro
cosm in that world. The other
frequenters of the place are French
men, French Canadians, Swiss and
Belgians, but Aleksey Alekseevitch
Smirnoff and Panna (Polish for Mrs.)
lioushetzka are natives of Russia. It
was not until they had taken their
supper at the same table every even
ing for several weeks that each of
them became aware of the other's
knowledge of Russian, and the fact
thrilled them both like the sudden
discovery of a close blood relationship.
But there was a far more interesting
and, as it has since proved, a far more
important revelation in store for them.
Panna Roushetzka was a woman of
thirty-live, a well- preserved brunette,
slender and stately, and with features
somewhat irregular, but full of typical
Polish grace. Hlie had beeu educated
partly in Russia and partly in Paris.
She had come to New York, after
losing her husband, with a small so
prano voice and with great musical as
pirations. The voice had deserted
her before her ambitious wore on the
road to realization, and, heartbroken
and penniless, she was driven to take
up piauo lessons as a means of liveli
hood.
Smirnoff was a bachelor, some twen
ty-three years her senior, though he
looked fully ten years younger than
his age. Tall and wide awake, with a
brisk military carriage, a military
steel-gray mustache and blond hair,
unstreaked with silver save at the
temples, he appeared in the prime of
health and activity, while his never
failing good humor and hearty, sonor
ous, .genuinely Muscovite laughter
made one feel in the presence of a
young man of twenty-five. That had
been his actual age when ho left his
native country, and after some three
decades of peregrination in Western
Europe he had at last settled down in
New York. He is a jack of all trades
and master of quite a few, and al
though free-hand drawing is one of his
strongest points he is clever enough
with his pencil to meet the require
ments of a small electro-engraving es
tablishment, whore ho has steady em
ployment at a modest salary.
The language of the restaurant is
French, spoken with a dozen different
accents. One day, however, when the
soup was exceptionally satisfactory,
and Smirnoff, who is something of an
epicure, was going oil' in ecstasies over
it, a word of his native tongue es
caped his lips. "Slavny (capital)
soup!" he murmured to himself, as he
was bringing the second spoonful un
der his mustache.
Tho piano teacher started.
"What is that you said just now—
'slavny soup?' 'she inquired, with a
Qusli of agreeable surprise.
This was the way they came to speak
Russian to each other, and from that
evening on it was thelauguage of their
conversations at the restaurant table.
Although there are many thousands of
Russian-speaking immigrants in New
York, the artist and tho music teacher
felt in the French restaurant like tho
only two Russians thrown together in
a foreign country, and tho little place
which had hitherto drawn them to the
quality of its suppers and its genial
comjmny now acquired a new charm
for them.
They delighted to converse in Rus
sian, and the privacy which it lent to
their chats, in the midst of people who
could not understand a word of what
they were saying to each other, be
came the bond of a more intimate ac
quaintance between the two. They
were reticent on tho subject of their
antecedents, but both were well read
aud traveled, and there was no lack of
topics in things bearing upon Russia,
Paris, current American life, the stage,
art, literature and tho like. Tho gal
lant old Russian was full of the most
interesting information and anecdotes,
and, their friendship growing apace,
ho gradually came to introduce into
his talks bits of autobiography, though
they were all of the most modest
nature, and lie seemed to steer clear
of a certain event which formed a
memorable epoch iii the story of his
life.
Panna Rouslietzka neither asked
him questions uor saw tit to initiate
him into some of the more intimate de-
I would not die In autumn.
When football has the call, *
And long-haired youths are training
Some other youths to maul;
When polities is booming—
Thanksgiving close ut hand;
And cider mills are running
Throughout the happy laud,
I would not die in winter,
E'en though it bo so drear.
For then, you see, there's Christmas,
With all its goodly cheer.
No, I'd not die in winter,
Nor summer, spring, nor fall—
And come to think it over,
1 would not die ut all.
—Boston Tost.
tails of her own life, though by this
time it was becoming clearer to her
every day that her Russian friend was
in love with her and about to approach
her with a proposal which she was by
no means inclined to accept. And
yet, like many another woman under
similar circumstances, she was flat
tered by his passion, and, being
drawn to him by the magnetism of
sincere friendship, she had not the
heart to cut their agreeable acquaint
ance short.
He procured some lessons for her,
escorting her home after supper and
took her to theatres and public lec
tures. All of which attention she
would accept with secret self-condem
nation, each time vowing in her heart
that on the following evening she
would change her restaurant. Never
theless, and perhaps unbeknown to
herself, she even grew exacting, and
on one occasion, when she had ex
pressed a desire to see Duse in Mag
da, and he remarked thereupon, with
a profusion of impulsive apologies,that
he was kept from the pleasure of tak
ing her to tho performance by a previ
ous engagement, her face fell, and for
five minutes she did not answer his
questions and witticisms except in
rigid monosyllables. This angnred
well for him, he thought. He did not
yield, but at the next walk they took
together he "popped the question" in
u rathor original way.
They stood in front of the house in
which she had her room. He had bid
her good-night and was about to dolf
his hat with that dashing sweep of his
which makes him ten years younger,
when ho checked himself, and said, as
though in jest:
"Is it not foolish, Panna F.oush
etzka?"
"What is foolish?" she queried,
without a shadow of presentiment as to
what was coming.
"Why, the way we go on living
separately, each without what could
justly be called a home. lam madly
in love with you, Panna Koushetzka,
and I feel like devoting my life to
your happiness."
She stood eyeing the door of a
house across the street and made no
response.
"Panna Eonshetzkal" ho implored
her tremulously.
"I'll give you my answer to-mor
row," she whispered.
"Mine. Koushetzka hns not come
yet, has she? Any letters for me?"
Smirnoff asked the next evening, as ho
entered the little restaurant with his
usual blitheness. Like some others
of the customers he received his mail
at the restaurateur's address.
Tho Frenchman handed him a letter.
When ho opened it he read, in Rus
sian, the following:
"Much respected Aleksey Alekse
cvitch—l am the unhnppiest woman
in the world to-day. I confess I was
not blind to the nature of your feel
ings toward me, but was too much of
a woman and an egoist to forego the
pleasure of your very ilatteriug kind
ness to me. Forgive me, I pray you,
dear Aleksey Alekseeviteli; but my
answer must be of a negative charac
ter. I have been crying like a baby
since last night for having led you
into a false position. Do forgive me.
Your sincere friend,
"Maria Rourhetzka."
"Do you forgive me? I beg you
again aud again."
Smirnoff had had too many suc
cesses and failures in life to let this
defeat hurt his pride deeply. But he
was overcome with a poignant sense
of loneliness, coupled with a cruol
consciousness of his old age. At the
same time ho sincerely regretted the
pain he had caused tho widow, and
out of sympathy for her as well as for
the opportunity of seeing her, he
secured another interview with her,
which took place in one of tho remote
nooks of Toiupkins Square.
"I wish to reassure you, Panna
Roushetzka," ho said, gravely, "and
to restore peace to your mind. I love
you, and your letter leaves me
more wretched and desolate than I
over felt before, but believe me your
happiness is dearer to 1110 than my
own, and siuce you find that it would
be disturbed by your marrying me I
am resigned to my fate."
The panna was overjoyed and
thanked liim heartily for this friend
ship, and yet his ready surrender, tho
ease with which he was getting recon
ciled to her refusal nettled her.
However, ho did not seem as light
hearted as ho was aliectiug to be, and
the perception of it was a source of
mixed exultation and commiseration
to her. Ho was uncommonly efi'usivo
and sentimental, and as if byway of
bidding her melancholy farewell lie
launched out, describiug bis past, she
listening to his disconsolate accents
with heart-wringing interest.
"I know it is foolish for me to ob
trude my personal reminiscences upon
you. Why should you be bored with
tho humdrum details of the life of a
man who is a perfect stranger to yon.
Yet I cannot help speaking of it at
this minuto. I feel sheepish, like a
nchoolboy, but it somehow relieves my
overburdened heart. You will excuse
me."
Kho was burning to offer some word
of encouragement, to assure him of
I her profound respect aud friendship,
and of her interest in everything he
had to say, but her tongue seemed
grown fast to her palate aud she could
not utter a syllable.
"It was many years ago that I was
toru from my dear native soil and
from a splendid career," he proceeded,
egged on by the very taciturnity of
his interlocutor. "I was a young fel
low and an officer in the army then,
with a most promising future before
me. It was during the Polish insur
rection of tho early sixties. My regi
ment was stationed at the Government
city of N."
The panna gave a start, and a volley
of questions trembled on the tip of her
tongue, but she somehow could not
bring herself to interrupt him.
"I had been recently graduated
from the military school, and that was
my first commission," he went on. "I
had many friends in the regiment,
and among them a young Polish offi
cer named Staukevitch."
Panna Roushetzka remained petri
fied., After a while she made out to
inquire: "Staukevitch, did you say?"
"Why, have you heard of him or
some of bio family?" Smirnoff asked,
eagerly.
"No, I am simply interested in
what you are relating. Proceed
please."
"Well, he was the most delightful
fellow in the whole lot of us, but he
did not know how to take care of him
self, and paid his life for it, poor boy.
His heart was with the insurgents,
and I knew it and begged him to be
guarded, but he was too much of a
patriot to allow the instinct of self
preservation to get tho better of his
revolutionaay sympathies. One day
when tho Cossacks had looted the
house of a Polish nobleman and takeu
tho owner and his family prisoners,
my friend gave loud utterances to his
overbrimming feelings in the Officer's
Club, cursing the Government and
vowing vengeance.
"You must havo heard how strict
things were in those days. The city
of N was in a state of siege, mar
tial law prevailed, and the most peace
ful citizens were afraid of their own
shadows. Well, poor dear Staukevitch
was court-martialled and sentenced to
be shot within twenty-four hours by a
line of soldiers from the very company
of which he had been in command.
And who was to take charge of the
shooting and utter the fntal word to
the soldiers but I, his best friend, who
was ready to die for him."
Smirnoff said it with a grim sort of
composure, and then broke off abruptly
and fell into a muse.
"Well?" the widow demanded, in a
strange voice, which he mistook for a
mere mark of interest in a thrilling
story.
"Well," ho resumed, "I did not, of
course, utter the terrible word, but at
the very moment I was to do so I fell
on tho ground in a feigned swoon. My
place was instantly taken by another
officer and I was since then branded
as a coward, aud had no choice but to
resign my commission and to become
tho rolling stone that I have been ever
since."
Ho went on narrating some of his
subsequent experiences in foreign
countries, but the widow did not hear
him. All at once she interrupted
him.
"Don't tell me about that, prry.
Better tell me more about that friend
of yours—Staukevitch," and, succumb
ing to an overflow of emotions, she
burst out, sobbingly: "I know yon.
I have your photograph, Staukevitch
was my father!"
"Ma-ma-marusia! Is that you?"
the old man shrieked, jumping to his
feet and seizing her by both hands.
"Dear,little Mnrusia! Why, when
you were a morsel of a thing I used to
play with you."
"I know," she rejoined, "and now
thnt you say it I can recognize your
face by the faded old portrait I have
in my album. \ r ou were photographed
together with my unhappy papa.
Mamma left me the picture. I did
not remember your name, but I heard
the story from mother when I was a
child, aud since then I have held the
portrait dear for your sake as well as
papa's. Of course it never occurred
to me that it was you, but now tho
identity of it is as clear as day tome."
She invited him to her lodgings,
where she introduced him to her laud
lady as tho best friend of her dead
father. They had a long and hearty
talk ovor the portrait and about the
persons and things it brought to the
old man's mind. And on the follow
ing evening, when he came to tho
French restaurant for his supper, he
found there a letter which read as fol
lows :
"Dear Alelcsey Alexseevitch—lt was
not yourself, but an utter stranger,
that I refused the other day. I have
loved you my whole life without know
ing you. The handsome officer who
ruined himself for ray poor father has
always been my ideal of a husband,
and, will you believe it, I never gave
up a vague sort of hope that he would
be mine. Your loving
"Marcsia."
—New York Post.
A Kcmuvlcablo Menu*
After partaking of ginger beer, ap
ples, nuts, chocolate, three bottle of
ginger ale, and some sherbet and
water at a picnic, and tllen putting
away his regular tea at home, a nine
year-old London boy complained of a
pain in hi 3 inside. The Coroner next
day called it gastro-enteritis.
It has been reported that Moham
medans will build a mosque in St.
Louis.
J GOOD ROADS NOTES. |
ji^oieioieisisi^^K^'SJes'efe^ssc^dl
General Stone on Stnto AM,
The subject of State ai.l for road
building was touched on by General
Stone, Chief of the Bureau of Good
j [toads of the Agricultural Department,
| in his address at the anuual conven
tion of the National Road Parliament.
He said:
| "The provision of State aid is the
| only possible method by which the
State and the corporate property of
the cities can aid in the building of
roads. Throughout the United States
the cities and corporations, as far as I
know, are quite willing to help, and
the only question is how they eitn do
i
j "It is of more vital importance to
I the cities to have good country roads
than it is to the people of the country
themselves. Every ounce of food
( that is consnmed in the cities must
j come from the country, and if the
! country roads were wiped out to-day,
the farmers could go right on living,
but tho people of the cities would
| havo to scatter to-morrow—they could
J not live a day. They are beginning
} to realize it; they are beginning to
| feel that they want a hand in the
building of the roads, and they have a
j feeling of very warm interest. A
i great many city people are going to
the country that formerly did not go
I at all, and they would go a great deal
more if they had good country roads,
and "State aid' is the only measure
I that any of us have been able to devise
by which city and corporate property
can aid in the development of the
country roads.
j "I was interested in what one gentle
| man said this morning, that in his own
township, his village and his bank
paid three-fourths of tho township tax,
and that was a fair contribution. That
| was unquestionably fair so far as his
township was concerned, but how
; about the next township that has no
village and 110 bank? Wo must look
beyond our own immediate neighbor
hood; we must cultivate a wider
I citizenship, and that feeling of wider
citizenship is growing—a feeling that
I tho favored localities must help those
! not so favored.
j "lam glad to say that the actual
possession of good roads, wherever I
have known it, has had a great effect
in developing that kinder feeling and
broader citizenship. It has been a
marked fact in New Jersey that the
localities which have taxed themselves
to get good roads are the first to vote
to give State aid to tho localities that
j have not good roads. Many men say
'We see the benefits of it; we have
tho benefits of it, and we can afford to
i help our neighbors enjoy it.' And
I you will find that tho movement for
State aid, wherever it goes, will help
to develop a broader citizenship,
i "I hope that some time Federal aid
j will broaden it still more. I hope
1 that the people of the United States,
j in the more-favored regions, will feel
j disposed, as they got the benefit of
good roads themselves, to help confer
those benefits upon the regions that
I havo not the advantages. I believe
! that every step taken, every judicious
step taken towards bringing about the
aid of the Federal Government to
wards general road improvement will
help to develop that feeling all through
the United States; that we havo got to
consider something beyond our own
neighborhoods, beyond our own
Counties and beyond our own States.
We have got to look over the whole
field of tho United States and see
j what the General Government can do
to help the people who need this kind
| of help everywhere."
Good iiiul Clicait lioacls. ' •
The interesting fact was reported by
Abbeville that with road machines and
| convict labor the cost of improving the
roads, even in that hilly and clayey
county, was only from go to g(i per
mile. Darlington, which employs like
machines and labor, reported the cost
of the couviot force last year at twenty
five cents a day per convict, and only
j fifteen cents this year. On basis
| of "cost" exhibited in these counties it
ought to be practicable certainly for
! any county to make good roads that
| wants them. Anderson paid for its
: "machines," which are operated by
I convict, labor, by means of "a f mill
levy" with sandy soil; operates "aroad
machine" with convict labor and has
found the system "satisfactory." The
"old system" still obtains in Chester
County, where "the soil is red and the
j county hilly," but systematic work
j with the chain gangs has made the
] roads "much better," nud the value of
j property, it is said, has been "en
hanced by virtue of these improve
! ments." Dnrlingtou makes a special
j report, which is of great interest. The
| snudy roads in that county have been
1 "improved" by the plan of spreading
a layer of clay on their surface. A
| layer of "six inches in depth" has
j made a "firm, hard roadway," where
j there was a soft, sandy one before,
i which, when properly drained, has
; given satisfaction.—Charleston News
and Courier.
Up lo tho Times.
Some of the best roads in Tennessee
are claimed by Hamilton County.
They are so well appreciated by ail
classes that the Chattanooga News says
"there is a growing tendency among
the farmers along our good roads to
| buy wheels, and this season finds hun
dreds of them that used to have to
| hitch up their teams and take from two
| to five hours for a trip to town now
come in on their wheel and are back
home in less time than it used to take
j them to make the trip one way. Thus
| tho old world 'do move,' nnd the farm
| ers are not the least among the pro
gressive of their brethren."
Comprehensive Ahns in Floriila.
To benefit morally, mentally and
materially every resident of the State;
to encourage immigration; to estab
>.ish new enterprises; to increase the
value of every acre of good land; to
set the debtor free by enabling him to
pay his debts: to aid the growth of
moral and religious sentiment in the
rural districts by making smooth the
road to church, and to confer upon
future generations the great boon of
general education by removing the
chief obstacles to attendance at school
—bad roads and poverty, are the aims
of the Florida Good Boads Associa
tion.
For Iloatl Surfacing.
Here is a scheme for providing
crushed stone ready at hand for sur
facing country roads. In many sec
tions of the Middle and Eastern
States old tottering stone walls flank
the highway 011 either side. Owners
would generally be glad to get rid of
these old walls. Let a traction engine
propel the crusher along the road and
furnish power to do the crushing, the
old walls to provide the material,
which is thus left exactly where it is
needed without the necessity of twice
handling.—New England Homestead.
Most Tremendous Canon in the World.
It is abruptly countersunk in the
forest plateau, so that you see nothing
of it uutil you aro suddenly stopped
011 its blink, witli its immeasurable
wealth of divinely-colored and sculp
tured buildings before you and be
neath you. No matter how far you
may have wandered hitherto, or how
many famous gorges and valleys you
have seen, this one, the Grand Canon
of the Colorado, will seem as novel to
you, as unearthly iu tho color and
grandeur nnd quantity of its architec
ture, as if you had found it after death
on some other star; so incomparably
lovely and grand and supreme is it
above all the other delightful canons
in our lire-moulded, earthquake
shaken, rain-washed, wave-washed,
river and glncier-sculptnrod world.
It is about six thousand feet deep
where you first see it, and from rim
to rim ten to fifteen miles wide. And
instead of being dependent for interest
on waterfalls, depth, wall sculpture
and beauty of park-like floor, like most
other great canons, no waterfalls are
in sight, nnd no appreciable floor space.
The big river has just room enough to
flow and roar obscurely, here and
there groping its way as best it caD
like a weary, murmuring, overladoD
traveler trying to escape from the
tremendous bewildering labyrinthie
abyss, while its roar serves only to
mellow and deepen the silence. In
stead of being filled only with air, the
vast space between the walls is crowd
ed with Nature's grandest buildings—
a sublimo city of them painted in
every color of the rainbow and adorned
with riehlv-fretted cornice and battle
ment spire and tower in endless vari
ety of style and architecture. Every
architectural invention of mnn has
been anticipated and far more in this
grandest of God's terrestrial cities.—
John Muir, in the Atlantic.
Seal limiting a llrutal Industry.
Seal hunting in its legitimate form
upon land is brutal beyond other in
dustries because it depends for suc
cess upon qualities that we admire in
animals, tractability and tameness.
Attached to tho herd there is a contin
gent of youthful "bachelor" seals.
Their celibacy is enforced by the grufl
old dogs that keep all tho love-making
to themselves. It is the unfortunate
bachelors that are doomed to lose life
as well as love. They are not needed
in tho propagation of the species. The
world will not miss them dead, and
women desire their furs. Aleut In
dians, who share the islands with the
seals, separate a few bachelors from
the herd and drive them up the hills,
inland. The docile creatures flop
painfully along—no movement is as
awkward as tho progress of a seal out
of water—proceeding by short rushes
and long pauses at the rate of about
half a mile an hour. In six hours they
reach a secluded "killing ground." The
Indians separate them into groups,
select tho finest animals and beat them
to death with clubs—taking care not
to break tho furs, lest they be uuao
aoceptable upon Fifth avenue.—lllus
trated American.
Destruction of Disease Germ*.
A Russian bacteriologist, who has
made a specialty of studying the in
fluence of coffee in destroying disease
germs, is reported as having come to
the conclusion that, though coffee is
to some degree a disinfectant, the pro
perty in question really depends not
upon the active principle of coffee, 01
citl'ein, which it contains, but upon
the substances developed iu the roast
ing of the berry. It was found that
tho various substitutes for coffee are
also germicides, and, like it, develop
disinfectant properties during the
roasting process. Thus a watery in
fusion of either coffee or its substitutes
was found to bo capable of killing the
germs of cholera within a few hours,
and of typhoid fever within a some
what longer time. The conclusion
should not, however, be drawn from
these statements that either coffee or
its substitutes are to be considered of
value on account of their slight an
tiseptic properties, as too long a time
is required for the destruction of germs
by them.—New York Tribune.
Quean of the Seas.
Mrs. John Strachan has proved that
she can navigate a vessel. In Sydney,
Australia, she is known as "Queen of
the Seas" for the skill with which she
brought her husband's vessel into
port when he and all the crew were
laid low with virulent fever. But
despite her houorary title, Mrs.
Strachan may not win the less florid,
more practical one of "Second Officer."
She has applied for permission to
take the examination for a mate's
license, but it was refused her, al
though it is acknowledged that she
knows more about seamanship than
three-fourths of the candidates who
are allowed to obtain licenses.
WORDS OF WISDOM.
| Tbere is no education like adversity.
—Disraeli.
The greatest remedy for anger is de
lay.—Seneca.
Happiness cannot bo bought at a
bargain counter.
I There is only one real failure in life,
and that is the failure to be true totbe
best one knows.
When you think you oughtn't, then
yon want to; when you know you can't,
then you've got to.—New York Press.
Evil thoughts swarm only in unoc
cupied minds. Be busy about noble
things, if you would be saved from the
ignoble.
No matter what his rank or position
may be, the lover of books is the riohest
and happiest of tho children of men.
—Langford.
It's pretty hard for some people to
distinguish between what they think
they know and what they know they
think.—Puck.
"God bless you" is the old-fashioned
summing up of sincere affection, with
out the least smirk df stupid civility.
—George Eliot.
The world is full of men with no
other possession than experience, who
would be glad to sell it for less than
they paid for it.—Pnek.
Minds of great men may run in the
same channel, bnt somehow the chan
nel seems never to become over
crowded.—Philadelphia Press.
A Year's Heading.
"How many volumes can amanrcad
in the course of a year?" was the ques
tion recently put by a Washington
Star reporter to a gentleman whose
time is largely employed as a book re
viewer on one of the leading maga
zines.
"Well," said tho gentleman, point
ing to a row of books, "thero is a col
lected editiou of the English poets.
The work only comes down to Cowpcr,
who died in 1800, but it comprises
twenty-one volumes royal Svo, double
column, small typo. Each volume
averages 700 pages. This gives a total
of 14,700 pages, or 29,400 columns.
Now it takes—l have made the ex
periment—four minutes to read a
column of such matter with fair atten
tion. Here, then, is a good year's
work in reading over, only once, care
fully, a selection from the English
poets.
"The amount of reading, however,
which a student can get through in a
given time hardly admits of being
measured. The rate of reading varies
with the interest one takes in the snb
jeot matter of a book. In other words,
a page of Kant's "Critique of Pnre
Reason" requires proportionally more
thorough attention than the latest work
of fiction. Still, just to have some
thing to go by, it will be found pretty
accurate to make a calculation like
this: Suppose a man to be able to
l ead eight hours a day. No one can
really give his receptive or critical at
tention to printed matter for eight
hours regularly every day. But take
eight hours as the outside possibility.
Thirty pages, Bvo, is an average hour's
reading, taking one book with another.
This would make 240 pages per day,
IGBO per week, and 87,360 pages in
the year. Taking the average thiok
uoss of an Svo volume as 400 pages
only, the quantity of reading matter
which an intelligent student can get
over in a year is no more than qn
amount equal to about 220 volumes
Svo. Of course this is merely a me
chanical computation by which I would
not pretend to gauge the reading ca
pacity of the average student. But it
may be interesting to know that tho
merely mechanical limit of study is
Bomo 220 volumes Bvo per annum."
A Carious I'ockot Piece.
A Union Pacifio engineer has a
fashion of making unique pockot pieces
for his friends. He runs a passenger
engine west, and when oiling,previous
to a run, he drops a nickel five-cent
piece into the brass oilcup on the
crosshead of tho piston rod. His run
is 300 miles. When he reaches his
destination he unscrews the top of the
oilcup and takeß tho nickel out. It
has been metamorphosed into a ouri
ous little button with an evenly turned
rim, within which, on ono Bide, is the
countersunk head of Liberty divested
of her stars, and on the other side the
V and the wr.ath. The edge of the
crown is as perfect as if it had beon
pounded on an anvil by an expert sil
versmith.
Tho perfection of this is due to the
even vibration the ooin has been sub
jected to. The motion of the piston
is horizontal, and it travels forty-eight
inches, back and forth, with every
revolution of the wheels. The interior
I of the oilonp is round, and the edges
of the nickel as it travels back and
forth and the oil striking the sides ol
the eup, are turned over and pounded
I into perfect roundness. Sometime a
nickel is left in the cup during the
round trip, or 600 miles. When taken
out it is a niokel bullet, a perfect
i polished sphere. Who discovered this
unique method of turning the odges
j of a nickel is not known but many en
gineers know of it.—Chicago Tribune.
Owl Attacks Two Men.
It was an owl that caused the great
est .recent excitoment in Waldoboro
unless tha,Opinion's correspondent al
| lows himself to exaggerate. The bird
first swooped down on the head of Mr.
Moses Newbert, lacerating his head
and face severely, and making off with
Mr. Newbert's hat, which was found a
few days afterward back of Mr. Alden
Burnheimer's barn. He afterward at
tacked Mr. Elmus Shuman in the same
manner, nearly knocking him ovor.
Mr. Shuman in his excitement made a
grab and caught the wiso old owl by
the logs. He has him now in close
confinement. In tho fracas Mr. Sha
man's face wa3 somewhat mangled.—
Lewiston (Me.) Journal,