FREELKKD TRIBUNE.! KSTA !51, ISIIKI) 18HS. PUBLISHKI> EVERY MONDAY, WEDNESDAY AND FRIDAY, ! BY THE TRIBUNE PRINTING COM7ATT. limilcJ l OFFICE; MAIN STREET ABOVE I'l NTHM. LONO DISTANCE TEI,BJHOM;. BUISSCIJ L I'TIOV KATES FREELAND. Thi'TURNINE infii'livered b.v j carriers to subseribers in Froclamlattho ratu ' ol' 1-Wj cent* por month, payabl • every two i months, or Si a yenr, payable in advance I The THIBUNE may be ordered direct form the ! carriers or from the rllleo. Complaints of 1 irregular or tirdv delivery service will re- j ceive prompt attention. BY MAIL —The TianrxE Is cent to out-of town subscribers for $1.5 > a year, payable in advance; pro rata terms for shorter perieds. The date when the subscription expires is on the uddress label of each paper. Prompt re newals must be made at the expiration, other wise the subscription will bo discontinued. Entered at the Postolllce at Freeland. Pa., as Second-Class Matter. Make all money orders, cheeks, etc. t pay n bli to the Tribune Vr.nting Company, Limited. It requires pluck to succeed in Wall street, and the most successful man is not particular as to whom he plucks. And now the X-rays may tell us whether old masters are genuine or not. The only thing that has nothing to fear from science is truth. The farmers of Southern Wiseonsfn are being rapidly supplied with tele phone service at sl2 por year; and in some cases electric cars stop at their front gates. It must be confessed that, at the present price of those vehicles, the inan who insists on buying an automo bile is bent on running through with his money. Tf you want to he really interested read the dictionary. It will tell you how very badly other people spell our language, and, incidentally, what a tiny cupful of words we each dip up out of its ocean. Thirty years ago the entire capital of the Standard Oil Company was sl,- 000.000. Now it pays dividends of $20,000,000 for three months, and you could not buy it out for $800,000,000. How'd you like to he the oil man? ; Professor Ilayes, of Wellesley Col lege says that unlike the men of Mas sachusetts those of Patagonia make equals of their wives. Yet, we have never heard a Massachusetts woman express a desire to exchange places ! with her sister of Patagonia. The Washington Humane Associa tion has adopted a resolution declaring against the clipping of horses in win- | tor as cruel. One member expressed tlie opinion that in some peculiar cases tlie effect was beneficial, but he said that as a general thing he was opposed to it. A man in New Jersey has had a young woman arrested because she kissed him on the street against his will. What is a man worth, anyway, who has to be kissed "against his j will?" And what Is a woman worth i who can't make the man dream that h I you going to show me the way to my i uncle's library?" Elpie indicated it in fear and trem bling and returned to her seat. In about a qtidrter of an hour Norman Kemp re-entered flushed and excited. 1 "I have found it! There's nothing i like determination, little cousin. Con , coaled—where do you think? In the flap , of the cover of the old family Bible. Of course. Mrs. Kemp will say she knew nothing of it." He began to read it, then uttered an exclamation. "Anu here's - mention of you, little one. 'And where- I as, I have undertaken to provide for ( my cousin's child, Elspeth Grey, I do hereby bequeath to_ the said Elspeth ! Grey tho sum of $10",000, to be kept in trust by my wife until the aforesaid Elspeth shall reach the age 18.' How old are you, Elpie?" "I was 18 in July," faltered Elpie. "Then you can claim your rights at once. I shall see after your claims as well as my own. Now I am going, lit tle cousin, straight to tho lawyers. Goodby, Elpie." Elpie's heart thrilled strangely as ■ her companion's black eyes looked into her face. Me took her hand, then sud denly raised it to his lips. "Forgive me; I couldn't help it. I am your cousin, you know, and you are a brave and true little girl. Goodby, Elpie; I shall soon see you again." And this strange burglar was gone, j A year later they met again. Nor man Kemp was in full possession of his property, and Elpie, who had the ; modest income of SGOO from her well 1 invested inheritance, had been spend- i ing some months abroad with friends. I The Kemps, discovered in what had really been a fraud, had disappeared, i none knew where. No one but little Elpie, who was a tender hearted little I girl, cared where they went. She was no longer the little neglect ed girl he had first seen; she was more womanly and experienced. But she still blushed, and then paled a little as Norman took her hand. "I have been making changes in my j home," he said, after a little desultory | conversation. "Yes, I've heard so," Elpie an- j swered, and somehow her head drooped, and so did her sweet, childish j lips. Norman sat looking at her silently. | "And have you heard, also," he j asked quietly, at last, "that I wish a mistress for it?" Elpie's heart beat very low and dul ly. "Yes, I've heard that, too. Miss— ! Miss Grant of Washington, isn't it?" Norman started. "Who told you that?" "Oh, I don't know; every one thinks it." "Then every one is wrong," said Nor man; and he suddenly came very close to her and laid nis hand on her little fingers. "Elpie, there's only one mistress in all the world I want for it; can't you guess who it is? The little girl I've loved since I looked down at her sleep ing, a poor, little, tired Cinderella, in Mrs. Kemp's magnificent drawing room; the little girl who trusted me from the beginning, though appear ances were so terribly against me. El pie, will you consent to be a burglar's wife?" And he must have heard an answer that satisfied him, though no one else could have'done so; for the next mo ment Elpie's little brown head rested on her burglar's breast, and then and there he bent and kissed, not her hand this time, but her lips.—American Queen. AUTOMATIC POST OFFICE. Convenient Meaux of Communication at Public Placed. The very latest thing in penny-in tlie-slot machines, says the London Graphic', is an automatic post office, and in a few weeks' time the machines will be at work at railway stations, restaurants and the larger shops in London. The automatic postofllce docs not fulfill quite all the duties of the usual official, but on receipt of a Denny it will do some of the work with neatness and despatch. If you ask it for a half-a-crown's worth of penny stamps it will not look bored and con tinue its conversation with a much nicer young man than yourself, neither will it eat chocolates, nor wear his button hole, nor get cross with an other machine. Suppose, for instance, that a machine is at Charing Cross, and that you have promised to meet someone at that station at 10 o'clock. You find at the last moment that you cannot keep the appointment, so jou wire to your friend, care of "Automat ics," Charing Cross. The telegraph boy drops the telegram in a slit in the machine; the slit lias a glass front, and therefore, after your friend has formed his opinion of you for not keep ing the appointment, ho goes to the machine, sees his telegram, puts in a penny, presses a knob, and gets your message. Perhaps the message is: "See you 12—leave reply machine." Your friend then puts in another penny, takes out a sheet of note paper, an envelope and pencil, and leaves you your reply in another little glass fronted slit in the machine. Each ma chine will hold about three dozen let ters at a time. Telegrams left in the machine and not called for in two days will be sent back to the postof fice, and other letters will be taken care of by the company owning the machine. If, however, you have left a message in the box and you wish to have it returned to you if it is not called for, you can scribble a note to that effect to the company and leave it in a box provided for the pur pose. There is no doubt that when we do get the automatic postofllces we shall wonder how we ever managed to do without them. Take the case of a man and his wife who come to town one morning—the man for business, his wife for a round of shopping. They wish to meet in the evening for a din ner and theatre. At present the ar rangement for that meeting would have to be made early in the day. and perhaps the man finds his business prevents him from keeping the ap pointment. When the new machines come into use that man will telegraph to )- wife, care "Automatics," at one of the shops she is visiting. It will also be possible to communi cate with a man who is traveling. Telegrams sent to "Automatics" at the stations his train stops at would be ready for him on his arrival. He would know just where to go for them, and would be able to get them easily and quickly. Indeed, there seems to be no end to the uses to which the automatic posto restante will be put. A Ouriou* Taper Weight. The Prince of Wales is said to have the most curious paper weight in ex istence. It is the mummied hand of the daughter of one of the Pharoahs. and he keeps it on his private desk in constant use. ARIZONA'S MONSTER. INHABITANT OF THE DESERT WHOSE BITE CAUSES QUEER SYMPTOMS. A Deadly Kept 11 > That Is n* Thick an Your Arm und Twenty Inches I.ong A (Site from This 'terrible Monster Is Almost Always Mire to Trove Fatal. Professor Myron P. Kirk, formerly of the Smithsonian institution, has come in from a year of scientific ex ploration and collection out across the Cocopah desert —in the most desolate, forbidding and blasted region in the union—where Arizona, California and Sonora, Mex., come together at the mouth of the muddy Rio Colorado, writes the Los Angeles correspondent of the Chicago Record. He has a mar vellous collection of specimens of rep tilian and insect life on the desert wastes, and as soon as they are catal ogued and made ready for museum uses he will ship them to Harvard university. "I have found three new varieties of the Gila monster in the Cocopah desert region." said Professor Kirk the other day, "and I believe I have some scien tific information about the most veno mous reptile in North America. For 20 years I have been traveling up and down the country, across the deserts and in the mountains, getting the strangest specimens of animal life. And among the oddest in all my exper ience is the Gila monster. Now. to this day many people think there is no such thing as the Gila monster. And yet, throughout the Colorado desert, especially along the Gila river, you may encounter thousands. On the contrary, too, you may scarcely see one. The Gila monster is almost as thick as your arm and 18 or 20 inches long. It has a head which is pretty near all mouth and opens clear back to its ears. The head is about as big as a common teacup, set with little, vicious eyes, and the mouth is power fully muscled and set with four sharp fangs and a lot of grinders. The color of the monster is reddish, with brown spots. It has a blunt tail, as nearly all poisonous lizards have. "I found these monsters living in the hot sand. They are not good to fool with, and a man who is in the Gila monster business must know what he is about. One day last June I pulled up from the hot desert to a little ranch on the Colorado river. The man who owned the place had a pet Gila mou nter which he kept in a barrel. He stooped down to get him out to show ham to me and some friends of his who were there, and the monster shut down on his thumb. Ho gripped it so tight in his awful mouth, which was like a vise, that his jaws had to be pried open with an iron bar. The man lived only a few hours, and died in ter rible spasms. Another man bitten while I was down there has ever since been paralyzed in the side. Hardly anybody ever gets over a bite from this terrible animal. ' "What physical effects come to a man who has escaped death from poi son by a Gila monster? Why, I have seen several different results. For in stanco. there was the case of a bar keeper in Benson some years ago. He had a pet Gila monster that he kept in a box on the bar, and sometimes he would let it out and play with it. Ho ridiculed stories the cowpunchers told about the poison of Gila mon sters. He would put one finger in its mouth and drag it up and down the bar. and the thing seemed to enter into the fun, and would hold back and wiggle its tail and appear as pleased as a dog. I told him once that ho was taking terrible chances, and that some day the monster would bite him, just as sure as fate. But ho only laughed at the idea of its biting him—it knew him so well—and even if it should ho didn't believe it would be poisonous. "Well, oT\e day he put his finger into its mouth when it didn't happen to feel and it sent its teeth to the bone. Its jaws closed down like a vise, and the men in the saloon couldn't pry them open. It just sat there and blinked its wicked eyes at them and held on. and they had to cut its head oft before they could make it let. go. That poor fellow's arm soon began to swell, and he suffered intense pain in his arm and hand and in his back. And after awhile the flesh be gan to shrivel and the muscles to be come weak, and inside of three months the whole arm from the shoulder down was as shriveled and helpless as a paralytic's. That was some four or five years ago, but his arm remains in that condition to this day, and there's no prospect that he'll ever hav 5 the use of it. There was no perma nently ill effect, nothing but the tem porary pain in any other part of his body. The postmaster at Nogales (on the boundary line between Arizona and Mexico) told me of a little Yuma In dian girl who stepped on a Gila mon ster one night in the dark along the mud banks of the Colorado river sev eral miles below Yuma. She was bitten in the ankle. Two army physicians were called at once, and by the use of powerful drug 3 they managed to save the girl's life, but she was crazy with pain for two weeks. Her leg and foot from the knee down have been so tender that now, some seven years since the bite, she cannot bear the least pressure or weight 011 those mc.mbers without excruciating pain. She always sleeps on her stom ach, with the injured foot in the air, and has not walked for several years. Externally the leg and foot look as well as ever. Doctors don't know what the poison did to affect the In dian girl so, and they have tried hard to find out. It's a queer ease. "Then there was the case of Walter Vale, one of the wealthiest and best known cattlemen in Arizona. He saw a big Gila monster when he was out on horseback, and thought he would capture it as a present for a friend. | He beat it over the head until he ! thought he had killed it, and then strapped it on behind his saddle. But j these reptiles are as hard to kill as a | cat. They have a queer habit of com -1 ing t.o life again after you are perfect ly sure you have killed them. That is j what this one did. By the time Vale got home he had forgotten all about the Gila behind his saddle. He put his hand back to dismount, and the l thing's jaws closed down on his fore finger. lie called to some men, and they ran to him and tried to pry the monster's jaws open, but they couldn't . make it let go, and finally they had | to cut its head off and pry its mouth open with iron spikes. | "The first thing Mr. Vale did, even ' before he got his linger loose, was to send one of his men on a fresh horse j to Pantano. the nearest railroad town, 30 miles away, to telegraph to Tucson |- for a physician to come on a special j engine to Pantano, where he himself | would meet him. Then he bound his wrist and finger with leather thongs and with his penknife cut the flesh around the bite. By that time a fresh horse had been saddled for him and he leaped upon its back and darted off on that terrible 30-mile ride for his life. He rode the whole distance at a | break-neck gallop, suffering much all the time from the tightly tied thongs. I He had not gone more than half the j distance when the poison began to ■ make itself felt. Darting pains shot ! all through his body. He felt sore and j weary, and the pains in his back soon | became excruciating. But he finally j reached Pantano. and the doctor was ' only a few minutes later. His first i question was: 'Have you taken any ' whiskey?' and when Vale said he had 1 not the doctor assured him he would i pull him through. For all physicians I and the best-informed people in that region believe that whiskey or any alcoholic drink aggravates the Gila i monster's poison. Vale soon became delirious, but the doctor pulled him through. But from all that I can hoar no man could suffer more than he did for several weeks. He has had a weak back ever since, so that he cannot ride horseback about his ranch, j "Now, a tarantula makes a bad sore, but it doesn't kill a man. I have got awake frequently in the morning while camping out and found taran j tulas curled up on the edge of my blanket. They do that to keep warm, but if you are careful about disturb ing them they won't bite you. "The horrible reptile called the vina groom by the Mexicans, and meaning 'smelling like vinegar,' ranks next to the Gila monster in vicious and poi sonous characteristics. The vina groom (thelepholus excubiter) is found in the Organ mountains. There is nothing like it but itself. It is a kind of compound of scorpion, lobster and three or four kindred animals. It is four or five inches long, with lone, stout claws, and is of mottled-brown color. "Talking about strange features of animal life, we have on the Mojave desert a turtle that eats grass. it lives in holes in tho sand, which it makes to escape the intense heat of | the sun. You may take a stick and | get them out. They are the Xero | hates Agassizli, just lately named for the great naturalist, a very pretty | turtle, that gets on good feeding to l>e I about 10 inches long and lo weigh six , to eight pounds. A woman down on j tho desert last summer, where I was, | had eight or 10 of them in an open j pen, which she was fattening to eat. ] They eat grass like horses. When I these turtles get fat, as they quickly do on the grass, they beat all the roast turkeys you ever ate. An ordi nary one of these turtles is worth $3 to $4." Hungry Expn.lllmi Visitors. [ Those who were visitors to the Paris [ exposition will be Interested to learn i a few telling facts and figures con | cerniug the meat which the French ! capital consumed daily on an average during the month of September, when, it should be remembered, a larger number of visitors came to see the ex position than at any other time dur i ing the summer. The slaughter house at Villette, which supplies Paris, dispatched dur j ing the month a daily average of 5044 | oxen, 1041 cows. 23,381 sheep, 3725 pigs, and 2099 calves. This compares as follows with the average daily re quirement at ordinary times: Paris ; cat 3 then 1210 oxen, 450 cows, 13,929 sheep, 4398 pigs, and 1425 calves. | But, of course, it would be impossible for France alone to supply the stom i neh of Paris with meat. Germany, Austria, England, and even Russia send cattle supplies to tho French mar | ket—Westminster Gazette. Preserved by Treasure, j The common, cheap and criminal ; way of preserving milk is by the addi tion of injurious chemicals. Steriliz , ing by means of subjecting to neat has I long been known and practiced. A new method has just been found, namely, subjecting to a high pres sure. A German chemist has been experimenting with the following re j suits: Milk which was subjected to a pressure of nearly 100,000 pounds : per square Inch, remained fresh for j from 24 to 60 hours longer than that which was untreated. The pressuroof j 1 15,000 pounds for 24 hours kept the ; milk fresh for from four to six days. SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY A German scientist recently declared that the age of fishes can be told by their scales. When placed under the microscope these show stripes similar to the bands in the cross section of a tree, which indicate the age of the fish. The communal council of Amster dam, Holland, has voted $3,000,000 for the construction of an electrical power plant, to include a central power sta tion, 30 miles of tramway, the electric lighting of the city and a supply of motive power. The power will be con veyed in an underground conduit. From the following analysis it would appear that there is even lers waste in a cord of pitch pine wood than in the carcass of a steer under the modern way of handling it. Under proper manipulation a cord of this wood will produce of charcoal, 50 bushels; illu minating gas, about 1000 cubic feet; illuminating oil and tar, 50 gallons; pitch or rosin, 11-2 barrels; pyroligne ous acid, 100 gallons; spirits of tur pentine, 20 gallons; tar, one barrel; wood spirits, five gallons; and, so far as the charcoal is concerned, when con sumed it scarcely leaves an ash. The advantage of the use of nickel steel in the construction of instru ments of precision was the subject of a paper read before the recent Paris congress of the International Geodetic association. It was stated that a cer tain alloy, with 35 to 30 percent nickel, possessed an expansion 10 times less than platinum and 20 times less than that of brass. This property renders It especially serviceable for measuring rods. A description was given of a "base bar" of this metal, four metres In length, which is being constructed for the geographic service of the French army. Including its alumi num case, it will weigh 110 pounds. A great family of flowering animals is that including the "sea cucumbers." These animals have long, flattened bodies of a dark color that ranges from brown to reddish purple, and their most active movement is a slow, creep ing along the bottom. At one end is the mouth surrounded by the petal like tentacles that push into it the mud and sand on which the organism lives. The mud of the bottom is filled with tiny beings that really furnish the food, but it appears to subsist on the inorganic mud itself. The most curi ous thing about the "cucumber." is that It takes lodgers in away. It has a large cavity within its body that is filled with water, and into this cavity a little fish called the flerasfer works its way, and then lives within the help* less host. It is not a parasite, for it leaves its lodging to seek food, but it merely lodges in the holothurian for shelter, as the power of stinging that sea cucumbers possess to a high degree renders them fairly safe from moles tation. The little lodgers do not seem to do any harm to their landlords ex cept when several take quarters in the same one, and they may inflict fatal damage by overcrowding. Lightning-Arrester for Trolley-Cn>•. A new kind of lightnlng-arr - tor has been attracting atention in Europe. It is designed for the purpose of pre venting accidents occuring on trolley cars from sudden discharges of atmos pheric electricity in districts cro scd by extensive networks of electric wire, a common form of accident resulting in injury to the instruments and some times loss of life. The intent of the new system is to prevent the flash from reaching any part of an i trie system, or, if this should take place, to insure that the current is invariably deflected so that no harm can vm-nit. The system has been introduced in a number of cars of the Berlin-Cli. lot* tenburg Electric railway in G< many, and so-called "horn arresters" aim at tached to the upper part of the car in the same way as the trolley. A num ber of these instruments have also been placed at certain interval • along the line, fixed on the top of th" orna mental iron posts that carry the con ducting wire of the railway. The first cars on which the system was tried worked so well that the lightning-ar resters have been generally adopted. In some instances the "hoin arresters" have been applied in the form of a sec ond trolley, and in others they have been installed on the roof of the car in connection with the trolley itself. The Acid in Letiionk, According to the New York Journal of Commerce a New York firm has made tests to ascertain the compara tive citric values of California and Sicily lemons. The following is the re sult: Ninety-one and one-half California lemons would yield one United States gallon of juice. One hundred and twenty-eight and one-half Mediterranean lemons would yield one United States gallon of juice. Tho specific gravity of the juice ill each was 1.041. Three hundred California lemons would yield 450 ounces, avoirdupois, juice, containing 2G.64 ounces, avoirdu pois, crystal citric acid. Three hundred Mediterranean lem ons would yield 325 ounces, avoirdu pois, juice, containing 19.70 ounces, avoirdupois, crystal citric acid. The value of this test has been ques tioned by the importers, who earned that It was unfair, in that It compared Mediterranean fruit, was among the first of the season, and which had not matured, with California fruit at its best stage. Florida people are going more and more into the small fruit and orange business.