Every time there is a railway disas ter now the passengers are expected to get what comfort they can out of the fact that it did not occur in a tunnel. But eight States do not now require examination by a State Board of those who wish to practice medicine. Tbey are Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota and Tennessee. The savings of wage earners in the United States, if the deposits in sav ings banks are any indication at all, evidence thrift and prosperity. The banks of this class in New York City alone have resources on hand of 5500,- 000,000. The contract of the Argentine Re public with Italian shipbuilders for two armored ships of war of 8500 tous each Is another proof of the intimate relations of the Republic with Italy. This intimacy is chiefly due to the large Italian population of Argentina. The Buffalo Commercial says that when a political rumor begins "It is stuted upon the highest authority by one who enjoys the confidence," etc., that rumor can be set down at once as a deliberate invention based on no au thority. One who ought to "enjoy confidence" will not betray It; if he does he is a traitor and a sneak, is not entitled to, and probably does not have, anybody's confidence. American exportation of trotting horses during the last ten years has been especially notable. There Is scarcely a country in Europe which has failed to appreciate the superior qualities of the American-bred trotter. Germany, France, Russia and Austria all have been large buyers of Anieri- | can thoroughbreds, and, in many in stances, American trainers have been selected to superintend the stables of these foreign purchasers. The English sparrow, which lias made so many enemies in the Eastern and Central States, has invaded the Rocky Mountain region. For some time past, T. D. A. Cockrell reports, it has been known in the northeastern sec tion of New Mexico, at Raton and Las Vegas, and It seems to be gradually spreading westward and southward, having recently been noticed, for the first time, at Albuquerque. The universal plaint is concisely voiced by the London Evening Stand ard. "American influences," it says, "appear just now to pcrvudo the whole of Europe. If American horses do not carry all before them yet, American riding, American training, American horse dentistry, and, shall we add, American 'doping,' seem to have ever- Increasing vogue, not only in this coun try, but in France, Germany, Austria, Russia and wherever else there is an opportunity on the Continent." Unique conditions prevail in the State Normal School of Georgia, where are gathered more than (100 pupils, whose ages range from seventeen to sixty years. Year before last more than forty of the students were over forty, and a half dozen over fifty years old. Widows come bringing their children; the Confederate soldier hobbles in on crutches; there are old bachelors and grandmothers, heart-hungry for knowl edge. Tuition i 3 free, but the tale ol living expenses covers many a trag edy. A paralyzed man has plowed with one hand year after year that his young Bister might attend the school, and she works with pathetic desperation to be come in turn his supporter. Persons inclined to grumble because certain educational plums have not fallen their way may well draw a parallel of con ditions. Every little while a discussion arises as to the time of life when a man ought to retire from active participation in affairs. The public is asked to con sider whether there is not a certain limit of years when a man no louger ought to preach, when a rich man ought to begin to give away his money, when a farmer ought to lmud over his fields and granaries to his sons and daughters, when an editor ought to stop writing anything but reminis cences which he is pretty sure nobody will read. Out in Minnesota the other day a logging party, returning from Its winter camp, was found to consist of one contractor, aged seventy-eight; another contractor, aged sixty-five; one helper, aged seventy-nine; one horse, agei twenty-three, and another horse, aged twenty-one. They built their own camp, cut their own roads, and piled upon the frozen lake 10(1,000 feet of pine timber. Further than these bare details the chronicle is silent, but there is enough to show that in the logging camps of Minnesota the question of the age of retirement is still under debate, Or has been indefinitely postponed. Judge Blackenltam's Heroic Moment BY JAMES NOEL JOHNSON. (Copyright, 1902, by Dally Story Pub. C I have been spending a bit of the torrid season with my friend Judge Thomas Marshall Blackenham of Ty gart Creek, Kentucky. After dinner to-day the Judge led the way to the broad veranda. The Judge ponderously seated himself in a shriek ing rustic r.ocking-chair, threw his fat right leg across the left, pushed backward and rested a chunky fist (that held the handle of a palm leaf) on the center of his protuberant girth. Soon through the heated silence came the imperious voice of Mrs. Blackenham: "Do all that over again, my lady! I saw you souse a plate in the water, turn it over a time or two. give it a slap and a swipe with the drying rag and dismiss it. Do it all over again." "That's tough on Llilie, hot as it is, but there is no help for it," spoke the Judge in smiling sympathy; "her mother would never abate one jot or tittle of her stringent housewifery ex actions." "What a wonderfully lucky man you are, Judge," I said, with the frank freedom of Intimacy. "In your wife the beautiful and practical have met in harmonious union. How could you, with your careless habits, ever win a woman of such punctilious precise nesß?" The Judge rolled his sunset face over toward me. He affected indignation. "What do you mean, suh? While prob ably I am no prize beauty now, I was the Lochinvar of this state. I was the glass of gallantry, the beau ideal, the tossing blossom of Kentucky chilvalry, suh! 'Twas her was a lucky woman, suh; yes, suh, though at one time, suh, she didn't have the propah apprecia tion of it, probably." "She was the reverse of practical, too, when she was young, suh. She had gone to school at Lexington a few terms, and when she returned her lit tle brown head fairly swarmed with romantic ideas. A dishrag in her white hands then would have seemed defilement. Though rich in all the al luring grace of manner and physical attributes of perfect femininity, she seemed to possess no inclination for the sterner sex. We young fellows in the community who aspired to hold lies. ,on a level with hers were great ly nonplused at her frigid bearing. We couldn't believe she was a born man hater. Her glowing lips, her pink mantled cheeks, her sparkling blue eyes, her form filling all the rules of perfect symmetry, her step flight as if she trod an unpalpable substance, all conspired to resent such a charge. But she gave scant attention to us, I tell you. "Tom Baker bought a span of fine bay horses and a buggy to macth. Every day he would dash by her house, his grand steeds smiting the hard road with rapid, ringing hoofs, his buggy wheels richly humming, the black top catching and throwing sunlight at every motion. 'Twas all vanity and Vexation. She scarcely gave his showy equipage a glance, or if she did deign a look it was to wonder why a young man of his lean means should incur so much expense to advertise himself a fool. He soon sold his rig at half price and left for Frankfort, where he is now a popular saloonkeeper. "Milt Turner bought a suit of clothes on a credit—worth seventy-five dol lars. The next Sunday when he thought she was badly in need of his company home, she told him her pa was all the company she required. 110 is now a restaurant keeper in Chicago. "John De Laney, knowing her to be a church member, thought the short cut to her heart was the ministerial path. Accordingly he went to Cincin nati, and for six months gorged lii 3 mind on theology. He rpturned with a smooth face, an affectedly meek, but withal, superior clerical smile, a long tailed, black coat and a nicely gotten up parson voice. He made an appoint ment to preach, but lo! though the house was jammed by a curious throng, the only one he would have "What do you wear, suh?" given a cuss to exhort, was promi nently absent. He is now a highly esteemed gambler of New York. "Jim Stevens, more practical than the rest, pooled his little stock of money with all he could borrow, and set up a store. Alas! 'twas a bootless venture, for Flossie Blake not only never entered the store, but indig nantly sent back a dress pattern bought there by her father (and which Stevens had selected) with the dispir iting message that there was no ne gress in the family who could ap propriately wear it." "During this ridiculous contest of would-be lovers, I, Judge Blackenham, to be, maintained a judicious silence. But I was actively using the faculties that subsequently put the judicial robe on my shoulders. I was analyzing the situation—drawing intelligent deduc tions from the failures of others. I made noiseless, but exhaustive inquir ies into the habits and secret tastes of this anomalous beauty. I finally learn ed she was an unquenchable reader of heroic literature. I went to town and secretly learned from the woman who kept the book store, the titles of all those high-spiced novels mat consti tuted her daily mental and emotional feed, and I bought them. Day and night I would lie cn my couch and read novels. Dark, handsome chaps rushed through the pages, scattering heroic deeds at every turn and cor ner. "I now had the key that I was sure would unlock the door of her hidiffer "There, now!" she exclaimed, knit ting her brow, "No more romance for me!" ence. T would be a novel hero, and wouldn't be long about it. "I had a cousin living in Kansas City, and thither I went on a two months' visit. "While there I contrived, on paper, to become a hero of the first water. I went to a job printer with a piece of newspaper, blank on one side. "I next day mailed a clipping to the local paper of my home county. I didn't forget to inclose a crisp ten dollar bill, and a request that the edi tor should publish the clipping and say nothing about how he had come by It. Heroes must he modest, you know. He was a personal friend of mine, and I knew I could trust him. Well, the next issue of the East Ken tucky Deadshot had the following ar ticle, topped with fireworks headlines: DARING DEED Of That Gallant Knight of Modern Chiv alry. THOS. MARSH ADD BLACKENHAM. A Lewis County Youth Becomes the Hero of the Hour In Kansas City. Mo. [From the Kansas City Journal.l Kentucky, the homo of modern chiv alry, has another gem to wear In her bristling crown of pride and glory In the person of Thos. Marshall Blackenham of Lewis County. Last evening, while Mrs. Ella Edwards, a wealthy and beautiful young widow of Southworth street, was going home from a call she was set upon by three masked robbers. At the place where the mis creants came upon her there is a long distance between the street lamps, ana is a most favorable locality for the per petration of villainous deeds. Mrs. Ed wards was within a block of her home and never anticipated any l'oul play, as she was used to traversing that part of the street In the early evening. All at once, when about midway between the lamps, the three men sprang out and seized her. One threw a cloak over her head, but not before she had uttered a piercing scream. Instantly, as if he had risen from the earth, the bold Kentuck lan sprang like a lion among them. Right and left ne landed with his Herculean lists. There was a terrible struggle as the three footpads were powerful men. Undaunted by their resistance the Ken tuckian fought them single-handed, never yielding an inch. Two fell as though smitten by s'cilge hammers. The third turned In an endeavor to escape, but came to a sudden halt with a bullet in his left leg. The noise of the shot brought policemen to the spot. All three of the assailants were arrested. One of them is "Cribber" Darnley. a veteran footpad, who has served several terms, and is regarded as a dangerous man to tackle. Another of the beautiful trio Is "Cross-eyed" Bronson. wanted badly in New York and Philadelphia for safu cracking. lie has murdered several offi cers who have attempted to arrest him. Tho third Is "Bully" Adams, who last year cleared out an entire sheriff's posse trying to capture him. The lady lost nothing except her con sciousness. Her pocketbook, containing three hundred dollars, her gold watch and diamond necklace were jolted from the hands of the robbers when Col. Blackenham's mighty lists landed. Col. Blackenham. like all heroes, is an ex ceedingly modest man. and acts as if he were not aware ho had done anything out of the ordinary. In the meantime, his deed is the theme of universal praHe. Col. Blackenham refused to accept the gold watch tho grateful lady besought him to take, but. later on—who knows? Tho old, old story, possibly. "Well, suh. I staid away lons enough to let that story sink into the heart of tho beautiful Flossie, and prepare for rr,e a haven of welcome and favor. "When I returned I demeaned my seli as becomes a modest hero, unas suming, but with a quiet dignity that bespeaks the importance of tho man on whom it sits. "When I met Flossie at church there was no ice on her, no suh. She bow ed to me, smiled, trembled a little while her eyes emitted sparks that flew upward from a very warm heart.. She took a proffered arm and leaned on It with that air of delicious depend ence so grateful to the heart of the true hero. "After we hart been married about two weeks I told her about my ruse. She gazed at me a long time, her ex pression a compound of mirth, aston ishment and mock contempt. "Finally, she made a motion as if throwing something away. "'There, now!' she exclaimed, knit ting her brow. 'No more romance reading for me. As for you, Mr. Blackenham, I want you to study law Your genius must tiave scope. As for me, to the science of plain, prac tical housekeeping, I hereby dedicate my days.'" CERTAINLY DESERVED THE CHECK. College I'rovost Catches Philadelphia Broker In His Own Trap. The University of Pennsylvania has not a large endowment, and that it finds the means to pay its current ex penses and put up new buildings is due in great measure to its provost, Charles C. Harrison. His little black subscription book is well known in many a down-town oflice —too well known, a prominent broker told him not long ago. Mr. Harrison was plead ing persistently with him for a sub scription, but in vain. Finally the broker said: "See here, Mr. Harrison, 1 will give you something on one condition." "Very well, Mr. T ," said the provost, "name It." "The condition is that you promise never come into my oflice again until 1 ask you to do so." "Certainly, Mr. T , I agree to that," said the provost promptly, and walked out smiling with a check for SI,OOO. A month or so later the broker heard a knock at his door. "Come in," he called, and in walked Mr. Harri son. He had his black book under his arm. "Good morning. Mr. T ,* he said; "I want you to help me with a little university matter I am " "Look here, Mr. Harrison," the brok er continued, "when 1 gave that last thousand dollars wasn't it on the ex press condition that you wouldn't come into my oflice again until I in vited you?" "Why, yes," returned the provost, "1 believe that was the understanding. But didn't you say 'Come in' just now when I knocked?" They say the check this time was for five thousand. — Philadelphia Times. WAS NOT WORKING WITHOUT PAY. How On® Boy Declined to Blow and Make a Bottle. Thinking to please the visitors who come to look round his works, a cer tain glass manufacturer allows them all to try their skill at bottle-making, an experiment which the majority of them are very eager to undertake. It is only necessary to blow through a specially prepared pipe, and a bottle or glass in its smooth state can be produced by a mere child. Some hundreds of school board boys were in the works the other day, and only one youngster refused to put his mouth to the blow-pipe. He stood there with his hands in his pockets, watching the others With a comical air of contempt. "It's a rare fine dodge," he remarked to his bosom companion, as they left the works together, "but the old rascal didn't take me in by it." "Why didn't you have a go at the pipe?" queried the other, i 3 astonish ment. "I wasn't such a fool," was the scornful rejoinder. "Don't you see his little game? You chaps have been cracking your cheeks and wasting your breath all the afternoon, and you've blown as many bottles as a man can turn out in a week. Talk about saving labor! Why, he'll make his fortune in a year if he goes on like this." Tut Up a (cooii "Bluff.". The Rev. Alexander Allison, Jr., pastor of the Southwestern Presbyte rian church, in a recent sermon on the subject of "Lying," illustrated his text with numerous stories, and one of these showed how, even in church, a man's false pride sometimes leads him to prevarication. A young man took his best girl to church and, when the time for "collection" came round, rather ostentatiously displayed a s•"> gold piece. Presuming upon the en gagement to marry that had been made by her, the young lady placed a restraining .land upon the arm of her fiance. "Why, don't be so extra vagant, George," she exclaimed. "Oh, that's nothing, I always give $5 when I go to a strange church." Just then the deacon came with tne plate, and George dropped a coin. Everything seemed favorable, and the young man beamed with a sense of generosity. Then the minister made the announcements for the week, and concluded with the wholly unexpected announcement of the day's collection. "The collection to-day," said he, "was $3.75." George hadn't much to say all the way to his fiancee's home. Immense Sarcophagus. The most remarkable specimen of Punic art which has ever come to light was discovered recently at Car thago by P. Deiattre, a well-known archaeologist, which is fashioned of white marble and beautifully orna mented with engravings. That it served at one time as the tomb of some Carthaginian ruler all obtain able evidence tends to show. M. Heron de Villefosse gave a graphic account of this discovery at the last meeting of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles- I.etters and maintained that it was by far the most notable specimen of an cient Carthaginian art which has yet been found. It was while excavating In the Punic necropolis near the hill of Saint Monica that P. Delatre came across this royal tomb. As to its future des tination various rumors are afloat, but it is most likely that it will be remov ed to some French museum. Curies of the Sea Peculiar Forms of Life tliat Are Found in Abundant Quantities lr\ the Bay of Naples. One of the most curious forms of Ife hauled up by the nets of the Naples Sshermen are "sea cucumbers"—slug shaped bodies about the size and shape of the vegetables of that name, of a pulpy flesh covered with a leathery skin and small calcareous scales of carbonate of lime. They belong to the saniQ family as the starfish and sea urchins, and feed on small crabs and other floating animal life that they can capture. They have no teeth, but the walls of their alimentary canals secrete strong juices that kill and dis solve the fibers of the animals which have been caught with their sucker feet and brought to their mouths. They suck in the sand and mud and digest the nourishing particles while those which are of no use to them are rejected. Sea cucumbers are very com mon in the Bay of Naples, and are often found more than a foot long. One variety, known as the "cucumari plan ci," has a tail. When the animal is alive the tentacles of the tail are soft and pliable and adhere to the rock, but with death they harden like the arms of starfish and the spines of sea urchins, with which we are more fa miliar. The Bay of Naples abounds in medu sae, or jelly fish, as we call them,often growing as large as two feet in diam eter and weighing fifty and sixty pounds. Some of them shine at night with a greenish light and are known as "noctiluca" (night lanterns) by the natives. The jelly fish sometimes make migrations in great groups, sometimes so large and so thick as to impede the navigation of vessels, like the floating plants i:i the Saragossa sea of the tropics. These shoals of medusae, as they are called, may be so dense that a piece of timber plunged in among them will be held upright as if stuck in mud, and ordinary row boats cannot force their way through them. Their migrations have never been explained. They are irregular and occur at no particular season of the year and under no particular in fluences. They are net affected by heat or cold and the currents of the ocean do not seem to control them. When the head chief or leader of a jelly fish colony takes a notion to move, he is sues his orders, which are communi rated somehow from one to another, and, at the time appointed, the entire colony begins to move. It travels very slowly, compared with other fish, but makes several miles a day. The "octopus vulgaris"—the devil fish of the ancients—is very common in the Bay of Naples. Examples are hauled up in the nets every day. It Is the guerrilla c£ fishes. It hides itself In ambush in the crevices of the rocks and waits for its prey, and often piles up stones into a heap, behind which it conceals itself until It can pounce upon unwary and innocent fishes that pass by. The octopus also has the power of changing its color and pro ducing ell sorts of warts and wrinkles upon its otherwise smooth skin, so as to deceive its neighbors. These traits of character are r.ot commendable. The body of the octopus looks like ft round bag and contains its vital or gans. At one end it has a head like that of a toad, with two large inquiring eyes, and branching out from various parts of the body are eight arms united nt their base by a * eb similar to that in the foot of a duck. Each arm has two rows of suckers. Hidden by the arms, and in the middle of the body is the mouth, furnished with a pair of powerful jaws and a membraneous flap which alternately opens and shuts. The arms are used for swimming, crawling, climbing and for catching and holding the prey. It cat 3 crabs', fish and other animate objects which are caught by its suckers, carried to the mouth by means of the arms and are quickly killed and digested by a nW:- < ' o:l CCTOf*OS VULC **'o /TEST poisonous fluid secretc-d in the salivary glands. A near relation of the octopus is the sepia or cuttlefish, vhich has arms much shorter than those of the octo pus, but they do business very much in the same way. The chief characteris tic of the cuttlefish are its ability to hide itself and to change its color at will, and in the transparent water of the bay of Naples the wonderful play of tints in the living animal is very much admired. This change in color is due to large cells in the skin which nre filled with fluids. As the cells con tract or expand the colors of the fluids change and grow lighter or darker like the blush upon the cheek of a maiden, and give the animal an opal- escent tint. Sometimes it looks liko a floating opal. Another characteristic is a sac filled with a black fluid known as sepia, which can be discharged instantly into' ' tho water. A small quantity will ere- v ate a black cloud sufficient to envelop the animal and allow it to escape from its pursuer. This ink is extracted, dried and sold to artists. It is the sepia with which pictures are painted. The cuttlefish is quite an article of commerce in Naples, for. In addition to the sepia, the backbone is used for polishing wood, as a tooth powder and for sharpening the bills of canary birds. Both tho cuttlefish and the octopus '' r//f* j/v -ucu/iae/f * , grow to a largo size and many horri fying legends are told of them. NOT FIRST ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP Üblqnitmi. Advertising Man Had Not Neglected the Opportunity. Some years ago, when the North western State of Washington was not so thickly populated as it is now, a young lieutenant on the revenue cut ter Rush, then stationed in Puget Sound, had an experience which he sometimes relates now, although it is at his own expense. "I was told," he said, "that the neighboring snow capped mountain, Mount Rainer, had never been climbed by any white man, or, at least, that none had ever reached its top. I was younger then than I am now, so I de termined to gain the honor of planting the first American Hag on Rainer's top. Several seamen volunteerd to ac company me, and after spending some days in making our preparations we r set out. Three days of weary march ing and climbing brought us to the top. With a hurrah we rushed up on a large cliff, the highest point, and then prepared to put up our pole. Sud denly my attention was attracted to an old staff stuck into a crack. Near its top was nailed a small card, on which in plain type, was printed: 'James Ruggles, agent for Thompson's Elixir for that Tired Feeling.' " Safe Protected by Contents. After standing for a dozen years by the side of a mammoth elm tree near the Henry Fenner ledge property on Cranston street, Providence, R. 1., a grim, rusty old safe is about to be re moved. Tho owner, L. R. Titus, has disposed of it to a resident of the neighborhood, who intends to tamper , with it and eventually take it away. X There is a little story about the an- ' cient safe. It contains dynamite, just how much is not known, but Mr. Titus thinks not more than three or four pounds. It was used for several years to store the high explosive used ID blasting the rock, and when the Titus interests discontinued the stone quar rying business at the Henry Fenner ledge tne safe contained several sticks The lock became unmanageable seven or eight years ago and has refused to do service since. Hence the vault re mained tightly closed, a rather omi' nous spectacle, Btanding as it has in the cpen and known to harbor within the rusty iron walls a quantity of dyna mite. For obvious reasons tho owner did not blow the door off. The new proprietor of the souvenir of the old Fenner ledge days will com mence operations by removing a sec tion of the door by drilling and taking . away tho dangerous explosives. A . 'j Old American Hollies. In early American glassware the his tory of our national art progress has been written. Choice and precious indeed are tho crude blue-green and brown amber bottles made early in the nineteenth century—the portrait bot tles hearing busts of Washington, Fraiklin, I.afayette, He Witt Clinton, Zachary Taylor, Kossuth, and Jenny Lind. Local decorative subjects on many lines of idea were treated by the first American bottle makers; anil the most exquisite Venetian bottle cannot outrank in value, to a patriotic Amer ican collector, the primitive old flasks ornamented with Indian, Masonic em blems. cannon and steamships or such outdoor themes as the seasons, birds, fruits, trees, sheaves of wheat, the fisherman, deer, the gunner and his hounds, and the first bicycle. The o ) earliest American railway, with a car Jtol 11 J drawn by a horse, is historically eel- 'j obrated on a glass flash, c.s well as the bold Pike's Peak pilgrim, with his stall r.nd bundle. —The Century. Name. Told Tun Much, One inconsiderate lather, Interested in affairs of state, named ids children, who chanced to be all girls, after the various presidents in whom he was interested at the time of the infant's birth. During their childhood the girls rejoiced in the names of Lincoln, Johnson and Grant for middle names. They always wrote their names out In full, taking great pride in them a.i their father had dona. Gradually, as they grew older, they wrote only the initials, and at the present time not one of the daughters in that family has any middle name at all. ; Puttl'H First C'oneort. "I Paid Adelina Patti a pound of candy for singing at licr first concert." says Hermann Gran, the oldest oper atic manager in America. "Little Miss Patti was at that time 7 years of age and her concert was held in Wiilard'a hall, Washington, b. C."
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers