The population of Schenectady, N. Y., headquarters of the Edison industries, has jumped since ISSO from 13,035 to 47,025. Thus is the theory strength ened that, electricity stimulates growth. Kentucky's highest court lias decided that in case of total destruction by fire the full amount of the insurance policy must be paid, regardless of any stipu lation in the policy contrary to this rule, and that the actual loss must be paid where the property is damaged to an extent less than the amount of the policy. When a New Hampshire man was twenty years old, he deposited $470 in a savings bank at Concord. From time to time he drew $3200 from it, and when he died the other day, at the age of ninety-five, the sum of SISOO still stood to his credit. Yet he had never added a dollar to the original de posit. Compound interest did it ail. The pages in the House of Hepresen tatives at Washington now wear big black buttons on which the word "Page" is printed. Representative Lessler brought about this reform. Before the members came to know him he was several times taken for a page, and rather brusquely told to go on er rands. He then insisted on having the pages tagged. Higli-mindedness and right-minded ness may profitably be supplemented by "two-mindedness," which has been defined as taking into account wbat is urged on both sides, and trying to combine the essential parts of the two opposing arguments into one higher truth. Magnanimity, honesty, breadth —a trio of qualities worth possessing, and the last by no means the least. Lord Cromer, the British Financial Agent in Egypt, informs his Govern ment in an official report that the rea son why so many orders for railroad plants are being given to United States firms is because they aro executed with extraordinary rapidity. His report is backed by the statements of a number of Egyptian railway officials. Another score for American enterprise and push. For eight years three Commissioners have been quietly drawing pay at Washington for codifying the Federal statutes. So quietly have they drawn their pay that a Boston man thought it would be a good scheme to codify the Federal statutes, and he has been working away with a large force of clerks under the direction of lawyers. The other day he learned that the Gov ernment is supposed to be doing the work, and he is "out" the cost of clerk hire, stationery, office rent and sun dries. A plan is on foot for the establish ment of a geographical society of America, somethiug which will unify the growing interest in American geog raphy, and will lead to a better presen tation of the subject in our educational institutions. The question how exten sive it is desirable the organization should be made is under discussion. The most far-sighted of the plans sug gested includes Mexico and Central America, and may also be extended to include even the remoter parts of Latin America, thus fostering a common in terest in a great subject in the whole Western world. So many horses and mules have been shipped from the United States to South Africa that the rise of prices for these animals has been startling. So extensive, indeed, have been the ship ments of horses and mules to Cape Town since the beginning of the Transvaal conflict, so great has been the increase in the sums paid for cav alry remounts and draught animals that Western breeders who have al ready been enriched by generous profits, may be tempted to go far more extensively into the production of horses and mules, with the expeeta tion that the boom may be kept up for several years. John Graham Brooks, in a lecture on "The Best of Utopias," at Brooklyn, said the supreme question just now is: "What education will give our race the habits of mind, the sanity and strength to use our vast and untamed energies for objects beyond and better than themselves? Two moral and in tellectual agencies are already at work in our midst that will more and more lessen our slavery. The first is the rapid rise of the arts and crafts move ment, the motive of which is to modify the commercial spirit so that every product that admits of grace and beau ty may receive their stamp. Tin -other influence is the bringing of science into the great primary industries of life, Into the- home and upon the farm." TO(l : Amc;#^'DC3C3 I' I © p. OOD natured Mary Blake was a domes /' ) n tic in a family at ijfj&S. Oak rark, where s ' lo ' iru ' fi y ed more 'u /ill _. T$ years than she hail '/' II Angers on both //ill \ ~-3p hands, and she was fill 'I i * ns mue h an integral r • force of that family as the head of It, Mr. Munson. The one hope of these good people was that Mary Blake would never either resign or die. One horn of the dilemma would have been as serious to them as the other. Mary Blake—she was called by her full name to distinguish her from Mary Munson, the daughter of the family—was as much attached to the people she had lived with so many years as it is possible for those who are neither kith nor kin to their em ployers, and she was perfectly satisfied with her plaoe and position, with no foolish ideas about 'culture" or "as pirations" after the unreachable. She was, however, a model domestic, a cook that would put to shame the greatest chef in the country with her well seasoned dishes, an excellent laundress, and when there was sickness a capable nurse. Added to these rare qualities was honesty and a fairly good temper. A little stolid, perhaps, and fond of her own way, which was such a good one that it needed no in terference. This was the aggregate of Mary Blake's virtues and the Mun sons depended on her to such an ex tent that it really seemed as if any member of the family could have been spared with less Cc'-ion to its running gear. One morning—in the eleventh year of her reign—Mary Blake came to grief. She went out the back way with a pitcher in her hand, walked a block or two, on an errand to a neighboring gro cery store, and, returning, fell on a piece of defective sidewalk, where she lay helpless, dazed and badly hurt. She was taken to a hospital by order of a physician, where a serious dislo cation of the hip was reduced by the surgeons, and she was laid on a white cot in a private ward, where the Muu sons visited her every day, and held themselves responsible for all ex penses. It troubled them much to see their faithful domestic suffer, but under their grief lurked the hope that Mary Blake was not permanently injured, but would return to them, and they did everything in their power to make her convalescence a speedy one. Then a great Scheme entered Mr. Munsou's head. lie feared that they never appreciated the services of this excellent domestic, and he nursed and fondled and matured that scheme until at the end of six weeks Mary Blake walked in upon them. She looked white and limped slight*, put after she had taken off her things and given one look around the kitchen the girl who had supplied her place said she was ready to leave, and the cat retired under the range. Then Mr. Munson unfolded his scheme. He sent for Mary Blake I !fe§ : MAr.Y BLAKE. when seated at the breakfast table with the family. "Hew are you feeling now?" he asked considerately. "I'm nil right, sir," she answered briefly, not being given to many words. "Oh, no, not all right. You limp a little yet." "But it don't hurt a bit. I'm as right as I'll ever be." "That's It, Mary," said Mr. Munson, "you will never again be well; you've received a shock that you will never get over. You will always bo lame and i feel the effects of the fall." I "If you're meanin' that I can't do my I work or earn ay wages just say so an' I'll be leavin' at once't," and Mary Blake gave her little snort of defiance that suggested temper. [ "It has cost you," continued Mr. Munson, "all the money you had saved up for hospital expenses and doctor's hills—supposing you had to pay it—and was a loss to us of—let mo see—at least $2 a day." "Am I worth the likes of that?" asked the "girl," with a look of sur prise. "Oh. those are imaginary figures," said Mr. Munson, who saw he had made a mistake. "Now, Mary, I am a lawyer, and I advise you to sue the town for damages. I will conduct your case, and there will lie no trouble In getting a snug sum of money that will keep you in your old age without working. It will be a long time to then, but tlie money will draw interest, and it's only fair that you should have your rights." Then Mr. Munson explained tli9t the town owned that particular piece of sidewalk; that it was defective, caus ing the fall; that he had secured several witnesses who saw her fall, and that his own family would go into court and swear to the large bill of hospital ex penses and the value of her services. It took Mary Blake a long time to got the idea into her head, but once there it took complete possession of her, and the discharged girl bad to be recalled to assist in the housework, and the kitchen became a scene of wrangling and discontent. Mary Blake was despotic among lier own class of people, and no wonder; she found no one who could carry out her plan of work as it should be done, and with a LA i ' % ifer 1 /i'Vb > WORTH S2 A DAY. lawsuit with the city on her hands she was not expected to do more than keep a supervision of affairs. Lawyer Munson won the ease. His wife and daughters were in the wit ness box, where tlie city attorney bad gered them until tlicy were frantic Willi rage. Tlie presiding judge made eyes at pretty Mary Munson, causing her to blush distressfully. Mary Blake was as cool and stolid as if she had spent half her days in courts, answer ing just as her lawyer Instructed her to, and she was accorded half the sum demanded. Mr. Munson had asked for S3OOO and she was given SISOO ill thirty days after the trial was con cluded. Tlie money was paid to Mary Blake herself, as the records show. Mr. Munson wanted it settled in that way, and he then gave her a hill for law ser vices, never imagining for n moment ho would liave any trouble in getting ills pay. But Mary Blake had been awakening to the value of her own ser vices. The Muusons bad said under oath that she was worth $2 a day to them, yet they had never paid her but $4 a week during lier long term of ser vice. i?lio had done n little figuring on lier own account, nud the result was a counter bill that appalled Mr. Munson by its dimensions, minuteness of detail and summing up. lie was caught in a trap of bis own construction. A compromise was effected and Mary Blake at once retired from domestic service, leaving the Munson family to get along as best they might. She went neither in sorrow nor anger, but with a determination that brooked no appeal, leaving Mr. Munson to mourn tlie hour wlieu he took a legal view of tlie accident. One day Mary Munson sought lier mother. "There Is a lady in the parlor to seo you." "Who is she?" asked Mrs. Munson. Iler dnuglitor laughed, but would not tell. Mrs. Munson went into tile par lor with a compnny smile on lier face. "Goodness! Is it possible? Mary Blake!" Mrs. Munson tried to keep from laughing as slie shook bands with her ex-cook. Slie was rigged out in a cheap silk dress, with many flounces, wore a feather bedecked liat and an imita tion seal coat. Her pudgy hands were crowded Into white kid gloves, several sizes too small. "I wouldn't have known you," said Mrs. Munson, "you look so fine." "Yes'm, an' it's time. Them's the first pair of kid gloves I ever had on, and me workin' and savin' all them years." "They built a monument in New Or leans to a woman who never wore a pair of kid gloves." said Mrs. Munson gently. "I'd a heap rather bo here than atop any raonnyment," answered Mary Blake, who had lier own ideas of mor tury art. "I'm enjoyin' meself now like other folks, golu' to the thenyter every niglit and the parks every Sun day, an' I'm never soiling me hands with work." "We've one hope," said Mrs. Mun son when her caller had gone, "at the rapid pace she is going now Mary's damage fund won't last a great while, and when it Is gone she may get back her common sense and her usefulness. Until then we must worry along with substitutes."—Mrs. M. L. Eayne, in the Chicago Record-Herald. INCOMES OF SUCCESSFUL INVENTORS Larue Fortunes Deri veil From the In vention of Trivialities. Some of the largest fortunes appear to have been derived from the inven tion of trivialities and novelties, such as the once popular toy known as "Dancing Jimcrow," which for several years is said to have yielded its paten tee an annual Income of upward of $73,000. The sale of another toy— "John Gilpin"—enriched its lucky in ventor to the extent of SIOO,OOO a year as long as it continued to enjoy the unexpected popularity that greeted it when first placed upon the market. Mr. riimpton, the Inventor of the roller skate, made $1,000,000 out of his idea, and the gentleman who first thought of placing a rubber tip at the end of lead pencils made quite SIOO,OOO a year by means of his simple improvement. When Harvey Kennedy Introduced the shoe lace he made $2,300,000, and the ordinary umbrella benefited six people by as much as $10,000,000. The Howard patent for boiling sugar in vacuo proved a lucrative investment for the capitalists who were able to remunerate the inventor on a colossal scale. It Is estimated that his income averaged between $200,000 and $250,- GOO per annum. Sir .Tosiali Mason, the Inventor of the improved steel pen, made an enor mous fortune, and on his death Eng lish charities benefited by many mill ions of dollars. The patentee of the pen for shading in different colors de rived a yearly income of about $200,- 000 from this ingenious contrivance. It is stated that the wooden ball with an clastic attached yielded over $30,- 000 a year. Many readers will remem ber a legal action which took place some years ago, when in the course of the evidence it transpired that the in ventor of the metal plates used for pro tecting the soles and heels of shoes from wear sold 12.000,000 plates in 1879, and in 1887 the number reached a total of i-13,000,000, which realized profits of $1,130,000 for the year. The lady who invented the modern baby carriage enriched herself to the extent of $50,000, and a young lady living at Tort Elizabeth, South Africa, devised the simple toilet requisite known as the "Mary Anderson" Surfing iron, from which she derives royalties amounting te_fsoo_a year. It was the wife of a clergyman who designed an improvement for the corset and made a fortune out of it. The gimlet-pointed screw, the idea of a little girl, brought ninny millions of dollars to the clever Inventor. Miss Knight, n young lady of exceptional talents, was gifted with wonderful mechanical powers, as will lie seen by the complicated mechan ism of her machine for making pnper bags. We are told she refused $50,090 for it shortly after taking out the pat ent. —Scientific American. Wliy One Talesman Was Scratched. In a certain case the Judge ordered the Sheriff to call the roll of thirty-five "good men and true" selected for jury duty. Only twenty-two answered to their names, and the Sheriff looked somewhat inquiringly at the Judge, but the latter was calmly wiping his glasses while he uttered the customary: "Any desiring to be excused from serv ice on this jury will now come for ward." Twenty-two men made a movement forward, and the clerk stopped In his work of noting those who had failed to respond to the summons to look in wonder at the entire venire desiring to escape. "Well," said the Judge, speaking to a long thin, nervous looking young man, "why do you wish to be excused?" "If it please your Honor," answered the aforesaid thin individual, "I'd like to be excused on account of illness. I'm suffering from something that might prove embarrassing to the other ju rors, and it is certainly embarrassing to me." "What is the nature of your illness?" asked the Judge. "Well," said the young man, hesita tingly, "I'd prefer to tell you in pri vate. I'm somewhat delicate about speaking of it in public." "I cannot hear anything in private," responded the Judge impatiently. "If you want to be excused you must tell me bore and now what is the matter with you." "Well, if I must tell it here —I have the itch." "The itch?" echoed the Judge, and, turning to the clerk, without marking how apropos his observation was, lie said. "Mr. Jones, scratch the juror off." —St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Flsgu* of Housewlvei; Joy of lTotanißts The housekeeper who finds a layer of gray-green mold covering her pre serves when site removes the lid from the jar Is so far from seeing anything interesting, much less beautiful, in it, that she throws it away in disgust. But if she would examine it with a mi croscope, as the botanist does, she would find it a mass of fungous plants, with branches of delicate, frost like tracery and as dainty and clean in the midst of decay as are the lilies in a stagnant swamp. The mold that thus annoys fruit can ners is tlie most common of the spe cies. It grows in the form of a gray ish-green mat, which gives off a fine dust consisting of millions of spores that correspond to the seeds of larger plants. The spores sprout in every direction on the surface on which they lie, and a little later the sprouts turn and grow upward.—Philadelphia Rec ord. USE OF WASTE MATERIAL MILLIONS OF DOLLARS DUC CUT OF SCRAP PILES. 11. jnmorublo Cast Off Things Are Rescued From the Garbage Dumps and Made Into Articles of Commercial Value— Little Wasted in the Industrial World. One of tile time-honored jokes at the Chicago Stockyards is that every part of a pig is saved except its squeal. Men in the packing business have added their names to the list of mil lionaires because they discovered methods for utilizing that which had been thrown away as waste material. Great factories are running the year round in Chicago whose raw material is the cast-off stuff gathered by scav engers and rag men. Men of science ire ever at work tearing by-products and waste material to pieces to re group the elements into new material which has a commercial or industrial value. Little is wasted in the indus trial world. Old iron is worked over into new iron. Linen rags are reincinerated and live as paper. Woolen rags are shredded and made Into shoddy. Bones are made into bone black, to clarify sugar syrup. Old rubbers, bits of garden hose, exploded bicycle tires, and cast-offs in which rubber is a part are made over into new rubber. Worn steel rails are re-rolled into lighter sections. Old rusty pipe is drawn down into bright new pipe. The tin cans which are gathered up in alleys and from garbage boxes are melted down and cast into window sash weights and counter weights for bascule bridges. The blood which runs into the slaughter-house wells is transformed into buttons, and other articles re quiring dense bodies and taking high polish, and into fertilizers. Boys and girls collect cigar stubs which are made over into snuff, smoking tobac co and cigarettes. Rags and old car pets are cut into strips and woven into handsome rugs. The list of old east off things that are rescued from ash piles and garbage dumps to be born again can he extended for columns, and the list would never cease grow ing, for every day some new use for some wasted product is discovered. Tbere was a time when tons of blood, fresh from slaughtered (fettle, flowed unheeded through the sewers under the stockyards. To-day this blood is saved, put through Ifevei.il processes and conies oiit as a fertilizer or in the form of cakes, which are sent to sugar refineries to assist in clarify ing the sweet liquor. Some of the handsomest buttons worn on new dresses once ran as warm blood through the veins of fat steers. Heat and hydraulic pressure are tlie agents which separate tlie water from the albumen in the red fluid, and pro pare the dried blood for tlie pulveriz ing process which fits it for use as a fertilizer. After being boiled down, pressed, crushed and ground to a powder, the dried blood is mixed with potash and phosphoric acid and sent out as a complete fertilizer. Many years ago in England a wool famine confronted the weavers. A bright man with a currycomb took ad vantage of tlie situation and started the "shoddy" business. lie bought up old blankets, flannel and old woolen clothing. This old material was cut and torn into small pieces, and then stripped into shreds with currycombs. This process resolved tlie woolen fabric into something akin to its origi nal elements, wool fibers, and the man with the currycomb mixed this new raw material with wools and made a cheap, serviceable cloth. The shears and currycombs of the original shoddy man have long since passed from use, for expensive and intricate machinery now is required to make shoddy. There is shoddy and shoddy. A man who makes shoddy said there are more than forty different grades and quali ties of the commodity, and that many kinds of wool cloth in wliieb shoddy is a constituent element are not cheap, inferior fabrics, but are more service able and the better for the shoddy. Shoddy is a useful product of waste material. It is never used alone, but in combination with new wools. The woolen rags from which shoddy Is made are first thoroughly dusted by machinery before tliey are sorted. Any cotton which may be in the rags is got lid of by dipping the rags in a boiling mixture of sulphuric acid. Long experience has demonstrated the exact proportion of tlie acid re quired to eat out the cotton libers without destroying the wool. The ef fect of dipping tlie rags into tlie water and acid is to rot the cotton so that the woolen part of the fabric falls to pieces easily. After being dried, the rags are run through a machine that removes every bit c. dust, leaving the pure, clean wool. The wooien rags and cloth are dyed, and then run through a machine whose thousands of steel pins not only shred the rags, but split the threads so that the rags which enter the machine leave It in the form of wool fibers. The wool is put through a carding machine, which thoroughly combs out the woolen particles, mixes them and turns tliem out in the form of long fluffy rolls, which are packed in bales ready to be shipped to the woolen mills, where the shoddy is mixed with new wool. Wlilic woolen rags are sent to the shoddy mills, linen rags naturally start from the ragman's storeroom to the jiaper mill. There they are me chanically cleaned and then deftly sorted by girls and women, who throw out every rag that Is not linen. The selected rags are cut Into bits by a machine and then boiled In lime water to remove the colors, after which they are ground to a pulp and become the "half stock" of the paper-makers. This pulp is bleached, and after passing through a machine called a "beater," which comuleUs the pulping process, it Is sent to tr.e paper machine to be made into line linen paper. The "old iron" which forms half the burden of the ragman's song is the basis of a business whose output is valued annually in millions of dollars. Every piece of old iron, wrought or cast, rusty or clean, can be utilized. The'old calt iron is sent to foundries and puddling furnaces, the old wrought iron, bars, sheets and plates, is sent to the rolling mills. Cast iron sent to foundries is remelted with pig iron, and begins a new life of useful ness under new forms and shapes. The wrought iron goes to the scrap piles in rolling mill yards. There it is sorted and cut to convenient lengths, then made up into "box" piles or fag gots, heated to n white heat in fur naces and run through the rolls, which tlrst weld the pieces of iron into a solid billet and then reduce the billets to bars. A profitable business has been found in the redrawing of old iron pipe and boiler tubes. Most of this waste ma terial is thickly covered with rust when it arrives at the factory, and the rust is removed by the simple pro cess of heating the old pipe to a cherry red and plunging it into water. The sudden contraction loosens the rust scales and the pipe is sent to the heating furnace clean and bright., A good welding heat prepares the pipe for the redrawing process. This con sists in pulling the white hot pipe through a die, which not only reduces its diameter but makes it solid. It is heated again and drawn through a smaller die, aud the process is con tinued until the pipe is down to the required diameter. Then the new pipe is straightened aud is ready for the market. Steel rails which have been ham mered and flattened by the huge driv ers of locomotives are heated and re- , rolled through the finishing passes of k a rail mill. This process, of course, r" reduces the size of the rail, but it renews the life of the rail at com paratively slight expense. Old steel rails and the sawed off ends of new steel rails are made Into bars, harrow teeth, plow beams, tire, spring steel and other forms and shapes used by makers of agricultural implements, wagons anil carriages. | The rails are cut by huge power shears into convenient lengths and heated In a fumade. For making plow beams the pieces of rail are passed through rolls, which reshape the head aud flange to the required shape. If it Is desired to make bars the pieces of rail lirst pass through the slittlug rolls, which slit the rail into three pieces—the head, web and flange. The head is worked down into squares, rounds and other tonus of bars; the M web Is rolled down to harrow tooth " 1 steel, baity carriage spring steel, light rounds and spoke steel; the flange is rolled Into flats aud spring steel. Thou sands of tons of old Bessemer steel rail have been transformed into mer chant steel aud agricultural shapes. In the copper district of Moutuna, scrap irou, a waste material, aud the water, which might be called waste material, from a copper mine, are brought together to save the copper, which Is carried off in the water. Some years ago some iron tools were left for a time in the stream of water which flowed from one of the large copper mines. A miucr passiug saw that the iron had disappeared and that copper had taken its place. Being a clever man, he made some experiments, and soon satisfied him self that there was a fortune iu the water which had been running away unheeded ever since the mine was opened, lie bought scrap irou aud tin cans aud placed them in tanks into which he ran the water from the mine, and lu time the iron, by chemical ac tion, "caught" the copper which was afterward refined. Itnilroad companies, large manu facturers aud the "captains of indus try" are ever on the lookout for ways and methods to turn waste material into useful by-products. Fortunes are hidden iu garbage boxes and millious of dollars are waiting to be dug out of the scrap piles.—Malcolm McDow ell, lu Chicago Record-Herald. Argument From Precedent. Lincoln was ouce arguing a case against an opponent who tried to con vince the jury tlutt precedent is su perior to law, aud that custom makes things legal iu all cases. Lincoln's reply, given in Miss Ida Tnrbell's life jL of tlte great war President, was one of his many effective analogies in the form of a story. Lincoln told the jury that he would argue the ease iu the same way as his oppoueut, aud began: "Old Squire Bagly, from Menard, came into my office one day aud said: " 'Lincoln, I 'want your advice as a lawyer. Has a man what's been electe d justice of the peace a right to issue a marriage license'!' "I told him not; whereupon the old squire threw himself back in his chair very indignantly and said: " 'Lincoln, I thought you was a law yer. Now, Bob Thomas aud me bud a bet on this thing, aud we agreed to let you decide; but if this is your opin- , ion, I don't want it, for I know a thun- :/ 1 deriu' sight better. I've been a squire W eight years, and have done it al! the time.'" Germany's colonies are five times as big as herself, those of France eigh teen times null Britain's niuety-seveu times bigger tliau herself. Scotlaud lias 14U parishes witnout paupers, poor-rates, or public bouses. t
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers