An Oliio college president died of grief because the students didn't like him. What a dropping off of college presidents there would be if that com plaint became generally fatal. A new mechanical genius has ap peared in Chicago, who claims to have evolved a horseless, dustless street sweeper. The machine is to be run by a gasoline motor, and he says that a system of fans, which operate with suction tubes, will take up all the dust. The craze for ping-pong, our old friend table tennis under a new name, seems to have come to stay. The new name was patented, and that is the reason why you get a box marked "Tabic Tennis" when you ask your sporting dealer for ping-pong. The craze is hound to be of material benefit to lawn tennis this year. The way surgeons and scientists are juggling with life in these latter days is almost paralyzing to the lay mind. It is reported that a German chemist has prepared a fluid which, injected into a plant near its roots, has the power of perpetuating life. The plant stops growing and maintains a fresh, green appearance, although vitality is apparently suspended. According to an old document just discovered in Australia gold was lirst found by a convict near Parramntta in 1795. The unfortunate fellow was at ouce charged with having stolen a watch and "boiled it down," and be ing convicted by the rude court of those early days was given 130 lashes for his pains. In later years the record of this incident was closely examined by an undoubtedly competent author ity, who was quite convinced of the genuineness of the convict's story. Detroit reports that the country pos sesses one thankful tramp. Last Thanksgiving Day a tramp applied at the police station for a night's lodging. Chief Farrington gave him a good talking to and advised him to go to work. He then gave the fellow money to pay for his supper and lodging at a hotel. Recently the chief received a letter from the fellow, now located in a big lumber mill in Pennsylvania, stating that he came there after leav ing Battle Creek, and, taking the chief's advice, went to work, and had now been promoted to foreman and was saving money. The superiority of the American lo comotive over the English in hauling power is due, says an authority on these machines, to the larger heating surface in their boilers more than to any other cause. This constitutes, in fact, the chief difference between the American and the English type. The boilei'3 of our locomotives have been increased in size steadily, until they are enormous, and yet railroad men call for still greater power. The prob lem that now confronts the locomotive builder is how to increase the heating surface without making the machines too large to pass through tunnels, and to solve it he will, no doubt, have to change the form of the boiler. Tennessee has been reducing its State debt at a rapid rate. Ten years ago it owed $10,000,000, a much larger sum than any ether State in the same i-egion, and carrying an interest charge Df more than $500,000 a year at a time when the annual interest charge on New York's debt was less than SIOO,- 1000 and on that of Ohio less than SIOO,OOO. Recently the State debt has been reduced, and Governor McMillan gives some interesting information (concerning the reduction of the State debt during his administration. Since January 1, ISOO, the debt has been re duced at the rate of SII,OOO a week, jand the indebtedness paid up to this time includes $010,103.31 of floating idebt and the redemption of $003,000 Of State bonds, a total of $1,515,105.31. Minister Newel, of The Hague, re ports that a very large number of in quiries are received at the legation Bnd at the consulates at Amsterdam bud Rotterdam as to various imagi nary estates in Holland—E. G. Kronk, Anneke Jans, Du Bois, Metzger, lirosius, Fischer, Snyder and others more than twenty in all. The inquiries come from all parts of the United States. Since 180S, the United States minister and consuls in Hollund have received more than 330 letters from Americans ou the subject. The min ister says that he is authorized by the authorities at The Hague to state not only that there are no such estates awaiting distribution, but that there have never been any such estates; and one oiiicial is sure, from the nature of things and the Dutch laws, that there never will be any such estates. OFF TO THE DREAM ISLE. BY GENESEE RICHARDSON. Rest in your cradle, Dreamily sway, Twilight is silver, Husning the day. Dear little barefoot, Drooping your eyes. Rest till the dawn lignt Creeps in the skies. Quivering leaflets Softer voice take. Stars step like fairies, Still the blue lake, Birds only listen, Hid in the trees, Lest they may startle Baby kin's ease. fjf r.Sf' ¥RS. KAVANAUGH, a frail little woman of forty-five, with a few hundred dollars sewed in her dress, and the Are of hope in her bright gray eyes, had eome into the strip two years af ter its opening. Of course she got the worst of it, for tlie choice land was already taken, and the self-satisfied settlers who watched her old gray horsp and clattering buggy meander across their fields, smiled lialf-pitying ly at the tardy boomer. When at last she set up her little tent and staked out her horse on a bare and rocky quarter section, where even tho short grass looked stunted, the women pitied her and some of the neighboring men came over to ask her if there was anything they could lend her. But she only thanked them, as she guessed she "would get along all right," so that the women who passed by her tent every day began to say that she was "stuck up," and the farmers who knew that she was on an almost barreu claim, only grinned and mat tered; "She won't last mor'n one sea son." But she fooled them. A tiny shack was built by a half-breed who hauled the lumber from the railway station in her buggy. He built a frail little fence around a few acres of lier ground, and left her at home on the desolate bill she had chosen. Then every morning when the sun swung up from the yel low floor of the dry prairie that stretched from her door to the horizon, she was out !h her little garden dig ging, planting, cultivating the small space from which she hoped at least to wring a living. In the afternoon she would hitch up her aged nag and, ftr fte# I CALLED EVERYDAY. • dressed in her best widow's weeds, set off for the jtostofflcc five miles away. She brought home a few chickens, arid in the lengthening evening hours sat knitting at her low hack door, watch ing the sun drop dowu into the path less, treeless west. When spring had eome and gone and Mrs. Kavanaugh's little garden showed all the squalor of its pinched cabbages and sickly vines the passing neighbors pitied her. If they had known her simple story perhaps they might have helped her develop her poor land, but. she confided in none, and came at last to be known as a headstrong, cranky old woman, who would be better off "back East" with her people. Rain or shine, spring, summer, autumn and winter, she drove to town, tied her horse at the postofflce and asked for a letter. Tho overworked clerk came to know her at last, and witli an effort at kindly deception, for there had never eome a letter for her, would shuffle over the package of K.'s and Say soft ly: "Nothing to-day, Mrs. Kava naugh." Then she would drop the old erepe veil that was growing rusty, draw a letter from her pocket, and drop it Into the box. That was for her son, her runaway boy, and It was always addressed: "Mr. Tom Kava- Bonniest love-bird All the land wide Nestled for night in Pale eventide; Cheek warmly tinted, Like a rose, Long, curving lashes Lulled to a close. Drowsily crooning Forward and fro, Off to the dream isle Babe and I go, Drowsily crooning, Forward and fro. Off to the dream isle Babe and I go. naugli. Twenty-seventh Infantry, Ma nila. Philippine Islands." Every day she sent him a letter and every day she ioolced for an answer. But none came, and the nervous old woman went gravely back in her rickety bug gy to the lonely shanty upon the deso late hill to watch the sun set and to hope and pray. Her boy Tom had run away from home before his drunken father had died. He had written her Just one line: "Gone to the Philippines with the Twenty-seventh Infantry." He had been gone a year when his father died. She had written to him often, but, knowing what a thoughtless boy he. was, tirst attributed his silence to for getfulness and neglect. When she told him of his father's death, she felt sure of some answer, and though none came she continued to write gentle, loving, warning letters to the absent scape grace. He had been a youth of some spirit, and she knew that his father's dishonor in their home had driven him into the army, but with all her moth er's condoning love, she could not un derstand why he did not at least send her a word. She hated the town which had been the scene of her own and her boy's disgrace and separation, and when the "new country" was opened and the stories of its glowing future reached her she sold her out all her belongings and set forth to find a home that should be her boy's home, too. After two years of this eventless life Mrs. Kavatiaugh came to be recog nized as one of th? characters of the town. Most people thought her harm lessly insane. The sand storms and the careening winds, the burning suns and winter snows, had turned her withered clieeka to parchment. Her old crepe veil was brown now; her Ill made black alpaca dress, threadbare and discolored, hung loosely about her shrunken body. When the third win ter came she sold her horse and buggy for S3O, but bought only shoes that she might trudge to town and stamps and paper that she might send her dally letter to the boy. Silent, bowed, tear less, but with a quenchless light of hope in her mother eyes, each day she stood in line at the window and asked softly for the letter that never came. The-postmaster, who had half guessed her story, tried to win her con fidence. He wanted to help her some way, but she evaded all his questions. And then at last there came a day when she did not call at the postofllee. It was quite an event, for the post master and his clerk had come to re gard her visit as the one Inevitable and poignant occurrence of each day's busi ness. So that night, suspecting the worst, he drove In his buggy to her lonely home. She was In bed, quite 111, it seemed, but gently grateful for his visit. "I did my best," sir, she told blra, "but my money Is all gone. I killed my last chicken last Sunday, and now, God help me, I must sell my home, his home," and (She looked around the •wretched, candle-lighted room with dim, wet eyes. "It will be best for you, Mrs. Kava naugh," quoth the postmaster, kindly; "yotl're too—that is, you're no longer young or strong enough to live like this. Have you no relatives? no chil dren?" "Oh, yes sir," she answered, proudly looking up. "I have a son, sir; a fine boy; but he's away In the army, and it's on his account I don't want to give it up." But he persuaded her to ride to town with him, and assured her that there would be no trouble about sell ing her place. "It's not worth much, I know," she said, as they drove toward town, "but, much as I want to keep it, I'd rather sell it than take charity." He assured her that she might "board" at his home until he had sold the place, and she went there only to lapse into a fever that taxed the best ingenuity of the two doctors of the town. She was a worn, ghostly old woman when at last she sat up and the postmaster told her that he had sold her place for 5500. "If you feel able you can Just sign the deed; the money is ready down at the bank, and Mr. Rogers, the young fellow who wants to buy it, has gone out to the place to look it over." So she signed the document, a few weak tears dropping upon it, and hand ed it back to the postmaster. He took it and left her alone, but in the even ing, when he came home to supper, he came quickly into her room and said: "Mrs. Kavanaugli, the man who bought your place, Mr. Rogers, wants to see you a moment. Shall I show him in?" And when he came in she felt for her glasses, but could not find them, so she bade him sit down and told him that there were a few things in the old shack, her Bible and an old album, that she wished to take away. And the stranger, a freckled, red-haired giant, took her hand and whispered: "Mammy, don't you know me?" "Rogers," she murmured, feeling his face with tremulous hope and fear, "Rogers? If it's you, Tom, why nre you Rogers?" "I wasn't of age, mammy, when I enlisted. I was afraid daddy would stop ine, so I took Rogers." And as he held her close to his breast and felt the hot tears drip on his hand he did not ask for his father, for on the wall he saw the weather-beaten widow's cap and the dusty veil of mourning.—John H. Raftery, in the Chicago-Record Herald. Monnt Etna's Height. The height of Mount Etna, the fa mous volcano of Sicily, has long been fixed at 10, SCO feet. Its height has re. ccntly been more accurately measured by trigonometrical processes, and the exact elevation is found to be 10,755 feet. The difference is not important, but the more exact determination will, of course, be given on the maps here after published. The main crater hns a width of 1728 feet and a depth of 820 feet. Mount Etna has periods of almost complete quiescence. Six years had elapsed after the eruption of 1802, when in the autumn of IS9S blue tiames began to emerge from the moutli of tlie largest crater, and a great deal of vapor was emitted from the lesser orifices. It was then an nounced that Etna seemed to be pre paring for an effusion of lava, probably on the south or southwest slopes. The expected eruption, however, did not begin till the morning of July 10. 1899, when great volumes of smoke and lava began to issue from the main crater, but after several days the ac tivity gradually subsided, and Etna soon resumed its peaceful aspect and has since seemed to he in a slumber ous condition. Ah Viewed by the Departing Prisoner. Tlte Rev. Samuel S. Searing, chap lain of the House of Correction, South Boston, frequently has amusing ex periences with the prisoners who come under his care. He is required by law to have au Interview with ev ery man whose time bus expired and who Is about to leave the house. It Is the chaplain's duty to give the de parting prisoner good advice and to exhort him to be a decent and honor able man In the future. In the course of one of these inter views the chaplain said: "Now, my friend, I hope you'll never have to come baclt to a place like this." The prisoner looked at him thought fully and then asked: "I say, chaplain, you draw a salary here, don't you?" When Mr. Searing replied in the af. Urinative, the prisoner remarked: "Well, say, if me and the other fel lows didn't keep coming back you'd be out of a Job."—Bostoii Herald. The Polish on the Shoes. "A high polish 011 shoes is no longer considered good form," said a man who follows the fashions closely. "It Is going the way of the high gloss on linen. The laundryman has become convinced that the dull finish Is what we want, but it is more difficult to penetrate the untutored mind of the bootblack. Because be has always re garded the looking glass shine as the best shine, he still seems to think that you want to use your shoes as mirrors, and you can't get him to tliiDk other wise. I can always spot a man who has his shoes attended to by a vale't. There Is no confusing him with the man who patronizes the professional bootblack."—Philadelphia Itecord. A Persian Cuotoui. In Persia the man who laughs Is con sidered effeminate, but free llceus# 1 given to feminine merriment. ST. PIERRE HALF-BREEDS THE FINEST MIXED RACE OF THE WEST INDIES. I Straight an Palm* and Supple and Tall Were the Victims of Mont Pelee, in Martinique— Costume of the Women I Singular and Brilliant. j 111 describing the people of St. Pierre I —tile people who have been buried in j one great black tomb of lava and mud —no better authority may be had thun j Lafcadio Hearu, who for two years [ lived among them, and who made a j close study of them. He says: I "A population fantastic, astonishing —a population of the Arabian Mights. It 1b many-colored, but the general j dominant tint Is yellow, like that of I the town Itself—yellow in the iuter ] blending of all the hues characterising I mulatresse, capresse, griffe, quarter , onae, mctissc, chablne—a general effect lof rich, brownish yellow. You are j among a people of half-breeds, the i finest mixed race of the (Vest Indies. | "Straight as palms and supple and tall, these colored women and men im press one powerfully by their dignified | carriage and easy elegance of move ment. They walk without swinging of the shoulders—the perfectly 6et torso seems to remain rigid; yet the step is a long, full stride, and the whole weight is springingly poised on the very tip of the bare foot. All, or nearly all, are without shoes; the trending of many naked feet over the heated pavement makes a continuous whispering sound. "Perhaps the most novel impression of all Is that produced by the singular ity and brilliance of certain of the women's costumes. These were devel oped at least a hundred years ago by some curious sumptuary law regulat ing the dress of slaves and colored peo ple of free condition—a law which al lowed considerable liberty as to mate rial and tint, prescribing chiefly form. But some of these fashions suggest the Orient; they offer beautiful audacities of color contrast, and the full - dress coiffure, above all, is so strikingly Eastern that one might be tempted to •believe It was first Introduced into the colony by some Mahommedan slave. It Is merely an immense Madras hand kerchief, which is folded about the head with admirable art, like a turban —one bright end pushed through at the top in front being left sticking up like n plume. Then this turban, always full of bright canary color, is fastened with golden brooches—one in front and one at cither side. "As for the remainder of the dress, it Is simple enough; an embroidered, low cut chemise with sleeves; a skirt or Jupc, very long behind, but caught up and fastened in front below the breast so as to bring the hem everywhere to a level with the end of the long chemise, and finally a foulard or silken kerchief thrown over the shoulders. These jupes and foulards, however, are exquisite In pattern and color, bright crimson, bright yellow, bright blue, bright green —lilac, violet, rose—sometimes mingled In plaidings or checkerlngs or strip- Ings, black with orange, sky-blue with purple. "To this display add the effect of costly and curious Jewelry; immense earrings, each pendant being formed of five gold cylinders joined together (cylinders sometimes two inches long and an inch at leastln circumference)— a necklace of double, triple, quadruple or quintuple rows of large hollow gold beads. Now this growing jewelry is not a mere imitation of pure metal; the earrings are worth 175 francs a pair; the necklace of a Martinique quadroon may cost 000 or even 1000 francs. It may be the gift of her sweetheart, but such articles are usually purchased either on time by small payments or bend by bead singly until the requisite number is made up. "But few ore thus attired. The greater number of the women carrying burdens on their heads—peddling vege tables, cakes, fruit, ready-cooked food, from door to door—are very simply dressed In a single plain robe of vivid colors, reaching from neck to feet, and made with a train, but generally girded jwcll up so as to sit close to the figure and leave the lower limbs perfectly free. I "These women can walk all day long tip and down hill in the hot sun, with out shoes, carrying loads of from 100 to 150 pounds on their heads, and if their little stock sometimes fails to come up to the accustomed weight stones are added to make it heavy enough. And the creole street cries, uttered in a sonorous, far-reaching, high key, interblend and produce ran dom harmonies very pleasant to hear. "The quaint stores bordering on both sides of the street bear no names and no signs over their huge arched doors —you must look well inside to know what business is being done. Even then you will scarcely be able to satisfy yourself as to the nature of the com merce, for they are selling gridirons and frying-pans in the dry goods stores, holy images and rosaries in the notion stores, sweet-cakes and confectionery lu the crockery stores, coffee and sta tionery in the millinery stores, cigars and tobacco in the china stores, cravats and laces and ribbons in the Jewelry stores, sugar and guava Jelly in the to bacco stores." Page after page is devoted to a de scription of the various types of the black, brown nnd yellow people, with here and there some almost white, which made up the population of St. Pierre. All, says the author, were vig orous, graceful, healthy; all one saw passing by were well made—there were no sickly faces, no scrawny limbs. If by some rare chance you encountered a person who had lost an arm or a leg you could be almost certain you were looking at a victim of the fer-de-lanee, the serpent whose venom putrifies liv ing tissues. The European, negro and Indian com-1 blned to form this strange race, but the Indian seemed to predominate. All were clean-limbed, strong and physi cally beautiful. Particularly was one impressed by the extreme beauty of the youpg girls, with their clear yellow or brown skins, lithe light figures and the grace of their movements. BIT OF A FAMOUS APPLE TREE. It Was tlie First Plunteri in Western "Now York and a Woman Raised It. Mrs. Sophronia Phelps, of Kuckville, Orleans County, N. Y., celebrated her ninety-third birthday the other day. The event was marked by an old-fash ioned reception. "Mistress Phelps," as her old friends and relatives call her to this day, as that was the way she was addressed three-quarters of a, century ago, sat In n curiously carved chair which is 'more than 125 years old, and an heir loom. But the relic which interested the guests most was a cane belonging to Colonel Miles, of Ivuckville, made from the wood of the first qpple troe planted in Western New I'ork. The cane is handsomely carved and beau tifuly polished. It was related at the birthday party by Mistress Phelps that tills first apple tree was plauted by a Mrs. Dunham who sowed the apple seed herself and cared for the tender shoot until it was set out near the Dunham homestead in the eastern part of what is now Erie County. Mrs. Dunham came when a girl from New York City. The family stopped at Albany and slowly worked their way along the Mohawk, westward through the wilderness. They stayed for a while at or near the salt springs of Syracuse, and there, according to tradition, somebody gave them a hand ful of apple seeds. From one of these seeds came the first apple tree planted in Western New Y'ork, the advance guard of the Innumerable orchards that crowd the most famous apple growing region in the world.—New York Sun. WISE WORDS. He dances well to whom fortune pipes.—ltalian proverb. Beauty is a good letter of introduc tion.—German proverb. Humility Is the solid foundation of all the virtues.—Confucius. He can feci no little wants who is in pursuit of grandeur.—Lavater. A man is valued according to his own estimate of himself.—French pro verb. Hp is but the counterfeit of a man who has not the life of a man.—Shakes peare. Debt Is, like any other trap, easy enough to get Into, hut hard enough to get out of.—ll. W. Shaw. The path of duty is near, yet men. seek It afar off. The way Is wide, it is not hard to find. Go home and seek It and you will not lack teachers.-Men clus. The situation that has not duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here is this miserable, despicable actual, wherein tiiou even now stand est—here or nowhere Is thy Ideal! Work it out, therefrom! The ideal is ill thyself; the impediment, too, is in thyself.—Carlyle. There is in all things an ideal, a di vine principle, revealing itself in spite of contradictory elements something which it only can be in a sudden tran sitory flash, as an ordinary face will in a moment of satisfied affection, of exalted feeling, be transfigured into beauty and nobleness. Dora Greeu well. Wall Street's Activity. The enormous volume of mail matter of all classes which finds its way in and out of the Wall Street district daily Is another striking indication of Its tremendous activity. The average business man throughout this section receives his mail every day by eighteen deliveries. A delay of say thirty min utes in delivering a letter is likely to be a far more serious matter in the Street than a similar loss of a day or two in almost any other business activ ity. The efforts of the postal authorities to satisfy tills demand are unequalled in any other part of the country. In a single building on Broad street, with a frontage of less than forty feet, there are, for example, three letter carriers constantly busied delivering the mail. And the letter boxes to be found at every corner are absolutely inadequate for holding the mails. Every building of any pretension, and there are scores of them, has one or more mail chutes extending from the first to the twen tieth floor, or whatever It may be, which are in constant use.—New Y'ork Sun. Tlio Art of Savagea. "Why is it," asked Dr. Carl I,um lioltz, whose explorations among the aborigines are well known, in carrying on a discussion of some of the points made by Miss Rice, "why is it that tlie people of what we call the inferior races, even to the savages, are artistic in the productions which they make for their daily use, nud that it Is only civilized man who requires to he stim ulated to au appreciation of art? "I have often pondered this. Some times I have thought that it was be cause we lived too fnr from uature. But I leave the problem with you. Why of all mankind ure the civilized peoples the only ones who require stimulation to appreciate art and the beautiful so that they will surround themselves with objects of beamy?" —New York Sun. Milking: u Kick. # "If you are going to make a kick," says the Manayunk Philosopher, "be sure that somebody else isn't going to get the benefit of it."—Philadelphia Record.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers