THE RICHEST MAN. The wealthiest man of all I know Does not possess much gold, Nor does he own a large estate, Nor jewelry untold. No great invention has he made, Nor glory gained, nor fame By deeds heroic, and he wears No handle to nis name. Nor yet enjoys that precious gift, The very best of health, For that may disappear with years- Eternal is his wealth. AN INGENIOUS BETRAYAL. TT GENTLEMAN called to /\ see you this afternoon, As'X Mr. Norton," said my If housekeeper on my arrival home from the office on evening. "I gave him your city address, but he said he preferred to see you here, aud would call again at 8 o'clock this even ing. When 1 told him you never trans acted business here he replied that you would make his ease an exception." I awaited the arrival of my visitor with a certain amount of curiosity. I knew he must have obtained my pri vate address from one of four persons, aud that none of the four would have given it to him unless his business proved of the utmost importance. On the stroke of 8 Mrs. Batty an nounced his arrival, and a moment af terward ushered him into my presence. 1 looked at him curiously. He was a keen-eyed, elderly man, with gray hair and mustache, and a forehead deeply scored With lines of care. "I am Baron Kaluto, the special rep resentative in England of the Barema Government. From the papers you will have gathered that there have been, and still are, in progress impor tant negotiations between your coup try and my own." "Yes," I interjected. "It was not our intention to publish the terms of those negotiations, but they had been betrayed, and no other course remained open to us." He paused for a moment; then, as I remained silent, continued: "You boast of the freedom of your press, Mr. Norton, and rightly so. Taken as a whole, your editors are men of high purpose and lofty ideal men who appreciate the responsibility of their position and use their power for the good of the nation. But there are exceptions, and the editor of the Early Bugle is one of them. In order to increase the circulation of his paper he would turn every public servant into a Judas, and But pardon me, Mr. Norton, I did not come here to lec ture on tlie evils of a free press." He spoke in n tone of great bitterness and his eyes flashed ominously. "You will understand why I feel so deeply on the subject when I tell you that the items of Information concern ing the negotiations which have lately appeared in tiie Early Bugle have been seenred by its editor from some treach erous official. "We have tried in vain to discover the traitor. So. acting upon the advice of a friend, I determined to take you into my confidence and ask you to un dertake the inquiry." I assured him that I should be pleased to do so, and he went on: "There have been leakages in several departments lately, and your authori ties think the traitor is on their side. I am positive that he Is not." "Why?" "Because the Information is not taken from official documents, but is a clever summary of conversations be tween myself and your representa tive. And the leakage never occurs when I have visited your Foreign Office, hut invariably follows the visit of your representative to our Loca tion. "You have taken a great load off my mind by consenting to undertake the inquiry, for, from what I know of you. I am certain if the mystery is to be solved you are the man to do it." I bowed my acknowledgment of the compliment. Then we discussed the matter in all Its hearings, and arranged that I should go and stay at the Lega tion during my Inquiry. The day following i entered the Le gation as his honored guest. I was soon on excellent terms with everybody connected with the establishment. I Wandered about the house lftimolested, poked into odd corners, talked with the servants, and, in fact, with every one, hut never did I come upon a clue which promised to lead to the solution of the mystery. A week passed and I was no nearer the solution than on the first day" of my entrance. Nothing suspicious had happened, and yet an important con versation had been betrayed. In less than an hour a summary of the conversation appeared in a special edition of the Early Bugle. Baron Kaluto had not left the Lega tion. The Foreign Office representative had been shadowed to his office. Ho had not spoken to any one on his way there. No third person had been pres ent at the interview, and yet the sum mary was so concise and accurate that it must have been communicated by some one who had listened to the con versation. No other explanation was possible, I was puzzled. The following afternoon a represen tative of the Eoreigu Office called at the Legation and was closeted witli Baron Kaluto. An hour later the name of the traitor and the method by which lie communicated with the editor were known to me. But how he gained ids knowledge I could nut tell. No thief can steal his valued prize, It lies within the man; A great discovery he has made, The greatest mortal can. He sees two sides to everything, But casts the dark away, And looks upon the brighter side That shines as clear as day. For all through life the bright exists, If only we will see. Is not his wealth who finds this out, The greatest that can be? —Edna Boyden, in the New York Sun. The statement which appeared in the Early Bugle was made the basis of a question In Parliament, and in his re ply the Under Secretary stated that it was pure liction. The members of the Legation smiled knowingly when they read his answer. They thought that, in the interests of his country, he had trifled with the truth. They were mistaken; he had spoken the truth. The representative who called at the Legation came, not from the Foreign Office, hut from my office. He was one of my men, so cleverly made up that they were deceived by his remarkable likeuess to the person be represented. The attache upon whom my suspi cions had fallen, though not likely to make much headway in the diplomatic service, was a really clever electrician, and the Legation was filled with useful nad ingenious devices of his invention. Iu diplomacy he was a mere waster; as an electrical engineer lie might have won both fame and fortune. lie had fitted one of the spare rooms at the top of the house as a workshop, and spent most of Ids spare time In It, working in a desultory fashion upon the many incomplete inventions with which It was stored. During the inter views he had been in his room, and, if my suspicions were well founded, it was there I must seek the answer to the question—How? There was a workbench at one end of the room. Under the bench was a cupboard, sufficiently large to admit of my crouching and hiding myself in it. I entered the cupboard and made my self as comfortable as possible. Through a crevice in the door I com manded a view of the whole room. Just before 3 o'clock the attache en tered the workshop, and, after closing the door, threw a thick curtain across it. Then he seated himself in an easy chair and switched on the light of a single arc lamp, without a globe, placed on an insulated table, and connected with an electric generator. From my hiding place I gazed at the brilliant light of the lamp, "wondering what connection there could he be tween it and the mystery I was trying to solve. Suddenly the Baron's voice broke in upon the silence. The sound was so elcar aud so distinct that I was almost startled into an exclamation of sur prise. For a moment I was puzzled as to where it came from. Then I located it. The lamp was talking! On the ground floor of the house the Baron was engaged in conversation with the supposed representative of the Foreign Office, and by some strange phenomenon the burning lamp was transmitting the sound with such pur ity and distinctness that every word was as audible as jf we had been pres ent at the interview. For half an hour the conversation fol lowed the lines agreed upon between the Baron and ray representative; then there was a pause, followed by a light, gossipy conversation. The attache had listened intently to the conversation so long as It dealt with the matters under concern. As SOOI) as that part of it ended he began to arrange his summary. For some time ho wrote and re-wrote. Then he read aloud what he had written. It satisfied him. A moment afterward he switched off the light and left the room. As soon as the sound of his footsteps died away I crawled out of my hiding plnee and strolled into the attache's room, lie was busy arranging a bou quet of choice blooms for a smart so ciety laily of his acquaintance. "The ladles make great demands upon our time and attention," he said with a smile. Without speaking I stood and watolied him. The message was not, as I had suspected, concealed among the (lowers; it was woven Into the bou quet, and was easily readable by means of the Morse code, colors taking the place of dot and dash. Ills arrangement of the flowers was strikingly beautiful, and as he attached Ills card to the completed bouquet and instructed one of the servants where to take It, I did not wonder that the simplicity of Ills method had enabled him to escape suspicion. The bouquet never reached its desti nation, and no message appeared in the Early Bugle that evening. Confronted with the evidence of his guilt the at tache made a clean breast of every thing. He had fallen a victim to the charms of a smart society lady, and in order to prove ills love for her had consented to supply her with information, and a bouquet of flowers had been the means of communication. For months past he had openly sent her a daily gift of flowers, so that the continuance of the habit occasioned neither surprise nor suspicion. Upon receipt of the flowers she telephoned the coded message to the editor of the Barly Bugle, who %ad BO knowledge as to the source of her Information. Then he explained that part of the mystery which still puzzled me. The lamp in the workshop was connected with a wire with a microphone in the Baron's room. But he could not ac count for the strange phenomenon which caused it—while burning—to speak. He had stumbled upon the In vention by accident, and, under stress of his passion, had kept his discovery secret and put it to base uses. It was the old story of "the woman tempted me."—New York News. THE COACHMAN'S PASSING. The Old Timers Disappeared From the Earth When Kailrondo Came. One often wonders what became of the old coachman when railways drove the last of the mails off the road and those who had known few pleasures that were not associated with the movements of lively teams and the hum of rolling wheels or genial inter course with the traveling world could enjoy those things no more. There must be deep patlios in the unwritten romance of that period. With few ex ceptions, the drivers of stage coaches had ao aptitude or inclination for other work, though they were masters of their own. Mauy a time in boyhood I have heard amateur whips pay ad miring tribute to the professionals of an older generation who, for all their dissolute liahits and uncoutlmess, were workmen to the core with hands as gentle as a woman's. Bob Pointer, who taught mauy Oxford under-grad uates how to handle an awkward team, was one of the hard drinkers, but no body ever saw him in "difficulties" to which his skill was not equal. Ills wise maxima are still remembered and worth remembering: "Never let your horses know you are driving them, or, like women, they may get restive. Don't pull aud haul and stick your el bows akimbo; keep your hands as though you were playing the piano; let every horse be at work and don't get flurried; handle their mouths light ly; do all this, and you might even drive four young ladies without ever ruftling their feathers or their tem pers."—From the "Old Road Coach," by Henry H. S. Pearse, In Outing. Earth's Dlottirbances. Mother earth lias evidently started lu this year to break all records dur ing historic times of gigantic destruc tive disturbances. For the first half of the year we have to charge her unusual restless ness with 4.8,900 lives through volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Her tor nadoes have hurled 465 human beings out of existence, and cyclones have added 240 more to the list, while other storms in great numbers, but of less dignity in name, have placed 720 to the direct account of violent winds. Floods have swept 345 persons from life, tidal waves have drowned 110 and waterspouts have destroyed 15. To all of this we must add 283 lives charged to the destructive force of avalanches and snow slides, and we have a total of 51,078; an astounding mortality from these fierce agencies of destruction In one-half of a year. Sea Voyages. The advantages of life at sea are the entire rest and the absolute necessity of almost living In the open air that Is forced upon the patients. There is besides the absence of dust, the equa bility of temperature, the inhalation of the saline particles that And their way into the air, together with the elec trical stimulation of the ozone so plen tiful at sea. Besides the moist atmos phere the ocean has that distinctly sed ative effect that occurs in a moist cli mate with a high barometer. An added benefit is the tonic effect of a complete change from ordinary life on land. Isl and. life possesses the sedative tonic influences of the ocean without the ennui of a long sailing voyage. These sailing voyages for therapeutic pur poses should now be reserved only for dipsomaniacs and errant sons.—Phila delphia Record. Tlia H.dal of Honor, The much coveted medal of honor lieetowed on officers and enlisted men of the army for exceptional acts of personal heroism, is a ttve-polntcd star of bronze, tipped with trefoil, each point containing s crown of laurel and oak. In the centre, within a circle of thirty-four stars, America "personi fied as Minerva, stands with her left hand resting on the fasces, while with lier right, in which she holds a shield emblazoned with tho American ayms, she repulses discord, represented by two snakes in each hand. The whole Is suspended by a trophy of two crossed cannons, halls and a sword surmounted by tho American eagle.— Washington Stur. No Cause For Alarm. Rev. Brown, a man of less than me dium stature, possessed a high, squeaky voice. Not long ago he was invited to ex change pulpits with a minister in a neighboring city. The church in which he was to preach was much more im posing than the home chapel. Arriving early he peered from behind the pulpit and watched what he con sidered an Immense congregation with trepidation. As the last notes of tho organ volun tnry died nway his little head popped up from behind the desk, and without a word of warning he piped out, "It is I, he not afraid."—Lippincott. Something to Cry Over. When a woman can't find anything else to worry about, she can sit down and have a good cry because if she were to die that minute she wouldn't i have any suitable clothes to be buried in.—New York Press. Jlf oiock * | L I|j| AjWVentOre. | f A Boer Heroine. THE party of Boers who have come to England with the generals include many who have had exciting experiences during the war. In talking to them you realize that it has beeu quite as much a woman's war as a men's on the side of the Boers. Perhaps, indeed, the most permaneut fact that will sur vive in history will he the part that has been played by the women. Take tho case of Mrs. De La Itey. She has beeu actually "In the field" for eighteen months. She does not look like it. She just looks a kindly middle-aged mother of a family who has lived quiet all her life. It all arose in this way. In the course of "guerrilla" war General De La Rey would occasionally come and visit ills wife in a manner that per plexed and annoyed General Methuen perhaps more than anything else hap pening 111 the war. It certainly must have been annoying, hut perhaps the best plan would have been to have grinned and borne it. Unhappily, this was not the rule with the British gen eral when he found himself crossed by Boer women. It was Intimated to Mrs. De La Rey that she must pledge her self not to give lodgings to her hus band. Now, Mrs. De La Rey is a plucky woman nnd a devoted wife. She refused. "As long as I live," she replied, "I shall give lodgings, to my husband when he comes to me." "Very well, then," Lord Methuen inti mated, "you must go iulo camp." Rut Mrs. De La Rey refused to go iuto the camp. "Give me a wagon," she said, "and I will go and shift for myself." So they gave her a wagon, and they asked her where she was going. "Into the wide world," she said, and she went. That was at the end of the year 1900, and from that time until the end of the war Mrs. De La Rey wandered nbout the veldt, now sleeping in one place, now in another, always 011 the eve of being captured, sometimes es caping by the barest interval of time from the pursuing columns. Stie car ried her children with lier In the wagon and cooking utensils sufficient to live a tolerable life. The plucky lady occa sionally found a house where she could spend a night or two, hut for the most part she was perpetually on the move, and perpetually keeping lier weather eye open for the pursuing columns. Every now and then General De La Rey would visit lier, nnd on one occa sion lie eame to her sick, and she nursed him. But while lie was lying sick In the farmhouse the columns came upon them. General Do La Rey leaped out of bed, nnd, with the help of a small command of men with him, fought off the attack nnd succeeded in escaping. On another occasion Mrs. De La Rey proved more clever than her husband. He was proposing to rest a night in a farmhouse, but she did not like the look of It. Her mji'tary eye seemed to see danger. So she per suaded her husband to move. It was fortunate that she did so, as the enemy came to that farmhouse immediately when they had left. Mrs. De La Rey was wandering in this manner when she heard that her husband had cap lured Lord Methuen. At first she would not believe it, but when she found it was true she made her way to lier husband's laager. She said she wanted to see Lord Methuen and have a talk with him. She took with her a fowl nnd some provisions an a present. Lord Methuen consented to see lier, and was obliged to tell her that he had destroyed her house. Mrs. De La Rey must have got some Christian consola tion after presenting him with the fowl nnd helping to nurse him. Then came tho question what De La Roy should do with his prisoner. The young Boers were all against giving him up, because he had treated Mrs, De La Roy In a manner tliey did not approve of. But General De La Rey and Ids wife tool; a larger view. "What can wc do with him," tliey asked, "if we keep him? If he goes with us he will probably die on one of our treks, nnd then his blood will be put to our charge. Bettor lie generous and hand him hack." The general had some difficulty with ills men, but at last persuaded them. And so General nnd Mrs. De La Rey performed an act of high generosity, which was probably the strongest influence In bringing the war to an end. But it seems to us that the generosity of Mrs. De La Rey was even greater than that of the general. Certainly in her eighteen months' cam paign she showed quite as much strat egy as any of the Boer generals in es caping. What n pity It Is that this tale of woman's heroism cannot he fully told, and that wc cannot place it in his tory as a pendant to the wanderings of De Wet.—London Daily News. "Gurctle" Got tho Gnna. "Gurdie" has not been quite fairly dealt with by history. The name is sel dom heard nowadays, hut it belonged to an energetic, brave woman, who in Revolutionary times had the applause of her country for cleverly outwitting a part of the British army. "Gurdle" lived at Union, N. J„ in those days a place aspiring to ho the capital of the State. One finds it to day fast asleep, nway from railroads and even trolley cars. Her liushand was known either as the man with the stovepipe lint, a mark of aristocracy then out of the ordinary, or as the man with tho stumbling tongue. His most salient characteristic was his admira tion for Gurdle. When the British came up the little elevation known us "the hill" at Union and entered the precincts of the sacred First Presbyterian Church, taking the hymn books and Bibles from the pews and ruthlessly tearing them to use as wadding for their guns, It was Gurdle who boldly spoke up and asked: "Is that the way you're going to give us Watts and the Bible?" The light which followed was stiff and long. The power of the young American cannon, placed nearly oppo site the church was taxed to Its utmost. To-day any one passing the spot can see this cannon preserved as a relic where it then stood, looking the. very baby it Is in the face of modern war fare. The enemy proved overstrong, but winning men must eat, and of the rich farms then lying nbout Union ]■ OT!J A.IOUI 3J3AV OnOU than that of Gurdle and her spouse. One of this stalwart woman's strong points was her excellent housekeeping. Near her great brick oven stood al ways a huge pot of Indigo ready to dye the wool from the shorn sheep. Clean, smooth and In order, the loom also awaited her pleasure at weaving. Her water from "the north side of the iwdllV rwga-.cooler than could be had elsewhere. Her cream -invariably turned to bifttifr.Gurdle cotild smooth out,.most folks' wrinkles. When the muddy, swaggering feet of the British despoiled her polished floors she made It understood that they should rest In the cellar, where home made wine was In casks, until she had prepared their meal. Lending to this place was a narrow flight of steps and an old-fashioned trap-door. It was, however, light and spacious, and the men cracked many a Joke over their en tertainment. At last Gtirdio called to them that their supper was ready. "Leave your guns stacked in the cellar," she said; "there's no room for them above." This they did and came tumbling up the stairs. Gurdle then closed the trap door with a spring, which only she knew. The men, suspecting nothing, fell eagerly to eating. To her stutter ing husband outside the window she quickly passed the word, and thus a short while later a goodly number of unarmed men were carried off as pris oners by the American boys. The signal which her husband gave about the town as he passed from man to man, and which has come to us through history, was simply the record of his clever wife's deed, "B-Gur-Gur- Gurdie's g-g-got tli-th-the gu-gu-guns." —Washington Star. Hnnge<l, But Still l.lven. The action of the Supreme Court in sending the case of murderer James Hamilton back to Butler County for a new trial lias a peculiar Interest from the fact that Hamilton was hanged by the neck through a space of more than one hour and yet lived to describe the frightful sensation which he under went while swinging at the end of a rope. In the spring of 1900 Hamilton killed George ,T. Webb, his boss, while working on a railroad not far from Kti reka. The men had quarreled and Hamilton seized an axe and split Webb's head, causing Instant death, lie was captured by the other laborers and strung up to a tree. The men were not expert In tying the hangman's knot, however, and the rope did not com press Hamilton's neck'tight enough to entirely shut off his breath. After lie had hung for more than an hour a farmer who chanced to be pass ing cut. him down, but the men who had been watching from a little dis tance at once closed in and prepared to hang him again. And then followed a strange yet Inspiring thing. The farm er stood over the body of the uncon scious man and pleaded with the mob to let the law take its course. Little by little he won them over, until at last they consented to take Hamilton to El Dorado and turn him over to the au thorities. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to twenty-one years in the penitentiary. His attorney appealed tlie case to the Supreme Court on a technicality. In the trial he had asked certain of the witnesses if they had not taken part in the hanging. The county attorney objected to this question, and the court ruled it out. The Supreme Court decided that the question was proper, and sent the case bnek for a new trial.—Kansas City Journal. Mountain Cllinbor'n Itraverj. Sidney Cowan, a young man from Nashville, is receiving unstinted praise for Ills bravery in a mountain climbing accident at Forest Toint, Tenn. Miss Vinuie Tueker, a prominent young woman of Decherd anil one of a party 011 a mountain trip, stepped over a cliff and Cowan sprang to her rescue. He caught her, but too late to prevent her fall, being dragged over the edge of the precipice, the two going down together and landing on the in cline, thirty-five or forty feet below. Though Cowan was badly shaken up he was conscious, and, as his body rolled down the ledge it caught on a bush, which stayed Ills progress. Miss Tucker, cut and bleeding, was falling in the path he had come. As she passed lie caught and held her, their flight ending three feet from the edge of a 300-foot drop. To have gone over would have meant Instant death. Their companions organized a rescue party and descended to the ledge by a narrow, circuitous path. Cowan was found clutching the girl's clothing in one hand and n clump of hushes hi the other. Miss Tucker was Insensibls. Fame. The French Government has decided to install in the Pantheon, Paris, the famous pendulum by which Foucauld, in 1857, demonstrated the roation of the earth, oh, These Women. The quickest way for one woman to get into another'woman's favor is to appear to be jealous of her.—New York News. F,voreren For n Wlu<l-I)reak. When wind - breaks in the form of hedges or straight rows of trees aT3 -' not desirable a group of evergreens 7 | will turn the currents and break the force of the blast. It is well also to note that on the cold side generally, of course, the north and west, is the place to set the very hardiest trees. Among them birch, poplar and willow rank first. The birch is the hardiest of all our trees and may be plauted very close as a wind-break. Don't Have the Karth Too IHcH* Do uot make the earth in the boxes nnd flower pots too rich. All plants protected during the winter by setting them on a stand in a warm room, such as geraniums, should not make heavy growth but be kept in good condition for slipping, as the spring and sum- J mer is the proper season for having them to perfection. The mealy bug i must be guarded against when plants are kept in a warm atmosphere. ▼ Planting drape Vines. Grape vines should be planted about eight feet apart each way and about ten inches deep, cutting them back to two or three buds above ground. A crop of potatoes or strawberries may be grown' between the rows the first two years. An excellent plan is to allow two canes to grow the first year, cutting back each year to three buds, ogain allowing two canes to grow. When the vines are five or six years old from three to five canes may be left. Always cut the old wood back to about a foot of the ground if stocky ( vines are required. It is the young j wood that bears fruit. Protecting Plants For the Winter, j The amnteur gardener often finds it L difficult to decide as to the time when winter protection should be given his plants. Sometimes we have pleasant weather until late in fall, and we put off this work from day to day, thinking they would be Injured by covering them while warm weather continued. All at once cold weather comes and finds our plants wholly unprepared for it. We at once set about doing the work that ought to have been done be fore, but whoever is done under un pleasant conditions is likely to be poor ly done, and the result of our neglect is quite apparent when spring comes. We are entirely safe in counting on cold weather by the first of November at the North, nnd I would advise get ting plants ready for winter at thnt time. It is so late in the season that no harm will be done by it if the weather continues mild. Choose? a; pleasant day for this work, if possible?, and do it leisurely, that it may be well done. It doesn't pay to hurry it, for hurry means half-doing what you un dertake.—Eben Ii Itexford, in Llppin cott's Magazine. The Terba Mang. A plant with many healing qualities, such as the Yerba Mansa of the Span ish Californians. Among those people the plant is an Infallible remedy for many disorders that flesh is heir to; and so highly do they prize it that they often travel, or send, long distances for it. The aromatic root, which has a strong peppery taste, Is very astrin gent, and when made into a tea or powder it is applied, with excellent results, to cuts and sores. The tea is also taken as a blood purifier; and the plant in the form of a wash or poultice is used for rheumatism, while the wilted leaves are said to reduce swell ings. In the medical world it is be ginning to be used for disorders of tho mucous membrane. Aside from its medicinal virtues the plant and its blossoms have a peculiar charm, especially when the lowland meadows, still vividly green after the fervid glow of the sun has begun to k turn the green of the hillsides to soft r browns, suddenly burst forth into my riads of white stars which in their green setting become grateful resting points for the eye. Philadelphia Record. In 1599 Italy had but thirty coal mines. She now has forty-five, giving ISO,COO tons a year.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers