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H
i
Itemical.
One hundred and sixty thousand
Europeans in Algiers.
A Cincinnatti physician says that
diarrhtea and summer complaint can be
cured by exposing water in a blue hot
tie to the sun for a half hour or upward,
and then giving one or two teaspoon
fuls each hour until symptons change.
Water thus affected by the sun he de-
Clares to be a great nervine and re
frigerant as well as an astringent.
The right of a woman past the age
of 21 years to marry whom she p eases
has just been vindicated in Missouri.
The father of Laura Robbs, aged 27
years, attempted to hold her to contin
ued service in the parental home by
locking her up in a room when she had
made a verbal contract to become the
wife of George W. Bishop. A writ of
habeas corpus unlocked the door, and
the marriage took place in spite of the
father’s objections.
Denying a report that the Queen
“usually sits up reading dispatches and
writinsr till one in the morning, resum
ing again at eight a. m., her routine of
the day’s duties,” London Truth says :
“The Queen invariably transacts her
public business between breakfast and
uncheon, and hardly once in a month
does her Majesty concern herself with
what Lord Beaconsfield termed
‘affairs’ at any other time.”
The marriage bill under considera
tion by the British Parliament pro
vides thst marriages may be solem
nized at any time between eight o’clock
in the morning and six in the evening,
with the proviso that no clergyman
of the Church of England shall be un
der any obligation to perform the cere
mony after noonday. The law has
always been that such rites must be
peiformed in the forenoon, but the
reason of this limitation has never
been explained. It may have been a
tradition received from the Church of
Rome, but the older Church, if it eve;
made the noon limit regulation, aba n
doned the notion years ago.
A number of Prussian officers have
enteieil the Turkish army under a
contract that is to run for a term of
three years, with provisions for a re
newal. One of the offi ‘*rs is a Colonel
who takes the rank of Brigadier Gen
eral with a salary of 30,000 francs.
The others are to be Colonels in the
O toman service, and will receive a
salary oi 23,000 francs. In addition to
this, all are to get the usual rations
and other allowances given to Turkish
officers of like r ank. In case of disa
bility for service a pension of one
third of the active salary is to be given,
and in case of death a pension of one-
half the salary is to go to his widow
andchildien. The officers, moreover,
though obliged to wear the Turkish
military uniform, will not be required
to renounce their allegiance to Prm sia.
They are to continue subjects of the
Prussian G ivernmcnt and mem
bers of the Prussian army. Both the
Turkish and Prussian Governments
assent to this. The salaries and pen
sions are to be paid in gold by the Ot
toman Bank.
Experiments with Disinfec
tants.
A series of experiments have been
made by Herren Wolffhugel and Von
Knorre with a vie w to explaining a
fact observed by Koch, viz , that oil
solutions of carbolic aoid are far in
ferior to aqueous solutions, of the same
concentration, in disinfectant action.
For a disinfectant to have full action,
it must be able to fully penetrate the
object treated; and water, by virtue
of its greater capillarity, has doubtless
the advantage over oil in this respect.
Again it was observed that carbolic
acid was more freely given up by car
bolic oil in water than by carbolic
water in oil. This may be accounted
for by the greater solubility of the acid
in oil. How far this peculiarity of
oil, and its less tendency to penetrate
porous solid bodies and to mix with
liquids, is to be regarded as the cause
of the inactivity of carbolic acid in oil
solution oannot yet be measured,
since one cannot tell bow oil and
water behave with regard to giving
up carbolio sold to minute organisms.
The author considers, however, that
oil should not, in general, be used as a
solvent for carbolio acid where one
aims at killing, within twenty-four
hours, fungi adhering to water con
taining bodies, solid and liquid,
whether as spores or bacilli.
#
The raspberry is a native of moun
tains or cool northern climates. Hot,
dry soil is its abomination, and it Is
always ou the alert to “run out” in
these siiuations.
Our Better Halves.
God’s Last and Best Gift to Van.
Miss Helen Gladstone has become
the vice-principal of Newnham col
lege-
The first thing necessary to win the
heart of a woman is opportunity.—
Ba>zac.
The wisdom of women comes to
them by inspiration ; their folly by
premeditation.—Dumas.
Woman is a delightful instrument,
of which love is the bow and man the
artiBt.—Stendhal.
Miss M*3y has just executed a fine
portrait of her aunt, Maria Mitchell,
tne astronomer.
Every woman is in the wrong till
she cries, and then she is in the right
instantly.—Habib ur ton.
Women do not often have it In their
power to give like men, but they for
give like angels.—Necknr.
Nothing is of so much importance to
a youDg man as to be well criticized by
a woman.—Beaconsfietd.
Maids want nothing but husbands,
and when they have them they want
everything.— Shakespeare.
A student of f.tces says that the most
die-con ten fed looking women are those
he sees riding in carriages.
There are now employed in the pub
lic schools of Massachusetts, 8861 teach
ers, of whom 7727 are women.
The city gov* rnment of Portland is
considering the advisabilty of appoint
ing a woman city physician. Tbeie
are three women doctors in that city.
Mrs. Rebecca Taylor, mother of the
late Bayar.i Taylor, has presented to a
dry goods house in Philadelphia a
handsome skein of silk, reeled and
spun with her own hands, in the
eighty-third year of her age.
In California there are four women
lawyers, of wrom the widest known
are Mrs. Laura De Force G >rdon, who
also edits a paper in Almeda county,
and Mrs. C ara S. Foltz, who devotes
herself somewhat to public speaking.
“How is it, my dear, that you have
never kindled a flame in the bosom of
any man?” said an old lady to her
niece. To which the young lady re
plied, “the reason, dear aunt, is, as you
well know, that I am not a good
match ”
F >r the first time in the history of
the Unitarian denomination, a ser mon
was preached by a woman. At the
Western Unitarian Conference,sucres -
fully held at C eveland, Ohio, in May,
Miss Mary F. Eistman delivered the
Sunday afternoon discourse on “im
mortality,” to a crowned house.
Seals.
The seal, as affixed to letters, has a
claim for consideration in the fact of
its historic interest. The seals of Sen
nacherib and Cheops are yet extant,
together with a multitude of ancient
signets both of the East and West, and
our letter seals are probably their
lineal descendants and relatives of the
official legal and royal seals still af
fixed to documents. As symbols of
power they were, no doubt, affixed
upon a missive to f >rbid its opening by
an unauthoriz- d person, and their sig-
nirtcance would be generally regarded.
The early Christians used the sacred
devices of the dove, the fish, the an
chor and the lyre; and the monks of
Durham, becoming possessed of a seal
on which was figured the head of
Jupiter Tonaus, had engraven beneath
it the name of good King Oswald, thus
sanctifying it to the uses of the Church.
In England, before watches were
worn, the seal was attached to the
wrist, forming, in fact, a pendant to a
bracelet. Shakespeare’s signet has his
initials, “W. S.,” and a true lover’s
knot—a device which haseled to the
supposition that it was given to him
by Anne Hathaway. Mary Queen of
Scots had a seal with the arms of the
three kingdoms upon it, and the use
of this formed a count of the indict
ment against her. Another ring of
interest which may possibly have
been used as a signet, is the cameo
ring in the possession of the Thynne
family, which is said to be the identi
cal one given by Queen Elizabeth to
the Earl of Essex.
This is only one of a thousand sig
nets of historic interest that are still
preserved. The “biggest thing” among
these belongs, as a matter of course, to
America, and was presented to Presi
dent Pierce by some citizens of Han
Francisco. Upon tills was represented
a kind of summary of Californian
history and a number of devices, such
a* a grizzly bear and an enraged boa,
Without it was eugraveii the Presi
dent's name, and In its interior pans
were small cases eontainlug specimens
of various naiive ores. The weight of
this precious gift was something like a
pound 1 The materials impressed h.vve
uetn nearly as varied as the shapes of
the Bi^net-i impressing them. Gold,
silver and other metals were anciently
in use, and even prepared earths or
clays. C immoQ wax was, of course,
most prevalent before ihe introduction
ni scaling wax, a compound of lac and
other materials invented in the six
teenth century. White wax was used
by Oiho I. ol Germany and by many
of our monarebs. Rufus, however,
very appropriately adopted red. Blue
ii the rarest oi tints ; green was favored
by the emperors and patriaro 1 s of the
East. At. present, vermilion wax is
most common, but should the method
of sealing letters be revived, we may
expect, with the resources of modern
chemistry and the diversity of modern
tastes, a polychromatic rante of hues
unknown to former ages. — London
Olobe.
Drying Plants.
Mr. Leo. H Giiudon give" pome
timely hints for preserving specimens
for the herbarium. Plants, he says,
dry very variously. 8 >me require not
a moment’s trouble, others demand
patience. Now and then the case is
hopeless, and we are constrained t<>
fall back upon the pencil, and prefer
drawings, colored ones if possible.
Grasses and their allies, most kinds of
ferns, plants that resemble heather,
“everlastings,” the mature leaves of
shrubs and irees, call for only che min
Imum, Those which try the patience,
and can be managed only after consid
erable experience with easy ones, are
plauts like the hyacinth.
To secure the best results, obtain
first half ad(z*-n pieces of stout mill-
board, cut to about eighteen inches by
twelve, then gather together a huu-
dred old newspapers, and fold them
square to about the dimensions of the
millboards. Four or five yards of
common white cotton wadding, a score
of sheets of tissue paper, and as many
of blotting paper, all cut the same size,
complete the apparatus. One of tne
boards serves for the foundation ; on
this lay a newspaper, then a pieoe of
wadding, and upon this place the spec
imen intended to be dried. The cotton
being soft and retentive, every portion
can be laid in a proper and natural
way, including the petals of the fl >w-
ers. A newspaper above, two or three
if the specimens have thick stems, and
so on, till all shall be deposited in the
way of the first. If the specimens are
sticky or hairy, or of a kind that the
wadding seems likely to adhere to,
then, before depositing them on it, in
troduce a half sheet of the tissue paper.
A heavy weight must be puff on the
top of all, sufficient to embed the speci
mens in the wadding ; then leave the
whole to re-*t for twenty-four hours.
All the papers must then be changed,
dry ones being put in their place; and
if the plant seems to throw off a very
considerable amount of moisture, such
as will render the wadding quite damp,
change the wadding also. A second
and even a third change is desirable,
at the end of two or three days or a
week, and when this is made iiftro
duce the blotting paper, pressing again
until everything is flat, and the speci
mens are absolutely dry.
Such is the simple process by which
Mr Grindon has succeeded in the art
of preserving the colors and forms, not
only of robust and tractable plants,
but of the most delicate, and very
many of the obdurate. Every petal
every leaflet, retains the form it had
in life, and nine specimens out of ten
keep their colors excellently. To in
sure the keeping of color, it is well, if
time can he spared, to change the
blotting paper many times, ai d to dry
it thoroughly before the fire, but this
need not he done till after the third
uay from the beginning.
Impiety in Prison.
Every Sunday a clergyman of some
.denomination goes out to the State
prison at Oarson and treats the prison
ers to a sermon. Yesterday the rever
end gentleman who had been taking
his turn at the theological wheel ac
costed an intelligent-looking conviot
in the yard with : “I never see you at
Divine service.” “No,” answered the
prisoner (in for an unsuccessful stock
transaction). “No: my work out here
in the yard makes it impossible forme
to attend.” “Ah, sorry to hear it.
We've just had a very pleasant time—
services and choir-singing an# every
thing precisely the same as in our
church. The only d ff-rence (this
quizzloally) was in Ihe congregation.”
“Yes,” returned the conviot, calmly ;
“thir congregation has been caught.”
His reverence gazes far afield and si
lently admires the beau tits of nature.
The English Sparrow.
In I860 a dozen English sparrows
were imported by Mr Eugene S^hief-
feiin, ot New York. He set them free
near Madison Square, and this he did
for several succe-<Bive years. A num
ber of others followed his example,
among them the Park Commissioners
of New York. In 1868 the City Gov-
ernrn* nt of Boston imported about 2<)0.
These all died, and the next year more
were brought over, of which but ten
lived. The City Government of Phila
adelp da imported 1,000 in 1869 and
about the same time two dcz-idwere
let 1* o -e in Monumental Square,
Charleston, S. C. A history of North
American birds says:
At ihe time of their introduction the
shade trees iu the parks and r-q rares of
New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn,
Newark and other places were greatly
infe ted with larvae of the measure
worms teat destroyed their foliage;
since then these worms have almost
entirely disappeared. A doubt ha
been expressed wbeiher the sparrows
destroy these insects. That ihey eai
them in the larvae form I do not know,
but to i h sir destruction of the chrysalis,
the moth and the eggs, I can testify,
having been eye-witness to the act.
Now that the sparrow is a familiar ob
ject to u ail, many can testify to the
same fact. Th)Uj.h the sparrow was
introduced here about 1871, the worms
continued to be a nuisance for several
years until the increased the sparrows
insured the extinction of toe worm.
During those years, at a certain part of
the summer, t eair was full of small,
light yellow moths. The writer has
watched the sparrows mauy an hour
and admired their dixterily in snap-
ding up the moths. It was by des
troying theso moths, each of which
was good for numberless eggs, that the
sparrow earned our gratitude. He did
not invade the castle of silk which the
worm had erected on every bough and
entangle his short liil in its stiff >cating
web, but he devoured the fly n its
season and picked off the eggs at his
lelsu e. H- is the tree preserver. He
should be an honorary member of the
Forestry C nvention.
A Distinguished Man of Science.
A clear bright face, a keen thought
ful eye, hearing both his years and bis
learning ‘ lightly as a flower,” S*r
John Lubbock hardly strikes you as a
man who has invaded nearly every
province of human knowledge and
swept the scientific world of its honors
and decorations. He is one of the
greatest of London bankers, but he is
also much more. Hi) combines in a
more extraordinary way than any
person living what is scientific and
speculative with what is practical and
political. In very different directions
he has made his mark and achieved
solid success. The basis of his charac
ter and work no doubt lies in its scien
tific side. In the method, sagacity
and patience of his observations he
evidences the true spirit of the Bacon
ian induction. He cannot, as Bacon
did in his day, take ail human knowl
edge for his province, but no man bet
ter understands the relationships be
tween various departments of knowl
edge or has made himself a specialist
in a larger number of them. On one
side of his character he is a country
gentleman a patient thinker, a plod
ding investigator of minute pheno
mens. Men of action and politics,
who would scorn to watch ants and
wasps and study flint instruments,
have rarely achieved such brilliant and
remarkable suoceBS. He is one of the
best known members of Parliament,
holding one of the most honorable of
seats by the firmest of tenures. Few
men have such a spotless, honorable
and disinterested character in public
and private life.
First of all, Sir John is a hanker, as
was his father before him. In several
respects he illustrates the doctrine of
heredity, as set forth by his late friend
and neighbor, Mr. Darwin. Sir John
William Lubbock was, in his day, a
very remarkable astronomer, not so
much, as his famous son explained to
me, on the popular and “observatory
side” as on the high mathematical
side. He had also a celebrated relative,
Dr. Lubbock, of Norfolk, who wrote on
the fauna of his country. He had thus
an ancestral fame to sustain, both scl-
entiflcally and socially. I need hardly
say that he is a thorough man of busi
ness. Nowhei e has Sir John made his
great powers more felt than in the
region of hanking. They say “every
man is a debtor to his profession,” and
Sir John has acquitted this debt very
fully. He has made two great land
marks in the history of hanking which
will always he associated with his
name. One of these is the bank holi
day ; the other, the institution of the
cleaiing-house of country banks, by
which the benefits long known in the
city of London were extended to all
parts of the country. All the honors
that the banking world could confer
upon him have been liberally be-
stowed. He is the president of the
Institute of Bankers, with its two
thousand members, and holds the
peculiar and remarkable position of
honorary secretary of the London
Association of Bankers. He is thus
the medium between the banks and
the Government and the chosen ex
ponent of the views of bankers in re
lation to Government. Then, he has
instituted a system of examination for
bankers, clerks corresponding to the
Civil Service examinations. Sir John
was a member of the International
Coinage Committee appointed by Gov
ernment, and he is the author of a
great variety of papers in financial
literature.
Domestic Economy.
Sherry Biscuits.—Take one pound
of lump sugar, eight eggs, and a suffi
cient quantity of sherry wine, beat
them well together, and then add a
pound of floor and a half an ounce of
coriaudei seeds. Pour the paste into
buttered tins, and bake them at a gen
tle heat for half an hour; then turn
them, and cover their surfaces with
some more eggs and sugar, and replace
them in the oven for another quarter
of an hour.
How to Treat Bites and Stings.
— Apply insiamly, with a soft rag,
most ireely, spirits of hartshorn. The
venom of stings being tm acid the
alkali nullifies it. Fresh irood ashes,
moistened with water ancTmade into
a poultice, fnquently renewed, is an
excellent substitute, or soda or sala-
ratus, all being alkalies. To be on the
safe side in the case of snake or mad-
dog bites, drink brandy, whisky, rum
or other spirits as free as water, a tea
cupful or a pint or more, according to
the aggravation of the circumstances.
Many persons are not aware that
glass can be cut under water with great
evse to almost any shape by simply
using a pair of scissors. In order to
insure success the points must be kept
quite level in the water while the scis
sors are applied; and, secondly, to
avoid risk, is is better to begin cutting
by taking off small pieces at the cor
ners and along the edges, and so re
duce the shape gradually to that
required. Wnen the operation goes
on well the glass breaks away from
tue scissors in small pieces in a straight
liue with the blades. Tne tw) hints
given above, if strictly followed, will
always insure success.
Savoy Biscuits.—Beat up twelve
eggs with three spoonfuls of water,
adding gradually a pound of finely-
powdered loaf sugar. When the mix
ture becomes of the consistency of
thick cream mix with it a pound of
fine fl >ur previously dried and mould
it into long cakes, which are to be
baked in a slow oven. Savoy biscuits
may also be prepared in the f dlowiug
way : Tans about six eggs and wei^h
them and afterward beat them into
froth, and mix them with some fresh-
grated lemon peel beaten with a little
sugar in a mortar into powder. Then
beat up with them the same weight of
sugar as of the eggs employed, aud
also the same quantity of flour. When
the materials are made into a paste
mould it into biscuits, sprinkle white
sugar on them and bake them on pa
per at a moderate heat.
Pickled Walnuts.—Select full-
grown green walnuts or butternuts
when they are soft enough to be easily
pierced through with a needle. They
are usually in fit condition in July.'
Prick one hundred nuts well through,
and lay them into a brine made of four
pounds of salt to each gallon of vine
gar; let them remain nine days, aud
at the end of the third and sixth days
change the brine for fresh. On the
ninth day lay them in the sun. After
they are well drained place them in
t le sun till they turn black ; they will
need to remain several days. Boil one
gallon of vinegar, two ounces of black
pepper, half an ounce of cloves; one
ouuce of mace, one ounce of allspice
and one ounce of root ginger sliced,
»n minutes, and pour it over the wal
nuts, which have been packed in jars
three quarters full. When the vinegar
cools cover them up tight. They will
>e ready to use iu a month, but they
are better in a year, aud will keep
eu y ears - This pickle is an excellent
aocompanimeut of fl,h.
The small percentage of nitrogen iu
ertlliz rs generally comes from dried
lood, flesh-scraps from tanneries, old
leather and fish refuse.