Newspaper Page Text
52
BURKE'S WEEKLY
FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.
MACON, Ga., AUGUST 17, 1567.
Contents of No. 7.
The Fairy Ride, with an illustration, by Mrs. E. P.
M. —original,... page 49
Marooner’s Island, Chapter \ 1., by Rev. F. R.
Goulding—original 50
No, you Can’t, (poetry,) 51
Capt. John Smith, with an illustration, 51
Editorial —The Geographical Puzzle; Pay up;
The Oldest City in the World; Character of the
Eagle; Good Counsel; Canary Birds; Oldest
Trees In the World ; The Earth and the Sun ;
Work, Work, Work 52
Sweetly Sleep, with an illustration, 53
A Beautiful Story 53
Jack Dobell; or, A Boy’s Adventures in Texas,
RP' Chapter I—original 54
Little Ella, (poetry,) 55
I Cannot, Sir; A Taylor Jug; God’s Plan of Life 55
Our Chimney Corner, with illustration 56
The Geographical Puzzle.
(J| g have received answers to the Geo
l-l g ra phical Puzzle from Harry G. Gris
wold, Macon; George F. Payne, Ma
con; Thomas P. Jones, Griffin ; C. E.
Elder, Barnesville; E. C. Goodrich,
Griffin ; Annie Roberts, Macon ; Wal
ter’H. Scott, Yineville; Ebbie Reese, Macon;
Willie H. Houser, Fort Valley; Emma Hard,
Graniteville, S. C.; N. T. Harman, Benton, Ga.,
and Annie Orme, Milledgeville, Ga. Some of
them are correct, but we postpone a decision un
til next week, to allow other answers to come in.
We have given our little readers the idea, can
not some of them send us other puzzles of this
character? They will find it a capital exercise.
Pay Up.
IJT vv'HEN we first issued our prospectus, we
Ij§ gave our subscribers the privilege of
sending their names without the mon-
ey, with the distinct understanding
that the money would be forthcoming
y as soon as the first number of the pa
per was received by them. Nearly all of those
■who sent their names have subsequently sent us
the money, but a few have not. Two weeks ago
we reminded them that the money was due, and
begged them to send it, but there are still a few
names on our list whose subscriptions remain un
paid. To all such we shall mark this paragraph,
and if the money is not forthcoming within a rea
sonable time, shall discontinue the paper to them.
We sincerely hope that not one of them will force
us to this disagreeable necessity, but will either
send us the amount due, or write and let us know
why they do not. W e cannot send the paper on
a credit, and trust that no one will ask us to do so.
Work ! Work ! Work !
SOW is the time to work for clubs. We
can still send back numbers from the
first, and as we began last week the new
story of “ A Boy’s Adventures in Tex
(f)J as 5 M it is important that all new sub
c) scriptions should commence at once.
We want our little friends to go ahead and raise
their clubs as fast as they can. Send us the names
and money as you get them, and notify us that
you are working for a club or a premium, and we
wi keep account of the number you send us.
BUR ICE’S WEEKLY.
The Oldest City in the World.
9AMASCUS is the oldest city in the world.
Tyre and Sidon have crumbled on the
shore; Baalbec is a ruin ; Palmyra lies
f buried in the sands of the desert; Nine
veh and Babylon have disappeared from
* the shores of the Tigris and Euphrates.
Damascus remains what it was before the days of
Abraham —a centre of trade and travel, an island
of verdure in a desert, “a predestined capital,"
with martial and sacred associations extending
beyond thirty centuries.
It was near Damascus that Saul of Tarsus saw
the light from heaven, above the brightness of the
sun the street which is called Strait, in which
it is said he “prayeth,” still runs through the
city ; the caravan comes and goes as it did one
thousand years ago ; there is still the sheik, the
ass, and the water-wheel; the merchants of the
Euphrates and the Mediteranean still occupy
these “ with the multitude of their waiters.” The
city which Mohammed surveyed from a neighbor
ing height and was afraid to enter, “ because it is
given to man to have but one paradise, and, for
his part, he was resolved not to have it in this
world,” it is to this day what Julian called the
“ Eye of the East,” as it was in the time of Isaiah
“the Head of Syria.”
From Damascus came our damson, or damas
cene, —our blue plums—and the delicious apricot
of Portugal called damasco ; damask, our beauti
ful fabric of cotton and silk, with vines and flow
ers raised upon a smooth, bright ground ; damask
roses, introduced into England in the time of
Henry VII.; the Damascus blade, so famous the
world over for its keen edge and remarkable elas
ticity, the secret of the manufacture of which was
lost when Tamerlane carried off the artist into Per
sia ; and that beautiful art of inlaying wood and
steel with silver and gold—a kind of mosaic en
graving and sculpture united, called damaskeen
ing—with which boxes, and bureaus, and swords,
and guns are ornamented.
It is still a city of flowers and bright waters ;
the streams from Lebanon, the “ rivers of Da
mascus,’ the “ rivers of gold,” still murmur and
sparkle in the wilderness of “ Lyriah gardens .”
Character of the Eagle.
fR. FRANKLIN seems to have had but a
poor opinion of the “ proud bird of Am
erica.” “For my part,” he says, “I
wis h the bald eagle had not been chosen
•gyS as the representative of our country. He
** is a bird of bad moral character ;he does
not get his living honestly. You may have seen
him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy
to fish for himself, he watches the labors of the
fishing-hawk, and when that diligent bird has at
length taken a fish, and is bearing it to its nest for
the support of his mate and young ones, the bald
eagle pursues him and takes it from him. With
all tins injustice he is never in good case, but,
like those among men who live by sharping and
robbing, he is generally poor, and often very
lousy. Besides, he is a rank coward. The little
king bird, not bigger than a sparrow, attacks him
boldly and drives him out of the district. He is,
therefore, by no means a proper emblem for the
brave and honest Cincinnati of America, who have
driven all the king birds from our country ;
though exactly fit for that order of knights which
the french call chevaliersd'industries ’
Good Counsel.
letter was written by
I'la'A Thomas Jefferson a little while befm-«
0© his death:
u This letter will, to you, be as one
from the dead. The writer will be in
cj the grave before you can weigh its coun
sels. Your affectionate and excellent
father has requested that I would address to you
something which might possibly have a favorable
influence on the course of life you have to run;
and I, too, as a namesake, feel an interest in that
course. Few words will be necessary, with good
disposition on your part. Adore God. Rever
ence and cherish your parents. Love your neigh
bor as yourself, and your country more than your
self. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the
ways of Providence. So shall the life into which
you have entered be the portal to one of eternal
and ineffable bliss. And, if to the dead it is per
mitted to care for the things of this world, every
action of your life will be under my regard.
Farewell!”
Canary Birds.
HE New York Journal of Commerce
I S-a gives some interesting statistics of the
business in canary birds, by which it ap
f pears that “the importation for the year
1866 amounts to 15,000 to 20,000 birds,
valued at $80,000.” They come mostly
from the Hartz Mountains, in Germany, a mining
region for gold and silver; but the domestic in
dustry is turned to bird raising, which is carried
on very systematically. The birds are shipped
from Hamburg and Bremen. They hatch three
times in a year, and consequently multiply very
fast, though very many of the young perish. They
are brought over mostly in the winter, in order to
preserve the voice and plumage.
Oldest Trees in the World.
f*\ ERHAPS the oldest tree on record is the
cypress of Somma, in Lombardy, Italy.
1 It was known to be in existence in the
time of Julius Caisar, forty-two years be
fore Christ, and is therefore more than
20 in circumference at one foot from the ground.
Napoleon, when laying down the plan tor his
great road over the Simplon, a portion of the
Alps, diverged from a straight line to avoid injur
ing this tree. The honor of superior antiquity,
however, is claimed by some in behalf of the im
mense and venerable tree in Calaveras county,
California, which is supposed, from the number
of concentric circles in the trunk, to be 2265 years
old.
—
The Earth and the Sun.
fF the earth were a cannon ball shot at the
sun from its present distance, with the ve
locity it now travels with, and the moment
?of explosion telegraphed to the sun, they
would get the telegram there in about foe
minutes, and would see the earth coming in
eight minutes, and would have nearly two months
to prepare for the blow, which they would receive
about fifteen years before they heard the original
explosion.
J6®“Remember that clubs need not all go to the
same post office, or to the same State. Get them
where you can.