Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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.