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THE ONEIDA COMMUNITY.
Flglit i on plrs Married, and Oihom R>nm*
Ins Woiiosatnmi* Relation*.
(N*:W Yoi k Sun.]
The Oneida Community seems to be
fulfilling its recent announcement of the
abolition of tlie mixed marriage system,
and its adoption of the monogamic rela
tion. Eight wedding ceremonies have
already been performed, and those who
married previous to entering the Com
munity are again living exclusively
together. About eighty couples are yet
single, but of these a number are young,
and are required by their parents to
wait for greater maturity. Others may
not marry at all. Girls are not married
without the consent of their parents,
nor wore young women, under the old
complex marriage system, married with
out their sanction. The number of
young persons of both sexes in the Com
munity who have not been married is
much greater than is generally supposed.
The tendency toward monogamic mar
riage has been growing in the Community
for years, and the late pressure by the
Methodist clergy against complex mar
riages simply hastened, in the opinion of
the members, what would ultimately
have occuned.
The functionary who links the couples
is an Episcopal minister who has for
fiflfeen years been a member of the com
munity. Every wedding is celebrated
with a due allowance of grooms and
bridemaids and the congratulations of
ail the associates. Every couple has
had the advantage of knowing each
other thoroughly by long acquaintance.
Thinking members say that, as one in
novation generally follows another, wages
will probably soon be paid for labor, and
opportunities will thus be offered for
saving money for purposes of travel.
Under the communistic system this
pleasure can be enjoyed only by a few
who may be sent abroad to gain instruc
tion to* be used for the Community’s
benefit. To the majority communism is
a depotism.
No one fancies that the Oneida Com
munity will soon be dissolved. The ad
vantages of social enjoyment and free
dom from pecuniary care are not to bo
forgotten. Neither would dissolution
now be feasible. Thfe entire property of
the Community, with that of its branch, in
Willingford, Conn.,would, it is estimated,
sell for at least half a million, and this,
if divided among the three hundred
members, would give them only $1,600
apiece. the Community
would be required to return, without
interest, a large sum to those vlio in
vested money on entering. The Com
munity owns no property beyond what
is invested in its lands, stock, residences,
mills and other structures. The Oneida
domain comprises six hundred acres,
and that of Willingford three hundred,
both having valuable water power.
Prominent among their industries are
the making of plated ware, silk, chains
and traps, and all canning of fruits and
vegetables. These have been more or
less prosperous since their initiation, but
are now especially so. Outside labor is
largely employed upon all. Furnishing
luncheous to visitors is no insignificant
branch of profit. During the summer
these sometimes reach a thousand in a
day. The only unprofitable industry
has been that of the printing office,
wherein works explanatory of the Com
munity’s theological and sexual doctrines
have been published for about thirty
years.
The Community was formerly under
the control of Mr. John V. Noyes, its
founder, but is now governed by a com
mittee of ten men and ten women, who
consider all questions arising and direct
all business. Any marriages contem
plated are announced to them, but their
control over these is only advisory. The
wishes of Mr. Noyes, though still potent,
are not often expressed, and he leaves
the committee, in his advanced years, to
rule without interference.
# mm -•
There V as a Crowd of Him.
The Rev. Daniel Isaac was an eccen
tric itinerant preacher. He once
alighted at an inn to stay all night. On
asking for a bed he was told lie could not
have one, as there was to be a ball that
night, and all the beds were engaged.
“At what time does the bail break
up? ’
“ About three in the morning, sir.”
“ Well, then, can I have a bed until
that time?”
Yes, certainly; but if the bed is
asked for, you will have to move.”
“ Very well,” replied Mr. Isaac.
About three in the morning ho was
awakened by a loucl knocking at the
chamber-door.
“What do you want?” lie asked.
“ How many of you are in there?” in
quired a voice.
“ There’s me, and Daniel, and. Mr.
Isaac, and an old Methodist preacher,”
was the reply,
“Then, by Jupiter, there’s plenty of
youl” and the applicant passed on, leav
ing Mr. Isaac to finish his night's slum
ber. __
A Stay-at-Home.
The Biddeford (Me.) Journal says:
“This item will make a strong draft
upon the credulity of our readers, and
vet it is true, every word of it. Mr.
Mark Smith lives near the Methodist
Episcopal Church, in this city, and was
seventy-two years old last May. He was
never inside of a railroad car or street
car; never visited Old Orchard Beach,
three miles away; never drank a glass of
intoxicating liquor in his life, w T hile
hasn’t been a day for forty years
\ien there has not been enough rum in
\deford to float a 74 gun ship from
Landing to Holmes’ Hole;
\ has attended a show T ANARUS; and never
N inside of a photograph gallery
-jjNkt Saturday, when he had a
likeness of himself taken.
_ a y t <mr exchanges can beat this,
\e it manifest in the usual
Love Tragedies.
[Cincinnati Commercial.}
Love tragedies are becoming monoton
ous by their frequency. A young woman
becomes enamored of a young man, who
is either unable or unwilling to recipro
cate her affectionate regard for him.
And what does the young woman do but
buy a revolver of small caliber, load it,
present herself to the cold-hearted and
cruel monster, and, without more ado,
put a bullet in him, and end the per
formance by blowing out her own brains.
It is either a pistol or poison with her,
but she is careful before resorting to
either to leave a diary or letters, in
which the woes of unrequited and
blighted affections are effusively depicted,
to touch the heart of the sentimental
world.
Ten to one were the impetuous crea
tures wedded to the objects of their
adoration a half dozen years would not
pass before one or other would sue for
divorce and both feel a sense of relief
when the decree is granted. The im
mediate discovery following matrimony
that people do not feed on air and fatten
on endearing words that cost nothing
but the utterance, produces revulsion of
feeling, where the means of living are
inadequate to the social ambition of
wife and husband. And then follow
gentle outbreaks of temper, and the
illusions of the pre-maritai existence fly
out of the window. Love shivers in the
cold without, while resentment
and perhaps disgust revel within.
The notion that two hearts must beat
as one, and be merged in each other so
closely that a physiologist can not de
tect a difference* in their throbs, to
insure a liappv marriage, is cultivated
by poets, novelists and sentimentalists,
but nothing is more certain than that as
characters mature there will be differ
ences in development; and that the hap
piness of the wedded pair depends upon
the liberty of the play of these differences
—within moral bounds, of course—and
forbearance on the part of each. Any
attempt to override the individual will,
and crush it into obedience to the
stronger, is pretty certain to end in dis
ruption of the nuptial tie, or such an
existence as to make a residence in the
infernal regions palatable. The time
for that sort of thing has gone by.
But if poison and pistol are to do the
business of polishing off lovers every
time they have liad a quarrel or a tiff,
there will be neither marriage nor giving
in marriage in tlie land. The very
thought of wooing romantically or
matrimonially will have the terror which
riding in a railroad coach alone with a
woman had for the average Englishman
a few years ago. It will require such
inducements as Caesar Augustus offered
for matrimony in Rome two thousand
years ago to induce men and women to
make approaches to it.
A Story of Steel Fens.
Few persons who use steel pens on
which is stamped “ Gillott” have any
idea of the suffering, of indomitable
pluck and persistence, which belong to
the placing of that name on that article.
A long depression in trade in England
threw thousands of Sheffield mechanics
out of work, among them Joseph Gillott,
then twenty-one years of age.
He left the city with but a shilling in
his pocket. Reaching Birmingham, he
went into an old inn and sat down upon
a wooden settle in the tap-room. His
last penny was spent for a roll. He was
weak, hungry and ill. He had not a
friend in Birmingham; and there was
little chance that he would find work.
In liis despondency he was tempted to
give up, and turn beggar or tramp. Then
a -sudden fiery energy seized him. He
brought his fist down on the table, de
claring to himself that he would try,
let come what would. He found work
that day in making belt buckles, which
were then fashionable.
As soon as he had saved a pound or
two, he hired a garret in Bread Street,
and there carried on work for himself,
bringing his taste and his knowledge of
tools into constant use, even when work
ing at hand-made goods. This was the
secret of Gillott’s success. Other work
men drudged on passively in the old ruts.
He was wide-awake, eager to improve his
work, or to shorten the way of working.
He fell in love with a pretty and sen
sible girl named Mitchell, who with her
brothers, was making steel pens. Each
pen was then clipped, punched, and
polished by hand, and pens were sold
consequently at enormously high prices.
Gillott at once brought his skill in
tools to bear on the maoter, and soon in
vented a machine which turned the
points out by thousands, in the time that
a man required to make one. He mar
ried Miss Mitchell, and they carried on
the manufacture together for years.
On the morning of his marriage, the
industrious young workman made a gross
of pens, and sold them for thirty-six dol
lars to pay the wedding fees. In his old
age, having reaped an enormous fortune
by his shrewdness, honesty and industry,
Mr. Gillott went again to the old inn,
bought the settle, and had the square on
which he sat that night sawed out and
made into a chair, which he left as an
heirloom to his family, to remind them
of the secret of his success.
Bismarck’s Boy Bill.
Count William Bismarck is, physically,
very much like liis father, and is very
popular in Berlin. He is a member of
the German Reichstag, and is frequently
on the special committees of the assem
bly. “ Count Bill,” as he is called in
Berlin, distinguished himself during the
Franco-German war as a common soldier
in the ranks, and his fate was often a
cause of anxiety for Prince Bismarck.
He is now constantly with his father,
and a friend of the family lately describ
ing him to me, assured me that “ Count
Bill” was a chip off the old block.
A London paper says, “ Women make
tolerable wives.” Who, then, make in
tolerable ones?
A Japanese Devil-Fish Story.
Fact and fancy meet each other so
nearly in stories told of the octopus,
that people who read them are at one
time inclined to believe even Victor
Hugo, and at other times to disbelieve
even the naturalists. Both are interest
ing, however, and any person who has
had the privilege of seeing a devil-fish,
especially if the one Eeen happens to le
a large specimen, can easily perceive
what excellent material it affords for a
wonder-tail. The story given below was
communicated to the Tokio { Japan)
Times, by a correspondent to whom it
was given as a specimen of English com
position by a young Japanese scholar,
who was a candidate for the position of
translator:
“ The jauthor of ‘ Shuyukidan,’ who
lived some sixty years age, was once
traveling in Mutsu, one of the northern
provinces. Walking one day near the
sea-beach, he heard the bellow of a bull,
and went in the direction of the noise.
He was then witness of an extraordinary
combat between some cuttle-fish and a
bull. An enormous poulpe, with bright
purple eyes, and tentacles six feet long,
had attacked the quadruped. Throwing
its arms round the body, the monster
tried to make for the water with its cap
tive. Meanwhile other octupi, in large
numbers and of great size, swarmed
to the shore, which seemed to be alive
with their big round heads. Some of
them, assisting their comrade, soon like
him, attacked the bull, dragging it down
toward the sea. Their quarry, however,
made a brave resistence, and succeeded in
goring its first foe in the head and
belly, and shaking itself free from his
embrace. Before it could escape, how
ever, it was firmly held by a still larger
monster, while others took solicitous care
of the wounded one. The unfortunate
beast’s bellowing attracted a crowd of
fishermen to the spot. One of these,
stronger and braver than his fellows, his
limbs swathed in straw bandages, and a
sharp knife in his hand, boldly rushed to
the rescue of the bull, and cut through
the tentacles which inclosed it. Other
poulpes then attacked the fisher, to
whose aid his fellows hastened, and a
fierce fight ensued between men and
monsters, in which the former were vic
torious, many of the squids being killed,
while the rest escaped into the water.
Two of the tentacles wound round the
bull were so heavy that one nmn could
not carry them. One was twelve and
the other six feet long; the larger of the
two was subsequently boiled in sections
at different times in a big kettle. Some
years previous to this battle, cattle had
disappeared in a mysterious way from
the same shore. The fmkt between the
cephalopoda and the bull enlighted the
proprietors as to the cause of their loss.”
Aleut Marriage Customs.
[Alaska Letter in X. Y. Herald.]
Two couple were made happy. Th*
grooms came down from St. PauYs Island
on the steamer with the intention of
marrying somebody or other. They
seemed indifferent as to who their wives
were to be, and expressed their content
to wait untibsome elderly match-making
dame of the village picked out brides
for them. The rule being, under the
Russian Church system, to extend the
forbidden degrees of kindred very far in
the direction of cousinship, and as the
people of this place seem to be closely
related to those of the neighboring set
tlements, it is difficult sometimes for a
young man aspiring to matrimony to
find a woman not in some distant way re
lated to him. The services of some old
lady who keeps the run of relationships
are called in, and she selects an eligible
candidate for better-halfship out of the
number of disposable females in the vil
lage. The man rarely objects to the
selection thus made, and, as in this case,
does not know who his wife is to be until
he meets her at the altar.
“ Who are you going to marry I” we ask
the prospective husband.
“ I don’t know,” he replies. “ I have
not seen the woman yet.”
This happy-go-lucky style of marrying
is the rule among these people, and I am
informed that divorce lawyers have no
field here at all because of dissatisfaction
ari-ing regarding the bargains made.
Th 3 ceremony was according to the Rus
sian Greek ritual. Candles and crowns
were used. The ceremony was long, but
as the interested couples clid not appear
to bo out of humor with it we hand no
'fight to object. Later in the evening
Dr. Ambler and I took a walk along the
beach and met one of the couples enjoy
ing a honeymoon walk under the light
of the setting sun. We saluted them
cordially. The man looked sheepish
enough, but the bride smirked as much
as the circumstances warranted.
■*<►
Untimely People.
[Burlington Hawkeye.j
Yesterday morning 1 saw a go
out of a car, and shut the door after
him. I have traveled very constantly
for nearly three years, and this was the
first man I ever saw shut the door after
him as he went out. He only shut it
because I was right behind him, trying
to get out, with a valise in each hand.
When I sat down my valise to open the
door, I made a few remarks on the
general subject of people who would get
up in the night to do the wrong thing
at the wrong time; but the man was out
on the platform and failed to cateli the
drift Qf. my remark. I was not sorry
for this, because the other passengers
seemed to enjoy it quite as well by
themselves, and the man who called
forth this impromptu address was a for
bidding looking man, as big as a hay
wagon, and looked as though he would
have banged me through the side of a
box-car if he had heard what I said. I
suppose the people who invariably do
the wrong things at the wrong time are
necessary, but they are awfully un
pleasant.
Starvation and Jocosity.
[Nw York Commercial-Advertiser.]
The departure of British and French
agriculturalists for the United States,
together with the wholesale emigration
of peasants from other parts of Europe,
again direct attention to the motives
which may excite these people to aban
don their lands. These motives being
once known, it is easier to infer whether
or not the agriculturist emigration from
Europe to the United States is destined
to increase or to stop. The question,
besides, has to be viewed in connection
with the Irish land-tenure problem;
and, on this point, we find the majority
of British statesmen, and even the
British papers, entirely at sea. The
very manner in which questions of life
and death are discussed in a semi-jocose
manner by the English diplomatists and
journalists shows their disdainful treat
ment of all such problems. Lord Beacons
field has recently delivered several
speeches, in which much stress was laid
upon the comparative production per
acre in France and in England. The
economists victoriously replied that his
comparison between England and France,
in regard to the grande culture or hus
bandry on a large scale and large estates,
and the petite culture , which is the re
verse, ana generally practiced in France,
did not prove much. Moreover, the
noble Lora was rather ridiculed on ac
count of his views relative to what hs
says “ is now familiarly termed the three
profits obtained from the land.” The
Pall Mall Gazette says:
“We owe it to our good fortune
rather than anything else that Lord
Beaconsfield has let us off with three
profits only. He might have divided
the land into thirty or three hundred
while he was at it. Indeed, we wonder
that his opponents have not met him on
his own ground by instituting on an ex
tension of his division. Nowadays, they
might contend, in the present luxurious
age, the land has to produce profits suf
ficient to cover the expense of—l, bread
and cheese for the laborer; 2, beef and
mutton for the farmer; 3, piano for the
farmer’s daughters; 4, wife’s “ silk and
satin;” 5, son’s “Greek and Latin,” etc.
Further, they might go on to class the
landowner’s town house, his horses, and
the university education of liis sons as
three separate heads of charges falling
upon the land.”
It is no wonder that the starving
farmers of England and Ireland are
thinking of some more energetic means
to improve their conditions where they
see the causes of their misfortune dis
cussed in such a light manner by the
London papers and statesmen in charge
of British interests.
Instantaneous .Photography.
Mr. May bridge’s method of photo
graphing horses in rapid motion has
lately been applied in San Francisco to
the study of human action, particularly
that of athletes, while performing their
various feats. In order to display as
completely as possible the movements of
the actors’ muscles, they wore brief
trunks only while performing, and
thus all the intricate movements of box
ing, wrestling, fencing, jumping, and
tumbling were instantaneously and ex
actly pictured. The first experiment
consisted in photographing an athlete
while turning a back somersault.
He stood in front of the camera
motionless, and at a signal, sprang in the
air, turning backwards, and in a "second
was again in his original position. Short
as was the time consumed, fourteen
negatives were clearly taken, showing
him in as many different positions. The
same man was also taken while making
a running high jump. The jumping
gauge was placed at the four-foot notch
m order to give an easy jump, for in
making it fourteen stout hempen strings
had to be broken, as in photographing
trotting horses. From the camera to a
point beyond the line on which the jump
was made a number of strings were
stretched. The two base lines were only
a few inches above the ground, and
from them to the apex, the strings were
placed equal distances apart, In jump
ing, seven of the strings were broken in
ascending and seven in descending. The
strings were tautly drawn, and so con
nected with the camera that as each one
parted, a negative was produced. Other
pictures were taken of men raising heavy
dumb-bells, and the various movements
of boxing, fencing, and the like.
The First Signal Corps.
[Troy Times.!
The first records of a signal corps are
found 260 years before Christ, in the
writings of Polybius, whose cumbersome
and immovable apparatus seems to have
been used among the armies of the East,
and, with unimportant modifications,
until the seventeenth century. At the
siege of Vienna, John Smith, the ex
plorer of Virginia, used the plan of
Polybius with effect, to arrange with the
besieged forces for a sortie, he having
learned it from the Turks. The quaint
old English works of 1650, or thereabout,
tell of “ a marvelous device by which
those who know may converse so far as
light may be known from darkness.” See
Bishop Wilkins’ book, “ Mercury, or the
Secret and Swift Messenger.” Also Dr.
Robert Hooke’s “ Phylosophical Tran
sactions” for 1684 and Rees’ Cyclopaedia.
The fact is that in the time of Polybius,
and through most of the Greek and
Roman wars, there were corps of signal
ists or telegraphers with the army.
These were known as “ fire-bearers” ox
more literallv. “ fira-swinders.”
■ — o-
Cuthbert County, Ga., boasts of a
beautiful cave with several large cham
bers abounding in brilliant stalactites
and a stream of crystal water flowing
through it. By candle-light the resem
blance of its vast chambers, with their
hundreds of stalacties, to a giganticTorest
of oak and cedar trees, interpersed with
labyrintliian walks, rend rs the place at
©nee dazzling and beautiful.
Better Than a Shot-Gun.
[Detroit Free Press.]
A merchant doing business near the
foot of Jefferson avenue, used to spend
about half of his time explaining to
callers why he could not sign petitions,
lend small sums, buy books or invest in
moonshine enterprises, but that time
has passed, and it now only hikes
him two minutes to get rid *of the
most persistent case. Yesterdav a man
called to sell him a map of Michigan.
He had scarcely made known his errand
when the merchant put on his hat and
said:
“ Come along and I’ll see about it.”
He led the way to a boiler-shop, two
blocks distant, wherein a hundred ham
mers were pounding at iron, and walk
ing to the center of the shop, and into
the midst of the deafening racket, he
turned to the agent and kindly shouted:
“ Now, then, if you know of any
reason why I should purchase a map of
Michigan, please state them at length.”
The man with the maps went right
out without attempting to state “ reason
the one,” and. the merchant tranquilly
returned to hia desk j,o await the next
Impressing a Delicate Fact.
. Self-repression is one among the many
difficult lessons that one can not begin
to learn too soon, and which yet must be
learned in such delicate portions as not
to destroy individuality. Those children
who are cruelly and entirely repressed
find themselves ns good as ruined for all
purposes requiring genial and active
energy or alert personality, but those
who are never at all repressed are like
vicious weeds whose rank growth over
tops, chokes out and suffocates every
things else. But it is only by kindly but
firm, if very small effort, at the first, and
const mtly repeated to the end, that we
keep ourselves in condition that wo are
able to discover tl at we are not of such
interest to anybody else as we are to our
selves; that, in reality, nobody but the
census taker cares whether we love blue
ernot; that while we are painting the
portrait of our qualities, the listener is
either amused or bored; and that, after
all, as vagueness, mist and distance mag
nify natural objects, so the less we say
of ourselves in especial, the larger we
loom upon the admirer.
Practical Communism.
It is related of Mr. John Jacob Astor
that in liis palmiest days a man called
upon him, armed with a revolver. “ I
am a French Communist,” said he; “I
believe in a distribution of property, and
I want some of your money or your life.
I believe money should be equally di
vided.”
“ So do I,” said Mr. Astor.
“ You are said to be worth ten million
dollars,” said tlie man.
“ Well, I suppose that is about the
sum,” said Mr. Astor. “Now, how
many people are there in the United
States?”
“ About ten millions, I believe,” said
the communist.
“ Now, how much would that be
each? About one dollar?” sAked Mr.
Aetor.
“ Yes, about,” said the Communist.
“ There’s your dollar,” said Astor, lay
ing down a bill.
Japanese Winter Sports.
Most of our younger readers think of
Asiatic countries as warm, because
India, with which we are best acquainted,
has no winter like ours. But Japan has
a genuine winter, with snow and ice.
And the Japanese children indulge in
the same kind of winter sports as are
common in this country.
A recent visitor from England saw
many a fine snow-image made by the
boys, with pieces of charcoal for eyes,
and a charcoal streak for the mouth.
He also looked on at many a boys’ battle
•with snow-balls, and concluded that
they had better tempers than boys in
England, as none of them seemed to get
angry, though hit often and hard.
Their shoes don’t get wet like ours, as
they are made of wood, three inches high,
but when the snow is deep, their feet are
wet and cold, as there is no upper cover
ing. The English visitor thought the
Jap boys the happiest and merriest chil
dren he had ever seem
The Kiver uoiumDia.
It may be safely stated that no river
in the world, the Nile perhaps excepted,
can equal the Columbia in variety and
grandeur of beauty. The Rhine in com
parison with it is only a rivulet, and its
most famous heights only hillocks com
pared to the stupendous pinnacles and
chains that stretch for miles along th#
shores of the great river of the West.
What river but this can show mountains
a mile high, rising perpendicular from
the water’s edge? terraces that extend
for a distance of 800 miles along its
banks, at an elevation of from one to
1,000 feet? towering crags that loom up
apart to a height of 900 feet? trees that
have an altitude varying from 100 to
300 feet? and an outline of its own that
spreads out in places into a lake six
or seven miles wide, or contracts into
spaces 40 or 50 feet in width? None*
Hence it stands pre-eminent in its sub
lime grandeur,
-
Enough of Such Science.
In the November number of the Atlan
tic, Richard Grant White, in his article
on scientific classification, sets forth one
great truth that is too generally over
looked. He says: “Nothing is added
to knowledge, nor is any stimulus given
co thought, by calling beetles ‘ coleoptera/
a figure of speech an ‘ aposiopesis,” or a
word ‘an agential.’ So much or' so-called
science consists in merely giving a learned
name to common knowledge, .sometimes
to ignorance!” Richard’s himself again
on this question; eminently sound, too.
RUSSIA has more sheep than any other
country in Europe, but of late the num
ber has declined, as more land is being
put under grain crops, and hence a de*
cline in wool export.