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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.