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SOMETHING OUR FOREFATHERS LAUGHED OVER. An interesting snipe hunt took place at Wadsworth, Nev., reports the Reno Gazette. Tlio method of sucking snipe had heon explained to a young man who had recently arrived there, and he was eager to go on a hunt. So, fully in structed, he took up liis position on the top of a big rook on a hill overlooking the town. He carried with him a rod signal lantern and a big dinner-bell. From dark until 10 o’clock, for more than two hours, that young man stood on the rock waving his lantern and holding the Back. Sometimes he would ring the dinner-bell with all his might, and then he would shout like one pos sessed. He kept up an incessant din, never doubting for a moment that the snipe had done their work well, and he was fully impressed with the necessity of patience and perseverance to secure a good bag of birds. While this perform ance was going on the people of Wads worth had all turned out to watch it. There whs the young hunter high up on the hill, in the red glaro of his lantern, his yells and shouts ringing in their ears. IIP was too good. The “boys” just rolled over and over on the flat, delirious with joy, kicking up their heels in an ecstasy of delight. They laughed fo much that they could laugh no more. But still, when the red light would be swungand the shouts of “Sni-pe, sni-pe, sni-pe, O, sni-pe,” would ascend from the hill, they would experience fresh convulsions, and double up like young sters stricken with colic after a feast of green apples. Suddenly the lamp was extinguished and all was silent on the hill. lie had “ tumbled ” and was gone. fatti’s Home in south i fates. Patti has fixed her country home in Breconshire, South Wales, where she some time since bought a property calledjCraig-y-nos Castle, and it is a curi ous coincidence that Craigy is said to mean, in the patois of the district, nightingale. The castle, an Elizabeth ian structure, is finely placed on the slope of a hill, and on its improvement and that of its grounds the great prima donna has already expended many thou sand pounds. The castle is two hours’ drive from the Swansea station, but a victoria, with four beautiful pet ponies, soon carries visitors over the ground, nnd there is talk of a railroad which will give a station near the castle. A visitor describes its mistress as singing all over the house and garden. The house is crammed with beautiful things—offerings to its mistress. Such are the splendid plate and Exquisite china and glass used in the table service. At this retreat the diva sumptuously entertains her friends, and lately surprised them with a splendid display of fireworks by a London pyro technist, lighting up vividly the woods and rocks of hex lovely domain. When the display was ended, and the moon emerged from the clouds, there was a call for a song, and, stepping out on the terrace window, whither a piano was w heeled, she sang, amid a silence broken only by the low purling of a brook over the pebbles, “ Home, Sweet Home.” WHAT KILTED THE OYSTER. Pick up that oyster shell. Do you see a little hole in the hard roof of the oyster’s house ? That explains why there is a shell but no oyster. A little creature called whelk, living in a spiral shell, dropped one day on the roof of the oyster’s house. “The little innocents,” someone has called the whelk. “The little villains,” an oyster would call them, for the whelk has an anger, and bores and bores and bores until he reaches the oyster itself, and the poor oyster finds he is going up through his own roof. He goes up but he never comes down. A writer speaks of noticing on the shores of Brittany the holes in the oyster bored by its enemy, both burglar and murderer, I should call him. “ A little sin, a little sin ! ” cries a boy who may have been caught saying a profane word, or strolling with a bad associate, or reading a bad book, or sip ping a glass of beer. “Don’t make toe much of it! ” he says. Young friend, that is the whelk on the oyster’s back. You have given the tempter a chance to use his auger, and he will bore and bore till he reaches the center of all moral worth in the soul, and draws your very life away. An amusing case has recently come to trial in England. A plaintiff named Tanner had a claim for compensation against a company for a piece of land belonging to him, part of which they had taken. A jury was impaneled to assess the compensation, and tlie jurors were sent to view the ground. They were taken to the ground in carnages, and upon their arrival a champagne lunch was found waiting them, fur nished by the claimant. Probably ex hilarated by the good things for them, the jury gave thejelaimant heavier damages than he hud asked. The company objected, and sitid the jury were biased after the luncheon, which one of the counsel jocularly de scribed as “Tanner’s feast.” After a long discussion as to champagne lunch eons, the Lord Chief Justice gi anted a rule nisi , and the plaintiff will probably be obliged to stand anew luncheon. Miss Chapman, the lately weddet. wife of Gen. Grant’s son, is the daugh ter of W. S. Chapman, a wealthy San Francisco capitalist, whose bold and gi gantic operations in real estate have attracted attention. The young lady is a petite demi-blonde, with a wealth of the lightest light-brown hair and soft light-brown eyes. Jesse is -22 years u. age. A young lady at an examination in grammar was asked “why the noun bachelor was singular?” She replied im mediately, “Because it is very sfngmar they don’t get married,” flic lima Twin Will W. Singleton, Editor & Publisher. VOL. VI. UNDER TliK VII AN I)EL11C It, I!¥ ILDEOKRTE. Do you remember, darling, Under the light of the chandelier, The soft, low hum of voice*, Softly low, distinct and clear t With the music in the parlor, And uu and pa not far away, While the light of summer faded, Aud night knocked, in her cloak of gray ? Do you remember, -sloareet, A* I watched your red lips blow, Liko Homo red roß© In summer. In an amber after-glow? Do you remember, Winnie, Ab I gave to you my hand, That wiJJi went my heart, A delight yet strange and grand? Bo we parted, Winn if red, Under the light of the chandelier. Are you sorry, darling; Are you sorry, very sorry, doar? Parted to meet in after years; Perhaps to meet and love again. Still of love wo did not speak Yet, and vet the heart felt pain. THE QUAKER DETECTIVE. We were five passengers in all—two ladies on the hack seat, and a middle aged gentleman and a Quaker and my self on the front. The two ladies might have been moth er and daughter, aunt and niece, gov erness and charge, or might have sus tained another relationship which makes it proper for two ladies to travel togeth er unattended. The middle-aged gentleman was sprightly and talkative. Ho soon struck up an acquaintance with the ladies, to ward whom in his zeal to do he rather overdid the agreeable—bowing and smil ing and chatting over his shoulder in a way painfully suggestive, at his time of life, of a “ crick” in the neck. He was evidently a gay Lothario. The Quaker wore the uniform of his sect, and confined his speech, as many a parliamentarian would save his credit by doing, to simply “yeas” and “nays.” As for myself, I make it ati invariable rule of the road to he merely a looker-on and listen. Toward evening I was aroused from one of those reveries into which a young man, without being a poet or a lover, will sometimes fall, by an abrupt query from the talkative gentleman: “Are you aimed, sir? ” “I am not,” I answered, astonished, no doubt visibly, at the question. “I am sorry to hear it,” lie replied, “ for, before reaching our next stopping place, it will he several hours in the night, and we must pass over a portion of the road on which more than one robbery is reported to have been com mitted.” The ladies turned pale, but the strang er did his best to reassure them. “Not that I think there is the slight est danger at present,” ho resumed, “only when one is responsible for the safety of the ladies, you know, such a thing as a pistol in reach would materi ally add to one’s confidence.” “Your principles, my friend,” ad dressing the Quaker, “ I presume, are as much opposed to carrying as to using carnal weapons ? ” “ Yes,” was the response. “Have tho villains murdered any of their victims V” the elderly lady nervous ly inquired. “Or have they contented themselves with —with—plundering them ?” added the younger, in a timorous voice. “Decidedly the latter,” tire amiable gentleman hastened to give assurance ; and we are none of us prepared to offer resistance in case of attack, so nothing worse than robbery can possibly befall us.” Then, after blaming his thoughtless ness in having unconsciously introduced a disagreeable subject, the gentleman quite excelled himself in efforts to raise the spirits of the company, and had suc ceeded so well by the time night iiad set in that all had quite forgotten or remem bered their fears to laugh at them. * Our genial companion fairly talked himself hoarse; perceiving which ho took from his pocket a box of newly invented “cough candy,” and, after passing it to the ladies, he helped him self to tho balance and tossed the paper out of the window. He was in the midst of a high en comium on tho new nostrum, more than half the efficacy of which, he in sisted, depended on its being taken by suction, when a sin-ill whistle was heard, and almost immediately tho coach stopped and two faces, hideously black ened, presented themselves one at each window. “ Sorry to trouble you,” said the man on the right, acknowledging with a bow two ladylike screams from the back seat; “but business is business, and ours will soon be over if things go smoothly.” “Of course, gentlemen, you will spare, as far as may Vie consistent with your disagreeable duty, the feelings of these ladies,” appealed the polite pas senger in his blandest manner. “ Oh 1 certainly; they shall be first at tended to, and shall not be required to leave, their places, unless their conduct rtoders it necessary. ” ‘ ‘ And now, ladies,” continued th robber, the barrel of his pistol glitter ing in the light of tho coach lan' “be so good as to pass your purses, watches Devoted, to the Interests of Marion Coun y and Adjoining Sections BUKNA VISTA, MARION COUNTY. GA„ SATURDAY, JANUARY I, ISBI. and such other trinkets as may be ac cessible without too much troublo.” The ladies came down handsomely, and were not further molested. One by one the rest got out. The middle-aged gentleman’s turn came first. He submitted with a winning grace, and was robbed like a very Ches terfield. My own affairs, like the sum I lost, are scarcely worth mentioning. The Quaker’s turn came next Ho quietly handed over his pocket-book and watch, and, when asked if ho had any other valuables, said, “Nay.” A Quaker’s word is good, even among thieves, so, after a hasty “good-night,” the robber thrust his pistol into his pocket and, with his two companions, one of whom had held the reins of the leaders, was about departing. “Stop 1” exclaimed the Quaker in a tone more of command than of request. “Stop! What for?” returned the other, hi evident surprise. “ For at least two good reasons,” was the reply, emphasized with a couple of derringers cocked and presented. “Help!” shouted the robber. “Stop!” the Quaker exclaimed; “and if any of thy sinful companions advance a step to thy relief, the spirit will surely move me to blow thy brains out.” The robber at the opposite window and the one at the leaders' heads thought it a good time to leave. ‘ ‘Now, get in, friend, ” said the Quaker, still covering his man, “ take the middle seat; but first deliver up the pistol.” The other hesitated. “ Thee had better not delay. I feel the spirit begin to move my right fore finger.” The robber did as he was directed, and the Quaker took his placo at his side, giving the new-comer the middle of the seat. The driver, who was frightened half out of his wits, now set forward at a rapid rate. The lively gentleman soon recovered his vivacity. He was espe cially facetious on the Quaker’s prowess. “You’re a rum Quaker, you are. Why, you don’t quake worth a cent.” “I am not a ‘Shaking Quaker,’if that’s what thee means.” “Of the ‘Hickory,’ or, rathei, the ‘ Old Hickory,’ stripe, I should say,” retorted the lively man. But the Quaker relapsing into his usual monosyllables, the conversation flagged. Sc.“nei' iiun we expected the coacl stopped where we were to have supper and a change of horses. We had de ferred a redistribution of our effects un til wo should reach this place, as the dim light of the coach lamp would have rendered the process somewhat difficult. It was now necessary that it should be attended to at once, as our jovial companion had previously announced his intention of leaving us at this point. He proposed a postponement till after supper, which he offered to go and order. “Nay,” urged the Quaker, with an approach of abruptness, and laying his hand on tho other’s arm. “Business beforp pleasure; and, for business, there no time like the present. “ Will thee be good enough to search the prisoner?” he said to me, still keep ing his hand in a friendly way on the passenger’s arm. I did so, but not one of the stolen ar ticles could be found. “ He must have got rid of them in the coach,” the gay gentleman suggested, and immediately offered to go and search. “Stop!” 'thundered the Quaker, tightening his grasp. The man turned pale and struggled to release his arm. In an instant one of ‘he derringers was leveled at his head. “ Stir a hand or a foot, and you are a dead man ! ” The Quaker must have been awfully excited, so completely to forget both the language and principles of his persua sion. Placing the other pistol in my hand, with directions to fire on the first of the two men that made a suspicious move ment, he went to work on tlia Lothario, from whose pockets, in less time than it takes to tell it, he produced every item of the missing property, to the utter amazement of the two ladies, who had begun in no measured terms to remon strate against the shameful treatment that gentleman was receiving. The Quaker, I need scarcely add, was no Quaker at all, but a shrewd de tective, who had been set on the track of a band of desperadoes, of whom our middle-aged friend, who didn’t look near so middle-aged when his wig was off— was the chief. The -robbeqy had been most adroitly planned. The leader of the gang had taken passage in the coach, and after learning, as he supposed, our defenseless condition, had given the signal to his companions by throwing out the scrap of paper already men tioned. After the unexpected capture of the first robber, it was attempted to save the booty by secretly passing it to the accomplice—still believed to be un suspected—who counted on being able tei make off with it at the next stopping place. The result was that both, for a season, did the State some service. A RACE FOR LIFE. “I was once,” said an old hunter, “ chasing a small fox with half a dozen hounds. They had been pushing him pretty closely for some three hours, and lie was finally foTced to try to gain his den in a ledge of rocks. Now, it hap pens to boa fact that, n fox always likes to put as much distance as possible between himself and his pursuers when he takes to liis domicile, and as a consequence he makes the highest possible speed when finishing the run. In this particular in stance Reynard started on a straight run for his home, when nearly a mile distant, and was soon 200 pr 300 yards ahead of the hounds and widening tho gap. When less than a quarter of a mile from home he was intercepted by three fresh dogs, which, hearing the chase, had started to ioin it from a point on a line with tho loxs kenneling place. Of course they drove him back on a lino nearly parallel with the course on which he had been running, and it looked as though he would have to make a circuit of two or three miles to reach home. The fresh hounds having literally taken up the chase and carried it back past my own at an angle, my dogs left the trail, and, by a short cut, joined the intruders, and the whole pack was soon in full cry within 100 yards of the fox, which was now rnnniner directly away from home. At this point the fox left for the woods and took to an upper field that sloped abruptly down some 800 yards to a narrow valley. He had barely disappeared over the brow of the hill when nine dogs broke from the woods over the fence, all of them except the leader with heads erect, looking eagerly for their prey. I was standing on the opposite hill nnd had an unobstructed view, and care fully noted all tho movements of the fox and his pursuers. As soon as he had cleared the fence and before the hounds were in a position to see him he put on a magnificent burst of speed for one hundred yards down the hill until he reached a large stump three feet in height and perfectly flat on top. Leap ing upon it lie lay down with his nose pointing in the direction of his noisy pursuers and flattened himself out so completely that he was practically in visible to me, aud I doubt whether a man would have noticed him passing within two rods of th stump unless he ivas looking for something on it. The hounds came down the hill with a rush, some taking one side of the stump and some the other. There w-as no abatement in their speed until they reached nearly the opposite side of the field, when the leader discovered that the trail was “lost,” and giving the well-known signal the pack were thrown into confusion and the search to pick it up began. As soon as the hounds had gone a safe distance beyond him, Rey nard leaped from his perch and made a bee line for home. It was fifteen min utes before the hounds made out the trail, and he had ample time to reach the ledge before they were again in pur suit of him. The proposed agitation in Great Brit ain for the abolition of the House of Lords will grow in popularity if the policy of obstruction to all measures of roferm on the part of that body is ob ftinately pursued. It is now announced that the House of Lords will refuse to consider the Hare and Rabbits bill, a measure intended to put a stop to the depredations of these animals upon the crops, by allowing tenant farmers to kill all found upon their land ; which is cer tainly a very mild measure, as it does not interfere with the animals on adja cent land, where they may do almost as much damage. The damage from these pests is national as well as personal. A writer in the Westminster Review esti mates that the cost of feeding a rabbit when running wild among the crops amounts to $‘2.50, while the market value of the animal is only 20 cents. This represents a loss of $2,000 on every ton of rabbit meat, and, as 10,000 tons are annually sent to market, the total loss amounts to $20,000,000. Eight years ago a member of Parliament said that, in one district alone of his county, p.s much as 18,000 acres were untenanted on account of tho game, and that, if hares and rabbits could be ‘ ‘ kept with in reasonable bounds,” 40,000 more sheep could be kept in the county. A couple of hares, it is said, will eat and destroy as much as a sheep. It is against reforms which aim to improve the productive powers of the country hat the House of Lords sets itself in pposition. The British Government is now build ing at Chatham a naval monster called the Polyphemus. This vessel, says a a correspondent, which is utterly unlike anything previously seen in the royal navy, is designed as an armored sheet plated ram of 2,640 tons and 6,500 horse-power. She is built almost en tirely of steel, and as a torpedo ram she will be the most formidable vessel in the world, and the opinion has been formed that there is no vessel afloat, no matter of what description, which oould survrre after one or two blows from her ram. CHANGE OR SCENE. We all need change, no matter how “contented” our dispositions may be. A perpetual round of duties has a de pressing effect both on the body aud mind. It wearies us day by day to seo tho same faces, view the same things, hear the same voices, smell tho same odors, listen to the same platitudes. After long experience at home we know exactly how the tea will taste, how tlie sirloin of boef is likely to be served up, and what probability there is of the mutton being tough, or the steak under done. We know, too, exactly what wife will say when we oomo homo, and the exact tone in which she will say it. When people live together day a f ter day, month after month, and year after year, they find it difficult to find sub jects for profitable conversation. They are talked out. It is probably owiug to the barrenness of subjects that tho wife enlarges on domestic themes, and wear ies the husband with a recital of her small perplexities. This monotony can best be combated by change of air; for with this comes variation of scene; with that arrives change of thought, and with that, again, start up new trains of ideas and expansion of mind. To go for change of air is, or ought to he, an ex pedition in quest of information, and a search for something new. From it one returns with a fresh fund of anecdotes, a new collection of stories, a fuller reper toire of experiences, and an additional store of illustrations, which, for months to come, serve to brighten the dull reali ties of life. It is obvious that if the main object of change of air is to get over the results of monotony, pater familias should not always travel with his wife and family. A brief separation will teach them to value each other more highly than ever when reunited. A LOST FAMILY BIBLE AND A FORi- UNE OF $100,000,000. An advertisement recently appeared in the Windham County Transcript of "ering a reward of SSOO for the recovery of the Bible that once belonged to Mary Stevens, who died in East Thompson in 1804. The last known of this Bible is that it was carried away by Robert Stevens (husband to Mary Stevens), when he deserted her about the year 1780. The advertisement is the key to a ro mance which the Times has already given in substance. The Alary Stevens referred to was the beautiful and accom plished daughter of Lord John Town ley of Lancashire, England. She was bom in 1827, and, while yet a young maid, she eloped with a man named Williams. Little is known of his his tory, but it is probable that his family was of lower social standing than the Townleys, inasmuch as the bitter oppo sition of the latter to the marriage of Mary and her lover led to the elopement. To elude pursuit, when they quit England they assumed the name of Stevens. Mrs. Stevens took her mother’s family Bible with her, which contained a com plete family record. They settled in Windham county in this State. Nine children were bom to them. Soon after the birth of the last child, Stevens de serted his wife, taking with him tho family Bible. Just before her death, Mrs. Stevens acquainted her youngest daughter with the family history. Stevens died in Pomfret, Windham county, in 1791, and anxious search is now being made for the Bible, which, it is supposed, he had in his possession at the time of his death. It contains evi dence which will establish the claims of the heirs of Mary Townley, his wife, to an estate estimated at $100,000,000. Undoubtedly the Bible is stowed away in some attic in Eastern Connecticut.— Hartford Times. 31USK. Musk is a concrete substance, found in an animal having a near affinity to the deer tribe, a native of Thibet, China and Siberia. The musk deer is a timid animal, and rarely appears during the day; consequently the musk collectors watch and surprise it at night. The best musk comes from China, and to have it genuine it should be purchased in the natural pod or bag, as it is very often adulterated. Tho Bengal musk is inferior, and that from Russia the worst of all. The hair on the pod of the musk is a fawn color; that on the inferior a dirty white. A variety of musk is found in the musk-rat of Canada, au animal about the size of a small rabbit. Musk is of a bitter taste, and of an odor more powerful than anything known; substances in its neighborhood become strongly infected by it, and, when once perfumed with it, long retain the scent. It has been known to affect chests of tea placed at a considerable distance, oven though both had been packed up in leaden boxes, for which reason the East India Company gave an order not to import musk and tea in the same sliips. Many persons dislike the odor. It has the property, when employed in very small quantities, of augmenting tho scent of other substances, without im parting its own. General abstract truth is the most precious of all blessings ; without it a man is blind ; it is the eye of reason.— Rousseau. Amount of Subscription, $),25. NO. 17. Mu. RnnPATH drives a most shocking picture of the sufferings endured by the tenants of Lord Lansdowne’s estates in Kerry. These estates cover about twen ty square miles. They have been gov erned for several generations by one family of agents, the Trenches, who have had the full support of tbo land lords in all their odious nets of oppres sion. The “ rules ”of the estate cause the special hardships. They prohibit marriages among the tenants, except with the permission of the agents, or the sheltering of any person, whethe relative or not, in any cabin on the estate. Tenants’ or laborers* children who do marry without permission are ejected at onoe. The common punish ment for sheltering strangers or visitors is a line of a gale of rent. A gale is half a year’s rent. Several deaths have been caused by the operation of these rules. Tenants have been fined for sheltering their own children. Women about to be confined have been turned out to suf fer the inclemencies of winter. Rules like these are common in Kerry and other counties of Ireland. Lord Lans dov/ne deserves credit only for inventt ing them. They constitute the chief difference between the lot of the En glish laborer and that of the Lush ten ant, and are as near an approach to the condition of slavery as could be realized in a country pretending to be free. FORGETFULNESS. There are well-authenticated instances of persons w'ho suddenly found that they could not remember their own names. An Ambassador at St. Petersburg was once in this case, when calling at a house where he was not known by the servants, and he had to apply to his companion for the necessary informa tion. The names of common things are sometimes strangely forgotten. The wife of an eminent jurist who consulted Dr. Trousseau, of Paris, told him that her husband would say to her, “Give me my—my —dear me! my—-you know,” and he would point to his head. “Your hat?” “Yes, my hat.” Sometimes, again, he would ring the bell before go ing out and say to the servant, “Give me myum—timbrel—umbrel, oh, dear !” “Your umbrella ?” “ Oh, yes ;my um brella.” And yet at the very time his conversation was as sensible as ever. He wrote or read of or discussed most difficult points of law. A patient will often use a form of circumlocution to express his meaning; thus, one man who could not remember scissors would say, “It is what we cut with.” —Popular Science Monthly. DISCREET DEAFNESS. People who openly boast that their eyes and ears are always open make a great mistake. It is unwise to be too observant; and it is just as well if we are conveniently deaf at times. There arc so many things which it is painful to hear—many which we ought not to hear—very many which, if heard, will disturb the temper, corrupt simplicity and modesty, detract from contentment and happiness, that every one should be educated to take in or shut out sounds, according to their pleasure. We gam much by so wise a course. If all the petty things said of one by heedless or ill-natured idlers were to be brought home to him he would become a mere wallring pin-cushion, stuck full of sharp remarks. If we would be happy, when among good men, we should open our ears ; when among bad men, shut them, it is not worth while to hear what onr neighbors say about our children, what our rivals about our business, our dress, or our affairs. This art of not hearing, though untaught in our schools, is by no means unpracticed in society. We have noticed that a w’ell-bred woman never hears a vulgar or impertinent remark. A kind of discreet deafness saves one from many insults, from much blame, from not a little connivance in dishonorable conversation. President Hayes made a reply to an office-seeker recently that sounds like Lincoln. He was asked to fill a vacancy in the army by the appointment of a young man whose great-great-grandfa ther was a naval officer during the Rev olutionary war, whose great-grandfather was a gallant soldier of the army, and whose father was a distinguished ex irmy officer. ‘ ‘ Don’t you think it about time that one of that family earned a liv ing for himself?” remarked the Presi dent with a quiet smile. The telephone made a mistake in Bos ton. It began to think it was so valua ble that people could not do without it and so it raised its price. But Boston people can do without anything except culture and pork and beans, so they are gradually freezing out the tele phone. Nearly all the principal sub scribers have signed a paper agreeing to discontinue the instrument when the new tariff goes into effect. It will make the phone “hello” with surprise when it finds it has no one to whisper to. Ex-Senator Dorsey, Secretary of the Republican National Committee, and ex-Senator Barnum, Chairman of the Democmtic National Committee, are in timate friends, and are associated in business together at 115 Broadway. New York. They differ only in political opinions, and there they differ widely. I PROTECTION FROM LIGHTNING. * A knight of the olden time in full armor was probably as safe from the ef fects of a thunder-storm as if he hail a lightning-rod continually beside him ; and one of the Romau Emperors devised a perfectly-secure retreat in a thunder storm in the form of a subterranean vault of iron. Ho was probably led to this by thinking of a mode of keeping out missiles, having no notion that a thin shell of soft copper would have been quite as effective as massive iron. But thoso Emperors who, as Suetonius tells us, wore laurel crowns or seal-skin robes, or descended into underground caves or cellars on the appearance of a thunder-storm, woro not protected at all. Even in France, where special at tention is paid to the protection of build ings from lightning, dangerous accidents have occurred where all projier precau tions seemed to have been taken. But on more careful examination it was usually found that someone essential element was wanting. The most com mon danger seems to lie in fancying that a lightning-rod is necessarily prop erly connected with the earth if it dips into a mass of water. Far from it. A well-constructed reservoir full of water is not a good “ earth ” for a lightning rod. The hotter the stone-work and cement the lens are they fitted for this special purpose, and great mischief has been done by forgetting this.— Nature. HUMAN WORK AND HUMAN WASTP Work means waste, equally to a hu man body and a locomotive engine. “More work, more waste,” is a motto alike true of tho mechanic’s ap paratus and of the mechanic himself. Not an action, wo repeat, is performed by us which is not accompanied by an expenditure of force derived from and accompanied by a proportional waste of substance. The movements of muscles, the beating of the heart, the winking of an eyelid, the thinking a thought, entail wear and tear upon the museles that work and the brain-cells that think. Every action necessitates bodily waste and corresponding physical repair. Waste, however, cannot of necessity be a single and final process in a living body—unless, indeed, we were bom with a full complement of matter, and were permitted in the order of nature to live on the principals with which we had been provided, instead of wisely us ing that principal as a means of gaining a livelihood through the interest it ac quired. That wo are not so constituted is an evident fact, hence onr bodies de mand pretty constant repair as a com panion action to that of work, labor and duty. This process of repair consists in the reception of matter from the outer w orld, in the transformation of this mat ter into ourselves, and in its utilization in the work and repair of the frame. Such matter we shortly name food, and the processes whereby it is converted into onr owm bodily substance we term digestion.— Chambers' Journal. Cornelius J. Vanderbilt, the erring brother, who got $1,000,000 out of his father’s estate by going to court, has started for Cairo, Egypt, where a com pany will be formed at his expense, com posed of guides, spearmen and wood choppers, and with three American gen tlemen he will set out on an exploring expedition up the River Nile and over the adjacent country. They will journey into the Hoiy Land, spend considerable time there, and also make a thorough tour of the city of Jerusalem. On their return to Cairo they will take a more southern course. From Cairo they will cross the Mediterranean sea, and visit Constantinople. From there they will go to Greece, where considerable time will be spent in examining the antiqui ties of that country ; after which Prussia will be visited, and the party will next go to St. Petersburg. Mr. Vanderbilt has heretofore been principally notorious because Iris father snubbed him, and on account of his incorrigible disposition to incur debts for the old Commodore to pay. He never had money, while his brothers were always flush, so he waa compelled to prey upon society. But now he has the funds, and is using them to advantage. THE C'A REEVE IRISH LA W BREAKER. No Irishman ever breaks the law with out having one eye watching over his shoulder, to be sure his way of escape is open. 1 remember when I first went over a characteristic story was current. A man was under sentence of death for some bad crime. A gentleman whom he used to live near chanced to know that the man had meant to shoot him. He went to the jail the day before the man was to be hanged, and said to him : ‘ ‘ You might as well tell me. Pat, since it [can now make j no difference to you, why you did not shoot me; for I know you meant to do it?” The gentleman was a capital shot, and always carried arms, and was known to be very resolute. The answer was: “Well, your Honor, it’s true it will make no odds to me now ; so I’ll tell ye. I had ye covered twice from behind a ditch, and as I was going to pull the trigger the thought went through my head, ‘ By heavens, if I miss him, it’s all up with me.’”— Macmillan's Magazine. THE CROWING. Do not blame the rooster for bragging over every egg that is laid in the family. Only human nature, nothing more. You remember that when that bouncing boy arrived at your house, it was not the mother who went about doing the crowing. ___ A man near Houston, Texas, made 1600 per acre this year from the cultiva tion of domestic blackberries. Tire yield was 3,000 quarts per acre, which sold at 20 cents a quart. “Is it cheaper to board or keep house?” asks a young wife. It is olieaper to •qamni.q piuAio; ssoifioad pmtrquoo v ©pi eipun jCsra q.j 'sos'eapl q laACtpjqAV. basoa Asm pars mooi vst ;.rßoq sthj,