Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

tnanriitG nun. BT GAJIRIK ▼. BRANT fHwpwtfully d*.l fern ted to Oliver Wendell Holme*.) “Time cl aim* Its tril-nte: Alien e* now la golden; Let me not vex the tv-' long suffering Ijre; Though to your love untiring yet beholden, The curfew telle too, Co\er up the tire.” —O. H r . Ultimas' •• Iron Got/," Friend, I have known tboo from my early childhood Here U a j'dctnre tliou wilt un<lfi>t*uid : A A book of poems in onu soiled brovru hand. The pictured child i* pie. sna thine the poem. On uicb the eon! l. feeding there; when the years \v repast she said, “ I k now him— lluvo known him front my childhood.'’ Was it luir? N-'-w tor the *Hke of th- 1 elldw-’-'d sweetness, And fqt* WmSv* ndunte lrcnms that children dream, I wish to write thro, In thy i : 's completeness, Expressing my regard and my esteem. I wish to nay to thee that though the nunil>er Of thy fair years l>c now throe score and ten, The fire thy genlun kindled Khali not slumber; Once lighted, it can not go out again. This fire, undying an the soul that, breathing Upon oold ashes, turns them Into flame, Bhall burn for many pleasant years, still wreathing New garlands of immortelles round thy name. And may the warmth and fragrance of the morning Be round about th- o ns the sunset fades. When twilight dews fall gently, aH in warning Of dangers in the night’s intrusive shades. And when, at last. Peace visits thy calm pillow, A smiling angel—not Death, chill and drear— Oh, may the south wnnl whisper to the willow To slug the songs thou most hath loved to hear 1 Then, as with falling tenrs wo bend above thoe, And know the fire of life is all gone out. We will not call thee dead, but we who love thee Will gather up the treasures strewn about; We’ll build a temple o'er tno glowing embers, The fragrant Blossoms of thy genius rare, And guard the fire to prove that love remembers Ihe hand that lit the incense burning there. Oh ! brightly shall it burn through all the summer, And brightly burn when winter’s snows are white, And when the day is dead and earth grows dumber We’ll keep it shining through tha fog* of uigpt. And if anon by chance the fire should smolder, Love, kneeling low, will fan it with her breath. Then snail each ember that was growing colder Flash its red light up in the face of death. And Death, abashed, with pallid brow grown whiter, Shall sbinnktlnto the shadows whence ho came. While the oldylamee shall leap up higher, brighter, And write in words of scarlet fire thy name. Immortal light, that never can grow dimmer; Immortal lire, that never can grow cold ; Immortal genius, with the sunrise glimmer; Immortal name, traced in tha sunset’s gold! WHO Aft 13 IRI'MES? BY MISS EMMA MERIWETHER. Friends, indeed, who arc they, pray? Do they come to us on the darkest day? Do they lighten the load when we are w ary? Bring words of comfort, when all seems dreary T Do they proffer aid to lesson our task? Are they willing to grant the favors we ask? And when fate’s aeai • us, troubles endured, Every ray of sunshine completely obscured, Do they come to us then, in that hour of trial And prove their sincerity bv true self-denial? By deeds not words, give evidence of worth, That our grief, though great, may die at its birth? Ah! few such friend* are found in the land, Ever willing to lend that helping hand, To lift the fallen, and sincerity evince To the high or low-born, peasant or prince. A TARDY REMINDER. I. The back-log in our great Texas fire place hail just been punched after B,n approved method, and the flames were leaping up as flames will on windy nights, roaring steadily and starting shadow dances in the comers of the room. Suddenly some quick change subdued the flame till it merely hung in the smoke above the hearth, and at this moment a most unearthly sound, ap parently at our very door, startled me mto an unbecoming posture, that was taken advantage of by my friend, who thereupon indulged in a succession of chuckles of a kind I could never locate in him. He soon recrossed his legs, however—he could never chuckle ex cept with feet wide apart—saying as he did so: “You never heard a screech-owl be fore, I reckon. We hear them often in Indiany—often,” and he added, after a moment, more intensely, and as if a little startled by some thought—“often.” “ Was that an owl ? Heavens !it sound ed more like the scream of a locomotive whistle.” “I’ve a notion of writin’ home to night, Jim.” “ You have ?” It startled me almost as much—quite in a different way—as the screech-owl’s terrible song. The words carried me back to our place of meeting a year before. Taking a Mis sissippi river boat at Cairo, I found I must share my state-room with another —or rather he with me, since I was the later comer. He did not strike me favorably at first. I was a New En gland boy and suspicious of everything south of St. Louis, and this man looked not unlike the men I had been cautioned against. He could not very well help that, indeed, since I had been warned in very general terms that included every one I did not Imow, However, we shook hands, exchanged some remarks meant to be facetious, and in a few days I knew his name—William Jackson. “At home they call me Bill—short, like myself, you see,” he said, and grinned in a bashful sort of a way that came very near to capturing me on the spot. In fact, he was not short, but, instead, the tallest man I ever saw of his length of leg and body ; for what he lost elsewhere he made up in a neck that never ceased to be a wonder to me. It ran up like the watch-tower of a fire engine house, slim and so long that, while his shoulders barely reached mine, his head overhung all others, and was two inches more than six feet above the ground. His head was large, too, and that made his general appearance more striking, while the general slimness ol his body ended below in a pair of enor mously large feet. His face was much tanned and smooth-shaven, except the upper lip, which was covered by a coarse stubble of fierce-standing, sandy hair. But no description of hum would be complete that did not touch on that feature of his countenance which was of ten concealed entirely and which would have made him trusted anywhere. Asa fellow-traveler said, “His general looks is agin him. but his mouth captures me. ” He said his mout! i, but he meant his laugh—not that tin i was much noise about it, but it was > far-reaching in its effect on his own person. First, around his mouth would break two deep wrinkles; then outside of these two more; and so on, on till his eyes were brought into the whirlpool of wrinkles and the long-standing ones on his neck and forehead shaped themselves to the general effect of one upreme expression of delight It was then you believed him from your very heart I did, and he never, as he himself would express it, “ threw dirt” on me. After all, he had, so far as I learned, little to often bring forth so great a revelation on his face. But few of the amenities of life had 1 >een his at any time. He said little of home—“ somewhere in Indiany”—except when at one time he spoke bitterlv of his dead father’s grand mistake in life, which it appeared was simply this, (flat V kept his children (boys and girls, a large family) on the farm till he die then they came of ne cessity out into the world to find them •slvss great, grown-up babies—nothing Hamilton Journal. LAMAR & DENNIS. Publishers. VOL. VIII--NO. 31). more—without any other feeling thau that they must, as Jim said, ‘‘hitch on to someone. ” All the girls, hut one who died, were too old to “ hitch on.” The boys did the best they could in that line, and after a time Jim “ hitched on" to me—it was in New Orleans, after com ■ iug down from Cairo—and we soon be came what at the West they call “ pards. ” We were friends, at any rate, and, hav ing joined forces to the amount of ahont $350, were farming in Texas on poor lands on what our landlord called “ sheers;” that Is, he furnished the tools, mules and land and we the brains and human muscle, keeping our own house and dividing the spoils—tlmt is, the crops—equally. So, knowing how little he looked to any other home than the one around him, I could but question liis “ notion,” and add: “ Who to, Jim ? ” a rather thought less question. His voice went down almost the whole length of that wonderful neck, I thought, as he threw his face forward into his hands, and, staring into a dark corner of the fire, said : “A woman.” “A woman, Jim ? why, wlia— ! Oh, a sister, perhaps?” I said, seeking the only refuge that seemed at hand. “No. * * * no sister.” A lone pause. “It’s like this,” and ho said nothing more for some minutes, but ab sently reached over for his violin and picked the strings for an almost-forgot ten chord. It seemed to me that his brain and fingers were working together, although he did not kuow it. At last he evidently reached what he was after, for he twanged the strings more confi dently and said, laving aside the violin : “ It’s like this : \Vo never said noth ing to nobody, nor to ourselves neither, for that matter. But she knowed I thought a whole farm of her and always shall—oh, how good she’s been to me) ” and he fiercely clutched bis knees, his features distorted and iris eyes in tears. Good to him 1 Well, thought I, if ever any woman loved Jim she was good to him ; she couldn’t have wanted him for anything else. How homely and an gular he looked, his long neck shot out oward tho tire, which in February is needed, even in Texas, to take off the chill. Presently he straightened up. “ No, there wasn’t nothing said, but she knowed me, and when I left she asked me to write her, and I’m going to do it. She’s bin waitin’ now too long,” Then he stopped abruptly and, began to look back over the months, while I held my breath. “My God, man, it’s ’ni’ on two year,” he said, and, it seemed to me, he saw in a moment what his long neglect might mean ; that it had been the very refine ment of cruelty. He at once began with an almost feverish haste to make ready his writing tools—only to hesitate, pen in hand, over the white paper I handed him, writing little at a time, and not concluding till his lamp had out burned the back-log, and its coals smoldered sullenly on the hearth. Then, muttering something about a screech owl near her house, he crept into bed. What excuses he put forth in his let ter I never knew. They would not, I am quite certain, have answered for any love letter I might have sent about that, time after two years’ silence ; though, to be sure, “wo” (taking the reader into confidence for a moment) were both younger at that time, while Jackson was 30, if a day. He may have urged that ho was a poor letter-writer. That was true. I have yet to see his equal in power to wTeak a really appalling ven geance on words which, many are now agreed, have a greediness for letters oidy equaled by their inexcusably be wildering arrangement of the same. And his way of making up sentences was something wonderful. He may have urged, too, that he had worked early and late with scarce a moment of relaxa tion. That was true of both of us. and I had written many times. Whatever ho may have said in that letter, to which he brought so many pains, I fear he did not hit on the true reason for his long silence ; indeed, it is possible, oven probable, that he did not know of it himself. For my part, it seemed then, as it seems now, that he had not written, simply because he had not at any time, or for any pur pose, found in letters so ready a means of communication that he turned to them without effort. And, more than all, he had lived by her side in daily thought since the hour in which they parted. His memory of her many graces was as fresh on the hundredth day as on the second ; and, had it been four years of silence instead of two, her face and form would have been as dis tinct in his mind at the end of that long time as though daily letters bad passed between them. A contemplation almost constant had brought her to him to com fort and oonsole him at any moment. Then, too, he had “hitched on," and, though a man grown, had conceded to' me every right that was his in the man agement of our small business Honest himself—almost pitiably honest, for it came from an innocence that bad been kept fresh by ignorance of more than a quarter of a century —he placed the fullest faith in the man he had chosen to work with. So he felt much at ease, with little thought of the future, except when long droughts, under a sky like brass, made us despair of profit from farming in Texas. He rested in the love he was sure of, and did not once think that the flame he hud somjhow fanned into sight—miracle though it must have seemed to him, for he knew that he was homely—would need any further care to be kept alive and at a fervent glow. All this passed in my mind while riding five miles the following evening to post the precious letter, which I dreaded to let out of my hand. So much depended on it that it seemed impossible that it should go aright in the usual prosaic way, in common mail bags. Once away from town, however, and on the upland prairie, the matter looked differently. “ Heaven be praised for that screech owl,” I said aloud. “Bill will have to take one for his coat of arms—adding a steel pen and holder, perhaps. * * * It’s a pity, though, that the owl waited so long. ’ It was a tardy reminder.” I mentioned the coat of arms to him when he dropped his violin for a mo ment as I canto in, and he took it good naturedly. So far as I could see—and Jackson concealed nothing, he was like a child in that—every thought of the wrong he had done had gone away with the letter, and he evidently had no fear of 'the result. "I told her.” hAtooid, bounding his bow about ou the tense strings, “that I was dogoned sorry I had forgot mv promise to write—’twaan’t ’cause 1 didn't think of her with ev’ry seed of ootton and ev’ry kernel of com we planted, and with ev’ry step I made ; I seen her face in everything I did, and when I see a pretty sight she seen it, too, and there's lots of strange things here. ” Wliat a sight for hot-house lovers this, the glow that came to Jackson’s face as he dropped his violin across his knees and lingered in thought on the happy moments they had eaon day spent together, only in unagination 1 * That they were imagined scones never oc curred to him, for he saw in her faoe from time to time all the pleasure she would have onjoyod in noting with him the strange features of a oountry strange to both. “Yes,” he said, striving for s few mo ments to bring a refractory string into Imrinoav with its fellows, snd than drawing round, sweet notes the length of liis bow—“ Yes, I’m dogoned sorry, but she knows me! ” m. There should have been an answer to the letter in about txvo weeks if she was hke other women. But two, yes, three weeks and more passed by without a word. The fire died out on our hearth, as the hot summer came on swiftly, and was not renewed. March surrouuded us and revealed wonders to the limited New England experience which barely becomes acquainted with the sun of the extreme Southern States. April came and, going out into the past, left thirty perfect days behind. Lower Texas liodecked in a suit of green, not laid on as a remnant, but with a lavislinesg al most wasteful, smiled in your face at iirst and then laughed aloud, her notes of joy bubbling from a thousand throats. Animal life, concealed before, crept out and basked on the glaring stones. Tho air was in a constant hum, unnoticed by some, but intense to those whose ears were attuned to it The very earth at our feet seemed to throb with life It was just opening May when 1 came from the postoffice one evening and laid down before Jackson the letter he had mailed weeks before. It came from the Dead Letter Office—that morgue of so many hopes—and in the same mail was a paper from what had been his homo town, together with letters for my self. He was playing on his violin when I came in, but stopped at once. I do not think that at first be felt so deeply sorry that it had miscarried as I did, but he was perplexed all the even ing long, and could not understand why the letter had not reached her. He sat several hours turning the letter over and over, noting the different post marks, but not offering to re-read wliat he hod written, and evidently trying herd to frasp the situation fully. He gave s eep sigh at last, and, without getting up from his chair, laid the letter by, though still in sight. He then took the home paper and scanned its meager col umns carelessly, looking first, as one aways from his former home does, at the list of deaths and marriages. They were few and of no special interest to him ; but as he glanced over another column, devoted for the most part to small town talk, he must have seen this paragraph, for he fell forward on his face like one about to die if not already dead, crush ing his violin beneath liim, its deep moan joining discordantly with the mocking hoot of the screech-owl far out in the darkness. We regret to learn just oh we go to press to day that Mrs. Henry T. Ooodwell, wife of our esteemed townsman of that name, died last night after a brief illness of three days. The circumstances of her death were peculiarly painful and most distressing. Mrs. Ooodwell has been married less than a year, and will be remembered by many of our readers as Miss Esther Harton, who Uved until she was mar ried at the home of Thomas Jackson, brother of the late William Jackson, Hr. Hhe was a lovely woman, and the grim destroyer has in deed smoto heavily. Our heartfelt sympathies are with the husband in thia his dire extremity, his hour of trial. rv. Several months later I talked with the writer of the above lines, in his “ sanc tum,” as he frequently called it. I found him a shrewd Yankee who made his paper simply a lever to move other matters to his benefit, and the “best fixed ” man (so he phrased it) in the county. I questioned him some as to Miss Esthers marriage. “ She’d been goin’ with the Jackson you speak of, as you say,” he answered. “ But I’d know’s there was anythin’ be tween them. S'posin’ there was; a wom an can’t wait forever for a man to spit it out, and he wan’t much to wait tor anyway. I guess he was honest ennufi ’afar as that goes, bur ‘ no great shakes,j as they say here ; he was always * hitch in’ on’ to someone. Besides, Tom— that is, Thomas Jackson—got jxxir and hadn't a plaoe for her, and in short it was marry or go among strangers. Times was hard, and it had to come to what it did, though she hesitated—hesi tated more’n you oould ask. perhaps.” A oonn.E of disbelievers in spiritual ism attended a sceance in San Francisco, last week, and after the materialized spirit of an Indian maiden named Star Eye had given one of them a lot of glu cose ‘from his dead sister,” though he never had a sister, he slipped a police man’s nippers on the wrist of the “ spirit ” and held her till his friend turned up the gas. The spirit proved to I xs the wife of the medium. The medium then ap peared with a materialized club, ami wafted the man over the head with the subtle influence, cutting a hole in his scalp, and the two barely escajied with their lives. The “manifestations ” were very " strong ” that evening, all the con ditions being highly favorable, fora row. —Peck'a Hun. “ DUM SPIRO, SPERO.” HAMILTON* GAm SUPTKMIiUU ‘23, 1880. SOUTHERN NEWS. Texas has an immense pecan crop. Coaches is becoming fashionable at Richmond. They pay $1 eaoh for wild-oat scalps in Florida. Durham, N. 0., expects to handle 18,- 000,000 pounds of this year's tobacco crop. The population of Hernando Couuty, Fla., has increased fifty per cent, sinoe 1870. The money-order business at Macon, Ga., amounted, during the last official year, to $250,000. A farmer named Jackson, bring near Savannah, has over 3d,000 tea plants on his farm. The counties of Cherokee, Graham, Swain, Jackson and Maoou, N. C., con tain 1,109 Indians. PHYSioiANsin Montgomery are alarmed at the increase of cigarette smoking among boys in that city. Jerry BnoKr.uu, a letter-carrier in Nashville, has walked fourteen miles every day, exoept ou Sunday, for four teen years. MiiiiiF.noi!vrr/M ships 15,000 bales ot cotton annually, lias over sixty business houses, a college with near 400 students, and yet lias no banking-house. Michael Drayton, a hyena-tamer connected with Coup’s Circus, was torn to pieces by three infuriated hyenas during the stroet parade at Winchester, Virginia. Bill Arp is about to start on a lecture tour in the South, his subject being, “Dixie now and Dixie then.” Arp’s real name is Charles TT. Smith, and he is an elder in the Presbyterian Church. An ox was captured in the river at Mosby’s Point, twenty-eight miles above Wilmington, N. C., by a negro man on a flatboat and towed to the city, swim ming behind the boat every foot of the way. Florida fruit-growers are beginning to cultivate tho lemon with a great deal of care, and with such good results that it is believed that in a little while longer this State will furnish almost as many lemons to the trade as she now does oranges. The dam on Hutchinson’s Island, op posite Savannah, which is intended to keep the river from overflowing and in that, way improves the sanitary oondition of tho city, has been -completed. It is seven feet high, ten feet wide at the base and six feet at the top. A white boy appeared on the street yesterday having a basket which con tained over two dozen alligator eggs, which he found in a nest on Cross Lake and which ho was retailing at ten cents each. Several of the eggs were broken, when it was discovered they all con tained embryo alligators, which led some of the purchasers to bury tlieir eggs in mud and sand, as is the fashion of that animal, with the hope of hatching out a brood of alligators. —Shreveport {La.) Times. The next issue of the Southern histori cal papers will oontain a letter written by the President of the late Southern Con federacy in relation to a long dispute, that it seems has been going on among some of the friends of the two parties in terested concerning the command of At lanta, why Mr. Davis put the late Gen. Hood in charge instead of Gen. Hardee. The letter is addressed to Gen. Roy, who was a member of Gen. Hardee’s staff. In this correspondence Mr. Davis speaks in the kindest und most complimantry terms of the high character and military skill of both these gentlemen.—Peters burg Index- Appeal. 'J’he authorities of the Charlotte, Co lumbia and Augusta Railroad, have posi tively declined to pay its portion of the assessment for the salary of the State Railroad Commissioner of South Caro lina tliis year. Last year the South Carolina Railroad was the only one which did not contribute its proportion, but the amount in question, and its as sessment for this year, were paid several weeks ago. The Savannah and Charles ton, Greenville and Columbia, North eastern and Wilmington and Columbia arid Augusta Railroad authorities have so far taken no notice of an unofficial note of the Commissioner asking infor mation as to their intentions hi the matter. Capital Punishment. The punishment of death, as the penalty tor murder, has prevailed from the earliest times in all parts of the world In most nations treason or rebel lion against lawful government has also been thus punished; and in England and elsewhere, down to a very reoent period, the same has been tme of counterfeiting, forgery, mail robbery, and several other crimes. In some of the Southern States at the present time burglary is punish able by hanging. The manner of execu tion varies greatly. Military criminals, in modem times, are usually shot. In civil administrations the modes most prevalent have leen decapitation upon the “block,” used for political criminals of rank in England; the guillotine in France; in Spainish countries the parrot/-; but in most countries now, hanging. In Jupan, for some, offenses, the criminal is condemned to take his own life in the presence of officials. In China decapita tion is the usnal form of death for crimi nals, unless the crime is of the worst character, when the felon is pinioned to a cross and cut into pieces, by removing first the eyelids, then the lips, nose, cheeks, arms, legs, and afterward dis emboweling and quartering. MURDER UNPUNISHED. A Art An Old-Tlnio f'Allfornln |{pnilnlMH > nr<>. [Nerml.t Trftuicript. The duel betweeu Major Dibble, of the nnvy, and Jim Lundy, tho gambler, which occurred at Industry Bar, on the main Yuba, in this county, has been n fruitless theme for numberless compilers of pioneer history. S. 8. Crafts, a mer chant of Alleghany, who called at the JYatlsoript office day before yesterday, says that in all the accounts yet pub lished tho principal points wore wrongly stated. Ho was m the camp at tho time, and relates tho cirouinstanoes of tho bloody incident as follows: • On the evening of October 24, 1851, a number of men were sitting around the table after supper, whiling away tho time spinning yarns, cracking jokes, and sing ing songs “ When was it that fruit first swore?" suddenly' interrupted Major Dibble, who had taken but a slight part in tho pro ceedings until now. The listeners made one or two efforts to guess the answer, and then gave it up. “When the apple damned the pear, of course,” explained the joker. All laughed but Jim Lundy, between whom and the Major there had never been any love lost. He glanced at the latter in an ugly way and hissed, “ It’s no such tiling!’ 1 The color left Dibble’s cheeks, and his eyes blazed like two suns. It looked for a moment an though he was going to tackle liis insulter right there. Then bv a powerful effort he controlled himself, and his face began to assume a scarlet hue. “ You must not oontradiot me in such a way,” lie said in a low, determined tone. “Yon have done it too often al ready. ” Lundy gave expression to a contempt uous sneer. “You are a lying, thieving than yon are 1” These words came from the gambler with a ring that showed he wanted them to strike home. “ Very well, sir,” responded the out raged trooper; "we will try it on when General Moreliead comes over from No vada City.” Both men xvere crack shots and had plenty of moral courage. The pioneers at the Bar knew there would be at least ono funeral iu their midst liefore many hours elapsed. Dibble and Mr. Crafts slept together that night, and Lundy, taking his blan kets, camped out alone 011 a side-liill. 'The first named spent part of the night in writing letters to liis friends in tho East. lie indited several lengthy epis tles, one being to tho faithful and high bred sweetheart who was anxiously awaiting his return from the land of gold, and another to liis aged father and mother. The antagonists met at sunrise. Major- General Moreliead was Dibble's second, and Charley Morse was Lundy’s. Fifteen paces was measured off, and the challenger and challenged took their places. J 11st as tho god of day peejied over a pilie-firinged hill to the east the prepara tions were declared complete. “Gentlemen, are you ready?” Before the echo of the sentence had died away, and wliile Dibble was in the act of raising his weapon, there was a sharp report from the other’s pistol. A momentary look of consternation flittod over Dibble’s handsome face. “You , yon fired before the xyird. You have nearly killed mo,” he cried. Then, pressing one hand to his liroast, lie whirled around like mad once or twice, and fell dead in his tracks. The bullet found its resting plaoe in the young man’s heart. 1 uindy woe indicted, tried, and found guilty. The proceedings were shown to have been irregular, and lie was granted anew trial. The matter dragged along a year or two, some of the witnesses dis appeared from the country, and finally a nolle prosequi was entered. Hew Joseph Cook Rends and Studies. Lyman Abbott writes to the Chrixtlan Union: Joseph Cook carries a railroad “Shakespeare," and prepares his quota tions for his unique lecture on the “Shakespeare Conscience,” on the cars, lie picks up everywhere; gathers every thing. But in private ho bewails his treacherous memory. I never knew a stink-nt yet who did not seem to grow in di,quant with himself over the undue pro portion of nil that ho ever learned that iie habitually forgot. Mr. Cook is no ex ception fo the rule. Yet ho marvelously jin serves and utilizes the results of his readings. His methods are peculiar. I violate no confidence, and I may give aid to students, lay and clerical, if 1 report here these methods, as he told them to me. Ti’iis preserving machinery consists of three pieces: 1. lie always carries with him a cheap memorandum book. In this he jots down, wherever ho happens to he, a thought, a sentence, a figure that strikes him. The book fills up quickly. Then anew one takes its place. He trusts his memory to serve as an index to BUggest to him the date of the reading, the inci dent, or the thought there noted. 2. Ho also carries a package of com mercial note paper. Any extract in a book not in bis own library, any fact or figure worthy of more careful preserva tion, ho notes on a half-sheet of paper. These are assorted according to a few large titles. The homogeneous ones are pinned together. As the pile increases they are sewed. “I am going to lecture to-night,” said ho to me, “on ‘Ultimate America.’ I put in my hag my package of excerpts on America—a hundred or more—and k>k over them this afternoon as a lost preparation before fgo on the platform ’’ This method gives birr the full use of Ids resources on each subject in each lecture. 3. He has not the contempt of some would-be scholars for the newspapers; ho mails and uses them. With a red crayon he marks whatever strikes him as suggestive; throws the paper into a cor ner. Mrs. Cook, who is a sort of private secretary to him, as many another wife of many another busy literary man, cuts out the marked articles and lays them close in an index scraje book. When a large store has accumulated Mr. Cook goes over, culls out those of permanent value, and pastes or otherwise preserves them; ths rest are destroyed J. L. DENNIS. Editor. •sl.oo u Year. Perfumes - llow They Are Extrnefert. Hie three principal places Hint furnish scents to the world are Grasso, Nico and Cannes in France. In their locality alone, annually, are consumed : Pounds. Value. Ora ago flowers 8,000,000 SBOO,OOO Dose 1,000,000 78,000 •liiHiiiiue 080,000 50,000 Violet 100,000 35,000 Pn-sie 150,000 80,000 Tuberose 50,000 25,000 I'rum this product iu'e manufactured 1,01)0.00(1 pounds of scouted oils and gb uses, besides orange flower and rose waler. From the roue farms in tho neighborhood of Adrianopole in Turkey and from Ulmzipoor in India the valua ble attar of rose is brought. It is true there are extracts made from flowers of Spain, Italy and Algeria, but tho south of France may he said to la. center of sweet smells. There is a field here in Louisiana furflower-raising for perfumery t purposes that lias as yet been bu slightly improved. All tho varieties of rose thrive remark ably well here. Tho jasmine, violet, cassia, tuberose and orange flower bloom abundantly with but little cultivation, and could be made profitable crops if at tention was directed toward tlaur culti vation for commercial purposes. All that is now used here iH the cassie, or aecasia, and the sour orange blossom. Of those large quantities are used every year, and the yield from them compares favorably with European extracts. The sweet or ango blossom does not give off that strong and lasting odor ns does the sour, and, as the fruit of the latter is seldom used, the destruction of its blossoms would not work any serious result*. Out jasmine, too, is used, hut not in sueli quantities ns the orange flower. The modes of extracting tho fra grance from flowers are four, namely: Absorption, expression, maueratioii mid distillation. Tlie process of expres sion to obtian essences of oil is eon lined to the citron family, such as the lemon, orange and bergamot, and lias generally been performed by grating the rind. Maceration and absorption, which aro the most interesting processes, aro founded on tho affinity of odorous molec ules for fat* and oils, being readily ab sorbed by them when brought in contact, For flowers of strong odor, such as tlie rose, orange flower, cassie and violet, maceration is preferred, and is performed in the following manner: A certain quantity of grease is put in a large pan, which is placed in a larger one filled wife water. A quantity of flowers are thrown ill tho grease and left to digest a certain number of hours, tho temperature being kept warm and tlie flowers stirred. The contents of tho pan is then passed through liorse-liair bags, and tho grease will be found to have extracted all the fragrance of the flowers. By absorption, called iu French <n fleurage, is meant the contact of the flowers with tho grease without heat, whioli would injure sueh delicate odors ns that of the tuberose and josiniiie. Square glass, with a narrow frame of wood, is spread over with grease, and fresh (lowers placed upon this to tho thickness of the frame. These frames are placed one upon the other, so as to exclude the air, and the flowers are changed daily until tile pomade has ac quired sufficient strength. For making extracts for tlie handker chief this pomade is taken anil alcohol added to it, to which the odor is readily given off, and the product is the pure extract of the flower. However, the number of flowers cultivated for their odors are few, the skilled perfumer can imitate nearly all others by a ju dicious combination of tho six or seven he possesses, and in this consists the important branch of tlm perfumer's art,. Hw truly urtistie work is iu study ing the ufliuitius and blending the scents, as a painter does Ids colors. —New Or leans Democrat. Uow (Swinburne Bored Browning. Hwinhurneis a warm admirer of Brown ing; Browning a qualified admirer ol Swinburne. The elder poet once mol the younger at a railroad station, and shook his umbrella at bim, exclaiming: “Ah, yon foolish lsiy, why will you de grade such splendid talent?” If the truth must be told, this is but a modified version of Browning’s actiiul wolds, which were rather too strong for print. One day Swinburne called on Browning, who received him courteously, ami bade him lie seated, much marveling the while why he carried with him a small foot stool. The mystery was soon cleared up, for Swinburne laid the foot-stool at Browning’s feet and sat himself there upon, He could not arrogate equality with a master of the divine art; his sole ambition was to sit at bis feet. Brown ing was profoundly bored, and in mortal fear that somebody might call and be come a spectator of the interview. lie knew his visitor well enough to under stand that the latter would not budge for an intruder. It speaks volumes for Browning’s urbanity that lie conversed patiently and composedly with the erratic one for the space of an hour; then—for Immunity is frail, and some men will not take a hint—his nerves gave way. “And now,” said the host, “you must forgive mo, for I havoan spiKiintment, and must go.” Swinburne took up his stool and preceded Browning down stairs. In the nail he observed that he hail a special favor to ask. Browning assured him he would do anything in his power to be of service to him. Swinburne replied: “It is that you would allow me to sit at your feet another five minutes.” The tone was one of imperturbable gravity Brown ing assented, and the pair walked up stairs again. Swinburne carefully re placed Ins foot-stool and sat out the full five minutes, but, to do him justice, ik> longer. Browning’s face, when his guest had flnafiy departed, must have been a study. “Tell me whom you admire, and I will tell you what you are, ” would be as good a variation of the well-worn proverb as any other. The god of Mr. Swin burne’s idolatry is Victor Ilugo.to whom he indites a sonnet about once a month. The great Frenchman reads them all, imagining that he understands English. And perhaps the language of enraptured adoration is pretty generally compre hended by the [stmon who is the object of it. Victor Hugo, on the other hand, considers Swinburne the first of living Blnglish lyrists.— London Tr-Uh. BETTER THAN A SNAKE BTORT4 ll 4 Itoy’a l!nronntr With BiMa la m Yml|- HIIU llml Weigh Kl|ht rounds Esch. [Franklin (Ft.) Letter to ihs Now York Hun.J Twenty years or so ago, Herman Min nieli owned a brewery along French Orel It, ill this place, A storage vault or tunnel belonging to the brewery was excavated in the side of the hill nearly two hundred feet in length. There was a great Hihml in the creek in 18(!5, and tho water threatened to fill the vault. A large quantity of beer was stored there at the time. In attempting to save tha law from being carried away Brews! Vlinnieh was drowned, l’hillip Gross maii now keepwn saloon near the vault, which lie uses to store cheese, bologna, and beer iu. Tho vault for some tims , has been overrun with rats of au enorm ous size. They frequent the tunnel in such numbers and aro so bold and ag gressive that Grossman has long found it necessary to take someone with him to fight tho rats away wliile he takes ont cheese or beer. The cheese is kept cov ered with tin coses, through which the rats can not gnaw. Among Grossman’s children are two boys—Tidily, thirteen, and Eddie, eight years old. They aro both extremely fond of Swiss cheese. A few days ago they determined to make a raid on -hr store of their favorite clieeso in she ohl brewery vault. They knew it would be necessary to fight an army of rats in order to secure the prize they covoted, lmt. that did not deter them. Philly armed himself with a heavy piece of hoop-iron, and tho two boys entered ihs vault, the youngest one carrying the l ie tern. They had gone but a few feet only when tho rats began to dispute their passage. Rats scampered about them on every side, and it was with difficulty that Pliilly kept tlieui off of himself ' I brother by the active wielding of Jiis piece of iron. Some of the ruts were if enormous size, and the nrmy kept the boys entirely surrounded, moving along toward the further end of the tunnel with them and koeping up u loud and fierce outcry ns they marched .Several times one <>f the ruts, more bold than his companions, would jump savagely t one or the other of the boys; but, these in variably met death or were disabled by blows from Philly’s iron. The younger boy wauled to go back titter a rat lind leaped up and caught him by the sleeve with liis teeth; but his brother quieted liis fears, and told him that the rats were only playing. By the time the boys reached the end of tne tunnel, where the cheese was kept, tlierals had gathered by hundreds around the children, covering the cheese boxes and running over the boys in spite of the efforts of the older ono to keep them off. Philly took off his coat and wrapped it around liis little brother to protect him from tho rats, and then proceeded to un cover a cheese. The rata piled upon him and all about him, as though frantio with the prospect of getting possession of the cheese themselves. Philly beat about him right and left, but finding it impossible to drive tho rats away, so that he could got o box raised, he told his lit tle brother to go back and tell his father to oomo into tho vault as soon as possi ble. The little fellow hastened out, leav ing Pliilly alono in tho dark, battling with the rats, which wore gradually get ting the bettor of him. lie placed his back against one side of the tunnel, and wielded liis weapon continually, killing or disabling a rat at almost every blow. When the younger child carried the news to his father that Pliilly was in the vault surrounded by the rats, Grossmnn and two neighbors armed themselves witholubs and hurried to the rescue of the boy. ’The army of rats seemed to num ber thousands when they reached the scene. Tho men joined in the contest, but so numerous and persistent were the rats that they wore more than au horn conquering them. Dead rats lay pile-1 o.t every side, and their number was in greatly reduced that the survivors were finally driven to their holes. Eight Irm dre-d and nineteen dead ruts were ouii'n l from the vault. Ono of them weighed over eight pounds. The carcasses fllh. 1 a two-horse box wagon, and were a goo-1 load for a team todraw away. The com bined weight of tlio rats was over a ton. Lore Letters. It is commonly said that the art <-r letter writing has perished, and t; ..I, epistolatory correspondence—to use the stately phraseology of our grandmothers —which covered sheets upon sheets of paper closely written over and often per ploxingly “crossed,” lias been superseded by threo-cornerod notes and postal cards. We cannot bring ourselves to regret the circumstance, for, perhaps, of all forms of communication letters are the most tiresome and never could luive been re sorted to 011 a large scale save by people xvlio had a portontious amount of time on their hands. But there is one species of letter writing which, we believe, still survives. Love letters are ntill written, still read and still answered, and still sometimes returned; and wo suppose tlioy continue to justify the description eloquently given of them by tho immortal Eloisa, as rendered by Pope : Tsy live, they •[n-iilr, they hmitho wht lore In epirt n, Wnrm from Mp mini, and faithful to it* flrre; The Nlrpln’a witliont her fount impart, Kxcuno tim Miimli an l |w>ur out aJI the heart; Speed theuoft Intfroou rna from aoul to aoul, And waft it fetish from Indus to I ha Pul*. A r.Aiiou monument lias tieen erected at Kahok a, Mo., with the following in scription: “The Spencer Family.—We are all hero, murdered with an ax, on the night of August 3, 1H77, at their home. Their bodies lie beueath this tomb, their virtues about it.” It marks the spot where the five members of the Spencer family were slnin, and its dedication, with elaborate ceremonies, drew together fifty thousand persons, so great had been the excitement over the crime. The deed was palpably committed by one man, who killed bis victims, one after another, as he came upon them; but who he was has never been ascertained. Bill Young was banned by a mob, but a jury had ac quitted him, and there was nothing at at all proven against him except his bail character. His lust words were: “I am as innocent of this thing as the angels,” hut the leaders of the lynchers replied: “ You’re a good man to hang, anyhow.” His wife has now sued the county for 810.000 dun luges. Hostage Stain its. The number of different kinds of po*t ago stamps which have been hitherto is sued all over the world is estimated, in round numbers, at 6,000. Among them are to be found tho effigies of five Em perors, eight Kings, three Queens, one Grand Duke, six Princes, and a great number of Presidents, etc, Some of the stamps bear coats-of-arms and other em blems, iis crowns, the papal keys, anil tiara, anchors, eagles, horsemen, rues sengers, etc. The collection preserved in the Museum of the Berlin Postoffice included, on July 1, 1870, 4,468 sjieci mens of different postage stamps. Ol these 2,162 were from Asia, 251 from Africa, 1,143 from Amer ica, and 201 from Australia. What doth it profit a man if h> n “well-heeled,” yet hath a bunion?