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THE STANDARD AND EXPRESS. A. HIKSI HUK 1 W. A. MAllsi'iiALKj Editors and Proprietor*. FOOTSTEPS ON THE OTHER SIDE. The following poem, olipt'eil from a copy of the St. Louis Evening Nows of the 19th of April, 1862, as fine a specimen of poetry as the Kmtlisa language con tains. It may not be so grand or powerful as some, Pint the sail, simple tale it tells, can but endear it to the hearts of all who have ever endured the bitter trial of waiting for something which never came.— Sitting in my humble doorway Gazing out into the night, listening to the stormy tumult, With a bind of sad delight, Wait I for the loved who comes not, One whose step* t long to hear ; One who, thorn h he lingers from me, Stiil is dearest of the dear. Slit he coin's— • ow, I eari l* (piiet, Leaning in triumphant pride ; Oh ! it is a stranger footstep, Gone by on the other side. All the night seems filled with weeping, Winds are wailing mournfully ; And the rain-tears altogether Journey to the restless sea, I can fancy, sea, you murmur, As they witu your waters flow, Like the grief of single beings Making up a nation’s woe. Branches, bid your guests be silent! Hush a moment, fretful rain ! Breeze, stop sighing, let me listen God grant not again in vain ! In my cheek the blood is rosy. Like the blushes of a bride; Joy!—alas ! a stranger footstep, Goes by on the other side. Ah ! how many wait forever For the steps that do not come ! Wait until the pityiDg angels Bear them to a peaceful home. Many In the still of midnight, In the streets have lain and died, While the sound of human footsteps Went by on the other side. Herrick’s Poetry or Country Life. A writer in the Cornhill Magazine says : Herrick was the earliest English poet to see the picturesque of homely country life, and all his little landscapes are exquisitely precious. No one has ever known better than Herrick how to seize, without effort and yet to absolute perfection, the pretty points of modern pastorial life. Of all these poems of his none surpasses “ Corinna’s Going a-Maying,” which has something of Wordsworth’s faultless instinct and ilellicate perception. The picture given here of the slim boys and the girls in green gowns going out singing into the corridors of blossoming whitethorn, when the morning sky is radiant in all its “ fresh-vuilted colors,” is ravishing, and can only be compared for its pecu liar charm with that other where the maidens are seen at sun set, with silvery naked feet and dishevelled hair crowned with honeysuckle, bearing cowslips home iu wicker baskets. Whoever will cast, his eye over the pages of the “ Hesperides” will meet with mvriads of original and charming passaged of kind: “ Like to a solemn, sober stream Hanks all with lillios, and the cream Of sweetest cowslips filling them.” ami “cream of cowslips” being the rich yellow anthers of the water lillies. Or this, comparing a bride’s breath to the faint, sweet odor of the earth : “ A savor like unto a blessed field, When the bedabbled mom Washes the golden ears of com.” Or this, a sketched interior : "Y6t can thy bumble roof maintain a choir Of singing crickets by the fire. And the brisk mouse may feed herself with crumbs, Till that the green-eyed kitting comes.” Nor did the homeliest details of the household escape him. At Dean Prior his clerical establishment consisted of Prudence Baldwin, his ancient maid, a cock and a hen, a goose, a tame lamb, a cat, a spaniel, and a pet pig, learned enough to drink out of a tankard ; and not only did the genial vicar divide his loving attention between the varions members of this happy family, but he was wont, a little wantonly, one fears, to gad about to wakes and was sailings, and to increase his popular reputation by showing off his marvel ous learning in old rites and ceremo nies. These he described with loving minuteness, and not these only, but even the little arts of cookery do not escape him. Of all his household poems uot one is more characteristic and complete than the “Bride Cake,” which we re member having had recited to us years ago with immense gusto, at the making of a great pound cake, by a friend now widely enough known as a charming follower of Herrick’s poetic craft : “This day. my Julia, tliou must mako For Mistress Bridge the wedding cake; Knead but the dougli, and it will be To paste and almonds turned by three, Or kiss it thou, but once or twice, And for the bride cake there’ll be spice.” An Ideal Living Room. It is by no means my notion, says Mr. Clarence Cook, that the living room should be a homely, matter-of-fact apartment, consecrated to the utilities, while the muses and graces are left to kick their heels in the hall. On the contrary, we want in the living-room, for a foundation, that the furniture shall be the best designed and best made that we can afford, and all of it intended to be used and necessary to our comfort; not an article to be allowed that doesn’t earn its living and cannot prove its right to be there. These wants being provided for first, then we admit the ornaments of life—casts, pictures, engravings, bronzes, books, chief nour ishers in life’s feast; bnt in the begin ning these are to be few, and of the choicest, and the greatest care is to be taken in admitting anew comer. The room, from the very first, onght to rep resent the culture of the family—what 1b their taste, what feeling have they for art; it should represent themselves and not other people ; and the trouble some fact is, that it will and must rep resent these, whether its owners would let it or no. If youDg people, after they have secured the few pieces of furniture that must be had, and made sure that they are what they ought to be, have some money left to get a pic ture, an engraving, or a cast, they ought to go to work to supply this want as seriously as they would the ottier, 'rhich seems the more necessary, but in reality is not a bit more necessary. I look upon this ideal living-room of mine as an important agent in the e location of life ; it will make a great difference to the children who grow up in it, and to all whose experience is associated with it, whether it be a beautiful and cheerful room or only a homely and oare one, or a merely formal and con ditional one. The relation of these things to education is all that gives any dignity or poetry to the subject, or quakes it allowable for a reasonable man t° give much thought to it. But it has a real vital relation to life, and plays important part in education, and de serves to be thought about a good deal ®°re than it is. It is, therefore, no tnfling matter whether we hang poor Pictures on our walls or good ones, whether we select a fine cast or a sec °nd-rate one. We might almost as well Sa y it makes no difference whether the People we live with are first-rate or second-rate. * T is stated that the harvest prospects * re brightening in England, and there to be no danger that John Bull be put on short commons. The } “l>piy of foreign wheat is large, and , 6 feports from continental Europe “ 6 encouraging. Watch-Making Machinery. Au English journal, commenting up on the fact that machinery is now being applied to the manufacture of watches in Prance, gives the following brief sketch of one or two of the more ingen ious now in use at the famous watch manufactories at Waltham, Massachu setts. With regard to the common notched or cog-wheels we learn that they are first stamped iu outline from thin ribbons of metal. A numbe l ' of the disks thus formed are threaded on a fine rod and clamped together. The bar thus formed is placed in the tooth-cut ting machine, where a reciprocating knife cuts a groove in it; the bar is turned automatically a sixtieth or other portion of a turn, according to the num ber of teet, and a second groove is cut; the process is then repeated til the re quired number of teeth is formed. For cutting the escapement wheel, with its curiously formed teeth, a more elabor ate apparatus is required. Each tooth reqnires six cuts to finish it. For this purpose the little rod of steel disks is fixed diametrically across a circular plate, round the edge of which are six knives, each mounted so as to be capa blee of traversing across the plate. The rod is acted on successively by these knives, it being turned radiajlyso as to oome opposite each in turn. When all six have operated a sing’e tooth is com pleted, and the rod is turned on its axis to present a fresh surface to the knives. This is continued till all the teeth are finished, when the apparatus is auto matically throw on- of gear. The jewels are cut by saws of iron laced with dia mond dust, into proper shapes, and drilled by a wire hair covered with dia mond dust, all by machines. Even the scsews, of which 230 are made from a thirteen-inch length of steel wire, the waste being more than the amount ac tually worked, are formed by a machine which makes the thread nuts off the Bcrew, makes the slot in the thread, and delivers the screw complete. About one hundred and fifty thousand of these screws go to the pound troy, so that the minuteness of the mechanism may be imagined. All the rest of the watch, except only the dial, is constructed by machines of equal delicacy. The dial has to be painted by hand, though it would seem as if so simple a printing operation ought to be done readily enough by mechanism. Test of Courage. Asa rule, it is not you* noisy, de monstrative character who is the most courageous, but the quiet, cool, and apparently timid and sensitive individ ual, who realizes the horrors of carnage, but is soul-bound to duty and to the canse he has espoused. We read a battle incident not long ago, in which an account is given of two soldiers pressing side by side in the deadly as sault straight up a hill into the muzzle of hostile guns. Will catches a glimpse of his comrade Tom’s deathly pale face. “ By Jove,” he whispers, “ Tom. I be lieve that you are afraid.” “Afraid!” exclaims Tom, indignantly, “if you were half as alraid as I am, you would have fainted long ago.” A friend of ours, who fought bravely in the late war, makes no secret of the fact that he rau away from the fight in liis first battle, and never stopped to take breath until far from the scene of carnage. But when he returned to his post all fear had left him, and he fought like a hero. Mere auimal indifference or stolidity is not bravery, and it is a mistake to fancy that brave men never feel terror, for few rush into danger without feeling a momentary qualm; ’tis in overcoming that fear that true courage reveals itself. But there is another kind of courage too little appreciated by the we rid—that which is shown by the young man who inflexibly refuses to drink whisky, or to squander his time in senseless and costly laziness, or to fall into any of ihe pleasant little vices that lie like traps along our road, and which require a great deal of courage to escape, is very much braver than a prize-fighter who submits to get beaten into a bloody and disfigured mass, or any professed votary of the “code of honor,” who goes out to be shot at by a bully. The world should encourage true courage, and give it the place it deserves. Until it does so, we may not be sur prised if mountebanks usurp many positions, and need not complain be cause of the recklessness of coarse, brutal men, and the insecurity of life, or that thieves, liars, and murderers greatly abound. Things which are Caspar, Among the many old comic yarns which are floating about, attributed to the wrong sources, we recall—and re claim for their rightful owners—a few that are of dramatic origin. On an oc casion ..hen an affectionate but injudi cious mother had been showing off her children, as vocalists and declaimers, at the dinner table, Quin, the actor, was heard to mutter, “ Oh, the injured memory of Herod.” This has been as ciibed to Charles Lamb. George Bart ley, actor and stage-man9ger, in Eng land, need to say, with reference to the intelligence of the British public, “You must first tell them that you are going to do so and so ; yon must then tell them that you are doing it; aud then that you have done it; and then, per haps, they will understand you.” This, in a slightly different drees, has long been on its travels as the remark of Dion Boncicault. David Morris, a Lon don theatrical manager, of whom Plau clie says that he would have been the most perfect specimen of his class in England, had he bnt possessed the tal ent of a theatrical management, ob served one mornißg, at the rehearsal of some music at the Hay market theater, that one member of the band was si lent. Accordingly, he touched liim on the shoulder aud asked: “Why are you not playing, sir?” “I have twelve bars, re6t, sir,” answered the musician. “ Rest!” retorted the annoyed manager, “ Don’t talk to me abont rest! Don’t you get yonr salary, sir ? I p*y you to play, and not to rest, sir ! Rest when you’ve done your work, and not in the middle of it.” This was iold of old Astley, the circus manager ; but for a considerable time it has been in circu lation here as an incident in the career of Mr. John Stetson, manager of the Howard athenaeum, in Boston. In an aocount of his adventures in the Upper Nile, Col. Long, of the Egyptian armv, says that the black Kibg of Niam-Niam decapitated thirty of his subjects in honor of the visitor, who also accepted a girl as a rcyal gift. Through an interpreter she slid : “I want very much to go with yan, bnt it mustbeoncondition that noteat me.” The colonel said he Wnldn’t eat her on any consideration. / “ Diligence commands sdbces3.” But success doesn’t always obey! Who Was Hermann? Arminius, or Hermann, a colossal statue of whom was unveiled before an immense multitude in presence of the prinoes of Germany and other distin guished visitors last week was prince of the Cherusel, a German tribe, and was born 16 B. C. He became a Roman citizen of the equestrian order in his youth, and served the troops auxiliary to the Roman army on the Danube. In the year 9 B. 0., he planued a success ful insurrection against Varus, the Roman commander, and defeated his troops with great slang a ter, Varus taking his own life to prevent capture. It was after the news of this defeat that the Emperor Augustus exclaimed. Varus, give me back my legions.” Gcrmanictis in a few years marched against Arminius with 80,000 men, but was defeated. He again attempted the subjugation of Germany with 100,000 men, and after a severe battle was driven across the Rhine. The Romans never attempted to cross tlie river again, and Arminius bears tho title of Libera tor of the Ciermau nation, which he seems to fully deserve. Arminius, after driving out the Romans, had a contest with Marbod. chief of the Mnresmanni, who was seeking the supreme power in the nation. He de feated him and subsequently was him self destroyed by treachery in his own family. Tacitua, in his “De Moribus,” refers to the enthusiasm with which the name of Arminius was cherished in his time, and the liberator has lived in German songs to this day. The defeat of Varus and that of Germanicus con stituted two of the decisive battles of the world. Thev prevented the ab sorption of the German race into the Latin race, as the victory of Charles Martel, at Poioter, checked the pro gress of Moorish domination in Europe. The Philadelphia Times say of the monument: “ Not even the Cfesars, whose legions he overthrew, possessed its equal. The great statue, which was vmvailed in the presence of Emperor Wilhelm and a hundred thousand people, is one hundred feet high, and standing on its lofty pedestal, erected on ahighhill, will tower far above the Colossus of Rhodes. The latter, according to Pliny, who lived during its existence, was seventy cubits high, or one hundred English feet, which is precisely tbe height of the giant of the Thuriogian woods. Phidias’greatest work,-the Jupiter he framed for the Eleans, was only sixty feet in height. The German work of art was designed and wrought by one man, Herr Ernest Von Bandel, who de voted between thirty and forty years of labor, mental and manual, to it, and who has immortalized himself as well as his hero.” A Negro Prayer. The following grotesque, yet solemn prayer is a verbatim report taken in the winter of 1862-3, at a Methodist meeting held by plantation negroes in a settle ment near camp : “ O Lord God of dis glorious uni verse, wilt dou look down in the omni presences of dy eye upon dese, dy col !ard children, bowed upon de knucklep bone dis night. Take a solemn pee upon us, and let a heap o’ light in. Dou kuowest what dese poor darkies need. Dere be Bam, dere be Jerry, and dere be Pompoy. |Dey are in dere sins, dat’s what I reckon. Help dem to git up and git irom de wilderness of sin and come into de clearing of salvation. Take a solemn peep also upon de darkies in de other cabin, who fiddle and whirl upon de bombastic toe, while clv servant ful minates words to dee. May dey rise above the antiiratory things of dis world and fly like Massa Link ame balloon, heavenward. (Professor Lowe’s balloon was anohored near by). Ruler of all humans on dis earth, wilt dou bress de generals in de field dis night, if it be circumspection in dy eye. Bress de colonels in de field dis night, if it be circumspection in dy discreet eye, and also bress de Union soldiers, who carry de musket aud chew de cartridge, fight ing for de Union and de stars aud stripes. Dey fight in a scientific cause, and be de bestest ob men ; but, good Lord, may dey swear less and pray more. And finally, bress dy humble servant now BupplicatiDg dee in behalf of dese benighted darkies. It behooves dee to dig deep and sound in de very bottom of his heart. May dere be nary blimmage between myself and my Sa vior. In de language of de mighty Washington, dis world is all a fleetin’ show. To-day we are alive aud hoppin’ around like grasshoppers ; to morrow de sickle of death cuts ns down and spreads us out like grass in baytime. ( On every side, dou knowest, O Lord, is | de evidence of de dislocation and de struction of de human family. Dere be fighting among one anoder, and natural disease. But we die to live again, either as saints or evil spirits. Dere be dis cussions on doctrines, Elecshion, Be fore ordination, Perfection, and sich like, confuse de intellects of both black men and white. But dou knowest, good Lord, dat dese are vain allnsiona, split in’ and dividin’ dy creatures into sexes without mercy Many dere will be with slick countegances, white col lars, and fine clothes, who will find de gates shut against them, while de blind old woman, hobbling on crutches, she go straight in, Amen.”— Educational Monthly. The Prairie Gopher. Among the burrowing species belong ing to the squirrel family, the prairie gopher {Spennophilus Richardsoni) holds prominent rank. Though one of the most abundant animals in our coun try, infesting hundreds of thousands of square miles of territory, almost to the exclusion of other mammalian forms the prairie gopher has but lately re ceived the honor of an adequate descrip tion. This service has been rendered by Dr. Elliott Doues in the pages of the American Naturalist. The habitat ef the prairie gopher appears to extead from the Red river of the North to the Rocky Mountains, and from latitude 38 deg. to 55 deg. So numerous are they in Dakota and Montana that according to Dr. Coues, should certain portions of these territories ever be settled, the little gophers will contend with tbe husbandman for the land more persist ency and successfully than the Indians can hope to. The animal seems to be a modification of the chipmunk; in the language of Dr. Doues, “Jf we take a chipmunk and crop its ears down close, cut off about a third of its tail, give it a blunter muzzle, and make a little al teration in its fore feat, bo that it could dig better, ” we have a pretty good prai rie gopher. The holts they dig are smalt, but many of them, like the bur rows of tbe badgers, foxes, and prairie wolves, will admit a horse’s hoof. In some regions so numerous are these holes that it is impossible to gallop a hundred yards except at the risk of life or limb. CARTERS YILLE, GEORGIA, MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 6, 1575. It is not easy to determine what par ticular kind of ground the gophers most affect. “ Passing over a sterile, cactus-ridden, alkali-laden waste,” says Dr. Coues, “there would be so many that I would say, ‘ This suits them best;’ in camp that very night, in some low grassy spot near water, there they would be plentiful as ever.” If the animals have any preference, it is a choice of the lighter aDd more easily worked soils; and tbev seem to haunt especially the slight knolls of the prairie a few feet above the general level. One gopher to the hole is the universal rnle, nor has the author ever seen any signs of a burrow being occupied by a pair. The female brings forth in June, bnt the young are never seen outside of the bunow till July, when they are about two thirds grown. The number of young produced at a birth is supposed to be about eight. Dr. Coues is of the opinion that the gopher is torpid during most of the winter. The animal hoaids up food, it is true, but not in sufficient quantity to suffice for so active a creature during au entire winter. The author has often watcbe l them, where tbe grass was tal ler than usual, gathering their store. They rise straight up on their haunches, seize the grass-top, and bite it off; then settling down with a peculiar jerk, they sit with arched back, and stow away the provender in their pouches, with the aid of their fore pawß. Their cheek pouohes, both together, would hardly hold a heaping teaspoonful. Though properly a vegetarian, the go pher derives no small share of his sum mer food from carcasses of buffalo. Couldn’t Behave Herself. A Saratoga correspondent of tbe New York Commercial Advertiser overhsard two young ladies talking, and this is what they said : “ Nell, I’m going home to-morrow.” “ Going home to-morrow ? What for, pray ?” “ Because I can’t behave myself. ” “ Well, out with it, Jennie. What have you been doing ?” “ Lots of things.” “ Well, give us ihe first.” “You know Frank Kennedy, Nell ?” “That soft simpering fellow that al ways tells you how “chawming” you look ?” “ Exactly. This morning I saw him coming, and made up my mird to take himdown.” “I put my diamond brooch in a chair, pin upward, and asked him to sit down.” “He sat, of course, and what then ?” “He jumped up and yelled, * Oh, my -’ ” “ ‘What’s the trouble,’ I asked. ‘Nothing in particular, only I thought of an engagement at this very moment; you must excuse me.’ And ofF he went; and would you believe it, Nell, the brooch was sticking to him.” “ That was awful, Jennie ;” and the two girls giggled together for five min utes. Nell broke the spell by demand ing “ what next ?” “Why, you see, I was talking with that young sprig of a clergyman, the Rev. Tom Parsons. We had nearly talked each other to death, when, as luok would have it, he made some re mark about mosquitoes. I was on my native heath at once, and began to teil him of my experience at Rockaway. ‘ Did they bite very hard ?’ inqnired tho Rev. Thomas. * I wish, Mr. Parsons,’ said J, * you could see my legs aud judge for yourself.’ ” “ That was a horrid speech, Jennie. How could vou say such a thing ?” “ Why, Nell, it popped out before I knew it.” “ Aud what did Mr. Parsons say?” “ He blusued clean to the eyes, and I ran away.” The Silk Markets of the World. According to a report, just published by the Syndicate of the Lyonß Union of Silk Merchants, the silk crop of Europe last year was, in round numbers, 9,050,- 000 pounds, making upwards of twenty and a half million pounds of raw silk available for European consumption. The countries included in the report are Italy, France (with her dependencies, Corsica and Algeria), Spain, Greece, the Turkish empire, Georgia, Persia, India, Japan and China. The first and the last together supply four-fifths of the silk used in Europe. China ex ported, chiefly from Shangai, upwards of 8,000,000 pounds. The crop of Italy amounted to 6,300,000 pounds ; Spam, about 310.000 pounds; Greece, less than 30,000 pounds; the Turkish em pire, 1,180,000 pounds; Georgia and Persia together, 880,000 pounds ; India (from Calcutta), 935,000 pounds; Japan, something over 1,200,000 pounds. Mineral Resources of Greenland. —When the Swedish polar expedition was on its way to the north in 1870, the explorers discovered at Ovifak, on the south shore of Disko Island, large masses of native iron, of various sizes, up to twenty tons, lying in a small space among bowlders of granite and gneiss. Specimens were brought home and distributed among the mineralo gists of Europe, and the result of their analyses and investigations is, that opinions are divided as to whether those blocks of iron came from the sky or the earth. Some argue that they fell; others, that they were upheaved from below. It is somewhat remarkable that in the milder climate of Europe tbo specimens sweat a yellowish-brown liquid, consisting chiefly of a salt of iron. One effect of the scientific dis cussion above adverted to may be to direct more attention to Greenland, a country worth attention, for its min eral resources, inclndicg lignite and graphite, are abundant. Bungalows for Summer Houses.— An attempt has been made to introdne into this country the kind of dwelling house known in India as a bungalow. For summer residence by the seaside it offers advantages in which tne ordinary dwelling house is deficient; it is simple in shape, is usually not more than one story high, and is covered by a simple low-pitched roof, which may be pro longed to form a veranda. What this protection the inmates may pass most of their time in the ooen air, and thus have the fullest benefit of their sojourn by the sea. Pnngalows can bs worked and kept clean with a very Bmall amonnt of labor, as many contrivances ti dimin ish servants’ work have been introduced. To keep out the damp, to which houses by the seaside are liable, two thin walls are built, with a space of about three inches between them, in the center of this space a close screen of slate is fitted, and all the moisture blown through the outer wall is stopped by this screen, and trickles down to the bottom. The inner wall consequently remains quite dry, for the moisture does not blow through the slate, and the bungalow is habitable whatever the weather, DKAH-roqUIEK. Abeu Adhem's Moral, Drawn from a Persian Amusement. One of the best things in D. R. Locke’s humorous book, tUe “Morals of Abou Ben Adhem,” is the following travestie m a popular American amuse ment : Abou Ben Adheto, in an unpleasant frame of mind one morning, was ap proached by a long uosed, sad locking man,who piopounded to him the qnery, “What is remorse?” To which Abou replied, “The humiliating sen°e of an abjec* failuie. ” “WhafcY’ exclaimed tbe seeker aftei truth, “is tli re no such thing as sorrow and regret for wrong doing ?” “Frequently, my aged infant, frequently. There are minds so susceptible to proper impreasious, so spiritualized, if I may use the expres sion, as to feel a pang or two after they have done a wrong thing ; but they are not oommon. Listen to my own experi ence. A great many years ago, in Per sia, I made the acquaintance of a party of men who met frequently to indulge in a game played with cards, which, I presume, you know nothing of here, called, in Persia, drah poquier. It is a curious game. The cards dealt one at a time, till each has five ; then those who are playing put on the center of ihe table a corn, such as has been deter mined upon—say a kopeck ; then they are allowed tc* throw as many cards as they ohoose, taking from tlie pack an equal number, then the man who sets next to the dealer remarks sarcastically. ‘ I am the aged one, impoverish me,’ and the betting begins. It is a curious game—is fluctuating, the players being kept in a pleasant state of uncertainty as to what the others have, till they call a * show down.’ “ Well, I learned this game, and played it with unvarying success for some days, winning, on the average, some four or five dirhems at a sitting. As I gathered in my spoils I saw noth ing wrong in the game. It seemed to me a most desirable and, in all respects, a gentlemanly game. *I am sorry,’l said to myself, ‘ for Hatiz, the bellows maker, and for Nadir, the seller of shawls, but Allah knows I risk my substance on the cards as do they, and had they my luck they would have my money. Be cliesm it is a highly moral game, and had Ia hundred children, 1 would teach it to them. What is there wrong in it ? It is my money which I risk. There is no trickery or cheating in this game, for the cards are fairly dealt, and we make wagers on our judgment of our luck. So doss the merchant who buys tlie wheat of Khur distan, believing that the crop will be short, and that it will go up. So does tlie merchant who sells the corn of Kohmul, believing that the crop will be heavy and the price will go down. What is this but gambling ? If they play with wheat or corn, why should uot Hafiz and I play with cards ? And then it strengthens the mind, it devel ops the judgment, quickens the reas oning powers, and broadens, widens and otrengthens the mental man. It is a noble game and a great pursuit.’ Thus rcasoued I, joyously. I had no remorse, nor did it occur to me that I was gambling. “ But one night it so happened that I had a oertaiuty ou Hatiz. I had three cards alike in my hand—that is to say three aces—and when tlie cards were helped, as tlie phrase is, I took another. Hatiz drew one card to the four he had iu his hand, and the betting began. Now, four aces is a strong hand, there being but one that can beat it, namely, a strate pblusli. I wagered a kopeck to help Hafiz on to his ruin. How I gloated over those four aces ! I saw nothing wrong in those four aces, nor iu making out of Hafiz, the bellows mender, all that he should make by his trade for a year. He saw my mod est kopeck and said that he would wa ger a dirhem iu addition. Exulting in the strength of my four aoes, I gladly put up the dirhem, and remarked that such was my faith in my hand that I would impoverish him to the extent of ten dirhems more. Hafiz—on whose head light curses !—saw the ten dir hems, and boosted me (boosted is a Persian phrase) one huudred dirhems. I made sure that the four aoes was not an optical illusion, and went him one thousand dirhems, which he sa*, and came back at me five thousand dirhems, which, feeling that it would be cruel to utterly ruin him, I called, 'without further gymnastics. Smilingly I laid down my four aces and reached for the property. Smilingly he put away my outstretched and eager hand, and laid down beside my four aces his accursed hand, which was a strate phlnsli. ” “ The property is mine ?” sa id he. “ It is !” said I. “ Then I experienced a feeling of re morse. Then I felt that drah-poquier was gambling, and that gambling in any form was a sin of the most benious nature, and that I had been guilty of a crime. ‘Ob, why,’ I exclaimed, ‘did I ever permit myself to become infat uated with the desire for gaming? If I win, it is my neighbor’s diihems ; if I lose, it is my owd. In ary ease, there is nothing of actual value that passes. While we use capital in gambling, we produce nothing. One side is richer, the other poorer, and there has been a waste of precious time. Besides, it is terribly demoralizing. It enfatuates a man and enfeebles his mind. His mind dwells on the game to the exclusion of everything that is good ; it crushes out everything that is high and noble, and develops everything that is mean aud small in one’s nature. It ruins tlie loser financially, and ruins the winner mor ally. Wretch that I am ! why did I ever permit myself to play at all ? Why did I permit this cursed infatuation to grip me ?’ And remorse sat on me, and beat my breast and pulled my hair. Bewailing my wickedness, I determined to purge myself of the unholy thing. Would I had so thought and so done had I held the strate phlush, and the accursed bellows mender the four aces? Ldo not know.” Literary Curiosities, The intended celebration this year of the five-hundredth anniversary of the death of Boecacoio, who would have been a lawyer had it not been—so he says—for a sight of Virgil’s tomb, sug gests a remarkable addition to the mu seum of literary cariosities. Poetry could ill afford to spare Petrarch was a law-student—and an idle one—at Bolonga. Goldoni, till he turned strolling player, was an advocate of Venice. Metastasio was for many years a dilligent law-student. Tasso and Ariosto both studied law at Padua. Politian waß a doctor of law. Schiller was a law-student for two years before takiDg to medicine. Goethe was sent to Leipzig, and Heine to Bonn, to study jurisprudence. Uhland was a practic ing advocate, and held a post in the Ministry of Justice at Stuttgart. Rukert was a law student at Jena. Mickiewiez the greatest of Polish poets, belonged to a family of lawyers. Ka einezy, the Hungariau poet, and creator of his country’s literature, studied law at Easohau. Coreille was an advocate, and the son of an advocate. Voltaire was for a time in the office of a pro cureur. Chaucer was a student of the Inner Temple. Gower ifc thought to have studied law ; it has been alleged th|t he was chief-justice of the com mon please. Nicholas- Rowe studied for the bar. Cowper was articled to an attorney, called to the bar, and ap pointed a commissioner of bankrupts. Butler was clerk to a justice of the peace. Tbe profession of Scott need cot be stated. Moere was a student of the Middle Temple. Gray, until he graduated, intended himself for the bar. Campbell was in the office of a lawyer at Edinburg. Longfellow, a lawyer’s son, spent some years in the office of nis father. The peculiarity of this list—which might be extended with little trouble—lies in the eminence of these six-and-twenty names it contains. If they were omitted from literary his tary, Italian and German poetry would be nowhere, France would be robbed of one of its greatest and most national poets, English poetry would lose its father, and in all respects be very ap preciably poorer. If less classic names in poetical history are taken, such as Talfourd, Macaulay, Bryant and Barry Cornwall, the list might be infinitely extended ; and if filial relationship to the legal profession be considered, as in the case of Wordsworth, the close connection between poetry and law will look such a matter of course that the few eminent exceptions will only tend to prove the rule. Milton was the son of a solivener. There is no need to in dorse the fancy that Sbakspeare may have been a law clerk, or to suggest that Dante might have been influenced by a residence at the great legal uni versity of Bolonga. But there is an other list strikingly to the purpote— the long roll of great lawyers who, like Cicero, Sir Thomas Moore, Lord Somers, Blackstone, and Sir William Jones, have found flirtation with the muses no impediment to their marriage with the law. It may be that this close connection of two seemingly irrecon cilable pursuits is due to some rule of contrast; or is it that fiction, romance, and verbiage afford to poetry and law a common standing-ground ?—Gentle man's Magazine. Lead ns Not into Temptation. The Rev. Julian Young’s journal con tains the subjoined good story of a po lemical parishioner : In one of my ministerial rounds at Fairlight., in Sussex, I visited Dame Pankhurst—quite a character in her way ; bluff, blunt., and shrewd, and close on the verge of eighty. She was seated at her tea-table, and, with knitted brows aud a puzzled expression of face, was poring over her baize covered Bible. As soon as I entered she took off her spectacles, wiped them with her checked apron, and deposited them on the chair by her side, and thus accosted me: “ Muster Young, ’tis very handy your coming in just now, for I be sadly put about; and I ain’t, to say, easy iu my mind at summut as I’ve been a reading in this here book. I’ve stumbled, I think, ou one of the things, as Peter says ‘is hard to be understood.’ ” She then pointed to the first chapter of St James, and desired me to read aloud for her the second verse, which had so discon certed her: “ Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” When I bad complied with her request, she stuck her arms akimbo, and, shaking her head f-keptically aud defiantly, asked me “ what I thought o’ that ? If there be meaning in them words, they mean as we are to be glad to fall into tempta tions ! Perhaps there's summut more in tl)e meaning of that word ‘ tempta tion ’ than I know ou. Anyhow I can’t male head nor tail on’t.” She then hung down her h< ad and repeated to herself, in toneß of dissatisfaction, al most of indignation, the words, “ tempt e-tions ! tempt a-tions ! tempt-a-tions, indeed ! What be nm, I’d like to know?” I told her that the word had two mean ings—one signifying “to allure or en tice ;” the other, “to try ;” and that in the passage to which she had directed my attention the word “ temptation ” meant “trial.” That St. James, in writing those words, was exhorting Christians “ to be patient under trial;” and that though God could not directly tempt his servants, yet that sometimes, as in the cases of Job and St. Paul, he per mitted them to be tempted, that by the confirmation of their faith they might win the greater glory, and therefore have the greater cause for joy. In con firmation of my assertion, that God could not himself directly tempt, how ever he might be said to do so indirectly, I pointed her notice to the thirteenth verse of the same chapter, on which she fairly exploded. “What d’ye mean? My mother taught me to pray to God, ‘ Lead us not into temptation,’ from tbe Lord’s praver. Tbe Master himself tells us, ‘ Watch and pray, tha* ye enter not into temptation ;’ and this here S'. James, an excellent good man, I sup pose, tells us that we’re to be uncom mon glad if we fall into temptations. Why are we to be warned against tempt ations, if, when they come, they are to make us happy? Aud then, again, as to what you’ve been saying out o’ your own head—l mean that God cant tempt —if he can't tempt, what’s tbe use of praying to him not to tempt us ?” What Savages Think of I wins. In Africa, according to Dr. Robert Brown (“ Races of Mankind,”) the birth of twins is commonly regarded as an evil omen. No one, except the twins themselves and their nearest rel atives, is allowed to enter tte hnt in which they first saw the light. The children are not allowed to play with other children, and even the utensils of the hut are not permitted to be used by any one else. The mother is not allowed to talk to any one not belong ing to her own familv. If the children both live till the end of the sixth year, it is supposed that nature has accom modated herself to their existence, and they are thenceforth admitted to asso ciation with their fellows. Nor is this abomination of twin births restricted to Africa. In the island of Bali, nea~ Java, a woman who is so unfortunate as to bear twins is obliged, along with her husband, to live for a month at the sea shore or among the tombe, until she is purified. The Khasias of Hindustan consider that to have twins assimilates the mother to the lower animals, and one of them is frequently put to death. An exactly.similar belief prevails among some of the native tribes of Vancouver Island. Among the Ainos, one of the twins is always killed, aDd in Arebo, in Guinea, both the twins and the mother are put to death. Production of India Rubber. A writer in the Journal of the Soci ety of Arts says that the finest caout chouc of commerce is uot the prodnse of any species indigenious to India, but is produced by the Hevea Brazil iensis. Attempts are being made to procure and introduce this species. The caontehonc of India is produced from the ficus elastica, which grows naturally in northeast BeDgal, in Chit tagong, and in Cachar, from which dis- i trict a good deal is said to ceme. It may be seen in parts of Sikkim, where in the moist but rocky side valleys of the torrents that feed the Teesta and the Mahanadi the huge stems stretch down straight to the ground or twine in fan tastic groupings of contorted roots. These have originally started from a young plant, long ago produoed from seed deposited in the topmost fork of some tall terminalia or toon tree, which has in the course of years been smoth ered by the giant growth. In nature the Ficus elastica is always found towering above other trees, from the oiroumstanoe of its epiphytic origin. When onoe it has got its firm hold it sends down aerial roots that become stems, and thus a single tree will form a grove covering half an acre in extent. The ehief habitat, for rubber is in the moist lower hill forests of Assam and in the moist forests of Burma beyond British territory. It is well known that the rainfall of Burma steadily dimin ishes towards the north, till at last it ceases about the region of Paghan in the Irrawaddy; but thence again, in fluenced by the mountain masses to the north, it again increases; it is in the moist forest of the northern rainy zone that the Ficus elastica occurs. It has recently been reported that a climbing species of Willughbeia , yielding caout chouc, has been found in forests in Burma. In Assam the Ficus elastica is fonnd in both the forests of the Him alayas and in the low valleys of the Naga hills. The Indian caoutchouc has hitherto been collected by persons buy ing the right not only to oolleot it, but claiming also to monopolize the pur chase of that brought from foreign ter ritory, and this has given rise to many disputes. The greater number of trees are in the territory of some independent hill tribes, who bring the India rubber in and sell it. At present the collection in British territory has been stopped, partly owing to complications prising out of the monopoly, but partly because of the enormous waste and the injury I inflicted by overtapping the trees and 1 working them at the wrong season. It is to be hoped that- this flue source of revenue will not long remain in abeyance but that the management of the whole work may be intrusted to the forest department. Tbeyieidin Assam amounted in 1873 to 11,000 maunds and in Sikkim to 700 j maunds. The trees do not form pure forests, but are scattered one here and one there, the best forests containing hardly twenty trees to a square mile. They are cut all over with knives, both on the stem and on the long, running 1 roots; no care is taken to prevent in juiing the sap-wood. The cuts are eliptical in’shape; the milk is received in holes in the ground or in leaves doubled up to form a funnel. A tree tapped in August will yield 50 ounces of milk, giving 15$ ounces of pure caout ohouc. The milk is scanty during the cool season, October to March. The india-rubber is sometimes prepared by stirring the milk in boiling water, when the caoutchouc coagulates. It is shipped in baskets made of split rattan, weighing about 3 cwt. each. It iB as a rule badly prepared, and mixed with sticks and dirt. Mr. Collins, in his re port upon this article, gives the import of East Indian caoutchouc into London as 1,347 tons from June, 1871, to Juno, 1872. It is obvious that there is vast room for improvement in the collection of the juice and the treatment of the trees, as well as in the manufacture of the material and in organizing the method of production. How She Fixed Him. —There is a man in this city who is so affectionately fond of his wife that he is jealous if a man looks within forty-five feet of the direc tion in which she may happen to be. The other day a gentleman spoke to her and he immediately threatened suicide. His wife was dispatched for a bottle of poison consisting of a little water col ored with liquorice, and label outside. "When he threatened to take some of it, and actually poured it into a wine glass, she screamed for help and ran out of the room into another room, where she could watch him- through the key hole and saw him coolly open the window and throw it out. She then rushed back, apparently frantic with grief, and implored him not to do the rash deed. He merely pointed to the glass and lay ing down on the floor began to kick out his legs like a jumping-jack. She told him she was determined to share his fate, and swallowed the rest cf the I quourice water, whereupon he became really frightened, called the neighbors, confessed he only shammed, and said if she only survived he would never trouble her again. Then she explained the ruse, and he was so mortified he tried to buy up the neighbors, but the story was too good to keep. He is now thoroughly cured. —Sacramento Bee. In a Cab With a Tiger.— A recent incident on the Ogdensburg road is thus described by the St. Adams (Vt.) Mes senger of the 7th inst: “ A cage of tigers, which was on its way to a me nagerie.now exhibiting south of here, was plaoed in one end of the car, and a zebra was tied in the other end. The watchman lay down on a box and fell asleep ; when he awoke he discovered that one of the tigers had bent the iron bars of the cage, forced its way out, and was crouching in the opposite corner. The regular keeper of the animals was in the sleeping car at the rear end of the train, and there was no chance to com municate with him or with any one out side. The poor watchman was fright ened into motionless silenoe, and in that awfnl suspense be made the long and weary journey to St. Albans. After the train came to a halt here, one of the train men, in passing the car, saw a large, cat-like nose thrust out of an opening, and not knowing that any one’s life was endangered in the car, but fear ing lest the animal should escape, rah to the sleeping-car and aroused the keeper, who soon appeared, raw-hide in hand, and lashed the beast back into his den, to the immeasurable relief of the poor fellow who had been curled up for hours. The little thirteen year-old girl who was recently sentenced by an English magistrate to forteen days in prison and four years in the reformatory for plucking a geranium has been released by the home secretary. The magistrate has not been removed, however, or even reprimanded. Twenty little children crowd around and call Queen Victoria “ grandma,” VOL. 16--NO. 37. SAYINGS AND DOINGS. The Japanese whittle false teeth out of solid ivory. Naturalists say that a single swal low will devour six thousand flies in a day. • “ Putting a pnll-baek necktie on to him,” is what the Missouri lynohera now call it. A local contemporary reads one of itsoolumns, “After Thoughts.” That’s what its readers are after in vain. “ The* fired two shots at him,” wrote an Irish reporter ; “ the first shot killed him, but the second shot was not fatal.” “The river Rhine, it is well known, washes the city of Eologne, bnt oh, ye nymphs, what power divine can hence forth wash the river Rhine ?” —The best of men That e'er wore earth about Him wa*a sufferer; A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, The firt true gentleman that ever breathed. Tkomeu Dtkkar. It nmet be unpleasant for a stuttering man in Berlin to hail a street-oar, be canse there they call a street-car a pfer destrassenelsebahnwagen, for short. Jenny Lind dresses her hair in the same style precisely as when she was in America twenty-five years ago. She has two daughters, one eighteen and the other twenty. A stalwart Indian is often seen about the streets of Virginia City, dressed in calico, like a squaw. He is compelled by the Piutes to wear women’s clothes for oowardice shown in battle sever years since. Edmond About is afraid that if they let the sea into the desert of Sahara and keep it there Europe will lose the “ warm equatorial winds ” End become an Arctic wilderness. A middle-aged woman fell as she was descending a pair of stairs on Ful ton street, and the first man to help her reach her feet was a banker who hap pened to be passing. “ Did you fall, madam ?” he inquired, as he seized her arm. “Fall! Of course I fell, you fool you ! You don’t suppose I’d sit down here to rest, do you ?” ohe snapped. He didn’t say. At the Louvre Hotel there is a Mr Walker. Mr. Walker had a dog. His dog has lost a running matoh. Aud this is how Mr. Walker has to pay his wager. He is, during one whole month, to run into the arms of the fiist man he meets at the corner of the Rue de Yalois after 9 o’clock, and to say: “My dear brother, at last we meet after twenty years.” Then he is to apologize. Mr. Walker has thus embraced fourteen Frenchmen ! Ugh !— Paris Figaro. At Kennebunkport, Maine, a remark able mirage was recently seen. Look ing southward, the Isles of Shoals, not usually visible, appeared lifted about a hundred feet above the water. Ths hotel on one of the islands oould be distinctly seen, and a dozen or more vessels were also mirrored in the sky. This appearance continued about fifteen minutes, and then faded from view. AJ irage is not uncommon in that locality when the atmosphere is hazy. Thomas Bailey Aldbich wants nearly everybody to be weak-minded, so that a few women can be glittering actresses, and a few men poets like himself. Thomas Bailey thus expresses his (?) idea in the Atlantic : Rachel— Riston. We shall taste of death Ere we e spirits like these. Ia one age dwell Not ma iy such; a century mar toll Its hundred beads before it braid i wreath For two so queenly foreheads. If it take Eons to shape a diamond, grain on grain, Eons to crystallize its fire and dew— £v what slow processes must Nature make Her Shakspeares and her Dantes? Great the gain If she spoils thousands by making one or two! Don’t Breed from Pigs thai are Un thrifty. Our readers know how constantly we have insisted upon the imporanoe of good growing and feeding qualities in cattle ; not only in the race but in the individual. But in no variety of ani mals is this so obviously essential as in swine, where, without these qualities, they are absolutely worthless. Breed ers, therefore, who send out “ runted ” pigs, not only wrong their customers, however superior the blood, but do themselves a great injustice. Every breeder has observed the great difference there is in individuals, not only of the same blood, but of the same litter, some fair, while one or two may be found decidedly objectionable. Now pigs of the latter description should never be served as breeders. As we have said elsewhere, the excellence of our various breeds was originally estab lished by a long course of careful breeding, where only the best specimens were reserved ; and we cannot hope to maintain this excellence without re jecting all individuals of objectionable forms and qualities—we mean objection able as affecting the useful qualities of the animal. These considerations we especially urge upon the attention of breeders of Berkshire swine, as, that breed being now in great demand, the temptation is great to reserve all individuals of the pure blood for breeders, whether they be good or bad specimens, so as they have the fashionable color and marking, comparatively unimportant as these latter particulars are. In some sections this evil has greatly injured the repnta tion of this most excellent breed, and all breeders should set their faces against the practioe, as being neither judicious nor, in the long run, profitable.—Na tional Live Stock Journal. The Floral Marvels. —The Horti culturalist gives an account of two novelties among flowers, which it is almost tempted to treat as fables until their verity is established by personal inspection. The following is She de scription of them : “ One is a black lily in Santa Clara, Cal., with three large blossoms, each one being nine inches long, and perfectly black outside of the green petals. The other us to be seen at Constantinople, and described by an eye witness as belonging to the narcissus genus of bnlbs. The flower represents a perfect humming bird. The breast of a perfect emerald green, is a complete copy of this bird, and the throat, head, beak and eyes are a perfect imitation. The hinder part of the body and the two outstretched wings are of a bright rose color—one might almost say flesh colored. These wondrous bulbs should have been sent to the Vi enna exhibition. They will be ir. abun dance by the. time of our centennial celebration in 1876. And yet they can hardly be greater curiosities than the strange and mysterious ‘Banetu Spiritu’ flower from South America, with i ts life like representation of doves,”