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TJIE WEEK PAST
Syracuse university claims the honor
l( | graduating the first colored female
medical student who has ever received a
diploma in New York. Her name is
Sirah M. Logan, and she has begun prac
tice in Washington.
FhiRTY captains and lieutenants of
first regiment of Prussian Foot
(tiiards have received a challenge from a
party of officers in France, and one lady.
The reasons given arc
: ,nd the weapons arc left to the chal
lenged party.
I )jj, Hammond says a majority of the
~; Wc s of brain troubles are caused by
emotion, which is much more injurious
than severe intellectual labor. He
thinks insanity is produced more fre
quently l>y the anxiety caused by antici
pation of trouble than by the trouble
itself.
IHE great thirty-thousand dollar race
.vihjc off at San Francisco, on the 22d.
it which it was estimated that twenty
thousand people were in attendance.
I'hc track was in good condition, weatli
r fine, and horses in good order. Seven
horses started, and the r*ice throughout
w£B intensely exciting. •• The contest
was between Rutherford (a Tennessee
horse) and Foster, resulting in a hard
earned victory for the latter.
It sounds almost like romancing to
uiy that the American trade dollar is at
a discount, but such is the melancholy
fact. According to the San Francisco
Bulletin the demand in China is no
longer equal to the supply, and the con
sequence is an over-abundance f or Cal
ifornia circulation, with the natural
result of depreciation. The Bulletin
adds: “Even conductors on the street
cars refuse to take them for their face,
and subject them to a discaurUt of ten
l*cr cent. Other silver coins circulate in
snmlb quantities for their face value.
There is no reason why any such dis
tinction should exist. The trade dollar
is as much a legal tender for sums not
exceeding live dollars as any other silver
coin.”
Tin-: Parton marriage continues, very
naturally, to excite considerable com
ment; and quite as naturally the princi
pal;- in the matter are somewhat severely
criticised for blundering into such a pre
dicament. If the law which has been
violated has its foundation, ns is strongly
urged, in the natural instincts of civil
ized humanity, it is remarakable that it
should not have occurred to Parton or
In's bride that they were doing anything
improper, even though they were igno
rant that it was illegal. The situation
is certainly an embarrassing one. It is
nol cxju-v,Ty pnuMit-aoto uua G t *n e „j r _
euimtances to treat the marriage as a
nudity ; but there seems to be no way of
validating it short repealing the law!
which lias been vjblbted. This, U‘ the 1
I;ov is reasonayrfhmd right, the legiala- 1
tore can hardly lie asked to do merely
because ot the unpleasant consequences
to two very worthy persons. If the law
is unreasonable and founded upon a
wrong assumption—and the marriage rc
ferred to certainly raises very fairly the
question whether it is not—it ought to
be repealed.
l iiF English courts are inclined to
hold the railways to a tolerably strict
accountability for the performance of
their contracts and to consider their time
l" del as contracts to transport passen
gers on time. In a recent case the plain
titl took a train from Liverpool to Scar
brough which was advertised to reach
the latter place at 7:30 p. m. The train
was due at Leeds at 5 p. m., but did not
arrive until when the 5:20 train for
'i ork had started. The plaintiff took
tlio next train for York, where he arrived
at 7to find that he could not reach
Scarborough before 10:30, instead of
7;do as advertised. Thereupon he or
dered a special train and sued the com
pany for the cost. The company claimed
that there was “ no contract to arrive at
any time or at the times stated in the
table, or to make reasonable efforts to
arrive at those times,” but the court ruled
that the company had not explained the
delays shown to have taken place, and
i hat as it had not completed its conraet
"ith the passenger the passenger was
,l| hy justified in performing the con
tract for the company.
I up: record of the running races in the
* n *ted States in 1875, with the value of
the stakes, is quite respectable when
Sanding by itself, or even when compared
" itli the record of English racing seasons
hut it is dwarfed when placed
alongside of the trotting and pacing
tecordof the United States during the
period. The number of running
1 aces in the United States in 1875 was
* n England, something less than
i.t'Oo. fhe number of trotting and pac
raccs which took place in the United
Stales and Canada in 1875, of which
t! ierc is a record, was 3,304. The purses
,U1( 1 S lakes in the running races in the
* States amounted to about $400,-
* n the trotting and pacing races in
1,10 l nited States and Canada they
•‘mounted to $1,418,971, and the number
horses engaged was upwards of 5,400.
Ninety j>or cent, of the horses engaged’
o re capable of trotting in 3:40 or better.
I his statement of itself shows what won
•' ‘•'d improvement has been made in
trotting horse within the past twenty
( :irs. Running horses are scarcely any
e tter now than they were a score of
• v,<irs a ?o ; but the trotter has developed
remarkably. s '
If the person who despises small
lh mgs will call at the match factory at
°mro, Wis., he may learn that $200,000
' y orth of revenue stamps were required
l>r the matches made theie in a single
year.
Two Dollars Per Annum,
VOLUME IV.
lILVK A\l> Hit.l F.
“ O mother, what do they mean by blue?
And what do they mean by gray ?”
Was heard from the lips of a little child
As she bounded in from play.
The mother’s eyes filled up with tears •
•She turned to her darling fair,
And smoothed away from the sunny brow
Its treasures of golden hair.
“ Why. mother’s eyes are blue, my sweet,
And grandpa’s hair is gray,
And the love we bear our darling child
Grows stronger avery dav.
“ Hut what did they mean ?” persisted the child
“ For 1 saw two cripples to-dav,
And one of them said he fought'ior the blue ;
The other he fought for the gray.
“ Now, he of the blue had lost a leg,
Tiie other had hut one arm,
And both seemed worn and vrearv, and sad,
Yet their greeting was kind: and warm.
They told of battles in days gone by—
Till it made my young blood thrill;
The leg was lost in the Wilderness fight,
And the arm on Malvern Hill.
“ They sat on the stone by the farm-yard gate,
And talked for an hour or more,
Till their i yes grew bright, and their hearts
seemed warm,
With fighting their battles o’er.
And parting at last with a friendly grasp,
In a kindly, brotherly way,
Each called on God to speed the time
L'niting the blue and the gray.”
Then the mother thought of other days—
Two stalwart boys from her riven ;
How they knelt at her side, and, lisping, prayed
“Our Father which art in Heaven;”
How one wore the gray, and the other the blue;
How they passed away from sight,
And had gone to a land where gray and blue
Arc merged in colors of light.
And she answered her darling with golden hair,
While her heart was sadly wrung
Willi the thoughts awakened, in that sad hour
By her innocent, prattling tongue:
“ The blue and the gray are the colors of God ;
They are seen in the sky at even,
And many a noble gallant soul
Has found them passports to Heaven.”
THE FATAL FIKE-HUNT.
“ You promised me, you know you did.
You said, “Jacques, the*next time I go
on a fire-hunt, you shall go, too. Don’t
you remember? And now you go to
night, and I must go with you.”
As Jacques Estrin .said this to his
father, he tossed his curly head defiantly.
Only eight years old was this ambitious
young hunter, but he rode as only creole
children can ride, and had even fired a
gun several times.
His father, Pierre Estrin, was the most
famous hunter of the Opelousas country,
where game is abundant, and the marks
men the most skillful in Louisiana. He
was a dark, morose kind of man, silent,
as are most men whose lives are spent in
somber forests and trackless prairies.
Bt his only son, Jacques, he loved with
a passionate intensify which softened the
man’s rugged nature. Whatever Jacques
wanted, he was sure to have, whether it
was hurtful or not. A fine, bright boy
he was, too, with chestnut, curly hair and
black eyes, full of life and spirit, and
j kui d-hearted and loving, in spite of inju
dicious indulgence.
Evidently, however, in spite of his
blind loudness for his son , Fierre Estrin
hesitated to fulfill his promise,
i “It will be a foggy night, Jacques.
\ou will get wet. Then wliat will mam
ma say ?”
Mamma, who was busy at her loom in
the next room called out, —
“ 1 will say it is wrong. You must not
take the child out such a night. Don’t
hug me so tight, Jacques.” The boy had
flown into the room at the first sound of
her voice. “ Your kisses can’t bribe me
to say you ought to go. It will be a
black, starless nig-ht, and then such a fog !
Don’t think of going, my child. You
shall make “tac tac” (pop corn) and
“ pecan pralines.”
But'Jacques was deaf to the temptation
of “ tac tac” or anything but the hunt
he had promised himself. He cried and
sobbed as if his heart was broken, and
bis father, who was never proof against
his tears, however unreasonable they
might be, soon relented.
“ Better let him go, Monique,” he said.
“ You see I promised him, and it will
never do for him to think I could deceive.
Here, wipe your eyes, Jacques, and run
out on the prairie and catch your pony.
You had better stop at the cabin and
take Edmond —(a little colored boy)—to
help you catch him. He can ride behind
you to the hunt to-night. Then you
won’t be afraid if I should leave you a
few minutes in the woods.”
“ Afraid?” and he tossed back his
curls with a laugh. “Ah, you will see
what a brave son you have.”
The little fellow ran at full speed across
the prairie, singing a gay French carol
at the very top of his shrill young voice:
“ Out in the woods, where the little birds
sing,
So gay, so gay,
Ha, ha! Mr. Squirrel, I see you spring,
So gay, so gav.”
Monique Estrin had left her loom and
stood at the open door watching the boy
as he hurried away for the pony.
“ You should not take him, Pierre,”
she said, gravely. “He is too young to
go ou a fire-hunt. There are places in
the swamp where he cannot follow you,
and you will be obliged to leave him
alone in the forest. Did you not hear,
too, that a panther was seen near the live
oaks, not ten miles from here.”
Pierre shrugged his shoulders as his
wife spoke. “ It’s something new for
you, Monique, to play the coward. As
for the panther, I never saw him. That
cowardly Wilson took a frightened wild
cat for a ferocious animal. AY hat harm
can come to the boy when I am with
him T Even if I leave him, to scour the
woods, all he will have to do will be to
sit quietly on his horse in one spot until
I return,”
His wife did not answer, but she
sighed deeply as site returned to her
work.
EASTMAN, DODGE CO., GEORGIA, THURSDAY, MARCH 9. 1876.
*"'he was half ashamed of her own fears.
| Even when her boy returned, flushed,
delighted, with little Edmond at his
j heels, she could not smile at him. She
; was called upon to admire the pony, to
see what a great bag of pine knots papa
j had cut up for the fire-pan.
At dark the preparations were com
pleted, and the hunters set out, Pierre
Estrin leading the way with a long
handled pan, full of blazing pine, over
one shoulder. Jacques and Edmond, on
the same pony, trotted after him, and the
mother at the window could hear her
boy’s glad voice making the silent woods
ring with his favorite song, and the little
negro swelling the chorus of—
“>So gay, so gay.”
Ihe mist closed ’heavily upon their
path. The bright flame from the fire
pan threw a wild, weird light on the
great trees, which stood like shrouded
giants on each side of them.
With the rising of the wind, the fog
rose, and when it lulled, would settle
down again, and so, alternately, the
night was obscure and lightened. The
light, however, was not from the heavens,
for that was overcast with clouds, but a
kind of phosphorescent gleam from de
cayed logs and the surface of stagnant
pools.
The, fire-pan, however, threw a bright
circle of light around, and Pierre Estrin
had fastened the long-handled pan to his
saddle in a manner known to hunters
who scour the woods without compan
ions.
It was altogether an unprofitable hunt.
Cows and calves would [come staring at
the light, but not a deer. The fog was
settling down into a misty drizzle, aud
Pierre began to get very impatient, for
he knew it was not far from midnight.
See here, Jacques,” he said, “ I’m
going down into Brule swamp. We are
just on its edge now. I’m sure all the
deer are there to-night in the thickets.
The swamp’rs tbo frill of ruts, and holes
of soft iftud, for you to get through on
your little pony. I’m- going to station
you here under this big gum tree, which
will keep tho drizzle off; and don’t stir
from it, or I’ll lose you; and be perfect
ly quiet. You are not afraid to be left,
sira you ?”
“ Afraid!” why, Jacques hooted at
the idea. But the child was sleepy and
tired, and very hungry, and wanted to
get back to mamma, and the nice hot
gumbo she would have ready for them.
“ Are you going to stay long?” lie
asked, dolefully.
“ Not more than a quarter of an hour;
perhaps not that long.”
Jacques gave a little tired sigh, as his
father moved off, whispered a few words
to hid nodding companion, and then his
curly head sunk down on the patient
pony s neck, and the boy was fast
asleep.
It probable the little negro followed
his example, and the pony, feeling tu
rein loosened, began cropping the grass,
moving slowly in the direction Pierre
Estrin had taken.
Estrin, in the meantime, pursued his
way with no success. The deer had evi
dently gone too deep in the coverts for
him to find them. He was an impatient
man, and the foggy drizzle, which grew
thicker, combined with his own loss of
temper to make him lose the way. As
hunters say, he was “ turned round,”
and wandered aimlessly about, feeling
himself lost. At last he came to an oak
which he knew to be not a mile from the
opening. A little back, enveloped in
the thick vapors, shone a pair of eyes.
“Aha!” thought Pierre, exultingly;
“ behold my game!”
He raised his gun, took deliberate aim,
and, “bang! bang!” went off both bar
rels almost simultaneously.
A wild agonized scream followed the
report.
Terrified, yet scarce realizing the full
measure of his misfortune, Pierre threw
himself from his horse and rushed to the
spot. What a sight blasted his eyes!
The pony lay dead on the gound, and his
own boy, his little Jacques, lay writhing
beside it, with pitiful wails and moans.
“ Oh, papa, why did you shoot me?
Take me home, take me home, and let my
mamma help me!”
As in a horrible dream, the wretched
man replenished his fire-pan, and took up
his child to examine his wounds. Per
haps, after all, he is not severely wound
ed. He tore off’the blouse ; he staunched
the blood ©n the tender white chest. No
hope —only a few minutes now. With a
cry like a wild animal, he took up his
child, and as he stepped forward, stum
bled over the corpse of the little negro,
who had died instantly.
“ A glorious shot! ” he yelled and still
raging, still mad, with one arm he caught
up little Edmond, fastened his body by
the strings to the back of his saddle, and,
still holding his child, vaulted in his
seat.
O, fearful ride through the dark forest,
with those pitiful, sobbing moans tearing
his heart and crazing his brain !
Once the boy spoke, but that faint,
catching breath, those feeble words, surely
j.re not merry Jacques’! Is he not in a
horrible dream ? and will he not waken
from it and find the loving arms around
his neck, and the loud, clear voice call
ing “Papa, papa?”
Yes, faint, fluttering arms are feebly
2?i God IVe Trust.
raised to his neck, and the miserable man
bows his head.
“ You didn’t mean to hurt me, poor
papa. Tell mamma, tell her that ”
One sigh, and poor mamma will
never hear the sweet voice of her child
again.
She had waited and waited. Two or
three time the sough of the wind seemed
to bring her the retrain:
“ So gay. so gay,”
but at last the well-known gallop of
Pierre’s horse smote upon her ear. One
push at the fire, which blazed up, one
glance at the smoking gumbo, and she
hastened to the door to welcome them.
What is Pieire staggering in with his
deer for ? He is in the door. He lays
his burden on the bed, and sinks down
in a merciful swoon.
Days and days passed before he re
covered full consciousness. The mother
had fought her agony alone and unsup
ported, had guessed the terrible truth of
the children’s death, and faced it with
all the fortitude of a strong nature ; but
still the man lay on his bed, at times
raving, at others unconscious.
When he recovered, there was a veil
over his mind. He knew he had killed
his child, but it seemed the deed had
been done years and years before. In
telling the story—l heard it from his
own lips—he would pause and try to re
member, though it has not been two
years since the tragedy occurred.
Pierre Estrin did not profit by the
teachings of his misfortunes* He had
always been a gloomy man, but he now
became a morose and desperate charac
ter. His hand was reddened by more
than one murder, and about a fortnight
ago he was himself assassinated.
The young readers of the Companion
may think this story incredible, but I
have confined myself strietlv to the facts
of a case known throughout this parish
of St. Landry. —Marie B. Williams, in
Youths' Companion.
Thomas sen.
Personal Itrcollvrtions of the Dynamite
Fiend by Don Piatt.
As time wears on that curious mental
process called memory, left to itself, re
calls many events connected with our
pleasant room-mate, the dynamite fiend,
Thomassen.' There was one"’singular fact
connected with the affair that we would
wish to have explained. We remember,
on leaving Liverpool, being somewhat
discontented at finding ourself in the
same state-room with another passenger.,
while two or three state-rooms were va
cant. Making our trouble known to the
purser, he calmed us by saying that after
leaving Queenstown we would have the
room to ourself. Why he should say
this we never learned ; bu t the day after
our stop at Queenstown the purser gave
us the choice of a room yet vacant, and
we left Thomassen to the enjoyment of
the premises alone.
r ” stowing away our luggage we were
struck with vm, quantity of parcels our
room-mate had to arrange, among
the others, if memory serves us, were two
queer-looking boxes that would not go
under the berths, and were noticed be
cause so much in the way. These, we
have since learned, disappeared shortly
after leaving Queenstown, and doubtless
one was the deadly clock, wound up and
adjusted for the ship’s destruction, had
our room-mate succeeded in securing lha
insurance he sought in Liverpool.
We were putting our part of the room
in order the chill, dull, rainy afternoon
we sailed from Liverpool, when Thom
assen entered. Mr. Colchester, the agent
at Liverpool, had informed us that our
room-mate was a very agreeable gentle
man, and we found him a man six feet
in height, powerfully built, well dressed,
and a face from which hair and whiskers
were brushed back, cleanly shaven, that
showed as pleasant a countenance as one
cared to meet. He greeted us kindly,
expressing a pleasure at having us as a
room-mate, and taking from his valise a
box of not the choicest cigars even from
England, not only invited us to smoke,
but said the box would be found open
upon the shelf for our use so long as the
cigars lasted. We told him that sea
sickness put a stop to that comfort on
our part; whereupon he informed us
that he had crossed so frequently and
been at sea so much that he did not know
any difference in feeling between land
and water.
“It must be very rough,” he said,
“when I cannot shave myself every
morning.”
He retired early and, near as we could
observe, slept the sleep of peace and in
nocence. As we were given another room,
we next saw our companion, to notice
him. upon deck laboring under some ex
citement. He told us that the captain
had insulted him in the grossest manner,
and when the vessel reached New York,
where they would be on an equal footing,
he intended having it out with him. It
seems that Thomassen had beem smoking
upon deck and spat upon the painfully
clean planks. The captain, a very pre
cise and somewhat dyspeptic officer, ap
proached and said:
“ What do you do that for, sir, when
the ocean makes the largest sort of a
spittoon all around you? Ladies walk
this deck, sir.”
Thomassen made no reply to this
rough demand, but his face indicated an,
ugly future for the captain.
seemed to have made it up, however;
for afterwards we saw the two in close
conversation, pacing the deck together.
, During the passage a mock trial was
had in the smoking-room, and while we
presided as judge, Thomassen acted as
foreman of the jury. The case was
a breach of promise, brought by a colored
maiden against a Hebrew, and we had the
fun incident to such affairs on shipboard.
We do not remember the verdict brought
in by Thomassen, but it was greeted with
considerable laughter.
While amiable and pleasaut in his
manner, there was a certain reserve that
repelled intimacy. We observed that he
was much given to walking the decks
alone, and one night, when blowing
rougher than usual, with a blinding rain
driven along the boat, we sought shelter
on the quieter side of the house, above
the gangway. It was dark as dark can
be, and the huge vessel seemed to trem
ble as she plunged along in the teeth
of the wind, riding heavy head-seas as
the model of the Star line only can.
We soon became aware of the fact that
we were not alone, for a pleasant voice
at our elbow asked if we were suffering
from seasickness. We answered in the
negative and added that the wild night
had such a fascination for us that it kept
us on deck.
We told him that while staring out
into the black night we had thought
what a mere speck our vessel was upon the
world of waters, and were we to founder
at sea what a little bubble would go
down. Thomassen did not seem to take
in our idea, but followed with eulogies of
the White Star line, that, he assured us,
sailed the safest boats on the ocean. He
said the Cunarders had only luck, and
one of these days a dreadful disaster
would awaken the traveling public to
the truth of this fact.
It is when crime gets out of its Avell
known grooves that we recognize its mag
nitude. The great captains whose wars
of ambition have filled desolated house
holds with mourning die in peace, to
have monuments erected to t heir memo
ries.
THE DRUMMING EVIL.
Boston merchants, says the St. Louis
Republican, are greatly dissatisfied with
the present style of doing business ; they
declare they cannot live under it, and
that, if adhered to, it must lead to the
bankruptcy, in the end, of all jobbing
and wholesale merchants. The evils of
the present system are high rents, drum
mers and small profits. Twenty years
ago a jobbing house paid in rent SI,OOO
to $5,000 —the latter being considered a
very high figure; of the goods sold 75
per cent, were foreign, on which there
was a good profit, and all the sales were
made in the house, where the pioprietors
met their customers and kept up a
knowledge of their circumstances. All
this is now changed ; the rents of the
granite, marble and freestone buildings
that the jobber is expected to occupy
vary from $5,000 to $20,000; just as
uu;*y salesmen in the house as formerly,
and a corps of active drummers are to be
maintained in the field at a cost of sal
aries and $5 a day for traveling expenses
besides. Nor does the trouble end here ;
drumming sharpens the competition and
reduces the profits, and it also increases
the hazards of business—for the drum
mer, ambitious to make as many and as
large sales as possible, invariably makes
the most favorable representations of his
customers, and thus involves his em
ployer in unsuspected trouble. To all
this may be added the fact that the mer
chant has nearly lost control of his bus
iness ; he rarely sees his customers or
they him ; the business is realy in the
hands of his drummers, who use his
money to build up a valuable acquain
tance which they carry with them to a
rival they leave. Merchants
do not-reflect, or if they do they cannot
help it, that the very acquaintance
■which is the drummer’s capital, is ac
quired at their expense. Twenty years
ago business was straightforward, the ex
penses light and the profits good ; Jbut
under tTie new system competition is so
great that goods in some departments of
trade are sold at as low a proiH as 2 5 to 5
per cent. The only chance success is
in selling a very large amount —and
here again comes in a fierce struggle that
often brings one firm after another to
the ground. It is said that the 'numer
ous failures at the east and the great
number of unoccupied houses on busi
ness streets in Boston and New York are
due in no small measure to these evils.
The question of greatest concern with
the eastern wholesalers at present is how
to become independent of their drum
mers and resume control of their own
business.
Persons who have been annoyed all
their lives by aggressive and inconsid
erate smokers will learn with no little
satisfaction that the manufacture of ex
plosive cigars is on the increase, and that
the man who walks just ahead of other
people on the street and rolls his pol
luted cloud back into the faces of his
betters may at any time hear something
go off. and find himsel^^^^et^^Jri^ffl
..
Payable in Advance.
NUMBER 5
A TALK IHTII EAI>S.
He Propose* to Pelt ere the Whole Mississippi
f (ille>/ from Orerflote.
The editor of the Cairo Bulletin writes
to his paper as follows: Captain Eads,
the jetty man, was on the cars I was
introduced to him. Then he proceeded
to talk “river” in such a plain way that
I became learned on the subject without
my consent, and before we arrived at
Washington I was converted to the be
lief that Cairo, and indeed all the coun
try below on the Mississippi, might be in
effect lifted above high-water mark—
that, without, the construction of a levee,
the whole of the Mississippi valley might
be redeemed from overflow and the
channel supplied w T ith an average depth
of twenty feet of water from the passes to
Cairo, and fifteen feet from Cairo to St.
Louis. If 1 understand the captain, he
claims that there are two theories of Mis
sissippi river improvement—one based
upon the philosophy of Humphrey and
Abbott’s great work : “ The Physics and
Hydraulics of the Mississippi river,”
and the other on common sense and
science.
The Humphrey theory is that the real
bed of the Mississippi river u pon which rest
the shifting sand-bars and mud-banks
made by local causes, is a structure of
hard, blue clay, quite unlike the present
deposits of the river, and which resists
the action of the strong current almost
libe marble; that therefore the bed of
the river cannot yield, and if the veloc
ity of the river current be increased cav
ing of the banks; that, consequently the
closing up of out lets by levees or other
wise has a tendency to raise the flood-line,
and that the making of outlets has a ten
dency to lower the flood-line. But, from
the outlet system, according to the Hum
phreyites, “no assistance in reclaiming
the alluvial region from overflow can
judiciously be anticipated.” Though
correct in theory, no advantageous sites
for artificial outletsexist. Thus we find
the Humphrcyites claiming that the cur
rent cannot scour our blue
clay of the river-bed, and that the sur
plus water cannot be carried off by out
lets. Their conclusion is, therefore, that
to redeem the Mississippi from overflow
high levees must be built from the
mouth of the Ohio to the passes. The
estimated cost of this work will be $46,-
000,000; and after it is done the expense
of keeping it in repair will amount
annually to a very considerable sum .
The Eads theory is that the river flows
in a bed composed of its deposits, with
dimensions regulated according to its
needs; t hat this bed is deepened as the
volume of water in it is increased and
elevated, or filled up as the volume is de
creased; therefore by reducing the high
water channel of the river to an approx
imate uniformity of width, thus throw
ing down its slope to the gulf a greater
volume of water with a swifter current,
the shoals which interrupt itsuiaviga
tion might be removed, uniformity being
given to its slope and current, the cav
ing of its banks be almost prevented and
its high-water line be reduced in such a
degree that levees would not be needed.
This result the liadites claim, backing
their assertions by argument UvAt, in
my opinion, cannot be controverted,
may be obtained by a judicious system
of cut-offs and dykes. “In this way,”
said Captain Eads, with great emphasis,
“the flood-slope can be safely and perma
nently lowered above each cut-ofi; the
entire alluvial basin from Vicksburg to
Cairo be lifted, as it were, above all
overflow’, and levees in that part of the
river rendered useless. The flood-line at
Cairo is fifty-one or fi'fty-two feet above
the low-water line. It can be reduced at
no great expense, to forty feet, and thus
leave Cairo and all the rich country
around it on high ground. There can be
no question of this fact, and it would be
w’ell for those most deeply interested in
the matter to ponder upon my confident
assertion, before rejecting it, for the in
creased value that would be given to the
territory that would be thus secured to
the uses of man can scarcely lie esti
mated.” _
Influence of Different Potations.
—A police officer relates the following as
his experience: Whenever an
hears an woman on the street creating a
disturbance and in a drunken condi
tion, he know’s at once that she has been
drinking ale or beer. If she has imbibed
too freely of sour wine and etten too
much sweet cake she wdll be sick, very
sick. If she is sparkling and not vicious
or disorderly, but w’ould rather sing and
he merry than tear the hair out of the
head of that other girl, wffiy, she has
taken too much sherry and egg; and if
she commences to cry while under the
influence it may be safely inferred that
she has been taken too much of a throat
bath of brandy and water. From the
palace to the hovel, and from the luxu
rious bed-chamber to the hard bottom of
the street gutter, women are to be found
under the influence of drugs or rum
every day in a large city. It is only
the more unfortunate, or those who are
on the lowermost rounds of humanity’s
ladder, that ever come to th(^|u^^|
G HAVE A .YD GAY.
. .That is a touching Kilkenny ballad
that begins:
“ Karin* dnmrhter walked down to the Nile
Along wid her maids for to Lathe in stile;
As she ran long the shore for to dhrv her skin
Her fut hit the hashkit that Mosses was in!”
Phis beautiful historical passage is soft
ened and enriched bv age like an eld
Cremona.
..One of Brigham Young’s daughter*
clandestinely married Charles R. Hop
kins, a Gentile, last week, but in a day or
two returned to her parents and refused
to see her husband again. Hopkins is
disconsolate.
. It was a Cheyenne small boy who,
being talked to by his Sunday-school
teacher on sins and frailties of the body,
was asked : “ Well, my son, what have
you beside this sinful body?” Quick as
thought the urchin resj>onded: “ A clean
shirt and a nice new pair of breeches.”
..The finest timber in the world is
found in the Black Hills, according to a
Cheyenne paper. Some of the pine trees
are ten feet in diameter and so tall that
the man working at the butt can’t hear
the man who is chopping the top up into
cord wood.
..The author of the following, a Du
buque man, to his first born, is still at
large:
Welcome, little teenie-weenie-weenie,
We’ve been looking for vou some;
With her bluev, truey eeme.
Faith, and ain't we glad she’s come?
O the little piggie-wiggie !
Bless her, that it’s just no niggie!
Sucking pucky-wuckv thumb!
The Greeks characterize human
follies and absurdities by such phrases
as “he plows the air; “he is making
clothes for fishes;” “he catches the wind
with a net;” “he roasts snow in a fur
nace “he holds a looking glass to a
mole ;” “he is teaching iron to swim ;”
“he is teaching a pig to play on a flute;”
“he seeks wool on as ass;” “ho washes
the Ethiopian.”
. The Burlington Hawkeye says : A
Benton county man hid S6OO in the spare
room stove. The next day his wife’s
mother came down during his absence
for a three week’s visit, and that spare
room was warmed up for the first time
in three hundred years. And they say
you can pick up shreds of that man’s
hair and clothes where he clubbed him
self around the country when he heard
of it, anywhere within ten miles of the
house.
. A wise and plain-speaking colored ex
pounder of the scriptures recently created
quite a flurry among some of the female
portion of his congregation by suddenly
branching off in this way: “Now I
want to say a word to de sisters. When
you has a washin’ to do somewhar, and
you gets done, just you clean up and go
right home, and don’t stan’ round lookin’
whar you can find a little coffee, or a
little sugar, or a little something else to
put in yo’ pockets. Go right home when
you’s done wid dat washin’.”
..Lacteal Rhymes.—
Hear the milkmen with their hells,
Noisy!
Comes a thought of chalk and water as their
music sinks and swells.
llow they clatter, olatter, clatter,
In the early morning’s light,
As the housewife grabs a platter,
While her teeth begin to clatter
With an unconcealed affright.
For the pail—ah, the pail—
If to find it she should fail,
Ere the milkman trundles onward with her
share—
How her husband he will shout
When the coffee is poured out—
How he’ll swear, swear, swear.
. . The Boston Post has this little story
for the hard times: “ There were no
assets; there was not the remotest chance
of a dividend. What w r ere the creditors
to do with this w’retched individual ?
At all events they were determined to
have something, and one of their num
ber, either previously aware of the bank
rupt’s lyrical attainments or moved by a
Shakespearean intuition of the debtor
having a ‘single face,’ asked him if he
could not cheer the drooping spirits of
those to whom he stood indebted by
warbling some ditty. The penniless yet
tuneful bankrupt expressed his willing
ness to oblige, and in tremulous accents
piped forth the tender ballad of‘Then
you’ll remember me.’ The scene was as
pathetic as it was original.”
The Season. —Our citizens have seen
this season what probably most of them
have never seen before —the China trees
budding out in January. A tree near
our window’ has pHt forth its leaf buds,
and if the present w r arm weather contin
ues a few days, longer it will be in full
leaf. The winter of 1827-8 was very
similar, we have been informed by gen
tlemen who remember it. We were once
told by an old resident of this county
that at a Fourth of July dinner, in 1828
at which he was present, a gentleman
exhibited a pair of gloves made from cot
ton of that year’s growth. He stated
that the cotton stalks were not killed
during the winter, and in the spring
they ratooned, and it was from this
second year’s growth of cotton that the
gloves were made. As the cotton stalks
are not killed this season, it would be in
teresting to make a trial of the experi
ment of cultivating the old stalks for the
production ot a erop.— N"tchz Democrat.
Dyspepsia. —A correspondent of the
Boston Globe offers a remedy for a very
distressing complaint as set forth below.
It is given for what it is worth: Will
you please insert for the benefit of those
who suffer from dyspepsia or indigestion,
that four tablespoonfuls of lime-water,
mixed with a glass of cow’s milk, will
cure the w’orst form of the above distres
sing disease in a few days. I know bv
ro fy|