The banner of the South. (Augusta, Ga.) 1868-1870, April 11, 1868, Page 8, Image 8

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8 YOUTHS' DEPARTMENT. ["From the N. O. Picayune,] 1 ! What the Sparrow Chiips. BT PBABL JUTJW I am only a little eparTow, A bird of low deforce ; My life is of little rains, But the Master carsth for me. He flare me a coat of feathers, It is rery plain I knew ; With nerer a speck of csimeon. For it was not mads for show— But it keeps me warm in the winter, And it shields ms from the rain ; Were it ’broidered with gold or purple, Perhaps it wonld make ms rain. By and by, when the spring-time oometh, £*T will bnild me a little nest. With many a chirp of pleasure, In the spot I like the best. And the'Maeter will pirs rne wisdom To build it of leares most brown ; Warm and softitmnst be for my birdies. And so I will line it with down. I hare no barn or store-house, I neither sow nor reap ; fltod giree me a sparrow’s portion, But aerer a seed to keep. If my meal is sometimes scanty. Close picking makes it sweet ; I hare always enough to do me, And "life ia more than meat." I have no roof from the tempest. But the Master will proride ; When the tempest comes I always find A shelter where I can hide, I know there are many sparrows, All orer the world we are found— But o*r Heavenly Father knoweth When one of us falls to the ground. Though small, we are never forgotten ; ’Though weak, we are never afraid : For we know that the Master keepeth The life of the creature he made. I fly through the thickest forests. I light on many a spray— I hare no chart or compass, But I never lose my way. And I fold my wings at twilight. Wherever I happen to be ; For the Master is my Father, And no harm will come to me. I am only a little sparrow, A bird of low degree, But I know that the Father lores me— Haro you less faith than me ? Hobolochitto, Hancock county, Mint., Jan. ENIGMA. I am composed of 15 letters. My 3,4, 6, is a variation of verb to be. My 4,3, 13, 7,6, is to lift. My 2, 6, 4, 10, is not there. My 4,3, 1, 12, is an instrument of torture. My 7, 14, 3, 12, 10, is a reptile. My 14, 13, 11, 10, is a number. My 8. 3. 1,12, is a boy’s nickname. My 15, 13, 11, is what we all should avoid. My 9,3, 14, G, is a girl’s name. My whole is one of Georgia’s noblest -sons. Answer next.week. Answer to Last Week’s Enigma.— Alexander 11. Stephens : Ale—Lead— Ear—Axe —Gnat—East—Sheep—Peter —Hand E. F. Charleston, S. C., April 6 th, 1808. Minnie’s answers to last week \s Enig ma is correct. Mary E’s answer is also correct. A. G. L. —Your answer has also been received. The error was unintentional. Enigmas from Minnie and Lelawill ap pear next week. DROWNING THE SQUIRREL. When I was about six years old, one morning going to school, a ground squir rel ran into its hole in the rord before me, as they like to dig holes in some open place, where they can put out their head and see if any danger is near. I thought now r I will have some fine fun. As there was a stream of water at hand, 1 determined to pour water into the hole till it should be lull, and force the little animal up so that 1 might kill it. I got a trough from beside a sugar maple, used for catching the sweet sap, and was soon pouring water on the poor squirrel. I could hear it struggle to get up, and said, “Ah, my fellow, 1 will soon have you out now.'’ Just then I heard a *oice behind rne, “\\ ell my hoy, what have you got in there ?” I turned and saw one of my neighbors, a good old man, with long white locks, that had seen sixty winters. ‘ Why! said 1, "1 have a ground squirrel in here, and am going to drown him out.” Said he, “Jonathan, when I was a little boy, more than fifty years ago, 1 was en gaged one day just as you are, drowning a ground squirrel! and an old man like me came along and said to me, ‘You are a little boy now; if you were down in a narrow hole like that, and I should come along and pour water down on you to drown you, would you not think I was eruel ? God made that little squirrel, and life is as sweet to him as it is to you, and why will you torture to death a little innocent creature that God has made V I have never forgotten that, and never shall. I never have killed a harmless creature for fun since. Now, my boy, I want you to remember this while you live, and when tempted to kill any poor little innocent animal or bird, think of this; and mind, God don’t allow us to kill his pretty little creatures for fun.” More than forty years have since pass ed, and I never forgot what the good man said, nor have 1 ever killed the least ereature for fun since. Now, you see it is ninety years since this advice was first given, and it has not lost its influence yet. How many little creatures it has saved from being tortured to death, I cannot tell, but I have no doubt a great number, and I believe my whole life had been in fluenced by it. “Now, I want all the dear little boys, when they read this, to keep it in mind; and when they see pretty birds or harm less animals playing or hunting their food, not to hurt them. Your Heavenly Father made them, and he never intended them to be killed for fun.- -Lessons of Kindness to Animals. TOYS. ALL ABOUT THEIR MAKERS. All the cheaper class of toys are of for eign manufacture. Penny toys come from Germany. They have their birth in the black pine forests of Thuringia. The Dryads and Hamadryads are not dead, but sleeping. What roars of laughter spring from these old gloomy pine woods. The great toy capital is Sonneburg, where men, women, and children are em ployed upon their production. The cost of toys at the place of their manufacture is infinitely small. The wood, the only material of which they are made, is no thing: two pence half penny a tree. The labor is scarcely more valuable. Toys in these old forests are made upon the most approved modern principle of division of labor. Any toy we take up has gone through half a dozen hands. By thD means great rapidity is attained in their manufacture, and the prime cost at home is less than the third of a penny. Thy transit along mountain roads, by water carriage to Rotterdam, whence they are conveyed by steam to England, costs more than their manufacture, but yet there is a profit left to the vender. ~l These are true smashing toys ; but the more expen sive, highly finished, and elaborate ones still come from Germany or the adjacent countries. Great numbers come from Grunheiuscber, in Saxony, but the town of Nuremberg maintains its old monopoly for metal work, even in the matter ot toys. All the leaden soldiers in boxes are made here, whilst the tin railroads and locomotives, and steam vessels of every primitive character and form, come from Biberach, in Wirtemberg. The cuirasses, and helmets, and guns, como from Hesse Cassel, a highly military little kingdom : and from its by-neighbor, Prussia, we have the pretty little toy interiors of shops, drawing-rooms and others, fitted with model hirniture and goods. It is no mean proof of the manner in which the Prussians are educated, that those very elegant little toys are all made by prisoners under penal servitude. We wonder what sort of a figure our sons would make at the like occupation. Some of the details are capitally modeled. There, for instance, is a butcher’s shop, with nil the joints hanging on their hooks. They are made in paper, and show that the modelers must have copied them from the originals. The governing powers in Germany do not think it beneath them to give an art education to the children engaged in the manufacture of toys. The Duke of Saxe Mciningen has established schools for this purpose, and the result is that the most beautiful models of animals made in papiermache come from bis king dom. They are to > good, however, for playthings, and are more likely to find their way to the mantelpieces ns orna ments. There is a tendency in this coun try, we fear, to fall into the error of con structing toys for boys that are not* only too expensive for the general purse, but too seieitific aud elaborate—model loco motives, which go by steam, working pumps, model steam vessels, mice running by machinery ; and, for the girls, dolls that move along the table, raise their arms, and cry papa and mama. 1 his is carrying machinery into the nursery with a vengeance. It may be very well cal culated to foster the mechanical spirit, but not to relax the mind, the proper object of toys. They are far too expen sive, however, to come into general use, so that their influence is not likely to be great. Dutch dolls, the most hideous articles ■Mill! ©I BIS to look at, do n&t really come from Hol land, but from the Tyrol. They are called Dutch dolls, we suppose, because Holland is the country from which they are shipped for England. The most natural dolls in the world are made in London. They are admirably modeled, with real red hair, and the busts and heads are made of wax quite artistically. The making of dolls’ eyes is quite a large trade, we are informed, and a very profit able one. First class dolls are the only toys, ex cepting the pieces of mechanism before mentioned, for which wc are famous in England. Birmingham is, indeed, called the toy shop of the world ; but not in the sense in which children understand the word toy. They are nick-nacks, rather, for children of a large growth. It seems strange that our national genius does no thing for the little ones in metal work ; that we should have to go to Nuremberg for toy printing presses with types, magic lanterns, magnetic toys, and conjuring tricks, with which our fast boys now en tertaiu their seniors ; but such is the fact. The toy that the English boy loves best in the world is the model of a ship. This, in past time, he fashioned and rigged for himself; but in these degenerate days be may buy bis model, and all the details for fitting her out, even to pateut anchors, guns, and gun carriages, blocks and steering wheels —everything is made for him. We wonder whether the young sters enjoy them as much as we did, when everything about our ship, from the tip of the mast down to the edge ot the keel, was made with a not over sharp clasp knife It seems to us that all the active toys of our youth have passed away, or been so modified that we scarcely know them. Is the peg-top, with which we delighted to split other peg tops in the pound, now ever spun, or is the little colored metal pretense for a top spun by a piece of ma chinery substituted far it? Are there no good solid hoops now trundled ? We confess we meet with nothing but pieces of circular wire that are not banged with a jolly stick, but pushed along by a large sized knitting-needle. And where are all the kites that once carried our eyes heavenward ? The boys of these days let up model balloons instead, which they pull down again with a long string. But hold—let us not be carried away by prejudice; no doubt the old boys of every age look with contempt upon the toys of the rising generation. There are two things in which, wc may confess, our juniors have the advantage over us—pic ture books and sweets. In our days, good reader (1 presume an old boy), there were no such splendid fairy tales as can be got anywhere now for a shilling. Jack the Giant-Killer had to be imagined with our minds. But now every Christ mas the artists present the story to us in anew aspect. “Sinbad the Sailor,” and the “ Arabian Nights,” now glow with colored pictures. There was no color in the old days, and the pictures rather de pressed than excited the boy's imagina tion. But, as an old boy, we must con fess the sweets of the present day have a great advantage over the “ stick-jaw” and the “ bull’s eyes” of the past. We never dreamed of such delicacies as iced cocoa nut or pineapple candy, and never saw such a beautiful prospect as the sweet shop now presents, specially laid out to drive to madness the boys that have no pennies to go inside. [ Cassell's Magazine. The True Story of Cinderella- — The story of Cinderella is familiar to every one and yet there are few that treas ure it up as in every respect true. But it has a foundation and a reality that really needs no fairy godmother, with her pump kins and her rats to make an entertaining tale. It is as follows : In about the year 1730, a French actor, by the name of Thevenard, lived in Paris. He was rich and talented, but he bad no wife, and we may believe be had never loved any one, but gave all his affections to those ideal characters that he could re present so finely on the stage. One day as he was walking leisurely along the streets of Paris he came upon a cobbler’s stall, and his eye was attracted by a dainty little shoe which lay there waiting for re pairs. His imagination began immedi ately to form the little foot that must fit such a little shoe. He examined it well, but only to admire it more and more. On going to his own house lie seemed haunted by the little shoe. He fancied it tripping over his be could hear the music of its tread —in tact, there was nothing among all his rich, elegant treas ures that seemed to him half so beantilul. He went to the stall of the cobbler again, but could learn nothing in regard to the owner of the shoe This only in. creased his eagerness, and made him more determined to know to whom it be longed. Day by day he was disappoint- ed, but he was not discouraged. At last the little foot needed the little shoe, and Thcvenard met the owner, a poor girl whose parents belonged to the humblest class. But the ardent actor thought not of caste or family. His heart had already pronouneed the little one his wife. He married the girl, with no ques tion of what people would say, and felt enough joy in hearing the tread es the light nimble feet through his silent rooms, to pay him for the sacrifice of people’s approval. This is the true story of Cin derella, and from which the child ro mance sprang. The Pinckneys of South Carolina.— James Parton contributes to the New York Ledger an interesting biographical sketch of the South Carolina Pinckneys, a family which is as much, if not more distinguished, than any other in the South. We give the following brief ex tracts from the article before us: “ Thomas Pinckney, the founder of the family in America, standing at the win dow of his house one day, with his wife at his side, noticed a stream of passengers walking up the street, who had just landed from a vessel that day arrived from the West Indies. As walked along the street, he noticed particularly a handsome man who was very gaily dressed, and, turning to his wife, he said : ‘ That handsome West Indian will marry some poor fellow’s widow, break her heart, and ruin her children.’ Strange to re late, the widow whom this handsome West Indian married was no other than Mrs. Pinckney herself; for Thomas Pinckney soon after died, and his widow married the West Indian. He did not break her heart, since she lived to marry a third husband, but he was an extravagant fellow, and wasted part of her children’s inheritance.” Vegetation in the Moon.— lt was for a long time the common conclusion among astronomers that the moon was without any atmosphere, and destitute of water; and that, consequently, neither animal nor vegetable life could be supported on its surface. But several eminent modern astronomers have maintained that the moon has an atmosphere, though of a very lim ited extent. And quite recently, Mr. Schawbe, a German astronomical pro fessor, thinks he has discovered signs of vegetation on the surface of our satellite. It is well known that there are certain dark lines or scratches, as they appear, extending across the slopes of thehighest mountains in the moon. These have, been variously expbiincd, some regard ing them as the bed of dried up streams; others as having some other origin. Prof. Schawbe claims to have discovered in these lines a greenish color, which ap pears at certain seasons, lasts a few months, and then disappears. He there fore regards those lines as belts of vege tation. If his observations should be de cisively confirmed by those of other as tronomers, it will settle the question that the moon lias both air and water, and will therefore remove any presumption against the existence of animal life on its surface.— English Paper. «. Empress Eugenie in a Romantic Af fair — A correspondent of the Washing ton Star, writing from Paris, after giving a description of a ball at the Tuilleries, relates the following bit of romance by the Empress ; I will now tell you a true story of the Empress. Last Wednesday week the Emperor aud the Empress attended one of the small theatres to see the play of “ Comte Jacques.” On the stage a charm ingly young girl took a part in which it was necessary to feign weeping ; but the girl wept bitter tears, and the Empress was so much impressed that she sent for the stage manager, alter the act, to inquire who the girl was, and desired him to ascer tain the cause of her tears. The young girl very innocently replied that she had a lover to whom she was devotedly attached; but his father would not permit him to marry her until she would bring him a dowry of a thousand francs, which she had not, and so she would have to give him ud, which would break her heart. As this play represented her case, she could not keep back the tears, but she hoped no one would observe them. Her grief, however, did not escape the Em press, who found, upon inquiry, that the girl was respectable and obliged to assist in supporting her parents by peiforming at the theatre, to which her mother al ways accompanied her. The following day the Empress sent one of her cham bermaids to present the girl with a mar riage portion of a thousand francs and money to the amount of five hundred francs for the mother. Os all the agonies of life, that which is the most poignant and harrowing is the conviction that we have been de ceived where we placed all the trust of love. WIT AND HUMOR. Love Sick. —“ Amelia, for thee—yes, at thy command, I’d tear this eternal fir mament into a thousand fragments—l’d gather the stars one by one as they tum bled from the regions of ctherial space and put them in my trowsers pockets ; I’d pluck the sun, that oriental god of day, that traverses the blue arch of heaven in such majestic splendor —I’d tear him frem the sky and quench his bright efful gence in the fountain of my eternal love for tliae!” Amelia—“ Don’t, Henry, it would be so dark.” “ You are writing my bill on very rough paper,” said a client to his solicitor. “ Oh, never mind, sir, it has to be filed before it comes into court,” replied the lawyer. Someone says the best way for a father to train up a child in the way it should go, is to travel that way occa sionally himself. A wag, in describing the effect of a certain would be tragedian’s style, on a particular occasion, said : “It caused the hair to stand on every bald head in the vast assembly.” Monsieur Jacqueminat, ortce, in an address to the electors of Paris, observed, with a vehement shrug of the shoulders, “ Gentlemen, I have shed all my blood for my country, and I am willing to shed it again.” “ A city clerk and a naturalist,” asks whether there is not a bird called the Ditto Ditto. Is he not thinking of our old acquaintance the Do-Do ? Those who have been annoyed, while undergoing the “barbarous” operation, with the suggestions of the barber as to hair oils, restoratives, etc., will appreciate the following : Hair Dresser—Hair’s very dry, sir ! Customer (who knows what's coming) —I like it dry. Hair Dresser (after a while, again advancing to the attack) —Head very scurfy, sir ! Customer (still cautiously retiring)— Ya-as, I prefer it scurfy. Assailant gives in defeated. Cannot sell any hair water this time. How to take a census of the children of a neighborhood—employ an organ grinder five minutes. A conductor ordered Pat, who had no money, to leave at the next station. “ Aye, sir.” But judge of the conductor’s surprise and wrath in finding him aboard when fairly under way. “ Didn’t I tell 3 T outo get off?” said the conductor. “And sure I did.” “ Why, then, are you here again ?” “ And sure didn’t you say ‘ all aboard V’’ This was too much for the wrathy conductor, and notwithstanding the decrees against “ deadheads,” Pat was allowed to pass. Parliamentary. —A minister having preached the same discourse to Jiis people three times, one of his constant hearers said to him. after service, “ Doctor, the sermon you gave us this morning has had three several readings; I move that it now be passed.” This is the latest style of obituary : “My husband is no more. He did not wish to live longer, and if he bad it would have made no difference, for trout entered his stomach, and was soon fol lowed by death. I shall marry the doctor who so kindly attended my late husband. I learned then to trust him. Soft rest the ashes of the departed one, whose wholesale liquor business I shall continue at the old stand.” The effect of eating horse-flesh for sup per—Night mare. “ Have any of Toby’s continued stories been printed into bound volumes ?” in quired a customer of a salesman at one of our large book stalls the other day. “ Toby continued ! Who’s he V* “Why, the man that writes so manv stories for the different publications. I sec his name to more stories than any other man, and I want to get ’em in bound volumes.” The salesman answered in the nega tive, and the verdant customer went elsewhere with his inquiry, which wc dare say is : “ To be continued.” “A Chip of the Old Block.”—Tad Lincoln is attending school in Chicago, whore he occasionally gives evidence that he possesses a share of his father’s droll humor. llis teacher, the other day with a severity not altogether unheard ot, had inflicted the penalty of “marks’ upon another boy for the misdemeanor of blowing his nose. Pretty soon Tad’s hand signalled the tutor’s eye, whereupon Tutor (loquitor)—“Lincoln, what do you wish ?” Tad—“ Want to go out, sir.” Tutor—“ For what purpose ?” Tad—“To scratch my head, sir.” lie goes !