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TOPICS OF THE DAY. The advantage of fresh air from the open windows in a sleeping room has received strong proof from an in cident of,the cholera in Spain. In the house of a rich merchant the cholera attacked, first of all, the one person who slept in the only room of the dwelling which was without a win dow. Pike’s Peak Railroad, when com pleted, as it is soon expected to be, will be the most notable track in the world. It will mount 2000 feet higher lhan the Lima and Oroya Road in Peru. The <ntire 30 miles of its length will be a succession of compli cated curves and grades, with no piece of straight track longer than 3bo feet. The acreage devoted to the cultiva tion of tobacco in the United States is said to have increased from 638,841 acres in 1880 to 700,000 acres at the present time, while the product has Increased from 472,661,000 pounds to 600,000,000 pounds. Until 1870 Vir ginia led as a tobacco-manufacturing state. Now Kentucky is first, The late crop of that state is said to berthe largest ever raised, with the exception of that of 1877, which amounted to 181,484,000 pounds. A German traveller, Doctor Ger hard Rohlfs, contends that it is un wholesome to wear woolens in a hot climate. He bases his assumption on th;s fact that she, p taken into hot countries lose their wool in the course of a year. The lion of North Africa has a thick mane, but in Cen tral Africa none. There must, urges the traveller, be a reason for this loss of a woolen coat in the tropics and from the fact a lesson should be de duced by man which should be rigidly followed. The last thing at which General McClellan worked on the day of his death was an account of the battle of Antietam. lie was preparing a series of articles for the Century Magazine. and the first of them was to be one on Antietam. It was not finished. From between the leaves of a book lying < n the general’s table when he died protruded numerous pages of manu ». script. The book was an authority the general had been consulting and the manuscript was the half written article on his most famous battle. “A Game With a History” is the ti tle of an essay upon Imp scotch, read before the Anthropological Society in London. A very interesting account of that active amusement is given, but it is scarcely fair to distinguish it as if other games were historically want ing. Many of our out-door ami in door sports have been handed down through centuries with but little va riation, showing the impress of time less than language itself. To investi gate their changes it is necessary tc study the mythology and ctis onus a well ns the civil history of nations.’ The chron.cler of Hop Scotch consid ers that it signifies the passage of the soul from earth to heaven. In Roman times the player hopped through a I ibyrinth, but after the introduction of Christianity the shape became that of the church or Has licon. The divi sions were made seven in number to agree with the courts of heaven, para dise being the highest. Si go Gt is I! lilt us Wire. Siege guns built of wire are the newest descript, m of ordnance for the British national service. A very tough steel wire is used, having a breaking strength of one hundred tons to ’lie square inch, which is wound over a steel tub - as tape maybe wound on a reel, being frequently lastened oil to secure its cuh'«i n, and so neatly put together a; to look precisely like solid metal. An i xperimen'al howitzer has been ma le up .n this principle, and passed a satisfactory proof at the royal ar enal. wicti. It has a caliber of ten inches, but weighs only about 7,000 pounds. In its trial this howitzer threw a shell of 360 pounds with a charge of twen y-eight pounds, ai d attained a veloci ty of 1,000 feet per second—a result which may be compared with two guns of a similar weight which are at present in the service. One of these is the eight-inch howit zer which fires a shell of just half the weight—namel , 186 pounds—with a velocity of 950 feet, and the other is the 100-pounder gun cf 6.6 caliber, which, with its light shot of one hun dred pounds, manages to reach a ve locity of 1,390 feet per second. The trial weapon seems in no way im paired bv the strain to which it has been subjected. — Chicago Journal. Why Hunters M ss Game. A correspondent oi the American Field says that “most of the rifles now turned out of the factories have a front sight upon which the brightest pointful shift from side to side and from base to tip. In all quick shots this must have some influence, whether trim are awaiz of it or not. Take a rifle so lighted out in the sun, and with your eye on the sights swing th* rifle all around the horizon, watch th< change of light upon it, and see how youThay be deceived when in a hurry ‘ Then point it up hill and down hill ri ie sun behind you and ahead o; llu. and see if you can discover hov ~ ever missed any game.” @he oiijcttc. VOL. XII. Christmas Chimes. The meadows are brown, the hills are all bare, And up through the valley the clear, crisp air Is singing a Christmas song. Like the song of the sea in the purple shell, If we list to its notes it will sweetly tell The secret it’s kept so long. It tells of a time so sunny and fair When we watched the clouds of the snowy air For the reindeers’ tiny form. And saw in our dreams such pictures of light, As we iay through the hours of the long, dark night, Away irom the clouds and storm. Such pictures as glow- in fairy tales When told at the hour that daylight pales And the crimson west grows gray, When we list for the chime of liny bells That are hung in the shade of haunted dells And are rung by goblin and fry. It rings on the heart a tearful change Ofa darkened time, so sad, so strange, When our dreams had lost their light. It whispers and sings to the leafless trees Our secret that sighs in every breeze Till the day wears into the night. O, Christmas chimes! Ye are merry and sad, Ye wound the heart and ye make it glad With the music your ringing makes; And tiie weary heart that has dreamed so long Takes up the thread of the broken song And sings lilt it, quivering, breaks. THE RED LIGHT. A CHRISTMAS STOH'l* It was Christmas Eve. Not one of the ideal Christmas Eves of poets and romance writers, wherein the moon Is always at the full, the snow always a-sparkle like pulverized diamonds, and the air always still and cold and clear, but a stormy twilight, with the snow driving steadily from the east, the wind raw and biting, and the sky—what you could see of it— black as ink. But it was Christmas Eve, all the same, and Bertha Hooper's cheeks were as red as the bitter-sweet berries in the woods as she sat, all wrapped up, in the train that was steaming northward, on her way to spend Christmas with her Aunt Almira Higgins. Christmas In the country! tha, who had lived all her life m the brick walls and stone pavements of a iity, the very words seemed to convey somewhat of cheer and joyousness. And Bertha, as she sat with her eyes closed and her little gloved hands safely nestled into a gray squirrel muff, beheld in her mind’s eyes great fires of logs roaring up wide-throated chimneys, walls festooned with hem lock boughs and black green tufts of mistletoe; and she had half composed a poem on Christmas and its cherished associations when the ruthless conduc tor came along for her ticket. “How far are we from Montcourt station?” she inquired, as she gave up the bit of pasteboard. “Next but one, Miss,” said the man, as he hurried on, with his lantern . under his arm. “Half in hour yet.” j She had never been so far from j New York in all her life before. The driving rain in which she had left her home had changed as they progressed northward into the steady fall of snow, which fluttered around them like a white waving shroud. But Bertha Hooper cared little for this. Had not Aunt Almira promised to send Zebe dee, her youngest sou, to the station with the pony to meet her on the arrival of the six-forty train from ; New York? And was not Zebedee - to have a lantern with a red glass : door to it, so she could identify him at j once? She was very pretty as she sat in little black velvet toque, with its curl ing plume of cardinal red and the wine-red ribbon bow at her throat— pretty with the bloom and freshness of eighteen. She was dark, with large hazel eyes, almond-shaped and long lashed, a clear, rosy bloom on either cheek, and wavy dark hair hanging in silken fringe over her broad, low forehead. “Mont Court station 1” bawled the breakman, putting in a snow powdered fur cap, and withdrawing it again as quickly as if he had been a magnified edition of the Jack-in-the box, which children much rejoice at in holiday time. And Bertha Hooper knew that she had reached ter destin ation. Stiff and cramped from the length of time in which she had been sitting in one position, she rose up, with a little steel-clasped traveling-bag in one hand and a dainty silk umbrella in the other, and made her way to the door. All she could see when she stepped out upon the wet and slippery plat form was a blur of driving snow, through which the lights of the soli tary little country depot gleamed fit fully; but the next instant something flashed athwart her vision like a friendly red eye—and beneath the re flector over the station door she saw a tall fine-looking young man, in a fur trimmed overcoat, a seal-skin cap set jauntily on one side of a crop of chest nut curls, and a red-lighted lantern winging from, ids left hand, as he SUMMERVILLE, GEORGIA, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 23, 1885. stood straining his eyes in the stormy darkness, as if to catch sight of some familiar face in the little crowd. “Cousin Zebedee 1” cried Bertha, aloud, and she made one spring into the arms of this blonde-whiskered young giant. For had not she and Zebedee played dominoes and fox-and geese ogether, in the days when she wore blue ribbon sashes, and his hair was a closely-shorn mat of carroty-red? “Oh! Cousin Zebedee, I’m so glad to see you; and I hadn't any idea you had grown half so handsome !” And she gave him a great hug, at the same time holding up her rosebud lips for a kiss. But, to her infinite amazement, the hero of the sealskin cap seemed a lit tle backward in responding to her cousinly advances. “I—l beg your pardon," said he, slightly receding, "but I’m afraid there Is some mistake. My name is not Zebedee and the lady for whom I am looking is some years older than you.” Bertha Hooper started back coloring and confused, and as she did so, a fat, comfortable-looking old lady came trundling along the platform in an India shawl and a boa of Russia sable worth its weight in greenbacks. “Charlie!” she cried, “I thought I never should find you, Is the carriage here?" “All here and waiting, Aunt Ellie,” responded the young man; but he still hesitated a second as Bertha Hooper stood with averted face and motionless figure in the shadow of the building. "Can I be of any service to you?” lie asked. “If you are expecting friends who have failed to meet you “Anybody here by the name of Ber tha Hoo-ooper?'” shouted a stentorian voice, and a tall, raw-looking lad with a lantern —also lighted with red glass —rushed shuffling around the corner. Zebedee himself! red haired and shambling and awkward as he had been in old fox-and geese days. “Oh!” said he, catching up his lan tern so that the scarlet bird's wings flashed out like a spit of flame —scarce- ly more scarlet, alas, than Bertha’s own face. “Here you be! I’m a little late, for the roads is so all-fired bad, and I couldn't start the pony out of a walk. Come on. How de do? Be you very cold?” “Zebedee,” said Bertha, clinging almost hysterically to her cousin’s arm, “who’s that young gentleman with—with the other lantern?” "Eh!” said Zebedee. “That feller with the old lady in a patchwork shawl?” “Ye-.” “It’s Charley Harcourt, the squire's son,” said Zebedee. “Just come from furrin parts!” “Zebedee,” said Bertha, with a curi ous little sound between a laugh and a sob, “put me into the cutter, quick, and drive me somewhere. I don’t c are where! Because—” “Eli!” said Zebedee, staring hard at his cousin, as he packed the buffalo robe around her before touching up the laggard old pony. “Because.” added Bertha, in a spe cies of desperation, “I took Mr. Har court for you; and I hugged him and kissed him.” “Is tha', all?" said philosophical Zebedee. “He won’t care.” “No!” said Bertha, “but 1 shai_* “You ain’t crying, be you?” said Zebedee, noting the quiver in his cousin’s voice. “How can I help it?” wailed poor Bertha. “Twarn’t no fault o’yourn,’’ said Zebedee, consolingly. “Os course it warn’t,” said Bertha, impatiently. “How was I to know that every lantern at Montcourt had a red glass door to it?” And poor little Bertha cried herself to sleep that night. The next morning—Christmas Day, all snowed up into glorious drifts ev erywhere —Mr. Harcourt drove over to the Higgins farm-house. The young lady had dropped a fur glove on the platform, and Mr. Harcourt felt it his duty to restore it to her. And, moreover—here Mr. Charley Harcourt hesitated a little—he hoped Miss Hooper would excuse him for be ing so stupid as to allow her to fancy him her cousin. “I ought to have explained sooner,” said he. “No, you ought not,” said Bertha. “The fault was all mine. “I don’t recognize a fault any where,” said he. And if I aid par doned —” “Os course you are !” said Bertha, rosier and prettier than ever. •Tn that case I am commissioned by my mother to ask your aunt's permis sion to take you over to help us finish deessing the church in time for morn ing service. My horse is waiting.” “May I go. Aunt Almira?” said Bertha with sparkling eyes. “Os course you may go,” said Aunt Almira. What was the end of it all? There is but one sequel to stories like this when youth and bright eyes and hu man hearts are concerned. The next Christmas eve Bertha Hooper and Charley Harcourt were married. But the bridegroom persists in declaring that Bertha did the first of the love making. And Bertha only laughs.— Amy Ran dolph. » The Mouse-Tower on the Rhine. This tower is situated on an island in the Rhine, and is supposed to have been erected during the middle ages by some of the robber-knights that then infested Germany. The ruins have been covered with stucco and converted into a watch-tower. Its name is popularly derived from the legend of the cruel Archbishop Ilatto of Mayence. According to the story, as told in the well-known ballad of Southey, the crops of the district had failed one year, and all the poor people were starving. But the rich bishop had granaries filled to overflowing, which ho was holding in order to profit by the advanced price of the grain. The wretched people besought the bishop to give them food from his abundant stores. To rid himself of their importunities, the bishop ap pointed a day for all the poor to come to his barn and receive a portion of grain. When they had all gathered in the building, the cruel prelate ordered his servants to fasten the doors and set fire to it, thus burning the wretch ed beings alive. The next day a whole army of rats were seen coming toward the bishop's palace. He fled foi safety to this tower on the Rhine, but they pursued him, swimming the river and scaling the walls of the tow er; and making their way into the room where the terrified bishop was trying to conceal himself, they de voured him alive. This was in the year 970. A different story concern- I ing the mouse-tower, however, is given | in Murray’s Hand-book of Germany, i Tiiis asserts that the tower was not ' built until the thirteehth century, more than 200 years after the death of Bishop Ilatto. "It was intended, with the opposite castle of Elirenfels erected at about the same time, as a watch-tower and toll-house for col lecting duties upon all goods which passed the spot. The word manus is probably an older form of mauth, meaning duty or toll, and this name, together with the very unpopular ob ject for which the tower was erected, perhaps gave rise to the dolorous story of Bishop Ilatto and the rats.” —lnter- Ocean. Fast Railroad Time. “It's a foolish statement,” said As sistant Superintendent Howland, of the C., B. & Q., pointing to a para graph cut from a railroad paper pub lished in Chicago. “I refer to this paragraph, which somebody has mailed me with a big interrogation mark on the margin: ‘A train on the West Shore run eighty miles an hour not long ago. The fast mail train on tiie C., B. Q. regularly makes sixty miles an hour on certain portions of its run.’ I am astonished that such a statement as this should appear in a railway paper. No train in America was ever run eighty miles an hour, nor no engine without a train. Os course our fast mail train doesn’t make sixty miles an hour any portion of its run, regularly or irregularly. A mile or two here and thereon a down-grade may be covered at sixty seconds to the mile, but that’s all. I have run a train for twenty-two years and I tell you I don’t want to ride eighty miles an hour or anywhere near it on the best track tiie Chicago, Burlington & ' Quincy lias, and we have just as good roadway as there is in the United j States. Eighty miles in an hour is I practically an impossibility with our present locomotives and track. For years I tried to beat the record be tween Mendota and Galesburg, an hour and forty-six minutes for the eighty miles, with two stops, but we couldn’t do it. When they talk of I their sixty miles an hour you tell them they lie. Beats ail the fast-run ning stories that go around. The other day I read that a train in Eng-* land regularly ran ninety miles an hour for 470 miles.”-- Herald. Very Like a Tornado. “Papa, what is a tornado”” asked a youths ul seeker after information. Glancing nervously around the room to see if the coast was clear he said: “You have often heard your mother blowing me up for bringing company home without previously notifying her?” “Yes sir.” "Well, that is as much like a tornado as anything I know of. But you needn’t toil your mother that I said so, however.'’— New York Journal. EXPLORERS IN A PLIGHT. Unexpected Adventures in Little-known Regions. Dilemmas, Some of them Ridiculous and Others Dangerous, It often happens, says the New York Sun, that explorers find themselves in some unexpected dilemma, and, unless they are quick enough to immediately extricate themselves, the results are sometimes serious. Lieut. Cheyne’s adventure with a polar bear in the arctic regions shows the advantage of keepirg one’s wits about him in an emergency. Lieut. Cheyne was an English officer in one of the Franklin search expedi tions. Early one spring he was sent with a couple of sledgemen to examine the condition of some provision depots that had been laid down the previous fall. They took nothing with them but a tent and sleeping bags, rations of pemmican and hard tack, and a small supply of tallow to be used as fuel in thawing their pemmican and boiling their tea. One morning, after they had traveled about 150 miles from the ship, Lieut. Cheyne was awakened by something pulling at the corner of the tent. He lifted the tent flap just in time to frighten a big white bear, and the animal was in full retreat over the ice before Cheyne had extricated himself from his sleeping bag. The party had more serious work on hand than bear hunting, and they would have let the animal go if it had not been suddenly discovered that his bearship had torn open the tallow bag and eaten every ounce of fuel. Here was a predicament. The men were five days’ journey from the ship, the weather was terribly cold, and they could not eat the solidly frozen pemmi can. It was necessary to get that tal low back, and so Cheyne, shouting to his comrades to follow, set out after the bear. The chase was an exciting and anxious one, but the animal was at last overhauled and killed. No time was lost in opening the creature’s stomach, and the men returned to camp in triumph with all the tallow of which tiie unfortunate brute had robbed them. During last winter the James broth ers succeeded in exploring a part of Somauli, in East Africa, where sever al explorers had been killed. The re gion has remained almost wholly un known on account of the hostility of the natives. The bravery of the Messrs. James’s escort rapidly oozed out as they advanced into the hostile country. They refused once or twice to go any further, and finally the brothers hit upon this expedient for infusing them with a little courage. A great noise in their own camp gen erally has an inspiring effect on the natives of Africa. The Jameses had their sentinels fire their guns at fre quent intervals during the night. They report that this practice greatly pleased and inspired their people, who always felt more secure when firing. The young explorer, Thompson, two years ago, was considerably nonpluss ed by a lot of smart and suspicious natives whom he encountered near Mount Kenia in East Africa. He had a few tricks which he very impressive ly performed when the inhabitants were unfriendly, and it was necessary to exhibit his great power as a wizard to induce them to sell him food. He had two artificial teeth on a plate, and the feat that usually overcame all op position when everything else failed was to extract these teeth. These Mount Kenia natives were very much pleased with this feat, but they said that if he could take out two teeth he could remove the others also, and they insisted upon seeing the entire show. Finally they not only refused to sell him food, but threatened to attack him unless he took his teeth out, and he thought best to make a forced march one night to escape his too ex acting acquaintances. Mr. Thompson’s white comrade, Martin, had a more serious experience with some suspicious natives, and per haps it served him right. He was telling a crowd of Wakwafi girls that he could do even more wonderful things than the leader had shown them. Holding out his hand he said be could cut his fingers off and put them on again. One of the girls sud denly sprang forward, seized one of the extended fingers and cut it to the bone with a native knife. She had taken Martin at his word, and was de termined to see the feat performed. Dr. Hayes stole a march on the Esquimaux who refused to take him and his comrades back to Dr. Kane in Smith sound after the failure of Hayes's attempt to return to Upernavik in small boats. Hayes and his men fully expected to die of starvation unless the Esquimaux, with their dog sledges, assisted them to return north. The Esquimaux declined to make the long ourney in rhe growing darkness of the j NO. 49. winter. One day two natives drove up to Dr. Hayes’s hut with a sledge load of walrus meat. They were on their way home after a long journey, and they accepted the doctor’s invita tion to tarry a while. Everybody ate heartily of the walrus meat, and then the natives, overcome with fatigue, laid down for a nap. Hayes and his men stole to the hut, barricaded the entrance, and then drove off with the dogs and walrus meat. They had gone several miles before they saw the Esqui maux in full pursuit. The party wait ed for the thoroughly angry natives to come up, and then told them plainly that they would never see their dogs and sledge again unless they agreed to go with them to Kane’s ship. Finally a bargain was made, good feeling re established, and the poor fellows, to gether with some of their friends from a neighboring village, never rested un til Hayes was back on the ship again, The “Thirteen” Superstition. In Paris there are streets where 12 does duty instead of 13; and the house holders who thus ingeniously sought to circumvent fate would not for the world let the proper number be paint ed upon their doors. Some years ago Prince Napoleon tried to laugh his countrymen out of the superstition; but liis efforts did not benefit his cause, for, with characteristic perversity, he used to invite twelve friends to ca rouse with him on Good Friday, whereby lie gravely scandalized right feeling people, whatever their theolog ical views. In Americ t similar but less aggres ive attempts have been made to correct popular superstition, and numerous Thirteen clubs have been established, the members pledging themselves to dine thirteen at table on every oppor tunity. In France, too, there is a Thirteen club, the headquarters of which are at Senlisj and even in Eng land there is a little coterie of thirteen men who djne monthly at a house numbered thirteen, and pay thirteen shillings each for their dinner and 13 pence each to the waiters. Yet still the superstition is as lively as of yore all over Europe and America, and probably it will continue to flourish and to make people uncomfortable un til the end of time. There are, in all likelihood, men and women who are even now undergoing vague uneasi ness because 1885 happened to be a multiple of thirteen.— Philadelphia Call. A Machine that Calculates. The calculating machine invents by Prof. Thomson appears to excel, in its ingenious adaptation to a variety of results, even Babbage’s wonderful apparatus. By means of the mere friction of a disk, a cylinder and a ball, the machine is capable of effect ing numerous complicated calculations which occur in the highest application of mathematics to physical problems, and by its aid an unskilled person may, in a given time, perform tiie w'ork of ten expert mathematicians. The machine is applicable alike to the calculating of tidal, magnetic, meteor ological and other periodic phenome na; it w ill solve differential equations of the second, or even higher powers or orders; and through this same won- j derful arrangement of mechanical parts, the problem of finding the three | motions of any number of mutually ' attracting particles, unrestricted by any of the approximate suppositions I required in the treatment of the lunar I and planetary theories, is done by sim- i ply turning a handle.— New York ! Sun. Books for the Indians. The only written language of the American Indians was in the form of I hieroglyphics, but this plan of picture- ■ writing was not much used among the ■ tribes of North America. As the spok- \ en languages of the tribes, however, have such a complete dialectic struc- | ture it was not “icult to give this a ■ written form lr ans of the Roman alphabet. This Las been done in many ' instances, and a number of grammars ! and dictionaries have been printed in f different Indian dialects, besides many I other books. Several newspapers are ■ at this time printed among the civil- j ized Indians of the West, and at mis-1 sion stations, in the Indian language. ' The Aztecs and Toltecs kept their his- ; torical and other records by means of ■ hieroglyphics in a very systematic manner. An Odd Public House. A curious public house is among the latest attractions in Paris, it is called i La Taverne da Bagne. The walls are I hung with paintings representing the j horrors of convict life, interspersed , with portraits of notorious Commun- | ists. All the waiters are dressed in | convict uniform and wear the chains i and boulets of the regular/breaf. The ; landlord is Cltoyen Maxime Lisbonne, one of the leaders of the insurrection of 1871.— Lyndon Truth. Gentians. Shiv’ring like children with their garments torn, All the comely leaves of their roundness shorn, Srouehed in the bleached and ahndd’ring grass i find them to-day as I idly pass, Blue gentians. Children ot frost—of winds snow-kissed, Uurtnred in travail—in sleet and mist, 3udding and blowing in the chilling rain, IVith little of gladness and much of pain, Poor gentians ! In pity I bend and gather each one, And hold their, up to the pitying sun, Co give them a glimpse of a fairer day, Wore they shall droop in their quick way, Sad gentians. And I hold them close to my eager face, And the tender lines of their being trace, And I count their goodness to come so late, iVhen no flower is left to be their mate, Lorn gentians. Chough the year of my life wane drear and cold, flay this kindness be left, its hands to hold, Chat some flower of love as a tender sign Hay bloom as a token of summer time, Sweet gentians. —S. B. McManus in the Current. HUMOROUS. All the rage—A mad dog. As a general thing, what a man tews he rips. The thermometer gains notoriety by iegrees, so to speak. The man who is opposed to vaccina tion is probably to be pitted. Even the most inveterate toper ob jects to taking a horn with a bull. A young lady asks . “How can I remove superfluous hair?” Comb the butter. The man who said, “There is a gar ien in her face,” was evidently using liowery language. The telephone is an arrangement by which two men can lie to each other without becoming confused. The king of Sweden and Norway is a poet. The dictum that the king can do no wrong appears to be exploded. “Round again ?” he asked, as the lun put his head in at the door. "Yes, and I’ll stay ’round until I get square.” “Using tobacco in one form," says !ti hater of the weed, “usually leads to the use of it in another.” This is doubtless true, for when a man first takes snuff he must et-chew I “Why Johnny,” exclaimed mamma, “aren’t you ashamed of yourself, going about with such a dirty face ?” “No, I ain’t,” replied Johnny, with a con scious pride in the integrity of his in tentions; “you’d like to have me taken tor a dude, wouldn't you ?” Shying Horses Near-Sighted. "Why it is that shying in horses should be set down to an ugly dispo sition I don’t Jrno.w,” oaSU A pivlUlUent veterinary surgeon to a New York Sun reporter: “It must be because horsemen don’t know what else to lay it to. The fact is that it seldom Is met with unless the horse is near sighted. I have tested scores of shy ing horses for near-sightedness, and in nearly all cases found what I expected. And now, wften I am asked to give points on buying horses, I give this as one of the requisites: Never buy a horse which is near-sighted. Thera are, however, two exceptions to this rule. If the horse is to have a mate, then it doesn’t make any difference about the sight. One horse can go blind if the other is clear-sighted. If the horse is to be used for riding to saddle be careful that he is not near sighted, for he will throw you sooner or later. "The reason why a near-sighted horse shies is very simple,” the sur geon continued. “Os all animals the horse is the most gentle and even tim id. He sees a strange object and his susceptible mind magnifies it into a monster that is going to destroy him. A piece of white paper at the roadside in the night is a ghost and an old wagon in the ditch is a dragon. Eve ry horseman knows that if you drive tiie animal close to the dreadful object the horse cools down at once. It is supposed that it is because the horse makes a closer acquaintance with the object. That is true, but not in the sense in which it is generally under stood. The animal has not been able to see it from a distance. He is near sighted.” The Biter Bit. “Oh, ho!” exclaimed a suburban passenger to his milkman; “got a box of chalk under your arm, haven’t you? Bought it in the city and taking it out to the dairy, eh ? Now, will you be kind enough to tell me what you are going to do with it ?” “Certainly, sir, certainly,” replied the milkman; “your wife tells my driver to chalk it down so often that he has run out of crayons, and I’m laying in a new supply. If you’ll come out to the farm I'll show you your statement of account on the side of the new barn.— Chicago Herald. A I ream.—At Kilmacthomas Work house Hospital a man named Vid e has just b i n admitted, suffering from t right ful injuries. He had b<.en awavfom his wife twelve months, and received a letter from her stating she had dreamed lhal a great accident was to happen to him, and imp! iiing him to return home at once acting en her advice he started for Dub in. He reached Kilmae thoinas, and w hile passing t e bridge that spans the River Manor he fell over the boundary wall, a depth of fifty feet. He sustained eimcussiou of the spine and. cannotrecover.