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Ono ilny n harsh word, rashly said, Upon an evil Journey apod. And like ft sharp and cruel dart It plercod n fond nnd loving heart; It turnol a friend iuto a foe, And everywhere brought pain and woo. A kind word followed it one day, flew swiftly on its blessed way; It healed tlio wound, it soothed the pain, And friends of old were friends again. It made the hate and anger cease, And everywhere brought joy and peace. A Will and The Way. By GWENDOLEN OVEHTON ®ianship of some one who is doing his duty by you is not an uu- Miss Bradford’s sister, Mrs. Gal latin, was doing her duty by Miss Bradford. The former was not at nil pretty. The latter was very, very pretty—which is so much’more charm ing than being very, very beautiful. But Mrs. Gallatin was married and Miss Bradford was not. This came of the fact that Mrs. Gallatin had visited at Fort Preble and had captured an unfledged lieutenant by manceuvriug and a miracle, and that Miss Bradford had spent her twenty-one years in a small Maine town. Boys in the village hail been in love with Bessie Bradford, but she had not been in love with them, and she had, moreover, a decent .appreciation of her own value and knew she was far too good for such as they. There had been a college youth, also, once; but he and she had quarreled before the end of his summer visit. And now Bessie was one-and-twenty and the family worried. It worried itself into a state where even the raising of a mortgage on the home did not seem too great a thing, if it would but in sure her marriage. With the money thus obtained she was Sent across the continent, with instructions to get herself wedded before she came back. She was told to marry a general if she could. If not—anything, down to a second lieutenant. But rank was to hs the primary consideration, Miss Bradford agreed. She picked out a very nice general, mentally. He would be about five-and-thirty, and hand some and dashing. That years went with rank was one of the things the civilian novels of army life she had read had not taught her. Besides, she was romantic—as a very pretty girl should be. So she promised that grade should govern her ehoice. Then she departed to visit her sister at the Presidio. Lieutenant and Mrs. Gallatin lived in the building known as the “Cor ral.” If the Corral were in the city, it would be called a tenement. But Uncle Sam doesn’t quarter his officers in tenements. The Gallatins were cramped for room—very cramped. They had three children and second lieutenant’s pay. So they were poor. Therefore, taking Miss Bradford in was not a pleasure. It was a duty. But Bessie felt the unpleasantness of the situation the very day of her ar rival. “Captain Soutter is going to take you to the hop this evening, Bess,” Mrs. Gallatin said; Bessie was cutting paper bird-cages for her niece. Mrs. Gallatin was mending a pinafore. “I’ve promised to go with Mr. Mil ford,” answered Miss Bradford, stop ping and looking up from the scissors. “Mr. who?” “Mr. Milford. Colonel Milford’s son, who lives in St. .Louis.” “Where have you met him?” The “him” warned Bessie that she was running on rocks. “On the train. We got acquainted. He’s in business in St. Louis, and lie’s coming to visit his people because lie’s in bad health, lie is a very nice man.” “Man! He must be about twenty three. A perfect boy. And his busi ness is being a briefless barrister. Now, let me tell you one thing, Bes sie. You must learn from the first that the civilian son of an officer is no body at all in a garrison. You will hurt your chances badly with the of ficers by going with him. How did he know there was to be a hop?” Bessie finished opening the cage, gave it to her niece with a kiss, gath ered the scraps of paper in her hand and threw them into the waste-basket, clasped her fingers behind her curly brown head, and answered leisurely: “He didn’t know there was to be one to-night. He asked me to go to the first one there should be after our ar rival.” Mrs. Gallatin thought how very, very pretty Bessie was and wondered if her husband contrasted them. ‘ ‘He probably will never think of it again. Captain Soutter is going to call to ask you, this afternoon, and you’d better accept.” “Can one go with two men out here —ante-nuptially?” “Don’t be vulgar. You needn’t consider the Milford boy.” “Oh! but I must, Genevieve, you know. I promised.” Miss Bradford’s big gray eyes were guilelessly ear nest. “I’ve no doubt that pose is taking with the men. But yon can’t make your devotion to promises succeed with me, dear. I know you too well. I can’t remember that they worried you, with the boys at home.” “This promise doesn’t worry me. Not a little bit.” “Well, I should suggest that you take my advice and be less flippant. Recollect that you were not sent ’way out here to flirt with penniless civil ians and small boys.” “If I forget, remind me, will you? I’ll make you a little red silk flag, if you like. I can make flags. I made one for a fair at home, once. You might draw it out of your bosom and wav-> it when you see me about to run oil' the track you have all so kindly and laboriously laid for me to run on. I'll teach you the signals. Mr. Mil ford and 1 studied them from the back of our sleeper. I think there’s some oue at the door, sister dearie.” ! THE TWO WORDS. But yet tlio harsh word left a trace The kind word could not quite efface, And though the heart Its love regained. It boro a scar that long remained; Friends could forgive* but not forget. Or lose the sonse of keen regret. Oh, if wo could but learn to know How swift and sure our words can go, How-would w.o weigh with utmost care Each thought before it sought the air, And only speak the words that move Like white-winged messengers of lovo. —Great Thoughts. It was Captain Soutter, come to for malize the hop arrangement. He was, obviously, very glad that he had come. For Miss Bradford was pretty—ex traordinarily pretty. “I am happy in being a near neigh bor of yours, Miss Bradford,” he told her. He forgot—as men will—bow often ho had cursed the ill-luck which threw him within hearing distance of the Gallatin trio of infants. “Yes?” said Bessie; “you are in our vicinity, then?” “A little above you in the world. I live upstairs. When you want me you have only to pound on the ceiling.” “The—what is it?—quartermaster? The quartermaster mightn’t like mo to wear out his ceiling.” “You flutter me by the implication, Miss Bradford. But I'll settle with the Q. M. if you will only pound. For instance, will you pound to-night when you are ready for the hop, to which it is my dearest wish to be permitted to escort you?” He forgot what he had wished when Mrs. Gallatin had asked him to per form this act of eoflrtesy toward the coming sister. But then he had looked at Mrs. Gallatin and had judged from her of the sister. “I would be only too delighted, if it were not that I have already promised to go with someone else.” JjJThe betrayed captain manifested liis astonishmentand resentment at having been subjected to refusal. Ilq had a high opinion of his dignity, had the captain. “Why, who on earth can have asked you already?” he cried. Miss Bradford had a cool little Northern air, when she liked. She considered the captain’s question in bad taste. So she raised her eyebrows and smiled most sweetly. “I shall hope to have a dance with you, Captaiu Soutter,” she said. And she had, not one, but three. The captain forgot his wrath at the sight of her. When she came from the dressing-room into the hallway to join young Milford, the captain was by the door. He looked at her. “Might I hope to be accorded the second and fifth and ninth, Miss Brad ford?” he asked. “Oh! thank you,” said Bessie. She was grateful, and he was quite ap peased. Now Miss Bradford was a success. She had what is known as a beautiful time for three whole months. No girl was remembered ever to have re ceived altogether so much attention. She always had lovers—and the two don't always go together. Captain Soutter loved her, so did Lieutenant Paxton, and so did young Milford. Bessie loved young Milford. A girl who prefers “cit.” clothes to a uniform is peculiar, to say the least. Bessie didn't say or show whom she loved, except to Milford. She had told him. She had refused Paxton, and she was warding the captain off. But the last she could not do much longer. The captain had a good opinion of him self. He also had a dignity which was not to be trifled with. Mrs. Gallatin was by no means sure of Miss Bradford. So one day she spoke to her. The process of being spoken to can rouse the worst in a girl. But Bessie was in a broken and contrite frame of mind. She and young Milford had quarreled, and she didn’t care what became of her. Sbe might as well marry any ohl man and sacrifice herself for her family. She made a most afl'ecting picture of herself as an offering on the altar of matrimony_and filial duty. She would pine away picturesquely in a year or so, and Will Milford—well, perhaps he would go to the had. She hoped so. It was under this pressure that she solemnly promised and swore to Mrs. Gallatin to marry Captain Soutter if he asked her. What Miss Bradford promised and swore she never broke. So as soon as she and young Mil ford made it up, she set about won dering how Captain Soutter was to be kept from asking her. Yet she could not arrive at any plan. The captain was an impetuous man, and he was neither over well-bred nor nicely dis criminating. Bessie was worried. If it had been that she had promised and sworn anything to young Milford and had had to choose which vow to break, she would not have hesitated. But she had teased him, aud had only answered “maybe.” For which she now suffered. But Tate, came to her aid—as it al ways should and always doesn’t in the case of a very pretty girl. She was going to another hop, and she was going with Captain Soutter. He had invited her at the time that she was practicing for the martyr role. As she couldn’t, therefore, go with Milford, she would wear the gown he liked, which was white silk. For it she had to have white gloves; and her white gloves were soiled. Therefore they must be cleaned. Miss Bradford was an adept at cleaning gloves. She prepared a special mixture of a num ber of chemicals and powders. This mixture had to be whipped—as if it had been the white of eggs—very light and frothy. It had a most unpleasant odor, but it was pretty to look upon. Because the odor was so unpleasant Miss Bradford opened the door into the hallway and stood just within it beating. There was air in the hallway, but there was none in the Gallatins’ quar ters, as the baby bad a cold. Captain Soutter had a cold, too—n frightful one. If he had not had he would would have noticed the smell of Miss Bradford’s mixture. He came through I the hall on his way to his own quar ters on the floor above. Colonel Mil ford was with him. The captain did n’t like the colonel particularly, on ac count of his being liis son’s father. “Ah! Miss Bessie! What a pretty, housewifely picture we make,” said the captain. Bessie smiled encouragingly. “What are we doing? Whipping cream? How good it looks. If Hebe would but feed us with ambrosia.” The colonel smelled the ambrosia; but he held his peace. “I’ll give you a taste, captain, if you want it very, very much. Opeu your mouth wi-i-de. Shut your eyes.” She put a heaping forkful in his mouth. The horrible taste made him gasp. Tlio gasp made him swallow the froth. Colonel Milford laughed. But Captain Soutter went to his quar ters without a word. Bessie went to the hop that night with young Milford. Afterword, while she and her sister and Lieutenant Gallatin were having their supper of crackers and cheese, Miss Bradford told them that she was going to marry the penniless civilian. “But how about Captain Soutter?” wailed Mrs. Gallatin. “Hush! He might hear you. Oh! I’m awfully afraid he’ll never speak to me agflin.” And he never did.— San Francisco Argonaut. Do# <Jivei* Up Life to Save Ills Master. When a man gives up his life for another, posterity erects a monument to his memory; but when a dog dies that his master may live, men stop and think, and John Walker, of Koselle, N. J., was doing a lot of thinking Sat urday night. He was face to face with death, and his dog had averted the blow. Walker left his house early in the morning for a stroll. His dog followed him. He tried to drive him back. Then master and dog started to walk along the Jersey Central Railroad tracks to Elizabeth. Midway between the stations Walker met a heavy freight train running rapidly eastward, making enough noise to deaden ail other sounds. Walker stepped to the west-bound track. His dog, which had been run ning ahead after birds or loitering be hind to make short and noisy excur sions iuto the bushes, closed in on his master when the train neared him. Walker was careless. He never looked behind him, and did not hear or seethe Royal Blue Express. Brake men on the freight train shouted warn ings. The engineer of the express train blew his whistle, with no avail. It was too late to stoj), although the engineer was trying to do so. Walker plodded on. When the train was nearly on top of Walker his dog sprang at him with a growl. Walker turned, saw the train and stepped aside in time to avoid the cars as they swept past him with a roar. Not so with the dog. The pi lot of the engine struck the' animal and tossed him aside. When Walker recovered his senses he looked for liis dog. The faithful animal lay dying, with his back ; broken. Walker carried his dog to the side of the track. The brute licked his hand, feebly wagged his tail, and died in his master’s arms.—New York Press. Salmon That Jump Fifteen Feet. The first full on the Mingan is about three miles from the mouth. It is forty-six feet high, in three pitches about equal in height and with seeth ing pools between. The spawning beds of the salmon are on broad, gravelly bars far up the river.' They must surmount this fall once a year in order to reach them. We camped on a sandbar below the fall, aud watched the struggle. The broad pool below the fall was so full of these royal fish, that their tails and dorsal fins could constantly be seen sticking out of the water. Every minute one or more fish would make a rush from the depths below, spring far into the air, every fibre quivering, and time after time fall back, only the most powerful and determined occasionally succeeding in passing the first pitch. Above that, every nook and crevice in the rocks where the salmon could obtain a rest ing place, was crowded. Great mon sters they wore, weighing from twen ty-five to forty pounds. How .they ever mad e the second and third pitches I do not know, for there was not the good starting chance that they had in the deep hole below the first pitch.— Frederick Irland, in Scribner’s. Indians ami Animals in Bronze* Indians and animals typical of America are to be perpetuated in bronze for the National Zoological Garden at Washington, if the plans of certain men of public affairs at the National Capital are carried out. And Edward Kemeys, the Chicago sculptor, is the artist who is to execute the statues of the fast disappearing red man and the fauna of America. Congress will be asked for an appropriation for the pur pose, and it is expected that that body will respond as generously for the pur pose as it has heretofore in the beau tifying of the great National park. Capt. Kemeys has returned to his Bryn Mawr residence after a six weeks’ visit to Washington and is at work on the project. Are There Living Aztecs? Dr. Saville, of Washington, read a paper before the anthropological sec tion of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in the absence of the author, MissZelia Nut- : tal. The author contended that the I Aztecs are not an extinct race, but many representatives are alive now, men and women of magnificent phy sique, not withered deerepits, as many believe, who still speak the language of Montezuma. Miss Nuttal’s paper was startingly original and productive of much discussion, the greater part oi which, however, was in her favor.— Detroit Journal. KaiTh Not Mere Crust# Dol'd Kelvin does not believe in the theory that the earth consists of a thin crust, including a liquid, lavalike mass. If that assumption has any ground, he cannot see how it is that the crust has not yielded to the tidal influence as readily as the sea, and thus caused the globe to he pulled entirely out ol shape. There is, he says, no reason | whatever for believing that there is | anything more than a very moderate f amount of lava under the earth’s sur i face. INDIA’S FIERCE REBELS. PRESENT OUTBREAK RECALLS THE TERRORS OFTHE REVOLTOF 1857. The Supoya Itebollml, anti tlio Massacre* lVtu’e tlio Most KuvolUng and Urutiil Ever Known-Tlioiirtand* of Europeans Mere Slain by tlio Fanatical Native*. The present rebellion m India re calls vividly to mind the horrors of tlio great Sepoy insurrection. British officers who have grown gray in the service of their country and who have been through many hard campaigns declare that the sufferings of the’ gar risons in the besieged Indian cities in 1857-8 have never been equalled in the warfare of this generation. The spark that fired the hearts of flie Sepoys and actually caused the mutiny was seemingly trivial, but it roused smouldering hatred. There bad been many grievances for the na tives to brood over siuoe the English had established their dominion in India by the conquest of Bengal in 1757—just a century before—nnd lmd by the progressive action of continued encroachment spread their paramount rule over the whole country. Religious prejudices grew bitter, nnd fanatics were assured of victory by prophecies, said to have been of ancient date, foretelling the downfall of England’s power at the end of a hundred years of supremacy. The old infantry musket—called the Brown Bess—had been condemned, and au improved firearm, with rifled barrels, adopted in its place. Lubrica tion of the cartridges was necessary in loading this weapon. Intense excite ment was caused among the Sepoys by the spreading of the story that the new cartridges w r ere greased with the fat of the detested swine of the Mohammedan and of the venerated cow of the Hindoo. As the Sopoys bit off the ends of their cartridges this idea was abominable to them. The report was originally pro mulgated in the military station of Dum-Dum, eight miles from Calcutta. A low caste Lascar in the canton ment asked a high caste Sepoy for a drink of water from his lotah. The Brahmin refused, on the score of caste. The Lascar tauntingly replied that caste would soon be abolished, as Se poys were to lie contaminated by cart ridges smeared with beef fat and hog’s lard. In an incredibly short time every Sepoy had heard about the greased cartridges. Animosities had already been aroused by recent government measures to curb polygamy and re move the restraint on remarriage of widows. Although official denials of the grease story were made, they proved without effect. A native regi ment at Berliampore refused to take the blank ammunition provided for a parade, asserting that the paper of the cartridges had been greased. The* regiment was disbanded and the great mutiny followed. At the outset, tele graph stations were burned, burning arrows shot iuto the thatched roofs of the officers’ bungalows, and calls to natives were spread broadcast, urging them to resist the sacrilegious en croachments of the British. Ho little concert and arrangement were there that while the revolt was general in one portion of the great, straggling contonment and Sepoys w ere butchering their officers, in an other section they wore saluting them as though nothing had happened. Wives, left without protection w hile their husbands were striving to do their duty as soldiers, were cut to pieces in their burning homes, often after their little ones had perished be fore their eyes. A few delicate Eng lish ladies were led to places of safety, with dark horse cloths over them to conceal their white garments in the glare of the burning station, and passed a night of sleepless horror in a ruined temple or under trees. Dawn found the English bungalows gutted and destroyed. Mangled corpses littered the wayside. The Sepoys had departed. More than 2000 of them had made their way to Delhi. The bodies were collected and laid out in the theatre, where a mimic tragedy was to have been per formed that evening. Many of those who had participated in the massacre were in the bazaars of the town, but little effort was made to punish any of them. The mutineers from Meerut, aided by the Sepoys already in Delhi, began a massacre of the Europeans in the Mogul’s capital. The bank was at tacked and plundered. Mr. Beres ford, manager of the bank, took re fuge with his wife aud family on the roof of one of the outbuildings. For some time they stood at bay, he with a sword in his hand, his courageous helpmate with a spear. They de fended the gorge of the staircase, until the assailants, seeing no hope of clear ing the passage, retired to scale the walls in the rear of the house. It is related by an eye-witness that one man fell dead, pierced by the lady’s spear. They were overpoweren and killed, aud the bank was gutted from floor to roof. The revolt spread rapidly. News was taken from station to station that the Sepoys had conquered the Eng lish at Meerut and proclaimed the Mogul Emperor at Delhi. There was desperate fighting on every side, par ticularly in the northwest provinces. Cawnpore fell into the hands of the mutineers, and General Havelock pushed on to recover this important position. The cruelties of the Nana Suhib aud his followers had created a thrill of awe in the hearts of the Europeans. Stories of plunder and rapine came from every quarter. Havelock found the air through which he had to pass in towns tainted from suspended bodies upon which the loathsome pig of the country feasted —all was desolation. When the Nana Sahib heard that Havelock was near at hand he gave word that all his prisoners should be killed. The men were taken out of the jail and massacred, and the women and children, about two hundred in all, were butchered in their cells. The executioners had slashed right and left, after, in many instances, only having wounded their victims. The dead and those who still survived were thrown into pits in an improvised cemetery the next day. Havelock took Cawnpore after a desperate resistance. The rebels blew up the great magazine before retreat ing. The English in Lucknow were then actually in great peri!, and soon to be driven out, and Agra was be sieged. The Punjab forts were threat ened. There wiis a great outbreak in Oude. Atrocities were being com mitted everywhere. Among the many tragedies reported was one at Mohum dee, where the Europeans sought safety in flight after the treasury had been looted. All the women and children were placed in carts and driven away. Sepoys overtook them and killed them while they knelt in prayer, awaiting death. Lucknow was the scene of one of the great conflicts of the war. Tlio mosques were converted into fort resses, and sharpshooters exchanged showers of bullets into the streets. Alines were made by both sides, nnd explosions shook the city. Havelock’s force fought its ivny from Cawnpore to Lucknow, and brought relief at about the time of the most important event of the war in England's favor—the cap ture of Delhi in September, 1857, by troops under General Archdale Wil son. The siege of Delhi proved very diffi cult. After a long assault the fortified city was occupied, after being almost wrecked, by the British, who lost in the last morning’s fighting more than eleven hundred men. Reprisals were in order, and many unarmed natives were pierced -1 by bayonets or cloven by sabres. The excesses were soon stopped, however. The King surrendered, and the three princes of Delhi were slaught ered in cold blood by tbeir captors. The fall of Delhi and the captivity of the King marked the decline of the rebellion. The tidings were car ried from city to city, from canton ment to cantonment. The backbone of the Sepoys’ struggle to throw off the British yoke had been broken. There was much more work done be fore England was absolutely victorious, but peace was restored within a year after Delhi fell.—New Y'ork Herald. KLONDIKE NUGGETS. Some Facts of Special Interest About the New Livid of (iolrf. Here are a few specially interest ing facts about the Klondike region culled from a hundred compiled by 11. S. Canfield for the Chicago Times- Herald: All distances arc gigantic. It is 2000 miles from Sitka to Klondike. Alaska is two and one-half times as big as the State of Texas. It is ns large as all the States east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio, including Virginia and West Virginia. It has the only forest-covered gla cier in the world. It has the best yellow cedar in the world. No land contains finer spruce tim ber. Hay grows as high as a man’s head. Hardy vegetables can be raised. Alaska has the largest river in the world. A man standing on the bank of the Yukon 150 miles from its mouth can not see the other bank. The Yukon is twenty miles wide 700 miles from its mouth. With its tributaries it is navigable 2500 miles. It discharges one-third more water than the Mississippi. In summer all land not mountain is swamp. Underfoot is iceeake; overhead twenty-two hours’ sun. Sweat under blankets in tbe sum mer or get rheumatism. Snowfall in the interior is very light—six inches or so. Owing to dryness there is not much suffering from cold. A tent is as good as a house, and cheaper. No shelter is needed except when the wind blows. At other times a sleeping-bag answers all purposes. . Exposed portions of the body freeze in three minutes. Talk on the icepack is heard half a mile. Men born in southern latitudes have become insane in the long dark ness. Take a chess board and men. They prevent dementia. The medicine chest should hold pills, pills, pills. Enough library: One Bible, one Shakespeare. Under act of Congress communi ties of miners can make their own laws. No thief gets a farer trial any where nor any prompter execution. It will pay to wait a year or two. It cost SIOOO now aud will cost S2OO then. ltii’ih of an Inland. On .Inly 10, 1831, John Carrao, a Sicilian sea captain, sailing in the Mediterranean, was amazed to see a column of water 800 feet in diameter spout up sixty feet into the air. Soon afterward a dense cloud of steam as cended to the height of about 1800 feet. Eight days later Carrao passed the spot again, and found an island twelve feet high where was previously 700 feet depth of water. At this time the isl aud was ejecting large quantities of vapor and volcanic matter, and the sea in the neighborhood was covered float ing cinders and dead fish. Two week's more aud the island was 200 feet high, and had a circumference of three miles. Several names were given it by marining people, and at last three Nations claimed it. Trouble was imminent, when the island set tled the dispute by vanishing again. At present the place is marked on the maps as a shoal, but a shoal under many fathoms of water.—Science. The Strongest Chain. The greatest aud strongest chain ever made has but recently left the Tipton Green Iron Works. It is in tended for crane work at Chatham wharf, and consists of oval links forged several of 3J-inch rods, each link being twenty inches long and thirteen wide. Since there was no machinery available for testing a chain of such dimensions, the test was made by actual suspension of a weight of 89(1,000 pounds from each link.— Springfield (Mass.) Republican. Unhealthy Mexican Killers. To be a ruler iu Mexico is almost os unhealthy a business as it was to be a ruler of Rome in the days before the fall of the empire. Mexico has had fifty-five rulers since 1821. Four of these were executed, one poisoned, four murdered, and nine killed in bat tle. —New York Journal. CURIOUS FACTS. The firm of Black & Green, paint dealers of Sandusky, Ohio, has been dissolved. There is a colt in the English Derby of 1899 named “Nemasthenipponske iesterizo. ” The Red Lion, an inn at Ardmore, Penn., lias been a licensed public house, for 100 years. Airs. J. P. Miller, of Chicago, has in her possession the sword which Lord Byron carried in the war for Grecian independence. Blondel, the harper, did not discover the prison of King Richard. Richard paid his ransom, and the receipt for it is among the Austrian archives. Horatius never defended the bridge. Tlio story was manufactured by tbe same gifted author who gave the world the account of Soaevola’s heroism. Mrs. Nancy Baker, a cripple seven ty-five years old, of Valley View, Ky., put her hand in a hen’s nest in which she had placed twelve small chickens, and found a live-foot snake which had swallowed six of them. Her son killed the snake. H. .T. Jones, of Cincinnati, bought a violin a few years ago for $75 and gave it to his daughter. While it was being repaired recently he accidentally discovered that it v. as an instrujnent he himself had made in 1818 ns an ex periment and sold it for $5. At Trier the remains of a large Roman house have been excavated. It faced on the main street of the old Roman city. A richly-colored mosaic floor and the first w inflow discovered in a Roman building are the most in teresting things brought to light. A West Auburn (Ale.) man agreed to share the blueberries in his pasture with a neighbor and to placard the pasture to keep others out. After the placards were put up his neighbor picked ball' the blueberries and told the owner that his were on the bushes ready to be picked. A Caribou (Ale.) farmer grubs stumps by building a fence around them, poking some wheat under them in holes made with a crowbar, and then turning two hungry hogs loose in the inclosure. The hogs root for the wheat and break up the dirt so that the stumps may be dragged out easily. In view - of the computed seven thou sand earthquakes within historic times, twenty-nine of w hich destroyed nearly one and a half millions of lives, it is some relief to know that the shocks are proof that the earth is alive. When its seas and air shall have been ab sorbed, it will lie a quiescent dead globe like the moon. Mary Gryan, of Nev York, was young and pretty, but she bad an eye to the future, and was fearful of be coming too fat to conform to tbe usual standard of beauty. This fear preyed on her mind so much that she finally became insane, and w T hile crossing the river on a ferryboat jumped off the deck and was drowned. The Conquest of Diphtheria. In a treatise on diphtheria and its treatment by serotherapy, shortly to be published, Dr. Charles Bichet, who was the first to apply the serum injec tions made famous by the work of Dr. Roux at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, gives some interesting statistics on the practical results attained since the dis covery and application of the method. He goes back thirty years for statis tics relative to the mortality caused by diphtheria. In 1867, when the population of Paris was just half what it is now, there were 696 deaths from the scourge. From that year they in creased gradually until 1872, when they attained the number of 1135, and did not fall again below 1000 until after the discovery of serotherapy. In 1876 diphtheria caused 1500 deaths, and in 1877, 2390. For three consecu tive years then the average was over 2000 - . It fell a little afterward, but up to 1891 the annual average ranged be tween 1400 and 2000. In September, 1894, the Roux method was applied, and at once be came widely used. For the year 1894 (only four months of which should be counted) the deaths fell to 980. In 1895 there were but 440, and last, year only 423. It would seem, then, that serotherapy has reduced the mortality in diphtheria to an average of less than one-third of that which was main tained for a quarter of a century. If the statistics be examined, not year by year, but by periods of two weeks, the improvement is even more marked, not only in true diphtheria, but also in diphthcnatic affections. In the years up to 1894, for instance, there were never less than forty deaths from croup in any fortnight: hut since that year there have never been more than six for i a like period. In short, since the introduction of serotherapy, even in the most unfavorable weeks, the mortality has been invariably less than half the average for the years 1867-94, and many times only one tenth as great.—New York Sun. A Great Fire-Fighter. The New Yorker made her earliest appearance as a fire fighter at the burn ing of the Sound steamer “City of Richmond” at her pier, foot of Peck Slip, on March 7, 1891. She was called from her berth at the Battery and, sailing up the East River, “opened fire” on the burning boat with a monitor nozzle while still in mid stream. The stream struck the boat with terrific force, knocking the wood work in every direction and breaking off strong uprights aud supports os if they had been pipestems. There were several land companies working on the boat at the lime, both engine and hook and ladder, and they dropped their hose and tools and fled in dismay at the beginning of this liquid bombard ment, fearing for their lives. The Chief in command at the fire rushed to the end of the pier aud sig naled to the New Yorker to shut off the stream that was creating such a panic. For a moment the order was misunderstood, and, thinking the stream was wanted in another posi tion. it was shifted. In doing so it hit the end of the pier and almost lifted the roof of the wharf building at the end. Finally it was understood on board the New Yorker that the big stream was not wanted, six smaller lines were substituted by her crew, and these greatly assisted the land forces iu getting the fire under con trol.—St. Nicholas. POPULAR SCIENCE. The habits of ants are more like those of a man than are the habits of any other of the lower animals. The Bethlehem (Penn.) Iron Com pany successfully oast the tube for the first sixteen-inch gun to be constructed in this country. Moro than 100 gross tons of metal were used. The casting is nineteen feet six inches long and seventy-four inches in diameter. The biggest brain in existence is that of the elephant, though not in proportion to the size of the animal. But the matter of proportion does not seem to be of absolute importance as au index of mentality. There is a little South American monkey, which, though not particularly intelligent, has a brain bigger than a man’s relatively to size. That insects have an acute sense ol taste is assumed from the way in which they pick out the sort of food they want to eat. Sir John Lubbock made many experiments, from which he drew the conclusion that ants have an excellent sense of smell. The same authority states that insects are able to hear sounds which are entirely beyond our range of perception. There are 110 mountains in Colo rado whose peaks are over 12.000 fact above the ocean level. Forty of thesa are higher than 11,000 feet, nnd move than half of that number are so re mote and rugged that no ono has dared to attempt to climb them. Some of them are mussed with snow, others havo glaciers over their approaches, and others are merely masses of. jagged rocks. The needle of a compass does not point directly to the north. In the first place, the north magnetic poie docs not coincide with the north pole, nnd then east or west of a zigzag line which moves east and west the needle of a compass points west or east of the north magnetic pole. A ship’s com passes have to lie corrected and the variation determined once or twice a year, at all events. Within a few years the question has been raised whether sun spots are really depressions, or holes, in the sun's surface, as they have generally been considered to be by astronomers. Professor Rieeo, of Catania, concludes as the result of a long series of obser vations, not only that the spots are cavities in the sun, lint that their depth can lie approximately measurod. He states that the average depth of twenty-three sun spots measured by him was about fill) miles. The pigment in the human skin has ; been a recent subject of investigation i by Al. Bruel, who finds the coloring i matter to be distributed in patches in the interior of the epithelial cells, tho I tissue between the cells being color ; Ipss even in black races. The pignt6i.it. I itself may be quite black, or of any | shade up to a light yellow. The dif ference in the color of races depends upon this difference in the shade of the pigment, the distribution of the coloring matter being the same in all races, and the actual amount probably the same. Capses of firay (lair*. Gray hairs are honorable, no doubt, but their advent is not usually hailed with any exuberant joy by men, and certainly not by women, and it is curi ous to note in going through life at what varying ages people commence to show the passage of years by the change in the coior of the hair. And vet the whitening of the hail’ docs not always portend the approach of age, for the hair of some individuals labor ing under certain passic 113 has been known to become gray in a single night. Many reasons have been sug gested for gray hair; some assert that, the cause is a contraction of the skin about the roots of it, and from this cause suppose that Polar animals be come white, the cold operating as the contracting power; but this theory is untenable, or we might all turn gray if we happened to be exposed to par tieularly hard frosts. Asa matter of fact, there are fewer gray people in Russia than in sunny Italy or Arabia. The more likely reason is that the vi tal power is lessened in the extreme ramifications of those almost impercep tible vessels destined to supply the hair with coloring fiuid. The vessels which secrete the fluid cease to act, or else the absorbent vessels take, it away faster than it is furnished. This cer tainly appears to be feasible, for grief, debility, fright, fever and age all lnivo the effect of lessening the power of the extreme vessels. Against this theory it may be urged that if the body be again invigorated, the vessels ought, according to our reasoning, to again secrete the coloring fluid, but. to this it may be replied that the vessels which secrete this fluid are so very minute upon their ceasing their functions they become obliterated and nothing x'an ever restore them. —New York Ledger. The Toad *u the Cellar. “Though I was born and raised it Massachusetts, where some of the peo ple are much bent in their ways, and now and then a trifle superstitious, especially the women folks,’’remarked a resident of Falls Church, Ya., to a Star reporter, “I was never a believer in such nonsense until I became a resident of Virginia. lam not a be liever in it now, although it does not seem to do any harm. I moved into anew house a couple of years ago, and somehow things seemed to go wrong constantly. First it was one thing, and then it was another. 1 mentioned the matter to an old colored auntie, who did our laundry work, and she told me that it was because there was no toad frog in the cellin'. She said it w as good luck for a uew house to have a toad in the- cellar, anil that many builders always left a frog in the cel lar when they finished a house. As it was such a simple matter to set things right, I caucht a toad anil put it in the cellar, and, strangely enough, things began running all right immediately. Wince then my cellar has never been without a toad frog, and to that ex-, tent I am superstitious.”—Washing ton Star. Lucky Three. The popular superstition about the “divine number three” is that it is al ways fortunate. Asa matter of fact, it is not. If the Fates were three, so were the Furies. If the Graces were three, so were the judges in hades and the heads' of Cerberus. There were three disloyal tribes in Welsh history, three robbers in Orion’s belt and three tyrants at Athens-