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Bingen on the Rhine
A soldier of the Legion, lay dying in
Algiers,
There was lack of woman's nursing,
there was dearth of woman’s tears.
Hut a comrade stood beside him, while
his life-blood ebbed away,
And bent with pitying glances, to hear
what he might say.
The dying soldier faltered, as took that
comrade's hand.
And he said: "I never more shall see
my own. my native land.
Take a message and a token to some
distant friends of mine.
For I was born at Bingen, at Bingen on
the Rhine.”
"Tell my brothers and companions, when
they meet and crowd around
To hear my mournful story, in the pleas
ant vineyard ground.
That we fought the battle bravely, and
when the d*y was done.
Full many a corpse lay ghastly pale, be
neath the setting sun,
And mid the dead and dying, were some
grown old in wars.
The death wound on their gallant breasts,
the last of many scars,
But some were young, and suddenly be
held life’s morn decline.
And one had come from Bingen, fair
Bingen on the Rhine.”
"Tell my mother that her other sons
shall comfort her old age,
For i was aye a truant bird, that
thought his home a cage;
For my father was a soldier, and even
as a child.
My heart leaped forth to hear him tell
of struggles fierce and wild,
And when he died, and left us to divide
his scanty hoard.
I let them take whate’er they would, but
kept my father's sword.
And with boyish love, I hung it where
the bright light used to shine,
On the cottage wall at Bingen, calm
Bingen on the Rhine.
Tell my sister not to weep for me, and
sob with weeping head.
When t,he troops are marching home
again with gay and gallant tread,
But to look upon them proudly with
calm and steadfast eye,
For her brother was a soldier, too, and
not afraid to die.
And if a comrade seeks her love. I ask
her in my name,
To listen to him kindly without regret or
shame.
And to hang the old sword in Its place
fmy father's sword and mine)
For the honor of old Bingen, dear Bengen
on the Rhine.”
<ls voice grew faint and hoarser, his
grasp was childish weak,
Hs eyes put on a dying look, lie sighed
—and ceased to s^eak.
His comrade bent to lift him, but the
spark of life was fled,
A soldier of the Legion, tn a foreign land
was dead.
And the soft moon rose up slowly, and
calmly she looked down,
On the red sands of the battle field with
bloody corpses strewn.
Tea, calmly, on t!*at dreadful scene, her
pale light seemed to shine,
As it shone on distant Bingen, fair Bin
gen on the Rhine.
—Mrs. Norton.
Two Points of View.
BY MARY MARSHALL PARKS.
Copyright 1901: by Daily Story Pub. Cos)
A mocking bird, drunk with sun
dime and the scent of apple blos3om
was flying from tree to tree and carol
ing ecstatically—an animated spring
song gone mad.
From the door of the little brown
house at the head of the orchard
;merged a wee, rosy maiden, herself
ts dainty and sweet as an apple blos
som. Her hair was primly brushed
back and tightly piaited, and her ging
ham dress was a miracle of crisp
starchiness.
She ran down the steps, across the
yard, and peered through the lilac
hedge. A lanky, slovenly boy of four
*een was stretched upon the grams,
deep in a book.
'‘Rob,” she said, in a stage whis
per, “come here.”
‘‘What do you want?” drawled the
boy, without moving.
“Come here! I’ve something to tell
you.”
He arose slow'ly, shaking back his
mkeinpt hair, shuffling his unlaced
ip /. n
'
Sob," she said, in a stage whisper.
*hoes into place, and slouched across
the yard.
"Mr. Ames proposed to Aunt Lucy
last night, and I heard him.”
"Oh. go ’way!”
"He truly did.”
What’d he say?”
You see, I was In the hammock in
*he grape arbor, and they didn't know
I was there.”
"Listening!” said the boy, scorn
fully.
"I was not! I was listening to the
mocking bird. It was spinning among
the apple blossoms and singing like
* Cl *a*y thing, just as it is doing now.
think it sang all night, for I heard
’t whenever I ‘woke. What do you
-"oppose it does that for?”
“I dunno. Bee stung it mebbe. Get
on with your rat killing.”
Well, I didn’t notice a word they
®cid until I heard a chair scrape
“cross the porch, and he cleared his
throat tremendously. Then I peeped
through the leaves. He was sitting
very close to her, and he said:
Miss Phillips, I —I —you must have
B * en ~ I that Is, you must know—l
I- ’ And then he kissed her.’*
Her eyes were exclamation points!
Well, said the boy, breathlessly.
“That’s all.”
“What!!”
“S-sh! Don’t talk so loud. That’s
all I can tell you. Then they were
engaged.”
“Jsmentaly! Why, how’d she know
what he meant?”
“Why, she knew!”
Must be a mind reader then.”
Pshaw! She knew from the way
he acted. She’s known a long time,”
said the miniature woman, with a
wise look.
Well, of all the fools. And he took
a prize for oratory last year, too. He
ain t much like a feller I was readin'
about yesterday. He went down on
his knees, so- ” And the youngster
flopped down on the grass with the
grace of a young kangaroo, and rolled
his eyes like a dying cow. “And he
said, ‘Qu-ween of my liear-rt’ and a
lot more stuff that I can’t remember.
It was bully,” j le added, falling back
into a lounging attitude.
“Lend me the book.”
“Pa got it,” he said, indignantly.
‘I kep’ it behind a row of books in
the book case and he got a-hunting’
somep’n and found it and chucked it
into the Are. I don’t care. I can
write a piece just as good, an’ get It
by heart. Catch me a-makin’ such a
fool of myself as that college dude."
“When you have written it may I
read it?”
"Yes,” he replied, condescendingly,
“I’ll let you see it. It’ll be a cracker
jack, you bet.”
“Maybe I could help you write it,”
she suggested, humbly.
“Oh, 1 sha’n’t need any help,” he
“I d-don’t —you—think—I—er—that
is.” • • •
said, complacently. “I know just how
it ought to go.”
‘‘Grown people are so commonplace,”
she sighed. “Do you suppose we’ll
ever be like that?”
“I-aftd, no!” said he, as he slouched
back, to his hook. “If I thought I’d
ever be such a fool as that feller, I’d
trade myself off for a dog and then
shoot the dog.”
• • *
A mocking bird, drunk with moon
light and dew, was careering from
tree to tree, singing madly, and send
ing showers of pink petals down on a
couple w r ho were wandering through
the orchard.
Her hair was a golden (angle, and
the soft folds of her gown fell with
studied carelessness from her ivory
throat. His manner was the manner
of a young man deeply, devotedly in
love with the dearest girl in the world.
From his high, shining collar to his
polished shoes, all was Immaculate,
irreproachable. Not a hair on his
glossy head was out of place.
They were silent. He, because his
tongue refused to speak the words
that were clamoring for utterance.
She, because she was sorry for him.
It was not maiden shyness that lurked
behind her demure face and down
cast lids, but pure perplexity. No
master of diplomacy ever faced a more
delicate issue than that which con
fronted her.
“It’s exactly eight years since Uncle
John asked Aunt Lucy to marry him,”
she said at length. “It was in apple
blossom time, and the mocking bird
was singing in the moonlight. The
odor and the song always bring It
back to me.”
“By Jove! Eight years He
was struck speechless by the contem
plation of so much bliss.
“Do you remember how we laughed
over the proposal? By the way, you
never showed me the one that you
talked of writing.”
“I never wrote It,” he said, with a
grin that was almost a grimace. Then
with a tremendous effort, “I—d-don’t
you think I —er, that is, w-we could
d-dispense with anything of that sort,
Lucy?”
The situation for the next several
moments did not admit of connected
conversation, but as they strolled to
wards the house a litt'e later, she
said, with an arch look, “We’ve grown
up quite as commonplace as the rest
of the world, after all, haven’t we?”
“Commonplace!” he ejaculated, fer
vently. “Well, if this is common
place, I ”
Another pause, a lengthy one.
“Do you remember wondering why
the mocking bird rioted among the
apple blossoms and sang like a mad
thing?” he asked, solemnly, after a
little. “I know now. If I could do
the same It wouldn’t begin to express
my feelings.”
When, after several pauses, they
finally reached the lilac hedge, the
young man startled the nestling rob
ins with a sudden guffaw of laughter.
With his mind’s eye he saw a lanky
boy on his knees in the grass beyond
the hedge.
'•A half-grown cub of a boy is sev
eral kinds of an idiot.” he said.
THE WEEKLY NEWS, CARTERSVILLE, GA.
CHANCE OLD NAMES.
Moy Foreigner* Begin Fife Here Fndei
New Aliases.
The clerk of the city court mad a
public the names of seventy persons
who changed their names in legal form
in the year 1900, says the New York
Evening Post. Most of the original
names are of palpably foreign extrac
tion. Asa rule all reasonable requests
for change of name are granted. They
are then filed away, the petition giv
ing the avowed reasons for change and
the judgment passed upon it by the
court. A glance at the records and
the various name changes gives rise
to considerable speculation as to the
real cause of dissatisfaction. Why, om
wonders, should a name of such aristo
cratic twang as Waldemar Ruthyar bo
cast aside in prefence to the hackneyed
title of Henry Smith? On the next
page of the records is the reverse of
the question of high-sounding names,
where one finds the somewhat plebeian
cognomen of Gumbinsky changed to
Von Tilzer. What evidence of nation
ality remains in the name of Jay, un
less it Is discovered to be a corruption
of Jacobowsky? There scarcely could
be any greater effacement of a family
name than to substitute the noncom
mittal Blank for Polanger. Sebastian
Bibo is lost entirely in Frank Walter
and Ruzicka becomes the American
ized Rose. Many changes result from
family quarrels, when another family
name is taken in place of the legiti
mate one. Often the wills of eccentric
relatives demand a change in the nama
of the beneficiary, without which no
legacy can be obtained. Occasionally
debt or imprisonment has brought the
name of some person into such disre
pute that anew name is sought for
which anew reputation may be built.
In the case of foreigners who have be
come American citizens the stiff con
sonants of Russia, Bohemia and Po
land prove too much for our Anglicized
tongues and a change is really neces
sary. Under this reason come such
changes, no doubt, as Chmelicek to
Luhan, Neugroschel to Rpchelle, Yu
zukjian to Yuzuk, aail Rochmovitz to
Kockinore. By far tne larger part of
the list of changed names belonging
to those ending in ski or sky. The ter
minal here is generally dropped, leav
ing the parent stem. The dropping of
this ending results often in names that
bear not the slightest trace of the na
tionality of the changers. Kempinski
becomes plain Kempin; Jumpolsky is
reduced to the Dickenslike name of
Jam pole.
AS TO UTILIZING BAD EGGS.
Available for Tannin* So Long as Tlu-y
Are Not Bluck,
Waste eggs—that is, heated or spot
ted eggs—unless they are absolutely
black, are utilized for the preparation
of a tanning solution known as salted
egg yolk. This is used largely by tau
ners of America and Europe in prepar
ing fine kid skins. The eggs are first
broken in a churn, in which they arc
rapidly revolved for about twenty min
utes. The albumen rises to the top in
the form of foam and is skimmed off,
leaving the yolks. Next 30 per cent
by weight of salt and 1 per cent of
powdered boracic acid is added, ana
the churning continued, the skimming
being again repeated. This compound
is then stored in barrels. Crystallized
are made from the broken eggs
and surplus stock, says the Egg Re
porter. These are largely used ou
shipboard, but increasingly of late by
bakers, as well. Good eggs are broken
and churned, thoroughly mixing
whites and yolks. The liquid is then
dropped on slowly revolving stone cyl
inders, through which arms of the
same material extend. Over these
cylinders is passed a strong current of
warm, dry air, evaporating the mois
ture from the eggs. After being thus
dried the egg is scraped off by means
of a stone scraper. The resulting pow
der is known as crystallized eggs.
When hermetically sealed they may be
kept indefinitely. For use they are
merely moistened with water and
beaten up to the natural consistency of
their original state.
The Emperor’* Portrait.
When Mr. Charles Denby was minis
ter to China a publisher wrote to him
asking him to procure a photograph of
the emperor of China. His reply,
printed in a New York exchange,
shows that the pictures published as
likenesses of the emperor cannot De
trusted. Mr. Denby wrote as follows:
It would afford me great pleasure to
send you a photograph of the emperor
if one could be procured. After making
inquiries I find that his photograph or
portrait of any kind, has never been
taken. The Son of Heaven is not vis
ible to any eye except when foreign
ministers are received in audience. On
such occasions all cameras or sketch
books are absolutely forbidden. When
the emperor goes out In his sedan chair
all the cross streets are barricaded with
mats, and every door and window by
which he passes is closed. Should
any one be caught spying, death fol
lows immediately.
Overlooked the Gold.
An old resident In the eastern Trans
vaal has told his friends in Kensing
ton how he passed through the enemy’s
country with SI,OOO in gold, which the
Boers never succeeding in detecting.
After spending some months on his
mine, cut off from the world, he deter
mined to say good-bye to the Boers.
So he beat SI,OOO worth of gold into
clasps and clamps and nailed them
onto his box. He daubed the whole
with thick paint and set out on his
journey. Although his box was fre
quently searched the Boer officials
never suspected the metal clasp3, and
the adventurer at length landed with
his treasure on safe ground.
ANTS OF WICKED WAYS
SOME TOO LAZY TO MOVE AND
MANY ARE SLAVEHOLDERS.
Qn<>r Cf They Make of Mnro* Their
Herd* of Hemp.lic Animal* Orchid*
Cultivated by Am.-1 heir Asrieultiiral
• k el, ■me—Have a Knowledge of X-ll its.
Science is after all your real icono
clast. Not content with toppling the
busy little bee off her pinnacle of
virtues, it goes on to attack the ant,
for so long held a pattern and moral
of thrift, says the New York Sun.
Ants, say the wise men, have about
every bad trait of humanity—they are
lazy, greedy, tyrannous, given to con
quests and coveting the territory of
their neighbors. Along with the ter
ritory they oftener than not take the
neighbors themselves, holdiug them
ever after in slavery.
Just how this comes to pass Is some
thing of a puzzle. There are 700 odd
species of ants duly classified. Several
of these species, say observers, must
possess hypnotic power, since they at
tack, subjugate and reduce to slavery
other species which are much bigger,
stronger and more populous in the
nests.
After they have got their slaves
many other queer things happen. The
slaves in some nests are classified, so
many told off as soldiers to defend the
gates, so many for domestic duties,
foraging, the care of eggs and so on.
The soldier ants are further subdivid
ed. The larger number by constant
exercise develop fierce nipping jaws
and poison stings. The others in some
curious fashiou increase the size of
their heads, especially if they happen
to he considerably bigger than their
masters. The big heads enable them
to block a passageway against an in
vading foe.
Exceptionally elastic slaves are
transformed into living honey bottles.
They are found with abdomens dis
tended, and full of the honey dew the
working slaves bring in. Honey dew,
be it said, is a secretion of the aphides,
or lice, which the ant swarms
keep in herds within the nest.
Ants are passionately fond of honey
—indeed, of all sweet juices. They are,
further, fond of mushroom and grow
them within their nests. They also
cultivate certain species of orchids,
and bring about distinct modifications
of the plant form, stinging the young
tender stems so fiercely that they will
become almost globular and distil a
thin, semi-saccharine juice, which the
ants no doubt regard as rare wine.
One particular species of orchid, indeed
is so infested with a virulent stinging
ant that the collection of it is very
dangerous. The minute the plant is
touched all the ants swarming over
it .such to the point of attack. That
is, however, less curious than the fact
that the orchid will not flourish with
6ut the ants, but withers away after
a feeble, straggling year’s growth.
Some few among slave-holding ants
remain capable. The most part be
come utterly demoralized. They can
not build nests, care for their young,
or iven feed themselves. Not a few
when the slaves have chosen and built
anew nest ride to it upon a slave’s
back. One species is noteworthy for
having only slaves for workers, yet
never containing within the nest any
slave eggs or young.
As with bees, the queen ant is the
mother of the swarm. Unlike bees,
however, there are often several queens
in the same swarm. The workers are
rudimentary females. In slave mak
ing the victors kill all the perfect
ants and take home the others.
Perfect males and females have
wings, which they drop as soon as the
marriage fight is over. Worker ants
have no wings. Worker ants, or rather
slaves, and the aphiacows, by no
means exhaust the list of ant depend
ents. They keep various smaller in
sects as men keep domestic animals.
Just why is not yet clear. The fact
remains, though, that in the crannies
of some nests herds of a thousand al
most invisible small creatures have
been found.
A year is the average span of ant
life, but some species live five years,
and exceptional individuals as much
as seven. All species show the liveli
est concern for their eggs, lugging
them up into sunshine upon fair days
and scuttling back with them the min
ute the sky is overcast. Upon a fickle
April day the eggs may be moved a
half dozen times. They are nearly as
regardful of the apis eggs. Indeed,
throughout, they protect their milch
kine, shelter them well, and take pains
in rearing their young.
Hospitality is not unknown among
ants. A stranger guest receives dis
tinguished consideration. But w'oe to
the stranger ant who comes uninvited.
He is hustled and pummeled, and final
ly hurt mortally unless he saves him
self by showing superior fighting pow
er or is possessed of a clean pair of
heels. After he is down a mere squirm
ing trunk, bereft of legs, unable to bite,
the slaves lay hold on him, and drag
him outside the nest to die. Possibly
it is an ant superstition that bad luck
follows a stranger’s death in the house.
Formic acid, the distinctive ant
product, is one of the greatest vegeta
ble stimulantß known. The earth of
a nest becomes so saturated with it
that some people explain the famous
Hindoo mango trick by supposing that
the mango seed which comes to flower
and fruit before your eyes is planted
In a pot of ant heap earth.
However that may be, it is estab
lished beyound cavil that ants of some
speies cultivate, and presumably fer
tilize their favorite food stuffs. Cases
in point are the trimmer ants and the
harvesting ants, both of which abound
in Texas. The trimmers prune a sort
of weed which is to their taste so that
it shall grow strong and sturdy. The
harvesting ants go even beyond that
They clear disks several yards across
round about their nests of all manner
of vegetation, then plant the disks with
ant. rice, which they watch and tend
until it ripens, letting no vagrant or
alien twig show its head.
Ants are entitled to regard themselves
as early discoverers of the X-ray and
its mysterious powers. Sir John Lub
bock experimented exhaustively as to
the effect of colored light upon ants
in captivity. He laid strips of colored
glass over the nests, first putting the
ant eggs all under one special color.
In the end he determined that the ants
did not much mind red light, that
green was. in a measure, innocuous,
but that invariably the eggs were hus
tled from under the violet rays. In no
case was more than a single egg left
there at the end of two hours, and of
tener than not the removal was accom
plished within less than an hour.
HE KEEPS UP THE STOCK.
While Ilin with a Bob Show,
lie lloe* the Training: at Home,
“Speaking of queer ways of making
a living,” said a popular character ac
tor who was in this city last week, “I
am reminded of a quaint little experi
ence of my own a few days before our
company started out on the road. I
had set out to see a friend who runs
a vaudeville agency the other side of
Madison square,” he continued, “and
not finding him on the premises I sat
down in his private office to wait. Pres
ently a broad-shouldered, swarthy man
sauntered in, leading three fine-looking
dogs by a chain, and also took a chair
in the back office. Naturally we fell
into conversation, and he told me that
he was a professional dog trainer for
vaudeville entertainments. ‘My wife
and brother-in-law does the exhibit
ing,’ he said, mentioning a ‘team’ that
I remembered having seen on variety
bills, ‘and I does the educating. When
they are on the road I always have at
least two new dogs in hand, so if any
thing happens to the old ones we
wouldn’t run short of stocks.’ That
struck me as being a very curious vo
cation and I asked the trainer a good
many questions. In reply he gave me
a lot of interesting details of the busi
ness—how the dogs of the same species
will differ widely in intelligence; how
tricks are impressed on their memory
by a series of cues, and how the best
of them will sometimes forget their
entire repertoire for an evening at a
time and cover the showman with
shame. I remarked incidentally that I
would imagine the animals would be
most apt to obey the man who trained
them, and asked whether it wouldn't
be an advantage for him to take them
on the road himself. ‘My wife under
stands ’em all right enough,’ he said,
‘and I want to stay at home and keep
up the stock. I was in the profession
once,’ he added gloomily, ‘and I got
enough of it. This racing up and down
over the country don’t suit me.’
“Just then my friend came in and as
the trainer turned to greet him I got
a good look at his face for the first
time. He had been sitting with his
back to the light and I only knew in a
general way that he was very swarthy,
but I now saw, to my surprise, that his
cheeks and forehead and even his nose
were heavily pitted with black spots,
like tnose made by a powder explosion.
‘Who is that man?’ I asked, after he
had secured some mail and departed.
‘Why, that’s said my friend, ‘the
greatest trick dog trainer in the busi
ness. He picked it up himself a few
years ago, and now he’s getting rich.’
‘He seems to have met with some acci
dent,’ said i. ‘What is the matter with
his face?’ ‘Oh, that’s tattooing!’ re
plied my friend. ‘He used to be a tat
tooed man in a museum and was fool
enough to have the stuff put all over
his face. Since he’s set up as a trainer
he has tried every way in the world to
get it out, but has only succeeded in
spreading the marks.’ This struck me
as being by long odds the most aston
ishing combination of occupations I
ever heard of. Tattooed man and pro
prietor of trick dogs—two excellent
ways of living without work. I’m go
ing to cultivate that gentleman when I
return,” said the actor thoughtfully.
“He must be a remarkable character.”
—New Orleans Times-Democrat.
It Was a Good Old Pr®*ol.
A draper’s assistant was showing a
lady some parasols. The assistant
had a good command of language, and
knew how to expatiate on the good
qualities and show the best points of
goods. As he picked up a parasol from
the lot on the counter and opened it
he struck an attitude of admiration,
and, holding it up to the best light
that could be had. said:
“Now, there, isn’t It lovely? Look
at that silk. Particularly observe the
quality, the finish, the general effect.
Feel it. Pass your hand over it. No
nonsense about that parasol, is there?”
he said, as he handed It over to the
lady. “Ain’t it a beauty?”
“Yes,” said the lady; "that’s my old
one—l just laid it down here.”—Fun. j
I® Defying Competition.
The country papers have been
claiming that Syracuse has the largest
apple tree In the state. The Syracuse
tree is of the Vandeveer pippin variety
and is in a healthy growing condition.
It measures 108 inches in diameter.
According to the best Information ob
tainable the tree is about 60 years
old. An apple tree in Bourbon, Ind.,
was planted by William Carter In 1848
and is now owned by John Baxter. It
measures 11 feet seven inches in cir
cumference at the ground and eight
feet six inches six feet from the
ground. The top is 64 feet In diame
ter, 45 feet high and 85 bushels of
Vandeveer pippins were gathered
from it In one season.—lndianapolis
Journal. I
A WASTED WARNING.
*T hear,” said the poet,
“There’s anew counterfeit.
Ami the people are cautioned 1
To look out for it.
|
“But I'm not a hit worried.
And I'm not looking out.
As if 1 bad nothing
To do but to scout.
“It’s the five-doliar size
That is crooked, they say.
And that kind of money
Aiu't coming my way.”
—Detroit Free Press.
HUMOROUS.
Blobbs—l’ve been sold again. Slobbs
—I thought you looked rather cheap.
Nell —Jack has proposed to me. Here
is the ring. Belle —Yes; 1 had a finger
in that.
Wigg—He’s an experienced book
keeper. isn’t he? Wagg—Lend him a
few and see.
Sillicus—Everything is machine
made nowadays. Cynicus—Yes; even
office-holders.
lady, can you oblige
me with a bite? Kind lady—No; Put
perhaps my dog can.
“Any bones broken?” asked the cy
clist, who had run down the old man.
“Confound it., yes!” responded the lat
ter; “my collar button is broken.”
Ned—l don’t see why you jilted Miss
Gotrox for Miss Rluegore. They tell
me Miss Bluegore’s fortune is very
small. Jack—Yes; it’s small, but se
lect.
Wife—lt was very nice of you to
bring me this candy. Husband —Yes;
it reminds me of you. Wife —How
gallant! So sweet, eh? Hushand —
No; so expensive.
“This parrot,” said the dealer, “can
speak two languages.” “Really?” re
marked the prospective purchaser;
“what are they?” “Why-ei-English
and his-er-native tongue.”
“My darling," he gurgled, “I cannot
understand what you see in me to
make you love me so.” “Well, Jack,”
she replied, “that's what pa and ma
and all the rest of the folks say.”
Mrs. Mulligan—Poor Pat has had a
leg ampitated. 'Twas an explosion.
Mrs. O’Rourke—Dear, dear! An’ is he
resigned to his fate? Mrs. Mulligan—
His fate, is it? Sure, he only has one.
“I should think a date pie would he
popular,” remarked the patron. “What?
A pie made of dates?” replied the pro
prietor of the quick lunch place. “Oh!
no. A pie that would have the date
of Its manufacture printed on it.”
“Why don’t you go to work?” asked
the good lady, handing out the victuals.
“It’s dis way, lady.” explained the
tramp. “W’en I’m hungry, I’m too
weak to work an’ wen I’m full dejr
ain’t no necessityv fer me to work.”
Nicaraguan Cuntoini*.
Among the many odd customs of
Nicaragua, those relating to the dead
are the weirdest to the stranger.
Some of these have been handed
down by tradition from the Indians,
others were brought over by the Con
querors—and the two are so blended
that it is difficult to tell which pre
dominates. As soon as the medico
pronounces one’s illness fatal, word
is sent to the village padre, who pre
pares to administer the last sacra*
ments of the church to the dying per
son. Placing the consecrated wafer
in the custodia —a vessel of solid gold
or silver, often resplendent with rare
jewels—a procession is formed and
marches through the street. A small
boy, ringing a bell, rushes ahead to
announce the approach of the sacred
presence, and after him follows a
band of music, often a single violin,
playing a dirge. If It be possible to
secure any soldiers, they surround the
padre, who, dressed in brilliant vest
ments, is generally carried in a chair,
over which four men hold a purple
canopy. As the little cortege moves
down the silent streets, every one
bares bis head and kneels, making the
sign of the cross until the last soldier
has passed. Woe to the sacrilegious
stranger who fails to show this mark
of respect, and many have been the In
stances where foreigners were pnllecl
from their horses and even stoned
for neglecting to follow this time
honored custom.—W. Nephew King,
in Harper’s Weekly.
A Woman and til® Telephone.
What a wonderful thing the tele
phone is, and what a comfort to women
it may be made, is illustrated in an in
cident of a few days ago, brought about
by the kind act of a thoughtful and in
dulgent husband, who is a well-known
business man of this city. He decided
to give his wife a birthday surprise,
so he arranged that at a certain mo
ment her mother, who lives in New
York, and whom she had not seen for
months, should ring up her daughter in
this city. When the telephone bell
sounded in the business man’s house
at the time agreed upon he answe-ed
the ring and then, turning from the
telephone, he said to his wife: “Dearie,
here’s your mother on the wire in
New York.” The wife bustled to the
telephone and heard the familiar voice
of her mother In the utterance of one
w'ord, “Daughter.” The answer of the
business man’s wife was: “Oh, moth
er” Next came the sound of a sob
from the mother over the wire, which
was answered with a sob from this
end. These women then proceeded to
cry to each other in the most accepted
feminine style until the telephone
tolls amounted to $5, which announce
ment from “central” caused an abrupt
breaking off of communication. The
business man’s wife declared, however,
that it was the loveliest experience
she ever had.-—Philadelphia Record. .