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It is stated by tlio Medical llecord,
(hat the United States Government has
paid more money in the investigation of
the disease of hogs than it has for all the
diseases affecting the human race
Labor Statistics, it is now proposed to '
establish a Bureau of Criminal Statistics, 1
of a somewhat similar nature so far jvs
ihe gathering of material is concerned.
The greatest” centre' of industrial ac
tivity today is the Argentine Republic of
South America, where phenomenal
growth—more rapid relatively than that
of the United States—is seemingly affect
ing the European financial market.
An agitation among the natives of In
dia in the province of Bengal is disturb
ing English officials. It is said to he ai:
outgrowth of the Irish'struggle for home
rule, and may take the form of a general
refusal to pay taxes to England.
| There are few countries where fires ape
i more disastrous than in Russia; the
| yearly average of the European part is
! more than 40,000, destroying nearly
135,000 buildings, valued at about $35,-
000.000. This great number is due to
the fact that the houses are of wood and
not separated except by hedges of twigs,
which help to spread the lire.
The fragrant and savory nutmeg is
placed on the list of active poisons by
the hospital of London, because a boy of
eight years, after eating two whole nut
megs, fell into a comatose state and died
within twelve hours. Likewise, we be
lieve,sarcastically observes the New York
Tribune, corncobs should be branded as
formidiblo toxic agents. Dr. Mulhattan
reports that a colored child in Texas, six
weeks of age, after swallowing nineteen
large eomeorbs, whole, fell into convul
sions and died within thirteen minutes.
Assuredly no druggist should be allowed
to sell corncorbs without a physician’s
The Detroit Journal recently headed
its column of Michigan news with the
following challenge: “Leap year is gone,
yet can any one tell of a bona tide case
wherein a Michigan girl really proposed
to a man during the year? Give names,
please; no generalizations.”
prescription.
Tin- startling assertion is made in one
of the opening pages of a recent work on
prison reform that “judging by the num
ber of commitments, year by year, to the
penitentiaries and state prisons, crime
has increased in the United States, rela
tively to the population, since the war
l>v not less than one-third.
The total area under cultivation in
corn, wheat, rye and oats in the United
States last year was about 140,000,000 j
acres, or nearly 219,000 square milts.
This is less than half the 322,000,000
acres of public lauds which have not
been surveyed, much of which is well
adapted to the cultivation of cereals.
“Most, of the sardines soid nowadays,”
says a grocer, “are nothing lmt small
herrings, put up in boxes with gaudy
labels and French inscriptions. In East-
port, Me., there are nineteen places
where they turn out sardines, besides
three at Lubee, two at Jonesport, and
one each at Millbridgc, Lamoine and
Robinston. When it was first attempted
to make sardines from herrings it was
found that the difficulty lay in eradicat
ing the herring flavor. It took years of
experiment to accomplish this. Finally
a manufacturer succeeded in producing a
combination of oil and spices which re
moved the trouble.”
If. is asserted by the Rural New Yorker
flint “More sheep and lambs are killed in
New York than in any other city in the
world, over two million' head being
slaughtered annually, and with the in
creasing demand for mutton and lambs
the chances an that, she will continue to
hold first place for some time to come.”
The North German Gazette says that
owing to the increased traffic on the- rail
ways, the Prussian government lias or
dered the construction of 7,000 new
goods-wagons. and has hired 1,500 wag
ons from abroad. It will also ask the
Landtag to vole about $15,000,000 for
the purpose of increasing the rolling
stock of the railways.
It is hard for the clergy to please
everybody nowadays. A. Boston woman
complains that her pastor never looks at
her when he preaches, but devotes all his
attention to the sinners on the other side
of the church. For this reason she says
that liis sermons do not have the moral
effect on her which they ought to have.
On the other hand, a Chicago woman re
cently complained that her pastor invari
ably looked at her when he was preach
ing, especially when he denounced hum
bugs and hypocrites, and she wanted to
know if it wasn’t an outrage to treat re
spectable pcw-hohlers in this way. When
the clergyman finally heard of her griev
ance he laughingly explained that he
wasn’t looking at the woman at all when
site tin night he was but. at a certain pil
lar behind her, the sight of which, for
some mysterious reason, always seemed
to clarify his thought.
The New York Herald calculates that
“a single year of failure in agricultural
production would bring a famine the like
of which lias never been in the history of
all the centuries since civilization began
and yet we have philosophers posing
as statesmen who think all a farmer is
good for is to east his vole for the fa
vored political party."
Italy is rearranging her railroad system
on the plan of her great neighbors, so as
to make it more efficient, in carrying
troops to any threatcated point. It seems,
comments the Cincinnati Enquirer, as if
the war burdens would never elpse over
them. But they have increased at such
a frightful rate since 1870 that every one
who can is running awav.
Colonel W. E. Earle, of Washington,
has presented to the State of South Caro
lina the great, seal of the Confederate
States of America. The seal is of pol
ished bronze three inches in diameter,
bearing on one side the inscription:
“The Confederate States of America.
22d February, 1802. Deo Vindicc.”
And on the other an equestrian statue of
Washington.
In spite of the largely increased con
sumption of coal oil, owing to the de
rided favor in which lamps are held for
illuminating purposes by fashionable peo
ple, the price, states the San Francisco
Chronicle, keeps low and manifests a
tendency to go lower. The owners of
oil wells owe a debt of gratitude to the
artists of the United States who have
improved the form of coal-oil lamps to
such an extent that they have become ar
ticles of ornament as well as utility. If
it were not, for this fact the immense pro
duction of coal oil, so largely in excess
of the demand, would have brought
down prices to a stage which would
have destroyed all the profit in the busi
ness.
Captain D. 1*. Dobbins, Superintend
cut of the Ninth (Buffalo, N. Y.) District
of the Life Saving Service, has perfected
a life car which will probably be intro
duced by the Government at all stations,
lie has made the car what it should be,
a boat, and llius is enabled to send it to a
wrecked vessel 3000 feet from shore,
whereas the old life car could not be
used for more than a quarter of that, dis
tance. With a water bottom he has
overcome the. tendency of the car to cap
size and let enough water into the in
terior to drown all the inmates. With a
canvas chute, he has perfected a means
for loading the ear in the heaviest sea
without danger of dropping the person
being rescued into the water, or of filling
the ear with water. As an additional
precaution, however, lie has fitted up in
the interior a small pump which, worked
one way, will rid the boat of any water
that may get into it, and, worked the
other way, will supply air for those in
side to breathe.
Says the Boston Transcript: “How
long the Grand Army of the Republic
may survive as a distinct and important
organization may be guessed from
glance at the number of Harrison voters
of 1840 wlio voted for President Harri
son's grandson in November. In Iowa
there was a club of 3000 of these men
and in Ohio the roll of 1840 Harrison
voters reached 0831. The Iowa mem
hers’ names, ages anil places of residence
! in 1840 as well as in 1888, were pub
I lislicd by tlie Des Moines Register. The
| ages ranged from sixty-nine to ninety
seven. Allowing for the fact that the
soldier discharged in 1805 might have
! been but eighteen years old, while the
! voter of 1840 must have been twenty-
| one, it appears that the Presidential elec-
! tion of 1910 will hear about the same
relation to the Grand Army veterans that
| the election of 1888 boro to the voters
for William Ileury Harrison. But after
that distant year the “soldier vote”—
unless we have had some more wars in
the mean time—will have ceased to be a
terror to the politicians.”
fREE PLANTING.
The Practical Observance of Ar
bor Day in the West.
"armors of the Plains Benefited
by an Extended Rain Belt,
One of the local Colorado papers some
lime ago published the following item:
There has been no entire failure of crops
in western Nebraska or Kansas since the
big drouth of 1880. During that time,
Iowa, Illinois and some Eastern States
have been parched more tlum once.
The reason for this was found in a
very general tree planting. This has
been one of the annual labors of the sut
ler of the plains, and as a result the rain
belt has been steadily extending further
west with each succeeding year. Where
once the sandhills were given up to the
gopher and jack-rabbits, are now seen
cosey farm-houses, fields of growing
grain and herds of cattle fattening for
the Eastern markets. The westward pro
gress of tlie rain limit—the imaginary
boundary of the region within which falls
sufficient rain to sustain vegetation and
beyond which even cattle find scanty
picking—has been so marked that it is
almost possible to trace each year’s march.
Already three-fourths of the vast region
has been covered, and another decade
will have seen the last of the Desert
under cultivation.
The extent to which trees have been
planted on the plains is easily observable
along any of the railroads. Leaving
Omaha or Kansas City, over the Union
Pacific for Denver, one goes through the
rolling country extending alialf-hundrod
or more miles back from the Missouri, the
streets of the little towns lined with rows
of shade-trees,and looking cool and invit
ing. Each farmhouse has its grove of
cottonwood, maple or walnut trees hard
by. The lanes about the house are lined
with trees, and frequently there are rows
of trees all around 10, 20
or 40 acre lots. Then every little
stream or spring is made to furnish nour
ishment to other trees which line its
bank. In places, acres upon acres of
young trees arc planted in long rows,
traversed by ditches supplied with water
from a neighboring stream, by the friend
ly aid of a windmill, or, 'where practica
ble, by a part of the stream itself turned
aside. Further west the number of
trees seen is less and less, and finally
there is nothing but a waste of barren
land. Not a tree is in sight, not even a
scrubby cottonwood, except right on the
banks of the sandy streams.
Eastern Colorado and Western Kan
sas have overcome the lack of rain to a
great extent, by systems of irrigation.
Great ditches extending from away up
among the mountains west of Denver
convey water out over the plains, and
wherever the system of irrigation ex
tends the desert is made to blossom.
The change from the desert to the irri
gated district is even more striking here
than when entering the rain-belt, for in
the latter the change comes gradually.
Unfortunately the supply of water is
limited, and barely sufficient to supply
the districts already established,
while there is a demand for
water from a large outlying’
country. A movement is on foot to obtain
Congressional aid in establishing storage
reservoirs. But with the rapid western
movement of the rain-belt and the in
creasing rainfall in the vicinity of the
mountains, it is a question whether the
expenditure of millions on irrigation for
western Kansas and Nebraska would he a
profitable investment. Still it would
open up hundreds of thousands of acres
of land now untillnble. But between
nature and irrigation it will not be long
before the last vestige of the “Great
American Desert” disappears, supplanted
by a region of unsurpassed fertility.—
[New York Tribune.
A Deadly Railroad.
Nobody will ever know lu>w many
lives the building of the Canadian Pacif
ic Railroad through Maine cost. The
dead unknowns have been buried like
sheep. A correspondent of the Dexter
Gazette, writing from Elliotsville, says:
“An old, unused burying ground (where
an interment had not taken place for 25
years 'prior to the' commencement of the
C. P. R. It.) is being rapidly filled up.
A few days ago your correspondent
counted, scattered around among the
skeletons of old horses, seven newly-
made graves, llre.se eontuined the re
mains of workmen on the C. I*, who had
, no friends in this part of the world.”—
Wild Hogs ns Vermin Exterminators.
Mr. Otto Plotfkjthc New York hanker,
lias a fine country sent in the Ncversluk
Valley, near Guymard Station, Nf Y., on
tlio Erie Railroad. A considerable section
of the estate, including a wild stony and
wooded tract along the western declivity
of tlio Shawnngunk Mountain range, has
been inclosed in a strong wire fence, 12
feet high, and set apart as a park foi
deer and other fancy animals and game
birds. The rocky ledges and thickets
on the tract furnish favorite lairs foi
snakes, including rattlers, and other Ver
min. With the view of ridding liis park
of these disagreeable tenants, about three
years ago Mr. Plonk imported a litter of j
five wild hogs from the Black Forest of
Wurtcmbcrg, Germany, and turned them
loose in tlie park, trusting to them to j
destroy the vermin.
The wild swine are savage and danger
ous beasts, with huge tusks and long
erect bristles, and arc almost as fleet of
foot as deer. They are great reptile
hunters, and will tackle and speedily kill
rattlers and other venomous snakes.
These savage animals are restless as
well as wild, and about a year ago a
number of the herd, which had been in
creased by natural additions, broke out
of the park and betook themselves to tlie
fastnesses of the neighboring mountains
and swamps. These outlaws have multi
plied in numbers, and in the audacity of
tlieir depredations upon the crops and
stores of the neighboring farmers they
have become a real terror. They hide in
the daytime and maraud at night. No
dog dares tackle them, and they arc as
fleet and cunning in flight as wolves.
Some of these days there is likely to be a
line chance for boar hunting in the
mountain region along the Neversink.—
[New York Times.
The Mexican Wasp.
If you have never been stung by an
old-fashioned Mexican wasp, sjiys tlie
Los Angeles (Cal.) Tribune, it is an ex-
perience you want to avoid carefully,
contenting yourself with sueli information
about the little beauty as you can gather
from' third parties and documents. It is,
when mature and healthy, nearly two
inches long, with a sting that looks like
the point of a fine cambric needle. It is
a browinsli-red in color, and its disposi
tion is always hostile. When it stings
you there is, for a moment or two, a sen
sation of numbness about the part, which
gives place to a pain that can only be
described as agony. If you could imag
ine how it would feel to have a wire
drawn through the most sensitive part of
your body and then raised slowly to a
white heat, you could, perhaps, form a
theoretical idea of wliat the feeling is
like.
The sting is never fatal, and the pain
passes away after an hour or two, but it
is simply anguish while it lasts. During
the Mexican War one of the companies
of Doniphan’s command camped in an
old building where there was a colony of
these wasps. They managed to disturb
the insects in some way, and tlio com
pany was completely routed and demor
alized—some of the men ran miles away
from the place before they were found
and gathered in again. Dr. Gunning of
Beshoar, Col., has made quite a study of
these articulates, which, he says, repre
sent an unclassified member of the wasp
family. There are, I believe, no living
creatures, outside of snakes, scorpions
or centipedes, able to inflict so much
suffering.
A Convincing Portrait.
Mr. Harry Furniss, tlie well-known
caricaturist on the staff of Punch, tells
the following anecdote, which amusingly
illustrates some of the troubles of the
harassed portrait ‘painter:
A man once called upon a portrait
painter and asked him to paint his father.
“But where is your father?” asked ho
of the brush.
“Oh, he died ten years ago.”
“Then how can I paint him?” asked
the artist.
“Why,” was the reply, “I have just
seen your portrait of Moses. Surely, if
you can paint the portrait of a man who
died thousands of years ago, you can
more easily paint the portrait of my
father, who has only been dead ten
years.”
Seeing the sort of man with whom ho
had to deal, the artist undertook tlie
work.
When the picture was finished, the
newly blossomed art-patron was called in
to see it. He gazed at it in silence for
some time, his eyes filling with tears, and
then softly and reverently suid:
“So that is my father? ah, how he is
changed."
A Country School.
Pretty and pale and tired
She sits In her stiff-backed chair,
While the blazing summer sun
Shines in on her soft brown hair,
And the tiny brook without,
That she hears through tho open door.
Mocks with its murmur cool
Hard bench and dusty floor.
It seems such an endless round—
Grammar and A. B. C.
The blackboard and the sums,
The stupid geography;
When from teacher to little Jem
Not one of them cares a straw
Whether “John” is in
Or Kansas in Ornahi
But Jemmio’s bare, b|
Are aching to wade
Where the trout to his 1
Shall leap with a quick,
And his teacher’s blue eyes stray
To the flowers on tho de-k hard, by,
Till her thoughts have followed her oyes
With a half-unconscious sigh.
Her heart outruns the clock
As she smells their first sweet scent;
But when have time and hoart
Their measure in unison bent?
For time will haste or lag,
Like your shadow on the grass,
That lingers far behind,
Or flies when you fain would pass.
Have patience, restless Jem.
The stream and the fish will wait;
And patience, tired blue eyes—
Down the winding road by the gate,
Under the willow shade,
Stands someone with fresher flowers;
So turn, to your books again,
And keep love for the after hours.
—LOmaha Herald,
HUMOROUS.
Every bakery has its pie-late.
Regular church goers—Sextons.
Reprcsentativosilof the pen—Pigs.
A moving scene—A game of chess.
Some grocers’ scales never learn the
error of their weighs.
You can never judge of a man’s sor
row by the sighs of his hatband.
The hog trust will make the lover of
pork chops bristle with indignation.
According to the market reports,
onions are strong at ten cents a hunch.
Your washerwoman may be a good
soft-soaper, but she is not always a white-
washer.
A girl always wants a fellow to tie a
true-lover's knot when she gets him on
the string.
If she who hesitates is lost, tho mau
who stutters must have great difficulty in
finding himself.
The latest device of the Church So
ciable Committee is to raise the temper
ature of the room to the roasting point in
order to augment the sale of ice cream.
It has been tried and works first-rate.
The man who first suggested the use of
an X as the signature of a person who
could not write was no philosopher. The
fitness of things should have leal him to
select the cipher, which as a nautograph
is eminently significant in most cases.
Popinjay—Blobson, your wife is like
a Damascus blade. She is so keen.
Blobson—Thanks; but I am sorry to say
she lacks one quality quite as essential to
the Damascus blade. Popinjay—Indeed I
What is it? Blobson—Good temper.
Sentenced to the Bamboo.
This punishment is as peculiar as most
Chinese punishments are. The man is
seized by four or five stalwart attend
ants, thrown down on his face, liis loose
pyjamas rolled up. He is firmly held
outstretched in this position by men at
his head and feet. Two operators then
squat down opposite one another on each
side of the victim. One takes a strip of
seasoned bamboo about three feet long
and one inch wide, and begins lightly
spanking the backs of tlie thighs. He
gives twenty of these apparently harm
less spanks, and then hands the bamboo
to his vis-a-vis, who gives liis twenty,
and then hands it back; and so ou, turn
about, until the two hundred blows are
administered.
At first the punishment, looks ridicu
lously light; hut by tlie time the first fif
ty blows are reached the skin of the parts
beaten begius to assume the appearance
of thick wash-leather; and before the
hundredth blow the skin begins to fly oil
in loose white flakes; before the time
two hundred blows have been struek, the
whole of the back of both thighs looks
like a mass of swollen raw liver, though
not n drop of blood flows from the pai-ts.
It is sail? that a man would expire under
the excruciating torture of two hundred
and fifty of these blows. I have never
seen anything like tho exquisite agony
depicted in that man's livid, quivering
! features, when he was carried into tlie
prison to recover.—[Boston Commercial
Bulletin.
