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W. E HiRP, Publisher. VOLUME I. NEWS GLEANINGS, The first tiling the English veterans asked on getting ashore at Alexandria “W’ere’s Cleopatra?” No fewer than two German expedi tions will come to this country to ob serve the transit of Venus next Decem ber. A California young man, hugging his aged grandmother, forgot that it wasn’t his sweetheart, and broke four of the old lady’s ribs. John Sullivan, the Boston slugger, who pounded Ryan and Ellsott, offered 1 Tug” Wilson, the English champion, SSOO to stand up under his soft-glove blows four rounds, and to Sullivan’s disgust, Wilson went through the ordeal and walked off with the money. An American by the name of Living stone, who has lived in Florence during the past thirry years, is seen almost averv day driving twenty horses—teu spans attached to an ordinary wagon— and he manages them with perfet ease. The harness i3 quite curious in i's adap tion to the purpose of driving so many horses at once. The appropriation for (he signal ser vice has been cut down about $65/ 00. New stations have been established, special reports for tobacco, cotton and augar growers have been commenced, the telegraph bills have of course in creased with the extention of the ser vice. At last a man has beat a bank cashier at his own game. A janitor in a bank at Elizabeth, N. J., fixed a piece of lead with shoemakers wax, and a string, and arranged it in a money drawer so he could jerk out a bill every few minutes. He got about nineteen hundred dollar all told, and then the cashier got onto it. The janitor should lave given chromo, but l e will probably be given three years. Mrs. Lincoln was torn December 13, 1818, in Lexington. Kentucky, and was the daughter of Hon. R. S. rnd Eliza belli P. Todd. She come to Springfield in 1839. and was married to Mr. Lin coin, November 2, 1842. She died in the same house gin which die was mar ried. She leaves three sisters, residents of Springfield, Illinois, Mrs. 0. M. Smith, Mrs. N. W. Edwards and Mrs Dr. Wal lace. Troubulous times are upon the lottery men. In St. Louis three of them were sent to jail for six months; in Louis ville Justice Matthews decided that there was no jurisdiction to enjoin the postmaster from refusing to deliver let ters to a lottery, and a Washington spe cial says Postmaster General Howe, whenever the question is brought before him, will decide that letters containing money or money-orders directed to a lottery, shall not pass through the mails. The receipts of the post office depart ment for the quarter ended March 31, 1882, were 119,956,235 86; payments .$9,976,307,81 excess of receipts $979,- 927 99; probable profits on money or ders $75,000 ; total *1,084,827 99. To get the whole amount of expenditures there should be added to the amount paid the amount withheld from subsi dized Pacific railroads, about $250,0' 0. and the amount due railroads unascer tained but estimated, $200‘000; total $450,000. This makes the net receipts for the postal service for the quarter, above all expenditures and' liabilities, more than $600,000. An effort is making in Congress to have Washington Territory admitted into the Union, but it is probable that the ambi tious Washingtonians will have to wait awhile. The Territory is a very beau tiful piece of country. In 1880 the lumbeimen cut 250,0C0,000 feet; about 150,000 tons of coal are produced; the manufactured products are valued at 86,129,762; (he wheat product last year was nearly 2,000,000 ouehels; taxable values aggregate 814,000,000, and the population 75,000. Many immigrants are going to Washington Territory this year, but it will be some time before the State can show enough people to give a would be congressman a chance. The required ratio is 151,000. The New York directotv appears this year with 1302 pages and 289,724 names, an increase of 4,577 names over last year. It begins as it has done for many years with Elizabeth Aab and ends with Jacob Zypress. Among the noted names which disappear this year are Henry W. Bellow’s, Lorenzo Delmonico, whose tine first ijjcts in tl <£ii<(t< ij of 982 ; Fletcher U. Harper, ore of the original firm, George Law, Clarkson N. Potter, Samuel B. Buggies, J. Cotton Smith, E. W. Stoughton, Moses Taylor and James It. Wood. The first directc* rv of New York made its appearance in 1786, a paper covered pamphlet of eighty pages. Since then there has been one regularly with one interval 1788—when the changes are deemed too light to need anew book. The shortest name in the present directory is Ox, and the longest is Pfeiffentchneider. —The ruby, sapphire and topaz are simply modifications of one substance, alumina, which, as clay, forms a great of the earth's surface, THE JACKSON NEWS. TOPICS OF THE DAT. Jaitcs Redpath has purchased Mc- Gee's Weekly. Thu Prince of Wales’ individual in debtedness is $3,000,000. The Fxtz John Porter ease will come up in the Senate next Deoember. The King of Siam has determined to establish a legation at Washington. - A Russian colonel was exiled to Si beria for being too lenient to Nihilists. Susan B. Anthony is going to Texas to lecture, and perhaps, grow np with the country. Olive Logan says Bernhardt’s hus band is “highly kissable,” and nobody knows how she found it out. General Newton announces that he will be ready in a few days to blow up another section of Hell Gate. The completed report of the Depart ment of Agriculture on the condition of crops for July is encouraging. Anarchy is spreading in Egypt, and meantime Arabi Pasha is marshaling his forces and getting ready to fight. Governob Cornell is the champion vetoer. He has refused to sign 123 hills passed by the New York Legislature. It is stated that visitors to the Mam moth Gave, in Kentucky, were never so scarce as they are at the present season. A Canadian widow, some two weeks ago, married her daughter’s widower eleven weeks after her husband’s death. Long Sing, tho Chinese survivor of the Jeannette party, has opened a laundry and tea store in Washington. Friends of the River and Harbor bill hope to get it down to $18,000,000, but even then they fear tho President’s veto. It is stated that the American Presby terian missionaries stationed at Alexan dria during the bombardment, were not harmed. Michael Davttt, who sailed for Eu rope a few days ago, collected about $20,000 for the Land League during his stay here. Vennor, the weatherman, is at Ferry Beach, on the Maine coast, and still his predictions call for cool weather and plenty of rain. v At Fremont, Ohio, the hopae of 34*8.’ Hayes, the great female temperance ad vocate, the Sunday closing law is ignored by saloon-keepers. A Miss Alsatia Allen, of Montgom ery, Alabama, is “the most beautiful young lady in the United States,” so Oscar Wildo says. Don’t forget the ad dress. Mb. Geo. L. Senet, the Brooklyn philanthropist, has given another check for $25,000 to the Wesleyan Female Col lege of Georgia, making his total gifts to that institution $125,000. Mrs. Scovtlle is still indignant. It aggravates her to think that a stranger may realize money on the remains of her brother while she is denied that privi lege and is in a destitute oondition. Detroit Free Press fashion note: “Crushed banana” is no longer a popu lar shado. The woman who crushed it came down with such force that she hasn’t been out doors since that date. “Christian Keed,” the Southern novelist, is Miss Frances C. Fisher. Her father fell at the head of his regiment at Bull Run, and is reported to have been the first Confederate killed in Lie war. Several ministers aro preachrag on the Egyptian war, and advancing the theory that the Egyptians of these days are being punished for the hard hoarted ness of Pharaoh to God’s chosen peo ple. A letter of Queen Anne at a recent sale in London sold for 8150. One from Queen Henrietta Maria to Cardinal ■Mazaron went for §lO5. Another of Henry 11., Prince de Conde, sold for S4OO. Tiie public debt of Egypt is §590 - 000,000, and the greater part of it is held in England. She also pays £750,- 000 tribute to Turkey annually. That is why the natives are making a kick for repudiation. Just before he stepped aboard the steamer for Europ", Michael Da.’itt sai<i that imprisonment in England would he better than the treatment he had receiv ed here from some of those whom he had formerly counted as his friends. I'boh information received at the of fice of the Ohio State Board of Agricul ture, it seem3 that the apple crop is going to Ire nearly or quite a failure, how ever unreasonable the statement may sound. > The action of the Senate in placing the tobacco tax at twelve cents is very unsatisfactory to the tobacco men at Washington. What they wanted was that Congress would leave the tax alone at sixteen cents, or reduce it to eight cents, Devoted to -the Interest ol Jackson and Uutts County. JACKSON, GEORGIA, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2,1882. Small snakes have been discovered in the proboscis of flies. They aro about one-twelfth of an inch in length, and two-thousandths of an inch in diameter', it is suggested that the' fly may carry disease germs, and scientists are invest igating the question. A Mormon elder of Salt Lake has had his thirteen wives photographed, both in a group and separately. The pictures have been placed in an elegant album, ami under eaeli woman is engrossed a quotation of sentimental poetry sugges tive of her best quality. Kate Claxton, tho actress, who is summering at Patchogue, L. 1., was en joying a sail in her boat, tho Coquette, a lew days since, when the craft was upset by a squall. Sire was thrown into the water, but rescued without injury, and having passed through both tire and water, may consider herself safe. The New York Sun is receiving com munications giving remedies for snake bites. This is the heroic for rattlesnake bites : Stop the circulation above the bite; suck it if your trams are all right; put throe drachms of gunpowder in the wound, and set it oil' with a match. Sure cure. An other remedy for hi ms is pounded raw onions applied as poultice. In dealing with the Mormon question, the Salt Lake 'Tribune says : Polygamy is a disgrace which is realized in every Mormau home. In every Merman home the plural wives and their children are looked upon as tainted. That this is true is made evident by the anxiety of all such women and children to pas.-i them selves off us the first wives or the children of first wives. A.nd it is further made evi dent by the quarrels which constantly occur in such families, and by the epithets which first wives and children bestow upon the others. Cannibalism in Fiji. It was only people who had been killed tht were considered good for food. Those who died a natural death were never eat on—invariably buried. But it certainly is a wonder that the isles were not altogether depopulated, owing to the number who were killed. Thus, in Namena, in the year 1851, fifty bodies were cooked for one feast. And when the men of Ban were at war with the men of Verata they carried off 260 bodies, seventeen of which were piled on a eanoo and sent to Kowa, where they were received with wild joy, dragged about town and subjected to everv species of indignity ere they finally reached the ovens. Then, too, jnstthinkof the number of lives sacrificed in a coun try where infanticide was a recognized institution, and where widows were strangled as a matter of course! Why, on one (vscasion, when there had beon a borate massacre of Nameiia people at Viwa, and upward of 100 fishermen had been murdered, and their bodies carried l as bokola to the ovens at Bau, no less than eighty women were strangled to do honor to the dead, and corpses lay in every direction about tko mission station. It is just thirty years sinco the Rev. John Watsford, writing from hero, described how twenty-eight victims had been seized in one day while fishing. They were brought here alive, and only stunned when prut into the ovens. Some of the miserable creatures attempted to escape from the scorching bed of red-hot stones, but only to be driven back and buried in that living tomb, whence they were taken a few hours later to feast their barbarous captors. He adds that more human beings were eaten on this little isle of Bau than anywhere else in Fiji. It is very hard, indeed, to realize that the peaceful village on which I am now looking lias really been tlio scene of such horrors as these, and that many of the gentle, kindly people around me have actually taken part in them. —At ' Home in Understanding Men’s Natures. About mid- afternoon yesterday a citi zen who pulls down the scales at 1 ‘JG pounds descended the first flight of stairs beyond the post-office in just the same manner that a bag of oats would have chosen, ami when he brought up at the foot he was in no frame of mind to chip in anything for the heathen in Africa. The first citizen who arrived on the spot knew what his duty required of him on such an occasion, and he smil ingly remarked: “I don’t believe you can improve on the old way!” The second citizen passing was in a hurry; but he knew that he must halt and inquire: “Like that any better than coming down the way the rest of us do?” The third citizen had business at the post-office, but lie turned aside, cleared bis throat, and remarked: “ Evidently fell down stairs? furi ous how it sets the blood to circulating! Some of you bad better see if his nose is broken- good-bye?” There was a fourth spectator, and he slowly entered the door-way, beni over the victim, and remarked: “I’d have given a dollar to see him comedown! lie’s one of the sort who bump every stair!” The fifth" man was about to his mile when the victim rose up. His elbows were skinned, his nose barked, his coat torn and his back sand-papered the whole length, but he was a man who had traveled. He knew that ev erybody in the crowd was hoping to see him jump up and down and shake* his fist-, and paw the air, and to hear him declare that he would lick all the men who could be packed in a ten-acre lot, and therefore he brought a sweet smile to his face, lifted his nut like a perfect gentleman, arid limped up stairs with the bland remark: “Stubbed my toe as I came in the door, vou know, and came near falling in a heat).” — Detroit Free Press. “Gextlemex of the jury,” sa'd an fiisli lawyer, “it will be for you to say whether the defendant shall he allowed - 1 come into court with unblushing foot -ops, with a cloak of hypocrisy ia hi iuth, and draw three bullocks out o! uiy client’s pocket with impunity.” A TALE OF A SHIRT. Tim I.cnutti of Tim* tii* Great low* ttmtvvVtiuu ti m e Out*. [leaver Tribune. ] Apr< pos-of Geneva! Shin-man's visit to P over, a storv is told of the Genorul’s experience with llenry Clay Dean. The two had been friends for years, and when Sherman became General and Dean happened to boiu \Vashington, the later, naturally enough, felt a desire to renew the old acquaintance. , lie called at Sherman’s house and was received with open arms. They talked over old times, and nothing would do but Dean must stay to dinner. “ Hut, General,’- remonstrated Mrs. Sherman in hegthusband’s ear, “ I can’t have such a dirty looking man at my table; can't you spruce him up a lit tle ? ’’ Tho General said he’d fix that, and so ut an opportune moment ho hustled Mr. Dean up stairs, ransacked a bureau, anil produced a clean shirt for him to put on. Airs. Sherman was mollified, and the dinner was really a charming affair, for there is no more delightful, entertaining and instructive conversationalist than Ilenry Clay Dean. Oca year after this event General Sherman was at the Liu dell Hotel, St. Louis, with his family. A card wa3 brought up bearing Henry Clay Doan’s name. Mi's. Sherman was much pleased. “Ho is such a charming talker, we must have him to dinner. Only you must see that he looks presentable.” These were madam’s words to tho warrior. bo Sherman welcomed Dean, and, just before going to dinner, slipped him into a side room and gave him a clean shirt to wear. Dean doffed his ooat and vest, and, after several desperate efforts, succeeded in divesting himself of the shirt lie had on—a soiled, grimy, black thing, that looked ns if it had seen long and hard service. Then they all went down to dinner, and Mr. Dean was more charming than ever, and Mr. Sherman w as in ecstanies. The, next dn v, ns Mrs. Sherman was getting her hie.bin id’s duds and clothes together, preparatory to packing them for the onward march, she gave a sort of a w ild, hunted scream. “ What is it, my dear,” called the General from the next room. “Just come in here for a minute,” replied Mrs. Sherman, between faint gasps. The General went in. Tiicro stood Mrs. Sherman holding in her left hand the begrimed shirt Henry Clay Dean had left. With- her right hand she pointed to certain initials on the lower rp'fi * JOS< ’ IU - Tho initials read It was the identical shirt General Sherman had loaned Henry Clay Dean in Washington twelve months before I rersonal Beauty. The first principle of beauty, as prac ticed in this progressive town, is, “ How to be beautiful.” The wife of an army officer accompa nied her husband many years ago to bis post in a distant frontier town. Among the acquaintances she formed there was a lady who, if remarkablo at all, was noted for being exceedingly homely, awkward, and commonplace. She had a waist like a barrel, shoulders pitchod forward, a rough, thick skin, coarse black liair, large, bold eyes, great foot; and besides all these physical defects she was dreadfully demonstrative in manner. Sho was tlio senior by several years of the officer’s wife. After a tirno tlio fortiuics of war retired the son of Mars, who settled his family in Wash ington. In the meantime the lover of politics had lifted the husband of the homely lady into Congress, and the two friends met in society last winter. Mrs. Mars could not believe lier eyes, so groat was tiio transformation in tlio appear ance of her old acquaintance. Mrs. Congress looked ten years younger than the junior lady. The many ripples of soft auburn liair; a complexion smooth and white ; a fashion of drooping the darkly fringed eyelids, with a faint shading on the under Jid, gave to the eyes a marked expression of shyness and languor. Her manner was full of repose, and strikingly graceful; her feet tlio perfection of symmetry, in French boots; the bauds liad the refinement of pink nails and taper fingers, and even tier voice had. changed and dropped into thoso sweetly modulated tones which pass current for thorough breeding in good society. Poor, mystified Mrs. Mars looked and wondered, pondering on all this, asking herself and elhers, “ How iu the world dicl she accomplish such a motamorphosy?" How? How does the winning boron lap and pass others and reach the lust quarter polo? Through training. Money and time aro the great factors to success, and the way to succeed is to succeed. Mrs. Congress has both. Money purchased her beauti ful hair, paid for Turkish baths and cosmetics, secured the service of a maid who could give proper shading to her eye-lids and touch her the art of droop ing lids. It brought her graceless figure into shapely proportions. It paid chiropodists to treat her feet and mani cures to polish her finger naiis, while time and thimbles tapered the fingers. It employed dressmakers and milliners, salaried a master, who instructed her how to enter the room, bow, pose, seat herself and manage her train, all with the poetry of motion. The moral neces sity to bo beautiful puts incipient wrin kles under the embargo of emulsions, sent her to bed with her face buried in poultices of Irish oatmeal and milk, bandaged feet and pinioned hands in ointment-lined gloves, and put the brakes ou a too expansive waist. Men pursue ambition, wealth, and that bub ble, reputation ; women march up to the cannon’s mouth of physical torture and welcome martyrdom solely to be beauti ful.— Washington Free Press. —The train-boy, says Progress, has become a dandy. He is dressed iu a neat uniform, and if you catch aglimpse of him a few moments before the train starts you will see him carefully arrang ing his hair before one of the looking glass panels of the car. lie is still ad dicted to prize packages, but he peddlei them now with graceful dignity. Testimony of Experts. Au action was brought, by an attor ney-at-law against his client to recover !?2,00D for legal services, and in proving tho value of those services ho put upon the stand us witnesses the fellow-attor neys, who estimated their value from $5,410 to SI,OOO. The plaintiff recov ered a judgment of SI,BOO, the Court having charged the jury that they should (mil their verdict on tho testi mony of the attorneys, and the defend ant carried the case up to the .Supreme Court of the United States. In this case, Head vs. Hargrave, that court, in April, reversed the judgment, Mr. jus tice Field, in tho opinion, said: “ Tho evidence of experts as to the value of professional services does not differ in principle from such evidence as to the value of labor in other de partments of business, or as to the value of property. So far from laying asido t heir general knowledge and ideas, tho jury should have applied that knowl edge ami those ideas to tho matters of fact in evidence in determining the weight to be given to the opinions ex pressed, and it was only in that way that they could arrive at a just conclu sion. While they cannot act in any ease upon particular facts material to its disposition resting in their private knowledge, but should ho governed by the evidence adduced, they may, and to act intelligently they must, judge of the weight and force of that evidence bv thoir own general knowledge of the subject of inquiry. If, for example, the question were as to the damages sustained by plaintiff front a fracture of his leg by the carelessness of a defendant, the jury would ill per form their duty, and probably come to a wrong conclusion, if, cont rolled by the testimony of the surgeons not merely as to the injury inflicted, but a* to the damages sustained, they should ignore their own knowledge and ex perience of the value of a sound limb. Other persons beside professional men have knowledge of tho value of pro fessional services, and, while great weight should always be given to the opinions of those familiar with the sub ject, they arc not to be blindly receivod, but are to be intelligently examined by the jury in tho light of their own gen eral knowledge; they should control only as they are found to be reason able. ’ ’ —Bradstrect. The Whip-Poor-Will. As the dusk gathers I hear the first welcome notes of tho whip-poor-will. What close observers of tho seasons aro the birds! I doubt if tho man who has an acceptance in bank is better poofcod in tho As far back as my bird register extends I find a record of the arrival of the nocturnal songster as occurring between tho Bth and 10th of May. I)r. Brower claim# never to have heal'd these notes later than August; but in late September, in a night’s walk through the hidden glories of the Rama po Valley, I have been cheered by his song. No other American bird is so shy and retiring as tho whip-poor-will, arid where is the happy ornithologist who has found his apology for a nostP 1 once spent portions of each day of the entire month of June in searching for such a nest, and in the end was unre warded. The habitual walker of the woods will, sooner or later, stumble on their noonday retreats, but it is difficult to get into close proximity. They fly noiselessly and rapidly and have that protective plumage upon which Mr. Darwin laid so much st.ross. All day long, when undisturbed, they will rest on tlio lower branches of some em bowered tree,and only when the gloam ing deepens do they come forth in search of nocturnal insects. Nightly one used to come and sit on a large stone near the farmhouse. I have stolen Roftly out to within a few feet, and watching him, as he would dart out and catch an in sect, returning to tho stone to enjoy his tidbit, after the manner of the phosbe. Bis note is preceded by a sort of cluck. Audubon found his song, as he camped in the solitudes of the forest, one of the most delightful sounds of nature, sweet er to him than that of the nightingale, Burroughs describes a nest stumbled upon—two elliptical, whitish, spotted eggs lying upon dry leaves—and though he returned to it day after day, it was always a task to separate the bird from her surroundings, though he stood with in a few feet of her, and he knew just where to look.— lndependent. Let the Strawberries Alouo. That a donkey, by his winter brows ing of a vine which yields superior grapes the next season, originated the art of pruning, is an old story. I stum bled by some such accident upon a very successful,simple way of growing straw berries. An overcrowded bed bad yielded such poor returns of small, dry, inferior berries that I hoed it up before ail the fruit was off, intending to let some current bushes have all the benefit of the soil. Later in the season a few plants were found to have escaped, and they made such a handsome start with the fall rains that where there was plen ty of room some were spared. These became very strong, and looked luxuri antly green and vigorous in the spring arid yielded splendid fruit. This cul ture was so nearly no culture at all, but a mere accidental permission to a few plants to grow, that I have condensed my practice into the mere dictum : “Let them alone.” I find that this fills the bill of requirements as to culture if we have given the soil for them to grow in food that is not charged with weed seeds, and water enough while swelling their fruit. Winter shelter is useful, but is afforded by their leaves if the autumn growth has been as strong as it should be, and it will be strong if they aro properly let alone. This consists in not only letting them alone one’s self by avoiding bruising or trampling or cut ting of toots, but also letting the weeds let them alone by keeping every vestige of weed away, and making them let each other alone, too, by preventing the beginning of overcrowding. To prevent the white grub from interfering is not so easy, but something can be dons to arrest his destoying work, too, and 'bus “let alone” all around they aro safe for productive prosperity.— Cor. N, Y. Tribunt. Sleeping Accommodations. Cleanliness is the great essential. Our life is passive during the hours of sleep, but our breathing goes on constantly, and the demand for pure air iu sleeping rooms is very important. There should always be communication with the out side air, and in warm weather, tho doors and windows may all bo wide open. If currents of air can sweep through the rooms in the day time (or in the night without endangering the sleepers), so much the better. The had air that originates in sleeping rooms- —the waste substance that escapes from human bodies, by the lungs and skin—settles and clings about the carpets, curtains, bedding and clothing, tainting them with decomposing, and it may be, poisonous matter, unless a constant cleansing process is carried on by plentiful airing, and the action of light, especially sunshine. The room should contain as little drapery as possible. Hugs are better than carpets, and no heavy curtains should lie used. The lied should not be made up after using, until the bedding has been well aired, and tho more it ran lie exposed to bright sunshine, and out-door brc /.cs, the better. The room should be kept ns free as possibio from all odors. The night clothing should he well aired during the day, and the day clothing lie placed at night where it will get aired before it is again worn. Sleeping rooms are often much crowded. If would be well, could each, when old enough, have a private room and a clean bed apiece. A groat gain in health would result from this arrange- inent. In our present stato of poverty, wo can only insist that no more than two ought, to occupy the same bed. It is an outrage on infancy to wedge a baby in between two grown-up people. Much injury is done to tho health and to the morals of children, by tlio crowded sleeping arrangements in fami lies. The practice is now becoming quite common among careful people, where there are several young children, for the parents to divide the cure of the little ones, the mother taking the young est in lier bed, and the father attending i to the next to tho youngest, and to oth ers if there is need. It. seems a pity that the man of tho house should lie broken of his rest, but it is quite as had a tiling to have the children’s mother made sick and nervous from lack of sleep, and excess of care. With atten tion to the laws of health, especially in regard to food and air, there need be little suffering from broken rest., as healthy children sleep soundly and quietly, and Deed little care. — American Agriculturist The Origin of Fencing. From the first invention of the sword down to tho period wlion the fifteenth icntury was drawing to a close, this weapon had always been used as an arm of offense. The person wielding it. thrust tor hewed it into the body of his an tagonist whenever he had a chance, and she only defense against it was stout armor or an interposed shield. It is not to be supposed that an ancient warrior, ar one belonging to the earlier Middle Ages, never thrust aside or parried wit h Ins own blade n stroke of liis enemy’s sword; bid this method of defense was not depended upon in those days; the breast-plate, the liclmcl, or the buckler was expected to shield the soldier while he was endeavoring to get his own sword into some unprotected portion of the hotly of his antagonist. But about, the time of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the science of fencing was in vented. This new system of fighting gave an entirely new use to the swortl; it now became a weapon of defense as well as offense. Long, slender rapiers, sharpened only at the point, were the swords used in fencing. Armed with Due of these, a gallant knight, or high loned courtier, who chose the new method of single combat, disdained tho use of armor; the strokes of his oppon ent were warded off by his own light weapon, and whichever of the two con testants was enabled to disarm the oth er, or to deliver a thrust which could not lie parried, coqld drive the sharp point of his rapier into the body of his opponent if he felt so inclined. The rapier, which was adapted to combat between two persons, and not for gen eral warfare, soon became the weapon of the duelist; and, us duels used to bo as common as lawsuits are now, it was I bought necessary that a gentleman should know how to fence, and thus protect the life and honorof himself, his family and his friends. —John Lewt<s, in Ht. Nicholas. Insect Life In Brazil. Mr. Ernest Morris, the young traveler and naturalist, who lias just returned from Brazil, repeats the general observa tion of .xplorers that the exuberance of insect life is the principal obstacle to the enjoyment of a sojourn in that part of the world. Cockroaches swarm in every house despite tho inroads of an army of spiders which sally forth from every chink to prey upon them, scorpions are intrusive and dangerous ; a small rod insect called the “ moeuim ” is an intol erable annoyance; at certain hours of the day the air is black with flies and mosquitoes, and ants are a universal plague. To baffle these last-named foes of peace Mr. Morris was obliged to keep his entire collections on hanging •helves, tho cords of which were soaked in tho oil of copaiba. “The most de structive ant in Brazil,” says Mr. Morris, “is the sanba. It will strip trees of thoir folage in a single night, and in many places orange trees can not be grown for this reason. The tocandeira is a very smalt ant, the bite of which is poisonous and makes a painful soro. I was once rendered unable to work for a • veek from a bito received from one of these ants. Some species travel in large bodies, marching in a straight lino, and never turning to the right or left. If a bouse lies in the track of one of these marching bodies, unless they aro com- Sletely exterminated they pass through. Tothing will be injured, but every crack and cranny will be explored, and not a cockroach or spider will survive tho visitation. They are, therefore, re garded as friends, and their advent is welcomed. Go where you will iu Brazil, you will meet ants. You live, sleep, ind eat with them—and eat them, too. ” I ERR': $1.50 per A imam. NUMBER 47. I‘ITH AND POINT. —lt costs,a man more to be misera ble than it does to make his family happy. —Tho mothcr-in-faw does not remem ber That she was once a daughtcr-ju-law. —Spanish Proverb. —Minnesota lias just exhumed the skeleton of a woman who must have stood nine foot high and had a foot as long as a nail keg. Anybody missing from Northern Indiana? —Detroit Free Press. —The Rector (to Irish plasterer on ladder pointing u wall): “That mortar must have been very bad.” Pat, (with a grin) : “Faix, ye can't expict the likes o’ good Roman ciinint to slick to a Protest ant church, sorr!” — Punch. —A journey around the world now takes about ninety days, and the cost can be reduced to SBOO. And in going round in that time and at that expense you can hare about as much fun as you'd get in sitting all night In a rainstorm on a picket fence listening to a bull-dog bark at a cat in a barrel. —Boston Post. —They were courting: “What makes the stars so dim to-night?” she said, softly. “Your eyes are so much bright er,” he whispered, pressing her baud. They aro married now. Ml wonder how many telegraph poles it would lake to roach tho stars l'rotn bore?”- she said, musingly. “Ono, if it was long enough,” lie growled. “Why don’t you talk com mon sense?” —An old peasant on the south shore of Long Island was telling his visitor how pleasant it was. “But,” asked the friend, slapping his face with his hand kerchief, “don’t you have a great many mosquitoes and sand flies?” “Ya-as, said tiic man, “but then we sorter like them.” “llow can that beP” “Wa-al, you see, wo feel so kinder good when they go away.”— N. Y. Tribune. —Tho King of Bavaria has announced that ho will not read books printed in quarto size. Wo shall remember this when wo issue our book—provided tho King promises to buy eight hundred copies of a 1,000-edition. This would leave only two hundred volumes on our hands as dead stock, which would be doing pretty well, considering the quali ty of tho book. —Norristown Herald. —Fat borrowed some money of a friend, and was unable to pay’ it back when he came for it; and the friend be came very angry, and said: “Now, Fat, if you don’t pay mo that money by next Monday, I snail give you a thrash ing.” The next day, as Fat was stroll ing along the street, lie jostled a man, who cried out, “Look out what you are doing, or I will knock yon into ttie miild'" of next week.” “Bejabers! an’ I Wish yo WU.I. col-r, fm tllOfl [ wmd t>B over Mundy.”— N. X. Sun. —lt is a very cold day when anew agony isn’t forthcoming. it is now quite tho idea for a young lady to send a miniature Japanese parasol to a kind ly disposed gentleman friend. It is a small matter, imt fraught with this deep significance: “Summer is coming by and by. Will you carry my sun um brella by the shimmering, shining scaP” The young gentleman immediately pro ceeds to bank his cigar and beer mon ey, that lie may have enough on hand for a shore dinner for two.— New Hagen He i/Mcr. A Sad Sfory of a Wrecked Life. The most thrilling and sadly sugges tive temperance lecture is the sight of a once noble, talented man, left in ruins by intoxicating drink. A- Washington paper tells of a ragged beggar, well known ill the streets of that city, who once held an important command in the army, having been promoted for personal lira very, from a cavalry Lieutenant to nearly tlio highest rank in military ser vice. One night, not long ago, when ho luid been too successful in begging liquor to sate his craving, and while lying helpl ssly drunk in the rear part of a Thitd street saloon, some men thought to play a joke on him by steal ing his shirt, aud proceeded to strip him. Underneath his shirt, and suspended by a string from bis neck, was a small canvas bag, which the men opened and found it contained iiis commission as Brevet Major General, two congratu latory letters—one from Gen. Grant and one from President Lincoln—a photo graph of a little girl, aud a curl of hair —a “chestnut shadow” that doubtless one day crept over tho brow of some loved one. When these tilings were discovered, even the lialf-drunken men who found them felt a respect for the man’s for mer greatness, and pity for his fallen ondition, and quietly returned the bag ml its contents to where they found tiiem, and replaced the sleeper’s clothes upon him. When a reporter tried to interview the man, and endeuvored to learn something of his life in the past few years, he de clined to communicate anything. He cried liko a child when told how bis right name and former position were ascertained, and, with tears trickling down his cheeks, said : “For God’s sake, sir, don’t publish my degradation, or my name, at least, if you are determined to say something about it. It is enough tliut I know my self how low I have become. Will you promise that much? It will do no good, but will do my friends a great deal of harm, us, unfortunately, they think I died in South America, where I went at the close of tlie war.” Intemperance and the gaming-table, he said, iiiul wrought his ruin. Too Smart. Home men, and boys nlso, are so ■umirt as to think they can dispense with honesty. Such usually overreach them selves," as did the boy teferred to hi re : A youngster was sent by his parent to take a letter to the postoffice and pay the postage on it. The boy returned highly elated, and said, “ Father, I seed a lot of men putting letters in a little place ; and, when no one was looking, I! slipped yours in for nothing.” —The person who stands and holds thei spring-screen-cloor half open is abroach in the land. We trust the Hies will gotj the Lost of him sometime. —New Hawn lico inter.