The Middle Georgia argus. (Indian Springs, Ga.) 18??-1893, February 17, 1881, Image 1

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W. F. SMITH, Publisher. VOLUME VIIL Oyster Dredging. Consumers of the lucions bivalve have little idea of the hardships wliioh attend the labor of taking oysters from their cosy beds. It would seem that taking one consideration with another, the dredger’s life is not a happy one. A Bal timore paper gives the following glimpse of the business: There is no occupation in the world more laborious or productive of pain than oyster dredging. The brackish waters of the Chesapeake freeze rapidly over all shoals and bays when a cold snap comes. The toils of the dredger then tjecome tortures. The method of taking oysters from the prolific and lim itless beds of the Chesapeake is simple. The dredges, which are simply iron bags with a protecting under-scoop at tached, are dredged across the oyster beds by the motion of the vessel, and are then hauled up by windlasses. When the dredger is not working at the wind lass he is squatted on deck bending over the oyster heaps, culling them out. The shells of the oysters are generally cov ered with a parasitic growth known as “dog stones.” The conglomerated lumps of oyster growth are broken up with hammers; shells, “babies,” and refuse are thrown overboard, and the marketa ble oysters are then run into the hold. As fast as the dredges are emptied on deck their contents must be culled. It is an occupation at best about as inter esting as breaking stone. When carried on in a freezing wind, exposed to the frozen spray, with sharp shell edges cut ting into sore hands, and grit and mud rubbing into chaps and raw places, it be comes a torture. Hauling at the wind lass is only better because more active. The skin sticks to the irons in frosty Weather, and the hands stretched down to grasp the icy, dripping dredges often leave blood stains where they touch. For this work therpay ranges from sl2 to S2O a month, with food found. Thus it is that the work of a dredger is looked upon in Maryland as the worst that can fall to the lot of man. The ex treme expression of aversion with a bay shore darkey is to say, “I would as lief dredge as do that.” There is a prevalent belief among the colored population that pungv captains kidnap stray darkies who may come into their reach. It certainly is the ease that captains make no inquiry as to where tiieir hands come from. Shipping mas ters get two dollars a piece for them. Many a poor fellow lias waked up from a drunken stupor to find, to his horror, that ho was down the bay in a pungy. Asa rule, windlass hands are the poorest species of tramps. Many of them are picked up from the brickyard hands who Hock into town after the brick-making season is over. The Camel on llis Native Heath. And now heaves in sight the unchanged quintessence of Orientalism—there is our first camel, a camel in use, in his native setting aud not in a menagerie. There is a lino of them, loaded with building-stones, w earily shambling along. The long bended neck apes humility, but the supercilious nose in the air ex presses perfect contempt for all modern life. The contrast of this haughty '“stuck-up-ativeness” (it is necessary to <*oin this word to express the camel’s ancient conceit) with the royal ugliness of the brute, is both awe-inspiring and amusing. No human royal family dare be uglier than the camel. He is a mass *f bones, faded tufts, humps, lumps, and callosities. His tail is a ridiculous wisp, and a failure as an orna ment or a fiy-bruah. His feet are simply big sponges. For skin covering he has patches of old buffalo robes, faded and with the hair worn off'. His voice is snore disagreeable than his appearance. With a reputation for patience, he is snappish and vindictive. His endurance is over-rated—that is to say lie dies like a sheep on an expedition of any length, if lie is not well fed. His gait moves every muscle like the ague. And yet this ungainly creature carries his head in the air, aud regards the world out of his great brown eyes with disdain. The sphinx is not more placid. He reminds me, I don't know why, of a pyramid. He has a resemblance to a palm-tree. It is impossible to make an Egyptian picture without him. What a Hapsburg lip he has! Ancient royal? The very poise of his head says plainly, “I have come out of the dim past, before history was; the deluge did not touch me; I saw Menes come aud go; I helped Slioofoo build the great pyramid; I knew Egypt when it hadn't an obelisk nor a temple; I watched the slow building of the pyra mid at Sakkara. Did I not transport the fathers of vonr race across the desert? There are three of us; the date-palm, the pyramid, and myself Everything else is modern. Go to!” —Charles Dudley Warner. The Truth Out at Last. The mother of two sons, twins, met one of the brothers in a field one morning. “Which one of you two boys am I speak ing to?” asked the mother. " “Why do you ask?” inquired the lad prudently. * Be cause if it is your brother I will box liis ears.” “It is not mv 4 brother—it is L” “Then your brother is wearing your coat, for yours had a hole in it.” “No, mother, I am wearing my own coat.” “Good heavens,” cried the mother, look ing at him - intently, “you are your brother after all! ” St. Louis owns eighteen parks and squares, embracing 2,107 acres, costing nio^ 0 ? 0 Ori oinaily; and on which $2,- t < -,000 have been spent. Forest Park, the largest of the lot, contains 1,371 Holes, but Tower Grove Park, the gift of 1 v Shaw, and improved under his personal supervision, is far the finest. ' GOSSIP FOB THE LADIES. ' Marry a Gentlenaa. Marry a gentleman, Chris, if you can, Gentle and tender, Though no less a man; One who will treasure His child or his wife, Booming to rob them Of sweetness iD life. One who will never The brute’s part assume, Filling his household With sorrow and gloom. If on love’s altar The flame you can fan, Marry a gentleman, Gins, if you can. Vou will be happy, And you will be glad, Though he only Be commonly clad; Pleasure is fleeting, And life biJt a span— Marry a gentleman, Girls, if you can. She Knows ft. A woman always knows when she is pretty. Isn’t it strange that she never knows when she is the other thing ? We can all put up with a good deal of sim pering nonsense from a pretty girl, but a homely damsel must deport herself With straight - laced decorum or she makes herself ridiculous. Perhaps it is unfair, but the world will have it so, aud it stands an inexorable law. A Dime-Novel Petition for Divorce. Ladies can wax wondrously grandilo quent when in the mind. A Kentuckian victim of man’s inconstancy thus sets forth her plaint in a petition for di vorce : “Dark clouds of discord began to lower over the sky of wedded felicity, and the minacious lightning of disunion began to dart its lurid flames across gloomy clouds of atramental blackness, obscuring every star of hope and happi ness, whose resplendent glory illumi nated the dawn of the first few brief years of her wedded life, when she gave her hand and an undivided heart to the defendant, who, in the sultry month of July, 1879, after having been warmly and snugly wintered within the fond embraces of her loving arms, and closely nestled to % heart that beat alone for the defendant, showed his base, black ingratitude by abandoning her without cause whatever, except the insatiable thirst for novelty, which is the predom inant character of defendant’s nature.” A Boston Anti-Widow League. The young ladies of Boston formed an Anti-Widow League, and the following is a copy of a petition sent to the Gov ernor of Massachusetts : THE HUMBLE PETITION OP ALL THE MAIDS WHOSE NAMES ARE UNDERWRITTEN. Whereas we, the humble petitioners, nre at present in a very melancholy dis position of mind, considering how all the bachelors are blindly captivated by widows, and our own youthful charms thereby neglected; in consequence of this, our request is that your Excellency will for the future order that no widow presume to marry any young man till the maids are provided for ; or else to to pay each of them a fine for satisfac tion for invading our liberties, and like wise a fine to be levied on all such bachelors as shall be married to widow s. The great disadvantage it is to us maids is that the widows, by their forward car riage, do snap up the young men, and have the vanity to think their merit be yond ours, which is a great imposition on us, who ought to have the preference. This is humbly recommended to your Excellency’s consideration, and hope you will permit no further insults. And we maids, in duty bound, will ever pray. Enterprising Women. Given energy and perseverance, and even women find no difficulty in gaining a livelihood in our crowded cities. Four orphan girls who wished to educate an only brother, not many months ago came to the city in search of bread and butter. They took a house in the business part of the city ; took what boarders they could accommodate, but made day boarding a specialty. They opened two uarlors which were for a dining-room. They are carpeted, draped, picture hung and made generally refined, and people like to go to them. The tables are arranged with the most scrupulous neatness. The linen is dainty and al ways fresh; the silver is bright; the de tails in every respect are those of a re fined home. The meals are not elabo rate, but everything is excellent of its kind, perfectly cooked and perfectly served. With the aid of one servant these four young women manage their establishment. In dainty, white-ruffled aprons they serve the guests at their table in. a graceful, lady-like way that attracts people. They have placed their younger brother in a good school; they are making a comfortable support, and have their own pleasant home alto gether. Now when women can attain to this manner of common sense in their lives, which is quite as needful as “com mon sense in the household,” we shall not see “thirty highly educated young ladies ” advertised in the morning pa pers, at a loss to know what is going to become of them. Small Waists and Consnmption. The mania for small waists has been the premature death of thousands upon thousands of the fairest and most prom ising young ladies, before they had time to learn of the dangers they were invit ing by following the examples of those who teach by their practice that they prefer conformity to the requirements of perverted taste to the exemption from the penalties of being out of shape in the sense of those who exercise no judg ment in regard to this important matter. Favored, as many robust women are, with a fine organization in other re spects, they can live out a long life in comparative health and comfort; but AVide-Awake, Independent, but Neutral in TVotliinjg - . they are few compared to the vast num ber who fall short and die before they have attained all they might have had on earth. The first or topmost rib on either side, just under the collar bone, is short, thin and sharp on its inner cur vature. It has no motion, being a brace between the dorsal column and the breast bone. It is immovable for the purpose of protecting large arteries and veins belonging to the arms on either side of the neck. In cases where the chest has been manipulated till the lungs cannot expand downward they are forced above that rib. Kising and fall ing above and below that rib level, the lobe chafes and frets against the resist ing curvature. It is inflamed at last, and the organ becomes diseased. If that chafing is not relieved, but in each respiration the serous covering of the lurfg is irritated continually, the inflammation is apt to extend quite into the body of the organ, increased and in tensified by exciting emotions, labori ous pursuits, or unfavorable exposures. Finally, the mucous lining of "the air cells within the lung sympathizes and becomes inflamed also. In this connec tion we may trace the commencement of pulmonary consumption. It would be denominated sporadic, and widely different from pulmonary diseases by in heritance. Consumption is not only de veloped by tight lacing, but caused in many cases, where the original con formation of the individual was favora ble for a comparative long life, is be yond question. Medications cannot stay the onward march of disorganiza tion when ulcerations eat the tissues. Once destroyed, they can never be re produced. Therefore, if prevention is better than cure, less expensive, and always more agreeable, why not profit by these suggestions ? No compression of the base of the chests of men being induced by tight dressing, a chafing of the upper surface of the lung rarely oc curs with them. Great men, giants in any department of busy life—those who make the world conscious of their in fluence—those who quicken thouhgt, revolutionize public sentiment and leave the impression of their genius in the history of the age in which they flourish, were. not the sons of gaunt mothers whose waists resemble the midtile of an hour glass. Women. I have always remarked that women, in all countries, are civil and obliging, tender and humane; that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timor ous and modest; and that they do not hesitate, like men, to perform a gener ous action. Not haughty, not arrogant, not supercilious, they are full of courtesy and fond of society; more liable, in gen eral, to err than man, but, in general, also, more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never ad dressed myself in the language of de cency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answ r er. With men it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of in hospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Bussia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar ; if hungry, dry, cold, wet or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so. And, to add to this virtue, so worthy the ap pellation of benevolence, their actions have been performed in so free and kind a banner that if I was dry, I drank the sw r e e test draught, and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a double relish. — Exchange. Are Your Closets Yentilated ? There is nothing so handy in a house as an abundance of large, roomy closets; but because they are handy and extreme ly useful they are apt to be abused. There are many things which, as a mat ter of course, are always put into a closet, of which the articles of outward wearing apparel make a large part. There are always things which ought not to go into "the closet, i. e. ,'a closet adjoining or closely connected with a living or sleep ing room. Of such are all soiled under garments, the wash clothes, which siiould be put into a large bag for the purpose, or a roomy basket, and then placed in the wash-room or some other well-aired room at some distance from the family. Having thus excluded one erf the fertile sources of bad oders in closets, the next point is to see that the closets are properly ventilated. It mat ters not how clean the clothing in the closet may be. Any garment after be ing worn for a while will absorb more or less of the exhalations which arise from the body, and thus contain an amount of foreign—it may be hurtful—matter which free circulation of pure air can soon remove; but if this is excluded, as in many close closets, the effluvia in creases, aud the clothes closets and ad joining rooms in time possess an odor that any acute sense of smell will readily detect. Every closet in daily use in which the night clothes are hung by day and the day clothing by night, should have an airing as well as the bed. If the closet can be large enough to admit of a window—and it is in some cases— an ample prevision for sunlight and the circulation of pure air is provided in the window, which should be left open for a short time each day. In the case of small closets a ventilator could be put over the door or even in it. In many cases such precautions for pure clothing are not practicable, and the next-best thing is, to see that the door of the closet is left open for a half hour or so each day at that time when the windows are thrown up and the large room is purified with fresh air from out of doors. In this way, first, by keeping out clothes intended for the wash, and second, daily changing of the air, the closets may be kept comparatively pure. INDIAN SPRING, GEORGIA. F &b , )7 Esqui—nr Carpentry. The builder selects snow of the proper consistency by sounding a drift with a cane made for the purpose, of reindeer horn, straightened by steaming, and worked down to about half an inch in diameter, with a ferule of walrus tusk oi the tooth of a bear on the bottom. Bv thrusting this into the snow he can tell w hether the layers deposited by succes sive winds are separated by bands of soft snow, which would cause the blocks to break. Wlien the snow is selected he digs a pit to the depth of eighteen inches or two feet, or about the length of the snow block. He then steps into the pit and proceeds to cut out the blocks by first cutting down at the ends of the pit and then at the bottom afterward, cut ting a little channel about an inch or two deep, making the thickness of the pro posed block. Now comes the part that requires practice to accomplish successfully. The expert will, with a few r thrusts of his knife in just the right places, split off the snow-block and lift it carefully out to await removal to its position on the wall. The tyro will almost inevitably break the block into two or three pieces utterly unfit for the use of the builder. When two men are building an igloo, one cuts the blocks and the other erects the wall. When sufficient blocks have been cut out to commence work with, the builder marks with his ey e or per haps draws a line with his knife describ ing the circumference of the building, usually a circle about ten or twelve feet in diameter, The first row of blocks is then arranged, the blocks placed so as to incline inward and resting against each other at the ends, thus affording mutual support. When this row is com pleted, the builder cuts away the first and second blocks, slanting in from the ground upward’ so that the second tier, resting upon the first row, can be continued on and around spirally, and by gradually increasing the inward slant a perfect dome is constructed of such strength that the builder can lie flat upon the outside while chinking the interstices between the blocks. The chinking is, however, usually done by women and children as the building progresses, and additional protection secured from the winds in very cold weather by banking up, with a large wooden snow-shovel, the snow at the base often being piled to the depth of three or four feet. This makes the igloo per fectly impervious to the wind in the most tempestuous weather. When the house is completed the builders are walled in. Tiien a small hole about two feet square is cut in the wall on the side away from where the entrance is to be located and is used to pass in the lamps and bedding. It is then walled up and the regular door cut about two feet high and niched at the top. It would bring bad luck to carry the bed ding into the igloo by the same door it would be taken out. Before the door is opened the bed is constructed of snow blocks, and made from one to three or four feet high, and occupies three fourtlis of the entire space. The higher the bed and the lower tiie door the warmer the igloo will be. —From an Arctic Explorer's Reminiscences. He Is an Ass. If humanity continues as gullible as it has shown itself in the last few years, we shall advocate anew kind of school primer in order that people may learn in their childhood what you can’t beat into some of them with a triphammer, even when they are old enough to go to Con gress. One lesson we should advocate having fixed up in something after this style: “What is three card monte ?” “It is a bad, bad game.” “Who plays three card monte?” “One man who looks like a farmer. One man who looks like a new-school philosopher. ” “Can two play this game?” “Yes, my child. Even four can play at this game. ” “What does the fourth man do?” “He gets left, my child. He gets badly left. He loses ail his money. He pulls his hair and uses wicked words. ” “Then the fourth man is an ass for playing.” “He is an ass.” —Wheclinp Leader. The Difference. Tennyson can take a worthless sheet of paper and, by writing a poem on it, make it worth §5,000. That’s Genius. Mr. Vanderbilt can write fewer words on a similar sheet and make it worth §50,- 000,000. That’s Capital. And the United States can take an ounce and a quarter of gold and stamp upon it an “Eagle bird” and “Twenty Dollars.” That’s Money. The mechanic can take the ma terial worth fifty dollars and make it into a watch worfti §IOO. That’s Skill. The merchant can take an article worth twentv-five cents and sell it to you for §IOO. That’s Busines. A lady can pur chase a comfortable bonnet for ten dol lars, but prefers to pay §IOO for one, be cause it is more stylish. That’s Foolish ness, The ditch-digger works ten hours a day, and shovels out three or four tons of earth for one dollar. That’s luabor. — Richmond State. The California Horticulturist describes wealthv man in that State, whose land, free of debt, is worth §200,000. He lives in a weather-beaten shanty in the midst of his wheat fields, the barn-yard sur rounding the house, the well 200 yards in one direction, and the woodpile 200 vards in the other, with no fruit tree oi flower in sight. The paragraphers think there is little probability of having clear weather in the future, with Hazen doling it out. Ben Mildvreed’s Idea. A man named Ben Mildweed walked into the office of a Justice of the Peace, in Little Rock, and, taking off an old slouch hat, addressed the dignified of ficial : “Are you the court?” “I am. What is your trouble?” Ben betrayed agitation in the nervous man ner with which he fingered his old hat. “Jedge, Nancy, my gal, hez bin run ning around with two or three men lately, and liez caused me a heap of oneasi ness.” “Come to the point, Mr. Mildweed,” suggested the court. “You hear my story, Jedge. I’m sot in my ways, and I’ll get tliar quicker by running my own furrow down this patch of trouble.” The Justice settled his feet comfortably on the table, and looked resignedly at Mr. Mildweed, who continued: “Naucy is the purtiest calico in Rich woods, and we hez hitched for three ye’rs, not spliced, you know, but waitin’ for me to buy a little borne. The men down to the settlement are jealous be cause Nancy sot up to me, and they hang 'round like blackbirds in a corn-patch.” Ben hitched up his pants and seemed re luctant to continue. “Now, Nancy is a good gal, and her black eyes has fotclied me, like churnin’ fotches butter, an’ she ken mako me a good man or a bad man for her sake. But, Jedge, she knows it, and laughs and carries on with Bill Peters when I’m ’round. She goes to camp meetin’ with Hez Spilkins, when I have told her a hundred times that he was a low-flung fellow, aud she aggravates me terrible. ” “Come to the point, Ben,” said the Court impatiently, lifting one leg over the other. “I’m gettin’ thar, your honor. Now, old Uncle Marsh Turner and I have talked this matter over, and he ses thet Nancy liesn’t any attachment for me. Thet like to broke my heart, Jedge, I’ll swow it did. Ses Uncle Marsh, ‘Ben’ ses lie, ‘liev you got an attachment fer Nancy?’ ‘Yes, Uncle Marsh,’ ses I, ‘most powerful.’ ‘Hez she fer you?’ ses he. ‘l’m dubious, uncle,’ ses I. ‘Ben,’ ses he, solemnly, ‘ef she can’t luv you with her whole hart, drap her like a hot cake. Ef she hesn’t an attachment fer you thet is strong, and true, and honest, drap her. You’ll be mis’able, boy. I’m an old man, Ben, and when I sees a young man hev an attachment fer a gal, and she hesn’t fer him as strong, I says to myself, they is foolish. They hadn’t ought to splice.’ ” “Your honor,” continued Mr. Mild weed, ‘ ‘arter Uncle Marsh ses all this to me, I goes off and thinks. I concludes that he is right, and now I hev come to the point. I saddled the old brown mare, and put some bacon and corn-bread in the Saddle-bags, and started fer Little Rock. I comes straight to you, Jedge, and I want you to make out an attach ment fer Nancy to me. I knows that the courts can make attachments, and I don’t care what it costs. Jest you make out the papers, and I’ll make the old brown mare do some of the tallest traveling gettin’ back to Nancy thet you ever saw. Well, why don’t you begin, Jedge?” “The courts don’t make love attach ments,” said the Court, taking its legs from the table. “I don’t care what it costs, Jedge.” “You have had a long trip for nothing, Ben; it can’t be done.” Ben pulled his hat over his eyes, wiped a trickling drop from his cheek, and walked slowly toward the door, mutter ing: ‘ ‘l’ll go hev the brown mare fed and study about it. I thought as how the court mouglithave done it,” and then he stepped from the Justice’s door as if Nan cy was lost to him forever. —Little Rock Gazette. The Diet Fiend. There is the man who has made up his mind to keep his health good by eatiDg the right sort of food in proper quantities and with the right kind of mastication. Resolution sits upon his brow, his eyes turn scornfully upon his fellow men and he deliberately and with malice afore thought sits with superbly folded arms in the restaurant, painfully working his mouth, as if he were a type of Samp son’s celebrated jawbone engaged in the duty of slaying a bit of brown bread. He becomes a nuisance to his landlady, or his wife; he buys fish, which he eats for his brains, and struggles in the morn ing with harsh oatmeal and sour baked apples, chewing, chewing, chewing, while casting contemptuous glances around upon the disgusted people whc are not so good and are not going to be so healthy as he is to be. He even turns his toes out, abhors butter, and walks on the side of the street which is the healthiest. His children receive no candy, and his wife only receives a scold ing because she does not live up to the laws of health. He becomes pale, fretful and morose, and says of a healthy man, “He lives for his stomach,” while he is dying for his. —New York Herald. A cretaceous chalk, which the natives carves into grotesque figures of men and animals, occurs on the Polynesian islands of New Britain and New Ireland (about latitude ford- degrees south, longitude 130 degrees east), and some specimens have been sent to England by the Rev. G. Brown, a Wesleyan missionary to that region. “The chalk of which the fig ures are formed,” he writes “is, I am in formed, found only on the beech after an earthquake, being cast up there in large pieces by the tidal wave; and only, so far as we know at present, in one dis trict on the east side of New Ireland. ” An aualysis, made at Newcastle-on-Tyne, shows that the substance is not as pure a limestone as ordinary white chalk. SUBSCRIPTION--SI.SQ. NUMBER 25. PITH AND POINT. A finished performer—The dead act or. Rear and for bear—Bruin and his din ner. A hollow cost—Tko cost of a penny whistle. Cold schnapps are appreciated by Dutchmen. Firemen, as well as other people, like to talk of their old flames. “I wotfLD like to die to-night,” pens a poet, for once coming into sympathy with the people. Actors have to face the music—that is, the music of the orchestra—and some of it is very bad. “Well, wife, you can’t say I ever contracted bad habits.” “ No, sir; you generally expanded them. ” “What I wants ter know,” said an Arkansas school-board official, “is how a river’s mouf is gwine ter be bigger dan its head. ” A man who is as true as steel, possess ing an iron will, some gold and a fair proportion of brass, should be able to endure the hardware of this world. “Why don’t England sit down on Ireland?” asks an exchange. For the same reason a man with a boil don’t care to sit down on it too carelessly.— Galveston News. A* Philadelphia quack informs the public that he is not exclusive : “Da patient wants it gentle and mild I’m a homeopath, and when anybody wants thunder and lightning I’m an allopath.” Greedy grocer (to farmer’s wife who is supplying him with butter) —“ This pun’ o’ butter is ow r er licht, glide wife.” Gudewife—“Blame yersel’, then ; I weighed it wi’ the pun’ o’ sugar I gat frae ye yestreen.” “What have you been drinking or eating?” exclaimed his wife, as he re turned late at night. “ Liquor ish !” he responded, and then he winked at liim self in the dark, and breathed thin till she got asleep. ‘ ‘ Why don’t you put the tooth-picks on the table ?” asked a guest at a Gal veston hotel, after ho had finished his dinner. ‘ ‘ Because, after you used one yesterday, you didn’t put it back in the saucer,” responded the new waiter.— Galveston News. The late Rev. Dr. Symington, not feeling well one Sunday morning, said to his beadle who was a “character:” “ Man Robert, I wish you would preach for me to-day.” “I canna do that,” promptly replied Robert; “but I often pray for you.” A Cleveland boy was asked by liis teacher if he did not “ want to be an angel and with the angels stand.” Said the boy ; “I would rather stand here until after Christmas, and see if Santa Claus does not bring me a top and a new sled.” A bright little girl was urging her mother to go up stairs and hear her say her prayers before retiring. Her mother, not finding it convenient, told her that Jesus could hear it just as well. “ But, mother,” replied the little doubter, “Jesus can’t turn off the gas.” A cute little 5-year-old, whose par ents were connected with the Presby terian church, said: “Mamma, was Christ a Jew?” “Yes, dear,” replied the mother. “Well, that’s strange, now, isn’t it, mamma, when his father, God, was a Presbyterian ? ” “Man alive,” exclaimed the Judge, in a heated discussion of a tangled theo logical point with his friend, “I tell you, you are a free agent. You do not have to obey any one. ” “ Yes,” said Mr, Goodman, meekly, “but I do though.” “ Who? ” shouted the Judge. “ Who?” “My wife, her tiro sisters, and the baby,’’ howled the good man, meekly triumphant. A Story of Tom Ochiltree. Jem Mace, the celebrated prize-fighter, once spent a winter in New Orleans. He used to amuse himself and his admirers by betting the drinks with them that they could not hit him—they to do their best to hit him, and he simply to ward off the blows. Tom Ochiltree, of Texas, who has gained considerable reputation from his intimacy with General Grant, and perhaps even more reputation from the fast running horse which was named after him, happened to be in New Or leans during the winter. Some of Ochil tree’s friends told him of Mace’s favorite bet. Ochiltree is a short, thick-set, pow erfully-built man. His hail is just red enough to indicate a fiery temper. As soon as he was told of Mace’s bet he fired up and said he would bet the crowd a champagne supper that he could hit Jem Mace. The bet, of course, was taken at once, and the whole party started out in search of Mace. He was easily found in a neighboring drinking saloon. Mace was standing at the bar in the act of taking a drink. Ochiltree stepped quietly up beside him, and hit him sud denly a stinging blow on the cheek. Mace quietly placed his glass on the bar, and, scarcely moving his body, brought his right hand up and struck Ochiltree a fearful blow just under one ear. His friends rushed to him, gathered him up, and carried him to the nearest hotel. Doctors were sent for in a great hurry, and after two or three hours of hard work they succeeded in bringing Ochil tree back to this earth. He was confined to his room in the hotel for three weeks, however. When he finally reappeared he was forced fco furnish the champagne supper. Some of his friends said to him: 4 ‘ What in the world made you such a blanked fool as to hit Jem Mace?” “Why,” said Ochiltree. “I thought I would just tap him without his knowl edge and would then explain to him ”