Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

W. F. SMITH, Publisher, VOLUME IX. TOPICS OF THE DAT. The murder record of the Apaches is still good. Guithau was never known to use a profane word. The Illustrated London News is con. ducted by a widow. Hartmann proposes to convert the American idea to his idea. Baltimore girls ore the belles at the watering places this year. grajie yield in Ohio will be about ° T Je-third of a crop. A strange cattle disease, resulting in blindness, has appeared in Illinois. ellow fever has created a vacancy in the American Consulship at Vera Cruz. Ex-United States Treasurer Spin ner is living quietly at his home in Florida. France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Den nmik, Hungary and Bulgaria all hold general elections this year. A convention of the short-hand writers of tb'j United States and Canada is to be *H'hl at Chicago during September. 1 fople who talk a good deal occasion nlh get misrepresented by the press, and that seems to be the fate of Dr. Bliss. The Northwest is a great country. The Minnesota wheat crop is in excess of that of 1880 more than 10,000,000 bushels. 1 Kansas farmers have agreed to sus pend the cultivation of wheat for a time, in order to eradicate the chinch bug post. Nineteen preachers and one editor departed on a steamer for Europe the other day. The thing was pretty evenly balanced. There have been twenty-two murders in Chicago since Now Year's Day. How ever, it is thought that tho business will look up a little this fall. Dan Rice’s third wife, a bride of three weeks, is suing for a divorce. There is evidently something wrong with the old showman. Sitting Bull has two wives. He says that thus ho is enabled to show more children on the ground at tho payment of annuities and can draw inoro money. Cincinnati is looking forward to her Exposition with considerable pride. The demands for space are greater than the Board of Commissioners will be able to meet. Southland, New Zealand, reports eighty bushels of oats and wheat to tho acre, and iu on district, one hunred and seventeen bushels to the acre. Reports, we say. * * ; Great numbers of draught horses, English and Norman breeds, have been imported into this country. Tho breed ing of these animals has become an important industry iu Illinois. The Indianopolis Herald holds that the word “ moan” can be most appro priately applied to the temperature of the past month. It can. The mean tem perature was contemptible. A horse-car driver of Toronto was once a Jesuit priest well-known in Eng land and Ireland, and he says that a late conductor was a Dominican friar and in sacred orders. Thus do we ascend the ladder of fame. Although guilty of one hundred and thirty seductions, Spotted Tail was re garded as a pretty good sort of an In dian. From this the reader can draw his own as to what would con stitute a bad Indian. The Czar is provoked beyond endur ance. He has lately received models of different weapons and engines of assass ination, accompanied by a polite request to select the one lie chooses to be used npon his own person. Among the pyrotechnic exibitions at the Yorktown Centennial will be a representation of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, forty feet aqnare. Eight Ret pieces will lie displayed from rafts <n canal boats in the river. The Dallas Gazette asks this easy one*, ‘‘t an a man, with his hide full of bad whisky, make a correct report of tlio happenings in the city of Dallas for s newspaper?” Well, we should say not. f, o >'l whisky is bad enough. That or nothing. IpfflJfe dkotip lymis. iMott and to Industrial Inter* st, the I)iffn>ion of Troth, the Establishment of Justice, and the Preservation of a People’s Government, It is estimated that tho loss to the corn crop of Ohio for 1881, on account of bad seed, will not be less than 40- 000,(X)0 bushels, and in Illinois, 60,000- 000. It would seem from such alarming totals that in future it would pay well to make more careful selections of seed. Adelina Patti, the prima donna of the lyric stage, in her American tour, will not visit Cincinnati. Why does not appear. This fact is rather’aston ishing when we consider that Cincinnati people claim to be peculiarly of a mu sical disposition, and possessed of an exquisite musical taste. „ A Baltimore millionaire named David Carroll left a s msible will. In it he set aside SIOO,OOO with which to defend the will against possible litigation. In case there is no litigation, the SIOO,OOO is to be divided equally among the heirs. It may be depended upon, there will be no litigation under the circumstances. There is a man in New York who sig nifies a desire to become Guiteau’s bondsman, provided that when he is released he will be set perfectly free, undisguised and not protected by guards or the military. We do not think that any one will object to this. It is a pretty good scheme. WiTat a blessing it is that we can al ways grumble at the weather, and yet, not without reason. It is too hot, too cold, too wet or too changeable. It never is just right, and it never will t>e. But we have a right to grumble, and as long as it don’t cost anything, we are going to do it. The electric lights attracted so many flies to the hotels in St. Louis that they had to be discontinued. Now then you can figure out what we mean, whether it -was the flies, hotels, or lights that were discontinued; and just about half the paragraplicrs in the country put things in this ambiguous shape. The “Melleunium Springs,” in Ar kansas, makes those who drink of its waters, hug, and kiss and frisk about. It also makes them drunk. People have been doing these things too much since the time of Adam and we can not for the life of us see what good can come of the discovery. We shall all be a pack of fools some day. We are shocked at the Cincinnati Gazette. It says: “It is a sorrowful fact that the barrooms are more honest with their lemons than the temperance picnics.” This is a sad commentary. We knew that tho church had had a limilar charge set over against it, but we never thought it would go any further. According to a paper read by Dr. J. H. Billings, of Washington, at the In ternational Medical Conference in Lon don, there are 180,000 physicians in the world, of whom 11,600 are pruducers of medical literaturo or contributors to it. In scientific medical literature Germany leads; in practical medical literature France is foremost. Tiie mystery surroundiug tho death of Jennie Cramer, at New Haven, Ct., is attracting considerable attention. The Mallery brothers, the sons of a rich mer chant.. one of whom was Jennie’s suitor and seducer, and Miss Clements alias Blanche Douglass, a fast woman from New York, suspicion strongly points to as her murderers. Miss Cramer was the belle of New Haven. Work on De Lessep’s canal is not progressing satisfactorily. Four em ployes have died, M. Etienne, sub-con tractor, at Aspinwall, of softening of the brain ; Mr. Bertrand, his Secretary, of malaria, and Messrs. Barrier and Di lembowski, from overwork. The cli mate is malarious, the rolling stock anti quated, and the engineering poor with work unsystematized. Americans will have to do that job yet. * u. The Salt Lake Herald tells a remark able story. Among the many pros peetors in Utah a year ago were four young men, who were rewarded by the jiscoveryof a valuable mine near Hailey. One of the young men had a lady friend, and it was decided to name the mine after her, and to so fix the title that, in case of their death, it should be hers. Last winter, while working upon their claim, the whole party was buried be neath a snow-slide ; and now the young lady is planning what good she will do with the $65,000 that has been offered her for her neat little legacy. The hip pocket is having things all its own way in Chicago. They don’t consider it much of a day now when there isn’t at least one murder in that city, and in most of the cases they never seem to find the fellow. When now and then someone declines to make his escape, and is locked up in jail, the ladies m Chicago overwhelm him with INDIAN SPRINGS, GEORGIA. bouquets and go on so about him that the average Chicago man goes around with a well-loaded hip pocket for no other purpose in the world, seemingly, than to improve the first opportunity to make liimself a pet of the ladies who, in Chicago, just dote on murder ers. Up to date no law’ has been made to prevent people making fools of them selves. The miscellaneous collection of articles at the White House, consisting of bods, medicines and nearly everything else under the sun, sent from all over the country for the benefit of the President and his family, is a most ridiculous one, including as it does two white mice, a stuffed humming bird, “to relieve the monotony of the sick-room,” and the blood of a black cat. But it w r ould be unkind to laugh at it, as, notwithstand ing the absurd character of many con tributions, it represents the outpouring of the national heart. Doubtless the lady who sent the stuffed bird did what she thought was the best thing she could do. Just exactly what the cat’s blood was sent for is not clear, but there are many people in this country who believe in the working of charms, and as it was doubtless intended to promote some good to the patient, we should give the sender credit for carrying out the dicta tions of an honest opinion. As to the white mice, they may amuse the chil dren. The days of miracles, magic waters, etc., are returning. Hot Springs County, Arkansas, reports the existence, fifteen miles northeast of Witherspoon, of a spring that promises to bring about the millennium almost before we get ready for it. John R. Yeatts, a Baptist minis ter of some celebrity, who has visited the spring, says the spring flows from a mountain about four hundred feet high, comes out of the ground about one hundred feet from the top of the mountain on the north side, and flows at the rate of about forty gallons per min ute, and tastes just like apple brandy, and has the same effect. Those under the influence of the water are perfectly ecstatic, and hugging and loving every thing they meet. He says : “I never saw the like, children and boys and girls hugging and kissing every one they meet. # Okl men and old -women, young men and young ladies, embracing each other by hugging and kissing. I met an old, white-haired man and woman—l suppose about eighty years old—and they were hopping and skipping like lambs. I saw hundreds lying around the spring so drunk that they could not stand up, and they w-ere lying and laugh ing and trying to slap their hands. The people call them the ‘ Millenium Springs.’ ” All we ask of John is, just to please send ug a barrel. Writing for the Public. There is no work done in the world which expends vitality so fast as writing for the public. It is a work which is never done. It accompanies a man upon his walks, goes with him to the theater, gets into bed with him, and possesses him in his dreams, if he stoops to kiss the baby, before he has reached the requisite angle a point oc curs to him, and he hangs in mid-air, with vacant face and mind distraught. “ What’s the matter ?” says Mrs. Emer son, in the middle of the night, hearing her husbaud groping about the room. “Nothing, my dear, only an idea!” —James Parton, in North American Review. Marrying in 111-Uealth. A prominent Eastern physician has related that he was consulted by two consumptives as to the propriety of mar rying. They were both weakly in con stitution, but intellectually brilliant, and their tastes were harmonious. They loved each other ardently, and could not be happy apart. He counseled them to marry, and they did so. They lived to gether most pleasantly for about a dozen years, aud died at about the same time. "According to the physical school of thinkers, they should have remained single, each dragging out the twelve years in solitary discontent. Of course there can be no general rule for cases in which disease exists; each instance must be judged on its own merits.—Cincin nati Gazette. A New Way to Kill Stage Robbers. As there is no reason to suppose the stage robbers intend to retire voluntarily to the shades of private life very soon, and as there is not muoh dan ger of their being compelled to do so, we, ourselves, have determined to put a stop to the business. We have written to persons in Western Texas whom we suspect of designing to send us original poetry, to forward the manuscript in a registered package by stage. The stage robbers are in thV habit of opening and examining regis tered packages. After this, when a stage is robbed, and any of our original poetry is stolen, all the authorities will have to do will be to send out a wagon to the scene of the robbery, and bring in the bodies of the highwaymen who have been bored to death. They deserve all they get.--Texas Siftings. Tkerb is no reason why an elderly woman shouldn’t be well preserve*t. The young ones have so much sugar in their composition, you know. Lunatics at Washington. Recent events at Washington cannot have failed to call general attention to the vast number of queer birds that habitually roost about the Capital City. All the distorted mental action of this country appears to gravitate to Wash ington. Light-witted characters seem to be naturally throw n into that city on the top of a wave, like so many corks, and landed there. No one who has spent any time at the Capital can have failed to note them. They appear at every turn. The strange*who takes in the city “during the senaron ” will see varieties of human nature-enough to astonish him. He will wish there were not so many varie ties. Perhaps he drops in at ’ a meeting of ladies, to hear the woman suffragists plead their cause. Nothing, apparently, could be more conducive to repose and quiet than that. But it will not be'Surprising at any moment to be startled from his somnolency by the ap parition of a female fury flourishing a pistol in the face of tho fair speech makers, and declaring that she is a Com munist, and means to kill somebody, so she could get her rights. Such a cir cumstance happened not many winters ago. The Washington lunatic with a pistol is not confined to the masculine sex alone. Quack doctors, women in pantaloons, long-h'aired phrenologists, spiritualist lecturers, bewilder the visitor at every ho tel and street comer, till he begins to cast an anxious eye towards Congress men, nnd to wonder privately whether they {ire not going crazy too. The man who attempted to assassinate President Jackson, in 1835, was an un doubted lunatic. Many of them pester the Patent Office. They come with tales of miraculous inventions they have made. Men-with wild eyes, and slimy hair and clothing go about fancying they are the President of the United States. In some cases they go to the Executive Mansion itself, and demand that its occupant be turned out, and that they be given their rightful place. Tumbled-up looking women, with wild hair standing out like quills upon the fretful porcupine, and crazy bonnets, haunt the departments with messages from the spirits to the Treasurer, or President, or General of the Army. They are usually controlled by the spirit of George Washington, and he is anxi ous to show us through them how to boss this country. Newspaper corre spondents have often alluded to this horde of lunes about Washing ton. They have been allowed to come an 4 go everywhere, as they pleased, be inennerety laughed at and pitied. It has never been thought necessary heretofore to shut them up, not even as far as their tongues are concerned. But there ought to be a change in that respect now r . There is always a pressure of excitement at the Capital. Sometimes it breaks out in scandals, sometimes in craziness. In a city where there is always more or less mental strain of the kind that is felt there, nobody can tell when a harmless lunatic may develop into a dangerous ono. In fact, entirely harmless lunatics are very rare. Hereafter, it will un doubtedly be the part of wisdom to thrust behind the bars persons with a kiit in their braius. Individuals w ith a mission and a roll of manuscript should be strictly watched. hi one respect the pulpy-brained idiots who drift to the Capital unani nMisly agree. They all have bound lessly exalted ideas of their own import ance. It is the leading characteristic of lunatics the world over. Perhaps, in deed, one may safely conclude that per sons who think great things of their o*n abilities and merit, are always more or less cracked. —Cincinnati Commer cial, Cigar Stumps in Paris. The market for cigar stumps, which I looked in upon in the Place Maubert yesterday, is a veritable Parisian curios ity. The place is full of life and activ ity from 8 until 11 o’clock in the fore noon. A kilagram of stumps is worth 1 franc 50 cenitmes to 2 fr. 50 c., accord ing to the length of the stump. Cheap er cigar stumps bring lower prices. Tiiere are four or five wholesale dealers in cigar stumps who have their head quarters in the nine saloons in the vicin ity of the market, and there deal with the old men and women, and ragged lit tboys and girls, who go about the eets picking up these stumps. Much of, the tobacco thus scraped together is sold to exporters, who make it up in fine cigarettes. There was once an old fellow who bought cigar stumps for a living, jfiio died worth 15,000 francs a year. These pickers-up of ends and half smoked cigarettes are quite a nuisance to those people who frequent the boulevard cafes. They are forever getting in one’s way, burrowing about one’s legs, hunt ing for the coveted stump. From the heights of the Rue Mouffetard and the Rue Montmartre swarms of these laza roni swodp down upon Paris and make us miserable with their intolerable pres ence.—Paris Letter. Immense Power. “Do you know,” said the Captain, “that a fathom of steel-wire rope, little thicker than your cane, and weighing half a pound a foot, will pull as much as a hemp rope half a foot thick and weigh ing a pound and a half a foot ?” “ I have known a piece of wire, Cap,” said I, “no thicker than a straw, to draw a man weighing 200 pounds the whole length of Broadway.” “ Oh, come, now !” exclaimed the ob- I tuse Briton. “Yes, sir; it was a hair-pin.” Holman Hunt says: “I have always found that people who delayed doing their work till after a certain period did nothing at all. ” Something Abont Kissing. This subject has recently attracted more attention than has usually been ac corded to it. It may be that a dearth of spring poetry has left the editorial repertory without a suitable supply of sentimental material, and it may be the weather had something to do with it, but whatever the cause, the fact remains that the subject of kissing has been given unusual prominence by both the pro vincial and metropolitan press. It may not have been a wise thing to do, for several very apparent reasons, chiefest of which has been the tendency to lower one’s estimate of the real value of tho transaction by having too much said about it, and thereby bringing it into general use. One can readily understand how a pastime, sufficiently pleasant with reasonable indulgence, may lose half its sweetness by being allowed too much freedom of expression. We object to being told that “kissing does not require an act of Congress to make it legal. ” So long os we can feel that some restraining power is neces sary, that the inclination does require, if not congressional enactme it, at least some prohibitory measures, kissing will be kept up to the standard of genuine enjoyment. Nothing enhances the pleas ures of some things more than a feeling that their indulgence is prohibted, or at least opposed by objections sufficiently strong to impart just a little flavor of naughtiness to the proceeding. Ever since the transaction in the garden of Eden forbidden pleasure have always been sweetest to the daughters and sons of men, and the great majority of peo ple would prefer some jurisdiction on the subject that would insure a continuance of the pleasurable emotions experienced by a kiss. We offer a few quotations to show .how much pleasure some people derive from this source and deprecate anything which has a tendency to detract from such ex quisite enjoyment. “You kissed me I My soul, In a bliss so divine, Reeled and swooned, like a drunken mau iooJlsh with wine; And I thought ’twere delicious to die there, if death Should come while my lips were yet moist with your breath I And these are the questions I ask day and night: Must my lips taste but once the exquisite delight Which thrilled by whole soul with rapture and bliss As your lips clung to mine in that passionate kiss. Would you care if your breast were my shelter, as then, And if you were here would you kiss me again?” We are inclined to think we would, even while not recommending just this style for general use, as the reaction from such exhilaration would not be de sirable. We think it would have a tend ency to shorten life, as our lives are measured by heart beats, not by years; and anything that so stirs the biood and maddens tho pulse should be held in reasonable subjection. Once or twice in a life-time would be all that ordinary mortals might hope to endure. Tennyson seems to have an apprecia tion of what a kiss should be when he makes one of his heroines say: “OLove, Ofire! Once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.” And Byron, also must have had some •uch experience in view when he wrote: “ One remnant of Paradise still is on earth, For Eden revives in the sweet kiss of love.” Perhaps Joaquin Miller more fully understands the inspiration l orn of a kiss when he gives utterance to the fol lowing: “Let red lips lift, proud curled to kiss lu love too passionate for speech, Too full of blessedness and bliss For anything but this, and this.” And again: “ Since man must die for some dark sin, Let my death-ciime be one deep kiss.” Eat poets are not the only ones who understand and appreciate the pleasure of a kiss. It is one of the luxuries of life which all well-organized people have more or less inclination, and people usually follow their inclinations. They may not be able to express their senti ments and experiences either in poetry or prose, but this is not at all necessary for absolute and perfect enjoyment. Temperament, surrounding circum stances, time and place, have, probably, more to do with it than poetry; though we do not pretend to deny that there is a great deal of poetry in a kiss.— Kansas City Times. How It Feels to Drown. It is not often that you hear of an editor with a curiosity. Most of them accept earthquakes, tornadoes, murders, fires and floods as every day occurrences, and even a nitroglycerine explosion next door would not interrupt the routine work of the sanctum very long. But a French editor, and the editor of a Lyons paper at that, had a curiosity to know how a person feels when drowning. He therefore put up a job on himself. Ho arranged to come within a hair’s breath of drowning, but was to be pulled out in the nick of time, rolled on a barrel, hauled over the sands, thumped on tlie stomach and otherwise resuscitated. All went well during the first act. He leaped into the water, refused to struggle and gradually sank from sight. At the proper moment he was hauled up by a rope and act second commenced. This was an occasion where an editor was too smart. They rolled him according to programme, and seven or eight men tired themselves out with rubbing liira and hanging up head downwards, but he was a dead man. He may know how it feels to drown, but he’ll never trouble the public with a description of his feelings. Died with His Hat On. William Weller, a prominent citizen of Hinkletown, died suddenly on Thurs dav morning, about 10 o’clock, of con sumption. He arose in the morning, but immediately fell over and expired. He was 42, unmarried, and eccentric. He would never take off his hat to eat, and died with it on.—Lancaster (-Pa.) Intelligencer. SUBSCRIPTION-51.60. NUMBER 2. SCRAPS OF SCIENCE. The deepest known worked mine is In Australia—a shaft having been sunk 8,200 feet. A member of the French Academy of Sciences has discovered well marked sexual differences iu eels. Specimens of fossil woods and lignite are reported to have been brought to the surface from the depth of 191 feet while boring an artesian well at Galveston, Texas. Experiments at Woolwich have dem onstrated that the transmission of deto nation from one mass of gun cotton to another not in contact is so rapid that a row of gun cotton reaching from London to Edinburg oould be fired in two minutes. Replying to the question whether or not our ancestors were acquainted with the peculiar physical condition known to us as somnambulism, Dr. Reynard, of Paris, said in a recent lecture that one of the most accurate descriptions of somnambulism in existence was the sleep-walking scene of Macbeth. Four Jourd'.u glycerine barometers are now in use iu or near London. One is at Kew, in the museum of practical geology, one at South Kensington, and one in the ofiice of the London Times. The enormous scale of the barometer enables changes scarcely visible in the mercurial instrument to be deteoted with ease. Rossetti has found that the tempera ture of the positive carbon of the elect ric arc is between 2,400 degrees and 3,00 CW degrees centrigrade, and that of the negative carbon between 2,500 de grees and 3,900 degrees, making, there fore, the temperatures of the extreme points of tho electrodes *.ot below 2,500 degrees and 3,900 degrees. Experiments have been made on ani mals with pure hydrocianic acid by M. Brame. The bodies of those killed with it remained unaffected by decomposition for about a month. During that time the acid remained in the tissues, and especially in the stomach. It could be easily settled to distillation, but much more readily from the tissues of herbiv orous than of carniverous animals. In a communication to the St. Peters burg Technical Society, Prof. Beilsteiii recommends the use of sulphate oi alumnia as the best practical disinfec tant. He states that the best method of making the salt for disinfecting pur poses is to mix red clay with four per cent, of sulphuric acid and to add to the mixture some carbolic acid for destroy ing the smell of tho matter to be disin fected. A scientist in the Magazine of Phar macy asserts that the usual physico chemical methods for determining the potable nature of water have proved themselves to be quito insufficient, and be says that “recourse must be had to the microscope and to the culture-glasses used by physiologists in their inocula tion experiments, before any really sound and valuablo knowledge can be gained by tho examination of waters” as to their purity or impurity. Alarm with indignation has arisen Halle regarding tarletans rendered pois onous by the introduction of copper arsenite in their production. Dr. Rei man has attempted to allay the general outcry by stating that oopper arsenite is not a splendid green color, and as for such goods as tarletans, Guignet’s green, which contains no arsenic, has quite dis placed the poisonous Schweinfurt green. The authority for the statement that after the extraction of the niter from gunpowder the residue cannot be dried at 200 degrees, without a flight loss o the sulphur, is Fresenius. >Terr A. Wagner, on the contrary, rises from hifl experiments with the conviction that no such loss has ever been observed at or below the temperature given. Above that temperature the residue suffers a notable diminution iu weight. Was Booth Insane? Probably the only history which gives color to the theory that Booth was insane is that by J. S. Blackburn, principal of an academy at Alexandria, Ya., and W. N. McDonald, principal of a male high school at Louisville, Ky. In their his tory, which is being extensively used in Southern schools, they say: “Booth committed the act under the fanatical idea that the war would terminate and the South gain her freedom if Lincoln were killed.” This same history ad vances, among the causes of the failure of the rebels, the following; “The primary cause of the failure of the Con federacy was that the people of the South were not unanimous in their efforts to gain their liberty. In the history of the world a united people, struggling for liberty, have never been subjugated.” Tiie italics are the work of Messrs. Blackburn and McDonald. Booth was shot in a bam at Garrett’s farm, near Bowling Green, and died soon after. That was April 26, 1865.— Chicago In ter-Ocean. Evangeline. Longfellow said “Evangeline” waa suggested to him by a gentleman with whom he and Hawthorne were dining, and who urged the novelist to write a novel on the theme of the exiled young Acadian girl who spent the remainder of her life searching for her lover. “I caught the thought at once,” the poet said, “ that it would make a striking picture if put in verse, and said, * Haw thorne, give it to me for a poem, and promise me you will not write about it until I have written the poem.’ Haw thorne readily assented to my request* and it was agreed that I should use his friend’s story for verse whenever I had the time ami inclination to write it.”— Philadelphia Press. •