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W. F. SMITH, Publisher, VOLUME IX. NEWS GLEANINGS. There are 1,21(5 convicts in the Geor gia penitentiary. Key West, Fla., has 12,000 inhabitants and only two chimneys. Ihe first national bank in Mississippi will l)e started soon at Columbus. In Florida there are 17,038 white peo ple over ten years of age who cannot write their own names. More small grain has an 1 will be sown in Southwestern Geoigit the-present j-eason than at any former period. Tennessee stock traders arc bringing their mules back from Atlanta rather than sacrifice them at the low prices prevailing. There are]fifteen prisoners in the Vir jonia penitentiary for life, one for fifty four years, one for thirty-e ; ght, and two for thirtjr-six. Ihe Carthage (N. C.) Gazette says tout twenty pounds of solid pure gold have been taken from the Cugle mines in the past two weeks. Citizens of Alabama pay taxes on $305,000 worth of farming tools and me chanical implements, and on guns, pis tols and dirks, valued at $354,000. The Silver Valley mine in Davidson county, N. C., employs about 80 hands, :uul produces about five tons of concen trated ore daily, which is valued at SSOO per ton. Ihe Southern fourth of Alabama is covered with forests of long leaved pine, mixed in the northern part with much hard wood. A comparative narrow belt <d pine runs nearly across the State lie tween latitude 32 deg. and 33 deg. Chattanooga Times: The Roane Iron Company is now securing an order of steel bloom a from England. They are arriving in car-load lots every day. '1 his order will amount to about $53,000, the duty on which will be $22,000. Curing the year just passed 322,934 tons <)f coal wore mined in the State of Alabama, A few years ago the output could have been expressed in ciphers. I liis industry has progressed more rap d'y than any other within the borders of the State. A borne, Ga., man is preparing unique directory. It will contain the name, style, whether brunette or blonde, address and approximate age of every young lady in Georgia who has in net own name, or as heir expectant, prop ortv to the amount of $5,000 or upward Elijah Cliaddock, aged 102 years and tlux'e months, and his wife, aged 102 years and seven months, of Walker county. Ga., passed through Chattanooga -Monday en route to Arkansas, where they will reside in the future with their son< They are hale and hearty, and bid fair to live several years longer. They go West, it is supposed, to grow up with the country. On I* rid ay last, about ten miles from Albany, Ga., a tattered, emaciated, half starved woman was discovered wander 'ii_ in the woods, tshe was taken charge °i kind persons, and it was soon found that she was a woman, who hid been abandoned bv her husband on ’he way from Pensacola to Eufaula. Hie woman could not speak a word of e-nghah, and ever since Christmas had been wandering in the woods, living on mushrooms and toadstools. Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution: Mr. Al exander H. Stephens keeps microscop u‘aUy informed of the details at Liberty 11 all. He knows from day to day how many chiekens, ducks, pigs, etc., he has m his yard, and takes as lively an inter est in these home matters as “he does in national or state affairs. He recently lost a mule that had attained the great age of thirty-seven years, and he is now much concerned about another, named Oul Heck,’ that had become moribund. 1 raveling in Florida is expensive. Ihe hotels range in price from $3.50 to $1 per day, but are first-class in every ' Board may be had in private houses from $2 to $3 a day. Steamboat tares are about fora day and night’s travel, including fare and berths. The boats are very much crowded now. and cots are used nightly in the cabins for toe comfort of passengers. It is not a good idea tq buy return tickets on the as the discount is small and dm return tickets are good only on cer tain boats. When several years old and three or four feet high the palmetto tree has the ir<cist appearance of a huge growing l'lm apple, with its tuft of green, blade hkc leaves at the top. Until the tree attains the height of several feet its body fffffffffff is embraced with successive layers of a regularly interlaced growth of shuck, which in color and appearance closely resembles the pineapple. After acer tiin age they lose this, the trunk assum ing a firm, smooth surface, which first makes its appearance next the ground, gradually extending to the top as the tree matures. “ Jesso.” Wo want more industry and more op portunities for our boys and our girls, and we want our cotton worked up at home and that will give us cheaper goods, for we won’t have to pay freight both ways. They talk a great deal about a tariff for revenue only, but I have never seen one yet that didn’t prove to be a tariff for protection, and I never will. It is all a complicated piece of machinery fixed up by politicians to get to Con gress, and they stay there and the poor consumers don’t know anything about it. Jesso. In the good old honest days when the masses of the people made nearly everything at home it didn’t mat ter so much, but it does now. I was a-thinking of the days when w r e used to wear country jeans and home-made shoes and wool hats and drank water out of a clean gourd instead of a silver dipper, and sat in split-bottom chairs— the best chair in the world—and lived in houses we were not afraid of. Ido hate to be afraid of a house when I go in it. x was thinking of the times when the boys went to mill and chopped the fire wood and wore home-made galluses and made balls out of old rubber shoes and played marbles without fudging, and called up doodle-bugs out of their sand holes. The are uow too smart for the like of that. They know more than we know, and by the time they are grown they will know it all and quit. Jesso. But still lam hopeful. There is always some good seed in the basket, and maybe the old stock won’t run out entirely. —Bill Arp. When Women are Most Attractive. In an interesting paper entitled “When Women Grow Old,” Mrs. Blake has brought facts to show that the fascinat ing power of the sex is oftentimes re tained much longer than is generally as sumed. She tells us of Aspasia, who between the ages of thirty and fifty, was the strongest intellectual force in Athens; of Cleopatra, whose golden decade for power and beauty was between thirty and forty ; Livia, who was not far from thirty wdicn she gained the heart of Oc tavius ; of Anne, of Russia, who, at thirty-eight, was thought to be the most beautiful Queen in Europe; of Cathar ine 11., of Russia, who, even at the silver decade, was both beautiful and im posing ; of Madamoiselle Mars, the act ress, whose beauty increased with years, and culminated between thirty and forty five; of Madamo Reecamier, who, be tween twenty-live and forty, and even later, was the reigning beauty in Eu rope ; of Ninon d’Enclos, whose own son—brought up without knowledge of his parentage—fell passionately in love with her when she was at tlie age of thirty-seven, and who even at her six tieth birthday received an adorer young enough to be her grandson. These facts, the representatives of many others, establish that the golden decade of fascination is the same as the golden decade of thought; that woman is most attractive to and most influential over men and woman are nearest the maximum of their cerebral force. The voice of our great prima donnas is at its best between twenty-seven and thirty five ; but still retain, in a degree, its strength and sweetness even in the silver decade. The voice is an index of the body in all its functions, but the decay of other functions is not so readily noted. New Cooking Utensil. The ordinary range and cook-stove in which the tire box is placed at the side of the oven, or in which the proceeds of combustion pass over the top, have the disadvantage of an irregularly heat ed oven. The sides and top are hotter than the bottom and ends or other side, and as a result the bread or other food is improperly cooked—perhaps burned at 4 top while badly done at the bottom. To correct this defect in ovens a simple appliance has been devised for causing the air in the oven to circulate, aud thus carry the heat obtained by radiation to all parts of the oven. A sheet of metal, bent into the form of the top and one side of the oven, is supported on wire standards and placed in the oven. In the narrow space between the sheet metal and the hot side and top of the oven the air is heated more than in the main body of the oven, and by expan sion it rises and moves over the top of the oven toward the cooler walls. The arrangement, simple as it is, appears to be founded on a good idea, and is re ported to work well in practice. The apparatus examined was portable, and is designed to be put in the oven by the cook whenever an even heat is needed. — Century Magazine. “ Ma, what’s a sweet, sugar-coated little angel pill?” asked a Williamsport boy of his mother at breakfast the other day. “ I declare, Willie, I don't know,” was the laughing reply. “ Where did you ever hear such an odd expression as that?” “Oh, I heard pa telling Mary that in the hall, last night, when you was over to Mrs. B——’s.” The “sweet sugar-coated little angel pill” was dis charged the next day.— Williamsport ; Breakfast Table. At what season did live eat the apple? Early in the fall. tooted to Industrial Inter st. the Mi bn of Truth, the Establishment of J INDIAN SPRING TOPICS OF TIP: DAT. The price of stoves promises to go up. The new Garfield postage stamp will be issued in a few days. Niagara Falls is trying to get the contemplated World’s Fair. Louisville is shortly to make an ef fort to found an art gallery. General Hancock has purchased a large tract of land in Minnesota. It seems Mr. Gladstone is still some what down on the Land League. WnEAT in Southern Illinois is reported in an unusually flattering condition. The organization of a Produce Ex change is being urged in Cincinnati. I)iu Sullivan ever tackle the fighting editor of a first-class newspaper? Well! Queen Victoria, by the advice of her physician, goes incognita to Mentone in March. The wilderness in which the crew of De Long’s boat are held, is eighty miles in extent. Lord Granville has taken grounds in favor of preserving the Clayton-Bul wer treaty. An exchange says that Oscar Wilde is like Balaam’s ass because he was made “too utter.” The Insurgents in Yemen, Arabia, have proclaimed a descendant of the Prophet of Caliph. It seems that the widow of General Custer has no pension. She paints plaques for a living. Judges Cox and Burnet, of Cincin nati, after fifteen years’ service, have re tired from the District Court. The Wisconsin Legislature has adopted resolutions calling on Congress to eradicate Mormonism by legislation. It is safe to refuse silver dollars bear ing the date of 1843. A dangerous counterfeit of that date is in circulation. The weeding out of incompetent clerks in the Treasury Department has caused another rush of office-seekers to Washington. A convict in the Mississippi Peniten tiary was killed by one of the guards, and the Court has awarded his wife sl,- 400 damages. A vaccine farm, capable of turning out 3,000 points daily, lias been es tablished near Chicago, and is doing a thrifty business. The fact seems to be just published that Cincinnati came out something like eleven thousand dollars behind with her Exposition of 1881. A number of State Legislatures have passed resolutions calling up Congress to do something toward the obliteration of polygamy in Utah. It is estimated that more than $l,- 000,000 is spent annually in New York for cut flowers. As to how much is spent on the poor no estimate has yet been given. A woman who died in Paris recently, at the advanced age of one hundred and two years, had lived a widow eighty years. She had no man to pester the life out of her. Recently a pack of wolves entered a church at Uvarre, Spain, and refused to quit it until they had killed three and seriously wounded five of the congregation. When a man is sentenced to hang at St. Louis, the man gets in a hurry about it and- hangs himself with his bed blanket. This saves the Sheriff a great deal of trouble. The retirement of Gambetta from offi cial life and assumption of the duties of an editor is looked upon by the Albany Journal as promotion—increasing the size of his audience. Between the Ist of March and the Ist of July next the commission of over 350 postmasters will expire—many in large cities. They are appointed for periods of four and eight years. Marvin, the man with fifteen wives, made an ineffectual attempt to escape from the Virginia penitentiary a few days ago. He perhaps had heard of an other woman who who wanted to get married. ThJ se J, l| Sandil Bradjl fraud | dietecl A | gives I tamilil lars, I titioufl possea oi sell Osc.j statenu of Am, Correci and wl Correct again. The men anil are not to blame for the newspapers. Its the nasty little type. o At one time Mr. Bradlaugh refused to take the oath of office in the English House of Commons because, he said, the oath would be meaningless to him. Now that he has signified a willingness to take the oath, in order to retain his seat, the House has refused by a strong majority to permit him. to do so. The assessed value of real aud per sonal property in New York City is $2,- 00 ,000,000. This does not include $55,- 000,000 worth of church property, $50,- 000,000 worth of school and library prop erty, and $15,000,000 worth of real estate owned by the United States, nor does it include the reputed wealth of many millionaires. Further, it is only 60 per cent, of the actual value of the property assessed. New York is no one-horse place. A San Francisco correspondent writes to the Baltimore Sun: “Coal oil is now so plenty from the wells of Los Angeles that the market is overstocked, and we want no more from Pennsylvania. The market price in Los Angeles has fallen from fifty cents to eighteen cents a gal lon. It is advertised in five-gallon cans at that price. The oil belts of California, from present indications alone, may be counted the richest in the world. ” It seems now to be a question whether the Senate has the right to originate a funding bill. The Committee on Ways and Means have referred the proposition to a sub-committee. Should the matter be decided in the negative, it is said the Committee on Ways and Means will pro ceed to frame anew funding bill, and ig nore entirely the Sherman bill, which has already passed the Senate. Since the statement has been pub lished that Dr. Mary Walker received the appointment of clerk to the special Congressional Committee on Woman Suffrage, Senator Lapliam, of New York, the Chairman of the committee, is having the life pestered out of him by woman suffragists. He avers that he has no rest, and to add to it his mails are burdened with aU manner of effusions from the tender sex. Ip all that is said against the China men is true, they are indeed a filthy race. A paragraph on the rounds con tains the following information: “An habitue of an opium den in Virginia City, Nevada, discovered that the pil low he was using was the dead body of a man covered by a'quilt. The Coroner found it to be a Chinese body that had been dead for two or three days. The keeper of the place said he came in off the railroad, sick.” Two men now prominent candidates for the possession of several tons oi Government money are Captain Eads and Mr. Corbin. Captain Eads thinks that an appropriation of $50,000,000 would be about right with which to build the ship railroad across the Isth mus of Panama, the money to be placed at the disposition of Eads himself, and Mr. Corbin has got it into his head that by a similar appropriation, placed at his disposal, he would be enabled to run ships across the ocean in six days. There seems to be a power in money in large quantities about which we know little or nothing. The following from Robert Bonner, of the New York Ledger , will start anew boom in story writing : “A man who looked like a perfect idiot came into my office one summer afternoon about ten years ago, and told me he had a story which he wished to sell to me for publi cation in my paper. At first I thought it would not be worth while to spend my time to even look at the story, for it seemed to me that such an idiotic-look ing fellow could not write anything that would be fit to print. He pleaded so hard, however, to have me just look at his story that I finally consented to take the manuscript and submit it to one of mv editors. The editor read it, and it proved to be one of the best stories ever brought into my office.” ffff fcvcrnißfnt. Mercenary Wars. Kital, already red with crime, has ■ another sin to her bloody list. It since the battles have been t and made their slaughter, that ■fendi war in Tunis was caused by ||i'ench money sharks, who desired ■tend their financial operations. Credit Foncier ” of France, which ■mswer to our “ Credit Mobilier,” is ■usible for the Tunis war. Govern ■ ought to be above these soulless ■rations and able to resist their Ih aggressions. The industrious lui went into North Africa, and be lo construct railroads. The French lalists became possessed with the ■that they would speculate in these |Bw representations of wealth. They Ited. They became entangled in [net, and hence the war. French ital appealed to French arms for France answered the appeal affirmatively and went to war. A more mercenary campaign was never waged, under the banners of a civilized nation. Heaven knows that wars, under whatever auspices, are cruel, barbarous and brutal to the last degree. They repress the man and develop the brute. They smother the good in humanity, and throw to the surface the evils of the race. Ferocity takes the place of force, and savagely usurps the place of bravery. As General Sherman said, ‘‘ In whatever light we look at it, war is hell.” One of the great works of civilization yet to be accomplished, is to disarm the world. To go to work to gratify ambition is a terrible sin; to take up arms to use in anger is weak, as well as wicked ; but to go to war for plunder, for mercenary ends, is to be unspeakably depraved. The men who sent the army against Tunis were the money sharks of Paris. Government has the right to follow her citizens and demand that they be pro tected, but have they not a right first to ascertain the character of the capital under which they intend to go to war ? Nations should not be plunged into war to gratify the pockets of men who project Panama canals, Tehuantepec ship rail way enterprises, nor for those who speculate in railway stocks in the north of Africa. The statesmanship of the world will be larger and wiser when it refuses to be influenced unduly by these corporations, whose rights should be settled without involving the country in war. The money and blood of the peo ple should not be put up for the benefit of the people who organize in corpora tions. What patriot cares to lay down his life for a .soulless corporation ? The mercenary wars, and the others too, should come to an end. —lndianapolis Herald. Every Man “Ilis Own Doctor.” Many a man who, if his horse or cow is sick, sends at once for the veterinary practitioner for ailments of his own that are on the face of them quite as serious and as much in need of professional treatment. He will take the advice of an ignorant neighbor as to what is “good for” an ill ness, when he would laugh at the idea of going to the same person for counsel in any other business or concern whatever. In the days of our grandmothers, when the household materia medica consisted of “roots and yarbs,” with a few simple drugs like epsom salts, this domestic or “lay” prescribing was less dangerous than in these latter days when concern trated and powerful agents have become so common and familiar. The household remedies of the olden time w r ere rarely liable to do much harm, even if they did no good. The cure was generally in reality left to nature, though the “roots and yarbs” got the credit of it. But most of the drugs of our day are not of this inert or negative charac ter, and the danger in their use by the ignorant is a real and serious danger. The most powerful medicines that un professional people of a former genera tion ventured to fool with bore about the same relation to those in vogue that gun power does the nitro-glyeerine; yet the latter are used even more recklessly than the former ever were. A little knowl edge is not always a dangerous thing, but when it leads a man to think that he can “doctor” himself, in ailments of any serious nature, the old and often-abused proverb is indisputably true. —Journai of Chemistry. The Magnetic Needle. A condensed explanation in regard tc the needle pointing to the northward and southward is as follows : The magnetic poles of the earth do not coincide with the geographical poles. The axis of rotation makes an angle of about 230 with a line joining the former. The northern magnetic pole is at present near the Arctic circle, on the meridian of Omaha. Hence the needle does not everywhere point to the astronomical north, and is constantly variable within certain limits. At San Francisco it points about seventeen degrees to the east of north, and at Calais, Me, as much to the west. At the northern magnetic pole, a balanced needle points with its north end downward in a plumb line. At San Francisco it dips about sixty-three degrees, and at the southern magnetic pole the south end points directly down. The attraction of tht earth upon a magnetic needle at its sur face is of about the same force as that of a hard steel magnet, forty inches long, strongly magnetized, at a distance of ODe foot. The foregoing is the accepted ex planation of the fact that the needle points to the northward and southward. Of course, no ultimate reason can be given for this natural fact, any more than for any other observed fact in nature.” A libation is better than a potation ; trine is often better spilt than drunk. SUBSCRIPTION—SI.6O. NUMBER 26 HUMORS OF THE DAY. A counter attraction—a pretty girl clerk. Always ready to take a hand in con versation—deaf and dnmb people. “ There is no rest for the wigged ” is what a bald-headed man said when he chased his false hair up the street in a gale. You can always tell the fastidious man by his sending twenty-seven cuffs and collars to the laundry, accompanied by a single shirt.— Yonkers Gazette. ■‘The truth always pays iu the end” is an old saying, and that is the reason probably why there is so little of it told at the beginning of any business trans action. A young lady bearing the aristocratic cognomen of Jardine recently deserted her lover, because in an impassioned sonnet, he made her name rhyme with “sardine.” “ Well,” said a cow-boy, as he looked at Sookey, when she had come through a weedy stubble-field. “Well, old gal, you ain’t got wings, exactly, but you are a burred of passage, all the same.” Poverty is the mother of rest. An editor is proverty. Therefore an editor is the mother of rest, but he never gets very well acquainted with his offspring on this terrestrial sphere.— Lampton. The gentleman who caught a severe cold from pressing his lips to a maiden’s snowy brow, recovered quite rapidly while basking in the sunny smiles of an other fair damsel.— Toledo American John had a “pop” of thnnder-tonc, He lent young Billy Smith it, The “ pop ” went off, but not alone, Smith’s linger went oil’ with it. A New York lady who was traveling in Ohio gave a baby her gold watcli to piay with, and the baby gulped it down and cried for more. What they can’t swallow in that State must be over a foot in width.— Detroit Free Press. Young man, look not upon the church sociable oyster stew when it is red— with pepper; because at the last it sting etli like an adder and biteth a bole in your pocket-book to a considerable amount. Williamsport Breakfast Table. Said the sailor to his sweetheart : “I know that ladies care little about nauti cal matters, but if you had your choice of a ship, what kind of a one would you prefer?” She cast down her eyes, blushed and whispered: “A little smack. ” The latest marvel of science is instan taneous photography. By the aid of this process it is possible to obtain a picture of yourself and girl in the act of being thrown over a stone wall by a runaway horse. This picture can be placed on the mantlepiece in a maroon velvet frame as a warning to young men to never let go the reins with both hands.— New Haven Register. She wanted to test his affection, so, picking up the rovolver and putting her eye to the muzzle, she said, innocently, “I avonder if it’s loaded.” “Oh, don’t,” he exclaimed, with manifest agitation. It satisfied her that he loved her and she asked, indifferently! “Why not?” “Because,” he answered, “I’ve got house rent to pay next month and a funeral would embarrass me. ” — Brooklyn Eagle. A new boarder at the Occidental gazed at Iris plate, the other morning, and then said: “Is there a reliable physician stopping in this house?” “Yes, sir,” said the water. 1 Good surgeons, too, eh?” “Believe so, sir.” “Then just see if he is in his room before I start in on this breakfast. I had a brother choked to death on a steak like that once, and I am bound to take all the necessary pre cautions. ” —San Francisco Post. Congratulations. Peck, of Peck's Sun, helped an old lady off the cars at some Western station three or four years ago, and she died last month and left him $22,000 in bonds. Even as homely a man as Peck never loses anything "by playing grandpa.— Detroit Free Press. Very likely the editor of the Free Press thought he was doing us a kind ness by starting that story, but if he coffid see the procession of charity seekers that have filed up our golden stairs since, he would be sorry. We never appreciated what an immense circulation the Free Press had until the people began to congratulate us on our good luck. But its circulation must be principally in poor houses.— Peck's Sun. Charred Bran. The use of charred bran for preserving delicate fruit while on the road to mark et bids fair to solve the problem which has so long perplexed some millers. Converted into charcoal, the light and slippery product of the mills ceases to be unmanageable; and it is quite likely that a large local demand for charred bran will arise in the vicinity of most mills, for packing not only quickly perishable fruits like peaches, plums and grapes, but also apples and other firmer fruits, for storage as well as trans portation. A Boston artist discovered an ancient, mo3S-grown, vice-clad stone mill in Maine, and sat down to sketch it, much to his own delight, as well as to that of the owner. When night fell he had his sketch half done, and the next morning he returned to finish it. Meanwhile, the owner had “tidied up” the place by grubbing up the vines, scraping off the moss and giving the stones a fine coat ol whitewash. A flash of lightning made an Ohio boy cross-eyed, but one day when his mother boxed his ears his eyes flew back to their old positions and he was made so happy that he fainted away.