Newspaper Page Text
W. F. SMITH, Publisher.
VOLUME X.
LINES TO A GUINEA HEN
I hoar MV squawk~at~mornlng tiro* eweet
When rosy-tinted clouds
ti,,i,. T .ii-bnM {ft**? 1
NW low and ta£B! "°S' jSffiS . ’
B <,u akto the cloud.' thy Jlear, exSSS
1 wo U ?} ?, ftb:h l by wart >led note, sweet hen
rhyme! B°ft 8 ° ft numbord >night inspire my
Conld I but make your cackle with my pen
How down the ringing corridors of tiihe ’
K’n ka viE?E!!£L v F' d v car ■PeokteSck
n ka, k n Kd, ka, ka, k aka, ka, kwaek!
Th v feet are swifter than the sands of time-
Sp.eaT" lHn ° 1 tby dSSrnt
1 And mwohn* th r fono ° *ot tip and climb,
streak; h oad<JW ’ one Quick, speckle.!
vwll fhe 1 he’bolt to onteh thoo on the fly,
AIJ( 'die 10^68 ’ * ** eo run, iro home to
I see thy papier mache head, shy Guinea hen
\. h. rellamo the scarlet poppies in the sun;
1o reach thy nest, far from the haunts of men,
Dtninfi?' 1 !' ,h, i" BaQ ' l miles thou hast to run!
1 ° P fence* bend,ng krass, close by the old rail
lay your eggs in intense.
t\ hen evening l falls, and loud the crickets Rin'*
I see you duck beneath the mortise bars,
.And m the orchard’s gloom, you bashful thing,
' ‘ ,u l uy yourself to roost beneath the stars,
.And Mill with tireless squ ,wk your vigils
keep, °
And Miue to sing your answering mates to
I jrlcMin tho lesson of thy life so swoct
10 my horn, though I may soil no
'I., makh my carol loud, my footsteps fleet,
n , im l * <m ma y bear, but not como where I
And *}[ m.V treasures where no human arm,
tan take my unsung songs to mako an omelet.
—HurUnut/m Uawheye.
RAGSDALE AND TIIE LEPROSY.
A correspondent writes from Hono
lulu: Dill Ragsdale, one of the most
famous political characters the Sand
wich Islands ever produced, was for
many years the Parliament interpreter.
Ragsdale at that time wielded more in
ilucncc than any dozen Nobles or As-
MMniilynien. lie was a half-white, very
well educated, a close English student,
a brilliant, witty talker, immoral, fear
less, jolly and sharp. He bullied the
native members and misinterpreted the
foreign members, for or against anv
measure he was at all interested in; and
as it was well known that a cash con
sideration would interest him, he gen
erally killed or carried a measure as he
was paid best to do. When the session
was at all dull, and some grizzled old
native member had made a droning,
guttural speech in favor of anew bridge
in the Kohula District, and set every
one asleep, Ragsdale would rise im
pressively and interpret thus: “Nobles
mid Assemblymen: The learned, grave
mnl venerable member from Kawaihae
says ” Then Ragsdale would soar
away in poetic flights of llowery En
glish; piloting half the English poets;
dash oil - into an impetuous, fiery tirado
on the ills of life generally; tell a witty
story, half in French; and, having waked
and interested the foreign members,
would conclude thus: “That paternal
old party from Kawaihae, who put you
to sleep with his bad native speech,
says that ii anew plank ain.t put in
that Kohula bridge, the first thing you
know some wahina (woman) will break
her blessed leg on it, or her horse’s leg,
w inch would be worse; and so if you
have finished your naps, gentlemen, you
had better proceed to a vote.”
If some stupid foreign member made
a dull speech in support of a measure
Ragsdale favored, he would “interpret”
it into native by ignoring it entirely, and
making a rattling and telling speech in
native on his own account, probably
carrying a po.at where the foreign mem
ber would have failed. His worst trick,
or best, as you like it, was to burlesque
foreign members who spoke against any
measure he was interested in. lie would
mimic the foreigner’s mannerisms, and
twist his sober English into funny na
tive. all in the gravest possible manner,
and do more harm than good with a
speech intended to support the measure
under discussion. Of course this did
not always go v-toosented. and he was
moie than once discharged, but only to
be employed, as his services, though
erratically performed, were indispensa
ble. Ouce Dill Ragsdale was arrested by
a man named Dow sett, who married
Ragsdale's sister. The arrest was on
account o; the sudden disappearance
from Dowsett’s ranch of certain heads
of live stock, and ia connection there
with Ragsdale got one year in prison,
lie took his couunemont pleasantly for
a few months, and until election time,
w hen, by simply exerting his own influ
ence, he secured a pardon. His broth
er-in-law, Dowsett, had been in the Par
liament a number of terms, and was
again a candidate. Upon securing his
liberty Ragsdale went into Dowsett’s
district and did a little quiet work
among the natives, who all swore by
him, and who fiercely resented l)ow
sett's unbrotherlv treatment. The re
s'dt of the election in that district was
that Dowsett, who had several times
been elected by an immense majority,
was defeated, and Dill Ragsdale was
elected by the largest majority the dis
trict ever gave. Meeting the defeated
and chagrined candidate a few days
later. Bill said: “ That’s even, dear
brother-in-law. You retired me into
prison and Pve retired you from poli
tics. Aloha.”
Ragsdale always dressed in an ultra
dandified style, and when llnallv he be
gan w earing one light glove, even while
performing his duties as interpreter, it
was thought to be ouly one of his ec
centricities He told the sad truth soon
afterward. He was a leper. The hor
rible disease, the scourge of fair Hawaii,
had already ma le its mark on the con
stantly-gloved hand, into which a kni'.e
could le plunged w thout inflicting the
slightest pain. Poor Ragsdale gave him
seh up to the authorities, and asked to
be sent at once to the leper settlement
hhhhhhhhhhhhfpiiit® (fmgia §ycg.
Ilmtfd to Industrial Intfrrst, tie Diffusion of Truth, the Establishment of Justice, and the Preservation of a People's Government
His exam p!e in surren
' . X nnaself probably induced scores
* le .l )b r s ’ h ' d,n £ ftom the authorities
° n “ lhb glands, to do likewise. He
b.'i? L?n 0 okai and lived the ruler of
that ghastly community until about three
years ago.
I* our years ago a friend of mine visit
ed him there. He was living in a com
fortable cottage, attended by all tho
servants he wanted, ruling the 700 poor
wretches around him in a just, honora
ble manner. Pointing to a roc, , in
"inch no member ot the sett.ement
e\er entered, Ragsdale said to his visit
ois: ‘‘You will liud wine there, gentle
men. It was brought here by friends
and no lepers’ hands have defiled it. do
in and refresh yourselves. You cannot
pc waited on, as my servants are all
lepers. He inquired after friends in
Honolulu, to whom he sent messages
and aloha. When my friend left he in
quned of Ragsdale if there was any
th ng lie could do for him. “Yes, keep
me supplied with reading matter. That
is all L ask for or wish in this life now
something to read and think about;
something to shutout from my mind this
lile. It is only a short time more with
me now.”
It was only a short time more, lor
soon news came that poor Bill Ragsdale,
a volunteer exile in a leper settlement,
had shut out from his mind forever this
life.
I went with Dr. Fitch to the branch
settlement for lepers. It is an inclosure
of several acres on what is called Fisher
men's Point, on Honolulu Bay. Scat
tered over the grounds are scores of
cottages, some connected, others de
tached, and the offices aud buildings
used by Dr. Fitch’s assistants. Im
agino, if you can, a settlement of
Anglo-Saxons, or people of anv other
highly civilized race, all of them af
flicted with, and all more or less de
formed, by an incurable and horrible
disease—knowing it to be incurable,
and seeing themselves and each other
dropping to pieces from its dreaded ef
fects. I cannot imagine such a picture,
because I honestly believe that suicide
would make a settlement impossible
among any other than a people still
barbarians, or else in the childhood of
civilization. Such was the settlement I
visited. There were men, women and
children living in a world apart from
ours, having nothing worth living for
save mere existence, a succession of
days, marked only by slow consumma
tion of the death that had already
seized upon their bodies, and had al
ready deprive them of- portions, which
were already returned to dust.
There were in that strange and un
natural community marriages, births,
deaths. I would not attempt to describe
in derail the unrelieved ghastliness of
the sights there, vet not one of the in
mates who helped to make up the abso
lute areadfulness of the scene failed to
g r eet us with a smile and cordial aloha.
That only served to emphasize the
darkness of the pictnre. I said not one;
yet there was one. On a bed in a little
cottage room, whose open door faced
the dark, cool canyons back of the city,
ami whose window looked out upon the
lovely bay and let in the lazy murmur of
waves breaking over the coral reefs, lay
a native woman, dying. Nearly all her
right hand had dropped off', but in the
remnants of her lingers she held a feather
fan, which she faintly waved across her
distorted face, to cool the hot. aching
eyes that had not been closed for
months, the palsied muscles of her eye
lids refusing their duty.
As the doctor spoke pleasantly to her,
she turned her glaring eyes toward us,
but did not speak. “Her mouth i3 af
fected, too,” the doctor said. We
stood aside from her door to admit a
cooling breath of air that just then came
down irom the mountains. The swoll
en face rested, and the feebly T moving
hand fell, in gratitude for the mountain
breeze, yet, when it died away, the
hand did not move again; it was her
la>t moment. The mountain’s gentle
breath had comforted her, and when it
died away her breathing ceased, too.
in one" cottage we saw a little girl
whose fingers had been drawn up un
til her hand was half closed. She had
experimented with a novel cure by
calmly stepping on the bent fingers un
til she Lad straightened them out. She
exhibited the result with pride: four
fingers straight and stiff', and as useful
as so many wooden pegs would have
been.
Out on what is called the play ground
were some boys playing ball, one with
a useless hand, another with a palsied
leg, another with a foot partly gone,
and others with swollen, senseless faces.
On the veranda of a cottage sat two old
natives, both with useless legs, but
neither of whom showed any trace of
leprosy in face or hands. As 1 watched
them one of them began chanting a
hulu hulu, aecompaning it with appro
priate movements of his hands. Possi
bly, observing the look of astonishment
on my face, the old man’s companion,
with a meaning wink at me, joined in
the chant, and soon both the old lepers
were chanting and waving their hands
in the sensuous measures of the hulu
hulu. It was a dance of death, indeed;
Punchinello's mask over a molding
skull; a rollicking levelry in a eharnal
house: life mocking a gaping tomb.
'1 he medical profession here in Hon
olulu is in a terrific dispute about
what leprosy is (!) and whether or not
it is contagious. This, of course, is an
old. old dispute, but it has been revived
with great violence by the assertion of
Dr. bitch that it is, if not curable,
amenable in a large degree to treat
ment, and that it is not contagious from
ordinary contact, such as would de
mand the transportation of lepers in
to isolation. Dr. Fit h has been here
two years, and naturally his youthful
but dogmatical contradiction of the the-
INDIAN SPRINGS, GEORGIA.
orios of the old and experienced practi
tioners has raised a discussion of a
rather warm nature. However, his
practice appeals to the sympathies of
the natives, and he has a large, if rather
ignorant, following. —San Francisco
Call.
I’he Sort of a ..rpt ilc the Army Worm Is.
Asa description of the appearance
and habits of this worm, as well as tlie
methods of destroying it, will undoubt
edly be interesting to many readers, we
make a few- extracts from a letter writ
ten by a correspondent in Tennessee for
the Cultivator and Country Gentleman.
He begins the letter by saying that the
prospect for good corn and wheat crops
is very tine, but that farmers are not
content, saying
“ 1 lie army-worm has come, and we
will be ruined. The army-worm origi
nates in old meadow 1 mds more particu
larly, and where there arc no meadows
in a neighborhood I hear of no worms.
They travel from the meadows to the
wheat, oats, rye, barley and corn. If
the wheat, rye and barley are past the
bloom, and making the grain when at
tacked by the worm, the grain is oft
ener benefited by being stripped of the
blades than injured. Oats, it attacked,
are generally ruined—so is the corn;
botli being very tender plants, the
worms go for them heavily, i will de
scribe the worm for the bene lit of those
who are unacquainted with him: He is
bald-headed, well-formed, black body,
with two rather yellow than white
stripes from head to tail. When lull
grown it is a fourth le<s in size than a
common pencil, and when ready to de
posit his cotton is rather yellow," and is
very clumsy or slow, blit in almost con
stant motion and very hungry, eating
rapidly until he disappears. ' Where he
goes 1 do not know; he simply- goes out
of sight. I find no holes that he goes
into, and I do not find him dead on the
ground. Where does lie go to? 1
walked the ditch two hours this evening
and the foregoing is the best descrip
tion 1 can give you.
“He is, I might say-, rather an inno
cent-looking worm, and has not t lie
hideous look of the cut and measuring
worms. The workmen upon my farm
have been giving him battle for four or
five days. First between my wheat
field and meadows, and corn field and
meadows, we ditched, throwing the
earth out on the meadow side, and
making the side next to the whtet or
corn slanting under, so that when the
worms come into the ditch, which they
do by the thousands and millions, they
attempt to crawl out on the corn and
wheat side, and fall back, and when
collected in the ditch we hitch a mule
or horse to a small log of wood and
draw it up and down the ditch and
mash the army to death. With a little
care they never pass the ditch. As I
before stated, they- never originate in
the wheat or corn field, unless the
wheat has been sown on an old meadow.
But if they do get into the wheat, then
there is only one mode of fighting them,
and that is by the old Virginia mode. The
worms crawl up the stalk and strip the
blades off up to the head, if you will
stand idly by and permit tnem to do so.
To prevent this is almost too cheap and
simple to relate. The worm is very
clumsy, and the least shock precipitates
him to the ground, and while there he
does little or no damage.
“lake a rope from fifty to I<K) feet
in length and weight in the middle, and
put a man or boy at each end of it and
let them pass the rope over the field
once a day so long as the worm lives,
which is usually ten days, and you will
save the field from injury-. The fat fel
lows are never to make a second trip
up the stalk; one trip w-ith the rope is
sufficient with that crop. A repetition
of this operation once a day for ten
days will sa\e the crop; and it is easier
and cheaper than ditching. I have
succeeded in keeping them so far out of
my w-heat; so I have no occasion to use
the rope practice, but others are using
it every- day, including Sunday, and re
port success.”
Young Criminals.
—The criminal news of a single week
recently makes a sad showing of boyish
depravity. An Illinois boy killed the
girl who rejected his addresses on ac
count of his dissipation. Two Arkan
sas boys quarrelled over a rabbit hunt,
and one slew the other with an ax. A
St. Louis boy stabbed the playmate who
teased him tor his ignorance of English.
A West Virginia boy shot the rival in a
girl’s affections. A Virginia boy con
-1 esses the poisoning of two persons. A
Texas boy shot a little girl because she
retused to put down a pail when he or
dered her to. A Kansas boy was on
trial for intentionally drowning a play
fellow. Two Wisconsin boys maltreat
ed a child nearly to death. Three boys
pleaded guilty to highway robbery in
Chicago. An lowa boy is a forger. A
M ssouri boy set lii*e to a house A New
Mexico boy shot a baby. A Colorado
horse thief is aged eight years, and none
< f the criminals mentioned are over six
teen .Ch icago H< raid.
—The extermination of snakes has
been vouchsafed. Pennsylvania farm
ers' boys have discovered that snake
skins make good whiplashes, and two
seaside belles are the envy of their girl
friends because of their gaudy girdles
lof rattlesnakes' hides. Further investi-
f 1 ation will doubtless demonstrate that
oop snakes make good hoops, glass
1 snakes good spectacles, and garter
| snakes good suspenders.—A'. Y. Times.
—The old Baroness’s husband has
' changed his name once more. This time
he is'William Lehmen Ashmead Bartlett
Burdett Courts.
The Bursting of the Monsoon.
The brief mes-age whch reached us
a da}-or two ago from Bombay—“the
monsoon lias burst”—has a meaning
in it which only these who have lived
in India can fully understand. On the
regu nr “bursting” of the monsoon the
very existence of the people of India
may be said to depend. But lor the mon
soon tin* whole (oulitry would perish
Under its glaring sun; and during the
early- days of June Anglo-Indians look
anxiou-lv for the brief announcement
of its coming. The southwest monsoon
sets in generally toward the end of
April, the steady wind sweeping up
from the Indian Ocean anil carrying
with its dense vo’umes of vapor, which
slowly collect in dark masses of cloud
as they approach the continent. From
Adam’s Peak in the Isle of Spices, right
along the Eastern and Western Ghauts
and the Niigiris, every hill-top is gradu
ally shrouded in mist, instead of stand
ing out clear and sharp against the sky-.
Darker and denser become the cloud
masses; the horizon assumes a heavy
leaden appearance, sometimes kindling
into a Lurid glare —answering to the
sense of oppress on, both mental and
physical, which accompanies it. The at
me sphere becomes “close” and oppres
sive alike to man and beast; but the heat
is borne with patience, for relief is at
hand. Flash! sof lightning play from
cloud to cloud, ami heavy thunder re
verberates through (he heavens; the
wind suddenly springs up into a temp
est, and along the shore the white
waves are tossed in foam against the
rocks or over the burning sand. Then
a lew great heavy drops of rain fall,
like balls of le id from the apparently
leaden sky; the forked lightning is
changed to sheets of light, and sudden
ly the Hood-gates of heaven are opened,
and not rain, but sheets of water, are
poured forth, refreshing the parched
earth, carrying fertility- over the sur
face of the country, filling the wells
and natural reservoirs with a fresh
store, and replenishing the* dwindling
rivers and streams. The whole earth
seems suddenly recalled to life. Vege
tation may almost he seen to grow, and
from the baked mud of the river-banks
emerge countless fishes, which for
weeks or months before have lain there
in torpor. The phenomena of the
bursting of tire monsoon are repeated
from hill top to hill-top, till the whole
country, from Cape Comorin to Bom
bay and the great plains beyond, is
summarily visiled. Then follows a
period of com) arative repose, during
which the welcome rains continue to
fall, with but short intervals, for three
or four months, invigorating and re
freshing all thinirs. — tit. James' 1 Gazette.
Insects Going West.
The tide of travel with insects, as
with men, seems naturally to be from
east to w r est. \\ it li the noted exception
of the grape phylloxera and the Colo
rado potato beetle (as Miss Murthly
points out in a paper to fhe St. Louis
Academy), Europe has not received
from America any considerable pest,
while innumerable noxious species have
crossed the Atlantic from Europe.
There is a comparative scarcity, too, of
Asiatic insect species on the western
seaboard of America, notwithstanding
the frequent ocean tratiic. I'pitc of
great arid plains and lofty mountains,
nearly ail the insects of Eastern Ameri
can States, including those from Europe,
have found their way to the fields, or
chards, and vineyards of the Pacific
States. One of the latest insect in
vaders from Europe is the cabbage or
rape-butterfly (Pier is rupee, Schrank).
It appeared about twelve years ago in
some northern seaports, and its range
now extends from far north in Canada
to the south of Georgia. It attacks
every cruciferous garden vegetable, but
in the flower garden curiously reject#
plants of that family in favor of migno
nette. Miss Munhly has noted a large
amount of premature emergence from
the chrysalis, and consequent death ;
indicating imperfect adjustment of the
insect to the climate of its new habitat.
In Europe the insect is mainly kept in
check by numerous parasites. For sev
eral rears in America none such came
to the aid of the disheartened gardener,
but some have now appeared, the most
important being a small metallic green
fly, which, tHough identical with the
most destructive European parasite, is
proved to be indigenous on both sides ot
tin* Atlantic. It lays its eggs in or upon
the skin of the mature caterpillar, and
from these come small maggots, which
live on the fatty tissues of their victim
but do not touch its vital organ until the
chrysalis state is reached. — Nature.
Jay Gould’s Time.
Several weeks ago, when Jay Gould
was in Little Rock, ne was visited in his
special oar by a strange-looking, oddly
dressed man. “ Mr. Gould,” said the
visitor, “will you be generous enough
to give me ten minutes of your time?”
“Yes,” said the millionaire, in a dry,
last-rear sort of voice. “ Ten minutes,
thank you, sir; write the check?”
“What check? l ” said the millionaire, in
a kind of last-month voice. ** Perhaps
I’d better explain. A noted mathema
tician has calculated your income to be
$1 per second. With you, of course,
time is money, face value. Now, you
have given me ten minutes, amounting,
you see, to S6OO. Have you got the
monev about you, or will you give me a
check?” The millionaire looked at the
man in silence. “ I’ll do the fair thing.
Make it SSOO. Hanged if I don't be
easv with you. make it s4oo—blame it.
say §200.” Mr. Gould looked long and
inquiringly at the man, but didn’t smile.
Arkarisas Traveler
Oil Scouts.
When an operator goes into an unde
veloped field and puts down a test well
he naturally desires to have the profit of
his risk. It costs him something like
$6,000 to put down that wildcat well,
for which, in most cases, he gets no
return, for the majority of wildcat wells
pi-oduce nothing. If he finds a rich
sand, however, and can keep it a se
cret for a while, he has a fortune in his
hands. He can sell oil short, knowing
that when it is known that anew field
has been discovered the price will go
down. His most direct opportunity,
however, is to lease the land in the
neighborhood of his well, to be sold
again at an enormous profit as soon as
it is known that it is productive terri
tory. So he guards his secret with every
appliance he can invent. His most dan
gerous enemies are the “scouts.” They
are paid to discover what he is trying to
conceal.
Almost every prominent oil broker
has a “scout” regularly employed to
keep him posted on the latest doings at
the front. Daring, cautious, patient,
untiring, unscrupulous, and honest, the
scout must add to the experience of a
driller the subtle judgment of a broker
and the keenness of an operator. In
the shadows of the night he earns his
salary lurking about in the neighbor
hood of anew well out of gunshot of the
guards about the derrick; lying often
in the snow or in the swamp for hours,
with his nose and ears stretched above
the shelter of some friendly log to catch
the smell of gas or the gurgle of flowing
oil; sneaking up to the tank house to
get a peep in if possible; watching the
motion of the walking beam and esti
mating the depth of the tools thereby;
ready to bribe a driller or exchange
shots with a guard at a moment’s no
tice.
He sometimes spends weeks watching
one particular well. He studies the
habits of the men working on it, notes
if any of them are likely to succumb to
the temptation of his brandy flask, jots
down the hours when each one takes his
nap, marks which way their faces are
mostly turned in their rounds, and, if he
can not court their favor, devises some
scheme to get inside their guard and at
their secret. In the gray of the morn
ing he rides away to the nearest tele
graph office and communicates with his
employer before the market opens. It
is a mystery when he sleeps. Almost
any time of the day he may be seen
loitering about wherever there is a
crowd, picking up acquaintance with
the few drillers whom he does not al
ready know.
The emoluments of the work are oc
casionally of a size to compensate for
any amount of hardship. For instance
“Si” Hughes, who got the Anchor Oil
Company a pointer on 646, has been
taken into the company with the office
of superintendent and a clear tenth of
their profits. His spring’s work will
net him not less than $150,000; but
there is a well-defined path circling
through the woods around 646, worn by
the feet of those who worked as hard as
he and got nothing but their salaries.
How Hughes got his information is
still a mystery. He is said to claim that
he lay under the derrick for nineteen
consecutive hours, but the prevailing
impression is that he bought the secret
from one of the guards.
In the course of an experience meet
ing the other evening with Capt. Peter
Grace, one of the men who put down
the 646 well in this district, he told me
the true story of the mystery. Much has
been written about it, more probably
than was ever printed about an oil well
before, but the Captain told me a few
things which were new. This wonder
ful Cherry Grove district owes its devel
opment to the misfortunes of George H.
Dimmiek. He had been wrecked finan
cially over in the Coal Creek region,and
Capt. Grace set him to work out this
way rather to give him a chance to re
cover than from any other motive. Land
could be leased for a dollar an acre,and
the experiment was not very costly-.
“ When the tools broke through the
shell of the sand about ten o’clock on
the morning of the 11th of March,”
said Capt. Grace, “we knew we had
found wealth. The oil filled up a hun
dred feet before we could get the tools
out. The pressure of gas was tremen
dous. We drove a tight-fitting wooden
Y)lug, three and a half feet long, to the
bottom of the well, poured the hole full
of oil, screwed in the casing-head, and
set the tools, which weigh not less than
a ton, on top of it. Even then when the
well flowed it blew the casing-hcad off
and sent the tools a-fiying up the der
riok.
“ One trick we played to deceive the
scouts I tbmk has never got into print.
I took a torpedo man into a room in the
hotel at Warren one day, very mysteri
ously, but took good care to have a
scout see me do it. Of course the scout
immediately hid himself in the adjoin
ing room. I told the shooter, with my
voice trembling, that I had put my last
dollar into the 646 venture, and had
found no oil. I must get some appear
ance of grease in order to sell my lease
and get out whole. I arranged with him
to go out that night and torpedo the
well. Well, we went out with a make
believe torpedo filled with water. The
scouts were at our heels, of course,
and watched every motion. We went
to the well in the dead of night, and
there went through the form of shooting
the well so accurately that even the
guards about the well were deceived.
The next morning they complained that
the smell of the dynamite had given
them the headache. Sharp as they were,
the scouts were all taken in. and did not
find out the trick, until weeks afterward.”
Bradford ( Pa o Star.
SUBSCRIPTION--^.50.
NUMBER 3.
HUMOROUS.
—A West Point cadet who graduated
five or six y'ears ago is now an inmate
of the Maine State Prison. Some men
make a queer choice. — Detroit Free
Press.
—“Why did not you send for me
sooner?” asked a doctor of a patient.
“Well, you see. doctor, I couldn’t
make up my mind to do anything des
perate.”
—An exchange says: “A man lives
in this vicinity who states that he first
met his wife in a storm, popped the
question in a storm, and has lived in a
storm ever since.”
—“ What is the meaning of the word
‘tantalizing?’ ” asked a teacher.
“Please, inarm,” spoke up Johuny
Holcomb, “it means a circus proces
sion passing the school house, and the
scholars not allowed to look out.’#
—Mater: “So you enjoyed your
walk, Kate. Did you go all that distance
alone?” Daughter: “Oh yes, mamma,
quite alone.” Beastly brother: “Then
how is it. Kit, y-ou took an umbrella and
brought home a walking-stick?”
—Hot weather develops politeness
among men. On the shady side of
Eighth street the other day hundreds of
men took off their hats when the only
female in sight was a hoopskirt hanging
in front of a store door.— Philadelphia
Chronicle.
—The weather bulletin says “the
rivers will remain stationary.” This is
truly ungrateful on the part of the
rivers. After the liberal appropriations
that3iave been bestowed on them, they
Bhould each and all rise, if only to ex
press their thanks.— Boston Transcript.
—Just down the intervale, where the
brake ferns grow rank, she placed her
easel and sat by it sketching from na
ture. “Please, ma’am. Is that me
you’re drawing milking that cow in the
picture?” “Why, yes, my little man;
but I didn’t know you were looking.”
“Coz if it’s me,” continued the boy%
unmindful of the artist’s confusion,
“you’ve put me on the wrong side of
the cow, and I’ll get kicked way off the
lot.” Even lady artists need a little
practical knowledge.— New Haven Reg
ister.
PITH AND POINT.
—Charles Kean said a bad horse was
like a poor play —it can’t run, and won’t
draw.
—Every man who begins life by say
ing “I can’t do anything,” ends it by
saying, ‘‘l haven’t done anything.”
—A young man wishes to know
whether he should study on the saxo
phone or try the xylophone. Do neither.
Devote your young life to practicing on
the telephone.— Musical Herald.
—A New York physician gives half a
dozen reasons why Americans grow bald.
It appears that the principal reason is
because their hair comes out. We al
ways suspected as much.— Norristown
Herald.
—Mrs. John Brown is again enjoying
a subscription fund. We see how it is.
In order to be rich, it is necessary to be
the widow of some noted man. But
alas, we can never be a widow.— New
Haven Register.
—A Missouri paper wants to know
“who can endure being hawked at with
the black beak of envy?” No one,
sir! No man can tamely submit to
such a thing. And if ever any man
hawks at us with the black beak of
envy, we’ll bite him with a dog if the
livid talons of retribution smite us with
the red bolt of vengeance from the drip
ping jaws of the cloud of hate the next
minute, yes, sir; we’d do it. — Bur
dette.
—“Speaking about high figures on
freights,” said a Chicago lake captain
as he crossed his legs and rolled his
quid. “What do you suppose was of
fered for carrying corn from Chicago
to Buffolo in 1865?” “Give it up.”
“Ten cents a bushel, sir, and vessels
scarce at that. Any sort of a schooner
would clear SB,OOO to the trip.” “And
didn’t you get rich at it?” “Oh, no;
at that time I was husking that same
corn at four cents a bushel and board
ing myself!”— Wall Street News.
—A Londoner who lately crossed from
Canada to Ogdensburg asked his hack
driver as to the population and form of
government of Ogdensburg. On being
informed that it was an incorporated
city, the chief officer of which was a
Mayor, he inquired: “And does the
Mayor wear the insignia of office?”
“Insignia—what’s that?” asked the as
tonished hackman. “Why, a chain
about his neck,” explained the Cock
ney. “Oh, bless you, no responded the
other; “he’s perfectly harmless, and
goes about loose.”— Boston Sunday
Budget.
—'• Father, you are ar awful brave
man,” said a Detroit youth, as he
smoothed down the old man’s gray
locks the other evening. “ How do you
know that, Willie?” “Oh, I heard
some men down to the store say tha
vou killed thousands of soldiers during
the war.” “Me? Why, I was a bee!
contractor for the army!” “ Yes, that’s
what they said!” explains 1 young ipno
eence, as* he slid the kitchen
Detroit Free Press,
—Laros, the Easton poisoner, is said
to be farming out West. If he is em
ployed on a piece of rocky and stumpy
ground, and the plow handles insinuate
themselves into his abdomen, or bend a
couple of his ribs, like croquet wickets,
whenever the plow strikes a snag, he i9
getting pretty severely punished for
having simply poisoned his father,
l mother and uncle. — Norristown Herald,