Newspaper Page Text
The rate of increase of population in
the United States is a little more than
three per cent.
South America took 50 per cent,
more Bibles last year than she has
taken anv previous year.
In eighteen of the great agiieultural,
sheep-raising States and Territories
there is no <1 <>o- »a\- at all.
A Boston doctor has compiled fig¬
ures showing that out of 19,838 males
examined 806 were color blind, while
out of 14,971 females only 12 suf¬
fered from that affliction
In consequence of the prevalence of
suicide among the scholars of the high
schools in Germany, the Government
has addressed a circular to directors
urging greater leniency with backward
scholar* -
A new danger has been discovered
In the tornado. The experience of a
family living near La Grange, Ky.,
forty miles from Louisville, indicates
that the tornado can take up the germs
of a contagious disease and scatter
them broadcast with their virulence
undiminished.
The English speaking people of the
world are now said to number dose to
125,000,000, audit is claimed further¬
more that our mother tongue is ern-
ployed by nearly twice as many peo¬
ple as any other civilized language,
while the use of it is constantly spread¬
ing.
Emin Pasha apparently feels no more
grateful to Stanley for rescuing him
against his will, remarks West Shore,
than docs the heroine ox a plav when
some excited member of the audience
jumps upon the stage to save her from
certain death at the hands of the vil¬
lain.
Alabama papers are calling atten¬
tion to the wanton distruction of
mocking birds in that state. Large
numbers are shot every spring and
summer. “By the way,” asks the St.
Louis Star, “did anybody ever hear of
the Engiish sparrow being made an
article of female adornment?”—[Say¬
ings- ___
A correspondent says that the gal¬
leries at the nation’s capitol “have
been the scene of many a romance and
not infrequently yon will see some
Senator chatting earnestly with some
fair young constituent in them. Love
matches are frequently made in the
Capitol, and Henry A. Wise’s noted
father proposed to his second wife on
the Capitol dome.”
The supreme court of Indiana has
decided that when a life insurance pol¬
icy provides a forfeiture in case the
assured “should become so far intem¬
perate as to impair his health seriously
and permanently, or induce delirium
tremens,” it was not enough to make a
forfeiture that the assured was a per-
son who indulged in the use of iutox-
Hquor, „,,les S such use im-
paired Ms health seriously or perina-
nentlv.
It is said that the Pennsylvania sys¬
tem of railway lines will erect a great
ice-making plant to supply ice for its
own consumption, The whole will
cost about $1,000,000, and be located
at Jersey City. The New York Central
may follow suit with an equally costly
plant at Albany, This leads to the
hope and belief, remarks the Picayune,
that when the world is older and bet¬
ter all railroads will have ice of then-
own to put in passenger car water
coolers when thej run long and crowd¬
ed excursion trains on hot summer
days.
A “banana train” is a new thing in
railroad nomenclature,which illustrates
the steady development of transporta¬
tion facilities. It has been found that
bananas cannot be carried from the
Gulf of Mexico to tlie Northwest by
ordinary freight train without serious
damage, and a special fast train has
therefore been put on one of the
routes to Chicago, which takes the fruit
from Port Tatnpa, Fla., in about 90
hours, ventilated ears being used, in
which the temperature is as perfectly
under control as in a stove. The train
runs from Atlanta to Chicago in about
48 hours, and Georgia fruits and vege¬
tables can thus be put on sale in the
Northwestern markets on the third dav
after they leave the field, to the great
advantage of both producer and con-
sumer.
It is quite true, asserts the New York
Commercial Advertiser, that the aver*
age income of the Wall street broker is
less now than it has been in years.
Perhaps the small speculative commis¬
sion broker never before averaged
in.igniilcant annual receipts.
Everything is being reformed or re¬
measured or remade now, laments tin-
New York Telegram. It is sad to
learn, for instance, that Alt. Popocate¬
petl, that darling of every child Jeariv-
ing geography, is not so high by half a
mile as it was thought to be. One by
one cur childish faiths depart.
Says the San Francisco Chronicle:
Europe is unquestionably in a critical
condition. That may be affirmed with
certainty, even though most of the
real facts are studiously concealer
from the outside world. The conti¬
nent is in danger not only of the gen¬
eral war, but of a widespread revolu¬
tion, the only question being which is
likely to occur first.
A phonograph is to be placed in
each principal postoffice in Mexico.
This will be for the accommodation of
the numerous citizens who cannot read
or write. The illiterate Mexican will
go to the postoffice, talk bis mes-age in¬
to the receiver of the phonograph, and
when the cylinder reaches its destina¬
tion the person addressed will be sent
for, and the message will be repeated
to him by another machine.
The latest invention in connection
with electricity, if we can believe the
editor of an electrical journal pub¬
lished in London, is a machine for
buttering bread. It is used in connec¬
tion with a great bread-cutter, and is
intended for use in prisons, work-
houses and other reformatory institu¬
tions—so it is said. There is a cylin¬
drical-shaped brush, which is fed with
butter, and which lays a thin layer on
the bread as it comes from the cutter.
The machine can be worked by hand,
steam, or electricity, and has a capaci¬
ty of cutting and buttering 750 loaves
of bread an hour. The saving of but¬
ter is said to be as much as 50 per
cent., and the machine will be a great
boon to Chicago boarding-house keep¬
ers during the World’s Fair.
The Electrical Review calls to mind
several instances in which miuderers
have cheated the hangman’s noose, and
suggests that judicial death by elec¬
tricity can be evaded in several ways.
A coat of invisible varnish, for in¬
stance, can be applied to the body,
which will render the condemned man
entirely invulnerable to the deadly
fluid. Of course the murderer would
have to be a consummate actor, so that
he could feign death until he got into
the hands of his friends. Other meth¬
ods are suggested by which the body
can be made impervious to electricity,
but it is not safe for would-be lnur-
derers to rely upon any of them. The
electrical chair will not be found con-
ducive |o life> llm , er the laosl
tavorable circumstances,
“I am beginning to think,” says the
Man About Town of the New York
Star, “that Americans, and New
Yorkers in particular, are coming
more and more to a belief in country
life, after the English fashion. Men
of wealth and leisure are taking coun¬
try 1 ouses, and living i-i them perma¬
nently, too. AVliat is more, in a great
many such instances they are rich
bachelors, whom one might suppose
would prefer their c!nbs and city
amusements to the shooting, riding
and driving that constitute the princi¬
pal sport they can obtain in the coun¬
try. The explanation ollered for this
by another man about town of my ac¬
quaintance is, that young men who
have any supply of brains combined
with money, and who yet do not feel
like entering into matrimonial slavery,
soon tire of the monotony of the ave¬
nue and the club. They have to
chose between emigrating and going
into the country to live.
Female Victims cf Judge Ljccfi.
There have been two noted cases of
female lynching in the past forty years.
The first occurred in 1851 at Danne-
ville, a mining district of California,
when a Spanish woman, Inez Paria,
who had murdered a man in her hus*
band's saloon, was summarily dealt
with. The last case recorded is that of
Mrs. Cuddingham ai Ouray, Col., in
February, 1884.—[Detroit Free Press.
GRIZZLY TRAPS.
PONDEROUS’ IRON CONTRIVANCES
USED BY BEAR HUNTERS.
A. Grizzly Caught in a Trap is an Ugly
Customer.
“There is more danger in trapping
the grizzly than there is in chasing
him with the rifle,” said a Californian
to a New York Sun reporter. “The
traps are ponderous iron things weigh¬
ing forty or fifty pounds. The jaws
are worked with springs so stiff that
it lakes two good strong men to set
them. To the trap a long chain is
firmly secured, which is in turn fas-
tened to o.ie end of a heavy piece of
timber by driving an iron ring on the
wood until it is six inches or so from
the end, so it cannot be pulled off.
This piece of timber serves as a hin¬
drance to the bear when the trap is
sprung on his foot and he retreats to.
or tries to retreat to, his tangled
haunts.
“A great deal of cunning has to be
used in setting a trap for a grizzly,
for he is as suspicious as a fox, and
will frequently pass by a tempting
morsel that has been used for bait for
a tiap because lie has made up his
mind that danger is lurking beneath
it. The grizzly never hesitates to risk
danger that confronts him openly,
ike a hunter, dog or other enemy, but
a suspicious-looking object, the nature
of which be does not understand, will
quickly start him off about some other
business.
“It seems strange to see a great
xloodthirsty beast, weighing 1200 or
150<) pounds, hunting and devouring
such insignificant things as ground or
field mice and moles, and even grubs
rnd crickets, but a grizzly will do that
all day long. It was his love for field
mice that led Old Clubfoot to his end
at last, and many a fierce grizzly be¬
fore him has been lured to ruin by the
same means, after defying for years
th^ efforts them down. of hunters Not and long trappers I to
run ago was
in a mining camp in Montana, and a
big grizzly bad been prowling around
for some days, and was too smart for
us to capture. One day 1 thought I
would try baiting him with ground
mice. After a long search I secured a
dozen of the little squeakers. Cover¬
ing my trap with dead branches, I
tied half a dozen of the mice to pegs
driven in the ground, just behind the
trap. In less than an hour that smart
grizzly had succumbed to his passion
for field mice, and had ono of his
great paws i;i my trap. He gave me a
chase of half a mile, with the heavy
trap fast to him, but I got lead enough
into him at last to end the race.
“ I he men who make a business of
trapping grizzlies set th dr traps miles
back in the great gloomy forests, where
the animals like to have their lairs
among the tangled fallen timbers,
over which no one can pass except on
loot, and then only with great diffi¬
culty. To come upon an uglv grizzly
in such a region, an animal weighing
as much as an ox and not only ready
but anxious for a tight, is something
that means business to the hunter.
A grizzly bear will get out of a trap
nine times out of ten if he is not over-
taken within three hours after he is
caught. It is to lessen the danger of
this that the wooden clog is fastened
to the trap, and always with the chain
at one end of the stick. Thus it fol¬
lows the bear endwise as he makes his
way, and clears obstructions that
wouid catch and hold it if it w r ere
pulled along with the chain fastened
at the middle. A grizzly is nearly
always caught in the trap not far from
the tip end of one of his forepaws.
On being caught he rushes wi^ii all
the speed he can summon, and in a
tremendous rage, for the nearest
swamp, which is never far away in
a region where successful grizzly trap¬
ping is to be expected. The hold the
trap has on him is not one that will
withstand every resistance, and the
bear's exertions to get away are great
and persistent. He seems to know
that his life depends on ridding him¬
self of his incumbrance. As he tears
onward through the forest he mows
great swaths is the underbrush. He
drags the trap against trees, logs and
rocks, and whenever it holds fast
them for a few seconds he jerks ^
tugs his imprisoned foot, trying fo
tear it loose. If the clog were tied in
the middle it would soon catch cross-
wise between two trees, and then the
bear would tear loose with one or two
lunges forward of his great body, and
escape .to the swamp. I have more
than once come up to my trap with
nothing in it but the ragged and bleed¬
ing half of some monster grizzly’s foot,
and such has been the experience of
all trappers. It was an incident of
that kind, no doubt, that made the old
scourge of Battle Creek a clubfooted
bear.
“The further a grizzly bear goes on
his furious march without ridding
himself of the trap, the greater his
rage becomes. lie wrill rush against
obstructing trees and tear them with
his teet, G some irnes biting the trunk
half away. I have followed the trails
of grizzlies through the thick timber
while the bears were endeavoring to
free themselves from their traps, and
have counted suppling after suppling
chewed to the ground as completely as
a chopper could have felled it,by these
infurialed monsters, and the trees
w r ere covered with blood from the
wounds made on the mouths of the
bears in their blind rage. To come up
with a half-ton grizzly bear while he
is in such a temper is like standing on
the edge of a cyclone. The trail of a
trapped grizzly generally leads the
trapper a leng way through the for¬
est, and more than likely a mile or so
into a swamp where he can see but a
few feet in any direction. He is con¬
stantly expecting the bear to rise up
somewhere about him and charge
upon him like an avalanche. There
have been times when trappers have
come up with the bear at the very mo¬
ment when it Lad succeeded in tearing
loose from the trap. I knew one man
—dim Carter by name—who happened
to reach his grizzly at such a time.
The bear made one rush, and before
the companion who was with Carter
could realize the situation the bear had
torn Carter to pieces. The companion
shot and killed the bear, and carried
the dead trapper’s body back to camp.
I have heard of several similar in-
stances, but this one I had personal
knowledge of, for Carter and 1 were
in the same camp. When you have
trapped a 1000-pound grizzly you
haven’t caught a bear at all, but simply
the devil incarnate. 1 have trapped
and killed twenty-four of these mon¬
sters in my time, but as I have some¬
thing of a wish to die in bed, I think
I will rest on that, and let some one
else have it out with the grizzlies that
are left.”
A Conscience-Stricken Bog.
There was a sad case of breach of
trust in Atlanta the other day. An
ol 1 blind man was being led down
Marietta street by a dog just at the
time when the sidewalks were most
crowded and the roadway was full
of vehicles. Long experience had
taught the blind man to trust his four-
footed guide, and he went along
feeling certain that he would be led
into no danger. Suddenly a tempting
bone a few feet from the sidewalk
attracted the dog’s attention. He
ooked at it wistfully for a moment,
and then, unable to withstand the
temptation, he went after it. Uncon-
scious of danger, the blind man fol¬
lowed the dog, and before any ono
could put out a hand to save him he
was under the feet of a passing horse.
The driver pulled up his team just in
time, and the blind man escaped with
his hat knocked off. Remorse must
have immediately seized the dog, for
he led the blind man back to the side-
wa '^ auk re f US(1 d to look at the bone
again.—[Atlanta Constitution.
Death and Burial ol a Bank Note.
There is a certain ceremony which
attends the death and burial of a Bank
of England note. It is only three
days after its cancelling that it is car-
lied to its last home in the Banknote
Library. Its first dark day of noth¬
ingness is spent in the inspector's
office ’ where f evere j llf1 ?*; 3 sk ifl j«dg-
ment on ks virtue. During its second
day. it and its thirty or forty thousand
fellows, done up into parcels, arc
counted and sorted; that is to say,
each parcel is deait out like a pack of
cards, according to dates and denotni.
nations of value., The third day, they
are pos ed in ledgers, which are kept
as indexes to the paid notes; and then,
on the evening of their last day in the
"PP** regions of light and air, they
«« carried down with scant ceremony,
kl huge bags, to the Banknote Library,
—[Yankee Blade.
No Show.
Joe Beal ’ud set upon a keg,
Down to the groc’ry store, an’ throw
One leg right over ’tother leg,
An’ swear he’d never had no show ■
“Oh, no,” said Joe,
“Hain’t had no show”_
Then shift his quid to ’tother jaw,
An’ chaw, an’ chaw, an' chaw, an’ chaw
He said he got no start in life.
Didn't git no money from his dad,
The washin’ took in by his wife
Earned all the funds he ever had ■
“Ob, no,” said Joe,
“Hain’t hed no show”—
An’ then he’d look up at the clock.
An’ talk, an’ talk, an’ talk, an’ talk.
“I’ve waited twenty year—le's see—
Yes, twentj-four, an’ never struck,
Altho’ I’ve sot roun' patiently,
The fust tarnashion streak er luck. I
Oh, no,” said Joe, .
“Hain’t bed no show”— j
Then stuck like mucilage to the spot, |
An’ sot, an’ sot, an’ eot, an’ sot.
“I've come down regerler ever’ day
For twenty years to Piper's store;
I’ve sot here in a patient way,
Say, hain’t I, Piper ?” Piper swore,
“I tell ye, Joe,
Yerhain’t no show;
Yer too blame patient,”—ther hull raft j
Jest laded, an’ Jaded, an’ Jaded, an’ Blade.! laifei
—S. W. Foss, in Yankee
HUMOROUS.
Too fly—The young bird.
Fatal fall—unhealthy autumn. I
Extraordinary phenomenon in nJ
ture—a feat of arms.
“Gas is going up,” as the aeronaa
said when he cut the balloon rope, j
There are some men to whom a iJ
of their reputation means mighty good
luck. |
The man who is going down hil
meets lots of people with their nod
turned up.
“Has your chum any vicesT ■
only know of one.” “What is thatH
“Talking of his own virtues.”
Squimps—How’s the new babfl
Jenkins—How is he?—He’s a howlini
success, and don’t you forget it! j
The reason that a great many neopl
fall into the blues is that they dm
look at things in the right light. I
Evangeline—How pale the moon iJ
Louis. “Yes, love; it has been nl
until quite late for several nights. I
Boatman—Were you ever in I
squall? Landlubber—I should say sol
1 tried for an hour last night to
the baby’s crying.
There is something annoying
a glass eye. The man wearing it
know it’s a fraud a..d still he
through the fraud.
Customer (in cheap
hope you don’t call this a square
Waiter—Well, we’ll call it
When you settle for it.
Squiggs: “I never see von
Miss Mary Aim out together
Have you quarreled?” Biggs:“No,
not exactly. We’re married.”
A rather indolent young lady
of the storm in Kentucky, and s&it
she would like to live there becaus
the cyclones do all the sweeping.
Hardware—No. The Egyptian doffi n
Jalis are not employed in cutting
trees; they are not that kind of “fefl
lers.” You should not axe such qceJ
tions. j
Dentist—Can I see your mistressl
Servant Girl—No, sir; she has tbai tlij
toothache. Dentist—IIow is
possible? Why, I have her teeth
niv pocket.
“It is said to be fashionable now
move at night.” The fashion is
new. It was introduced years ago
the young man who was a few
iu arrears for his board.
<< Why, Mr. French, you talk to
half the time as if 1 were only
years old.” “Well, Miss Newail,
must remember you never told
how old you are, so I hope you'll
don me.”
Airs. Artless—Good morning, Mfl
Palette. I’ve but a moment to spaff
can you tell me briefly the secret ol
your art? Artist Palette—Certain^ only tN
Madam. You have to select
right colors and put them on the rigjjj
spot. Airs. Artless—Oh, I see. Th*®
you very much.
Logical Reasoning.
Teacher—Who was the richest
of ancient times?
I reddy Fangle—AIethuselah,Ala
What ?
Aes; he had more time than anyo 1 !
else, and time is inouey, you knd
*-[ Epoch.