Newspaper Page Text
Ail Englishman acknowledges that in
the matter of hotel elevators, at least,
the United Slates can surpass his na¬
tive land, for in England the “lifts”
run with exasperating slowness, and
only a few people at a time are per¬
mitted to enter one.
The number of men killed and
wounded on the railroads of -this
country in 1889 was more than twice
Hie loss of the Union army at Gettys¬
burg, there having been killed over
€000, while the number of the maimed
unu crippled was over 26,000.
What farming in Colorado often
means may be inferred from this
Glenwood Avalanfcho item: “E. Nip¬
ple of Spring Valley lias his ten-mile
water ditch nearly completed, The
water is brought from Devil’s Den,
a few miles from Gypsutq Creek. The
ditch has been two years iu build¬
ing.”
The study of penology presents
many perplexing problems, and among
them there is none more difficult of
solution, avers the San Francisco
Chronicle, than this—when aud under
what conditions should a person who
has committed crime be sent to a re-
form school, and when to the peniten¬
tiary?
Maryland, it is said, will be the
oyster of the World’s Fair. The head¬
quarters of that state at Chicago will
be a building seventy-two feet long,
forty-eight feet wide and fifty-six feet
high, made in the shape of the famous
Chesapeake bivalve. The drawings
for this oyster house have been com¬
pleted.
The grain trade from the port of
• New York for the year 1891 was the
largest in ten years, being seventy and
a half millions of bushels. This rep¬
resents a shipping tonnage of close
upon two millions and a quarter, and
it is not satisfactory to find, confesses
the New York Press,that these millions
of tons of American produce aro almost
•^entirely transported in foreign bot¬
toms. Only twenty-five cargoes
’-sailed under the American flag.
,1 “From my various patents,” says
*iklison, “so far as the patents them¬
selves go, I have stood an actual loss
in experimenting and in lawsuits oi
$600,000. I should have been bettor
•.oftjif I had not taken out any patents.
1 do not mean to say that I am a pau.
per. as you might think from my talk,
but my money has not been made out
of patents or out of any protection
the patent office has given me. I made
it all iu manufacturing, and I have
made quite enough to pay for my
experiments and to got a good
living, which is all 1 care about.”
r The people of the United Slate 5
,
comparing themselves with other na¬
tions, ought td feel well satisfied with
tlieir lot, says the New York News.
While our national debt per capita is
only $14 03, or, including state and
county debts, $20.46, that of France
is $116.3b; of the Netherlands, $955.6;
of Great Britaiu, $87.79; and of Italy,
$76.06. Another favorable feature of
our financial condition is that while
the aggregate public indebtedness of
foreign nations nearly doubled bc .
tween 1880 and 1890, that of tho
United States was reduced nearly one-
half. Takon altogether, the world is
about fifty thousand million dollars in
debt.
Says the New York Press: “Some¬
thing of a surprise was created in
London recently when a large manu¬
facturer of boots and shoes in Leeds
appeared before the Parliamentary
Labor Commission, iu session at the
British metropolis,to testify iu the mat.
tei of the importation of American
fpotwear into the kingdom. He do*
dared that United Slates makers were
fifty years in advance of British man¬
ufacturers, mainly by reason of the
use of improved machinery and that
the backward state of the British out¬
put was caused by the opposition of
trades unions aud other workingmen’s
organizations to the introduction of
labor-saving devices. The manufac¬
turer also gave it as his opinion that
American boots and shoes were not
only of a better qhality, class for
class, than those of English make, but
, that the ruling prices were lower. Im¬
portation from America had assumed
enormous proportions, and despite the
■tow prices, American manhfacturers
were making good profits.”
Down the Stream.
Love! It began with a glance,
Grew with the growing of flowers,
Smiled in a dreamful trance,
Reckoned not the passage of hours;
Our passions’ flood rose ever,
Flowing for her and me,
Till the brook became a river
And the river became a sefc.
Grief! It began with a word,
Grew with the winds that raved;
A prayer for pardon unheard,
Pardon in turn uncraved;
The bridge so easy to sever,
The stream so swift to be free!
Till the brook became a river,
And the river became a sea.
Life! It began with a sigh,
Grew with leaves that are dead;
Its pleasures with wings to fly,
Its sorrows with limbs of lead;
And rest remaineth never
For the wearier hours to be,
Till the brook shall become a river,
And the river become a sea.
— [Lord Houghton.
BETSEY’S IDEA.
BY HELEN FORREST GRAVES.
Mrs. Kybers’s drawing-room bad
never looked lovelier than on this raw
December afternoon. Long-stemmed
roses in Royal Worcester vases, threw
out fiagi-aut hints of June; a cannel
coal fire blazed in a huge colonial fire¬
place, and Lilliaa’s hair flashed back
its golden wires, half hidden by a fun-
tastic Ilpman scarf.
Opposite the window, a strange,
weird landscape in oils occupied the
place of honor. Many an ariist owed
his life’s success to entering the “Roy¬
al Road” through Mrs. Kyber’s after¬
noon receptions and the obscure des-
ciples of art vied with each other for
her favor.
The room was full of people, quiet
of voice, elegant of attire. Mrs. Ky¬
ber stood by the doorway, smiling
atn^ Lilian, gracious.
at the other end of the
room, was dispensing bread and
butter, orange-pekoe tea and brown,
frothing chocolate, and as the guests
came and went, Mrs. Kyber was men¬
tally coming to the agreeable conclu¬
sion that her afternoon was a success,
when suddenly her “dearest foe,” one
Mrs. Magnus Martindale, fluttered up
to her.
“Good-by, dear!” she said. “So
glad yotir rooms are so full! But you
always did attract people.”
“Thank you!” said Mrs. Kyber,
serenely.
“And it’s so ridiculous, isn't it,”
added Mrs. Martindale, adjusting the
fifth button of her glove, “that you
and I should have chanced to fix upon
the same evening for our reception?”
“It’s rather a coincidence,” observed
Mrs. Kyber.
“But then, you see, Signora Sivardi
could only come to me on Tuesday.
Aud Signora Sivardi is such an at¬
traction! Good by! I really mustii’t
keep the horses waiting any longer.”
. Mrs. Kyber’s color lmd risen, and
then piled. She looked at Lilian.
Lilian returned the glance with inter¬
est, even while she gave old Miss
Pooley a cup of chocolate and listened
to Doctor DroweU’s tedious remin-
isccnces of his last tri D to
“Mother, she whispered, as she
ca ™e P ast > eavrying some sponge cakes
to a lady in the corner, who seemed
temporarily neglected, “as true as yon
^ ive ^ iat womari has offered Sivardi
more thau we did, and the singer has
thrown us over!”
And Mrs. Kyber only responded by
a look of despair.
While the lady in the corner was
eating her spongp cakes and drinking
amber-clear tea, Lilian ran up stairs to
the big western bedroom.
“Betsey,” she cried, cheerfully,
„ here ig gome cho colate and cake for
y 0U> since you won’t come into the
flrawinoroom.”
A rouud faced, dark eyed girl of
j twenty sat curried up in the window
seat, staring out at the leadeu sky.
It was Betsey Bloom, a second
cousin of Miss Kyber.
“Me!” echoed Betsey, with an im -
patient \ movement of her shoulders,
‘In the drawingroom? I should look
pretty there, shou’dn’t I? But all the
same, Lilian, it’s real good of you to
ask me. Mother said you city folks
would be ashamed of me, but you are
not—not a bit!”
Lilian sat down beside her on the
j window seat, and put her arm caress¬
ingly around the ill-gowned waist-
“Betsey,” said she, “you've been
j crying.”
“No, I hain’t!”
“Yes, Betsey, you have. Tell me
what the matter is.”
“The matter is,” cried Betsey, “that
I’m a failure! I’ve got to go back to
Cockletown and own up that I’m beat.
I thought I was going to make a
living in New York, aud I hain’t no
Bhow at all. I thought, ’cause I couid
sing in the church choir, that I could
give lessons and get engagements
here. But I can’t!”
“But you have a sweet voice, Bet¬
sey!”
“So have nine hundred and ninety-
nine other people. And I’m only
Betsey Bloom of Cockletown, aud I
never shall be any one else if I live to
be a hundred. So I’ve made up my
mind that I’ll go back, and go into
the mill, or get a place to teach the
district school. And there’s an end
of all my dreams about a c-c-career!”
And Betsey’s bigi’ound tears trickled
down her checks, and the end of her
nose grew purple, like an under-ripe
plum.
“You an’ your ma’ve been awful
good to me, Lilian,” whispered she.
“I won’t never forget it. I know I’m
an awkward country girl, and I know
that my clothes ain’t up to the New
York mark, and I don’t even pro¬
nounce my words like you do; but—
but you’ve treated me just as if I was
a queen I”
“Don’t cry, Betsey,” soothed Lil¬
ian. “Drink this hot chocolate, and
then He die on the sofa and rest.
You’re tired and nervous.”
“I don’t know about being ner¬
vous,” snorted Betsey, “but I am
tired. I guess you’d be tired a-tramp-
in’ up and down to educational bu¬
reaus, and intelligence offices, and
musical headquarters and all that sort
o’ thing. I dunno why I can’t have
the luck o’ that Madam Sivardi that’s
to sing at your ma’s reception, and
gets fifty dollars a night. It’ll take
me long enough I know to earn fifty
dollars at the Cockletown silk mills,
or even teaching school at Cockletown
Centre.”
Lilian sighed.
“She isn’t going to sing at mamma’s
reception,” said she. “Mrs. Magnus
Martindale has been tampering with
her. She’s going to play us false. At
least that’s what mamma aud I think.”
“Lilian!”
Betsey Bloom had suddenly straight¬
ened herself up and seized her cousin’s
arm.
“Yes?”
“Why couldn’t I sing at your
mother’s evening?”
“You, Betsey?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t charge a cent.
I’d only be too glad of the chance. I
don’t mean that I could sing Italian
bravuras and that sort of thing; but
I know all the good old-fashioned
songs; and why wouldn’t that please
people just for a change? I could
dress up old woman style, you know,
and it would be a little different from
the common. And I’d sing ‘White
Cockade,’ and ‘Banks of Allan Water,’
and ‘Bonnie Doon,’ and ‘Cruel Bar¬
bara Allen.” Grandmother Bloom
taught me lots o’ them old-fashio ued
songs.”
Lilian’s eyes sparkled. She sprang
to her feet.
“Betsey,” said she, “it’s a good
idea! We’ll try it. I don’t believe
but that it would please mamma’s
friends more than tho Sivardi herself.
But don’t tell mamma. You shall do
your practicing when she is out aud
we’ll make it a genuine surprise.”
“I’d ruthcr the artist-fellow
shouldn’t come,” stipulated Betsey,
rather awkwardly. “He always
looks at me so sort o’ queer and
amused, as if I wasn’t more’n than
half civilized.”
“Do mean you Mr. Lowrie? He’s the
best natured man in the world.”
“AH the same he makes me as uerv-
ous a a cat- ”
“Well, perhaps be won’t come. And
now, Betsey, I must hurry back to
mamma’s guests. But I really think
; l * ,at *^ ea yours is a capital one.
We’ll think it over, Betsey.”
Mrs. Kyber was very low spirited
about her evening reception.
“It’s so difficult,” said she, “to
make such an affair different from
everybody else’s. I do like my rccep-
tions to be characteristic. And Sivardi
would have been such a card to play I
It was perfectly disgraceful of her to
throw me over at the eleventh hour iu
that sort of way; and especially after
the invitations had gone out with
♦Musical’ in the corners.”
“Well, mamma, it shall be ‘musi¬
cal !’ reassured Lilian. “Mr. Lowrie
will give you an air on the violin, and
11! play some of my old harp soiua.
“That’s all nonsense!”
“Mamma, do you mean to say that
we’re not mnsical?” laughed merry
Lilian.
The evening came; the guests as¬
sembled.
Mrs. Martindale’s special friend was
there, dispatched by that lady herself,
to bring back a personal and authentic
account of Mrs. Kyber’s discomfiture
and defeat.
Jack Lowrie, the artist, was there
with his violin.
“If the field daisy gets frightened
at the eleventh hour,” remarked he,
“I’ll be ready to face the emergency.
But she won’t be frightened. The
field daisy is too plucky tor that.”
“Jack,” cried Lilian, “why do you
call her the field daisy?”
“Because she’s so pretty.”
“Betsey Bloom! Pretty?”
i • Yes. Don’t you think so?”
♦‘I—never did think so,” said Lil¬
ian, slowly. “She has a fresh com¬
plexion and bright, pleasant eyes.
Well, yes, perhaps she is pretty. But,
Jack, you mustn’t look at her too
critically, or you will embarrass her.”
“I! Critically! Why, Lill, I look
at her because she is so like a wild,
woodland flower.”
‘•Is that the reason,” said Lillian,
laughing.
“Why on earth have you got up the
little stage and the silk drop-curtain?”
asked Mrs. Kyber, with rather a be¬
wildered air.
“Jack thought—”
“Jack Lowrie is too fantastic for
anything,” said Mrs. Kyber, laughing.
“However, I suppose I must indulge
him, since his violiu is to be our sole
refuge tonight. And there is such a
crowd!”
But when the silken curtain slid
noiselessly aside, showing an old-
fashioned personage with a poke bon¬
net, a black visito and an immense
green-cotton umbrella bulging out on
every side, with a background of tall
red hollyhocks and a farm-house door,
sketched by Jack Lowrie’s facile
baud, Mrs. Kyber was the most
amazed of any one in the room.
With the long, quivering thrills of
Jack’s violin, the poke-bonneted hero¬
ine burst out into the sweet, wild
accents of “Cruel Barbara Allen.”
Next came “Old Rosin the Bow,
“Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon
and Mary of Argyle,” and each in its
turn elicited more enthusiastic ap¬
plause.
Old people surreptitiously wiped
their eyes; young ones listened with
deep interest. Everybody whispered,
“Who is it? ” And when at last Bet¬
sey Bloom courtesied low, and the
curtain concealed her poke bonnet
and green cotton umbrella, round
after rouud of applause filled the
room.
<. You have prepared a most delight¬
ful surprise for us, Mrs. Kyber,” said
old Judge Jugleby, wiping his frost-
white lashes. “I declare that ‘Roll
On, Silver Moon,’ has taken me back
to my childhood days again. Who’s
the artist? I’m sure she’s the very
one that my daughter would like to
sing at her Fridays in January.”
And Mrs. La Vclle, the most exclu¬
sive and aristocratic great lady iu
Fifth avenue, whispered an entreaty
for “that clever creature’s address” in
Mrs. Kyber’s ear.
“She’s got it in her to do wonders,”
said Mrs. La Velle. «< Where did you
pick her up, Mrs. Kyber!”
“She is my cousin,” said Mrs.
Kyber. “And I am as much sur¬
prised as any one.”
Aud when a casual caller, the next
day, told Lilian that the Sivardi had
had a sore throat and sent a “regret”
to Mrs. Magnus Martindale, Mrs.
Kyber felt herself avenged.
“Now, what do you think about
your ‘career,’ Betsey?” cried trium¬
phant Lilian. “Here you have four
engagements ahead, at twenty dollars
an evening, and you are rapidly be-
coming the fashion. And Jack Lowrie
81i >’ 8 >’ ou must certainly cultivate your
voice.” i i .
“Did Mr. Lowrie say that?”
Betsey Bloom colored and dropped
her conscious eyes.
“You’re net so afraid of him as you
were, Betsey?”
“No!” whispered Betsey.
“That’s fortunate,” said till
“Because I shrewdly suspect,
that he’s in love with you. \'ou
Betsey, there are more careers
JJ *
~~~
%J HU.
“Nonsense!” said Betsey.
But her blush was brighter 1
ever.—[Saturday Night.
A Watch Cat.
Watch dogs are numerous, but
ever heard of a watch cat? An
lady who lives alone in a snberb l
of Denver, however, wouldn’t !:
her pussy Dot for the biggest Jj
foundiand in the land. Theaninu
large, weighing over sixteen pom
and on more than one occasion
he proved his ability to protect
mistress. The latest exploit of
redoubtable Dot is thus told bj
admiring mistress:
“It was last Wednesday night/’
says. “I was not feeling well
went to bed as soon as the sen)
left. I sleep up stairs and fa$tej
every door and window, just
always do. Dot was sleeping Oil
bed, just as he always lias done
life.
“Away in the night I was awake
by a sudden motion lie made, an
found when I put my hand on J
that he had raised his head and
listening, trembling all over,
so nervous. I thought he
and was about to go to sleep
when he sprang to his feet
beside me, growling once very
Then I listened, too, and 1
heard stealthy footsteps coming
stairs.
“I was so frightened that a
ering sensation came over ine
came near dying right there.
“I knew well enough that I
ing to be killed, that I would
dered in a few minutes, but
not move or even 6cream; I
there as though I were dead. I In
the feet begin to move slowly, slo|
across the floor toward my
soon he was touching the bed,
closed my eyes, expecting the
blow. j
“And just at that moment
an awful leap, and I am sure
have landed square on that
head, for of all the wild yells
ever came from a mortal throat
was the worst.
“‘Dick! Dick! Come an’
The devil’s got me! ’ he
ran for the door. Dot jumped
the man must have been blinded
blood, for he missed his footing
top and fell down the whole
“At the bottom Dot pounced
him again, and when his
to his assistance Dot gave him
and 1 heard him swear that the
top of his head was torn oil'.
first robber was carried out,
by way of the cellar
didn’t notify the police. I
think it necessary. I don’t
they found out how everything
house was situated and I don’t
They won’t try it
Post. .
Seven Thousand Miles of
If all the locomotives in the
States were coupled to together
would make a train of solid
steel over 300 miles long.
passenger ears and we would,
miles more of wood and
would give us a gigantic passed couiij
train 600 miles in length,
both engines and cars. Should
want a huge “mixed” train we
add the “box,” “flat” and everyo!
kind of freight car, and our «
then would then have a total lergtl
over 7000 miles! The
in this gigantic train would be
of seating 1,500,000 people, and
the freight cars could be
weight of all the pyramids of
and all the State capitol
the United Stales besides.
great is tlie railroad system of
ca.—[St. Louis Republic.
The Wonderful “Lone
Dr. Barrows calls attention
fact that Texas is five times as
as England, aud thirty-four
size of the state of
The entire living population
Globe, 1,400,000,000 people,
into families of five persons
could be located in Texas, each
ily with a house on a half acre
and there would still remain
vacant Iot9. r —[St. Louis