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the rattlesnake.
‘ Peculiarities of this Ophi
s
< dian Terror.
His Headless Tail is
VVhen the Neck Strikes.
Pin ched
an article by Dr. S. Weir
From Poison of Serpents,”
Mitchell on “The
* quote the following:
lbe Century, we
observe what happens when the
.•Let us mischief. He throws
rattlesnake means
Jjiffiself int0 a spiral, and about one
the , head, .
third of his length, carrying
rises from the coil and stands upright,
The ttitude is fine and warlike, and ar
a
tist, who attempt to portray it always
fail. He does not pursue, but waits.
Little animals he scorns unless he is
hungry, so that the mouse or toad he
leaV es for days unnoticed in his cage.
Larger or noisy creatures alarm him.
Then bis head and neck are thrown far
back, his mouth is open very wide, the
fang' held firmly for erect, which and his ordinary with au
abrupt swiftness,
motions prepare one but little, he strikes
once and is back on guard again, vigi
lant and brave. The blow is a stab and
is given by throwing the head forward
while the half-coils below it are
straightcued out to lengthen the neck
and give power to the motions which
drive the fangs into the opponent’s flesh;
81 the? enter, the temporal muscle
closes the lower jaw on the part struck,
and thus forces the sharp fang deeper
in. It is a thrust aided by a bite. At
this moment the poison duct is opened
by the relaxation of the muscle which
fuiroutids it, and the same muscle
which shuts the jaw squeezes the gland,
and drives its venom through the duct
and hollow fnng into the bitten part.
“In so complicated a series of acts
there is often failure. The tooth
strikes on tough skin and doubles back
or fails to enter, or the serpent mis
judges distance and falls short and may
squirt the venom four or five feet in the
air, doing no harm. I had a curious
experience of this kind in which a
snake eight feet six inches long threw a
teaspoonfuPor more of poison athwart
my forehead. It missed my eyes by an
inch or two. I have 1m 1 many near
escapes, but this was the grimmest of
all. An inch lower would have cost me
my sight and probably my life.
“A snake will turn and strike from
any posture, but the coil is the attitude
always assumed when possible, The
coil acts as an anchor and enables the
animal to shake its fangs loose from the
wound. A snake can rarely strike be
}one! half his length. If both fangs
enter, the hurt is doubly dangerous, be
cause the dose of venom is doubled. At
times a fang is left in the flesh, but this
does not trouble the serpent’s powers as
a poisoner, since numberless teeth lie
ready to become firmly fixed in its
place, and both fangs are never lo 3 t to
gether. r ihe nervous mechanism which
controls the act of striking seems to be
tithe spinal cord, for if cut off
we a
cake’s head and then pinch its tail, the
stump 0 f the neck returns and with
f0me accurac y bits the hand of the
perimentcr cx
if he has the nerve to hold
I ew men have. I have not. A
Irishmaa who took care of my
, , latory astonished
“ l0In tins me by coolly sus
S test. He did it by closing
e Us and so shutting for
- out a
meat the too suggestive view of the
>eei 7 ,0 stum m<3 p. averse Snakes to striking, have always and
Ih m ^
“ahgnei ° a the whole much
“% cool, quiet person moving
lIo Wly and steadily
handle gently may pick up and
tnost venomous serpents,
anc J. however, that tho vipers and
lv!° M° !)PCrlleadi n are uu cprtain pets. Mr.
5 hil ’ sna b e keeper at tho
: Phia ZooI °gical, handles his
cr iavi'rr im
punity; but ono day
i° r °lT e fi some little moccasins
„ a
arril ul° r* ei ld ' d ° Wa hh sleeve while hc
he k mamma in his hand, one of
round. ^ and mado aa u " ly
ispiI V P rcsent the snake staff is
♦ 0 handle
“I snakes.
saw one October, in Tangicrs,
f hat I h a q p 0 desired
u g to observe—a
make C h miner. Most
fere , of his snake 3
""’iH-actcd unless; but ho refused, with
Md of horror, to pormit
th
brown he
:arc but 1 handled with
, ®aw at that
exhausted once they were
been °f their venom by hnv
"S daily teased into
•undlo of ra tied biting on a
r<:r too g» to a stick. They
e tired to be
dangerous. I have
SCHLEY COUNTY NEWS.
often seen snakes in this state. After
three or four fruitless acts of instinctive
use of their venom they give up, and
seem to become ind.ffjrent to ap
proaches and even to rough hand
ling. ”
Bristles for Brushes.
The best bristles in tne world, except
those which France supplies in limited
quantity, come from the vast forests of
Northern Russia, those of the Ukraine
being superior to others of that country.
In no part of the world are there such
end.ess supplies of mast, berry, acorn
and conal trees. Their area covers
thousands or miles, which are unbroken
forests of oak, larch beech, pine and
other trees that bear and drop the ric
est food for swine, which swarm in the
woods in a half-wild state, guarded and
looked after by swineherds as wil d as
the hogs themselves. It is not there
and in that state of savagery that the
hogs give up their bristles to commerce,
but from these great droves the swine
are selected for the culture of the bristle
crop, for the hogs that are to furnish it
are treated and cared for with that end
in view. They are brought from the
northern wilds and pastured near
the great tallow factories of
Russia. They are fed at ccr
tain seasons on the refuse of the
tallow factories, which in a short time
puts them in fine conditon. The bris
tle crop is gathered in the summer time,
after the hogs have been fed for months
on the tallow refuse, are enormously fat,
and in the desired condition for pluck
ing—for Russian bristles are not the
yield of deal hogs, but are ‘live,’ the
same as our own geese feathers are. The
swine are driven into icclcsures until
they are packed in like sardines in a
box. They plunge and kick and Squeal
in their close quarters until they are
heated to a feverish condition of blood..
That, together with tho state of fatness
they are iu, secins to loosen the roots of
the bristles and the bristle pluckers pull
them out more easily than a woman can
pick the feathers from a goose. Appar
ently the pulliDg out of the bristles
is attended with no pain what
ever to the hog. When tho hogs are
all plucked they are turned loose and
are at liberty to run at large iu their
pastures until they grow a new crop of
the material for which they arc kept
and the time arrives for tallow-fatteu
ing them again for their next plucking.
Bristles from Russian hogs can always
be distinguished by a tuft of soft wool
at the roots, from a thick substance of
that kind that underlies the roots of the
bristles iu the hog’s skin. This is sup
posed to be a provision of nature for
protecting the animals from the vigor
ous weather that prevails in Northern
Russia, their natural habitat.
The Value of Soapstone.
One of the valuable minerals of this
country of which the output is largely
increasing is talc or soapstone, It i3
used for dressing skins, leather gloves
and similar purposes, but its greatest
use is as an adulterant. For tliiB it is pe
culiarly fitted on account of its lightness,
being employed as a filler chiefly in the
manufacture of soap paper and rubber,
and to a certain extent as a lubricant
with other substances, It is also u*ed
for making slate pencil, crayons, stoves,
ovens, iime-kiin linings and hearths,
and also, being acid proaf, for sizing
rollers in cotton factories. In Alabama
it is used for headstones, The Ameri
can aboriginei used it for culinary arti
cle, and the Chinese for the carving of
their idols. Its lightness and its fibrous
character admit of its almost entire in
corporation (90 per cent.) with paper
stock, while clay and other materials
which it replaces are only available to
the extent of thirty or forty per cent.
It is known to commerce by such names
as pulp, mineral pulp, agalite asbestine
pulp and others of the same character.
Hard to Suit.
Mr. Gesso (at window)—Hello! here
come Mr. and Mrs. Goby, They’re
coming here, I suppose?
Mrs. Gesso—They arc! What an
idea, to call at this time of the day.
Why, I
Mr. Gesso—They’ve gone by.
Mrs. Gesso—They have? Well, that’s
very strange. I should think Mrs.
Goby might be friendly enough to call
when she’s passing right by the door.—
Puck.
Mother (reading)—A machine has
been invented that will fling a man l.>00
feet in the air. Pretty daughter—Hor
rors! Don’t let pa hear of it.
A DANGEROUS DROP.
Men Who Jump From Balloons
With a Parachute.
An American Aeronaut’s Ad
ventures in Holland.
Professor Young, an American aero
naut, who has been giving exhibitions
abroad—.ascending to a great height
from a balloon and then jumping out
and floating rapidly to earth by means
of a parachute—said in an interview
with a New York Suu representative at
Cincinnati:
“In America the hot-air ship is prac
tically the only one known; on the other
side everybody, with the <xception of
Williams aid myself, u^es the gas
bag. On that account we commanded
higher prices than the others and made
money out of the venture, We con
tracted with a dramatic and variety
agency, with headquarters in London
and branches in every city in Europe
for twenty-one ascensions in May, June
and July, to bo paid for at the rate of
$5000 for each seven ascensions, or
$15,000 for the season, the ascensions
in May to be in the provinces and Hol
land, while during June and July we
were to remain in London and show
only at the Alexandra Palace.
“The Hollander does not take kindly
to an exciting exhibition like ours. He
wants a pleasure that ho can sit down
to, and which will not interfere with
his quiet content. The first ascension 1
mado there was at a summer garden on
the borders of the Hague. It was with
the greatest d ; fficulty that I could get
enough boys to take sufficient interest
in the matter to help us to hold the
balloon down while it was being inflat
ed. In every other city the thing was
such a novelty that we had to keep the
overwilling helpers away with clubs;
but at the Hague they all sat about lit
tle tables, with mug3 of beer at their
elbows, the -women knitting, the men
smoking long pipes. And even when
everything was ready, and taking my
place at the mouth of the parachute, 1
yelled out the Dutch for ‘Let go, every
body !’ and was jerked into the air at a
mile a minute rate, nobody got up to
run after me. Not a pulse in the party
apparently, made an extra beat, The
people looked after me calmly, and as
soon as a tree hid me from their view
they went on with their talk and their
knitting. It was the coolest reception
I ever received. It broke me all up.
For a little while I was the maddest
man in Holland; but only for a little
while. When I came down I found
eao who was a good deal madder, and
who convinced me that the Hollander
can get excited when he thinks it is
worth while to do so.
“The country under me, from a
height of 2,000 feet, looked hollowed
out like a ditch, the dikes forming the
brim or edge, and, as the whole coun
try is thickly settled, I chose the broad
est stretch of unoccupied land that I
could see in my path to fall upon. Un
luckily it was a vegetable garden,
and the owner—a short, stocky little
Dutchman, with the waist of his trou
sers coming up to his armpits—was
waiting for me to come down. He
made frantic motions for me to go
away and to land in a canal on the bor
ders of his place, or at least that was
what I judged he wanted from his mo
tions; but I came straight down, almost
on top of him, all the same, landing
squarely on my feet in a celery patch.
The pull of the parachute, before it
dropped, dragged me through tho field
for several hundred feet, my boots
ploughing up the soft ground and
crushing the celery. When the ma.
ch'ne came down finally it flattened out
about fifty square yards of growing
vegetables and broke tho Dutch
man’s heart. He stood perfectly still
for three or four minutes, while I sat
down on the parachute frame to catch
my breath, with his hands clasped be
fore him, an expression of the most
hopeless misery on his face. Then he
gradually recovered, and for twenty
minutes he alternately swore at me and
cursed his fate in a stream of Dutch,
which was only made intelligible by his
actions. At the end of that time Henry
Becker, the local agent of Ware – Son,
camo to the scene and quieted matters
down by promising to pay all tho dam
ages. Four hundred guilders (about
$160) was the owner’s first estimato of
his loss, hut when Becker suggested
that the better plan would be to count
the injured celery stalks and pay for
them at the rate of a stiver (two cents)
apiece he instantly acquiesced, as the
market price at that time was only half
as much. There were 193 stalks injur
ed, and when the Dutchman found that
his whole damage did not amoun* to
more than $4 he was ashamed of his
anger and set up a lunch of Rhine wine
and a kind of sweet cake with caraway
seeds iu it.
“The next place where I ascended in
Holland was at Amsterdam, and I was
so greatly incensed at the phlegm of the
natives that I did not take my usual
precaution to look about and get my
bearings just before entering a cl ud,
and the result was that I found mysell
completely lost I had noticed upon
going up that the current of air was car
rying me toward the Zuyder Zae, but I
had no idea as to whether it had shifted
or not when I entered the cloud. There
was nothing to be seen above, below or
around me but fog. I did not want to
cut loose until I was entirely clear of t>e
city, and I did not care to be carried
out to sea. In clear weather, or even in
the clouds, when one has taken proper
precautions it is possible to choose the
landing pldce; but when at last I pulled
the cord and sent the knife through the
rope which fastened me to the balloon I
had not the remotest idea as to what
was under me. As it happened, the
shifting wind had carried me back al
most to the starting place, and I camo
down on a pile of lumber in a lumber
yard in Amsterdam. The parachute
pulled me with it over the edge of the
lumber pile and whipped me against the
side of the next heap, but in two or
three days I had entirely recovered from
the bruises.”
Robbing a Pelican.
While they were stopping to overhaul
a huge pile of seaweed th:ir attention
was attracted by the comical, asthmatic
cries for food from some young pelicans
from their nests of driftsvood in the
mangrove trees. The old birds were
hard at work diving for fish in the la
goon. The boys watched one, which
was quite near them, with considerable
curiosity. It would flutter an instant
over its prey, then plunge down, and
with open, dip-net bill resting on the
water would adjust the catch in the ca
pacious pouch beneath. In one of these
expeditions a gull, with trained and
eager eye, hovering near, settled down
on Papa Pelican’s broad head, and as
the fish was tossed about so as to drop
into the pelican's pouc(i the thievish
gull would adroitly snap it up and sail
away with a derisive “ha, ha!” while
the pelican, as if accustomed to this sort
of pocket piekiug, simply flapped heav
ily up again to renew its search for food.
But the gull, as the boys speedily saw,
had laughed all too soon. For down
upon it from the neighboring shore
swooped strong winged fish hawk.
With a shrill cry of alarm the gull
darted now this way now that, in zig
zag lines, striving with all his power to
escape. Fear and fatigue prevailing,h®
let his choice stolen morsel slip from his
grasp. Then the hawk, with a lower
swoop, clutched the falling fi-h and
bore it away to the nearest rock. — St.
Nicholas.
Oldest Organ iu the United States.
The oldest organ in the United States
is said to be in St. John’s church,
Portsmouth, N. H. It was imported by
Thomas Brattle in 1713 an I presented
to the society worshipping at King’s
chapel by him. There was such a preju
dice existing against setting it up that
the cases containing its parts remained
unopened for seven months, after which
time the organ was in use until 1756,
when it was sold to St. Paul’s church,
Ncwburyport. In 1836, St. John’s
church, Portsmouth, N. H., became tho
owner, paying $450 for the instrument.
A new case was provided, the old pipos
and wind chest being found in perfect
order. There the organ is today, doing
service in tho vestry, where the veteran
is regarded with the tenderest solici
tude.
Snakes Joined Like the Siamese Twins.
A. J. Rancw, of Telfair County, Ga.,
was in McRae recently, and said that
while plowing in hi® field a few days
ago he unearthed a pair of twin snakes
about six or eight inches long and of a
greenish color, Their bodies were
grown together for about an inch near the
center. They had two separate and dis
tinct heads and tails, and when touched
would lick out their tongues and show
fight. He kept them until they died.
The Shape of the Skull.
Is a man stupid, or brilliant cr wis^
Surpassingly able or dull;
It all depends on his cranial bumps.
Depends on the shape of his skull;
And there are some things that some men
cannot do,
Let them struggle and try till tboy’ro
dead,
Unless they can build a big L on their hrain
And alter the shape of their head.
Then do not attempt those impossible feats,
And struggle until you are gray,
On tasks for which you were never de-igned
For your skull isn’t shaped ths right way.
Shape the shape of your life by the shape of
your skull;
Build your life to the mould of your
brain;
Run your cars on the track that was built
for your use.
Unless you would wreck the whole train.
A church is not used for a storehouse, a shed
Is not used for a home or hotel;
By the shape of the house, as by shape of
the head.
Its various uses we tell.
Then don’t try to fight against nature’s
design,
You’ll find it hard work and small pay.
Don’t squander your strength on impossible
feats
When your skull isn’t shaped the right
way,
For the world is filled up with irrational
men
Who struggle and try to attain
The cloud-bannored pdaks of impossible
heights,
Without the right bulge of the brain.
For the plastic skull of the man is shaped
By a f ate that is greater than he,
And he must judge by the shape of his head
The trend of his destiny.
Then judge by the fit of your cranium case,
Don’t squander vour powers, I pray,
In reaching for unattainable things
When your skull isn’t shaped the right
way.
— S. W. Foss, in Yankee Blade.
HUMOROUS.
Calling a halt—“Hi, there, y’.ucrip
pie!"
The road to ruin leads through the
wicket gate.
Berry pickers get what they can and
can what they get •
A circular saw—the maxim that trav
els round the world.
You cannot always tell the amount of
gas in a poem by its meter.
Curious—That a fast youth goes the
pace still faster when checked the most.
Why had a poor singer bettor sing to
an organ than a piano accompaniment?
Because or the frequent stops.
Dairyman’s Son—A mouse has fallen
into the milk. His Mother—Did you
take it out? Boy—No; I have thrown
the cat in.
The naan' who is in the habit of try
ing to get to tho bottom of things
should beware of falling overboard in
mid-ocean.
When we go to the circus the sights to see
Many a thing will a mystery be;
But with this question w * often cope,
How can a man bo steady on a tight rope?
Teacher—Sammie, how many bones
are there in the human body—your fa
ther’s, for instance? Sammie—One;
he’s the ossified man at the museum.
Rejoice, O young man, in the days of
rhy youth, but remember that, big as he
is, the whale does not blow much until
he reaches the top.
Young Lady—“That parrot you sold
me last week doesn’t talk at all.”
Dealer—“Yes’m; you said you wanted
one that wouldn't be a nuisance to the
neighbors.”
“Why are you so agitated?” inquired
the glass of the palm leaf fan, which
was in a great flutter. “Because I have
teason to believe that you are about to
get drunk.”
“You do not sing as much as you used
to, Mr. Tompkins?” said a young lady.
“No.’ 1 “What is the matter?” “I
fear I have lost my voice.” “Then let
us hope nobody will find it.”
Ella—“Where will you pass the sum
mer 1 Are you going into the country!”
Bella—“I don’t know, Tin sure. Papa
said something about going into insol
vency, and if he says so 1 suppose we
shall have to go there.”
I am sorry to give you pain, Mr. Fer
guson, she said to the kneeling youth,
hut your score is a goose egg this time.
Not much, Miss Kajones, he replied,,
haughtily as he rose up and took his
hat; you can’t prevent me from scoring
a home run.
A musician brought to despair by the
poor playing of a lady in a room above
his own meets her one day in the hall
with her three-year-old child and say®
in a most friendly manner: “Your
little one there plays quite well for her
agel I hear her practice every dayl”