Newspaper Page Text
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PICKENS COUNTY HER A Till
VOL. I.
The bee business is becoming an im¬
portant one in Colorado.
According to the American Analyist,
there is $2,000,000,000 invested in the
dairy business in this country.
The Rural New Yorker tells that one
of the uiauy interesting results of crossing
tomatoes at the Rural Grounds is what
promises to be a “peach” tomato of per¬
fect form, as large as ordinary tomatoes.
When still greeu the downy skin was
weil developed.
Dr. Lander Brunton, in the course of
a recent letter on “Mastication,” at St.
Bartholomew’s Hospital, made use of the
following remarks: “I think it was a
magnificent stroke of genius on the part
of the President of the Royal College of
Physicians, Sir Andrew Clark, when he
informed Mr. Gladstone that he had one
mouth and thirty-two teeth, and that
for every mouthful of food he took every
tooth should have a chance, so that he
should take thirty-two bites to every
mouthful. And,” continued Dr. Brun¬
ton, “if the patient has lost some of his
teeth he should allow two bites for every
missing tooth, aud even that will not al¬
ways do if many teeth have gone.”
The New York World thinks tha!
racing across the ocean by the big steam¬
ships is a dangerous matter, and gives
vent to the following warning: “Auothe:
ocean race has ended without disaster.
The Aurania beat the Alaska by fifty-
live minutes in crossing from Cork Har¬
bor to the Sandy Hook Lightship. Ex¬
travagant consumption of fuel aud
dangerous straining of machinery, not
to mention reckless courtiog of catas¬
trophe in many other ways, yielded this
magnificent result. Ocean racing is ex¬
citing. It interests passengers wh„ have
not ragged nerves. Aud it lowers a
transatlantic record now and then. But
some day there will be a different story
to tell—the story of a raidoceaa horror,
■ with not m*ny of those who arc involved
surviving to tell it.”
Injury to crops from frost is some¬
thing which the gardener, farmer and
greeu grocer, to say nothing cf tho con¬
sumer of vegetables, berries and grain,
regard as a possibility almost auy night
at this time of the year, remarks the
New York Tribune. These classes of
people, therefore, will appreciate a re¬
cent order of Professor Harrington,
Chief of the United States Weather
Bureau. He has instructed Local Fore¬
east officials all over the country to issue
warnings, when they believe frosts to be
impending, to all volunteer signalmen in
their neighborhood, using the telegraph
for that purpose. The rural districts
are so plentifully supplied with these
sub-stations now, through the efforts of
State Weather Bureaus, that it ought to
be possible to do a great deal of good by
this project.
Public Opinion, which has been inves
tigatmg the joke business, says that t
good original joke which is easily illus¬
trated brings as high as five dollars
The magazines and papers which pay foi
their jokes have regular prices. Profes
sional jokers send a supply of from tci
to fifty jokes to the papers paying best)
and the editor in charge of that depart¬
ment chooses those which suit him aud
sends back the re3t. These are then sent
to the next best paying publication, and
soon, until they reach the papers which
pay but fifty cents, Such as are then
returned the joker considers useless. A
professional joker can make about 100
jokes a week, and, as jokemaking must
soon become a habit, the New York Tri¬
bune concludes that, perhaps the brain is
not too greatly tasked in their manufac¬
ture.
Some young Harvard students ^con¬
nected with the Harvard Observatory
spent their vacation on the Labrador
coast. One of them, in face of many
difficulties, ascended Mount Rouud Top
to determine its height. The mosqui¬
toes, however, were so thick that even
with the protection of a mask he could
make few observations. “You can have
no conception from experiences in New
England,” he writes, “of what these
Labrador insects are like. They swarm
around your head like bee3 dud make
as much noise. A gust of wind would
now and then blow them over the brow
of the hill, but in the next moment they
would return, appearing like a long,
dark band in the sky. When standing
still I estimated that there were two
hundred of them at one time on the front
:8ide of m* mask.”
WE SERB: THE RBWi» >JB* aOKTBST LABOR.
JASPER, GA., FRI TOBER ‘>f, l.m
THE SUNSET THRUSH.
Is it'a dream? The day is done—
Tketong, Afal warm, fragrant, summer day;
beyond the hills the sun
Jhe In purple splendor sinks away;
cows stand waiting by the bars;
The iirefly lights her floating spark,
While here and there the first large stars
Look out, impatient for the dark;
A group of children s Ami ter slow
Toward home, with laugh and sportive
word,
One pausing, (is she hears the low
Clear prelude of an unseen bird—
"Sweet — sweet—sweet —
!': Sorrowful—sorrowful—sorrowful!"
Ah, hist! that sudden mu 3 ic-gush
Makes all the hearkening woodland still—
^ It is the vesper of the thrush— thrill.
And all the child’s quick pulses
Forgotten in her heedless hand
The half-filled berry-basket swings;
What cares she that the merry band
Pass on and leave her there! Ho sings!
Sings as a seraph, shut from heaven
And vainly seeking ingress there,
Might pour upon the listening even
Hislove, and longing, and despair—
1 ‘Sweet—sweet — sweet .—
Sorrowfu l—sorro wful— so no wful
Deep in the wood, whose giant pines
Tower dark against the western sky,
While sunset’ -, last faint crimson shines,
He trills his marvelous ecstasy;
With soul and sense entranced, she hears
The wondrous pathos of his strain.
While from her eyes unconscious tears
Fall softly, born of tenderest ]>ain.
What cares the rapt and dreaming child
That duskier shadows gather round?
She only feels that flood of wild
Melodious, melancholy sound—
"Sweet—sweet—sweet —
Sorrowful — sorrowful—sorrowful!"
Down from immeasurable heights '*■
The clear notes drop like crystal rain,)
The echo of all lost delights, t ,
All youth’s high hopes, all hid den pain,
All love’s soft music, heard no mpiVy
But dreamed of and remembered long—
Ah, how can mortal bird outpour
Such human heart -break in a song? W
What can he know of lonely years,
Of idols only raised to fall,
Of broken faith, and secret tears?
And yet his strain repeats them all— -
"Sweet—sweet — sweet— ^
Sorrowful—sorrowfid—sorrowful!"'* *■
Ah, still anjiil Maine's darkling pines,
Lofty, mysterious, remote, •
y W ’ bile ’ last £aint crimson shines,
' suns#t
s
The thrush’s resonant echoes -float;
And she, the child of long ago,
Who listened till the west grew gray,
Has learned, in later days, to know
The mystic meaning of his lay;
And often still, in waking dreams
Of youth’s lost summer-times, she hears
Again that thrilling song, which seems
The voice of dead and buried years—
"Sweet—sweet—sweet —
Sorrowful—son oivful — sorrowful!"
—Elizabeth Akers, in the Century.
’LISH, OF ALKALI FLAT
BY FRANK B. MILLARD.
CLUMP of scraggly
cacti grew
the shack, and
scratched Its Ull-
'g\ painted the wind side blew hard. when
V ' \ A iBut it biow-
was not
Ys\| ing the at all heat now,
& same
\ throbbed over the
desert and warped
the sky-line was curling the shakes atop
the shack and sending every breathing
thing on Alkali Flat, even to the lizards,
into the shade.
There were just three rooms iu the
shack, and ’Lish’s was the end one, next
to the kitchen. The little house was
closed as tight as a drum to keep iu
whatever of the night’s coolness enough. re¬
mained in it, which was little
’Lish—the whole of it wa3 Alicia—sat
in her room, and talked with her
mother, who was peeling potatoes in the
kitchen. Although in separate rooms,
their sharp, Missourian voices were clear
enough to each other. There was just
one thing to talk about, and nearly
everything on earth that could be said
about it bad been said, so they had been
going over it all again. It was pap’s
big strike.
“It ain’t dead sure, ye know, ’Lish,”
wound up the mother; “but it looks as
near like it as one jack-rabbit looks like
ernother.”
“Ol’ pap’s workin’ awful hard ain’t
he, maw?”
“I reckon he is.”
’Lish looked out through the small
window. Her glance shot past the two
rails that glimmered under the angry
sun, down there by Alkali Flat btation,
past the two scurrying dust demons that
Bhowed there was air in motion some¬
where, even though sporadically, and
away over to the blue buttes.
There was a notch in the far butte—
Scrub Canon, they called it. Pap was
working there in that notch, under that
awful sun, in the restless way that pap
always worked, He was there alone,
digging his pick into the dry ground
and scanning each clod and broken rock
for the yellow specks that meant so
much to him, and that were to put
something Detter than a shake roof over
their heads.
She felt for him that horrible heat; she
saw the drops of sweat trickle from his
brow and plash upon the rocks, making
their dark mark there for an instant and
drying ua ia an otiwtfi she felt, as *be
put it, “the spring goiu’ out of her,”
just us it was going out of “ol* pap.”
“But he wouldn’t let me help him—
never would, even of he was a-workin 1
his two ban’s off,” she sighed.
Then she went and set the table for
dinner. They ate in silence, ’Lish and
“maw.” There was no good talking it
all over again. It. would not do to
too much on it, anyway. Other strikes
bad been in promise, year after year, and
nothing had come of them, absolutely
nothing. glare’
The afternoon wore on. The
had gone out of the day. They
the door to let in the growing coolness
outside, watching for “ol’ pap’s”
meantime, and wondering what news he
would bring. He was late; but be ha !
been late before. They sat on the door-
step and glued'their eyes to the notch in
the butte, which had begun to blur as
the sun lyid gone to make an oven of
some other part of the world.
“There he comes,” ’Lish would say;
but it was only a dust demon trying
trick them.
And so the night grew on; but the
full horn of an early moon shown down,
and still they watched.
“Guess I’d better go over an’ see ef 1
kain’t raise him,” said ’Lish. “An ef
he’s a-goin’ to stay out all night, lie’ll
need a blanket. I’ll take him one, an’
come back with the news, whatever it is.
Git the blanket, out, maw, an’ I’ll go an’
buckle the sheepskin onto Ol’ Jim.”
The desert night told its secrets to the
girl as she rode thfe slow mustang over
the trail to the buttes. And the desert
night holds many secrets for those who
care to hear them; but it did not whis
per the darkest of them to ’Lish that
night. The air came warm aud then
fehifl, as -she passed through the different
strata that were from low, hot plain or
1'ngid, gioudtain-top. Old Jim was so
sloev -He.mihdcd no more the flicks
from the Strap-fend than he did the brush -
iug at the greaSAvood past his lean form,
fie did make a plunge now and then;
but that was when a cactus-spine pricked
bis suje.- lalfiha- '*>.
At girl reached the canon,
which^ehroed while,fcJb'iight to be done in black make and
did the moon the
exposed parts, and so inky were quid the
shadows. jls It was frightfully u
there, she went 'along, she li
the whinny of her father’s horse, tetn„»,
beside the wall erf rock. She left Oh
Jim to munch the mesquite near by,
while she tripped up a steep trail, and
came to the gash her father had made
with pick and shovel in the lone canon-
side.
There he was, sitting on the ground
and leaning against a rock. The moon
shone upon his patched overalls and upon
his dusty shirt; but she could not see his
face, for his head was bent forward and
was hidden by the brim of his slouch hat.
“Pap,” her sharp voice stabbed the
quiet, “I came up ter .see ef you was
ever cornin’ home. I brung a blanket,
pap, case yer wanted to stay all night.
You oughter ’a’ come home hours and
hours ago, ’stead o’ workin’ an’ workin’
till you was all fagged out.”
He did not lift his head. A puff of
cold wind came down the the canon,
and, striking the girl’s brest, made her
shiver,
“Sleepin’ on the rocks. Wal, I swun!
Tuk too much outen the black bottle,
I’ll bet.”
She stepped rltarer. ain’t drunk
“Hullo, pap! You agin,
be you? Pap, pap, Pin clean ’shamed o’
you!” him dig
She leaped to the rock, gave a
in the side of his leg with her stoutly
leathered toe, and then shook his shoul¬
der.
“Pap, wake up! You’ll catch yer
death a-cold, sleepin’ out this way. An’
here we’ve be’n a-watching’ out fer ye,
an’ watchin’ till our eyes was most give
out, while you’ve be’n up here havin’ a
good ol’ guzzlin’ time, all by playin’ yerself,
an’ not carin’ a cuss. It’s us
mean, pap, an’ you know it.”
She shook his shoulder again. His
head fell back. The face was chalky
white.
“God, pap! What is it?”
She felt his face. It was stone cold.
Tho touch froze her. She felt his heart.
The throb was gone out of it.
“Pap, pap!” and all the canon heard
her sharp, desolate cry; “my ol’ pap!
He aintdead?”
A big lizard went scutteiing down the
slope, an owl in a scrub-oak near by
gave a dismal hoot, aud the coyotes set
up their throaty howls.
She gulped and gasped. Her breath
seemed cut off. She would have fallen
at his side, but that her ear caught the
coyotes’ howls and caught, too, their
horiible meaning. She stayed herself
by her two hands against the rock and
tried to get her breath. The coyotes
howled again, in awful chorus, and she
shuddered.
* ‘They shan’t get you, pap; they ■-
get you. I’ll take you home.”
Her breath came free as she
She grasped the dead man’s sho
aud, keeping as much of his body
the ground as she could, she dragged
him down the rocky trail, toward the
spot where the horses were tethered.
She winced when she heard his boot-
heels scratch the ground, but she pul led
and tugged with all her might, aud,
panting, she laid his forai near Old Jim,
who snorted and jumped and pricked up
his ears. Then, with a glance backwark
from time to time, she went to her
father’s little camp, took his axe, and
cut two poles, with which she made a
“dust-trailer,” the poles being bound to
Old Jim’s sides like shafts, with .pieces
of Strap and bale-rope. She lifted the
body again, to put it on the rude con -
veyance. The moon struck ft full this
time, and, as she rolled it over gently
upon the trailer, sho saw a big clot of
blood on the hack of the dark shirt, and
by it wa< a clean-cut bullet-hole. With
a shudder, she let the body fall. Then
she looked at her hands. There Was
her blood dross, upon ahem and upon the sleeve of
“Claim-jumpers!” she L thrust
She set her teeth hard when
forth the words, ,aud clenched her rfnud
till the nails dug into the palm.
They had killed him, then, while he
was at work, He had crawled as far as
the rock and had ,<he l. It was a strike
—a big' one—and it had cost him his
life. But—
She looked up the canon with awful
eyes, and smote ibe air with the clenched
hand.
Then she bent down, and, taking a
long lialter-strap, fastened the body
securely to the top of the trailer, aud,
mounting her father’s horse, sho led Old
Jiiu carefully down the canon aud out
upon the night-chilled plain. The coy¬
otes followed her, and almost rent her
heart by their howls, but she kept on,
aud before midnight the sad little pro¬
cession reached tho cabin. The mother
was .still up, and she ran to the door
when’she heard the sound of the hoofs.
“Is that you, ’Lish?” she called out.
“Did ye bring pap borne? Is it a dead-
sure strike?”
’Lish slid from her horse and ran to
the door.
“Maw, Maw, Maw!” was her cry.
“Maw, they've killed him! They’ve
killed poor old pap!”
It was a month after they had laidthe
old man in the white earth, and ftbe
wind was whispering through the sage¬
brush aud scattering its gray leaves on
his grave, Mitel;
’Lish was up in the ehipd ter the
very rock where she had found dead
father. The canon draught Was grate- the
ful to her after the hard ride over
heated plain.. She drank in long
breaths of it, but all the time her eye
was on the hole where her father had
made the one great strike of his life and
bad died for it.
“Strange he never comes ’roun’—that
"easy-faced Jose Garcia. ’Twas him
mat did it. P’raps lie’s waitin' Tong fer us
to move away. He’ll wait a time
—till he’s dead.”
She let her glance fall for an instant
to the something that gleaned along tho
top of the rock. That something was
the barrel of her father’s rifle. The
wind rustled a snake skin on the rock at
her side, and a “swift” darted into the
shade and looked at her with unwinking
eyes.
Then a dark, squat figure stole out of
the canon depths and up to the mine.
The girl did not start, but a smile passed
her lips. The figure moved about as
silently as a shadow. It turned a swart
face toward the spot where she lay hid,
but there wa3 more of interest for it iu
the hole in the canon side than for aught
else, and on this the eyes were bent.
By moving the muzzle of the rifle two
inches along the top of the rock, it cov¬
ered the flap of the pocket in the left
breast of the blue flannel shirt.
“Farther than I thought for,” the girl
said to herself—“nearly a hundred and
fifty yards. The middle sight’s the best.”
She squinted through the pin-point
hole, and lowering the muzzle the small¬
est fraction of an inch, she smiled as the
small round dot of light rested on the
very centre of the pocket-flap. At thaf
instant a dark shadow made an ink]
patch on the scarp near her, and looking
up she saw a big buzzard wheeling iu the
air. She smiled again, and hugged the
rifle butt, which fitted closely against
her shoulder. Her right hand went for¬
ward a little. Her slender forefinger,
held straight, smoothed the black trig¬
ger lightly, almost lovingly. The man
straightened up a little. The finger
crooked, there was a sharp crack, aud
the man foil upon his face.
Then she pressed home another car¬
tridge and clambered up the rock, rifle
iu hand. She leaned over the body. If
was motionless.
“You oughter ’a been shot in tha
back, too,” she said, grimly; “but’Lish
ain't no greaser.” with light step, hug¬
She moved away,
ging the rifle under her arm. And the
buzzard circled a little lower.—The Ar-
gonaut.
Protection of Salmon in Alaska.
By the terms of an act of Congres!
approved March 2, 1889, it is provided:
That the erection of dams, barricades, oi
other obstructions in any of the rivers ol
Alaska, with the purpose or result of
preventing or impeding the ascent of
-$lmon or other anadromous species to
Nftr spawning grounds, is hereby de-
le :d to be unlawful, and the Secretary
Treasury is authorized anddireet-
a to establish such regulations and sur¬
veillance as may be necessary to insure
that this prohibition is strictly enforced
and to otherwise protect the salmon fish¬
eries of Alaska; and every person who
shall be found guilty of a violation of
the provisions of this section shall be
lined not less than $250 for each day of
the continuance of such obstruction.
The United States reserves the right to
regulate the taking of salmon, and to do
all things necessary to protect and pre¬
vent the destruction of salmon in all th«
waters of the lands granted under said
act and frequented by salmon.
WORDS OF WISDOH.
A suppressed resolve will betray itself
in the eyes.
Tho best place to practice good mail-
ners—at home.
Anger is the avalanche of the heart,
and a breath may loosen it.
Your trouble's easy bom when every¬
body gives it a lift for you.
If people are not aware that you are a
good man don’t toll them you are.
Truth travols in slow boats .while hope
and fear run in slippers of lightning.
A believing outlook into a long future
is most favorable to a careful and virtu¬
ous life.
The right word is always a power, and
communicates its definiteness to our
Who can tell j ust what criticisms Murr
tl,e Cat may be passing on us beings of
wider speculation?
It always seemed to me a sort of clevei
stupidity only to have one sort of talent
—like a carrier pigeon.
In oureagerness to explain impressions,
we often lose our hold or the sympathy
that comprehends them.
Folks as have no minds to bo o’ use
have allays the luck to be out of the road
when there is anything to be done.
Every country merchant will agree that
the hardest customers to please are the
women who bring bad eggs to the store.
The man who pays his debts simply
because he is forced to, is not worthy to
bo trusted, because he is not an honest
man. *
* It 'is difficult for a woman ever to try
to be anything good wheu she is not be¬
lieved in—when it is always supposed
that she must be contemptible.
Will was not without his iuteutions to
bo always generous; but our tongues are
little triggers which have usually been
pulled before general intentions can be
brought to bear.
, It is a melancholy solace, though it is
one, to make the gains of experienne re¬
pair the ravages of disappointment, bal¬
ancing uureturned expenditures of affec¬
tion with .Accumulations of knowledge.
. never detect how much
of! our social demeanor is made up of
artificial airs, until we see a person who
is at once beautiful and simple. With-
out the b we.are apt to the sim-
plicity av !8S.
islands Nan.-.. «or .. ,
There are dozens (some say scores) ol
islands of greater or lesser dimensions
known as “Little Dogs,” “Dog Islands,”
“Big Dogs,” etc. An island in the
Thames, now a part of London, is called
the “Isle of Dogs.” Carlyle alludes to
it when he says: “Toll us first whether
his voyage has been around the globe or
only from Ramsgate to the “Isle of
Dogs.” Three lotty and rocky islands
near St. Thomas (Virgin Islands), are
known as the “The Great Dog,” “George
Dog” and the “West Dog.”
These are “Dog Islands” in tho May.
Ian Archipelago; on the coast of Maino,
off the coast of Franklin County, Florida,
and another in the Serawati Group. On
the cost of Knmschatka there is an isl¬
and known as “The Island of Talking
Dogs." The curious story connected
with this little spot of land, aud the one
which gives it the uame it bears, is this,
according to an odd Asiatic legend:
The first inhabitants of the far North
did not employ dogs, but drew their
walrus-rib sleds themselves. After ages
had elapsed, men made an attempt to use
the dogs of that region—which, by the
way, talked just as men do—as beasts of
burden. The talking dogs, however,
argued tho case with their would-be
masters, aud were not long in proving
that they had enough to do to catch game
for themselves and the children of men.
But the men soon learned the use of the
bow and the spear, thus ruining the oc¬
cupation of the talking dogs. Again an
attempt was made to harness them to
sledges, but the talking canines rebelled
and all swam out to the island, after¬
wards known by the title given in the
opening. Hero game was scarce and the
dogs soon turned cannibals, and by the
end of the first winter there were only
seven left. Some human Karaschatkans
volunteered to row out to the island aud
bring off the remnant of the dog colony.
But the dogs refused to leave their bar¬
ren island, each earnestly asking: “What
people are you? We have never seen you
before.” For this untruth Chami, the
dog god, took their voices from them,
and until this day they have been tbt
dumb servants of man.—St. Louis Re¬
public.
School Age In Various States.
The age at which pupils are allowed
to enter and to continue in the public
schools differs greatly. Of the forty-
eight States and Territories six admit
them at four years of age, nineteen at
five, twenty at six, three at seven and
one at eight.
The States admitting them at four are
Maine, Connecticut, Florida and Mon¬
tana. The schools of Alabama and North
and South Dakota do not receive them
till they are seven, and those of Texas
exclude them till they are eight, and
only allow them to attend till they are
sixteen.
Twenty-five of the States and Terri¬
tories allow pupils to attend the public
schools till they arrive at the age of
twenty-one. Of the remainder the
“school age” terminates at twenty in
nine, at eighteen in seven, at sixteen in
three and at fifteen in three.—Chicago
Journal.
NO. 40.
RUSTLING CORN.
When the loner, bright day is done.
And the lost rays Of the sun
[Vith a fading light the hilll-tops fair adorn, 1
It is sweet to rest awhile,
And a moment to beguile,
in listening to the rustling of the corn.
Oil, that music soft and low,
When the summer breezes blow,
firing back the happy scenes of childhood’s
morn,
When throe imer day
I have whip
I’ldying hide - —
corn.
■
T! light.
tSHH aloSwt
j qj ’ . childhood’s rosy
^
j iwM anAHughter’gay
t0 echo ,- aiQtly through the rustling
corn.
Like a dream those pleasures flew,
With the years returned anew;
Little ones within iny cottage home were
born, ft
And once more 1 hear the shout,
See tho running in aud out,
Happy children hiding in the rustling corn.
Many years have passed away,
And my hair is turning gr ly,
Hone nro all the loved our ; of life’s rosy
morn.
But I feel their presence near.
Long-forgotten voices hear,
While I listen to the rustling of the corn.
—Hannah B. Strout, in Portland Transcript.
Mil AND POINT.
A fall costume—The novice’s bicycle
uniform.
Collar and elbow wrestling—getting
into a tight shirt.
After tho “pace” that kills come3—
requiescat in pace.
When you hunt for a needle in a hay¬
stack don't be afraid of its sticking in
your finger.—Exchange.
It is a wise child that goes out of the
room when tho old man smashes his
thumb.—Texas Siftings.
It is no use to fret about the inevit¬
able, but sometimes it helps to pass away
the time.—Texas Siftings.
Women never stutter. When they
want to they can say “Yes” without a
stammer.—New Orleans Picayune.
“This thing is worth looking into,” in
murmured the pretty girl as she stood
front of her mirror.—Chicago Tribune.
Some men are born wealthy;
Somo men are born great;
But all men aro kicking
Forever at Fate.
Money makes tho mare go. Every
dollar has an eagle on it, hence the state¬
ment that it can fly.—Philadelphia
Times.
Only a friend can appreciate the jia-
culiar virtues cf that magnanimity whioh
would not stab an enemy but would
prick a friend.
Van Winkle—“Is tho house you are
building coming within the limit?” Von
Blumer—“Yes, indeed. I was pecu¬
liarly fortunate. The architect happened
to be a friend of mine, and he is putting
me up a $‘2000 house for only $5000.”
“I would like you to come over and
take dinner with me,” remarked the
tramp to his companion on the other
aide of the fence, as he was about,to
steal the pies the housewife had left on
the window-sill to cool.—Yonkers
Statesman.
Gossip About Tea.
“Americans arc not tea drinkers.
What they drink is Japan tea, which,
in my opinion, is poor aud tasteless. So-
called ‘English breakfast tea’ is a brew
which an Englishman is compelled to
come to the United States to taste for th<
first time in his life.
“The appointment of ‘tea taster’ was
much sought after in the old days. Aftei
paying a premium of $2500 in London
one was taught tho business in a three-
years’ apprenticeship m Mincing Lane
and then sent out to a toa firm in China.
Then came another year’s local appren¬
ticeship beforo being made a regular
buyer. Salaries ran from $150 to $500
a month, with handsome quarters and
sumptuous board.
“The tea is sampled from ‘muster
cans.’ We examine the dry leaf for ap¬
pearance and weight. Then the tea is
fused and tasted. Just a sharp sip and
spit, never a swallow. The touch of the
liquid on the palate is sufficient to get
the taste and aroma. After that the wet
leaf is examined and scented. That is
the time to delect foreign substances
and adulterations which are impossible
to detect in the dry state of the leaf. I
have tasted as many as 500 samples in a
morning, sometimes 1000 tastes a day.
“The proper way of making tea?
There is only one correct rule, all fancy
faddists notwithstanding. That is the
professional rule and applies to all and
every kind of tea. The proportion
should be ‘one light teaspoonful for each
person and one for the pot.’ The water
should be poured on the leaf boiling—
boiling, mark you, not merely very hot.
It should then stand for five minutes ex¬
actly, not a second tnote or less, and
your tea is ready. We use sand glasses
in the trade to hit the exact moment to
pour off the tea from the leaves, which
then rapidly commence to give tannin."
—•San Francisco Cnronicle.
A shower of flies fell at Mount Joy,
Penn, .recently.