The true citizen. (Waynesboro, Ga.) 1882-current, July 21, 1882, Image 7
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A Daring Ride.
The following story, told by a cattle-
raiser of Oregon, would seem unwor
thy of belief where it not that
ranchmen are so often notoriously
reckless of life and fond of courting
danger for the reputation to be gained.
A year or so since there was a
“rodeo” out on Lost River, Lake
county. Ranchmen had gathered for
a circuit of seventy miles to claim and
brand their young cattle, and when a
cordon of men bad surrounded a large
band, among which was a Spanish
bull, a dispute arose about a “mallet-
head” or calf that had escaped the
spring-branding; the discussion grew
warm, none of the stock-owners being
able to set up a valid claim or establish
an undoubted title.
At last, in a spirit of bravado, a ran
cher proposed that whoever would ride
the bull without saddle or halter
should be the declared owner of the
alf. There was a yell of approval, but
not a general stampede of volunteers
for taurus was in an ill-humor, and his
foaming mouth and bloodshot eyes
gave token that whoever rode him
would have a ride as wild as M azeppa’s
and one that would not end so well.
At last a “vaquero” named Frick
accepted the challenge, and the bull
was immediately lassoed and held by
a lariat around horn end foot. Dis
mounting his horse the vaquero
fastened his long rowelend spurs se
curely, tied a handkerchief around his
head, approached the infuriated ani
mal, and grasping the tail in his
hands, sprang lightly on, setting the
spurs deeply in his flanks as he settled
securely in his beat. The lariats were
slackened ; the bull gave a roar of rage
and terror and flung his head to the
ground; but the rider had his back to
the horns and a firm grip on the tail,
and kept his seat. Another roar that
shook the ground, a wild plunge, and
the now maddened bull shot out across
the sage plain with lightning speed,
his plucky rider twistinir the tail that
to him was a sheet-anchor until the
bellowings were lost in the distance.
For over a mile and a half the race
continued amid the excited cheers of
the vanquero's comrades. Occasion
ally the bull gave a desperate plunge
through a heavy clump of sage in the
attempt to rid himself of his tormen
tor, but the long rowels only clung
more firmly to his flanks. Sometimes
the animal and rider were hidden by
undulations in the ground, and bets
were even made that Frick would be
thrown and gored ; but at last the bull
exhausted from sheer fright, fell, and
the plucky vaquero, stepping lightly
off returned to claim the prize whi ch
was unanimously awarded.
Fashions in Bedsteads,
The introduction of the brass bed
stead into modern homes is, says the
New York 'limes, the greatest revolu
tion that has been attempted. A few
years agr^hese bedsteads were entirely
unknown in America, now one house
alone exhibits twenty different styles,
and there is little doubt that they will
meet with increasing favor. They are
so very handsome in appearance, are
so light and easy to move from one
side of the room to the other, aud,
above all, they are so free from all im
purities, as no dust collects upon them,
that probably in time they will en
tirely supersede those of wood. It has
taken time to prove that they do not
lead to increase of work in the need of
constant polish, but a wa*h has re
cently been invented which renders
the metal impervious to the influence
of moisture, and so does away with
the principal objection to their univer
sal adoption.
It is necessary to speak of the mar
vels of decoration and carving which
are introduced into the modern bed
stead by the fashionable decorator.
Unlimited command of money can
secure any amount of it, but it is not
altogether to be deplored that very
few persons after all are in this blhs
ful position. Reds, like other matters,
are often the better for being simple,
and the housekeeper who sighs with
envy for the ebouy bedstead inlaid
with ivory or silver may be comforted
with the reflection that a handsome
brass bedstead, which fulfills the in
tention of its construction, is more
appropriate in homes where dollars
are not counted by thousands than the
magnificence of carving aud silver
would be.
The other day a gentleman entered
a hotel in Glasgow, and finding that
the person who appeared to act as
waiter could not give him certain in
formation which he wanted, put the
question, “Do you belong to the as-
tablishment ?”—■to which Jeames re
plied, “No, sir ; I belong to the Free
Kirk.”
Current Wonders.
Ovster-Raising in Michigan.
Half way from the great Saginaw
salt wells and Macinaw City we pas-ed
through the upper part of Roscommon
County. The country is too wild and
unsettled to have a county seat, and
the two stations in it are simply two
great lumber camps. The population
of thre country is made up of hard
working lumbermen aud three or four
rich sawmill owners. Six miles from
the station, after riding through a pine
wilderness, I came to Seth Powell’s
house—perhaps the only nice hous
within ten miles.
“I came over,” I said to Mr. Powell,
to see it it is true that you aie raising
oysters here in Michigan.”
“Tuen you’ve heard about it, have
you? Well, I guess you’ve struck the
truth this time. I have au oyster bed
iu No Mouth Lake, aud they seem to
be doing well. I’ll take one of the
boys, if you say so, and we’ll drag out
some oysters and show you.”
No-Mouth Lake, I should say, was
100 rods long aud sixty rods wide. It
is deep at one end—I suppose sixty
fee*—while at the other it is shallow,
with a gravel and sand bottom. One
peculiarity about the lake is that it
has no outlet. Two brooks run into it;
but tbe water either soaks into the
!-and or evaporates. Its depth never
changes. The whole country of Ros
common is situated on a divide. From
the east side the waters run west into
Lake M cliigan ; lrom the south side
they run southerly, toward Saginaw
Bay, aad from the north side they run
toward Grand Traverse, The county
is on the summit. Mr. Powell and
the men rowed out about twenty feet
from the shore, at the mouth of one of
the brooks, in water about five feet
deep, and dragged up some oysters.
They were as good-lrokiug oysters as I
had ever seen iu Oyster Bay or along
the Shrewsbury river. They were fat
and healthful. Noticing the water
was salt, I was filled with wonder.
“How came the water salt? I asked.
“It is just as it is at the mouth of
Shrewsbury river.”
“Well, oysters won’t live in fresh
water, will they? asked Mr. Powells
smiling. “They say the ocean gets its
salt from the codfish ; but this lake
did not take its salt from the oysters.”
“Where did it come from? I asked.
“Well, I’ll tell you the history of
my oyster-raising in the center of
Michigan. I used to live at South
Oyster Bay, on Long Island. We
always used to plant the oysters at
the mouths of the fresh water streams,
where they ran into the bay. An
oyster wants h If fresh and half salt
water. Now, I found I had a lake
with no outlet. That is, if there is au
outlet, it is through the sandy bottom.
Now, salt won’t run through sand. I
knew this because we had a well at
South Oyster Bay in the sand twelve
feet from the salt water, but it was
always fresh. So, I said, if I put salt
into this lake it will stay there. I can
make it just like Oyster Bay and keep
it so. My cars, taking lumber to
Saginaw, had to come back empty.
Salt costs nothing but the pumping in
Saginaw; s^I shipped back fifty car
loads of salt and put it into No-Mouth
Lake. Then I sent to Smith Robison,
at South Oyster Bay, and had him
ship me ten barrels of small oysters,
little fellows no larger than marbles,
and some of them the size of peas. I
put them in the lake, at the mouth of
the two fresh water brooks, They
have grown right along. Now I’m
putting iu some other salt-water fish
like clams and blueflsh, and they’ll
grow, too. If I keep my lake just as
salty as Oyster Bay, I know that auy
fish living in Oyster Bay will live
here.”
On arriving at the house, Mr. Powell
gave us an oyster breakfast—raw
oysters as good as Blue Points, broiled
oysters on skewers, and fiied oysters—
all from his lake iu the center of
Michigan.
Public School Teachers.
Our attention has been called, by a
gentleman who seeks all ways of do
ing good and doing it wisely, to the
work and ways of the lady teachers
in the public schools. His insistence
is that they aie worked over hours, or
as we would state ft, they are com
pelled to give more time to reports und
statistics than they do to the teaching
of their classes. There is certainly
some excess of red tape in the several
lessons, and there is overwork in the
not easy task of stating the average
orop of development In each juvenile
mind. School reports are like those
from the Agricultural Department,
where there is one guess at acreage
and another guess au to what the har
vest will be, The most conscientious
of teachers blunders in every report
she makes to her principal, and he in
his turn blunders again in the report
to the Superintendent.
Still this supervision of the work,
this holding of every teacher to a full
report of duty done, is a matter of
necessary discipline: but when it be
comes so involved and intricate, so
loaded with checks and balances that
there is really never any near approach
to absolute truth, it becomes a work of
upererogati on, giving the teacher the
more work and the pupil the less at
tention. The teacher who has stayed
long after school to balance her ac
counts, who finds as all of us do find
who study, that there is a lack in our
own comprehension of the next day's
lesson, or worse than that, knowing
the lesson and not knowing how to
twike it easy for the new comprehen-
' A), there is a mental toil which oc
cupies hours after the school-house
doors are locked and breaks the houest
morning nap. We see these “school-
marms” on the streetcars every morn
ing, sometimes meditative, and some
times cramming from a text-book.
We nevei accuse them of having too
much leisure, and would be glad if
their working hours could be redu ;ed.
The school hours taken alone, are not
too long, but the school day ouly ap
plies to the children and not lo the
faithful teachers. It is aft to be for
gotten that the aptitude to teach is a
very separate thing from the aptitude
to learn, and that many teachers toil
in the late evening and iu the morn
ing watch for ways and methods of
telling what they know and what, if
they cannot plainly tell, makes the
day a failure. Out of all this comes
the cr nclusion that teachers should
not be compelled to keep an accurate
bank account of the intellect and pro
gress of their pupils, and the checking
oft of right and wrong auswers never
adds to teaching efficiency. Book
keeping is not teaching, and there
ought to be some leisure left for study
and refreshment of the teacher’s miud.
But it is not well to be too sentimen
tal about this. 80 far as vacations
are concerned, the teachers iu the
public schools have ample rest. The
long vacation of the summer covens
from eight to nine weeks. The Christ
mas holidays give another week. The
secular holidays, if they fall on a
Tuursday last over till the next Mon
day. Every Saturday is a holiday.
To no other profession—salaried pro
fession—is the same liberty of vacation
conceded. It happens to no business
man, working on a salary, that he
can lock up his desk and be out of his
office one third of the year, but as an
offset to that the business man has
more momentary liberty of action and
many of them decline the offer of long
vacations. But as a rule, they do not
suffer the atmosphere of a school-room
which has its only parallel in the
stench of a police court. It has a verv
depressing effect upon the nervou
system. The children are not nice iu
their habits, as perhaps may be deli
cately illustrated by the story of a
reverend Doctor of Divinity who was
accused of burning incense in bis
|chool-room. Ho pleaded guilty, but
placed hts defense on the ground that
some smells were better than other
smells. His smoking apple tree bark
had no ecclesiastical significance.
Our conclusion is that the kind of
work public school teachers are com
pelled to do, and the circumstances
under which they render it, should
make us consider the drag of their toil
aud lessen the yards of red tape in
which they are now wound up. Tneirs
is a life of hard work, but not iiarder
than that of the household which is
faithfully attended. But it is a re
sponsible work, and one above the
rules of ordinary servitude.
In Miniature.
In Elizabethan times one Mark
Soaliot constructed a lock of eleveu
pieces of iron, steel and brass, and a
chain of forty-three golden links was
attached to the same ; and this being
put round a flea’s neck, lock and
chain and fiea weighed only a grain
aud a half of gold. Surely such a
miracle of skill was worth preserving
for posterity. Oswald Nothiugerus
once turned 1,000 dishes of ivory
which all went into a peppercorn, it,
indeed we may believe contemporary
writers. They were shown to Pope
Paul V., who counted aud verified
them himself, by the aid of a maguify-
Ing-glass. Father Forrarius, a Jesuit,
woftd not be outdone, and he made
twenty-five wooden caunon, which
went into the same compass; and
Simin Marolus—whoever he was—
had one of these miuiature wonders
in his possession, aud was very
proud of it.
Matters of Interest.
There arrived in the East India
docks of London recently, a sailing
vessel laden with the first consign
ment of frozen meat which lias been
sent to England from New Zealand.
The ship had been 98 days on the
voyage, and during all that time the
chambers containing the meat had
been kept at 20° below the freezing
point. The meat consisted of 5000
sheep, and is said to have arrived in
fine condition.
In Loudon is made public an epi
gram which Emerson wrote in the
album of a well known firm of pho
tographers to whom he Bat for a
photagraph during his last English
visit. When asked to write some
thing he readily assented, and, with
out hesitation, penned these words :
“ The man who has a thousand friends
Has a one friend to spare,
But he who has one enemy
Will meet him everywhere."
As some of the old f irms of mission
ary work are found to be susceptibleof
radical improvement,a ne w missionary
agency for the central provin :es of In
dia has been suggested. It is recom
mended that a missionary community,
including both men and women,
should buy a village and develop na
tive industries. Native custom 1
should be respected, and the appear
ance of a European colony should be
avoided. The missionaries should
identify themselves with the people
and exercise a moral influence.
The “Self-savers’ church” was the
name of a somewhat heterodox associ
ation in Chicago, which concluded
that it could do better under almost
auy other name. There was not much
that was churchly iu its theology or
its social make-up. So it has now
changed its name and blossoms out as
the “Industrial Reform Club.” It
hoi is the doctriues of liberty, equality
and fraternity in its own way, and
throws its doors wide open for men
aud women of every nation and of the
broadest diversity of religious belief.
From a crevice in the stone front of
the State Library building in Albany
(N. Y.), a vigorous young elm, now
five feet iu height, has pushed its way
into the world. A large elm, doubtless
its mother, stands almost opposite the
entrance to the library, aud the off
spring is as green and hardy as the pa
rent. Nature is evidently determined
that such an ambitious sprout shall
not perish, but in what manner she
supplies it with sustenance it is impos
sible to say. The buildiug is soon to
be demolished, and then perhaps the
mystery will be solved.
Among some ancient fans recently
sold in London were mauy that
possessed a historical interest. One
was Marie Antoinette’s marriage fan ;
others were designed iu commemora
tion of her betrothal to the Dauphin ;
and there was also the bridal fan of
Marie Leekynska, the wife of Louis
XV. Many of the English tans weie
made Id China for English marriages;
others belong to the period of Charles
II. Some are Flemish, Italian,
French, and Venetian make. For the
sale was prepared a handsome illustra
ted catalogue that sold for a guinea.
Some fifty full-page autotype plates
were contained in it. In all there
were 452 fans.
Thomas A. S my the, whose age is
thirty-six, aud who passed in a cer
tain quarter of London for a surgeon,
has been tried for manslaughter aud
found guilty. He had no right to call
himself a regular medical man, but
on tbe door of his house he had a plate
bearing his name and tbe word “sur
geon.” It appears that an old gentle
man named Campbell, a clergyman of
the Church of England, suffered from
a cancer of the tongue aud consulted
Smytlie under the belief that he was
an authorized practitioner. Smytlie
operated upon the cancer, the patient
died, alPtl surviving friends drought
the suit ou the grounds of “gross neg
ligence and inattention to dangerous
symptoms.”
A Variety ot Clips.
A Lmg Island mau, accompanied
his little son, paid a Brooklyn news
paper a visit, on which oecad n one
of the editor’s remarked that he had
frequently seen the visitor’s name iu
the “E igle.” Tne little boy spoke up
and said: “You bet; Pa’s name is
in tiie paper every time land is sold
for taxes.
Value of experience: A Celtic friend
was recently badly cut about the head
in an accident and bleeding freely ;
hut lie remonstrated against having
his wounds dressed, when the surgeon
told him he would bleed to death if
they wero not attended to. His reply
was characteristic, “Doothur,” said
he, “I never bled to death i
life.”
A young medical student at Buw-
doin College once asked Prof. Cleve
land, of that institution, if there were
not some more recent works of anat
omy than those iu the college library.
“Young man,” said the professor,
measuring the entire youthful scholar
at a glauce, “there have been very few
new bones added to the human body
during the last ten years.”
A Vermont paper relates that a
farmer living near St. Jolmsbury hired
a Frenchman to work for him. The
first morning the Frenchman was
called at 4 o’clok for breakfast. After
earing a hearty meal, he arose from
the table and remarked : “This best
place I ever get in ; two suppers in
one night. Hurrah for bed again,”
and retired, not appearing agrin until
6 o’clock.
A gentleman was relating to a friend
how a party of young fellows got full
at a wedding. He said one of them
went up stairs just a braiding. The
friend said, “Well what in the world
is braiding ? That is a new one on
me.” The man who was telling the
story siid: “You don’t know what
braid is, eh? He was braiding three
str <nde—two strauds of legs and one
strand of banisters.”
A suggestive color: A gentleman
who had been giving a description of
a friend’s wife, but omitted all men
tion of her hair, was asked tbe color
of it. His delit acy of feeling overcame
him to such an extent that it was sev
eral moments before he ventured to
give any answer, and then said, in a
very reluctant way : “It was that—
indescribable shade which suggests
the thought that it would explode
gunpowder.”
A fresh country vegetable: There
was displayed hear the soda-water
fountain in an up town diug store the
sign, “Bovine vaccine.” A young
man, accompanied by a young woman,
who might have been iiis country
cousin or sweetheart, entered and, in
response to the inquiring look of the
boy *who tended the fountain, said:
“You may give me bovine.” The
young woman’s eye3 had been resting
on the unusual sign near the fouutain,
and when her companion turned to
her and asked how she would have
LePs, she scid timidly “I guesa I’ll
try a little vaccine.”
Worth Knowing.
A cubit is two feet.
A pace is three feet.
A fathom is six feet.
A palm is three inches.
A league is three miles.
There are 2,750 languages.
A great cubit is eleven feet.
Two persons die every second.
Bran twenty pounds per bushel.
Sound moves 743 miles per hour.
A square mile contains 640 acres.
A barrel of ice weighs 300 pounds.
A barrel of pork weighs 200 pounds.
A barrel of flour weighs 196 pounds.
An acre contains 4,840 square yards.
Oats, forty-two pounds per bushel.
Barley, thirty-eight pounds per
bushel.
A hand (horse-measure) is four in
ches.
A span is ten and seven-eighths in
ches.
A rifle ball moves 1,000 miles per
hour.
Buckwheat, fifty-two pounds per
bushel.
Electricity moves 228,000 mile3 per
hour.
The first lucifer match was made in
1829.
A firkin of butter weighs fifty-six
pounds.
Coarse salt, eighty five pounds per
bushel.
A tub of butter weighs eighty-four
pounds.
The average human life is
three years.
Her Negative.
“Did you get that girl
Brown? You remember t
you were bound to have
not exactly,” said Brow
her for it, and she gave
tive.”
A man in passing a
yard saw the sexton di
and inquired : “Who’
ton—“Oid ’Squire B
—“Wliat complaint?,
out looking
everybody sat
The
not the
when
mau
win