Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

MY SORROW. I Haw Deaf i’n angel as It catne from heaven 'Mill cloud unci blast, ; I said: ‘‘I pity those who nionru to-morrow Much comfort from my own their hearts shall borrow When It has passed And tafeen fom the mourning ones their cherished; V\ hen they have seen Their loved one s suffering, changing, dying ! Have looked their last Upon them ’mid the roses In the coffin— So like—so strange. Yes, I will comfort them while saying, With upraised finger, Turning their eyes to the blue sky o'erhead, be hopeful; but a moment you shall linger, Then Join your dead Mid beauty fadeless and 'mid Joy ecstatic, To dwell for aye. . This and much more of faith and resignation My llp8Shall say ; For all Is well that Is—the Father orders. Go stricken one, Mourn not the dead; they rest from toll and danger; His will be done! Death’s angel nearer came. Lo! my poor cot tage He did not pass, But took from out my arms my cherished darlings; And now, alas! Not one of all the words can remember I would have said, Had death left me my own loved ones and taken My friend’s instead. Chinese Caution. “I tell you what,” I said, “I shan’t come for the account any more. This makes six times I have called for that four hundred and seventy dollars, and I shall put it in my lawyer’s hands.” "No, no ; quite lightee you, sabbee. Pay dollar all soon. Call again.” I was reminded of all this by seeing tt e Chinese ambassadors the other day, and It carried me back to San Francisco, full five years ago, where I was dealing largely in various com modities which were much affected by the Heathen Chinee. I found them a patient, civil, indus trious class of people, ready to bargain and get things as cheaply as possible ; but scrupulously honest and ready to pay with the grea est promptitude as long as I dealt with one man. WheD I had to do the work with a partnership concern, it was a terrible matter. For instance, I had trusted one firm to the amount of five hundred dollars and no money was forthcoming. I bullied my collector terribly, for he always came back with an excuse in stead of ffioney, and the same tale, that the firm was perfectly honest and trustworthy, and that the money would be paid. “Then, why don’t they pay, John son?” I exclaimed. “I wish you would give them a call yourself, sir,” said Johnson.. And I said I would, and did, going to the Honger mercantile company seven times, and always being put off. It was always the same ; they were perfectly^illing to pay, and messen gers were sent, but to return,' some times with one, sometimes with two, or even three or four of the firm ; but when these Chinese Spenlows prof fered themselves as ready to pay, there was always an obstacle in the way, in the shape of the absence of that heathen Chinese. At last I expressed myself as I have •said at the beginning of this story, and was going out of the place when a smiling Chinaman came up to me, and, holding his head on one side, he exclaimed: * “Ingly Hong man, come again a morrow. Payee them all—payee ebbery dollar, oh, ciss.” ‘‘Well, look here,” 1 said, ‘‘I will come in here to morrow, at eleven o’clock, and shall expect to be—” ‘‘Oh, ciss, payee all dollar. Give long, big order, lot. Goodte thousand dollar.” "I’ll talk about taking your ordei, my Chinese friend, when you pay for the last,” I said gruffly, and I went away. “The fellow looks honest,” I said; “but there’s no. trusting these for eigners. They t ike delight in trick ing an Englishman or Melican man, as they call it. Perhaps to-morrow when I go, they’ll ail have pulled up stakes and gone east.” it was with some satisfaction then, that reaching their great shed ware house, the next morning, I found Mr. Pigtail, In his long blue gown and bland smile standing at the door, ready to salute me with a dose of pigeon English, which I could hardly understand. "Well, Mr. Ah line,” I said, as 1 followed him into the bale-orowded waro-hoase, which certainly looked as prosperous as the great iron safe in the corner wa.- substantial—“well Mr. Ah Res, I hope JO u are prepared to pay my little aocou.t tbls morning?” “Cis3, cIse—readee payee,” he said. ; And placing a wicker chair for me, | he went off and dispatched a couple of messengers, with urgent orders in his barbarian tongue, to each. This looked bad, for it was only a repetition of the tactics followed on former occasions— tactics which always resulted in a put-off. I looked terribly gruff; but Mr. Ah Ree, who was the senior part ner, smiled and rubbed his hands as he beckoned me to follow him into the farther parts of the warehouse, and then showed me specimens of silks and sample teas, with coarse Chinese pot tery. “Well,” I said to myself growing a little more easy in my mind, “there’s plenty to seize, at all events.” The result was that after my bland friend had talked to me for about a quarter of an hour, I booked a thous and dollar order for what au English man would call sundries. “There,” said I, closing my book with a slap, “this order shall be exe cuted as soon as your last account is settled.” “Ciss, ciss—payee allee dollee,” he said, smiling and pointing to a seat. Meanwhile, by slow degrees, five re spectable-looking Chinamen had come into the warehouse or store; and they came around me, smiling and talking in a bland, smooth way. “You mean mischief,” I said to my self, and my hand went involuntarily to my pocket, where, in accordance with San Francisco customs, I carried a revolver, 1 Ytu mean to get rid of me and your debt together, my friends. Very good ; but if you do I’ll take one of you by way of receipt.” I suppose my face did not betray what I felt, for they closed around me in the calmest manner, making excuses, and asking me to be patient a little longer, for their messengers were out, as I un derstood them, to collect the amount I needed. It seemed to me that they were getting me farther from the door into the gloomy obscurity of the ware house, under the pretense of showing me fresh goods, till at last I telt that the time for action had come. In fact, one of the biggest of the party whis pered something to his companions, and I seized my revolver and was about to draw it as a fresh Chinaman entered the building, and they hurried to meet him with a look of re lief. “Lucky for some of you, my friends,” I said, drawing a breath of relief, and following them toward the doer, meaning to take the first oppor tunity that offered to make a run for It. To my great surprise, though, Mr. Ah Ree came, and taking my arm, led me toward the great safe. “Iron coffin, eh ?” said I to myself. “Counteeout de dollar,” said Mr. Ah Ree. And the last arrival of his six com panions went up to the safe, placed a kep in a hole and turned it. Then a second did so with another key in an other hole, and so on, till six had un locked six locks of the great safe, when Mr. Ah Ree took out a similar key to his companions and went up to the safe smiling, as he said to me: "Great Hong Company —poor China men. Big safee— big dollar. Sdben partnee take seben key, open, get de dollar.” As he spoke he unlocked the safe, and turned the door on its massive hinges, and then , pulling out a drawer he drew forth a bag marked four hun dred and seventy—the amount in dol lars of my account—and handed the bag to me. . “No trustee no man,” he said, smil ing, as he shut and locked the door, his six partners locking it in turn. “No trustee once mans ; ail come at once, epen door—all right.” From which I understood that, as to our tradlug communities, two or three or even four partners have to sign a check to make it negotiable, my seven Chinese friends, all partners in their Hong or trading community, could make no payment without every man was present to help unlock the treasure safe. I laughed at the plan, for the heavy dollar hag made me feel in a veiy good temper. They laughed too, and shook hands very warmly, after the English fashion, as I took my departure. “No once man run away all dollar,” said Ah Ree,laughing. “I see,” I said, laughing. “You shall uave your goods In soon.” I sent them ; and for a long while after the Hong of Ah Ree and I did a good deal of business ; but it always took seven keys afterward, when I wanted money, to open that safe. Some people are always late, lik the Duke of Newcastle, “who lost half an hour every morning, and ran after it all day without being able to over take it.” A The Dog. The dog is a digitigrade carnivorous mammel. This will be news to most persons, who always supposed that a dog was simply a dog. It has been bruited about that the dog is the best friend to man among the brute creation. He pants after the thief, aod when once he gets hold of the thief’s pants he makes breeches. The dog leaves off his own pants during cold weather. A barking dog never bites; that is to say, when he begins to bite he stops barking. Conversely, a biting dog never barks, and for similar reasons. The hair of a dog will cure his bite. This is a cure-ious superstition among hare-brained young men who are fast going to the dogs. Dogs are dentists by profession. They insert teeth without charge. The dog never barks except when he is awaKe. H i is always awake. The dog has no other way to express his joy than to bark. He always feels joy when he sees a man. When there is no other man to see, he expresses nis joy to the man in the moon. As we remarked, the dog is always awake. This is no tale, though he carries a tale in his wake. The 9ea dog loves his bark. Did you ever see dog that did not ? The head of a dog has a dog-head look. The bark of a dog is unlike the bark of a tree. Even a dog-wood know this. Dogs are not always kind, though there are many kinds of dogs. Every dog has his day, although dog days last but a few weeks in the year. There must be a Sirius error here. Thje dog’s star is the dog’s planet. They planet so that thtir days come while the star is in the sky. They do not fear it. It is not a Skye terrier. When a dog enters a pitched battle he uses dog’s ’tar. Brutus said : “I had rather be a dog and bay the moon than such a Roman.” He had seen the dogs roamin’ around on the bay. They never get over the bay. Sea? The Jews considered the dog un clean. And yet the dog will clean out a crowd, no matter how dirty. But the dog Spitz. A living dog is said to be better than a dead lion. There’s no lyin’ about this, but a dead dog is dog gone bad. Tray was a good dog, but tress is word% than the deuce when it is against you. Dogs were the original Argonauts. They have never given up their search for the fleas. The bulldog is a stubborn fellow. He is not easily cowed. Of course the gentler sex is the more stubborn of the two. You have heard of the dogma. A great many stories about the dog Jiave obtained currency. The man who has left a part of his clothing with the dog has cur rent. See ? Puppies are born blind. They are not see dogs then. There are many types of dog, includ ing the doguerrotype. The dog has four legs ; two of them fore legs. But perhaps we had better paws here. Howl this do for the dog? English Country Seats. Contemporaneously with that re vival of church architecture in Eng land which grew out of the Oxford movemeut came the restoration, both there and in Scotland, of family seats. In the,reign of George III. many of these were in a most dilapidated con dition. The measures taken by the earlier Stuarts to drive away the gen try from London were of so radically vigorous a character that they could not fail to have the desired effect, but iu the time of Charles II. a much moie lenient rule prevailed, and the younger ai d gayer portion of the aris tocracy flocked to town, an 1 the habit continued to grow in force for a long period. In fact, from the time of Charles II. until the close of the reign of George III., although the gentry llv#d in the shires the nobility passed most of their time in London or at Bath and Harrogate, and spent little of their means on their country-seats, while many of the prelates—notably the Irish—absented themselves for years from their dioceses; indeed Archbishop Blaokburue, of York, scarcely ever parsed a month in the year within his province. All over the country were yast mansions dating from the twelfth pentury upward in a state of more or less decay. Drumlan- rig Castle, now for many years au- tumnally the scene ot the princely hospitality of the Duke of Buccleuch, whe. e for weeks together as many as thirty guests at a time are entertained in the perfection of sumptuous com fort, was for years abandoned to care takers, while scarce a stick of timber was left where now fine woods are waving. Bowood, the name of which has for forty years been suggestive of a concentration of refined hospitality and Intellectual intercourse, experi enced a like fate under the preseut L >rd Lansdowne’s disreputable great- uncle. Alnwick was a very poor affair compared with the ancestral castle of the Percya to-day. Bretby, from which it was < bierved that Lord Cuestei fidd dated but one letter iD all his correspondence with his son, was utterly neglected, and indeed has only been completed of late years by the present Lady Cuesterfield. The pal ace which the first Eirl ot Salisbury reared at Hatfield was in sorry plight when the grandfather of the present I Tory leader in the Lirds rehabililated it—and this though it was only twenty miles from London. Very few of these houses were allowed, however, to pass into decay beyond recovery. They were simply terribly out of re pair, with their gardens unkempt, and their parks neglected. With the close of the war in 1815, and the macadamizing of roads, came a revival of country life among the grandees. Tne “swells” who had been fighting took to fox-hunting and found that the Tally-ho and Quicksil ver would carry them up to town in what seemed then extraordinarily quick time should a frost set in. Then came the railroad, bringing Northum berland and Cornwall within a day’s easy journey, and enabling people to fill their houses witn London friends,and be no longer dependent on local “abo rigines.” This probably did morethan anything else to make the great land lords the country-life people they have been during the reign of V ictoria. Never before has there been in England such a large number of fine places so regu larly occupied for a portion of the year. Iu fact, when the bad time set in seven years ago they found the big houses in such perfect order that even if they are ^neglected for the next twenty years they can stand it. Proba bly the number of country houses on a grand scale which will be built in the England of the future will be very few o.nd far between. In fact, in the past twenty years they have not num- . bered more than five or six. Mr. Hol- ford, the inheritor of a vast commer cial fortune and owner of a mansion which taken altogether is the finest in London, has raised a vast edifice on his estate In Gloucestershire. Mr. Elwes, who enjoys some of the hoards of the celebrated miser of his name—a miser is a pleasant person to those who inherit his money bags, if to no one else—has created a stately man sion in the same country. Lord Elles mere has built a very fine home on his mid-England estate, and Lord Bute is rearing a palace at Mount Stuart. These, with one or two fabrics raised by the iron princes of the North, are about all the grand seigneur creations of later days, but any num ber have been rehabilitated. Many men are so obviously over housed that they offer an awful example deterrent of would-be brick and mortar makers. Thus the Duke of Buckingham would probably almost sacrifice an arm if by so doing he co;ild only see Stowe well off his Uands and a big balance at his banker’s in stead. His Grace is not rich, he doesn’ticare a straw for show, Stowe was gutted of Its treasures—almost its sole attraction—under a forced sale in the time of his father ; it lies iu an ugly country, it is enormous, it is ab solutely unletable, and, lastly, he has another and very desirable home. Can anything, then, be more of a white elephant than Stowe? And there must, too, l>e tiui^s, we should fancy, when the Duke of Devonshire may have reflected that five country residences, four with deer parks,and a vast mansion in London, are almost more than are absolutely necessary for the happiness of a widowed septuagenarian, even though he can pay for them, while we can imagine that the Duke of Buc cleuch would readily admit that fewer than his nine residences would suffice him. Fortunate is Lord Derby with nothing but Knowsley and a villa near London. Many of his noble brethren burdened with places to keep up must envy him, particularly in such times as these. The Culture Market. It is generally felt, however, even by the veriest Phili tine, that cidture is somehow a more intangible and subtle kind of thing than any ordi nary article of merchandise. You can buy your picture ofl hand, and have dnne with it forever ; it exists thence forth as a permanent monument of your taste. You can hung it up in your dining-room aud say to your admiring friends: “Thin is art; this is by Blank, R. A. I bought it at 8o- and-feo’s sale very cheap; little more than two thousand guineas.” Nobody can deny that there you really have got high art—something to be acquir ed, not, like a picture, by paying down its money price at a single trans action, but like Green or Parisian ac cent, by taking lessons to which you yourself contribute a certain amount iu personal exertion. Acxrdingly, large numbers of excellent people, most of them in the middle ranks of life, have set to work during the last ten years at a mature age to acquire culture; not because they feel the need of it, but because it is now being talked about so much in the papers. They have no doubt at all as to the ultimate practicability of their chosen method. You can buy books; you can buy Japanese fans, old china, Chippendale chairs, San Murano glass- work ; you can buy grand pianos, Chopin, Schubert, the music of the future ; and are not these things the component elements of culture? Therefore you can buy culture itself. Or if it comes to learning, >ou can read books on the Renaissance—the Renaissance is so very fashionable; and you can get little primers on lace, and pottery, and textile fabrics, and ivory carving; all stamped with the official approbation of the Department of Science and Art, South Kensington. If you shake your head dubiously, if you hint in passing that Bedford Park furniture and Oriental blue and sub dued colors, and all the rest of it, are at best but the outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace, without which all these good works avail nothing, the bewildered Philis tine hears you with unfeigned dis tress; tcarce knowing what thing he has left undone that he ought to have done. He wants, without any previ ous care or preparation, to take the kingdom of culture by storm. He wishes, like Simon Magus, to purchase an inner grace by a simple and unaf fected offer of money. What the individual middle-class Philistine is now doing in his own home and his own person, the collective middle-class Philistinism of the great manufacturing towns has long been doing in its cor porate capacity. And now that thevhave doDe all, they turn and say : " What else would you have us do ? We get pictures by Rossetti and Hol man Hunt. We put up stained glass by Burne Jones in our chureh win dows. We ask Professor Huxley to discourse evolution to us every autumn. We read Pater, and Symonds, and Matthew Arnold, and ‘Iseult of Lyonesse.’ We cover our chairs with velvet from Wiliiam Morris, and paper our walls after designs by Dr. Dresser. We lay The Portfolio, The Contempo rary, and The Nineteenth Century in conspicuous places on our drawing room tables. We go to hear the Wag ner cycle. We even know all about the Hittites and Matteo’s poems, and Filippino Lippi, and the marks on Rouen faience. And if all this isn’t culture, tell us what more we ought to do.” To which the objector can only answer: “All these things are very well in their way, but they are only the externals of culture; they are not culture itself. If you send your child ren to the colleges you have built; if you bring them up in the houses you have ha 1 decorated for you by compe tent upholsterers and filled with pic tures and sculpture by true artists; if you teach them betimes to read and digest the books that lie so obtrusively upon your drawing-room tables—you may in the end make some few among them, who have natures originally adapted for it, into people of real cul ture. You are doing the best you can ; but you yourselves cau never get more than the veneer, whereas what is needed is culture in the grain. Profit and enjoyment no doubt you may find in what you do; but it i&no more culture than a oap and gown Is erudi tion or than going to chapel twioe ou Sunday is religion. A six-button kid: A little hoy, proud his new jacket, informed his sister that he was a six-button kid. Use either snuff or ammonia to separate fighting dog-i. A pail of cold water will in most cases answer.