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Odd People.
f What human being knows so entire
ly his fellow creature’s inner aud
outer life, that he dare pronounce
upon crotchetty habits, peculiar man
ners of dieis, eccentric ways of life cr
inodes of thought, which may have
resulted from the unrecorded but
never obliterated history of years? It
Is mobtly the old who aie “ odd and
when the young laugh at them, how
do they know that they are not laugh
ing at what may be their own fate one
day? Many a peculiarity may have
Bprung from some warped nobility of
nature, many an eccentricity may
have ( r ginated in the silent tragedy
of a lifetime. Of necessity, “odd”
people are solitary people. They may
dwell in a crowd and do their duty in
a large family, but neither the crowd
»or the family understand them ; and
they know it. They do not always
feel it, that is, not to the extent of
keen suffering, for their tery oddity
makes them sufficient to themselves,
and they have ceased to expect the
sympathy which they know they cau-
not get. The tide of life is almost sure
to be at its ebb wit > those whom we
oall odd people. Young people have,
n a sense, no right to be odd. They
have plenty of years before them, and
will meet in the world enough atlri-
ticn to rub down their angles and
make them polished and pleasant to
all beholders. Early singularities are
generally merpaffectations. But when
time has brought to most of us the sad
“too late,” which in many things we
ftll find more or less, the case is differ
ent. Therefore, it becomes the genera
tion which is still advancing, to show
to that which is just passing away,
tenderness, consideration and respect,
even in spite of many harmless weak
nesses.—Mrs. Craik.
A Cure ior Sciatica.
A cure for neuralgia and sciatica—
smd, as I am told,an uufailing one—is
too valuable not to be recorJed.
An English officer, who served with
distinction in the war with Napoleon,
was once laid up in a small village in
France with a severe attack of sciatica.
It so happened that at that time a
tinman, was being employed in the
house whtrd he lodged, aud that this
tinman, having been himself » soldier,
an interest in the officer’s case,
:d gave him the cure which in this
nstance succeeded immediately and
~rever and which I am about to set
own. 14 is at any rate so simple an to
e worth a trial.
Take a moderate sized potato, rather
irge than small, and boil it in one
r: of water. Foment the part
lei with the wattr in which the
to has been boiled as hot as can be
eat night before going to bed ; then
the potato and put it on the
cted part as a poultice. Wei r this
night and in the morning heat the
ater, which should have been pre
served, over again, and again foment
the part with it as hot as can be borne.
This treatment must be persevered
with for several days. It occasionally
requires to be continued for as much
two or three weeks,but in the short-
or longer time it has never yet fai led
be successful.
An Affair of Honor.
When the dry goods house of Dollar
Bill & Co. opened business in a near
city, the managtr was very particular
about the character of the employees.
To one of the travelers, who seemed
\n need of extra advice, he said: “I
hope, sir, you will do everything in
your powt r to sustain the honor of the
House.” “Yes, sir, yes sir; depend
upon me,” replied the traveler, as he
set forth. In three days word reached
the firm from Syracuse that this par
ticular man was on a spree in that
city, but it was five or six days before
the firm could get au answer to any of
\ts telegrams ordering him home. At
last he wrote : “Drummer from Bos
ton said ne could outdrink any hyena
connected with our house. Took me
days to lay him out, but I was
I to sustain our sacred honor or
Shall I let any one bluff me at
’? Forgot to ask before I left
. 1 go West from here.”
Quesnevllle stated before the
} d’Hygiene that he had fre
ed wattr potable for more than
ee years by adding to it half a grain
* is
itlons
The Church Temporal.
An amusing typographical error
occurs in The Church Union. Speak
ing of the Centre Congregational
Church of New Haveu, it says that a
moral tablet to his memory has re
cently been erected there, meaning, of
course, a mural tablet.
Over the grave of a Springfield,
Mass., man in the old Methodist
grounds, who died from the kick of a
horse, is ths following quaint epitaph
cut in cold marble: “Blame not the
beast who sent me to dust for the God
of nature said he must.”
The London Echo says that sundry
fossils have “protest d against the re-
movaf of the Church of St. Olave,
Jewry, to some crowded locality where
the clergy and the building will be of
real use to the living, because a long
time ago certain citizeua were buried
under the church. The dead baud
grasps us tightly still. We deny the
right of a few worthy old citizens to
occupy for all time hundreds of yards,
of laud iu a locality where lanu
is worth something like a guinea the
square foot. The worthy cii zans will
be quite as comfortable at Ilford or
Wokiug.”
It is as much treason to coin a
penny as a twenty-shilling piece ; be
cause the royal authority is as much
violated in the oue as in the other.
Tin ra is the same re tundity in a little
ball or bullet, as in a great one. The
authority of God is as truly despised
in the breach of the least command
ments, as some are called, as iu the
bitack of the greatest, as others are
called.
It is wondi l’ful how men change
to a clanged heart! Bai g n >bled
ourselves we see noble tilings, and
loving find out love. Little touches of
courage, of goodness, of love in men,
which forintrly looking for perfection
we passed by, now attract us like
flowers beside a dusty highway. We
take them as keys to the character,
and do. r after door flies open to us.
Goloa now remarks that this severity
defeats its own object, and it advises,
that this antiquated legislation should
be abolished in favor of fill religious
tolerance aud liberty of conscience,
after the example of the States of
Western Fiurope.
The Springfield Union, of Massachu
setts, does not believe in Sunday pa
pers ; but thinks that the people who
demand them, and not the journalists
who publish them, are mainly respon
sible. “It may be pleasant,” it says,
“for a certain part of ttie community
to spend its Sunday over its Sunday
paper, but it must he borne in mind
that every additional secularization of
Sunday tends to defeat the physical
and moral pin-poses for which the
weekly rest day was instituted. The
laws of natira and of God may some
times be evaded for a time, but sooner
or later they have to be met, and
those who transgress them, whether
communities or individuals, must pay
the penalty.” .
The Pall Mall Gazette says that the
Rev. ‘.‘Jack” Russel, the well known
octogenarian sportsman, is lying dan
gerously ill at the Rectory Hous6,
Black Torrington. The reverend
gentleman, up to within the last week
or so, has been as ardent as ever in
his pursuit of the chase. The venera
ble gentleman a year ago was invited
by the Paince and Princess of Wales
to Sandringham, where ho remained
some time on a visit. The Prince has
now telegraphed his sympathy, and
requested to be kept informed of the
reverend gentleman’s condition. The
annual meet of the Sevenstone
hounds has been postponed on ac
count of his illness.
A Japanese paper having learned of
the craze among Europeans and
American for works of art from Japan
including the Buddhist and Shinto
images, suspects that the missionaries
sent to that country decry the use of
images for the purpose of bearing”
the market. The cunning foreigners
send the missionaries to decry the
popular reiigiou, and when faith in it
is duly shakeu, the people are ready
to pait with their relics.
In this way the missionaries and
their employers are supposed to make
a great deal of money by buying at
low and selling at high prices. The
explanation is an ingenious one, and
may possibly be a specimen of Japan
ese humor or Satsuma joke.
Aooording to the existing Russian
law, apostasy from the Slate religion
entails severer penalties than theft or
murdir. A Russian subject who
abandons the Orthodox faith for any
other whatever is deprived of his
children, his estate is handed over to
guardians appointed by the State, and
he himself is liable to prosecution b.
the Holy Synod until_lie abjures. T
The Valley of Death.
A valley surpassing in reality of
horrors the fabled region of the upat -
tree has been discovered in the Island
of Java. The island is volcanic and in
one spot the emanations from the
interior of the earth are so deadly that
the place is called the Valley tf
Death. As the traveler approaches
it he is attacked by nausea and giddi
ness. He also notices a suffocating
smell. As he advances these symp
toms disappear, so that, after passing
through the belt of fetid air which
guards the valley, tne visitor is able to
examine with less risk the spectacle
before him. A recent traveler de-
soribes the valley as being oval, about
one mile in circumference and about
thirty to forty feet below the level of
the surrounding land.
The floor of the valley is flat, dry
and without any vegetation ; and
scattered all over it are the skeletons
of men, tigers, wild boars, birds and
stags lying among large blocks of
stone. No steam < r smoke is to be
seen, nor is any crdvice apparent in
the earth which appears to be as hard
as rock. The hills which hem in
this Valley of De-.olation : re clothed
from base to summit with healthy
trees and bushes. The traveler whom
we have already qu> ted descended
the side of one hill with the aid of a
bamboo stick to about eighteen feet of
the bottom aud he compelled a dog to
go down to the plain. In five seconds
the animal fell on its side motionless
although it continued to breathe for
eighteen minutes.
Another dog died in ten minutes,
aud a fowl resisted the deadly air for
a minute aud a half aud was dead be
fore be reached the bottom. It is be
lieved the human skeletons are those
of malefactors who have sought refuge
here, ignorant of the fatal influence of
the air they were to breathe. The
neighboring mountains are volcanic,
but they neither emit sulphurous
odors nor do they show any indica
tions of recent eruDtiens.
English the World’s Language.
A Russian priest, Father Alexander
DUIgentaky, is now in New York, on
his way back to St. Petersburg. “I
was sent to our church at Sau Frau-
cisco,” he said to a reporter, “and in
stead of going west through Europe
and over the Atlantic I went east by
way of Odessa and Nagasaki to San
Francisco. I came from that city by
way of the Isthmus. Now, after two
years’ service at San Francisco, I am
going home, and thus completing my
journey around the world.”
“What has struck you most during
your trip?”
“The lead that English-speaking
people have taken everywhere. Eng
lish has become the international lan
guage. With my limited knowledge
of English during my trip I have been
far better off than any of my occa
sional German and French friends.
English has a glorious future. It is
bound to become the universal lan
guage of science, trade and industry.
There have been three great epochs
in which all the educated men talked
Greek, Latin and French respectively.
Now we are entering the epocU ol
English. The Greek world was too
limited in both area and age. The
Latin world was iarg*. r than the
Greek, but its field—politics—was too
narrow. The French epoch was di
plomatic. Now the English, or rather
Anglo-American, epoch will embrace
the whole we rid. The English-speak
ing nations lead the vorld in the
higher politics and in industry and
tiade, and they are unsurpassed by
any nation in scientific, religious, or
philosophical thought. Our German
friends object to Eagliah on the ground
that it is iu their opinion not an origi
nal language, being rathe r a mixture
of German and Latin. In my opinion
this is rather an advantage, for Eng
lish is not quite a foreign tongue to
Germans and to the nations of Latin
origin, and so much the more easily
can be adopted by all of them.”
Abuve the Clouds.
The visitors’ register at the Pike’s
Peak station is . a curiosity in its
way. A rush of blood to the head,
causing lightness aud headache and
extreme nervousness are the most com
mon sensations experienced by tour
ists. From both of these disorders the
register suffers. The sentiments vary
from the sublimest utterances of"the
Holy Hcr'ptures and Milton to the
commonest kind of slang. Page after
page brings together such as these :
“Glory to God in the Highest,” “Well,
I’ve climed Pike’s Peak and I’ll never
do it again, you bet,” “Let all Thy
works praise Thee.O God,” aud “I am
twenty-six years old and have clurnb
up 14,147 feet ;• how is that for high ?”
Many who have strong lungs re
main purposely all night to witness
the electric and stellar sights which
are sometimes very flie. Oue night
last summer an eleotrlo storm came
on, which from the deioription given
me by Officer Leitzell, must have been
very grand. .
For two days previously thunder
storms had been rolling among the
mountains and then for two hours
everything was tipped and covered
with eleotriolty. The Spanish paok
mules which were left on the summit
for the night seemed to be all ou Are
the clothes of the men seemed ablaze
and electricity streamed from the tips
of the Augers, from the nose and from
the hair. The anemometer on top of
the building spat Are at every revolu
tion. Every rook on the summit was
coverd with flame.
Thurlow Weed and bis Sweet
heart.
“When I was working in Coopere-
town,” Mr. Weed said, “I and two
other young fellows were arrested for
insulting some girls while going home
; rum meeting. I was never more in
nocent of anything in my life, but I
had nd friends and was threatened
with jail. Suddenly a man whom I
did know stepped forward and gave
bail for me, and a lawyer whom I had
birely seen offered to serve me as
counsel. My trial came on, and the
girls completely exomrated me from
having had anything to do with it. A
year or two after this I fell in love
with Catherine Ostrander, of Coopers-
town, and married her, and a better
wife no man ever had. It was ten
years before I found out how I had
been defended. Meeting the lawyer
In Albany I asked him. “Why,” said
he, “it was Catherine Os!lander’s
work.” She had feft rather shy and
had not told me in all that time. But
the next year that lawyer was sur-
^ ( prised by being nominated and elect-
" ed Attorney General of the State. Not
altogether because he 'had interceded
for me ; he was just the man for the
place. I very rarely had a man elect
ed or appointed to office for reasons
personal to myself.”
Nutmegs.
Nutmegs grow on little trees which
look like little pear trees, and are gen
erally not over twei ty feet high. The
flowers are very much like the lily of
the valley. They are pale and very
fragrant. The nutmeg is the serd of
the fruit; and maoe is the thin cover
ing over the seed. The fruit is about
as large as a peach. When ripe, it
breaks open, aud shows a littla nut
inside. The trees grow on the is'
of Asia and tropical America.
be:ir fruit for seventy or eighty
haviug ripe fruit upon them all
seasons, A flue tree
over four thousand
every year,
in Jamaioa
nutmegs .on
A Warning Lsftnp.
An Ingenious adoption of the electric
signalling syptem, says The Telegraph
and Telephone, has been effected in
connection with a lamp which is made
to give notioe oi either a burglarious
entrance into or a lire upon premises
where it is employed. The apparatus
oonsists of a small battery with wire
leading to attachments on doors and
windows, and other wires communi
cating with the lamp, which may be
placed either inside or outside the
premises, as preiir.cd. Upon a doer
or window being moved, after the
apparatus has been set U r the night
aud the lamp lighted, a red glass disc
is released by the aid of a small electro
magnet placed within the lamp, aud
a red or dauger signal is thus given,
the light haviug previously been
white. For fire purposes a special
thermometer is used, and when the
raised temperature causes the mercury
to rise, metallio oontraot is made, aud
the lamp at once shows the danger
signal. Placed outside houses or pub-
lio buildiugs this lamp would afford a
sure index to the police as to the safety
or otherwise of the interior of the
premises.
A Few Jokes.
Seaside exercise : “Does your wil*’
take much exercise?” asked Fende;
son of Fogg, whose family is at thS
seaside, “Exercise I” exclaimed Fogg
“I should say so. She changes he:
dress six times every day,”
A Brooklyn boy wrote a composi
tion on the subject of the Quakers,
which he described as a sect who never
clawed each other, and never jawed
back. The production contained a
postscript in these words: “Pa’s a
Quake r, but ma isn’t.”
Three-year old Grade was hugging
and kissing her baby sister when her
auntie said to her, “And you really
think you love your lit le sister, do
you?” Quick as a flash came the re
ply, “No I don’t flak I love my little
sister, I love litr without fluking.”
Going About Loose.
A Londoner who lately crossed fro
Canada to Ogdensburg asked his hack
driver as to the population aud form
of government of Ogdeiisburg. On
being informed that it wfs an incor-
poni ted city, the chief f fticer of which
was the ma^or, he inquired: “And
does the mayor wear the insignia of
cilice ?” “Insignia—what’s that?”
asked the astonished hack man. “Why
a chain about his neck,” explained the
astonished Cockney. “Ob, bless you,
no,” responded the other ; “he’s per
fectly harmless, aud goes about looser”
Wagnerian,
“What’s that you’re playing?” said
a New Haven man to his daughter,
who was pounding at the piano key
board with more noise than skill. “It
is Wagm riau, pa ; that’s the music of
the future.” ‘ Oh, it is, is it? Let it
be a long time in the future before I
hear any more of it. Play me
Cornin’Through the Rye.” “O, pa,
ayi’t you hoirid; always thinking
about some tkin£ to drink.” Honors
are easy in that family.
Simple Solution.
Solving the problem.—“Jack
said an aff'ecUouate mother the ot
morning, “you really must come ho:
earlier nighis. Do you suppose Es
meralda likes to have you stay so
late?” “I’ll tell you how it was,
said Jack. “You see, she was sittid
on my hat, and I felt a little delica
about mentioning the fact.” “Ve
well, I’ll give you a bit of advii
The next time don’t hold your hat
your lap.”
A Difference of Opinion. 1
Some time ago Bishop Mlnkwitz,^
well-known freetliinke r of Little Rod
furnished lmnbt r far the erection of,
negro church. Somehow the brotheil
neglected to pay Bishop Minkwitz]
and last Sunday the old man went
church, a place he rarely visits, an|
took a seat among the ardent breth^
ran. During the sermon the minister
said: “This is the Lord’s i#use, and
we should all be thankful for the priv-l
ilege of sitting in the house of tie*
Lord.” “Hold on!” exclaimed Mink£
witz; “this is not the Lord’s house.
This is my house. When you pay me
for the material of which this house is
constructed you may call it the Lord’s
house, but until you do pay me you
must refer to this as the house of
Minkwitz.” It is said that the old
man has secured a writ by which he
oan by law compel the j readier to re
fer to the church as the house of Mink
witz,and thft he intends to be present
at every meeting and see that the pro
visions of the writ are enforced.
Upward of 13,030,000 letters and pos
tal cards are posted dally in the world ;
8,418,000,000 letters are annually dis-'*
tributed in Europe, 1,248,003,000 in
America, 76,000,000 in Asia, 36,000,000
in Austria and 11,000,000 in A r rica.
The value of the hay crop in Nei
England, according to the siatlsticlai
of the Agrioultutal Department
Washington, is as follows: Main!
$10,436,740 ; Massachusetts,$15,831,45(
VeriuoDt, $12,203,112; C-uneotlau.
$12 160,800; New Hampshire, $7,925,^
255; Rhode Island, $1,728,240. TotalJ
$66,383,604
Years ago an old gentleman, walk!
on the pier at Dover, Euglaj
dropped his gold headed cane thro/
one of the holes locally known t*s
nail holes, in the plank. Indlg]
and disgusted at his loss, ht'f
queathed a sum of money to paj
annually stopping these holes,
overplus to be laid out in a dinuj
the Corporation. Au aunual
consequently takes place, aud
the party break up they certlf
the holes have been duly alii