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¢ hildrens | N \l’/ % s Aicorner ‘so ‘l : A/ W 0 Y AR it oBt o * =4 e S G P @ y . POOR LITTLE ME. ilere 1 sit upon the step. No one here to play with me; ‘Boys can’t bother with a girl, So nonz of ’em would stay with me. Poor little me!? Johnny, he won't run with me— Says my legs ain’t long enough. Freddie he won’t fight with me— Tells me I ain’t strong enough. Poor little me! 1 Tom won’'t even speak to me, | ‘Cause I don’t wear TOUSErS, | What's the use 0’ coming out? ‘ Might as well-stay in the house. Poor little me! ] —lrma M. Ueixotto in Good House keeping. WHAT “HORSE POWER” IS. What is the relative amount of work that a man can do in compari son with a horse or machinery? At fis very best the strongest man stands in pretty poor comparisqQn, even with a horse, for hard, contin wous labor. He might perform for & few minu‘es one-half horse power of work, but to keep this up for any gr2at length of time would be impos sible. Thus the gain in forcing horses to do a part of the world’s work was enormous. One horse could exhaust a dozen men in a single day, and still be ready for the next day’s work. The measurement of a fnorse’s pow er for work was first ascertained by Waft, the father of the modern steam engine, and he expressed this in terms that hold today. He experi mented with a great number of heavy brewery horses to satisfy himself that his unit of measurement for work was correct. After many trials he ascer tained that the average brewery horse was doing work equal to that requirad to raise 330 pounds of weight one hindred feet high in one minute, or thirty-three thousand pounds one foot in one minute. So he called this one-horseo pPOWEer. This werk, however, i not contin uous, for the ‘aorze would have to back up aftier each pull to lower the line of the pulley, and thus he wouud work four henrs a day in pulling 330 pounds in the air at tho rate of one hundred feet a minute, and four hours in slacking up .ae rope. Con sequently no horse can actually pe form continuously what is generally called one-horse power. The horse was never born that couid tug at a rope for eight hours a day, pulling 330 pounds one hundred feet exch minute, without a rest or change. Conse quently, when we speak of horse power, we refer only to the average work a horse can do in one minute, that is to say, the rate at which he can work. A strong man might pul. half that weight one hundred feet in the air in two minutes, but he couid not repeat the operation many times without be ing exhausted. For all needful purpcses the expres sion of one-horse power is accurate enough, and practically shows the measurement of an average horse’s abilities for working. As a rule a strong man can in eight hours work at the rate of about one-tenth of one- Issrse power; that is, it would require ten men to pull 330 pounds one hun dred feet in the air in a minute, and then slack up and repeat the opera tion throughout the eight hours of a working day. The world's gain in labor when horses were first employ ed to help man in his work was then tenfold.—George Ethelbert Walsh, in Bt. Nicholas. A BOY’'S SHREWD GUESS. A Mcnroe County boy was discover ed by the owner of an orchard in the act stealing apples. The boy hap. ‘ pened to see the owner in time to make a getaway. “Here, boy,” called | the owner to the boy, who was hitting the gravel down the pike, “come back 1 and you can have all the apples you i can eat and all you can carry away.” Instead of going back, however, the| boy kept right on going. Meeting an-- other man in the road, who had heard the owner of the orchard call, the man asked him why he did not go back. “Well,” said the boy, “I did think for a minute I would g 0 back, and then T looked again and saw that the fellow had one hand behind his back, and it sort o’ fleshed through my mind that mebbe he wuz a liar.”—Kansas City Journal. A SHARP VOICE. The distif®zuished William Pitt Fes senden, having been urged to sing at a party, excused himself as follows. He said thaf. in his boyhood days he attended a singing school, and thought that he was making fing progress, The school was: to+ have ‘a. public exhibi tion, and he went into the attic of his father’s house one Sunday to prepare for it. The old gentleman, after hearing him practice for a few min utes, called out, “Pitt, stop that noise immediately. People are going by to meeting, and what win they think to hear you up in the garret sawing boards on Sunday?” THE MOON AND THE WEATHER. ~ The moon is the most powerful ‘agent in producing the tides on the earth: it also produces some slight lvariaxtions in the earth’s magnetism. So far as science has been able to in vestigate, there is absolutely no change in the weather which can be attributed to the moon, although half or more of mankind seem to believe that the mcon does ‘have some con trol over the weather. All such be liefs, including the ‘eme for planting gardens and for going fishing, are mere superstitions—the survivals of an age of ignorance.—St. Nicholas. AMERICAN GOLD COINS. ! The First $lO Piece Dates From 1795 and $2O Frem 1849. Some people entertain the notion that the American Government began the coinage of gold and silver cur rency in 1776; but this is a mistake, for at that time and for some years after the currency «X this country consisted entirely of scrip. The first copper pennies wer2 coined in 1793, the first silver in 1794, and in the year following the first gold coins (810 pieces) were struck by the Amer ican Government. Today these gold coins are exceedingly rare and worth their face value several tlmes over. They are of exactly the same size as a modern silver half dollar, and on first glance one is tempted to believe that they contain more gold than the mdoern $lO gold coins, but a careful comparison of the two reveals the fact that there is no difference as to weight. The difference lies in the fact that the modern $lO gold piece is very thick, whereas the first coins minted in 1795 are exceedingly thin. The latter bears on its face a Dusi of the Goddess of Liberiy, altogether unlike the lady which one encounters on modern American coins. She is big and fat and snub-nosed, and her Phrygian cap is of such size and shape and worn in such a peculiar manner that she looks more like a fat Duteh frau, wearing a sunbonnet, than she does like the presiding gen ing of a great Nation. Over the head of the portly divinity are the thirteen stars representing the States of tue infant republic. On the back of this coin there is what purports to be an eagle, holding in itgs talons an olive branch and in ' its beak a wreath of laurel. That 18 | all. The eagle was so atrocious, how tever, and looked so much more like 'a buzzard or a fly-up-the-creek than it did like the monarch of the air, that in 1797 a new issue of gold $lO pieces was struek, bearing the same obese Goddess of Liberty on the face, but a genuine eagle on the back. The lat ter is the familiar “spread eagle” of our Government seals and stamps, ‘earing upon its breast the shield, with the Stars and Stripes; in its left claw a sheaf of arrows, and in the right a laurel wreath. One can readily imagine wnat an cagle must have been pretty bad for the people of 1795 (who wore powder ed wigs and took snuff) to have found fault with it, and so it was; but wanen -our forefathers improved in this mat ter they did very well indeed, and the spread eagle of 1797, with outstretch ed wings and bearing in its bill the E Pluribus Unum scroll, which result ed from their efforts, has endured from that day to this. In the 1797 $lO piece the thirteen stars were changed from the face to the back, where they have ever since remained. It was not, however, until the year 1866 that the motto of ‘ln God We Trust” was placed above the cagle, and beneath the thirteen stars, upon the American gold and silver coins. ; . . Until 1849, when gold ‘was discover ‘ed in California, the United States Government_eoined no gold pieces ihigher than $10; but aleag toward the latter part of 1849 one $2O gold piece was struck by way of experi ment. Only this single $2O gold piece was at that time struck, and it is to day the only 1849 double eagle in the world, It reposes in the mint at Phil adelphia,gand although collectors have offered large sums for it, the Govern ment has refused to part with it. In the year following, 1850, the Govern rent turned out a large number of double eagles, which it has kept up ever since. The handsomest of the gold coins issued by the American Government is unodoubtedly the §3 gold token issued during the period from 1854 to 1889. This is the coin which bears on its face the bust of an Indian princess, which, despite the fact that it is artistically perfect, is ethnologically incorrect, for the rea son that the princess wears a head dress of ostrich plumes, a bird indig enous to South Africa, and with which the aborigines were not at all famil iar.—Washington Post. The Artificial Diamond, The reward of the inventor who can produce artificial diamonds is 80 tempting that the Moisson experi ments with the electric furnace, which were inaugurated some ‘¢ight or ten years ago, have been continued until the present day. They are now being carried on in the laboratory of the Sorbonne, in Paris, with ever-increas ing success. The first diamonds made by the electric furnace were of micro scopic size and few in number. In fact, they were so minute and uncom mon that it tcok a great deal of re peated experimenting to secure enough specimens to demonstrate beyond a doubt that the brilliant crystals were actually diamonds. As the work con tinued various modifications were worked out, as the experience of the investigators became greater, until now success seems imminent. The crystals are positively known to par take of all the characteristics of the diamond in crystalline structure, hard ness and chemical composition, as demonstrated by combustion experi ments. The largest crystal yet ob tained is only one-half a millimetre in length, and while this is only a spark, it indicates that the process is ca pable of yielding diamonds of good quality, and that some day in the not distant future the laboratory processes of Mother Nature, as exemplified in The Rand, may be duplicated in man’s laboratory and in a commercial way Strangely enough, a woman is sel dom grateful to you when you try to help her make up h2r mind, the Som erville Journal comments, At Schonbrunn, the Austrian Em peror’s palace, is the finest collection of orchids in the world, numbering 18,000 plants. Things Japanese, Ten years ago Japan exported $650 worth of cotton crepe to the United States, but now ths zgure is $30,008 yearly. Japan’'s total export of crepe is worth $235,000 yearly. - - Japanese silk has a fine future in Mexico, if the Japanese exporters are more scrupulous as to the quality of the silks they send there. L Demand in China for Japanese can vas shoes, fans, china and antimony are increasing since the present Far East war began. ' In August, 1904, Japan exported $l,- 600,000 worth -of manufactured silk tissues, against $1,100,000 worth in August, 1903, an increase of $500,000. There was also an increase of $70,000 in the exportation of silk handker chiefs. Japan’s total exports in Aug ust, 1904, were of the value of $l4, 878,000, against $15,547,000 in August, 1903. Such a sma!l decrease, $600,000, in time of war is surprising. The fal ling off was in raw silk exported. Tea figures for $1,000,000, raw silk for $4, 500,000, cotton yarns for $1,850,000, cotton yarns for $1,850,000, copper. for $541,000. : Japan’s imports in August, 1:&4, amounted to $14,221,000, against $15,- 731,000 in August, 1903, a decrease of only $1,510,000, This is another sur prising result for war times. The de crease was mainly a raw cotton, §l,- 900,000, against $2,900,000, a falling off of $1,000,000. Sugar also decreased $850,000, while wool increased $35v,- 000, and ketosene oil $800,0.. Rice figures for $2,350,000 total import. Japanese Formcsa did an export business of $BOO,OOO and an import business of $380,000 in August, 1904, leaving a balance of $420,000 in favor of the island. ; Japanese progress iy shown in the fact that the receipts from her State forests for timber, firewood, bamboo and other produce rose from $129,000 in 1880 to $1,204,000 in 1903, an in crease of $1,075,000. - Women Compositors. ! " Women compositors have 8o in creased in Edinburgh that in some of the large establishments they form from 90 per cent. of the foree em ployed. They do not belong. to the union, but the union allows its mem bers to work with them. i et e e et e it : ‘_‘ Many Leapyears. : The greatest possible number of leap years will occur in the twentieth century, the year 1904 being the first one, and every fourth year following up to and inecluding 2000. In the same century I'ebruary three times will have five Sundays—in 1920, 1948 and 1976. The Diamond Output. Liouis Tas, one of the best known diamond brokers, estimates the out put of the De B:-ers mines annually at $10,000,000, and of other mines at $4,500,000, Add to this the cost of labor, the profits of the syndicates, etc.,, and he thinks that the annual output of diamonds is worth about $35,000,000. Dampening Roads, A writer in an English automobile paper claims that roads could be kept permanently damp by the 'appliéation of strong solutions of calcium chlo ride or magnesium chloride, and that this would be cheaper than oils and without their objectionable ordors. Artificial Indigo. Owing to the use of artificial indigo, manufactured in Germany, the produc tion of natural indigo has greatly di minished in East India. The Ilatter country last year exported only 65,000 fhundredweight of this article, against 170,000 hundredweight in 1897, The Telecryptograph. An apparatus called the telecrypto graph, which telegraphs and records in print messages over ordinary tele phone lines, without interfering with the telephone, is said to have been invented by Signor Melcotti, an Ital fan electrician, !