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The Sylvania Telephone. C. H. MEDLOCK, Editor a*d Puwjmiicb. YOL. I. Curious Things. I went out once (or a quiet stroll, When something happened so very droll, I saw n young hunter riding ever, Up and down, on the shore of tho river. Many a stag bounded close to the spot. What did the hunter ? He shot them not; Only sang a song in the forest green. Now tell me, my friends, what might this mean? And as 1 continued my quiet stroll, Something else happened extremely droll. A slender maid in a light canoe Came gliding down on the waters blue. About her the fishes sprung wonderingly. What did tho insid ? She let then go tree; Only sang a song in the lorest green. Now tell me, my lriends, what might this mean ? And as I returned from my evening stroll, Something else happened ol all the most droll. A riderless steed on my way I passed by, An empty canoe on the river did lie; And passing u grove ol sycamore through, What did I hear ? There whisporea two! And it was so dark there was nothing to seo. Now tell me my lriends, what might all this be; —From the German oj Robert Reinick. A Charming Pickpocket. Miss Illione Howell sits on the top step of the back porch of the Pebble house, gazing out upon the river—blue as the sky above it and almost as bright —which flows gently by at the foot ol the garden. Everything looks bright and beauti ful this warm, pleasant, fragrant Octo ber day. The garden walks, formed of many small glittering stones, encircle the beds of autumn flowers and plots of feathery grass like broad gray rib bons thickly stwn with precious gems; and the little summer and bath houses, built of some dark wood, and encrusted with mote brilliant pebbles, gleam and glow through the trees at the water's edge, as the homes of the diamond gnomes must gleam and glow in the heart of the dark brown earth. Nor d<y«! th® sheen and glitter end with them, for the Pebble house itself is dec orated around each window and doer imbedded in some mysterious manner in the frames — with many-colored stones, each sparkling bravely in pygmy mimicry of the setting sun. But loveliest of all things that adorn this wonderful October day—lovelier than flashing river, gleaming sunshine steeped pebbles, flaming gladioies and bee-ioved four-o’clocks—is the lady, young and fair, with gold-brown hair, large blue-gray eyes, pale oval face, and sweet small mouth, leaning back against one of the piliars of the Pebble house porch, the red foliage of the Virginia creeper that enrobes it drooping over her beautilul head. There is a tender, dreamy look in her large eyes, and a soft smile about her prettily curved lips, as she sits there so motionless, gazing out upon the river. One can see at once that she is wandering in dream land; but, alas! she is doomed to be rudely recalled to earth again. “Kleptomania indeed!” said a loud girlish voice near her, and Miss Ada Warden, a little brunette, with magni ficent biack eyes and heavy black eye brows, comes suddenly out on the p«rch, arm in arm with her inseparable friend, Linda Lees, whose eyes are as blue as Ada’s are black, and whose eye brows are the faintest shadows of those belonging to her friend. “ Why do they uever call it that when the— the—” “Kleptomaniac,”drawls Linda, sink ing into an easy-chair and clasping her pretty hands above her head with a generous yawn that seems to indicate her weariness of the subject. “ Oh, thanks!” continues Ada, in the same loud voice, swinging her broad brimmed hat carelessly to and fro— “kleptomaniac, to be sure—happens to be a poor wretch who steals a loaf of bread or something of that sort?” “ Don’t look at me, Ada, dear,” Miss Howell begs, in tones that would have delighted Shakespeare himself; I’m sure I don’t know,” and she yawns too, but such a cunning little yawn, as though a red rosebud had suddenly made up its mind to unfold into the smallest of red roses. “Well, upon my word,” exclaims Ada, indignantly, looking from one of her friends to the other, “ you both ap pear to be in remarkable spirits this afternoon. I can’t stand it. I must run away in search of some one less boister ous. No, I won’t either, for here comes Herbert Moore, my cousin of cousins, attended, prince of good fellows as he is, by slaves bearing iced sherbets and cakes of dew and honey—that is lemon ade and macaroons. Girls, ain’t you glad I’ve got such a duck of a cousin, and that I coaxed him to spend his va cation hero instead ol at NewportP And now lor his opinion on the sub ject.” “What subject P” asks Herbert Moore. And then, without waiting for an an- SYLYANIA, GEORGIA, TUESDAY, JULY 6, 1880. swer, he turns to the lovely face in wreathed with the vine leaves,and says: “ May I sit at your feet, Miss Howell? I’ve been roaming, I’ve been roaming, and I’m deu— Beg pardon—awfully tired.” Wouldn’t you rest better in a chair?” ai d she leans forward, with a bright smile on her lips and in her eyes. “Not at all, thank you,” seating himself a step or two below the lady. “Mrs. Sherwood,” begins Ada, be tween two bites of a macaroon. “Oh, that affair of the diamond bracelet—poor thing!” says the young man. “What, do you believe in klepto mania?” drawls Linda, from hereasy chair. “That’s the way they explain it,” Ada goes on. “ She has been an inno cent picker-up of costly trifles since her childhood, her father at first, and then her husband, refunding. But Mr. Brown, the jeweler, with a heart as hard as his own diamonds, threatened prosecution, and only consented to a compromise on condition that he should be allowed to warn his brethern of gems and gold. And so it all came out. Oh dear, what a shocking thing, especially when one remembers that the—the—” “Kleptomaniac,” Linda again lazily suggests. “ More thanks, Linda love—that the kleptomaniac came near being one of one’s intimate friends. Do say some thing, Herbert.” “ The most charming girl I ever met in my life,” Herbert responded, gravely, •‘ was a pickpocket.” Mis3 Warden chokes with her lemon ade, Miss Lees drops her hands from their favorite position above her head into her lap, with an echo of the word “pickpocket,” and Miss Howell looks down on the young man with a ques tioning look in her lovely eyes. “ Tell us instantly. Herbert, that's a darling,” gasps Ada, and Herbert obeys. “Last winter, coming home to my lodging ore night, just after parting with my old chum George Cuthbert, Ada—” Miss Warden, with a toss of her curly head and a flush on her brown cheeks,. commands: “Tlon'i. addi ■■ a yourself altogether to me, sir. It isn’t polite.” “Beg pardon,” says Herbert, mis chievously, “but for some reason or other I alwa; s think of yeu when I think of George. Well, I’d seen'Georf e off to Europe that afternoon, after we’d roomed together for tour years without quarreling once. I wonder if that could be said of any two women?’’ He pauses, but his audience maintaining a dignified silence, proceeds with his story. “I naturally felt very lonely after his de parture, and being unable to read, and in no linmor to make calls, I deter mined to go to some place of amuse ment. It was a cold night, and as Jack Frost and I never had been on very friendly terms, in order to avoid a pro tracted struggle with him I selected the nearest theater, regardless of what the performance was to be. It chanced that they were playing a most dismal piece.” “ What was it?” asks Ada. “ Ada ’’—withgreat solemnity—“not for the world would I give any one, not even you, my gentle coz, a clue by which - Well, I was but just seated, when a most lovely girl, followed by her escort—a young man whose resem blance to her led me to believe him her brother—sank into the chair next me.” “ What did she look like?” slyly ques tions Linda. “ Miss Lees, 1 must repeat the remark I made to my cousin a moment ago. No word or act of mine shall lead to the— Suffice it to say she was lovely. The curtain rose as soon as she had taken her seat, and from that instant her at tention was riveted upon the stage. I was pleased to notice, however, she did not favor her companion with any gush ing remarks about the handsome — “Who?” from Ada. “No matter; and that she did not wear—” “What?” from Linda. “ Either a bunch of violet or a Jacques rose. But I was not so well pleased to find that she seemed totally unconscious of my proximity, although she did ac cept a programme from my hand, in an absent-minded kind of way, without even a glance in my direction, while the young lady on the other side peeped coquettishlv at me.” “You conceited follow!” exclaims his cousin. “ She did, up n my honor, from be hind her fan, every few minutes, and at last, gaining confidence, from the angelic expression of my countenance, no doubt, actually offered me a choco late caramel.” “ Why. Mr. Moore!” “She did, Mita Lees, and I took it and ate it. She was about six, I should think. However, to go on with my story. In the third act, where—” •‘ Rose Michel.” “ The Two Orphans.” “ Neither. Where there is some very pathetic business, my charming neigh- “ONWARD AND UPWARD.” bor began to weep, and reaching her little gray-kidded hand aown by hor side, took from the pocket of my coat my handkerchief—the last of that dozen of silk ones you brought me from Paris, Ada.” “Not really? And what did you do?” “Nothing. Yes, I did; I laughed silently and long, till the flirt of the fan and the chocolate caramel said to me, reproachfully: ‘Why do you laugh? It isn’t funny.’ And I watched her at the end of the play walking away in the most dignified manner, after carefully putting my handkerchief in her polo coat, or whatever you call it, pocket.” “ ’Twas all a mistake, you may depend upon it, Herbert. Last winter we wore our pockets so—so—” Ada hesitates, and Linda as usual comes to her assistance: “ In our back breadths.” “—that she— I mean no doubt your coat skirt was intruding upon the arm of her chair. And did you ever meet her again?” “I did. And she immediately pos sessed herself, in just as guileless a man ner as she possessed herself of my handkerchief, of something belonging to me, from my point of view infinitely more valuable.” “ There’s George, and we promised to go sailing with him. Come, Linda,” shouts Ada, grasping her lazy friend by the arm; and as they ran down the steps she shouts back at her cousin: “ If there’s any more tell us this evening, Herbert.” “Is there any more. Miss Howell?” asks Mr. Moore, rising, and standing face to face with the blushing girl. “Should there be more?” she asks in return. “ Yes. ‘And she gave him her heart in place of his own, and promised to be his true and faithful wife.’ I)o you ap prove of that ending for my story?” “ That would be a happy conclusion, I’m sure,” laughs liiione. “ I can think of no better one, Herbert.” And he draws her little hand within his arm, and they slowly saunter off to ward the happy river.—.Harper’s Weekly. Straps and Belts. ft medical writer says: It is a habit in some ol the schools and colleges ~6i youths to employ a strap or other form of belt for holding up thei r trousers; one boy sets the example, and the others think it right to follow; so the practice becomes general and you find a tight line indicating pressure marked round the bodies of the wearers Fortunately, in their case, as they emerge into life, and before great mischief is done, they give up the strap, and take to supporting the clothes from the shoulders by the brace, and so they escape further injury; but while it lasted the injury undoubt ediy was severe. There is another and more permanent injury of this kind, however, carried out by boys—even by men—which con sists in wearing a belt for the purpose of giving what is called support. Boys who are about to run in races, or to leap, put on the belt and buckle it tightly, in order, as they say, to hold in their wind, or breath. Workingmen who are about to lift weights or carry heavy burdens put on a belt for the same purpose, their declaration being that it gives support. Actually there is not a particle of truth in this belief. is the expression of a fashion, and noth ing more. The belt impedes respiration, compresses the abdominal muscles, com presses the muscles of the back, subject ing them to unnecessary friction, and actually impedes motion. No boy would think of putting a belt tigntly round tire body of his pony if lie wished it to win a race or to leap a hurdle; no work ingman would put a belt tightly round the body of a horse to make it pull with greater facility a load which it was drawing. On themselves they com mence the practice because some body has set the example, and they get accustomed to the impediment, and think they cannot get on without it. Drinking is learned by just the same ab surd process. Respecting this belt for boys and men there is a word more I must say, which is of serious import. When they put on the belt for the sake of per forming some feat of strength, they risk another dan gerous mischief, Compressing the abdomen, they force, during the exer tion, the contents of the abdominal cavity downward under pressure, giv ing no chance to resilience back again after the exertion or shock. In this way they frequently cause hernia, or rupture. I have seen several instances of this oc currence in boys, and amongst workmen who wear belts this disease is so com mon that it is the rule rather than the exception to find it present. A woman in Colfax county, Neb., jokingly exchanged babies with a neighbor, the two being dressed exactly alike and laid in a cradle together, and when they wanted to trade back neither could distinguish which was her own property, and a fearful matinee ensued. The Husbands finally arranged a com promise to select by lot. Snags’ Corners The officials of a Michigan railroad now being extended were waited upon the other day by a person from the pine woods and sand hills who announced himself as Mr. Snags, and who wanted to know if it could be possible that the proposed line was not to come any nearer than three miles to the hamlet named in his honor. “ Is Snags’ Corners a place of much importance?” asked the president. “Is it? Well, I should say it was! We made over a ton of maple sugar there last spring!” “Does business flourish there?” “Flourish! Why business is on the gallop there every minute in the whole wenty-four hours. We had three false alarms of lire there in one week. How’s that for a town which is to be left three miles off your railroad ?” Being asked to give the names of the business houses he scratched his head for awhile and then replied: “ Well, there’s me, to start on. I run a big store, own eight yokes of oxen, and shall soon have a dam and a saw mill. Then there’s a blacksmith shop, a postoffice, a doctor, and last week over half a dozen patent-right men passed through there. In one brief year we’ve increased from a squatter and two dogs to our present standing, and we’ll have a lawyer there before long,” < « I’m afraid we won’t be able to come any nearer the Corners than the present survey,” finally remarked the president, “ You won’t! It can’t be possible that you mean to skip a growing place like Snags’ Corners!” “ I think we’ll have to.” “ Wouldn’t come if I’d clear you out a place in the store for a ticket-office?” I don’t see how we could.” “ Maybe I’d subscribe $25,” continued the delegate. “ No, we cannot change.” “ Can’t do it nohow ?” “ No.” “Very well,” said Mr. Snegs as he put on his hat, “ if this ’ere railroad thinks it,can stunt or cripple Snag3’ Corners by leaving it out in the cold, it has made a big mistake. Before I leave town to day I’m going to buy a windmill and a meiodeoii; 4 aud - you..'old locomotives may toot and be hanged, sir—toot and be han'ged V'—Detroit, Free Press. Recent Postoffice Rules. Eggs must be sent when new. Feather beds are not mailable. A pair of onions will go for two cents. Ink bottles must be corked when sent by mail. Over three pounds of real estate arc not mailable. A stamp of the foot is not sufficient to carry a letter. As all postmasters are expert linguists the address can be written in Chinese, Ciioctaw or any other language. It is unsafe to mail apple or fruit trees with the fruit on them, as some of the clerks have a weakness for such things. Parties are compelled to lick their own postage stamps and envelopes ; the postmaster cannot be compelled to do this. Nitro-giycerine must be forwarded at risk of sender. If it should blow up in the postmaster’s hands he cannot be held responsible. It is earnestly requested that lovers writing to their girls will please confine their gush ing rhapsodies to the inside of the envelope. Parties are earnestly requested not to send posta: cards with money orders in closed, as large sums are frequently lost in that way. When eggs are sent through the mails and chickens are hatched on the jour ney, the chickens become the property of the government. Spring chickens that are old enough to vete, when sent by mail, should be inclosed in iron-bound boxes to save their tender bodies from injury. W hen watches are sent through the mails, if the sender will put a notice on the outside, the postmasters will wind it up and keep it in running order. When letters are received bearing no direction, the parties to whom they are intended will please signify the fact to the postmaster, that he may at once forward. Ducks cannot be sent through the mails -when alive. Their quacking would disturb the slumbers of the clerks on the postal cars. This rule, how ever, does not apply to a “ duck ” of a bonnet. Young ladies who desire to send their Saratoga trunks by mail to watering places during the coming summer should notify the postmaster-general at once. They must not be over seven feet long by thirteen feet high.— Yonkers Gazette. If a ship arrives in port a second late they dock it .—Meriden Recorder. CURRENT NOTES. Chicago is just now engaged in agita ting the question of smoke prevention, and the subject has assumed such im portance in the eyes of the city fathers that a proposition is now pending to enforce the prevention of smoke ordin ance. The same agitation, looking to relief from the smoke nuisance, scents to being going on in Great Britain, where societies have been formed in the larger cities for the purpose of dealing with this question, though it does no. appear that any greater progress lias been made there, nor any better or es sentially different devices discovered, than here for the prevention or combus tion of smoke. The Berlin Railroad society has been discussing the American system of checking baggage, and Dr. Wedding urged its adoption with modifications adapted to German customs. It was re ferred to a committee, two of whose members, at least, are known to be in favor of it. The next thing in order will be the American car, or at any rate, the American signal cord. Mur ders on tile rail in the compartment car riages are becoming almost as common in France as those off the* rail, and Charivari, the Paris’Hwwc/i, has a picture representing the conductor of a train putting all of the passengers into a strait waistcoat. Under the sketch it prints: “The managers ore absolutely forced to these precautions for the pro tection of travelers.” Frederic Chilcott, of St. Thomas, an engineer on the Great Western railroad, was a hero. He died a fearful death on that road on a recent Sund ay morning A switch was left open at Simcoe and freight No. 31 was coming toward De troit. Chilcott could have saved him self by jumping off but he stood at his pJaoe. Although he reversed the engine he could not prevent the catastrophe and the next moment there was a pile of cars heaped in wild confusion around the overturned engine. The mass of splinters took fire and although the fire companies of the town tried to save doomed man their efforts were in He was cremated at his post and when his charred body was lifted from wreck®* WnnxntijBMiisAlnekened h still grasped the reversing lever. Coroner Ellinger, of New York, says about suicides in hot weather: |The larg est number of the suicides at this season among men are the results of excessive drinking, Men drink until their nerv ous systems are shattered and their bodies soaked with alcohol, the evil effects of which are most keenly felt when the increased temperature de velops their internal fires, and then, in moments of desperate disgust with life, they seek death. Another thing impell ing many suicides is that foreigners who come here have never become so accli matized until they are here a great many years that in case of misfortune they do not feel, keenly, mentally and in their nervous organizations climatic influ ences. Thus, when they find themselves cut off from that consolation which they would have at home among their friends, and which would strengthen "them there, desperation stares them in the face, and they seek escape in suicide. Another thing which is a great cause of suicide at all seasons now is the decline of religious faith. Where people center their entire hopes in their worldly suc cesses, lack faith in a future life, and have lost their consciousness of a con nection with a world that had no begin ning and can have no end, they have nothing to sustain them when misfor tune assails them, the petty thwartings and grievances of mundane affairs as sume an overweening importance in their eyes, and they are prone to plunge heedlessly into the shadows of the dread unknown. Pennsylvania has an old law, passed in 1794, against profanity. Recently a Schuylkill county justice enforced its provisions by imposing a fine upon a particularly profane citizen who had exploded, on one occasion, a volley cf twenty-three separate and distinct oaths. The offender refused to pay the fine and the case was carried to a higher court, where the decision below was reversed on account of a defect in the proceedings. The judge, however, sus tained the propriety of the action, using the following language: The general prevalence of profane swearing ind icates that the statute under which this de fendant was convicted had long been buried out of sight. Perhaps its resur rection in this case may accomplish some good by showing those who have no regard for the law of God that the law of the land imposes on them a penalty of from forty to sixty-seven cents, to be followed by imprisonment, accompanied by a diet of bread and water, on refusal to pay for each and every time they pollute the atmosphere with their profanity. Helen E. Coolidge is a partner with her father, an ex-judge, at Niles, Mich. The firm name is Coolidge – Daughter. TERMS—fl 50 rm. Jmam. NO. 50. Give Them Now 11 you have;'gentle words and looks, my friends, To spare lor me—if you have tears to shed Thai I have suffered—keep them not, I pray, Until I hear not, see not, being dead. If you have flow’rs to give—fair lily buds, White roses, daises (meadow-stars that be Mine own dear namesakes)—let them smile and make The air, while yet I breathe it, sweet for me. For loving looks, though fraught with tender ness, And kindly tears, though they fall thick and fast, The words of praise, alas! can naught avail To lift the shadows lrom s life that’s past. And rarest blossoms, what can they suffice, Offered to one who can no longer gaae Upon their beauty ? Folw’rs in coffins laid Impart no sweetness to departed days. — Harper's Weekly. MISCELLANEOUS. There are 2,750 languages. Georgia’s youngest grandmother is twenty-six years old. Life is worth the living, provided you have a living.— New York News. A leading hotel in Dundee, Scotland, is furnished throughout with furniture made in Grand Rapids, Mich. The difference between a celebrated scout and oscultation in a dray is that one was Kit Carson and the other cart kissin’.— Marathon Independent. The New York flower mission dis tributed 150,000 bouquets du ing the last season among a hundred diflerent hospitals, etc., and to the sick in tene ment houses. Of the 37,553 miners employed in the gold mines of the colony of Victoria, Australia, during the last quarter of the year 1876, 28,443 were Europeans, and 9,110 were Chinese. The owner of a lawn mower who gets upatflve o’c.ock . . , m . tne morning to ex on a P al W1 le neig or thirteen . hens, two roosters in bens .-Lockport Union. 3 men expend enough scheming to obtain g to make them * fortune iffcippueU m™ ’soffit more praiseworthy direction. — Middtetov.n Transcript. One of the greatest drawbacks to love’s young dream is when her “ dear papa” draws back his light fantastic foot as a preliminary motion to adjourn a front gate special session.— Modern Ano. .Alpine The Edelweiss, the white flower which is such a favorite with travelers, is becoming so very scarce that the Swiss government has forbid den its wholesale destruction, under strict penalties. ClaTk Mills, the sculptor, has been presented by the Tennessee Historical society with a beautiful gold-headed cane made of hickory wood from the Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's home. This is the first testimonial ever given to any one by this society. A boy can imagine almost anything; he can lug an old shotgun about all day without firing at a living thing and be under the impression that he is having a howling good time. But all attempts to induce a boy to imagine that he’s killing Indians when he is sawing wood have proved futile. A Brilliant Vagrant. A letter was received at the Allegheny poor board office several days ago ask ing information in regard to an aged and insane tramp who had been arrested at Butler, and whose case was before the poor authorities of that county. He stated that he came irom Pittsburg. Nothing was known about him at the Allegheny office, but later it has been found out that he was at one time, about thirty-five or forty years ago, a lawyer of no little ability, a polished and eloquent speaker, and a member of the State con stitutional convention of 1837. He was also'a politician of some note and took an active part in the campaign which resulted in the election of President Pierce, and received as his reward the position of United States minister to the kingdom of Sardinia. Here he served with no little ability until suddenly he became insane, and while out of his mind committed some acts which neces sitated h'S immediate recall. He was brought back to this country, and re turned again to this city, where he at tempted to re-establish his legal prac tice, taking up an office in the Burke building on Fifth avenue. But the story of his insanity had preceded him, and he was regarded with universal distrust. Among other things he tried to recover a large amount for tuition from a former student in his office, and made great efforts to reopen old eases in which he had acted as counsel. He finally drifted out of view and latterly has been com pletely lost sight of bv those of bis old colleagues who are still practicing.— Pittsburg Telegraph.