GENERAL NEW S.
wiU be cultivated in the cot
Tboacco Florida.
to n belt of
orange crops of Florida are now
ygE and one half millions of
,orth over one
dollars, North Carolina, has thir
JUM/EIGH, and nulls.
teen factories elevator,
The Richmond Va., Grain
^bich hi ldB 3°0, 000 brisHeis is now full.
. sH0RT sugar crop is predicted in
Louisiana, owing to an insufficiency of
rain- 630 factories, workiug 2,
fLOBlA iias
hands, with a capital invested of $1 ,
jg
69 ” , 030 .
The shores along Mobile bay, on both
are becoming lined with orange
sides
groves. Fla., 121 cents
Acor stine, pays a
barrel for oyster shells to improva her
9 roads.
The number of homesteads entered in
Mississippi since the passage of the law
in 1862, is 13,885.
Thu banana trees about Madison Fla.
are nearly all bearing large, fine bunch
of fruit this year.
The cigar business is greatly exteud
i^iu Key West, Fla. It is carried on
mostly by Cubans.
j C. Wood, who keeps a hotel at Bris
tjl jg 8 aid to be the fattest man in Vir
ia. Re weighs 690 pounds.
A worm similar to the army worm is
making terrible havoc with the pea crop
^ P° irtions of West Tennessee.
Many portions . of vv est Tenues-e are
goffering with a dry-spell. Nearly all the
grass destroyed 1 and water for stock get
ting scarce.
A variety of cotton known as the Sen
fgambia is attracting considerable atten¬
tion in somo quarters of Alabama. It is
si id to turn out a pound to fifty bolls.
Southern farmers have been experi¬
menting with tomatoes as food for cows
with very satisfactory results, and they
consider it an 'absolute preventative of
cholera.
The peanut crop in Virginia, according
to the latest reports, is a great failure.
It is believed that owing to drouth not
much more than one fourth of a crop
fill be made.
Ik Texas colored and white "people are
to ride in separate coaches, but they are
to be equal in quality. That is how the
Lone Star state manages the social prob
lem.
Two twenty-five-year-old orange trees
near Tampa, Fla., one measures ten
inches above the root, fifty-three inches
in circumference, and the other fifty-one
inches.
The New Orleans Times-Democrat ex¬
presses the opinion that the cotton crop
of 1883-84 is owned by the producers,
and will leave more surplus money in the
country than any cotton crop of recent
years.
| [An uncommon stalk of cotton was ex
hibited in Natchez recently. It was sev
m en feet feet hiah high, with witn long long close close branches Drancnes,
all of which were filled with bolls.
These numbered over 250. It was raised
bv Allen Carpenter.
Another item has been added to Ala¬
bama’s rich and boundless resources.
Prof. Smith, state geologist, while pros¬
pecting in southwest Alabama last week
found’a fine flow of petroleum on the Tom
bigbee.
The Marksville Bulletin, Louisiana,
tells of a stalk of cotton from Buckland
plantations, Red river, the property of
the clerk of court, which contained 330
bolls and forms, the majority of the bolls
having five “locks - ”
On toe farm of Mr. R. C. Madden,
near Williamsville, in Pike County,
Georgia, is probably the largest grape
ine in the country. It is eighteen
years old, thirty four inches in circum¬
ference at the base and is a quarter of a
mile long.
General Withers, the Kentucky
horse raiser, says that the best stock
l follows the limestone rather than the
:'% and sandstone formations. It forms
* perpetual fertilizer for the land and
SRes out a pasturage upon which is
tuit the bone and firm muscular tissue.
A Chief. —Ex-Mayor Hall says he
®ce heard Thurlow Weed describe the
sjstem of lobbying by likening it to the
instruction of railroads. First, you
inquire and survey yonr territory (this
■s the Legislature and its neighbor¬
ed). 'dw Next yon employ ditch diggers
are not afraid of dirty work. Then
»me the graders. Then you must lay
Jour ties. Then the rails. Curves must
w 5e Paid nicely adjusted. Contractors must
and divided with. And over al)
must be an Engineer in chief.
Is Georgia farm-bells of a large size
Reused in country neighborhoods as IS
in case-of raids by tramps.
™athe thing like a dinner-bell can di scare
Georgia tramp is a very Her¬
at animal from his Northern cousin.
Iowa tramp can hear a dinner-bell
fifteen miles and get there before the
80U P is cold .—Burlington Hawkeye.
Tr* '‘Is tour vessel yonr home ?” asked a
*7, addressing a man-of war’s man.
“is,” replied the seaman, “in time of
but when we’re in close action
*ete only boarders.”
THE WEEKLY
VOLUME Vl.
What has Become of Them.
What has become of those graceful and
accomplished liars who used to write the
romantic tramp stories for the news
papers ? Let us see: There was al
ways a rich heiress from the city in the
business. She sits on the porch in the
cool, old farm house reading a book of
poems. The rest of the household are
all away. Suddenly the gate opens and
a man with a handsome face but show
ing the marks of dissipation, approaches
and asks for bread. The young and
beautiful heiress goes into the kitchen
and brings out a big bowl ol bread and
milk and an apple pie, and the tramp
sits down on the oool porch and eats
with a new light in his eye. When he
has finished, he begs to look at the book
of poems, and selecting one at random
he reads it aloud so affectingly that the
young girl is moved to tears and has to
go into the house for a dry handkerchief,
Then the tramp tells how he was once a
bright and happy boy, but has been led
away from the straight and narrow path
by evil associations, until he has finally
come fast. to And drinking too much after break
now he is a tramp, but the
kindness of the heiress has made him
resolve to lead a different life. The
heiress gives him a bright gold piece,
| in and another shakes hands with and him, then and the indulges tramp
weep,
” oes down the lane with a new resolve
in his heart. A year later a handsome,
well-dressed yonng man calls at the city
home of the heiress and sends up his
card. “ G. Washington Jones,” she
reads, and running down, finds in the
parlor the tramp she met out in the
country at her Uncle Peter’s. He is re
formed all over, and has been wonder •
fully improved regular in appearance by a year's
old course relation of had bathing. Some rich
died and left him some
money, too, and there is a mutual pledge
of undying affection, an embrace, a
“bless you my children” from the old
folks, and then a wedding and a bridal
tour to Europe. This reads all right
when it is properly fixed up and em
bellished by a graceful liar. There used
to be five or six of these pretty little ro
mantic tramp and heiress stories travel
ing around through the newspapers
every summer, but there is a dearth of
this sort of literature this season. Per
haps the graceful prevaricator who wrote
these stories has been struck by light
ning.
A Persistent Yoter.
I knew a man once who told me he
had been yonng and was old. I believed
i him. If he had told me that he had
been old and was young I should have
called for the papers on the spot.
He said be had voted at every election
in our town during the past quarter of a
century. • In all that time he had never
known a man to be elected for whom he
voted. It got to be so that his vote was
equivalent to a defeat. Sometimes a
candidate would pay him $10 to vote for
1 the other
man.
I But his heart always failed him when
he ^ got to the polls; he had ing an abiding
^ hig luck was go to turn
that he conldu - t fi nc ] j t in his
! , heart to vote against his benefactor, and
so he would vote for him, and beat him
anywhere from ten to five thousand
v0 ^ es _
He flopped in polities every few years,
but he never struck it. He beat his
own side every time. His party, which
ever it happened to be, tried to buy him
off or ship him out of the country,
But he was a true citizen, and he did his
duty. He voted every time, with disas
trous effect.
Last year at the election for Council
men there were five candidates in the
the ward, two regulars and three bush
whackers. The man communed with
himself. He felt that he couldn’t live
forever, and he washounl to vote for
one successful man before he died, if it
killed him. He went down, and at dif
ferent times during the day he voted
seven times, twice apiece for each of the
two regulars, and once for each of the
bushwhackers.
The fraud was discovered, the election
in that ward was thrown out and a new
one ordered. The man went to jail, and
at the new election a new man came in
and beat the five men for whom he had
previously repeated clean out of their
*
boots.
The man told me that as soon as he
was out he was going to run for Con
gress and vote for the other man, and so
he would either make a spoon or spoil a
horn. — Burdette.
An Instant Remedy for Poisoning.
If a person swallows any poison what¬ from
ever, or has fallen into convulsions
having overloaded his stomach, an in¬
stantaneous remedy is a heaping tea
spoonful of common salt and as much
ground mustard stirred rapidly in a tea¬
cup of water, warm or cold, and swal¬
lowed instantly. It is scarcely down
before it begins to come up, bringing
with it the remaining contents of the
stomach; and lest there be any remnant
of poison, however, let the white of an
egg or a teacup of strong coffee be swal¬
lowed as soon as the stomach is quiet;
because these very common articles
nullify a large number of virulent poi¬
sons.
She was from Toronto, says the Buf¬
falo Express, and was speaking ardently
of her home. “You’ve no idea," she
said, “how the Dominion towns are
growing.” “Oh, I think I have,” re¬
plied the Buffalo friend. “Able class
of people, too. Read every day of lots
of bank cashiers and the like gone over
there to stay-”
CONYERS, GA.. OCTOBER 5. 1883.
What Frightened a Diver.
“No. I was never frightened but I
once in my life, and yon will laugh!
when I tell yon how it happened. I
have been in some mighty ticklish
places, as yon know, but I never knew
before what kind of a feeling it was to
have the cold chills run up my back
bone, making my teeth chatter a thou
sand times a minute and my knees knock
together like a pair of drumsticks.”
The speaker was T. S. Wilson, the sub
marine diver. The occasion was when
he descended to find out what had
caused the wreck of a large lake steamer,
“When I reached fifty feet,” he said,
“I began to feel the pressure considera
bly. But this was depth nothing, for I had
been below that a number of
times. Sixty feet, seventy, eighty!
Great Csesar ! where was I ? It was
darker than pitch, and I couldn’t see an
inch before the glass in my helmet. I
thrust out my arms and touched some
thing cold and hard, which seemed to
be all around me. At first I imagined
that I had gotten into a big hole in some
way, but just what kind of a hole I
couldn’t say. I climbed up a little, but
my cilindrical tomb still surrounded me.
I climbed ten or fifteen feet further
down, and it was the same. Stories of
extinct species of immense and horrible
sea sepents that were still f rand in the
ocean began to float through my mind,
and I felt my hah- begin to rise a little
as I thought that possibly I bad gotten
into one of their dens,
“ ‘By the shades of my fathers, I
must get out of here,’ said I, and I
yanked that signal rope to come up for
all I was worth. Up I went, and when
I was pulled up on the scow and my
helmet taken off I was met with a loud
burst of laughter from every side,
‘What’s the matter ?’ asked I. trying to
look unconcerned. ‘Oh, nothin’, Tom,
except we guess you got down the
smoke-stack by mistake, didn’t you?’
said the other divers. I looked down at
myself, and sure enough, I was caked
over with soot from head to foot. ‘Well,
yes,’I replied, ‘that ladder fell in the
wrong place and I didn’t find it out till
I had gotten down a step or two. But
hand her np,’ said I, bravely, ‘and we
will try it again.’ They suspected that
I was a little scared, I guess, but I tried
mighty hard to make them think differ
eutlv. So, assuming an off-hand man¬
ner, I began the descent again. This
time I steered clear of the smoke-stack
and accomplished the task that had beef
assigned to me. ”
Sad Case of Ethical Culture.
I* w as ln . September, _ . . , 18 0 _„ 1 9. The tram
‘
that bore Bode Hawkins to college
caught him away from the arms of his
mother and the kisses of his sisters,
Very glum was Bode school, Hawkins, and very
reluctant he to go to
“Aw, shaw !” he growled, “I donkare
to S° nuther, so what s the use ? Dog
gone the collidge, it don t do no good,
an’ I won’t know no more w’en I come
back than w en I go away. Iddrnther
drive team r learn a trade r somethin.
Dod fetch the thing, anyhow.
June, 1883. Ambrose Hawkins re
turns to his ancestral halls on the farm,
his family weep for joy. All rnsh to
embrace him as he steps from the train.
Ambrose Hawkins gazes fixedly at them
through the oriel window that in¬
eludes one eye and delicately extending
two fingers for them to grasp, he mur
murs:
“Aw, fathaw j gently, my deali fellah,
gently; easy on the rings, ye knaw; bless
you, me mothaw—how, no, thanks; kiss
you when we get home, ye knaw; how
do, brothaw—brotliaw—well bless me
soul, but aw I’ve forgotten will the hoys
name. Sistah deah, you kindly
hand these brawses faw me boxes to the
luggage mawstah? Aw—is this—is this
the vehicle?”
And all the way home the old man
didn’t say a word, but he just drove and
thought, and thought and drove, and
nearly all the night lie sat up twisting
hickories and laying them to soak in the
watering trough*down; neighbor by the the next cow barn,
And he told a morn
iug that Charles Francis Adams was
right, and, that “lie had about four years
of college larniri to unlarn fer Bode afore
the hoy could holler at a yoke of steers
hke lie used to, but the boy seemed to
be comiii round all right, and he reck
ened he’d do, by’n ^ by.”
Tlie Third Time.
Captain Webb’s death at Niagara re¬
calls the similar fate of a man in Sicily,
just one hundred years ago. Nicholas,
surnamed “the Diver,” on account of
his many wonderful exploits, undertook
in the presence of thousands of specta¬
tors, to dive to the bottom of the Sicil¬
ian Gulf, where there is a dangerous
whirlpool, and bring up something
which had been thrown in. He made
the attempt and succeeded. Again
something more precious was thrown in
and again he succeded. Finding that in
the second attempt he encountered some
submarine difficulties which he had not
expected, he declined to make another
attempt, but a Sicilian noble throwing
in a gold cup studded with brilliants as
the prize, he dived into the golf and was
never again seen.
Poots’s wife remarked to him, as they
started out the other night to take sup¬
per with the Browns, that she expected
Mrs. B. would have a stunning coiffure.
“Well, I’m sure I hope so,” grumbled
Poots, “I haven’t had anything good to
eat since the last time we were at
mother’s .”—Lowell Courier. J
THAT WINTER’S WOOD.
Bill .4rp’» winter-wood Sentiment* win
fc* Appreciated by the women Folk*,
Now is the time to get up the winter’s
wood. The crop is laid by and there is
no pressure of iarm work and so I took
three of the colored tenants and went to
the woods to clear a little piece of new
ground, and 1 and the little chaps mx.f
another band. I wanted them to pile
up the big chips, but the little rnocals
found a high land all tarrapin and it took in¬
’em pretty much the morning to
vestigate him and see how he shut up
his doors and they would have to wait on
him a half an hour to see him open and
poke his head behind. out of the front door evening and
his tail out In the
they found an hole old stump the about and ten they feet
1 with a near top
had to investigate that, and Carl climbed
while Jesse pushed, couple and just flying as he squir¬ got
up to the hole a of
rels came out and scared ’em so bad
they both tumbled down in a bunch,
and the squirrels and Bailed away to and the then foot
of another tree run up it,
sailed away again to an old beech that
was full of holes, and the throw’d little chaps
hollered and whooped and sticks
and chunks amazin’, and now they are
begging me to cut down the old heecli
and have just a lot of fun, and I reckon
I will have to do it. Uncle Remus says
that a tarrapin is a mighty slow traveler,
and I always thought he was, but Jack
Henderson says that that depends on he
how hungry he is. He says when
was a boy he saw a tarrapin take a run¬
ning start and jump ten feet up a tree
and catch a sap-sucker. Jack says we
may believe it or not, just as we please,
and I was grateful to him for that privi¬
lege. I overheard one of the old dark¬
ies singing a little song to the children,
and he said -
De frog be jump apd he jump and he jump,
But de tarrapin hide behind de stump
De rabbit he run aroun and aroun
But de tarrapin hide his head in de groun
De squirrel make nest in de forked lim,
Bat de tarrapin carry his honse wid him.
I must get Uncle Remus after that
nigger and have him investigated. May¬
be he knows something about this sap
sucker business, and while these law¬
makers are investigating the department
of agriculture I would like for them to
investigate Henderson on that.
Well, we cut wood and cut wood, and
have got thirty cords piled up—ash, and
hickory, and white oak, and beech, all
mixed up; and we are going to have the
biggest and hottest fires this winter yon
ever saw. I don’t like to be stingy of
wood; when company comes in of a win¬
ter night, and the the cold wind handy is singing
around, I want wood and
dry, and I can say, “Ralph, bring in an¬
other stick or two, and make the folks
set round. ” I don’t like for folks tohave
to crowd a fire. I want the fire to crowd
them. The winter wood ought to be
cut now, for it seasons right and will
not burn soggy and black. The winter's
light wood ought and to be hauled in time,
nud split up put away under cover.
There is a power of comfort in plenty of
light wood. The ash wood makes a
pretty fire and burns free, but the hick¬
ory lasts the longest and throws out the
most heat. The beech bums to a white
ash like flour, and when you mix up oak
with all these it is a luxury to to see the
glowing embers dancing to a white heat
uuaerneath, and the children can pop
their corn or roast their potatoes, or the
good wife can make a pot of coffee on
the trivet and toast some light bread
and broil a steak over the coals, and we
can sit round and get the odor and en¬
joy the prospect of good things that are
soon to come. There are lots of com¬
forts around an old fashioned fire in a
farmer’s home, and, so far as I am con¬
cerned, I am content with ’em .—Atlanta
( Qa.) Constitution.
Tlie Telegraphic Project.
It is said that the latest scheme is for
the Government to purchase the West¬
ern Union and go into the telegraphic
business as it is now in the postal busi
ness. A Washington dispatch says that
Mr. Jay Gould intends to offer to give
up to the Government the whole of the
Western Union property upon the basis
of yearly payments of the surplus The earn¬
ings for twenty years to come. pay¬
ment is to be made in bonds or cash, a
the Government prefers. This new plan
would give the Government the imme¬
diate possession oflhe lines for nothing, consist
since the yearly payments would
only of the money earned over and
above the expenses of running tlie con¬
cern upon the basis of existing rates for
messages. It i 3 by a similar arrange
ment that the British Government pur¬
chased the telegraphs, and Gould sees
there a very acceptable precedent. The
effort, if successful, would give him and
his associates in twenty years something
like $150,000,000, for the net earnings
are estimated at $7,500,000 a year. A
strong lobby is said to be getting ready
to carry out this scheme.
A Denial.
A person who describes himself as a
“descendant of Leofric and Godiva” has
written to a London newspaper protest¬
ing against the Godiva festivity at Coven¬
try. of He is indignant and that excellent the memory
his fair ancestress an¬
cestor should be kept alive only by a
fable—a fable, too, which, as he says, is
“a disgrace to English history.” This
“descendant” tries to show that Godiva
never did ride naked through the market¬
place, and that Leofric, Earl of th«
Mercians, who is spoken of by Mr. Ten¬
nyson as the “Grim Earl,” was a wist
statesman, a loyal subject, and a devoted
husband.
NUMBER 28.
AFTER A CYCLONE.
I'JHPbe Coii/int«> Account of the Recent
Tornado In .Minnesota*
Miss Phoebe Couzins visited Rochester
soon after the tornado and thus de
serilies what she saw:
“The country, for many miles, is laid
waste. Farmers’ crops and barns and
improvements are strewn in every direc¬
tion, but the loss of life is not so great
as at Rohcester, and although the the, few that
are killed wounded in country
Me most horribly mangled. The wife of
one farmer, who was in the field, started
for the house, but failed to reach it.
She ran for a stoke in the field, but was
blown almost to pieces. The stake was
driven through her body, and her limbs
tom off so that they have not yet been
found. One young woman is so fearfully her
mangled with ashes live. ground boy into had
flesh that she cannot A
his spine so filled with nails that he will
die of lockjaw. But the most frightful
of all scenes was that at Rochester.
The scene in the north part of the city,
where stood 300 houses and a large
number of trees, beggars description.
Not a dwelling or a tree remains. The
debris is piled up in huge masses, or
scattered over the plain in hopeless en¬
tanglement. Cattle, horses and pigs lie
about dead in all manner of attitudes.
One cow we saw had her head completely
blown from the body and the horns
sticking into her bowels. A horse tied
to a tree was blown on his knees, and
his eyes in death bespoke the terror
which possessed him.
“The Hon. John McCall, of Winona,
was killed near his elevator. He had
started for the house, across the way,
but had evidently been caught in the
air and whipped on to the earth, for the
grass was swept clean where he was
found and every bone in his body was
broken. A long train of grain cars was
thrown from the track and some of them
were pitched into bordering the river the beyond.
Among the trees bed of
the river all sorts of garments were fly¬
ing from the limbs, and while we were
there the bodies of a woman and a baby
were found. That hundreds were not
killed was marvellous. But the time
being seven in the evening and the storm
seen by everyone, men had gone home
to their families, and everyone had taken
refuge in the cellars. All who were
mangled or killed were those who had
no cellars to go to. In almost every
instance everyone saved was in the cel¬
lar.
“The most heartrending sight was
the big hall with the houseless and
homeless and killed and wounded. Near
the door of the hall, improvised as a
hospital, lay five children, all dreadfully
hurt, whose parents had both been
killed. A sixth child, the baby, never
has been found. This sight moved the
stoutest hearted to tears. Over forty
were in here—men, women and children
—in a most pitable condition. One
cunning baby which which reminded me of
-’s little one, no one claimed,
with one of its eyes put out, lay and
gazed with its one eye at every person
who passed, with the most intelligent
questioning look, as if to say:
i l i What does ail this mean ? Can no
one find my mamma?’ ”
The Great Washington Monument.
This is now becoming one of the won¬
of the seat of government, though
for years it was the laughing stock of
the country. It is now some 350 odd
feet high; when completed it will be 555
feet high, overtopping the famous cathe¬
at Cologne by forty-three feet. The
foundations were finished in 1880, and
it will be ready for dedication, if is hoped,
by the next 4th of July. the It will base cost it al
together $1,100,000. At is
55 feet on each of its four sines. Above
the 500th foot each side of the cone is3t>
feet. The lower part is of granite, with
marble facing. Tne upper portion o
the cone will tie entirely of white marble.
Some of the slabs have been sent from
foreign countries. One is from Greece,
another from Turkey and others from
China and Siam. Other stones again
are gifts from several States m the Union,
We should not begrudge the money
spent on memorials of our gnat braiders men.
They honor alike the monument
and noble men whose services they com
memorate. This structure wul De one
of the first things to impress the taveler
with the splendor of our capital. It is
situated upon the bank of the Potomac,
from which the great white marble shaft
will pierce the clouds, and will be out¬
lined against the blue of the sky.
Like a Bombshell to the Dog.
One evening while traveling in Spain
f reached a solitary little inn. Close to
toe stove lay a dog, wanning itself in
comfort.
“What can yon give me for dinner?”
I asked the landlady. reply; and
“Some eggs,” was her the
dog looked fixedly at me.
“Eggs?” repeated I. “That’s poor
sustenance for a man that has come thirty
miles on horseback. Have yon nothing
better ?”
“There's a bit of bacon,” suggested
the landlady; and the doc looked at me
more intently than ever.
“I’m not passionately fond of bacon,”
replied I, “what else have you ?”
“Santa Anna,” cried the landlady, “I
can give you chicken !”
At these words the dog jumped up
and sprang through the half-opened win¬
dow.
“Good gracious !” said I; “why, the
ward ‘chicken’ was like a bombshell to
him.”
“ Ah, ” smiled the hostess, ‘ ‘it’s because
turns the spit. ”
«e
HOW HE REDUCED HIS FLESH
Send* nn Order for SI* Dinner*.
[Prom the Arkansaw Traveler.)
Colonel Nucklin whose great flesh be¬
came a b irden, declared that he would
diet li ms -If.
“Why,” he said to his wife, “if I keep
on this way I’ll soon be as big as Daniel
Lambert. It all comes of my eating too
much, and I eat too much in yielding to
the demands of an enormous appetite.
Now, a man can’t be a free man and al¬
low his appetite to control him ; so,
Mary, fix me a little dry toast and a few
grits after this. I’ll be hanged if I’m
coinc around town puffing like an en¬
gine.”
for several days the colonel lived on
his toast and grits. He would dream of
juicy bcefstakes and chops of tempting
tenderness, and once, on his way down¬
town, he unconsciously stopped in front
of a cat-fish restaurant to watch a hungry
negro eat boiled cabbage. Every news¬
paper be took up spoke of great dinners
and what certain men ate, and, stopping
once, he mechanically took up a piece of
paper that 11 uttered toward him, and
crushed it. when ho discovered that it
was a bill of fare. The first Sunday
night after the beginning of his trials he
attended church, where, he declared,
one could sit free from suggestions of
something to eat. He looked round at
the fat men and wondered if they were
hungry, and his mouth watered when he
suddenly remembered having seen a
roast pig somewhere during the day.
The minister arose and * began to talk
about the Lord’s Supper. He was im¬
aginative, and had the table stocked
with all the delicacies of the season.
He spoke of the venison stew into which
the betrayer supped with his master,
and be turned the cold roast around so
the colonel could see it. Then he ex¬
hibited a baked duek, and taking np a
handful of Saratoga potatoes, he scat¬
tered them over the table.
“I’ll be Billy be John Browned if lean
stand this,” the colonel said to his wife,
and he turned away. At supper he ate
his toast, which lie declared was not
enough to tickle his throat, and he ac¬
cused his wife for making no allowance
in nearing the end of the loaf. He was
determined, though, for every one who
knew of his fast spoke of how rapidly he
was “goingdown.”
"Oh, I’ll stick it out,” he would say.
“I would,” said an acquaintance “you
are somewhat literary in your turn,
Colonel, and I suppose yon derive com¬
fort from Byron’s trials. ”
“Yes,” the colonel replied, although
he knew no more of Byron than a quar¬
antine officer does of the yellow fever
germ. fat, which,
“Byron was not very condition to¬
gether with the bad of his feet,
made him an object of pity, flesh but when he
began to diet himself his went down
gradually and became firm, while bis in¬
tellect became bright. So, yon see, yon
have two aims to accomplish, brightening." not saying
that your mind needs
“Oh, no,” the colonel said, watching
a boy who passed strnggle with a string of fish.
Thus the was kept up. One
morning when the colonel sat in his
office a lank tramp entered and said:
“Will you please give me the prioe of
a meal ? I’m so hungry that I am near¬
ing starvation.”
“I’m ft devilish sight hungrier than
you are,” the colonel replied.
“Why don’t yon eat?”
"Because 1 want to reduce my flesh.”
“That’s all foolishness,” the tramp re
plied. ‘‘Some time ago I was on a cor¬
oner’s jury and we held an inquest over
a man who had starved to death. Oh,
but he was a whopper, as fat as lie could
wallow. The neighbors said that he
was trying to reduce that his flesh and-”
“ Are those facts you are stat¬
ing?” sir;
“Yes, facts as solemn as the west
side of a sepulchre when the sun is in
the east.”
The colonel gave his bell a vigorous
and when the porter appeared he
:
“Go to the nearest restaurant and
order meals for six men. ”
“Six men !” exclaimed the tramp.
“Yes, sir, for I suppose you are as
hungry as two men, and 1 know mighty
well I’m as hungry as four. ”
ENOCH ARDEN'S TRUE STORY.
When Enoch Arden came home after
that memo i-a.t»Ie and disastrous voyage,
wk ich shipwrecked him and his hopes,
j J(i crept up the street to his old home,
af) Tennyson informs res, and looked in
(be win( j ow There he saw Philip Ray
and ^unie, his wife, and their child, all
”' f d , th hoarth craektog wal
ntg _
The whole bitter tmth came upon him
terrible force. Annie, supposing
t 0 be dead, had married Philip,
g0 aH to have a home for herself and
a man about the house in case of tramps,
lt wae ft sa d coming back for Enoch,
an(1 he wah mM i n , ,„„t jf Not so much
p ecalise pbifip bad married bis wife, for
^ ere werf , pJentv J more wivi-e to be had;
Uot 1>(?winse hiS chUd had learned to call
ano (j jer mftn “pa,” though that was a
bitter pill, inasmuch as th* - child looked
a little like Philip any bow
Neither of these things worried him
half so much as to note that Philip was
wearing his (Enoch’s) clothes. With a
menacing gesture Enrich wn-i jnM, about
to dash into the house and annihilate
them, when suddenly the anger in his
countenance was supplanted by a look of
terror and he slunk away silently as
he had come. He had caught sight of
Annie’s mother, who during Enoch's
absence had broken up house-keeping
and come over to live -with In i daughter,
and had become a fixture there.
Enoch told some of the boys aiter
ward that it was the narrowest escape
of his life, and that he would rather be
shipwrecked every five minutes than to
encounter his mother-in-law .—Saturday
Night.
A wrrLE fellow, some four or five
years old and who nad never seen a ne¬
gro, was greatly perplexed one day when
one came by where he and his father
were. The youngster eyed passed, the and stranger then
luspiciously till he had
asked his father: “Pa, "God who painted
that man all so black ?” did, mv
son,” replied the father. “Wen,” saia
the little one, still looking after the ne¬
gro, “I shouldn’t have thought he
would have held still ”
