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THE CAKE.
A good girl—yea, editor a pretty cake, one—
She sent an a
And in his bosom place gratitude
Began a little to take.
But Oh ! the cake had not been long
Afoul Beneath his vest before it fell
the pie gone down before.
“Great Bob!” he cried, “I am not woll!”
The cake and pie they fought and fought;
Tlie doctor came in booming haste,
And drugs at once went up in price.
Oh, ne'er was death so boldly faced!
The medicines attacked the pie;
Tlie medicines attacked the cake;
.Then pie and cake allied did fight—
His many friends were at the wake!
. —LouisoiUe Court,.?.
A Big Oyster Story.
“How’s that for an ister?” said the
skipper of a Philadelphia shell oysterman, that lay
pointing deck. to an “It enormous ain’t not only big
on the a
shell,” be continued, “but it’s got ” a
powerful big yarn that goes with it.
The shell was certainly four feet long,
large enough to serve as a bath-tub for
a small boy, and must have weighed
over 250 pounds, as the reporter could
not move it with one hand*. It was one
of the largest bivalves known, the
tridacna gigas, more properly allied to
the clamfvbut passing as a very respect¬
able oyster.
“Yes, sir,” continued the skipper, who
was shucking oysters, smoking, talking,
and humming a tune at the same time,
“that ister was fetched from the East
Indies by an old mate of mine, and hap¬
penin’ to ran foul of me, he says, says
he, ‘Bob, you’re in the ister biz and
oughter have the boss ister; kinder sam¬ do
ple yer goods like.’ So what does he
but send this ere ballast aboard. There
was two of ’em; one got washed away in
a gale of wind off Pint Lookout, down
the Chesapeake, but the two of ’em
weighed fetched’em, over 500 pounds, said and Gillis, the ister he
*what he eat
along o’ the hull port watch of the ship
—about twenty, I reckon—and there was
half of that ister left. The critter
weighed close on to forty pounds, all
solid meat. Ye wouldn’t open many of
’em in an hour.
“The yarn? Well, as I was Bayin’,
Gillis was one o’ these speculatin’ chaps,
always lookin’ for the main chance,
swappin’ knives, clothes, anythin’ so as
t j make a cent, and ’cute as they make
em; so when the ship struck the Hoss
latitudes Gil was always on the lookout
for curiosities, shells' and such, for to
fetch home and sell. So, when the ship
struck the Straights o’ Sunda and kem
to, off he goes with a couple o’ niggers
what camo aboard to git coral and
things. Wall, they was wadin’ along, as
Gill said, haulin’ the oanoe after ’em and
pickin’ up chunks of coral and conchs
and such, and all to once Gil see what
looked like a flower, all pink and yellow,
and not knowin’ what it was, up he goes
and give it a kick with his foot. The
next minute he felt somethin’ close over
Jii$ he^ foot like a vise, and was gripped as
cf took TOC-e, and lookin’ dow» be
see his foot nipped in one of these ere
shells. Pull and haul every way he
would he couldn’t move, and they could
not get at the critterj as it was buried in
the coral and the tide on the flood; it
rises about six feet in tliat country.
Wall, they thumped the critter with tlie
oars and hauled away for awhile, all to
no puppus, and curus enough Gil had
left his knife aboard, and the only thing
to do was to go for it. Bo off one of the
coons started for the bark, and she a
lyin’ two miles away. The other chap
stood by Gil in case he gev out; and
there they was, the tide a risin’ every
minute, but in about threo-quarters of
an hour the ship’s cutter camo kind along.
Tlie boys gev Gil a cheer that o’
braced him up, and the skipper had sent
Jiis grog. Overboard jumps the mate,
with one o’ these in about ere spades minute they the use crit¬ in
whalin’, and a
ter was all cut up and Gii yanked
aboard; but I’ll bo his dogged chin. if The the water
wasn’t mopt up to next
day they went at low tide and got but
the critter’s shell; and that’s the yam,
and there’s the shell,” said the skipper
in conclusion.
HE SAW WIDOWS.
Officer Button, at tlie Union Depot,
picked up the other day a memoran¬
dum book evidently Fair. lost by All some the one
attending the State en¬
tries are mode iu a business-like manner,
and some ot .them are readable. Tbe
first entry is:
“Shall take sixteen dollars with me to
the State Fair. Second-class hotel good
enough for me. Beware of good-looking pickpockets.
Keep your eye open for a
widow. View the animals, and don’t
forget to take two clean handkerchiefs
along.” second reads:
The entry
“Fair up to the average. Saw a
widow in the car going up. Didn’t
seem to like niv style. Somebody has
stuck me with a bogus half-dollar. Saw
another widow on the grounds. Bather
too stout. Viewed the animals and was
kicked by a steer.”
Third entry—“ Good attendance.
Slept on the floor. Jam on the street
cars. Passed the bogus money off on a
bootblack. Saw a widow at the hotel.
Most too lean. Went to the theatre last
night. Can’t remember tbe play. Saw
several widows, but no chance to make
»n impression. ”
Fourth entry—“Big crowd on widow the
grounds. Beat my way in. Saw
on the fence. Most too boisterous for
my locality. Saw a horse race. One
horse beat all the others. Viewed the
machinery and was hit on the ear by a
loafer. Saw a widow viewing the head¬
less rooster. Mouth most too large for
my part of the State. Slept in a barn
for nothing.”
Fifth entry—“Saw a widow in the
post-office. Blind in one eye. No good.
Big jam. Tried to lieat my way in,
but couldn’t. Saw a horse race. Saw a
widow on the grand Viewed stand. Bowed to
her. Cold cut. the big ox.
Saw a widow in Honey Feel Hall. Raised
my hat. Got left. blue.”
As that was the last entry it wonld
seem as if lie gave np iu disgust and
started for home. A person supposed
to be him “saw a widow” at the depot
Friday afternoon, and became so ob¬
noxious that she bit him over the head
with au umbrella and two or three men
reached for him with cowhide boots.—
Detroit Free Frees,
A CALIFORNIA FARM.
4 Great Ranch in the Far West and flow
It is Managed.
In her graphic illustrated article in
the October Century, on “Outdoor In¬
dustries in Southern California,” H. H.
describes one of the great ranches as
follows : “The South California statistics
of fruits, grain, wool, honey, etc., read
more like fancy than like fact, and are not
readily believed by one unacquainted
with the country. The only way to get
a real comprehension and intelligent
acceptance of them is to study them on
the ground. By a single visit to a great
ranch, one is more enlightened than he
would be by committing to Reports. memory
scores of Equalization Board foi
One of tlie very best, if not the best,
this purpose is Baldwin’s ranch, in the
San Gabriel valley. It includes a large
part of the old lands of the San Gabriel
Mission, and is a principality in itself.
“There are over a hundred men on its
pay-roll, which averages $4,000 a month.
Another $4,000 does not more than meet
its running expenses. It has $6,000
worth of machinery for its grain har¬
vests alone. It has a dairy of forty cows.
Jersey and Durham; one hundred and
twenty work-horses and mules, and fifty
thoroughbreds. divided into four distinct
“It is es¬
tates : the Santa Anita, of 16,000 acres;
Puente, 18,000; Merced. 20,000; and the
Potrero, 25,000. The Puente and Mer¬
ced are sheep ranches, and have 20,000
sheep on them. The Potrero is rented
out to small farmers. The Santa Anita
is the home estate. On it are the homes
of the family and of the laborers. It
has fifteen hundred acres of oak grove,
four thousand acres in grain, five hun¬
dred in grass for hay, one hundred and
fifty in orange orchards, fifty of almond
trees, sixty cf walnuts, twenty-five of
pears, fifty of peaches, twenty of lemons,
and five hundred in vines; also small
orchards of chestnuts, hazel-nuts, and
apricots; and thousands of acres of good
pasturage. whatever side approaches
“From one
Sputa Anita in May, he will yellow drive
through a wild garden—asters,
and white; scarlet pentatemons, blue
larkspur, monk’s-hood; lupines, white
and blue; gorgeous golden eschscholtzia,
alder, wild lilac, white sage—all in riot¬
ous flowering. the
“Entering the ranch by one of
north gates, he will look southward down
gentle slopes of orchards and vineyards
far across the valley, the tints growing
softer and softer, and blending more and
more with each mile, till all met into a
blue or purple haze. Driving from
orchard to orchard, down half-mile
avenues through orchards skirting seem¬
ingly endless stretches of vineyard, he
begins to realize what comes of planting
trees and vines by hundreds and tens of
hundreds Statistics of acres, and the Equalization
Board no longer appear to him
oven large. It does not seem wonderful
that Los Angeles county should be re¬
ported as having sixty-two hundred
acres in vines, when here on one man’s
i'anch svve five hundred acres. The last
Equalization Board report said the
county had 256,135 orange and 41,250
lemon trees. be It would told that hardly have sur¬
prised him to there were as
many as that in the Santa Anita groves
alone. The effect on the eye of such
huge tracts, planted with a single sort of
tree, is to increase enormously the ap¬
parent size of the tract; the mind stum¬
bles on the very threshold of the at¬
tempt to reckon its distances and num¬
bers; and they become vaster and vaster
as they grow vague.”
. Nicknames of American Cities.
Toledo—Corn city.
Keokuk—Gate city.
Quincy—Gem city. city.
Lafayette—Star Louisville—Falls
city.
Hannibal—Bluff city.
St. Chicago—Garden Louis—Moundcity—FutureOreat city—City of Sin.
Pit^burg—Smoky Cleveland—Forest city. city.
Alexandria— Cincinnati—Queen Delta city. city—Porkopolis.
Boston —Modem Athens—The Hub.
New York—Gotham.
Nashville—City of Rocks.
Philadelphia—Quaker city.
Indianapolis—Railroad city.
Detroit-City Denver—City of the Straits.
of the Plains.
New Orleans—Crescent city.
Braokl Baltim ,oire—Monumental yn-rCity of Churches. city—City of
Mobs.
Washington-*—City of Magnificent Dis¬
tances. i.'
Milwaukee—Cream city—City of Beer
and Bricks. •
New Havdn—City of Elms.
Racine, Wis.—Bell city.
San Franoieeo—’Frisco.
Duluth— Zenith city.
Little Rock—City of Roses.
Mobile—Shell City.
Kansas Paul—Gem City—Mushroomopolis. city.
St.
Lowell—City «f-Spindles.
Minneapolis—City of Flour and Saw¬
dust.
Holyoke, Mass.—Paper city.
North Adams, Mass.—The Tunne
city. Peoria,
Ill.—Whisky town.
Alton, Ill.—TasseRmrgh.
Pekin. Ill.—Celestial city.
Madison, Wis.—Lake city.
Rochester. N. Y. —Flour city.
“Our” Money,
Before the day of your marriage buy
a nice bureau; have a” fine lever lock with
two keys put on one of the little drawers.
Have it taken to your chamber,
and when you conduct your wife to that
room hand her one of the keys and say
to her:
“Into that drawer I shall put all our
money. It is ours, not mine. If you
wish to know what we can afford, yon
may find out by opening that drawer.
Go to it whenever you need money.”
You may be a wise man, you may be
what they call “smart as lightning,”
but yon will never perform another act
as wise or smart as this. I began my
married life in that way and have con¬
stantly looked back Such to it as the happiest
step in my life. is the advice given
by Dr. Dio Lewis.
SUPERSTITIOUS SEAMEN.
Electric Exhalations that are Considered
Unlucky by Sailors.
[From the London Telegraph.]
Of all the superstitions of the sea the
most intelligible are those which gather
about the weird exhalations called com
posants. A green, faint and sepulchral
light, shining at a yardarm or boom end
on a pitch black night and amid a gale
of wind, might well puzzle and agitate
the simple heart of a seaman staring
aloft at it. Shakespeare embodies the
shining appearance in the person of
Ariel, and spiritualizes it by his own
conception. ‘ ‘Now on the beak, now m
the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I
flam’d amazement; sometime I’d divide,
and burn in many places; on the top¬
mast, the yards and bowsprit, would I
flame distinctly, then meet and join.” It
is quite possible of that one finds here the
groundwork the belief formerly enter¬
tained that “St. Elmo’s fires,” or eom
posants, as they are usually called, were
women who took this form to bewilder
seamen. There are stories of sailors
giving chase to a composant, following
it from a lower yardarm to the truck, and
then being spirited off by the figure of a
female that suddenly gleamed out in the
darkness with the composant shining on
her hair like a star. Another supersti¬
tion was that composants were the souls
of seamen that had died aboard the ship
and who, in flaming form, haunted tnose
yards and arms upon which they had
often, when in life, hung on by their
“eyelids.” No sailor liked one of those
lights to shine upon him. If the reflec¬
tion fell upon his face he would go below
with the conviction that something evil
was sure to happen to him. As to the
Flying Dutchman, it is doubtful
whether Jack ever sincerely in his heart
believed in that apparition; but of Fri-'
day the marine dread was habitual; dead;
bodies and parsons were looked upon as'
fateful, and to drown a cat was a certain'
way of provoking disaster. Davy Jones! ap-‘j
belonged to Jack’s theology. What
pearance he assigned to this spirit,
whether he had horns and a tail, or
whether he more resembled Neptune as
personified in the olden times by men
of-wars-men who crawled over the bows
with crown and trident when the equator
hove in sight, is a point that remains to
be settled; but there could be no doubt
that Davy Jones was a dangerous mon¬
ster who lived at the bottom of tlie sea
and whose days and nights were devoted
to the pleasing labors of stowing away
in his immense locker the bodies of sea¬
men who came floating down to his do¬
minions. Another nautical superstition
might, perhaps, be found in the sailor’s
unwillingness to kill or capture a Mother
Carey’s chicken. Coleridge’s “Ancient
Mariner’s” albatross is a land going]
fancy. No mariner, however ancient,
would anticipate evil in killing an alba¬
tross either with a hook or crossbow. To
slay one of those little chickens, how¬
ever, which follow in the wake of ships,;
rising and falling amid the stupendous
surges like divine intimations that even}
as the lives of those sparrows of the
deep are watched cared for, so is the poor sailor
himself over, would, in Jack’s
mind, he reckoned as wicked as robbing
a church. But all such fancies and su¬
perstitions are fast drifting away, if, to
use a marine expression, they are not
already out of sight astern. Draughts
from the scuttle-butt in lieu of the old
“tots of grog” may have sometliing to
do with the change, but the active agent
of the transformation is unquestionably
steam, and its obnoxiousness to the an¬
cient rude poetry and imaginations of
the deep may be witnessed in the adver¬
tisements which daily announce the sail¬
ing of whole fleets of steamers on
Fridays.
Jack of All Traoes.
Charles R. King, of 66 Charter Oak
street, may be said to be the most multi¬
farious tradesman in the State of Con¬
necticut, having mastered no less than
twenty-two distinct trades, and being
what, is still more strange, a first-class
workman in every one of them. He is
not yet 70 years old, and is vigorous and
hale and able to do a man’s work any
day. Here are the vocations be has
learned: Blacksmith, house-carpenter,
cabinet maker, ship joiner, grinding, ship carpen¬
ter, glass cutting and shoe
making, harness making, machinist, wheelwright,
iron machinest, wood mathe¬
matical instrument making, wood carv¬
ing, pattern making, clock making,
cooper, carriage maker, gardener and
florist, moulder, patent-office model
maker, plumbing, and locksmith. He
is a genius in mechanics, and ascribes
his ease in learning trades to “an accu¬
rate eye and a mechanical head.” Id
addition to all the above-named useful
av ncatious may be added the fact thnl
Mr. King is a good musician and one ol
tbe best rifle shots .—Hartford Times,
One Way of Playing Cards.
The Portland Oregonian, says:—Wil¬
liam Petty was arrested for creat¬
ing a disturbance. Two United
States coins multilated in the
most peculiar maimer were found
upon him. One was a twenty dol¬
lar gold piece and the other a silver
dollar. Upon one side of each coin was
hollowed out a piece nearly in size of a
five dollar piece. In this was fitted a
couple of springs which connected with
a Sliding piece of the rim, and which
were intended to hold within this hol'ow
a small mirror. While the coins wer<
lying undetected on a table at an angle,
of forty-five degrees behind a stack ol
similar coin in front of the dealer, the
latter could, by a little easily acquired
skill, know by means of the mirror to >
certainty every card held by any one or
all of his opponents.
A Dayton, Ohio, man writes to the
paper that his child “had fifty fits in
twenty-four hours,” and is now well
hearty, and rugged. Oh, well, we should
think it is very likely. A child that has
made a record of fifty-'two fits, in twenty
four hours, ought to be tough enough to
board ail the year round. Tlie Asiatic
cholera would balk at that infant.—
Hawkeye..
___
“How many races are there?” was
asked by a Kentucky sehoolma’am. Up
sprang a shock-headed youngster, with
a yard-wide smile on his face, and ex¬
claimed: “Three—the spring meeting,
midsummer speeding and fall fairs.”
YHE NEW CITY.
The Western Railroad Town and It’s Sud¬
den Growth.
The evolution of the North American
city, says a correspondent, along the
Northern Pacific R. R., may be studied
to better advantage along this route
than anywhere else. We touch towns
at every stage of development. the
The youngest the settlements and that are on is
newest part of Jine, un¬
der the slope of the Rockies, between
Terra Firma and Missoula. Here you
survey the town in its earliest infancy.
There is a railroad station with a name
and a siding and nothing further. A
canvas-top wagon stands near the track.
Four horses or mules are tethered close
by. The settler has driven stakes and
pitched a comfortable tent, large enough
to contain two black walnut bedsteads, a
table and other furniture. His wife sits
in a rocking chair near the flap, watch¬
ing the train as it passes. From two to
a half dozen youngsters are tumbling
around in the snn. The cook stove is
outdoors, with such other property as
cannot be stored in the tent. The citi¬
zen is not far off, hard at work upon the
frame of the building in which he ex¬
pects to make bis permanent residence.
Then comes another wagon with house¬
hold furniture and children. The loca¬
tion of the second tent as in relation to
the first perhaps determines the bear¬
ings of the main business street of the
city. By the time there are three or
four wagons on the ground, and two or
three buildings in process of construction,
another sort of tent appears as if by
magic, with “Saloon” in big letters
across the front. Cowboys begin to ride
in and buy whisky. The town becomes
a point of commercial importance. The
saloon tent is the germ of the future
Board of Trade.
Now we get by rapid strides to well
established communities which date
their origin ten or twelve months back,
like Gladstone or Dickinson in Dakota,
and Billings and Livingstone in Mon¬
tana. If built on the prairie they look
like toy villages arranged by a child on
a brownish yellow carpet. The prairie
towns of Dakota have a more orderly
and at the same time a less real appear¬
ance than the valley settlements of the
neighboring territory. It seems indis¬
creet to leave them out at night on the
wind-swept plain.
The first street is always parallel with
the railroad track, excepting each
way from the station. The second
street runs off at right angles, and if the
growth of the town continues it usually
becomes in time the more important
highway. Other streets are hud out,
right and left, shanties and brick build¬
ings spring up side by side, and in a
few months the real estate agent is pre¬
pared to exhibit a city map, plotted on
a scale that would suit a place with 20,
000 inhabitants, and to give you your
choice of t.own lots at from $25 to $2,000
apiece. It is only about a year since
the first house was erected in Billings.
Now there are nearly 500 houses, and the
population is well up to 2,500. It has a
brick church, a bank, several schools,
three newspapers, three hotels, and a
horse railroad. Statistics of population,
however, are of trifling value in towns
that double their inhabitants in a few
weeks or a few months.
The social and business development
of the town generally follows this order:
Saloons, stores in which the necessities
of life are sold, gambling establish¬
ments, daily newspapers, school houses,
a bank, a church, a wholesale store, a
jail. For a time the saloons and the
newspapers struggle for the numerical
supremacy. The appearance of the jail
marks a distinct epoch in the crystaliza
tion of society. The Jail at Livingstone,
the newest of the cities, was first fin¬
ished, and had no inmates. It is a one
story structure of brick asd stucco,
standing next to a log house with red
shades in the windows and this sign over
the door: “Miss Crickett’s Palace.”
The jail at Bozeman, which is compara¬
tively an old place, contained twenty.
seven prisoners, seven of whem were
held for murd er.
_
“Hep, Hep, Hay.Foot, Straw-Foot I”
There was one valuable outgrowth of
the conditions of our four years’ war to
which few persons have given any
thought. We refer to the intelligent
discipline of the feet. The men who
went into the shock of battle by the hun¬
dred thousand advanced toward the gory
crown of ill-starred success at a regula¬
tion tread, keeping had the uniform much measure do with
of a step that as to
preserving the vitality and energy, and
therefore the courage of the soldier, as
the rataplan of the spirit-stirring drum.
Never was the value and benefit of a
proper direction of the foot made so
thoroughly well understood as during
the drill service that prepared the con¬
tending armies for the field. The “hep,
hep, left foot, right foot, hep” of the
officer in command of recruits became
the primer lesson in the modes of war¬
fare, and was the basis of all other
knowledge gained in the military college
of the open field. It gave bearing,
poise, purpose and solidity to the man
educated to it, and from the special it
spread to the general—the precision of
step and the exact degree of pedal de¬
scription, mathematically defined, en
iered the civil life as well as the belli¬
cose. From a correct use of the feet
come firmness of carriage, grade of
movement and definite direction; and
from the close of the war until within a
few years past there was everywhere ob¬
served the balanced motion of tlie regu¬
lation walk. The toes maintained the
standard angle of projection and the
heels comfortably held acquaintance
when the feet wer e in re pose.
His Twenty-third Child.
Patrick Brennan, of Newburg, New
York, became a father for the twenty
third time on Sunday, when a fourteen
pound boy was born unto him. Mr.
Brennan, who is an Irishman by birth,
is sixty-five twice or sixty-six married, years nine of old. bis chil¬ He
has been
dren being by his first wife, and four¬
teen by the present Mrs. Brennan. He
had been a Supervisor for several terms,
and lias held other public offices, now
being a special policeman at Washing -
ton’s historic head-quarters. At one
time he was possessed of considerable
property, but it has made him poor to
rear his numerous family, most of whom
are living.
AN OLD SIIOWMJ
He Recalls His Early Experience with
Clara Morris and Other Theatrical
Celebrities.
A little old man bent nearly double
and withered, apparently with age, sat
in a back room on the third floor of a
house in Pleecker street listening to
music produced from a violin and piccolo
in the hinds of two boys o£ eighteen and
fifteen respectively. The old man was
James Hen -age Carter, better known as
the originator of the famous Carter
Zouave Troupe, which secured such a
world-wide reputation during the days
of the war.
“Yes, I am in splendid health,” said
Mr. Carter to a reporter of the World,
and he hobbled to a window as best he
could, considering his paralyzed condi¬
tion, as if to refute the statement ‘‘I
shall never be what I was thirty years
ago, though. Oh, those were good old
days. It was in 1848 that I reached
this country from England. I was a
mechanic, and first went to Cleveland,
where I earned my first dollar in the
capacity of a journeyman painter. When
painting became slack I began deliver¬
ing lectures on ‘Artificial Memory.’ I
did not succeed very well, so I packed
my traps and steered for New York. On
arriving there I entered the employ of
Rufus Porter, the founder of the Scien¬
tific American. At the time he was en¬
gaged constructing a flying machine to
take people to California in three days.
We soon found that the railroads and
steamers would eventually reach there
as quickly as we could with our inven¬
tion, and it was accordingly abandoned.
I then turned to the stage. I sang at
the Old Broaday Theatre in 1850 with
the Seguin Opera Company, and also
played with Lester Wallack in ‘Monte
Christo’ as super. Oh, he was a ‘crack’
actor. Never has an audience seen his
superior on the stage.
STARTING OUT FOB HIMSELF.
“I then thought I would start out for
myself. I obtained the services of a
‘Mexican Indian Giant-.’ With him and
a dwarf I formed the ‘Carter Curiosity
Shop.’ For several years I traveled
with them, and visiting every State in the
country making several visits to
Europe. In 1857 I cleared in eight
months alone in Texas $5,000 with this
show. The following winter I went to
Cuba, as my giant could speak Spanish
well, and cleared $3,000 with two ex¬
hibitions. Then I started out with my
‘American Entertainment. ’ I presented
the most magnificent panorama the
world had ever seen at that time. I
personated the yankee, negro, fireman,
waiter, newsboy, and Indian, The
scenes were laid in New York, the South
and the wilds of the West. I began the
entertainment in England to ‘standing
room only.’ It was an immense suc¬
cess until I was seized with rheumatism,
from which I have not even now recov¬
ered.
“Then the war broke out here, and
from the fame of Colonel Ellsworth and
his Zouaves I conceived the idea of get¬
ting up a Zouave drill, the principal at¬
tractions being that the participants
were little girls instead of men. I re¬
turned to America and began selecting
my company. In N. Y. city I obtained
seven little girls from seven to eleven
years of age. I equipped them with
muskets and Zouave dress. They ac¬
quired so much skill that at their debut
at the Green street Theatre in Albany
in 1861 they made a great hit. I had
letters of congratulation from the Mayor,
ex-Mayor, Erastus Corning and other
prominent citizens, and for one month
the houses were packed nightly. Then
I showed them in the principal cities
throughout the country. There was not
a greater sensation created during the
war in the stage line.
MEETING CLARA MOBBIS.
“Eight here let me tell you an interest¬
ing epispde: in 1862, in the early days of
my girl troupe, Cleveland I brought the the girl old
Zouaves to to open
theatre now called theComique. In the
same house at w hich we boarded there
were two girls girls about fifteen quite years intimate of
age. These became
with those hard belonging allowed to my company
and begged to be to go be¬
hind the scenes while the performance
progressed. I consented and the two
girls becoming infatuated expressed a
desire to become actresses. One of tne
mothers said ‘no,’ but the other said
‘yes.’ The girl whose mother said ‘yes’
became the eminent and favorite tra¬
gedienne Clara Morris. The other girl,
I believe, is the wife of a master black¬
smith and is the mother of ten children
and resides on the Pacific slope.
“It was only a little after, too, that 1
popped the question to a young lady
from Painsville, O., and she said yes.
We were accordingly married at once,
and the result of that marriage was these
boys whose music you have just listened
to. 1S63,1 took
“On the 9th of November, from
passage with my troupe for Cuba;
there I took them through New England added
and their success was immense. I
brass instruments to the combination
and organized the first female brass
band in the United States. The music
tjhey rendered was pronounced some of
the best ever heard.
THE LATEST ATTRACTIONS.
“A little later Sol Smith Russell was
glad as a greenhorn to aBk me for a
situation, and he was given one as a sort
of specialty artist. He thanks me to-day
for the start I gave him. At the same
time I took the Berger family in baud
and had them taught to perform upon
the instruments with which they have this
acquired such a reputation. With
family I made a big hit. I have just
been to see Annie Berger myself. But
then success had been too much for me.
Finsmcial reverses and ill-health came,
and I am reduced to the position in
which you nbw see me. I went to a
water-cure and become a victim to mal¬
practice. I then tried the Hot Springs,
Ark., and the treatment there only ag¬
gravated my malady. I was paralyzed
ten years ago while writing a letter in
Washington, and I have never recovered
from the shock; still I am well and ready
to enter the ling again. For Borne time
wa.
^single am. l“e\^£»«S4" nightj **$«*£ I
but m
D8
entertainment, however, with^entoelTn in &Jd w5 fl ,10Ve Sain >
participate. ”—New which my “Qp will
y ork
THE TEMPERAJiCE PLEDGE
Why It was Taken anti llovr 11
was Kep|
has and has been had through terrible “the experfenc£» mill’^V re f>
a
°w at “ p reception, He alluded but to it the other £ ^
particulars, he didht familial g 0
some which are
me ent. says Murphy a Sunday got Marcunj along corretL^
very
what
simplest r ^ ? ndTa el Eg Pl ct
was the 6
s stm of only two points; first, to
all the rum you could to anybody sell
second, never to take vour5 else
But Murphy any rum
customer and soon got to be his own ‘ best
went down hill.
He got into a row over his liquor
day m his low groggery, one
aggravated was arrested for
assault and sent to jail And
durm’ his life in jail his poor wife and
family passed through terrible aSic.
turns. He had seven children and noth
m to keep ’em alive on. The two oldest
boys stopped goin to school and went
round trampin’ to see if they conldn’
get odd jobs to keep 'emselves and then
mother alive They couldn’t get any
jobs, so they did without food, but fora
while they managed to keep the stove
a-goin’. There was a heap of cinders
down on the wharf and they used to go
down to sift out coal for “mother’s lire 8
”
But an employee of the steamboat com
pany drove the boys away, and after that
they all went cold, as well as hungry.
For awhile, wretchedly poor as'they
were, the family used to manage to rake
up money Murphy enough to pay their carfare
to see in prison once a week
but the time came when they hadn’t any
money even for car fare, and had to go
some ten miles on foot to see their father
in jail. One day when there was only
one piece of bread in the house for the
whole family, although they were all
hungry, they all resolved to go without
eatin’ anythin’, and one of the boys
trudged wearily along this ten miles to
carry to his iather in prison the only
piece of bread.
On the night after receivin’ that piece
of bread which he had eaten np before
he had learned its history, Francis
Murphy tried to commit suicide in jail
—and no wonder. He went mad with
grief at Rankin’ over the condition of
his family, and that he had himself
brought ’em to this state. He went mad,
I say, awhile, and havin’ no other way
to end his life, tried to beat himself
against his cell wall, but was prevented
by his Jailers.
When at last Francis Murphy was re¬
leased from jail he found himself a free
—pauper. Of his home there remained
only the four walls—all the furniture had
gone for debt or bread.
And although his devoted wife put her
arms around his neck on his return from
jail, and said she was glad to see him,
she was too sick to smile, she was too
sick to stand up, she was too sick to live,
and three months or so after his return
she died of insufficient nourishment and
a broken heart.
It was at his dead wife’s side, with her
cold, still hand in his, that Francis Mur¬
phy took his pledge.
His First Cowboy.
A rather timid young man from the
East was traveling through the West by
stage, and, after asking the stage driver
a great many questions about buflaloes,
bears and Indians, he finally inquired if
they would be likely to meet with any
cowboys, expressing a wish at the same
time to pee them if they did. The driver
replied that they would probably meet
with some before reaching their desti¬
nation. The young gentleman proceeded be
to relate some of the lurid stories
had read concerning cowboys, and while
he was telling one of the most thrilling
yarns, a party of cowboys returning from
town dashed around a bend in the road
firing their six-shooters and rolled yelling ofi liae hw
demons. Young Timid and
seat into the bottom of the stage,
passed rose __ P>
after the cowboys had ejaculated,
pale and trembling, and
“Great Bob ! they’re part human, am I
they?”
FIRST AID TO THE DROWNING.
1. Go through his pockets. around bang
2. If there are any trees the
the subject up by the legs to let war
ter run out. If you are in a city -
lamp-post^ gnb . ect ^ small start man the pum¬ cu
mel him with your fists to
dilation. It be a large man g 1
a shock with a galvanic battery. respmitwu
4. Endeavor to start
blowing in his nostrils with a pai
bellow-s. If you can’t get a P»
one.
syrnp
portion.,^ s
He born to be
7 . Go through
New Yor k Life.
The Shark’s Enemy.
iana fisherman, speakmgoftbe Gulf of Mexi
of porpoises in the Wed * ^
“The porpoise is aU
one looks upon a f i an( } good
enemy to nobody, F^herm a pe J others
natured fish. ^ as t j. e
have for him a kHKk k w ] UC ii
enemy and ranker of the s ^
he is said to handle as xoag/uf
boar handles a yard dog.