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TRENTON. GEORGIA.
The anti-Chinese sentiment is appar
ently gaining strength throughout Aus
tralia.
Things grow worse and worse in Rus
sia. The latest outrage was at a concert
in St. Petersburg, where two selections
were played by forty-eight pianists upon
twenty-four grand pianos.
The largest Sabbath-school in the
world, it is said, is the one in connection
with the “North Side Central Church,”
Chicago, It has 5000 scholars with an
average attendance of 8000.
None of the general officers of the army
is credited to the West or South. Ohio
has three sons in commanding positions,
New York three, Pennsylvania two, and
Maine and Massachusetts one each.
Two prominent St. Louis men have
engaged in litigation over a duck valued
at 2.1 cents. The preliminary suit made
costs, in addition to attorney’s fees, S4B,
and now the case has been taken to the
circuit court.
The United States Supreme Court has
sustained the validity of a Kansas law
making railroad companies responsible
in damages for injuries to their employes
growing out of the negligence or care
lessness of fellow employes.
Brunswick, Ga., has invested in anew
50-cent Bible for swearing witnesses on.
The reason for this is that the old Bible
has had the first four chapters of Genesis
kissed away, and the lawyers are in
doubt whether an oath made on a Bible
minus its first four chapters is binding.
An English authority computes that
In the last three or four years more pigs
have died in the United States from
cholera than have been raised in the
British Isles. The New York Herald
wonders “if the methods of feeding for
lome years in vogue in this country have
aad anything to do with this mortality.”
Kit Carson’s old partner, Dick Wot-
Joon, who among other notable deeds
ance drove 14,000 sheep 1500 miles over
land to California and make $40,000 dol
ars by the operation, and who Is now
leventy-two years old, has just had his
light restored through an operation by a
Chicago surgeon after eight years of
alindness.
The American Manufacturer says that
In 1887 the production of all kinds of
iteel in the United States aggregated
3,730,760 net tons, or 3,330,071 gross
tons, which exceed by 30 per cent, the
production for 1886, in which year the
United States for the first time produced
more steel than Great Britain, which had
led the world up to that time.
The cultivating and milling of rice
in Louisiana give employment to a large
percentage of her population. There
ire about 000 rice plantations in the
State. New Orleans has 12 rice mills,
with a capacity of cleaning 275,000
barrels per annum. The amount in
vested in all industries connected with
the rice trade is estimated at about
$7,000,000.
“The committee in charge of the cele
bration in London of the three hundredth
miversary of the destruction of the
Spanish Armada has arranged that an
Armada window shall be placed in St
Margaret’s, Westminster, England,
where Lord Howard and Sir Walter
Raleigh lie buried, and also that an
Armada tercentenary exhibition shall be
held at Plymouth.
Says a writer in the London Pall Mall
Gazette: “I paid a visit to Niagara
Falls not long ago and heard a curious
fact which may not be generally known.
It is that Mr. Gladstone, the ex-Premier,
owns a patch of land on the Canadian
side commanding a splfendid view of the
Falls.’ He was asked to sell when the
Prospect Park improvements were being
planned, but declined with thanks.”
“The last Michigan Legislature, ” says
the Detroit Trihuue, “enacted a law au
thorizing the payment of a bounty of one
cent per head for slaughtered sparrows.
The law, as far as Wayne County—and
nearly every county in the State, fer that
matter—was concerned, has been inop
erative. In the first place, when the law
'went into effect, it found the counties
without any specific appropriations
which could be drawn from id payment
of bounties, and in the second place, as
regards the city of Detroit, there was a
conflict of opinion as to whether the
bounties should be paid out of county or
city funds, and whether the County
Treasurer or City Clerk should be the
disbursing agent. Since the adoption
of the estimates by the council the mat
ter has been brought to the attention of
a number of the Aldermen, and it is pro
posed to offer a resolution in the council
for the insertion of an item of S2IOO in
the estimates, transmitting the same to
the board of estimates, with the recom
mendation tiwt it be favorably consid
ered-’*
Los Angeles, Cal , is going to have a
good municipal government by hiring
men to carry it on. Her new city charter
provides for the payment of each mem
ber of the Board of Alderman at the
rate of $230 a month, and he is forbid
den to engage in any other employment
during his term of office.
Chinese nightingales are the fashion
able drawing-room bird on the Conti
nent now, and friends of the little
creatures are protesting against the
cruelty of their being transported to
market from their distant homes by
railroad, with no other care for their
comfort than a sign, “Give me a drink,”
on their wire cages. If the railroad men
don't give them the drink, then very
likely they die; but if the railroad men
are charitable, the birds live end bring
six shillings apiece when they get to the
great cities.
The shooting of a big dog by a Frenck
Custom House officer in the North of
France the other day has given rise to
some queer dog stories in the French
papers. The officer shot the dog be
cause he was suspiciously fat. The
post-mortem examination revealed the
fac t that the dog wore a leather coat
made to look like his own skin and skil
fully fastened at the shoulder and
haunches in such a way as to completely
conceal the ends of the hair. In this
coat the dog carried several hundred
smuggled cigars.
We are told on good authority by a
country clergyman, writes Mac Muller,
that some of the laborers in his parish
had not 300 words in their vocabulary.
A well educated person in England who
has been at a public school and at the
university, who reads his Bible, his
Shakespeare, the Times, and all the
books of Mudie’s Library, seldom uses
more than about 3000 or 4000 words in
actual conversation. Accurate thinkers
end close reasoners, who avoid vague
and general expressions and wait till
they find the word that exactly fits their
meaning, employ a larger stock, and elo
quent speakers may rise to a command
of 10.000. The Hebrew Testament says
all it has to say with 5642 words; Mil
ton’s works are built up with 8000, and
Shakespeare, who probably displayed a
greater variety of expression than any
writer in any language, produced all hi s
plays with about 15,000 words.
Fish City, Mich., is a town that has
no existence except in the winter. It is
situated on Saginaw Bay, and is a col
lection of board shanties built upon the
ice. Last winter it contained 1000
houses. They are the huts of men who
do the winter fishing for pike, pickerel,
lake trout and whitefish, and as soon as
the ice forms on the bay their construc
tion is begun. The fishermen live in
their huts from the time they iw; built
until the breaking up of the ictV.n the
spring forces them to come ashore.
There is a door in each hut, and in the
floor a trap door twenty inches square.
When this is raised a hole of same
size through the ice is discovered. At
the side of this the fisherman sits all day
and a great part of the night watching
for his game, which he captures by a
dexterous use of the spear. From 2,000,-
000 to 2,500,000 pounds of choice fish
are caught from the bay each winter.
The practical application of natural
gas in salt making in the Kanawha region
is an instance, declares the Pittsburg
Gazette , of the slowness with which man
comprehends the resources of nature.
For the last seventy-five years the manu
facture of salt has been carried on there,
at first with wood for fuel, and then with
coal, and very often the fuel had to be
transported many miles over almost im
passable mountain roads, yet all these
years the best fuel in the world was go
ing to waste almost under the salt works’
furnaces. All the wells sunk for salt
water gave off natural gag, which was
gathered in safety pipe, conveyed away
from proximity to the furnaces to avoid
danger from explosion, ignited and al
lowed to burn quietly and to no purpose.
The use of natural gas in the oil regions
of this State had much the same history
For a score of years the natural gas from
the wells was allowed to waste itself in
the air, while the fuel for drilling and
pumping was hauled long distances.
Along in the sixties, though, some in
vententive genius solved the fuel prob
lem by turning the gas escape pipe under
the boilers. Now the wells are general
ly operated by natural gas that they
themselves produce. Sometimes the gas
is used as a fuel under the boilers, but
often it furnishes the power direct to the
cylinders. One would have supposed
that the Kanawha salt manufacturers
would have profited long ago by the ex
perience of the oil operators,even if they
did not notice themselves how to sake
good use of their natural gas.
Song birds being very scarce in Oregon
a number of German citizens of Portland
propose to import from the Fatherland a
number of nightingales, skylarks, bull
finches, chaflim-hes, goldfinches, green
finches, black and gray thrushes, linnets,
starlings and other singing birds, in all
betweeen liuO and 700, which will be
turned loose on their arrival. A fund of
SIOOO has been raised to further the
project.
Early rising is one of the character
ises of persons who live long lives.
THE ABSENCE OF LITTLE WESLEY.
Since little Wesley went, the place seems all
so strange and still—
W’y I miss his yell o’ “Gran’pap!'’as I’d miss
the whipperwilll
j And to think I use to scold him fer his ever
lastin’ noise,
! When I on’y rickollect him as the best o’ little
boys!
J I wisht a hunderd times a day ’at he’d come
trompin’ in,
j And all the noise he ever made was twic't as
loud ag in!
;* It ’u’d seem like some soft music played on
some fine instrument,
j ’Longside o' this loud lonesomeness, seuce
little Wesley went!
Of course the clock don’t tick no louder than
it use to do—
Yit now they's times it ’pears like it ’u’d bu'st
itself in two!
And, let a rooster, suddent-like, crow som’ers
clos’t around,
And seems’s ef, mighty nigh it, it ’u'd lift me
off the K‘*ound!
And same with all the cattle when they bawl
around the bars,
In the red o' airly mornin’, er the dusk and
dew and stars,
When the neighbors’ boys ’at passes never
stop, but jest go on,
A-whistlin’ kind o’ to theirse’v's—sence little
Wesley’s gone!
And then, o’ nights when Mother’s settin' up
oneommon late,
A-bilin’ pears er somepin, and I set and smoke
and wait,
Tel the moon out through the winder don't !
look bigger 'n a dime,
And things keeps giftin’ stiller—stiller—stiller 1
all the time, —
I’ve ketched myse’f a-wishin’ like—as I dumb
on the cheer
To wind the clock, as I hev done fer more ’n
fifty year’—
A-wishin’ at the time hed come fer us to go
to bed,
With our last prayers, and our last tears,
sence little Wesley's dead!
—James Whitcomb Riley, in the Century.
THE BABES IN THE ¥001)
BY PATIENCE STAPLETON.
He was a little pauper boy being re
turned to the State that must maintain
him. He sat very quiet in his seat,
[thinking of his grandmother, who had
idled in that little village that was send
ing him away. He thought of her grave
on the hillside burying ground, where
wild roses and raspberry bushes cl jag
about the stones; where the bees hummed
in the sunshine, the birds sang in the
maples, and the long grass in the soft
summer breeze blew across the graves
like palls. He remembered a horny
handed farmer, who had passed him on
'his sad journey to the depot with one of
the selectmen of the town, and the
farmer had patted his head, saying
kindly: “Take this five cents, bub;keep
it and you’ll never want money for you'll
alius have it.” He pondered over this
arithmetical problem until his brain was
tired. When he drank from the rusty
tin cup he thought of the rollicking
brown brook that run through the vib
lage, and wondered if the chiiucen play
ing on its banks would remember,him.
No one tried to talk to him, for he was
such a small, quiet child he was not no
ticed. No one saw the pathetic little
face grow pale or the shadows come in
his dark, bright eyes. He dreamed the
second night of his journey, that with
his grandfather, he was walking on a
long bridge and a great steamship
breathing dense, black smoke came
crashing down upon them. He awoke
with a iittle cry and found himself lying
on the ground the stars. There
had been an acruaent to the train and
some kind men had lilted the uncon
scious child out of a window. A light
flashed close to his face.
“It’s the little chap shipped to Wis
consin,” said a brakeman, holding his
light lower, ‘he is dead I think and
better off no doubt, poor little fellow.”
After a long blank the child came
back to life with those words ringing in
his ears, “Dead and better off.” There
were thick woods near, and close to him
wounded people lying on blankets.
Afar off was a lurid light where one of
the wrecked cars was burning. He
wondered what had happened; in terror
he staggered to his feet, and with the
blind instinct of a sleep-walker, stum
bled into the forest. When the wounded
were carried away he was forgotten. He
was all alone in the world; there was no
one to miss him.
In a cool, grassy hollow hidden by tall
green ferns he slept until late the next
day. He wondered then if he were
dead, he seemed deserted by every one.
and he had no idea how he came into the
woods. He saw his little basket near
him, noted his clothes were burned and
dusty. He listened and the ripple of a
brook came near to him. He went to it
and bathed his head and the wound in
his forehead that began to smart. There
was a little rustle in the aide* bushes,
and there across the brook, looking at
him with beaming face, was a little,
golden-haired child. Her blue eyes were
red with tears, her pretty white gown
dirty and'torn, her blue sash trailing on
the ground.
“Harry, my Harry,” she cried,
ing out her little arms, “come get baby,
baby never wun off no more.”
He went across the brook carrying his
basket. She was very hungry and his
generous heart rejoiced that he had eaten
little all the journey ami had clung tight
to his basket through his trials. From
her contused talk he learned she had
been lost in the woods the day before
and slept all night at the foot of a tree.
She saw he was not Harry, but stroked
his face with her 10-, ing hand, saying:
“Ou hurted, poor other Harry? Mamma
make ou well.” His senses coming to
him with this new charge, he too’k her
by the hand and set out to find some
body.
He was not afraid in the woods, for he
and his grandmother had slept many a
night under lie stars. Toward dark he
saw on aside path a*pair of shining eyes,
round globes of fire. He was carrying
the child, and he kept bravely on, say
ing the prayer nis grandmother had
taught him. The luminous eyes disap
peared quickly, and he knew it was only
a harmless little fox. When he could
go no farther he laid the child down,
covering her with his jacket, and watc heel
until he fell asleep by her side.
So quaint and pretty a pair might have
been those two sweet babes left in the
depths of a forest by a cruel uncle, and
after weary wandering, finding a serene
sleep, and a leafy shroud brought by
“the minor poets of the air,” the little
woodland birds.
In the afternoon his basket was empty,
but he gathered the dead ripe raspberries
and the shining blackberries under theii
sheltering vines. They passed some
cows that day, mild, solemn creatures,
who looked at them curiously bit did
not stir, though one little calf ran in ter
ror, making the baby laugh merrily.
They came to a deserted log hut that
night where the men in a deserted sugar
camp had lived, and here he made the
child a bed of fir boughs. They were
hungry and thirsty. The brooks were
drv in the depths of the forest, the
only water the spring away back
by the ferns. The grass was
dead and sere, the dowers wilted and
withered. The air was close and hot
and the boy, whose arms were weary
carry his little charge, stood in the open
door of the hut looking at the velvet
blackness of the sky, where, like dia
monds, a few stars peeped out over the
tree tops. Suddenly along the grass
grown road by the hut he heard the
sound of gallopping hoofs. Then dash
ing by like a wfiirlwind, ran a heard of
terriried cattle. He could hear their
hoarse panting, see their black forms.
He clasped bis hands, was it wolves that
frightened them? He listened. Into
the quiet of the night there sounded a
curious snapping crackling, then a roar
like the breaking of a monstrous wave
on a rocky shore. Up. far above tree
tops, leaped a great red tongue of flame
aspiring to the stars.
The forest monarchs writhed and
bowed and flung themselves under the
hot breath, green leaves withered and
drooped under the fire frost, skeleton
branches waved up anil dowu Jike the
shrivelled arms of beseeching beldames,
the pines shot Deedles of fire and the
trees blossomed into marvelous flowers
of flame.
The child looked but an instant, then he
ran in, lifted the crying baby on his back
and hurried down the old road. A pungent
| smoke, the breath of the evergreens, the
life of mighty oaks, filled the air. blind
ing and stifling him. He tried to run
faster, but the child’s weight dragged
him back. Fiery cinders flew past him
—heralds of the suffering and death so
neai—blown by the hot wind that
fanned his pallid cheek. All around the
flames crept in a narrowing circle. In
his awful need he never thought of de
serting the baby in his care. When the
fiery blast carne closer he took her in his
arms and staggered on. It was quite
light now, with an awful vividness.
Hark! Above the roar of the fire
king, the crash of falling trees, the crack
ling of branches and leaves, there was
another sound. The steady thud of
galloping hoofs. Another stampeded
herd of cattle were as frightful as the
fire. The boy listened in piteous fear.
Out of the forest path that met the old
road near a big pine, now writhing its
majestic height under the hot blast,
came a big white horse and a rider with
bowed head buried in his cloak. Merci
fully he heard the cry for help and drew
up his mad steed beneath the rain of fire
falling all about them.
“Take her,” shouted the boy, “I kin
run alone all right.”
The man did not speak. With a
mighty movement he stooped and swung
the children on the saddle behind him?
“Hold foryour life, ” he shouted hoarsely,
and as the mare leaped the old pine burst
into a great tower of flame, like a giant
octopus reaching fiery arms after them.
The fire king might fly with mighty
wings, leap in fantastic, swift bounds,
overcoming time and space, but it could
not gain on Joel Waite’s white mare,
known all the country round. On she
galloped, straight as a die, strong of
sinew, deep of ches f . tireless, enduring,
guided by a Arm, wjsehand.
At last in the crescent of fire there lay
before them a high bank, where, four
feet below, a river rippled in noisy
shallows. A silver stream in the sun
light, but now in the conflagration a
river of blood. The rider flung out his
left arm and held the children close,and
with his right steadied the rearing mare.
There was one breathless moment, a
quick leap, a spla«h in the cool water, a
slip on the muddy bottom, a quick re
covery to the shining sand, and a steady
push ahead. The stream rippled over their
scorched clothing and blistered flesh.
Behind them the trees, giants’ torches,
flamed resinous smoke and lurid light,
while the naked branches of the oaks and
maples flung out great red bars, the work
of a frightful caster: the molten metal
of misery and death to the forest. Coals
and charred timber dropped and hissed
in the stream like poisonous serpents
disappearing to their foul dens, and the
fire king, baffled by its only conqueror,
died there on the river bank.
In the channel for one moment the
brave mare swam with her heavy load,
then her hoofs rested ou the sandy beach,
the sedgy shore, the soft turf of her
master s meadow.
The child, still clinging to the baby
girl, sank again into a carious trance.
“See,” cried the hostler, “the grip
he's got on the little ’un Oh, Mr.
Waite, you thought you was savin’
strange children, but here’s l'ttle Nellie
found after all hr this poor child.”
“You saved my life, old mare,” said
the master, patting the dropping head :
he xnelt by the children The waif
heard a woman scream and saw through
the mists a flying figure lift the child
from his arms. He was glad there was
some one to love her. some one who will
thank him for saving her life. lie
smiled a pitiful, happy smile and drifted
away.
Ry slow degrees he come back to life
again to find a beautiful room, a sweet
woman who called him “my boy now.”
and one day he sees a fair-haired boy
looking at him with admiring eyes.
“I am Harry,” says the boy stret hing
out a chubby hand to take the waif’s
trembling fingers, “shake. You are get
ting well and are to be my brother now.
Von saved my little sister. We lost her
in the woods, nurse and me, and every
body has been looking for her. My
father says you are a brave bov, and if
you like you can live here always, with
my mother for your mother and all the
rest of us relations.”
The sick boy smiled happily, and, with
his hands in that friendly one, fell into a
healthful slumber that meant recovery.
That bit of drift in the river of life
had found a happy and secure harbor.
Yet he deserved it, that little pauper
boy with the soul of a hero. —Detroit
Free Press.
LIFE AT A FRONTIER POST.
ROUTINE OF A SOLDIER 8 DUTY IN
THE FAR WEST
An Early Morning- Scene—At the
Rifle Range Grooming the
Horses —Gatling Gun Practice.
Lieutenant E. 31. Lewis, of the United
States Army, gives in the ISew York
Star the following account of a soldier’s
daily life at a frontier post:
The military post of Fort Yates, Dak.,
is un picturesquely situated just above the
cliff-like banks of the “Muddy Missouri.”
The parade ground—that nucleus around
which cluster the components of every
military post —is square and level, and
ample enough in dimensions for the six
company garrison. On one side of the
parade runs a well-shaded drive, along
which are built the officers’ quarters,
called in army parlance “the line.” The
other three sides are enclosed by the
soldiers’ qdarters, the chapel, the admin
istrative building and the guard house.
The season is summer, and the soft
quiet that marks the hour just before the
dawn is broken only by the ping of a
mosquito, or the crowing of some early
cock, proclaiming the advent of a new
day. As if in answer to chanticleer’s
challenge, the voice of the sentinel at
the guard house, sounding sweet but
clear in the sharp morning air, an
nounces that the hour is 4 o’clock, and
that all is well.
To each of the barrack buildings a lit
tle addition has been joined, and the
light shining out from their open win
dows proclaims that the cooks at e already
busy preparing the early meal of their
sleeping comrades.
One by one the stars fade out in the
blue canopy overhead, while brighter
and brighter grows the light in the east.
Softly the barrack doors open to give
egress to sleepy-looking men, carrying
bright, shining things under their arms,
who hurry to join the group already
forming away down at one end of the
line. Suddenly, “Fall in; forward,
march!” is commanded, and away they
go, sounding on their bugles the reveille.
Down they march to the end of their
line, then back again, and to the center
of the parade ground, their leathern
lungs never seeming to tire in the pro
cess. By twos and threes, sleepy, frowzv
headed men strangle out of the bar
racks, and, leaning against the building
for support, postpone as long as possible
the moment when they must fully
awaken to life and take their places in
the ranks. The officers hurry out of
their quarters and join their companies
on the parade. And now the sleepy ones
have to abandon their lazy positions to
go through the roll call; the flag floats
proudly to the top of the flagstaff, un
furling her beauty to the fresh morning
breeze in graceful folds. The reports
are made, the companies dismissed, and
the military day has dawned.
The next fifteen minutes would ex
hibit to curious eyes prying into any one
of the little rooms in rear of all the
company quarters a long line of men,
who, with the assistance of tin water
filled basins and a wonderful amount of
splashing and spurting, are performing
their morning ablutions, giving bybrisx
rubs with coarse towels finishing touches
to their already shining faces. Hardly
is this finished when the brazen bugle’s
voice calls from without:
Soupy, soupy, soup, without any bean;
Coffee, coffee, cott', without any cream;
Porky, porky, pork, without any lean-n-n,
and, all thoroughly awake, they file into
the dining room to partake of a some
what more elaborate bill of fare than the
the pessimistic bugle has proclaimed.
Some hurry through and leave the room
in order to enjoy a pipeful of tobacco
before the duties of the day shall call
them off, for at 5:45 o’clock squads of
infantrymen, their rifles slung over their
broad shoulders, are seen straggling
down toward the rifle ranges.
Down on the range the rifles have been
popping for an hour, and we wander
carelessly in that direction. At the base
of the hills is along line of targets, rang
ing in size according to the distance from
the marksmen, but all with oval centers
surrounded by two oval rings.. Two
hundred yards from one target a soldier
is standing reading to fire. The gentle
breeze wafts the smoke from the muzzle
of his rifle, and a white disk appearing
in front of the target announces that he
has hit the bullseye.
At the 300-yard point, before another
target, the soldiers shooting are sitting
or kneeling upon the ground, and a little
red flag waving over the mark indicates
that the last shot has been too high,
while the officer chides the luckless fel
low and bids him be more careful next
time.
Away back, 600 yards from another
target, two men are stretched out upon
the ground apparently resting lazily,
but a closer inspection shows that their
rifles are in hand, their left legs na-sed
through the rifle slings, and a puff of
smoke followed by a red disk placed al
most over the bullseye gives evidence
that the man’s aim has been good and
his hand steady.
Far across the prairie is a dark line of
figures representing a company engaged
in action, their black silhonettes in relief
distinctly against the rising land be
yond. These are the skirmish targets,
and as we look, a company of infantry,
deployed as skirmishers.advances toward
them. A bugle sounds and the men
drop like a flash, and, in a moment, the
sound of the distant fusil ide reaches us.
Another note from the bugle, and they
are retiring at a run, only to stop again
and again to pour a merciless fire upon
the inert foe. Now the officers ride to
the targets, and. dismounting, count the
number of hits, which,being satisfactory
the company is marched baek to the bar
racks, where the details are forming for
guard mounting.
Half a dozen bugles are sounding a
march, and with military precision the
guard is formed, inspected by the ad
jutant, presented to the officer of the
day and marched off to the guard house,
where the old guard is drawn up in line
to receive it. Salutes are exchanged,
the two sergeants are seen for a moment
in earnest conversation as they exchange j
the orders for the day, and the tired fel- j
lows who have been on duty for the last
twenty four hours go to their quarters
to seek their well-merited repose.
Now the soldiers are coming back
from the target range, and the officers
gather in the administrative building to
recei- e the orders of the commanding
officer, and to be catechised by him in
tatties and the science of war.
Outside the details for fatigue aie
forming. Dump carts, drawn by long
eared, pensive-locking mules, appear
and the work of polishing the post is
commenced. Here a gang of prisoners
under the charge of an armed sentry are
raking up the leaves and dirt that have
accumulated during the past twenty
four hours. There a party is at work
digging a new drain or repairing the
pipe line through which the garrison,
drains its water supply. On the porches
of the quarters are gathered the men off
duty, lounging about with coats un
buttoned and caps on back of heads.
An officer passes, and in a trice coats are
buttoned, cans readjusted, bodies erect
and heels together, wh'le hands are ex
tended in respectful salutes.
Soon after dinner l.ttle squads of men
are seen strolling eastward, a group rap
idly forming about some object on the
prairie, and upon our joining them we
find that a new Gatling gun is about to
be tried. On the outskirts of the crowd,
loiter a dozen Indians, curious to see the,,
to them, new engine of war. The tar
get is a little knoll, distant some 500
yards. At the command of the officer in
charge the crank is turned, when streams
of fire spurt fiom the steel muzzles, and
a column of dust rising from the little
knoll attests the accuracy of their aim.
The Indians, surprised for once out of
their appearance of stoical indifference,
draw quickly back, applying a name to
the machine which, being translated
from their harsh-sounding language, is
found to be "the devil who shoots.”
Again the bugle sounds. Ladies and
children assemble on the porches to wit
ness the crowning military ceremony of
the day. Half a dozen dirty, gaudily
painted Indians hang expectantly upon
the pickets of the boundary fence, and
as many more mounted on their ponies
await the parade. The companies are
forming in front of their barracks, and
the officers in full dress, belted and
with plumes flying, hasten to join them.
The adjutant and sergeant-major, ac
companied by the markers with little
fluttering silken guidons, establish the
line, and the companies, amid much
blowing of trumpets and many louu com
mands. form upon it.
Now a little squad approaches from
the guard house, and two guards under
a sergeant conduct a shamefaced prisoner
to a point in front of the centre of the
line. The adjutant steps briskly for
ward, and, unfolding a paper, reads the
orders, among which is one announcing
the proceedings of a court martial and
sentencing the prisoner to a term of hard
labor in the guard house and a tine. He
is then led away, and just as the last
edge of the crimson sun is disappearing
behind the western hills, and almost be
fore the sweet sounds of “retreat” have
died away, the waving lines of bunting
come floating gently down the flagstaff,
and, still unsaluted, are folded away in
the guard room until on the morrow
they will herald the dawn of another
busy day. The companies are marched
back to their barracks and dismissed,
and the military day is ended. At 8:3(>
tattoo is sounded, the first sergeants call
the roll, and report that all is present.
“Taps” come early in garrison, in
order that no loss of sleep may cause un
steady nerves in the men who are to try
their skill at the targets the following
day.
The Richest Man in the World.
Claus Spreckles is the richest man in
the world. Spreckles resides in San
Francisco. Thirty years ago Spreckles
was working for SSO a month. He is
now worth $200,000,000, which gives
him $175,000,000 in excess of Jay Gould,
and $150,000,000 in excess of Vander
bilt. His three sous are worth $50,000,-
000’; total for the whole family, $350,-
000,000. Spreckles has, single-handed,
built up the Hawaiian Island sugar
trade under the reciprocity treaty.
Within ten years the production there
has increased from *20,000 tons a yeartp
1*20,000 tons for the present year. As
the island progressed so did the Spreck
les family. They raised sugar, then re
fined it, making large profits out of each
transaction. They built a large fleet of
sailing vessels for trading to and from
Honolulu, finally building, at Cramp’s
shipyards in Philadelphia, two of the
latest and best equipped American steam
ers afloat. They have since added two
more steamers to their fleet, each of
which is 3,500 tons burden (exclusive
of coal), and have extended their trade
to Australia, now holding a contract
with the Colonial governments for t ar
rying the mails between San Francisco
and Sydney. They also control direct
lines of sailing vessels with England,
New York, New South Wales, San
Francisco and San Diego. One of the
numerous plantations on the islands is
ranked as the largest and best equipped
in the world, turning out 16,000 tons of
raw sugar in a year. They are now en
gaged in, the establishment of beet sugar
factories throughout California. —-New
York Sun.
Back-Swallowing Frogs.
The great bull frog of India is so
predatory that he does not stop at the
poor little sparrows; he prefers a duck
ling a few days old. In the walled
garden of a rich old Anglo-Indian official
was an ornamental pond to which the
broods of the domestic waterfowl were
consigned. These rapidly decreased in
number. The head native gardener was
accused of the thefts, and threatened
with the consequences unless he cap
tured the culprit. In due time he came
to report that the ducklings were de
voured by bull-frogs. This story was
treated as an invention to mislead his
wrathtul master, and that the only proof
thereof would be to kill a marauder,
bring his body to the house, and there
hold a post-mortem investigation. This
was accordingly done, and the newly
swallowed prey extracted, to the garden
er’s great satisfaction. They are very
fond of fish. I and a friend returning
from angling in a river saw an unusually
large specimen sunning himself on a
stone in a wet quarry. We threw a
baited minnow at him, which he seized
voraciously. We pulled him up threw
him baek, and went throught the strange
repetition three times, lie was stupidly
greedy, and we presented him with the
contents of our minnow-can at parting.
—English Mechanic.
One of the finest collections of orchids
in the world is that of Mr. Josepih
Chamberlain, the English statesman and
manufacturer. It is valued at SIOO,OOO
and fills nine conservatories.