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REV. DR. TALMAGE. TFS BROOKLYN DIVINE’S SUN DAY SERMON Subject: “Trouble on Both Sides.'* Text: "There was a sharp rock on the one, side, ancl a sharp roc k on the other side." —1. Samuel, xiv, 4. The cruel army of the Philistines must be taken and scattered. There is just one man, accompanied by his bodyguard, to do that thing. Jonathan is the hero of the scene. I know that David cracked the skull of the giant with a few pebbles well s ung, and that three hundred Gideonitcs scattered ten thou sand Amaiekites by the crash of broken crock ery; but here is a more wonderful conflict. Yonder are the Philistines on the rocks. Here is Jonathan with his bodyguard in the valley. On the one side is "a rock called Bozez; on the other side is a rock called Seneh. These two were as famous in olden times as in modern times are Plymouth Rock and Gibraiter. They were precipitous, un scaleable, and sharp. Between these two rocks Jonathan must make his ascent. The day comes for the scaling of the height. Jonathan, on his hands and feet, begins the ascent. With strain, and slip, and bruise, I suppose, but still on and up, first goes Jonathan, and then goes his bodyguard. Bozez on one side, >Seneh on the other. Alter a sharp tug, and push, and clinging, 1 see the head of Jonathan above the hole in the mountain; and there is a challenge, ami a fight, and a supernatural consternation. These two men, Jonathan and his body guard, drive back and drive down the Philis tines over the rocks, and open a cam paign which demolishes the enemies of Israel. I suppose that the over hanging and overshadowing rocks on either side did not balk or dishearten Jonathan or his bodyguard, but only roused and filled them with enthusiasm as they went up. “There was a sharp rock on the one side and a sharp rock on the other side.” My friends, you have been, or are now, some of you, in this crisis of the text. if a man meets one trouble, he can go through with it. He gathers all hi- energies, con centrates them upon one point, and in the strength of God, or by his own natural determination, goes through it. But the man who has trouble to the right of him,and trouble to the left of him is to be pitied. Did either trouble come alone, he might endure it, but two troubles, two disasters, two overshadowing misfortunes, are Bozez and Seneh. God pity him! “There is a sharp ro :-k on the one side and a sharp rock on the other side.” In this crisis of the text Is that man whose fortune and health fail him at the same time. Nine-tenths of ail our merchants capsize in business before they come to forty-five years of age. There is some collision in commer cial circles, and they stop payment. It seems as if every man must put his name on the back of a note before he learns what a fool a man is who risks all his own property on the prospect that some man will tell the truth. It seemsas if a man must have a large amount of unsalable goods on his own shelf before he learns how much easier it is to buy than to sell. It seems as if every man must be completely burned out before he learns the importance of always keeping fully insured. It seems as if every man must be wrecked in a financial tempest before he learns to keep things snug in case of a sudden curoclydon. When the calamity does come it is awful. The man goes home in despair, and he tells his family: ‘ We’ll have to go to the poor house.” He takes a dolorous view of every thing. It seems as if he never could rise. But a little time passes, and he says: “Why, lam not so badly off after all; I have my family left.” Before the Lord turned Adam out of Para dise he gave him Eve, so that when he lost Paradise he could stand it. Permit one who has never read but a few novels in all his life, and who has not a great deal of romance in his composition, to say, that if, when a man’s fortunes fail, he has a good wife—a good Christian wife—he ought not to be despond ent. “Oh,” you say, “that only increases the embarrassment, since you have her also to take care of.” You are an ingrate, for the woman as often supports the man as the man supports the woman. The man may bring all the dollars, but the woman generally brings the courage and the faith in God. Well, this man of whom I am speaking looks around, and he finds his family is left, and he rallies, and the light comes to hia eyes, and the smile to his face, and the courage to his heart. In two years he is quite over it. He makes his financial calamity the first chapter in a new era of prosperity. He met that one trouble—con quered it. He sat down for a little while under the grim shadow of the rock Bozez; yet he soon rose, and began, like Jonathan, to climb. But how olten is it that physical ailment, comes with financial embarrassment. When the fortune failed it broke the man’s spirit. His nerves were shattered. His brain was stunned. I can show you hundreds of men in New York whose fortune and health failed at the same time. They came pre maturely to the staff. Their hand trembled with incipient paralysis. They never saw a well day since the hour when they called their creditors together for a compromise. If such men are impatient, and peculiar, and irritable, excuse them. They had two troubles; either one of which they could have met successfully. If, when the health went, the fortune had been re tained, it would not have beeD so bad. The man could have bought the very best medical advice, and he could have had the very best attendance, and long lines of carriages would have stopped at the front door to inquire as to his welfare. But poverty on the one side, and sickness on the other, are Bozez and Seneh, and they interlock their shadows, and drop them upon the poor man's waj. Goc help him! “There is a sharp rock on the one side, and a sharp rock on the other side.” Now, what is such a man to do? In the name of Almighty God, I will tell him what to do. Do as Jonathan did—climb; climb up into the sunlight of God's favor and consola tion. I can go through the churches, and show you men who lost fortune and health at the same time, and yet who sing all day and dream of heaven all night. If you have any idea that sound digestion, and steady nerves, and clear eyesight, and good hear ing. and plenty of friends, are necessary to make a man happy, you have miscalculated. I suppose that these overhanging rocks only made Jonathan scramble harder and the faster to get up and out into the sunlight; and this combined shadow of invalidism and financial embarrassment has qften sent a man up the quicker into the sunlight of God’s favor and the noonday of His glorious promises. It is a difficult thing for a man to feel his dependence upon God when he has ten thousand dollars in the bank, and fifty thousand dollars in Government securities, and a biock ofstoresand threeships. “Well,” the man says to himself, "it is silly for me to pray: ‘Give me this day my daily bread,’ when my pantry is full, and the canals from the West are crowded with breadstuff's destined for my storehouses.” Oh, tny friends, if the com bined misfortunes and disasters of life have made you climb up into tne arms of a sym pathetic and compassionate God, through all eternity you will bless Him that in this world ‘there w T as a sharp rock on the one side, and a sharp rock on the other side." Again, that man is in the crisis of the text who has home troubles and outside persecu tion at the same time. The world treats a man well just as long as it pays best to treat him well. As long as it can manufacture success out of his bone and brain, and muscle, it favors him. The world fattens the horse it wants to drive. But let a man see it Ins duty to cross the track of the world, then every bush is full of horns and tusks thrust at him. They will belittle him; they will caricature him; they will call his generosity sell-aggrandizement, and his piety sanctimoniousness. Ihe very worst persecu tion will some time come upon him from those who profess to be Christians. John Milton—great and good John Milton —so forgot himself as to pray, in so many words, that his enemies mizht be eternally thrown down into the darkest and deepest gulf of hell, and be the undermost and most dejected and the lowest down vassals of per dition! And Martin Luther so far forgot himseir as to say. In regard to his theological opj ouents: “Hut them m whatever sauce you p.ease, roasted, or trie i, or baked, or stewo.l, or boded, or hashed, they are nothing hut i ssts! Ah, ray friends, if John Milton or Mm tin i.uiher cou.'d come down to such -> uriiity, wu.it may you not expect from less elevated opponents; Now, the world sometimes takes after them; the newspapers take alter them; public opinion takes alter them; ; n 1 tne unfortunate man is lied about until ail the dictionary ot Billingsgate is exhausted on him. You oiten see a man wuoia you know to be good and pure and boinst set upon by the world, and mauled by whole communities, while vicious men take on a supercilious air in condemnation of him, as though Lord Jeffreys should write an essay on gentleness, or Henry VIII. talk about purity, or Herod take to blessing little children. Now, a certain amount of persecution reuses a man’s defiance, stirs his blood for magnificent battle, and makes him fifty times more a man than he would have been with out the persecution. Bo it was with the great reiormer when he said: "I will not bo put down; I will be heard.” And so it was w.th Millard,the preacher, in the time of i.ouis XI. VV lieu Louis XI. sent word to him that unless he stormed nrearhimr in that style he would throw him into the river he replied: “Tell the king that 1 will reach heaven sooner by water than he will reach it .by fist horses.” A certain amount of perse cution is a tonic and inspiration, but too much of it, and too Jong continued, becomes tile rock Bozez, throwing a dark shadow over a man’s life. What is he to do then? Go home,you say. Good advice, that. That is just the place for a man to go when the world abuses him. Go hom *. Blessed be God for our quiet and sympathetic homes. But there is many a man who has the reputation of having a home when he has none. Through unthinkingness or precipitation there are many matches made that ought never to have been made. An officiating priest can not alone unite a couple. The Lord Al mighty must proclaim banns. There is many a home in which there is no sympathy, and no happiness, and no good cheer. The clamor ot the battle may not have been heard outside, but God knows, notwithstand ing all the playing of the “Wedding March,” and all the odor of the orange blossoms, and the benediction of the officiating pastor, there has been no marriage. Sometimes men have awakened to find on one side of them the rock of persecution, and on the other side the rock of domestic in felicity. What shall such a one do? Do as Jonathan did—climb. Get up the heights of God’s consolation, from which we may look down in triumph upon outside persecution and home trouble. While good and great John Wesley was being silenced by the mag istrates, and having his name written on the board fences of London in doggerel, at that very time his wife was making him as miser able as she could—acting as though she were possessed with the devil, as I suppose she was; never doing him a kindness until the dav she ran away, so that he wrote in his dairy these words: “1 did not forsake her; I have not dismissed her; I will not recall her.” Plant ing one foot—John Wesley did—upon outside persecution, and the other foot on bomo trouble, he cliini>ed up into the heights of Christian joy, and after preaching forty thousand termons, and traveling two hun dred and seventy thousand miles, reached the heights of heaven, though in this world he had it hard enough—“a sharp rock on the one side, end a sharp rock on the other.” Again, that woman stands in the crisis of the text, who has bereavement and a strug gle for a livelihood at the same time. With out mentioning names, I sneak from obser vation. Ah, it is a hard thing for a woman to make an honest living, even when her heart is not troubled, and she has a fair cheek and the magnetism of an exquisite presence. But now the husband, or the father, is dead. The expenses of the obsequies have absorbed all that was left in the savings bank; and wan and wasted with weeping, she goes forth—a grave, a hearse, a coffin, behind her —to contend for her existence and the existence of her chil dren. When I see such a battle as that open I shut my eyes at the ghastliness of the spectacle. Men sit with embroidered slip pers and write heartless essays about women's wages; but that question is made up of tears and blood, and there is more blood than tears. Oh, give women free access to all the realms where she can get a livelihood, from the telegraph office to the pulpit. Let men’s wages be cut down before hers are cut down. Men have iron in tbeir souls and can stand it. Make the way free to her of the broken heart. May God put into my hand the cold, bitter cup of privation, and give me nothing but a window less hut for shelter for many years, rather than that after I am dead there should go out from my home into the pitiless world a to fight the Gettysburg, the Austerlitz, the Waterloo of life for bread. And yet how many women there are sealed between the rook of bereavement oa the one side, and the rock of destitution on the other—Bozez and Seneh interlocking their shadow and dropping them upon her miser able way. “There is a sharp rock on the one side, and a sharp rock on the other side.” What are such to do? Somehow, let them climb upintotho heights of the glorious promise: “Ijeave thy fatherless children: I will preserve them alive, and let thy widows trust in Me.” Or get up into the heights of that other glorious promise: “The Lord preserveth the stranger and rehereth the widow and the fatherless.” Ol ye sewing woman on starving wages. O! ye widows turned out from the once beautiful home. O! ye female teachers, kept on niggardly stipend. 01 ye despairing woman,seeking in vain lor work, wandering along the docks,and thinking to throw yourself into the river last night. 01 ye women of weak nerves and aching sides, and short breath and broken heart, you need something more than human sympathy; you need the sympathy of God. Climb up into His arms. He knows it all, and He loves you more than father, or mother, or husbmd ever could or ever did; and instead of sitting down, wringing your bands in despair, you had belter begin to •climb. There are heights of consolation for you, though now “there is a sharp rock on the one side, and a sharp rock on the other side." Again, that man is in the crisis of the text who has a wasted life on the one side, and an illuminated eternity on the other. Though a man may all his life have cultured delibera tion and self-poise, if he gets into that posi tion all his self-possession is gone. There are all the wrong thoughts of his existence, all the wrong deeds, all the wrong words—strata above strata, granitic, ponderous, over shadowing. That rock 1 call Bozez. On the other side are all the retributions of the fu ture, the thrones of judgment, the eternal ages, angry with his long defiance. That rock I call Seneh. Between these two rocks Lord Byron perished,and Alcibiades jierished, and Herod perished, and ten thousand times ten thousand have perished. O: man immor tal, man redeemed, man blood bought, ciimh up out of those shadows. Climb up by the way of the Cross. Have your wasted life forgiven; have your eternal life secured. This morning just take one look to the past and see what it has been, and take one look to the future and see what it threatens to be. You can afford to lose your health, you can afford to lose your property, you can afford to lose your reputation; blit you cannot af ford to loss your soul. That bright, gleam ing. glorious, precious, eternal possession you must carry aloft in the day when the earth burns up and the heavens burst. You see from my subject that when a man goes into the safety and peace of the Gospel, he does not demean himself. There is noth ing in religion that leads to meanness or un manliness. The Gospel of Jesus Christ only asks you to climb as Jonathan did—climb to ward God, climb toward heaven, climb into the sunshine of God's favor. To become a Christian is not to go meanly down; it is to come gloriously up—up into the communion of saints, up into the peace that passcth all understanding, up into the companionship of angels. He lives up; he dies up. Ol then, accept the wholesale invitation which I make this morning to all the people. Come up from between your invalidism and financial embarrassments. Come up from between a wasted life and an unillumined eternity. Like Jonathan, climb with all your might, instead of sitting down to wring your hands in the shadow and in the dark ness—“a sharp rock on the one side, and a sharp rock on the other side. ” AMONG TUG MINGRELIjNS. HABITS OF THE MOUNTAINEHS OF THE WESTERN CATTCASTS. Their Elaborate Salutations, Odd Table Etiquette and Peijiliar j Judicial Proceedings. In the highland regions of the Astern j Caucasus the manners of the Cnfinian mountain folk are pretty much whtthey were a quarter of a century ago wfen the Russians first came into the county. A Miugrelian “How dyou do?” ( the genuine old-fashioned kind, is sill an elaborate performance that takes o ac- I count of time. As in ’aiestine ari else- I where, Grusiniau etiquette require that} salutations shall be exchanged as »on as j the parties meeting come within sight of each other, and to leave out the most triv.al inquiry relating to the mOt in- j significant member of another's ouse- j hold is accounted •xtremely bad form, so that a couple of silk-shirted Nlngre lian elders—they are particularly find of j silk garments, which they wear wthout changing until they drop to pices— will begin a series of bows and heelings when half a mile from each othe and continue them with a running firof ex clamations until they come within hail ing distance. Then the inquiries com mence: “How is your health ?1 and “How have you been;” “llow i? youi mother, your wife and your mrse?” (nurses are very important person.ges in all Mingrelian households). "low is your overseer and your yard master and herdsman?” “is your favoriti horse well, and are your cattle and sleep in good health?” and so on in regilar di minuendo. ending with the .meanest maid servant or scullion of th( person addressed, if the latter be a man of standing or position, ancl not firgetting even "his honors dog.” Wucu the principals have finished, their atendants proceed as deliberately to ixchange similar compliments. Time is of no consequence. The Mingrelians, like the Ossetes of the mountains, have the extraordinary custom of going bareheaded ote day in the week—on Saturday, that is, or, as they term it, the “Shabbat.” This they do in honor of the Sa .bath, though they make no other distinction between it and any other day of the week, working and living as usual. But, wet or dry, rain or snow, none ever go abroac on Saturday save with uncovered head. The Mingrelians, like nearly all the Caucasian mountaineers, eat much and eat greedily. Their table etiquetts is peculiar. Portions are allotted accord ing to age and position—according to age in the house and at family gather ings, and according to station at piblic feasts, to which these people are nuch addicted. At home the huge iron pot in which the food is cooked is placed by the side of the house-father; for several married sons often reside in one dwel ling with their parents. He fates a piece of meat and a large bone out cf the kettle, grasps the bone in the right and the meat in the left hand, and, fscing south, calls upon “Brussabsell tshisadta tshidawgita bidiss”—the “mountain tops and the holy ones who dwell there”—to have mercy upon those who cry to them. Then messes are sent round to each, beginning with the oldest male; and when these portions are eaten there is a general scramble for tha contents of the pot, which it is eti quette to finish. Every one eats h.s mess as fast as he can; for he who has first finished his plateful has the pi k of ihe pot. This distributiou of the messes is a very nice task, and is sometimes provocative of a quairel. For at a public meal —and the e are frequent—the ap portioning of the food offers a tempting opportunity to the presiding elder for resenting a slight, and the gnests are ready enough to take advantage of any occasion to start on« of the feuds so com mon among them. Jn former times the rump bone, esteemed a specially honora ble mess, when withheld frorarone con sidering himself entitled ,to it, was the cause of many a murder. And even now adays the disposal of a tempting piece of “kish-ki,” or stuffed entrail, may ao count for half a dozen broken heads. The Mingrelians are hearty drinkers. They make a spirit from grain, and drink it out of vessels made of horn with a very narrow top and very long stem. But they are mighty beer drinkers. They brew from barley, and their drinking vessels are fashioned of the huge horns of the aurochs, which still ranges the Caucasus, borne of these beer horns are a yard and a quarter long. Their sim ple rule in drinking, judging from what we have ourselves witnessed, is plenty and often. Whenever they partake of a meal, a portion of meat and drink is re served and placed in a separate room for the household spirits. In remote villages the old patriarchal system of the Grusinians is in full force. The Mingrelian father is lord and mas ter in the fullest sense. His power is unquestioned, and he is honored so long as there is breath in h s body. He has a special armchair, the house-father’s seat, which no other person would ever ven ture to sit in. In ail disputes, civil and criminal, the decision of the elders—that is, a number of house-fathers—is bind ing. If cause of action arise, the ag grieved parties select each of them three elders, who must be in no way related to either of them, and the matter is submit mittexi to this court of six. There are prescribed penalties for every offence, from manslaughter to petty larceny. The fine is always payable in oxen. Accord ing to the old laws of the tribes, the fine for the murder of a chief was eighteen times eighteen oxen, for an elder, nine times nine, and for an ordinary person thice times nine. Every member of the body was rated at a certain fixed amount, payable in case of in Hry to the part. Theft, when committed by stealth, entailed upon llie criminal the payment of five fold the tiling stolen, but robbery with violence only double; for it was held to be easier to defend oneself from violence thau from crime committed by stealth or guile. The strangest thing about the proceed ings of the Mingrelran tribal assessors is that the decision is never communicated to either plaintiff or defendant. The party to be amerced is ordered to pay a certain fine in cattle or sheep within a certain time, and then to appear again. When he comes he is once more directed to furnish, if need be, a second instal ment, aud so on until the full amount has been exacted. In this way the Min grelians believe the party punished does pot feel the penalty as he would if the full judgment wer* claimed forthwith, while time is allowed for the angry feel ings of the complainant to settle <|own and prepare away for compromise. Not the least peculiar thing about the Min grelian and Grusiue tribes of the C'au casus is that their scale of numeration is octodecimal —a scale of eighteen: that is, their hundred, to use a phrase not scientifically correct but still intelligible to rhe reader, being eighteen times eighteen. — St. James Gazette. SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL Prof. Cushman has found a buried city and unearthed 2000 skeletons on Salt River, Arizona. A new torpedo boat built by 'lhorny croft for France equals ir speed any yet built—twenty-six knots an hour. The electric arc lights in the United States now number nearly 200,000; and the incaudescents number over 1,000,000. A Gla gow, (Scotland) firm has just finished a brass wire for the Glasgow Exhibition sixty five miles long and a copper wire 111 miles long. A bright meteor, drawing after it “a bright train of twenty-three clearly de fined stars,” shot across the heavens at Columbus, Ohio, the other night. What may be of great value in ship building and watchmaking is the dis covery that steel mixed with 24 percent, of manganese becomes non-raagnetic. A Pittsburg foundry is making for the American Emensite Compauy a cannon which will be used to demonstrate the value of that new explosive. The can non is expected to throw a six-inch shell with emensite ten to twelve miles. Manufacturers of bricks along the Hudson River in New York are experi menting with oil for fuel as a substitute for wood. If the new method is found to be practical there will be a saving of 40 per cent, ellected. The main difficulty is iu the ‘-drying off” process. A Providence, (R. I.) foundry is en.- gaged in casting the largest mining pump in the world for the Calumet and Hecla, of Michigan. A single section of it has been completed and weighs twenty tons. The unwatering of the mine will be done sooner than was expected. Krupp’s works at Essen, Germany, are making a 139-ton gun for the Italian iron clad Sardegna. It will be 52A feet long, with a bore of 15.7 inches. It, will fire a steel shell of 1(530 pounds with an initial velocity of 2411 feet per second, or one of 2 ,14 pounds at 2099 feet per second. Oil of peppermint in vapor diluted even to one part in 100,000 will kill cockroaches in an hour, they dying in convulsions. One drop of the oil placed under a bell jar covering a cultivation of cholera bacilli will kill both bacilli and .- pores in forty-eight hours. It is also re garded a 3 among the best surgical anti septics, and of great value in phthisis and diphtheria. According to geographical computa tions the minimum age of the earth since the ormations of the primitive soils is £1,000,900 years, allowing 6,700,000 years for the primordial-formation, t> 400,000 years for the primary age, 2,300,000 years for the secondary age. 400,000 years for the tertiary age, and 100,000 years since the appearance of man upon the globe. A German company has patented a process for producing surface colorations upon articles made of copper, zinc or brass. Upon the first named metal it is possible to develop all the colors of the rainbow-, and upon zinc the coating is formed of such thickness as to permit of chasing the surface. The most import ant application of this invention seems to be in the imitation of antique bronze, the results in this direction being very satisfactory, both hi the matter of dura bility and resemb^ce. Platinum can be made to adhere to gold by soldering in the following man ner: A small quantity of fine or eighteen carat gold should be sweated into the surface of the platinum at nearly a white heat, so that the gold shall soak into the face of tiie platinum. Ordinary solder will then adhere to the face obtained in this manner. Hard solder acts by par tially fusing and combining with the surfaces to be joined, and platinum alone will not fuse or combine with any solder at a temperature anything like tho fusing point of ordinary gold solder. A very good and sensitive barometer made be made by gluing together strips of red cedar and seasoned pine. A strip of cedar about thirty inches long, one and one half inches wide and one-eighth of an inch thick, is cut with the grain, and to one side of it must be glued strips of pine of equal thickness, with the grain running across that of the cedar. This combination is set on end, and will, according to the state of the weather, be found to have bent over on one side or the other, and this may be determined by trial. Money in the United States. A correspondent, says the Manufac turers’ Record, wishes to know how much money there is in circulation in the United States, and how it compares with previous back years. The financial report of Mr. C. S. Fair child, the Secretary of the Treasury, gives the figures, and from his report we compile the following; total currency or evert kind in the UNITED SPATES, JUNE 30, ISB7. Gold $654,520,335 Silver 352,993,556 Gold certificates 121,486,817 Silver certificates 145,543,152 National bank notes 279,217,788 Ijegal tender notes 346,681,016 Legal tender certificates 9,080,000 Small notes ami fractional cur rency 15,737,210 Aggregate circulate on $1,925,259,882 Total paper money $017,745,981 Total metal money 1,007,513,901 TOTAL MONEY IN THE TREASURY JUNE 30, 1887. Gold $277,979,653 Silver 248,860,979 Paper 65,142,894 Total held in the Treasury $591,983,426 Aggregate money $ 1,925,259,882 Total in Treasury 591,983,526 Net circulation $1,433,276,256 Net gold 376,540,682 Net silver 104,132,587 Net paper 852,603,087 AGGREGATE CIRCULATION. 1876 $966,370,834 1877 1,018,692,678 ISBO 1,243,800,729 1882 1,515,865,698 1885 1,863,219,654 1887 1,925.259,881 SELECT SIFTINGS. A palm is three inches. A span is ten and seven-eights indues. David Ober, of White Oak, Penn.,has had a lead pencil forty years. The crown and regalia of England were pledged to the city of London by Rich ard 11. for SIO,OOO. The German and French governments in the war of 1871 held to their agree ment to employ no privateers. A vegetarian hotel is an innovation in London There are already thirty vege tarian restaurants in that city. The custom of going bare headed one day in|thc week (on the “Sabbath,” or Saturday) is observed by the Mingrelians. Recently a disgusted Oshkosh, Wis., juryman offered to pay the sum in dis pute if the claimant would dismiss the case. Even so celebrated a general and old a soldier as the Duke of Wellington felt it necessary to tight a duel as late as 1829. Paradise, by Tintoretto, is the largest painting in the world. It is 84 feet wide, 33£ feet" high, and is now in the Doge's Palace, Venice. “Hoodlum” comes from the German huddler, meaning a loafer, or idler; so “bummer” from the German bummler, a word of similar import. Within a twelvemonth four persons have been killed outright and a fifth badly crippled at very near the same Bpot in the freight yard at Amcricus, Georgia. Cooks of old were considered a sacred race; even their fingers were consecrated to the deities. The thumb was devoted to Venus, the index finger to Mars, the middle finger to Saturn, the next to the sun and the little one to Mercury. Henry Cary, of Key West, Fla., has a novel shaped potato. Standing at a dis tance of six or seven feet one could not tell it from a wild duck which had been deprived of its body feathers, and to make the delusion more perfect he had inserted a few tail feathers. A traveler at St. Clairsville, Ga., out of curiosity visited the court house, and was almost horrified to find his only sis ter the defendant in a murder trial going on at the time. She had mysteriously disappeared from home years before and her whereabouts were unknown to her people. Jacob Hibsliman, an unmarried man, aged forty-five years, residing near Lan caster, Penn., died of blood poisoning the other afternoon. Four weeks be fore, while cutting feed for his stock, his right hand was pierced by a sharp frag ment of hay, and that scratch caused his death. An immense pipe of baked clay, that probably belonged to some distinguished mound-builders of prehistoric days, was recently dug up near Purdy, Tenu. It weighs four and one-half pounds, and is in the shape of an eagle, the bowl rest ing on the eagle’s back, and measures bine inches in length. Jim Blevins, living near White Ro k, Texas, killed a very large chicken snake a few days ago, and noticing the snake’s body was unusually large and ill-shaped, made an incision and found it to contain ia large cow horn and in the horn a prairie rat. It is supposed that the snake chased the rat into the horn, and to se cure the rat swallowed the horn. In the National Library at Paris there is a Spanish globe 350 years old, on which the Congo follows in a remarka manner the course now given to that river on the maps. All the best maps in the sixteenth century showed the Congo as rising in a lake far inland, while in this century we first tried to identify Ok Congo with the Niger, end then for nrany years made it flow north. Poison for some animals is food for others. Hogs can eat henbane or hyocyamus, which is fatal to dogs and most other animals. Dogs and horses are not easily poisoned with arsenic. Goats eat water hemlock with impunity; pheasants, stramonium; rabbits, bella donna; and morphia is said to be innocu ous to pigeons. There is some truth in the old saying that “What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison.” This is lue to habits and idiosyncracies. Ironclad Overland Craft. Perhaps the only solid iron box car in the Southern States to-day is now in use regularly on the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad. It was built by the United States Government more than twenty years ego, and, judging from present appearances, it will be used for twenty years more. This relic is constructed of heavy boiler iron, with doors of the same ma terial, snd was used to transport powder and ammunition along the line of road between Nashville and the South, to the Federal troops and stations. It afforded perfect safety to its contents from those terrors, the Tennessee bush-whackers, who would be along the side of the track and fire upon occupants of every train. Their bullets fell harmlessly from the sides of the ironclad, so for four long years of strife and bloodshed this old traveling magazine would jog along calmly and serenely through the thickest of the fight, perfectly indifferent to all attacks that were made upon it. After following the army all over the South, and fulfilling its important mission, at the close of the war it was sold to the present owners. It was used by them as a baggage car on the Shelbyville branch for about fifteen years. It is, perhaps, the only relic of the kind in the country, and, its veteran fiiends say, in token of past services, should be bought by the Government and placed in the National Museum, where, doubtless, it would be a very attractive feature. Nashville ( Tenn .) American. A Montenegrin Dance. The Montenegrin dance is curious graceful it is not; but one can not help being struck by the wonderful activity and suppleness of limb displayed by the dancers. A ring is formed and a man and woman begin to dance by springing as high as they can in the air, with the arms raised above the head. After a few bounds they change sides with a prodi gious spring, twisting around in the a<r as they pass. A couple will dance for a minute or so, and when exhausted be succeeded by another couple and so on. The dance is unaccompanied by any sort of music, not even by that primitive and doheful monochord instrument, the “guzia.”— St, James Gazette. BANK OF ENGLAND. THE RICH “OLD LADY OF THIiE VDNEEDLE STREET.” Making, Issuing and Canceling the Rank Notes of the Greatest Finan cial Institution in the World Forgery Impossible. A recent criminal trial in London, Eng land, in which the conversion of a New York draft into Bank of England notes formed a perfecting link in the chain of evidence by which the prisoners were convicted, suggested to the New York Graphic a brief description of the bank’s methods with regard to its issue. The paper on which the notes ars printed is made by a private factory in Yorkshire under strictly guarded condi tions, and with the water-mark, which is so conspicuous a feature. It is of sil very white and so strong that it will sustain fifty pounds weight when sus pended at the corners. The printing is performed at the bank in Threadneedle [street, including the signature of the nominal maker of the draft. The drafts or notes used formerly to be signed by assistant cashiers, but the issue eventual ly became too large to admit of a sign manual being issued, so printing was substituted. Each individual note as soon as issued has its number, letter, date and denom ination placed to its debit in a ledger ac count, the per contra being filled on the return of the note, perhaps the next day. Some years ago a lot of £1 notes issued in the middle of last century were hand ed in for payment. A reference to the ledger of that date showed the credit side of the note account, with corre sponding numbers, to be open, so the drafts were duly honored. The lowest denomination now issued is of £5, the highest of SIO,OOO. A nota ble feature of the Bank of England note, when compared with that of other is sues and countries, is its crispiness and clearness. The simplicity of design and clearness of lettering aud figuring are very conspicuous. The reason why we never find tattered and foul Bank of England bills or bank notes, as the Eng lishman prefers to call them, arises from the custom of the bank never to issue one of its notes a second time. This rule is so scrupulously observed that should a thousand notes of £5 each, is sued in the morning iu exchange for gold at the issue department come into the hands of the banking departments as a customer’s deposit in the afternoon, pos sibly without having been untied, they would be immediately canceled. This cancellation is performed by tearing off the signature corner of each note, the number and date first being recjrded by the receivng clerk on his counter cash book. The mutilated bills at the banking de- Eartmentsare collected at short inteivals y a clerk from the Accountant’s De partment, where they are assorted into their respective denominations and placed to their individual ledger credits. They are then stored, and after ten years’ interval consigned to the flames. The detection of the forged bank note is almost inevitable under this system. Simply to imitate the paper is dilficult, the be3t imitation being readily perceptible to a practiced touch. To counterfeit the printing is almost im possible, owing to the absence of com plexity to confuse the eye, and a third reliance for the paying teller as ha rapidly scans the notes before shovel ling out the gold in exchange is a peculiarity in the formation of certain letters known only to the initiated. Should a forgery slip through these guards the numbers and dates and de nomination must all correspond with the ledger entry, and should all these agree the chances are that the legitimate note will have already filled up the blank. It is the rule in all London banking houses aud in most private establish ments to record the date aud number of every bank note passing through their hands, together with the name of the person presenting it. The Bank of Eng land, moreover, requires the endorse ment of the holder on every note or parcel of notes presented for exchange for gold or for notes of other denomi nations. This system greatly facilitates the detection of fraud, and in the case which gave occasion lor these remarks was the direct means of establishing the Prosecuting Attorney’s theory. The actual cost of each Bank of Eng land note issued is about five cents. An ordinary day’s issue of notes, with a corresponding number canceled, is from 20,000 to 30,u00; but when a forgery is known to be afloat all of that particular denomination are poured in by their holders for exchange or redemption, and as many as 80,000 notes under such cir cumstances have been presented and canceled in one day. As an offset to this expense, the yearly gain to the bank in notes destroyed by jre and water amounts to a large sum, which, however, is taken into account by the Government when adjusting its national debt and exchequer arrange ments with the bank. The “Old Lady of Treadneedle Street,” as the Londoner lovingly calls the institu tion, which, next to his Queen, he most deeply reveres, is very ’ ; beral when deal ing with cases of notes destroyed or mutilated. The Secretary’s office attends to those matters, and there may be seen daily remnants of notes which have undergone every conceivable ordeal short of absolute destruction. Little pulpy masses which hive passed through the digestive apparatus of dogs and children, half burned pieces that have unwittingly done duty as cigar lighters, remnants of every kind of which enough is left to indicate iu the'faintest degree the original worth—all receive full consideration, and the owners lose nothing. Even total destruction when fully proved is no bar to indemnification when good security against possible Mis take is given. To remove a foreign body from the eye, wrap dry white silk waste around and thoroughly over the end of a wooden toothpick, brush with this carefully over the part of the eye where the substanco is lodged, and it will become entangled in the silk. Bits of steel or any other sharp substance which may become im bedded in the eve-ball may be removed by this means. The Texas school fund has a surplus A $16,000,000.