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REV. HR. TALMAGE. TH E IIKOOKUYN DIVINES SUN DAY SKKMON. Subject: “The Deer Hunt." Text: “»4s the hart panteth after the water brooks, so pantet h my soul after Thee , O G 'd.” —Psalm, xlii. 1. David, who must sometime have seen a deer hunt, points us here to a hunted stag making for the water. The fascinating animal called tin my text the hart, is the same animal that in .‘-acred and profane literature is called the stag, the roebuck, the hind, the gazelle, the reindeer. In Central Syr a in Bi t >le times there Mere whole p sture fields of them, as Solomon suggests when he says: “1 charge you by the hinds of the field.". Their antlers jutted from the long grass as .they lay down. No hunter who has been long in “John Brown's ti ark,” will wonder that in the Bible they " ere class -d among clean animals, for the dews, th" showers, the lakes washed them as e!< at as the sky When Jacob, the patriarch, longed for venison. E-au shot and brought home a roebuck. Isaiah corn par- the sprightliness of the restored cripple of millennial time to the long an i quick jump of* the stag, saying: “1 h lame shall leap as the hart.” Solo mon expressed his disgust at a hunter who having shot a deer is too lazy* to cook it, saying: “The slothful man roastetli not that which he took in hunting." But one day D ivid, while far from the Home from which he had been driven, and -itting near the door of a lonely cave where he had lodged, and on (Jie banks of a pond or river, hears a pack of hounds in swift pursuit. B ‘cause of the previous silence of r e forest the clangor startles him. and he savs t-j himself: “i wonder what thosi dogs are after.” Then there is a crackling in the brushwood, and the loud breath fogl f some rushing wonder of the wools, and Uie enters of a deer rend th i leaves of the thicket, and by an instinct which all hunters recogniz?, plunges into a pond or lake or river to cool its thirst, a(pl at the same time by its ca.; aeitv for swifter and longer swimming, to get away from the foaming harriers. David says to himself: “Aha, that is myself! Haul after me. Ab- i salom after me, enemies without number after me, I am chased, their bloody muzzles at my heels, barking at mv good name, balking after my body*, barking after my J soul. Oh. the hounds, the hounds. But : look there. - ' says David, “that reindeer has splash- d into the water. It puts its hot lips an! nostrils int.o the coo' wave that washes t e lathered Hanks, and it swims away from the fiery canines, and it is free at last. Oh, th f; I might find in the deep, wide iake ! of God’s mercy and consolation escape from i my pursuers! Oh. for the wat -rs of life and re< ue! As the hai t panteth after the water broo s. so panteth iny soul after i'hee, O God.” I have just come from the Adirondacks and th ■ breath of the balsam and spruco and pne is still on me. The Adirondacks are now i opulous with hunters, and the deer are beit g slain by the score. Talking a few days ago wit h a hunter, I thought I would like to sec whether my text was accurate in its al lusion. nd as 1 heard the cloys baying a little wa v ofT and supposed they were on the track of a re ndeer, I said to the hunter in rough corduroy: “Do the deer always make for the water when they are pursued!” He said: “O, yes, Mister, you see they are a hot and thirsty* animal, and th. v no v where the water is.and when they* Ip nr din er in the distance they lift their an - f rs and snuff the breeze and start for the Rie (jiiet, or Loon or Saranac; and we get inio our cedar sh II boa* or stand by the ‘runway’with rifle leaded ready to blaze awav. 1 My friends, that is one reason why I 1 !,e the Bible so much—its allusions are so true to nature. Its partridges are m real partridges, its ostriches real ostriches, and its reindeer real reindeer. Ido not wonder that thisant'ered glory of the text makes the ■ inter’s eye sparkle and his cheek glow and his respira tion quieken. To say nothing of its useful ness, although it is the most useful of all gam its flesh delicious, its skin turned into human apparel, its sinews fashioned into bow strin s, its antlers putting handles on cut lerv. and the shavings of its horns, us“d as a restorative, taken from the name of the hart arid called hartshorn. Put putting aside its usefulness, this endian 1 ing creature seem 3 made out of gracefulness and elasticity. It 1 at an eye. with a liquid brightness as if gathered up from a hundred lakes of sunset! The horns, a coronal branching into every possible curve, and after it seems done, ad vancing into other projections of exquisite ness, a tree of poflished bone, uplifted in pride, or swung down for awful combat. It is veloci ty embodied. Timidity impersonated. Theen chantnie tof the woods. Eve lustrous in life and pathetic ;n death. The splen lid animal a complete rhythm of muscle and bone, and color and attitude, and locomotion, whether couched in the grass among th > shadows, or a living bo’t shot through the forest, or turr. n at bay t > attack the bounds, or rear ing or its la'-t fall under the buckshot of the trapper. It is a splendid appearance that the pa o’er’s pencil fails to s' etch, and only a hunter’s dream on a pillow of hem lock at the foot of St. Regis is able to p'eture. "When twenty miles from any settlement it conies down at eventide to the lake's edge to drink among the lily pods, j and. with its sharp-edged hoof, shatters the crvstal of 1 ong Lake, it is very pieturt sque, I But onlv when, after miles of pursuit, with heaving sides and lo'ling tongue, and eyes sw oming in death the stag leaps from the j Ciilf in o Upper .Saranac, can yon realize how much David had suffered from his j troub es.and how much he wanted God when he expressed himself in the words of the text: “As the hart panteth aft r the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.” Well, now, let all those who have coming after them the lean hounds of poverty, or the black hounds of persecution, or the spotted hounds of vicissitude, or the pale hounds of death, or who are in any wise pursued, fly to the wide, deep, glorious lake of divine solace and r scue. Ihe most of the men and women whom I happen to know,at different times, if not now, have had trouble after theta, sharp muz ltd troub Vs, swift troubles, all devour.ng troubles. Many of you have mate the mistake of trying to fight them. Somebody meanly attacked you, and you attacked them; they depreciated you, you depreciated them; or they over reached you in a bargain, and you tried, in "Vt all street parlance, to get a corn r on them; or yon have ha l a bereavement, and instead Of being submissive, you are lighting that bereavement; you charge on the doctors who failed to effect a cure; or you charge on care lessness of th" railroad company through which the accident occurred: or vou are a chronic invalid, and you fret and worry and sco'd and wonder why you cannot be well like others, and you angrily charge on the neuralgia or the laryngitis or the ague or the sick he ii ache. The fact is you are a deer at bay. In stead of running to the waters of divine con solation, and slaking your thirst and cooling your liody and soul in the good cheer of the Go-pel, and swimming away into mighty deeps of God's love, you are fighting a whole kennel of „ harriers. A few days ago I saw in the Adirondacks a dog ly ing across the road, and he seemed un able to get up, and I said to some hunters near by: “What is the matter with thatdogP’ They answered: “A deer hurt him.” And I saw that he had a great swolien pa 'v and a battered head, showing where the antlers struck him. And the probability is that some of you might give a mighty clip to your pursuers, you might damage their busi ness. ou in ght worry them into ill-health, you might hurt them as much as they have burr you, but, after all, it is not worth w.ii.e. You only have hurt a hound. Better be off for the Upper Saranac, into which the mountains of Hod’s eternal strength look down and moor their shadows As for your physical disorders, the worst strychnine you can take is fretfuiness,and the best medicine is religion. I know people who were only a little disordered,yet have fretted themselves into complete valetudmarinism, while others put their trust in God and name up from the *' v “ , iow of death, and have lived comfortably tvventv ! five years with only one lung. A man w itli I one lung, but God with him, is beticr off j than a godless man with two lungs, torn:- 1 of you have been for a long time sailing around Cape Fear when you ought to have i been sailing around t a]K> Good Hope. Do not turn back but go ahead. The deer will j accomplish more with its swift feet than with its horns. I saw whole chains of lakes in the Adiron dacks, and from one height you can sea • thirty, and there are said to be over eight | hundred in the great wilderness. Bo near are they to each other that your mountain guide picks up and carries the boat from j lake to lake, the small distance between them for that reason being called a “carry.” And the realm of God’s word is one long chain of bright refreshing lakes; : each promise a lake, a very short carry l between them, and though for ages : the pursued have been drinking but of them, I the\- are full up to the top of the green banks, and the name David describes them, and they seem so near together that in three I different places he speaks of them as as a continuous river, saying: “There is a river the stream whereof shall make glad the city I ot God;” “Thou shall make them drink of the rivers of thy pleasures;” “Thou greatly ! enrichest it with the river of God which is j full of water,” But many of you have turned your back I on that supply, and confront your trouble, | and you are sour d with your circumstances, and you are rtgntmg so -iety, and you are lighting a pursuing world, and troubles in ! stead of driving you into the cool lake of heavenly comfort, have made you stop and turn round and lower your head, and it is simply antler against tooth. I do not blame you. Probably under the same circumstances I would have done worse. But you are all wrong. Vou need to do as the reindeer does in Feb ruary and March—it sheds its horns. The Rabbinical writers allude to this resignation of antlers by the stag yiien they say of a man who ventures his money in risky enter prises, he has hung it on the stag’s horns; and a proverb in the far East tells a man who has foolishly lost his fortune to go and find where the deer shed her horns. My brother, quit the antagonism of your circumstances, quit misanthropy, quit .complaint, quit pitching into your pursuers; be as wise as, next spring, will t o all the reindeer of the Adiron dacks. Shed your horns. hut very many of you who are wronged of \ the world—and if in any assembly between Bandy Hook, New York, and Golden Gate, Ban Francisco, it were asked that all those that had been sometimes badly treated should raise both their hands, and full response should be made, there would be twice as many hands lifted as per- j sons present—l say many of you would declare: “We have always done the best we could and tried to be useful, and why we should become the victims of malignment, or invalidism, or mishap, is inscrutable.” Why do you not know that the finer a deer, and the more elegant its proportions, and the more beautiful its bearing, the more anxious the hunters and the hounds are to capture it. Had that roebuck a ragged fur and broken bools and an obliterated eye and a limping gait the hunters would have said: “Pshaw! don’t let us waste our ammunition on a sick deer. ” And the hounds w’ould have given a few sniffs of the track and darted off in an other direction for better game. But when they see a deer with antlers lifted in mighty challenge to earth and sky, and I the sleek hide looks as if it had been smoothed j by invisible hands, and the fat sides enclose the richest pasture that could be nibbled Irorn the bank of rills so clear they seem to lia4e dropped out of heaven, and the stamp of its foots defies tho jack-shooting lantern and the rifle, the horn, and the round,' that deer they wiil have if they niu j» needs break their neck in the rapids. Bo ir there were no noble stuff in your make up, ;f you were a bifurcated nothing, if you were a lorforn failure, you would be allowed to go un listurbed; but the fact that the whole pack is in full cry after you is proof positive that you are splendid game and worth capturing. Therefore, sarcasm draws on you its “finest bead.” Therefore the world goes running for you with its best Maynard breech-loader. Highest compli ment is it to your talent, or your virtue, or your u efulness. Yon will be assailed in proportion to your great achievements. The best and the mightiest being that the world ever saw, lad set after him all the hounds, terrestrial and diabolic and they lapped his blood after Cal varean massacre. The world paid noth ing to its Redeemer but a bramble and a cross. Many who have done their best to make the world better have had such a rough time of it that all their pleasure is in antici pation of the next world, and thy would express their own feelings in th**'words i or the Baroness of 'Nairn at the close of her long life: “Would you be young again? So Would not J; 1 One tear of memory given; Onward I’ll hie; Life's dark wave forded o'er, All but at rest on shore, Say, woind you plunge once more, With home so nign? » “If you might, would you now Retrace your w ty? Wander through stormy wilds, Faint and astray? Night a gloomy watches fled, Morning all beaming red. Hope’s smile around us shed. Heavenward, away!” Yes; for some people in this world there seems no let up. They are pursued from vouch to manhood, and from manhood into old age. Very distinguished are Lord Stafford’s hounds, an 1 tjueeu Victoria pays eight thonsand, five hundred dollars per year to her Master of Buckhounds. But all of them put together do not equal in number, or speed, or power to hunt down, the great kennel of hounds of which Bin and Trouble ure owner and master. But what is a relief for all those pursuits oJ trouble, and annoyance, and pain, and be reavement? My t. xt gives it to you in a word of three letters, but each letter is a char iot if you would triumph, or a throne if you want ; o be crowned, or a lake if you would slake your thirst—yea, a chain of three letters —G-o-d, the On" for whom David longed, and the One whom David found. You might as well meet a stag whi h, after its sixth mile of running at -the topmost sited through thicket and gorge, and u ith the breath of the dogs on its heels, has come in full sight of Scroon Lake and tried to cool its projecting and blistered tongue with a drop of dew from blade of grass, as to attempt to satisfy an immortal sqj.il, when flying from trouble and sin, with anything less deep, and high, and broad, and immense, and infinite, and eternal than God. His comfort, why it embossoms all distress. His arm. it wrenches off all bondage. His hand, it wipes away all tears. His Christly atonement, it makes us all right with the past, aud all right with the future, and all right with God, all right with man and all right forever. Lamirtin6 tells us that King Nimrod said to his three sons: “Here are three vases, and one is of clay, another of amlier. another of gold. Choose now which you will have.” The eldest son, having tli - first choice, chose the vase <ii gold, on which was written the word “empire,” and when opened it was found to cc. ataiu human blood. Thu second son, making the next choice, chose the vase of amber, inscribed with the word “glory,” and when opened it contained the ashes of those who were once called great. The third son took the vase of clay, and opening it, found it empty, but on the bottom of it was inscribed the name of God. King Nimrod asked his courtiers which vase they thought weighed the most. The avaricious men of his court said the vase of gold. The poets said the one of amlier. But the wisest men said the empty vase, because one letter of the name of God outweighed a universe. For Him 1 thirst; for His grace I beg: on His promise I build my a!L Without Him I c m not be happy. I have tried the world, ar.d it does well enough as far as it goes, but it is too uncertain a world, too evanescent a world. lam not a prejudiced witness. I have nothing against this world. 1 have been | on" of the most fortunate, or, to use a more Christian word, one of the most 1 blessed of men, blessed in my parents, blessed in the place of my nativity, blessed in mv health, blessed in my field of work, bio-sed i in my natural temperament, blessed in my family, blessed in my opportunities, blessed in a comfortable livelihood, blessed in the hope that my soul will go to Heaven through the pardoning mercy of God and my body, unless it be lost nt s a or cremate! in some conflagration, will lie down in the gar d ns of Greenwood among my kindred and friends, some alreadv gone and others to come after me. Life to many has been a disappointment, but to me it lias been a pleasant surprise, and yet I declare that if I did not feel that God was my friend and ever present help, I should be wretched and ter ror struck. But I wai t more of Him. I lihve thought over this text, and preached this sermon to myself until with all the aroused energies of my body, mind and soul. I can cry out: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my sou! after Thee, O God.” Through Jesus Christ make this God your God and you can withstan l anything and everything, and that which affrights others -will inspire-yon. .As in time of earth make when an old Christian woman was asked whether she waa scared, answered: “No, I am glad that 1 have a God who can shake the world,” or as in a financial panic, when a Christian merchant was aske l if he did not fear he would break, answered: “Yes, I shall break wln n the fiftieth Psalm breaks in the fiftieth verse; ‘Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee and thou shall glorify Me.’ ” O Christian men and women, pursued of annoyances and exasperations, remember that this hunt, whether a still hunt or a hunt in full cry, will soon be over. If ever a whelp looks ashamed and ready to slink out of sight it is when in the Adirondacks a deer by one long, tremendous plunge into Big Tupper Lake gets away from him. The disappointed canine swims in a little way but, defeated, swims out again auil cringes with humiliate! yawn at the feet of his master. And how abashed and ashamed will all your earthly troubles he when you have dashed into the river from under the throne of God, and the heights and depths of heaven are between you an 1 your" pursuers. We are told in Revelation, and 15th: “With out are dogs,” by ‘ which I conclude there is a whole kennel of hounds out side the gate of heaven, or, as when a master goes in a door, his dog lies on the steps waiting lor him to come out, so the troubles of this life may follow us to the shining door, but they cannot get in. “With out are doss!” I have seen dogs, and owned dogs, that I would not be chagrined to see in the heavenly city. Some of the grand old watch dogs who are the constabulary of the homes in solitary places, and for years have been the only protection of wife and child; some of the shepherd dogs that drive back the wolves and bark away the flocks from going too near tho precipice; and some of the dogs whose neck and paw Land seer, the painter, has made im mortal, would not find me shut ting them out from the gate of shining pearl. Some of those old St. Bernard dogs that have lifted perishing travelers out of the Alpine snow; the dog that John Brown, the Scotch e-sayist, saw ready to spring at the surgeon lest, in removing the cancer, he too much hurt the poor woman whom the dog felt bound to protect; and dogs that we caressed in our childhood days, or that in later time laid down on the rug in apparent sympathy when our homes were desolated. 1 say, if some soul entering heaven should happen to leave the gate a jar and these faithful creatures should quietly walk in, it would not at all disturb iny heaven. But all those human or brutal hounds that have chased and torn and lacer ated the world: yea, all that now bite or worry or tear to pieces, shall be prohibited “Without are dogs!’’ Noplace there for harsh critics or back biters or de spoilers of the reputation of others. Down with you to the kennels of darkness and de spair! The heart has reached the eternal Mater brooks, and the panting of the long cha e is quieted in still pastures, and "Th-re shall be nothing to hurt or destroy in all God's holy mount.” Oh, when some of you get there it will be like what a farmer tells of when he was push ing his canoe far up North in the winter and amid the ice-floes, and a hundred miles, as he thought, from any other human beings. He was staruvl one day as he heard a stepping on the ice, and he cocked the rifle ready to meet anything that came near. He found a man, barefooted and insane from long exposure, approaching him. Taking him into his canoe and kindling tires to warm him, ho restored him and found out where he had Jived, and took him to his home, and found all the village in great excitement. A hundred men were searching for this lost man, and his family and friends rushed out to meet him; and, as had been agreed, at his first appear ance bells were rung, and guns discharged, and banquets spread, and the rescuer loaded with presents. UYII, when some of you step out of this where you have been chilled and torn and sometimes lost amid the icebergs, into the warm greetings of all the villages of the glorified, and your friends rush out to give you a welcoming kiss, the news that there is another sou! for ever saved will call the caterers of heaven to spread the banquet, and the bell men to lay hold of the rope in the tower, and while the chalices click at the feast, and the bells clang from the towers, it will be a scene so upliiting I pray God I may be there to take part in the ce estial merriment And now do you not think the prayer in Solo mon’s song, where he compared Christ to a reindeer coming down in the night to pasture on the plains, would make an exquisitely ap propriate peroration to my sermon: “Until the day break and the shadows flee away, be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether. ” A Natural Vinegar TVell, A phenomenon which is greatly puz zling chemists of Vincennes, Ind., and which will be brought to the notice of scientists, is the discovery of a vinegar well which was made on Saturday last on the farm of S. W. Williams, two miles east of Vincennes. Workmen were en gaged in digging for water and had sunk the hole to a depth of thirty feet, when,as they supposed, they struck the water, which began to filter in and filled the well to the depth of four feet. Wish ing to dig still deeper a pump was pro cured aud the supposed water drawn out. Noticing that it had a peculiar odor, resembling that of decayed apples, one of the workmen tasted the liquid and found it extremely sour, tasting exactly like vinegar. Tliq pump was worked foi over three hours, Mr. Williams think ing that the peouliar fluid was merely water impregnated with some surface matter, but tho flow of the liquid con tinued, the fluid being as clear as water and becoming, after being exposed to the air a short time, even more sour than when first taken from the earth. Sam ples of it were shown to two druggists, who, after tasting it, pronounced the new find pure vinegar, which had been clarified by some means. The well is walled in with brick, and Mr. Williams is preparing to have the queer dis covery thoroughly investigated. Not Wholly a Superstition. Mr; Slimdiet—“Before going for your trunks, Mr. Newboarder, you might a 3 well sit down to dinner. 1 will have an extra plate put on. Of course, I did not expect you to-day.” , Mr. Newboarder —“How 4®any board ers have you, Mrs. Slimdiet?” “Twelve. You will make the thir teenth." * ‘Thirteen at table 1 I will wait until supper time. I fear if the thirteen of us sat down to table one of us would die. You have only arranged for twelve, you say?” “Why? What would the thirteenth die of?” “Starvation!” TOE NATIONAL MUSEUM. ITS AT?CRITECTITIIE, ITS ARRANGE ML-ENTS, ITS CLASSIFICATION. A Groat Building at Washiw ;ton- I4i versified Contents of the Cases In the Various Divisions. The National Museum at Washington, as it is now organized, da e 3 no farther back than the Centennial Exhibit on. Beyond that time it was a thing of shreds and politics, a sort of national lumber room in the custody of the Smithsonian Institution, into which every adventur ous and public spirited Yankee might deposit whatever curiosity came into his hands. This was not to the liking of Profes sor Joseph Henry, and without opportu nity to make it otherwise but little at tention was given to the museum until the Centennial Exhibition presented an opportunity to systematize the collec tion, give it direction and in this way in timated what the oiiioers desired it should become. The success of the Government ex hibit was a stimulus not only to our own people, but moved almost all the rov ernments exhibiting at the Centennial to off r valuable gifts and curiosities. These were gladly accepted. This increase of material made necessary some steps for storage if not for exhibition purposes. Accordingly Congress appropriated $2 >O,OOO for the erection of a fireproof building, which every one will remem ber was used in its unfinished stale £or a ball room at the inauguration of Presi dent Garfield. The new museum makes one of the group of buddings of which the Smith sonian is now the venerable centre. The architecture of the museum is peculiar, and is not impressive except in ex ent. Its adaptation, however, to the demands of a museum is perfect. The ground jdan is a Creek cross with a central ro tunda, the four main halls being 101 feet by sixty-two feet. Courts of the same height as the naves occupy the angles made by the naves, and outside of both naves and courts are a series of eight ex hibition rooms lighted by large, round, arched windows. At the corners pavil ions rise to three stories and are used for offices. Within the arrangement is significant. There is absolutely no solid masonry ex cept the out-ide walls. The divisions which have been alluded to are made by a senes of arches resting on pillows eight feet eight inches wide and twenty seven feet high, these again resting on pillars four feet four inches at the ba<e. These lines of partitions are filled in with exhibition cases. The cases are of iron and mahogany, made as slight as possi ble and stand unfastened to the flo >r. These cases, of which one is adjusted into e.ery arch, add greatly to the ap pearance of the interior. Many are made transparent, each side being filled in with thick piates of Fren h glass, which give no reflections. They are insect-proof, and so set that no moldings can accumu late dust. Each case is fastened with Yale locks, and in addition an electric wire connects with the superintendent’s room. With the exception of the Zoological Department, which had been long under way, the museum has been re cently built up. The present plan is a philosophical arrangement into classes which will include everything that per tains to the universe. The first division relates to man under the three depart ments of biology, ethnography and man as an individual. These divisions are further explained by skulls, bones and chemical components under biology and the casts of various sizes under ethno graphy. Here are also to be found the Gatlin collection of Indian portraits, and here should be found the second series of Catlin paintings of less aitistie value but of gi eater ethnographical value, as they contain portraits and records of customs, rites and games of Indian tribes such as the Mandans, now extinct. In the third division—representative men —are busts, portraits, medals, coins, manuscripts, relics, hieroglyphics and everything pertaining to the subject The second grand division considers the earth under every form, the sub heads being Astronomy, Geography, Geology and the History of Exploration. The next class is devoted to the natural resources of the earth, the two sub divisions being Botany and Zoology. The museum is particularly rich in both of these departments. The zoological .collection long since ceased to be a col lection of curiosities. Its extent and arrangement have made it what Professor Henry always intended it should be—a resource for special students, and nothing is now lacking to this end, The fourth class is the Industries. The?e are sub-divided into Quarrying and Mining, which are represented by pictures, a collection- of resins, gums, barks, herbs and fishing, hunting and field industries. In the me hods of fishing no country can show such material as ours. The fishing exhibit at ,the London Fishery Exhibition was the astonishment of Europe. Even the Americans who visited the Fisheries wera spellbound by the home display. The fifth class, E., is known as the elaborative industries. This is subdi vided into raw materials, agents, imple ments, processes and products. Into this class enter textile fabrics, looms and work in clay. But a more complete and more interesting exposition is that of Class F., classified as “ultimate pro ducts,” in which are included the ce ramic objects, tapestries and the line col lection of native potteries. Conspicuous among these is the pottery of the Zuni Indians. This same cla-s also includes architecture, heating, ventilation, furni ture, fuels, foods, drugs and even curi osities. Four concluding classes embraces the “Social Relations of Man,” “/The Physi al Condition of Man,” “Intellect ual Condition of Man,” “Moral Condi tion of Man.” The minor details of these divisions are innumerable. I'nder the first come the mails and telegraph, weapons, badges and flags. Under the second, surgery, hospitals, physical culture, etc. Under the third we have drama, art, literature, science and amusements. Under the fourth are found matters pertaining to the benevo lent and reformatory institutions, relig ious systems, etc.— -New York Graphic . A New York paper reports that the elm leaf worm has made its appearance again this year, destroying the foliage en the elms in the parks, and on the high ways in the vicinity of the metropolis. HOI SE1IOLI) AFFAIRS. . Drying 1 Lace Curtains. The easiest way to dry lace curtains after washing them is take a dry, sunny day, fasten them to the line by one edge with clothes pins only a few inches apart; then gently pull and stretch them until dry. If quilts are folded or rolled tightly after washing, than beaten with a rolling pin or potato masher, it light ens up the cotton and makes them t earn soft and new. Stair carpets should have a strip of thicK paper placed und r them over the edge of every stair (which is where they liist wear out) to le sen th« friction of the carpet against the boards beneath. Strips of old bed quilts put under a stair carpet deaden the sound of footsteps besides making the carpet wear longer. It is a good plan to sli !e them along each time they are put down, so that the hardest wear may not come in the same places.— Prairie Fanner. How to Pluck Poultry. I have known persons on market flay, says a writer in the Journal' of Ilorli-uU tore, to go out and kill twelve or fifteen fowls, aud to bring them into a room whero there would be half a dozen women and boys pulling a few feathers at a time, between their thumb and fore finger, to prevent tearing them. Now, for the beuefit of such, i wiil give our plan:—Hang the fowl by the feet by a small cord; then, with a small knife, give one cut across the upper jaay, op posite the corners of the mouth; after the blood has stopped running a stream place the point of the knife in the groove in the upper part of the mouth, run the blade into the back part of the head, which will cause a twitching of the muscles. Now is your time, for every leather yields as if by magic, and there is no danger of tearing the most tender chick. Before he attempts to flap you can have him as bare as the day he came out of the egg. Brushing Children’s Hair. Frequent and thorough brushing of the hairis extremely desirable. It not only improves .temporarily the appear ance of a child, but tends at the same time to keep the scalp in a healthy condition. It stimulates the growth of the hair, and prevents it from becoming dry and harsh. Care should be exercised in selecting a thick, soft brush, and due attention paid to the manner in which it is used. There is a right way and a wrong way of doing many things, and in brushing the hair the latter is too frequently employed. The mother or nurse who assumes this important duty muse take plenty of time and give her undivided attention to it. if the opera tion be performed hastily or t arelesslv the child soon learns to dread it; while on the other hand, if it is always asso ciated with a few p easant words,a short fairy tale or something of the kind, the operation will give pleasure to both of the parties concerned, and the beneficial resuits will soon become apparent. A comb is an implement of doubtful utility in the nursery’, and certainly one which is capable of doing as much harm as good. For parting the hair a coarse comb with blunt, rounded teeth may be used; but for dealing with the inevita ble snarls which so often appear in the best regulated locks, a brush, supple mentel by gentle fingers, should only be used. Under no consideration should a comb l>e allowed to come in contact with the delicate sc dp of a child, and the use of a fine-toothed instillment of torture, such as was formerly in vogue, ought in this enlightened age to be relegated from the nursery to a chamber of hor rors—Babyhood. Keel pcs. Sponge Pudding. —Two eggs, three fourths of a cup each of butter, flour and sugar; beat the butter to a cream and add the sugar, eggs and flour; bake in cups and servo with sauce. Potato B'sn i ts. —One-half pound of flour, one-fourth of a pound o; boih d potatoes rubbed through a sieve, a pinch of salt, three teaspoons of baking powder, three-fourths of a cup of butter, flour to make a dough; roll out and cut into shape. B toiled Kidneys. Split them through lengthwise and run an iron skewer through them to keep them flat; pepper and broil over a clear fire. They should be lightly done. Serve on a very hot dish. Sprinkle them with salt and put a bit of butter on each. Cohn and Tomatoes. -*Shave the corn from the cob; peel and slice some toma toes. Put alternate layers of corn and tomatoes in a baking dish, sprinkling each layer with salt, pepper, butter, a little sugar and a few bits of minced onions. Cover with line crumbs, salted and peppered, with bits of butter here and there. Cover and bake until it is boiling hot, then brown lightly. Apples with Jeli.y. —Bare and core one dozen apples; putin enough water to cover them and let stew until they look as if they would break; take them out of the water and into the latter put one and one-half pounds of sugar; let this come to a boil; put in the apples and let them stew until done through and clear; remove apples again and into the syrup slice one large lemon; add one ounce of gelatine dissolved in a pint of cold water; let all mix well and come to a boil; then pour upon the apples. Serve cold with cream. Potato Rolls. —A quart of flour sifted with a teaspoon of salt; four eggs beaten light; a tablespoon of lard, melted; half a- yeast cake dissolved in warm water; a heaping cupful of pota toes, mashed soft and beaten light with half a cup of warm milk; one cup of lukewarm milk: one teaspoon of sugar; mix the lard with the sugar and pota toes; make a hole in the middle of the flour; pour*m the milk, mashed potato, Yeast and eggs; knead well and set to rise over night. Fat ly the next morning knead again, make into rolls: put close together in a pan and let rise for an hour. Bake in a steady oven and serve hot. Chinese Coin. A large number are engaged in mold ing, casting, and fini-liing the “cash” used as coin all over China—Mexican dol lars aud Sycee silver being used in large transactions. The ca-ffi are made from an alloy of copper and zinc, nearly the same as the well known Muntz metal; and it takes about one thousand of them to answer as change for a dollar, so minute and low do prices run in this country, of which I will only give one instance. The fare for crossing the ferry on the Peiho was only two cash, or on®, fifth of a cemt. — Scientific American. POPULAR SCIENCE. Jr- The direct action of steam at 212 degrees is sufficient to destroy all germs. Chloroform may be detected in the lungs of animals four weeks after death. According to the naturalists, wasps remember the locality of their nests just niuety-six hours. Waste silk has been shown to be the most efle dive non-conductive covering for steam pipes. The price is high, but the demand is very great. There has been invented for the use of the trumpeters in the French army an instrument which at will can be turned so as to throw the sounds backward. A human subject without collar bones -has been, met within &__SL 1 miin dia. seeting-room. This structure is that of most of the vertebrates, such as lions, bears, etc. Without taking into account the small variations due to refraction, etc., the days and nights are always of equal length at all points on the equator. With out regard to the position of the ecliptic. The atmosphere on the English Channel was recently rarefied to such a degree that ob ect3* between thirty aud forty miles from Dover and Folkestone could clearly be distinguished with the naked eye. Tests of various kinds of coal have shown that only coke is -a sufficiently good electric conductor to be used as an earth collection for lightning rods. Specimens of anthracite and bituminous coal and char, oal were mostly lacking in conductivity. A natural soap well has been discovered near Buffalo Gap, Dakota. The soap is skimmed from a boiling spring and hardens by exposure to the air. It is a mixture of borax, alkali and oil. The quality is excellent, and the supply is believed to be inexhaustible. A remarkable strip of the new South American railroad, from Buenos Ayres to the Andes, is probably th longest tan gent in the world, extending fill miles without a curve. It is further notable as having no bridge in the entire dis tance, aud no cut or fill exceeding about a yard iu depth or height. A new method of weather prediction has been by a French phy sicist. He has observed that the scintil lations of stars increase before' many storms, indicating disturbance of the upper a mosphere hours b fore the meteorological instr ;ments show any change. The fiercer the storm, the more is the strength of the scintiilations increased. Eighteen years ago, when the air brake was, it required eighteen seconds to apply it to a train 2t)00 feet long. Four years later the time was reduced to four seconds. Becent experiments with the air-brake on freight trains show that it can be applied to every car in a train of that length running at the rate of forty miles an hour, aud that this train can he stopped within 500 feet, or one-fourth its own length, and all this without any serious jostling. When the first electric telegraph was established the speed of transmission was from four to five words a minute with the five needle instruments; in 1849 the average rate for newspaper messages was seventeen words a minute; the pres ent pace of the electric telegraph be tween London and Dublin, where the Wheatstone instrument is employed, reaches 403 words; and thus what was regarded as miraculous sixty years ago has multiplied a hundred fold in half a century. Primitive “Woman’s Island.” A little way north of Cozumel'and about six miles from the Mexican coast is Isla Mujeres (woman’s island), which is only about six miles long by half a mile wide. Seme of Cortez's soldiers went ashore there and found four tern* pies in the town, the idols in which rep resented female figures of colossal size— hence its name. I wish I could picture to you, exclaims a writer in the Philadelphia Record , the singular beauty ot this bit of land en compassed by the blue green waters of the gulf. Imagine a small sandy beach, with a rocky coast on either side. Man grove and cocoanut trees grow to the water’s edge, except where broken by tiny "clearings, surrounding the palm leaf hut of some lonely fisherman. We approached the nearest clearing, and found a sun-dried Indian squatted under an arbor thatched with palm, busily re pairing an old net, while his wife and half-grown boys were weaving new ones from risal hemp. It was intensely hot, and millions of sand flies made life in tolerable. The family we had raided charitably gave us a hammock to rest in, a leaf of palm with which to defend ourselves, a fresh-picked cocoanut and a drink of tepid water from the near-by spring. Thus refreshed, we lay at ease and looked about us. Near the shore were immense flocks of seabirds perched on the piles of a turtle inclosure, and over head hovered a cloud of snow-white ibises. All along the beach were strewn the rotting carcasses of turtles, covered with swarms of liies. Turtle catching is quite a business here. Three kinds abound in these waters—the Cahuamo, whose eggs serve for food, and which is useful besides only for its oil; the Tortuga, of which the meat as well as the eggs are eaten, which also produces oil, and whose shell is worth twenty-five cents per pound, and the Rare, whose shells sell for $8 per pound. The airy casa of our host was hung inside with a miscellaneous collection of old nets, sails and other ad juncts of his profession. i nder the eaves were ranged a row of oil jars and bundles of turtle shells tied up ready for shipment to the markets of Cam peche and Progresso. From the rafters depended strings of turtles’ eggs and other parts that serve for food and oil, some of them yet warm and quivering, the sight, as well as the smell, being by no means conducive to cultivating a taste for the delicacy. Remarkable Memory ot a Savage Dr. Moffat, the distinguished African missionary and father-in-law of Dr Livingstone, once preached a long ser mon to a, crowd of natives. Shortly af ter he had finished he saw a number of Africans gather about a simple minded young savage. He went to them and discovered that the savage was preaching his sermon over again. Not only was he reproducing the precise words, but imitating the manner and gestures of tne white preacher. Rehoboth Sunday Herald .