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REV. DR. TADIAGE. THE BROOKLYN DIVINE’S SUN DAY SERMON Subject: “Superfluities a Hinder since.” - Text: “A man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were four and twenty/, six on each hand, and six on each foot; and he a 1 so teas the son of the giant. But when he defiled Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shirnra, % David's brother, slew him." —l. Chronicles xx., 5, 6 and 7. Malformation photographed, and for what reason! Did not this passage slip in by a mistake into the Sacred Scriptures, as some times a paragraph utterly outioxious to the editor gets into his newspaper during his ab sence! Is not this Scriptural errata t No, no; there is nothing haphazard about the Bible. This passage of Scripture was as cer tainly intended to be out in the Bible as the Eassage: “In the beginning God created the eavens and the earth,” or, “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son.” And 1 select it for my text to-day because it is charged with practical and tremendous meaning. By the people of God the Philistines had been conquered, with the exception of a few giants. The race of giants is mostly extinct,lam glad to say. There is no use for giants now ex cept to enlarge the income of museums. But there were many of them in olden times. Goliath was, according to the Bible, eleven feet, four and a half inches high. Or, if you do not believe the Bible, the famous Pliny, a secular writer, declares that at Crete by an earthquake a monument was • broken open, discovering the remains of a giant forty-six cubits long, or iixty-nine feet high. So, whether vyou prefer sacred or profane history, you must come to the conclusion that there were in those olden tunes cases of human altitude monstrous and appalling. David had smashed the skull of one of these giants, but there were other giants that the Davidean 1 wars had not yet subdued, and one of them | ,, stauds in my text. Ho was not only of I Alpine stature, but bad a surplus of digits. I To the ordinary fingers was annexed an I additional finger and the foot had also a I superfluous addendum. He had twent.y- I four terminations to hands and feet I where others have twenty. It was I not the only instance of the kind. I Tavernier, the learned writer, says that the I Emperor of Java had a son endowed with I the same number of extremities. Volcatius, I the poet, had six fingers on each hand. Mau- I petius in his celebrated letters speaks of two I families near Berlin, similarly equipped of I hand and foot. All of which I can believe I for I have seen two cases of the same physi- I cal superabundance. But this giant of the I text is in battle, and as David, the dwarf I warrior, had dispatched one giant, the I brother of David slays this monster of Imy text, and there he lies after the I battle in Gath, a dead giant. His stature | did not save him, and his superfluous appen- I dices of hand and foot did not save him. I The probability was that in the battle his I sixth finger on his hand made him clumsy in I the use of his weapon, and his sixtli toe I crippled ins gait. Behold the prostrate and I maliormated giant of the text: “A man I ,great of stature, whose fingers and toes were I Tour and twenty, six on each hand, and six I on each foot; and he also was the son of the I giant. But when he defied Israel, Jonathan, I the son of Shimea, David’s brother, slew I him.” Behold how superfluities are a hinderance than a help! In all the battle at that day there was not a man with I ordinary hand and ordinary foot and I ordinary stature that was not better of? thau I this physical curiosity of my text. As I physical size, is apt to run in families the I probability is that this brother of David I who did the work was of an abbreviated B jtature. A dwarf on the right side is I stronger than a giant on the wrong side, and I all the body, and mind, and estate, and oppor- I tunity that you cannot use for God and the I betterment of the world is a sixth finger I and a sixth toe, and a terrific hinderance. I The most of the good done in the world, and I /he most of those who win the battles for the I right, are ordinary people. Count the fingers I of their right hand and they have just five— Ino more and no less. One Doctor Duff I among missionaries, but three thousand mis- I sionaries that would tell you they have only I common endowment. One Florence Night- I ingale to nurse the sick in conspicuous places, I but ten thousand women who are just as I good nurses though never heard of. The K “Swamp Angel” was a big gun that during II the war made a big noise, but muskets of or- I dinary calibre and shells of ordinary I heft did the execution. President Tyler I and his cabinet go down the Potomac one ■ day to experiment with the Peacemaker, a I great iron gun that was to affright with its ■ thunder foreign navies. The gunner touches I it off and it explodes and leaves cabinet min- I isters dead on the deck, while at that time all I up and down our coasts were cannon of ordi- I nary bore able to lie the defense of the nation, I and ready at the first touch to waken to duty. I The curse of the world is big guns. After ■ the politicians who have made all the noise I go home hoarse from angry discussion on the ■ evening of the first Monday in November, I the next day the people with the silent ballots ■ will settle everything, and settle it right, a I million of the white slips of paper they drop ■ making about as much noise as the fall of ■ an apple blossom. 11 Clear hack in the country to-day there are ■ mothers in plain apron, and shoes fashioned ■on a rough last by the shoemaker at the end ■ of the lane, rocking babies that are to be the I Martin Luthers, and the Faradays, and the ■ Edisons, and the Lismarcks, and the Glad ■ fctones, and the Washingtons, and the George ■ Whitefields of the year 19311, and who will ■ make the 20th century so bright that this ■ much lauded nineteenth in comparison will ■ seein like the dark ages. The longer ■ I live the more I like common ■ folks. They do the world’s work, bear ■f*g the world’s burdens, weeping the ■world’s sympathies, carrying the world’s con ■solation. Among lawyers we see rise up a ■Rufus Choate, or a William Wirt, ora Sam ■fel Sout hand, but society would go to pieces ■to-morrow if there were not thousands of ■common lawyers to see that men and women ■get their rights. A Valentine Mott or a ■ Willard Parker rises up emineut in the medi ■cal profession, but what an unlimited ■sweep would pneumonia, and diphtheria, ■and scarlet fever, have in the world |d it were not for ten thousand ■common doctors. The old physician in his ■g>g roiling up the lane of the farmhouse, or ■riding on horseback, his medicines in the ■saddle-bags, arriving on the ninth day of the ■fever, and coming in to take hold of the ■pulse of the patient, while the family, pale ■w ith anxiety, are looking on and waiting for ■bis decision in regard to the patient, and ■"earing him say: “Thank God, I have ■Mastered the case, he is getting well,” excites B n me an admiration quite equal to the raen- Mbon of the names of the great metropolitan ■doctors, Pancoast or Gross, or Joseph C. ■Hutchinson, of the past, or the illustrious Bhdng men of the present. ■p 'et what do we see in all departments? B"eople not satisfied with ordinary spheres of Bvork ami ordinary duties. Instead of try- Bbg to see what they can do with a hand ■of five fingers they' want six. Instead of Btsual endowment of twenty manual and addenda they want twenty-four. A amount of money for livelihood and Bor the supply of those whom we leave be- Bhnd us uftt)* we have departed this life is Bmportant, for we have the best authority Bor saying: “He that provideth not for his ■P? n > and especially those of his own Brousehold is worse than an infidel,” ■hut the large and fabulous sums for which Btmny struggle, if obtained would be a hin ■oerance rather than an advantage. The ■anxieties and annoyances that those have ■r_hose estates have become plethoric can only ilka ’Ei u t ' o<x l thing when through your industry ■md public prosperities you can own the ■muse in which you live. But suppose you KT n , T houses and you have all those rents Kr c °Hect and all those tenants to please. B’bppose you have branched out ,■? business successes until in almost B Wr 7 direction you have investments. The fire bell rincs at night; you rusTr un stairs to oo’c out of the window to see if it is in any of yrur mills. Epidemic of crirnd* comes and thi-re are embezzlements and ab scomlings in all dire tions, and you wonder whether any of your bookkeepers will prove recreant. A panic strikes the financial world, and you are like a hen under a sky full of hawks and trying with anxious cluck to get your overgrown chickens safely under wing. After a certain stage of suc cess has been reached vou have to trust so lany important things to others that you are apt to become the prey of others, and you are swindled and defrauded, and the anxiety you had on your brow when you were earning your first thousand dollars is not equal to the anxiety on your brow now that you have won your three hundred thou sand! The trouble with such a one is’Sse is spread out like the unfortunate one m rr.y text. Vou have more fingers and toes than you kno-v what to do with. Twenty were useful, twenty-four is a hindering superfluity. Dis raeli says that a King of Poland abdicated his throne and joined the people and became a porter to carry burdens. And some one asked him why he did so and he replied: “Upon my honor, gentlemen, the load which I quit is by far heavier than the one you see me carry. The weightiest is but a straw when compared to that world under which I labored. I have slept more in four nights than T have during all my reign. I begin to be a King myself. Elect whom you choose, for me who am so well it would be madness to return to court.” • “Well,” says somebodv, “such overloaded persons ought to be pitied, for their worri ments are real and their insomnia and their nervous prostration are genuine.” I reply that they could get rid of the bothersome surplus by giving it away. If a man has more houses than he can carry without vexation, let him drop a few of them. If his estate is so great he cannot manage it with out getting nervous dvsnepsia from having too much, let him divide up with those who have nervous dvsnensia because thev cannot get enough. No! they guard their sixth finger with more care than they did the original five, They go limping with what they call gout, and know not that, like the giant of my text, they are lamed by a super fluous toe. A few of them by large chari ties bleed themselves of this financial obesity and monetary plethora, but many of them hang on to the hindering superfluity till death, and then as they are compelled to give the money up anyhow, in their last will and testament thev generously give some of it to the Lord, expecting no doubt that He will feel much obliged to them. Thank God that once in a while we have a Peter Cooper, who. owning an interest in the iron works at Trenton, slid to Mr. Lester: “I do not feel quite easy about the amount we are making. Working under one of our patents, we hawo a monopolv which seems to me something wrong. Everybody has to come to us for it and we are making money too fast.” So they reduced the price, and this while our philan thropist was building Cooper Institute, which mothers a hundred institutes of kindness and mercy all over the land. But the world had to wait five thousand eight hundred years for Peter Cooper. lam glad for the benevolent institutions that get a legacy from men who during their life were as stingy as death, hut who in their last will and testament bestowed money on hospitals and missionary societies; but for such testators I have lio respect. They would have taken every cent of it with them if they could, and bought up half of heaven and let it out at ruinous rent, or loaned the money to celestial citizens at two per cent, a month and got a corner on harps and trumpets. They lived in this world fifty or sixty years in the presence of appall ing suffering and want, and made no effort for their relief. The charities of such people are for the most part in “paulo-post future” : tense and they are going to do them. The I probability is that if such a one in his last will by a donation to benevolent societies tries to atone for his life-time close-fisted i ness, the heirs at law will try to break the will by proving that the old man was senile or crazy, and the expense of the litigation will about leave in the lawyers’ hands what was meant for the American Bible Society. O ye overweighted successful business men, whether this sermon reach your ear or your eye, let me say that if you are prostrated with axieties about keeping or investing these tremendous fortunes, I can tell you how you can do more to get your health back and yonr spirits raised than by drinking gallons of bad-tasting water at Saratoga, Horn burg or Carlsbad give to God . and MUmanity and the Bible ten per cent, of all your income, and it will make a new man of you. and from restless walking of the floor at night you shall have eight hours’ sleep without the help of bromide of potassium, and from no appetbe you will hardly be able to wait your regular meals, and your wan cheek will fill up, and when you die the blessings of those who but for you would have perished will bloom all over your grave with Yiolets if it be spring, or gladiolus, if it be autumn. Perhaps some of you will take this advice, but the most of you will not. And you will try to cure your swollen hand by getting on I it more fingers, and your rheumatic foot by getting on it more toes, and there will be a sigh of relief when you are gone out of the world: and when over your remains the min ister recites the words: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord,” persons who have keen appreciation of the ludicrous will hardly be i able to keep their face straight. But whether in that direction my words do good or not. I am anxious that all who have only ordinary equipment be thankful for what they have and rightly employ it. I think j you all have, figuratively as well as literally, fingers enough. Do not long for hindering superfluities. Standing in the presence of this fallen giant of my text and in this post-mortem examination of him. let us learn how much better off we are with just the usual hand, the usual foot. You have thanked God for a thousand things, but I warrant you never thanked Him for those two implements of work and locomotion, that no one but the j Infinite and Omnipotent God could have ever planned or made, the hand and the foot. Only that soldier or that mechanic who in a battle or through machinery has lost them knows anything about their value, and only the Christian scientist can have any appre ciation of what divine masterpieces they are. Sir Charles Bell, the English surgeon, on the battlefield of Water loo, while engaged in amputations of the wounded was so impressed with the wondrous construction of the human hand that when the Earl of Bridgewater gave forty thousand dollars for essays on the wis dom and goodness of God, and eight books were written, Sir Charles Bell wrote his en tire book on the wisdom and goodness of God as displayed in the human hand. The twenty-seven bones in hand and wrist, with cartilages and ligaments and phalanges of the fingers, all made just ready to knit, to sew, to build up. to ptill down, to weave, to write, to plow, to pound, to wheel, to bat tle, to give friendly salutation. The tips of the fingers are so many telegraph offices by reason of their sensitiveness of tou h. The bridges, the tunnels, the cities of the whole earth are the victories of the hand. The hands are not dumb, but often speak as dis tinctly as the lips. With our hands we invite, we repel, we invoke, we entreat, we wring them in grief or clasp them in joy, or spread them abroad in benediction. The malformation of the giant’s hand in the text glorifies the usual hand. Fashioned of God more equisitely and wondrously than any human mechanism that was ever contrived, I charge you use it for God ana the lifting of the world out of its inoral predicament. Employ it in the sublime work of gospel handshaking. You can see the hand is just made for that. Four fingers just set right 1o touch your neighbor's liand on one side and your thumb set so as to clench it on the other side. By all its bones, and joints, and muscles, and carriages, and liga ments, the voice of nature joins with the voice of God commanding yon to shake hands. The custom is as old as the Bible, anyhow. Jehu said to Jehonadeb: “Is thine heart right as my heart is with thine heart? If it be, give me thine hand.” When hands join in Christian salutation a gospel electricity thrills across the palm from heart to heart, and from the shoulder of one to the shoulder of the other. Shake hands all around. With the timid and for their encouragement, shake hands. With the troubled and in warm-hearted sympathy, shake hands. With the young man just en tering business and discouraged at the small sales ami tbe J"* 8 ® x P onses - s ' mk(3 hands. With tt 0 child w l l . lO 18 new from God, an l started on unending journey for which he needs to gather great supply of strength, and who can hardly reach up to you now because v ou ar , e 80 r !”! , shake hands. A rm* , ra,il , ,,s »ud dying beds and graves, shake L un ' ls - W 1 y° ur enemies, who have l * ollo a ‘ , to fame and hurt you, ’ ut , w l * lom . can afford to forgive. sf»X 0 bands. At the door of churches where pen. ’" e come m - an d at the door of churches ler f P e °ple go out. shake hands Let pulpit shake hands with pew, and Sabbath day 0 ban Is with week day, and earth sha.W . bands with heaven. Oh the strange, the t»gh. ttle un defined, the mysterious, the eternal power of an honest handshaking. The d®?<w*. n . CO be tween these times and the miller.-nml t ur * es > 3 that now some shake hands, but then a 1 Wl “ shake hands, throne and foot stool, a TOS3 seas nation with nation, God anil it ’ an > church militant and church triumphant. Yea; the malformation of this' falle, n giant’s foot glorifies the ordinary font, for which I fear you have never once thanked God. The twenty-six bones of the foot are the admiration of the anatomist. The arch of the foot fashioned with a grace and a poise that Trajan’s arch at Beneventum, or Constantine’s arch at Rome, or arch of Triumph at the end of Champs Elysees could not equal. Those arches stand where they were planted, but this arch of the foot is an adjustable arch,a yield ing arch, a flying arch, and ready for move ments innumerable. The human foot so fashioned as to enable man to stand upright as no other creature, and leave the hand that would otherwise have to help in balancing the body free for anything it chooses. The foot of the camel fashioned for the sand, the foot of the bird fashioned for the tree branch, the foot of the hind fashioned for the slippery rock, the foot of the lion fashioned to rend its prey, the foot of the horse fashioned for the solid earth, hut the foot of man made to cross the desert, or climb the tree, or scale the cliff, or walk the earth, or go where he needs to go. With that divine triumph of anatomy in your possession where do you walk? In what path of righteousness or what path of sin have you set it down? Where have you left the mark of your footsteps? Amid the petrifactions in the rocks have been found the mark of the feet of birds and beasts of thousands of years ago. And God can trace out all the footsteps of your lifetime, and those you made fifty years ago are as plain as those made in the last soft weather, all of them petrified for the Judgment Day. Oh, the foot! How divinely honored not only in its construction but in the fact that God represents Himself in the Bible as having feet: “The coulds on the dust of His feet:” “Darkness was under His feet;” "The earth is My footstool.” And representing cyclones and euroclydons and whirlwinds and hurricanes as winged creatures, He describes Himself as putting His foot on these monsters of the air and walking from pinion to pinion, saying: “He walketh upon the wingsof the wind.” “Thou hast put all things under Histfeet,” cri£s the psalmist. Oh, thofoot! Give me the auto biography of your foot from the time you stepped out of the craddle until today and 1 will tell your exact character now and what are your prospects for the world to come. That there might be no doubt about the fa r, t that both these pieces of divine mechanism, hand and foot, belong to Christ’s service, both hands of Christ and both feet of Christ were spiked on the cross. Right through the arch of both His feet to the hollow of His instep went the iron of torture, and from the palm of His hand to the back of it, and there is not a muscle or nerve, or bone among the twenty-seven bones of hand and wrist, or among the twenty-six bones of the foot but it belongs to Him now and forever. Charles Reade, the great writer, lost the joint of his forefinger by feeding a bear. Look c.ut that your whole hand gets not into the maw of ’the old Cerberus of perdition. Sir Thomas Trowbridge, at the battle of Inkerinann, lost his foot and when the soldiers would carry him away, he said: “No, I do not move until the battle is won.” So if our foot lie lamed or lost let it be in the service of our God, our home or our country. That is the most beautiful foot that goes about paths of greatest usefulness, and that the most beautiful hand that does the most to help others. I was reading of three women who were in rivalry about the appearance of the hand Ami the one reddened her hand with berries, and said the beautiful tinge made hers the most beautiful. And another put her haDd in the mountain brook, and said as the waters dripped off. that her hand was the mo3t beautiful. And another plucked flowers off the bank, and under the bloom contended that her hand was the most attractive. Then a poor old woman ap peared. and looking up in her decrepitude asked for alms. And a woman who had not taken part in the rivalry gave her alms. And ail the women resolved to leave to this beg i gar the question as to which of all the hands present was the most attractive, and she said: “The most beautiful of them all is the | one that gave relics to my necessities,” and as she so s&id her wrinkles and rags and her decrepitude and her body dis appeared, and in place thereof stood the I Christ who long ago said: “Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these ye did it to Me! ’ and who to purchase the service of our : hand and foot here on earth or in resurrec tion state, had His own hand and foot lac ; erated. Where is the Grandmother I The sketch given below is reproduced from a composite photograph of a young lady and her grandmother, which lately appeared in the columns of Puck. SOUND ADVICE. A Howard street mother has oonnider able trouble with a little incorrigible. He is chock full of natural depravity, and yet is exceedingly bright. “I declare, Georgie, I don’t know what to do to you,” she said the other day. “I have punished you severely half a dozen times for this same offense, but it does no good.” “It seems that it doesn’t,” he said. “Mother, I tell you what I’d do were I you. I’d just give up in despair.”— Detroit Free Press. The Same Man. “Come here, my little Eddy,” said a gentleman tp a youngster of seven years | of age, while sitting in the parlor, where a large company was assembled, “do you know me?” “Yes sir, I think I do.” ; “Who am I then? Let me hear.” “Vou are the man that kissed sister Angelina last night in .he conservatory.” AN INACCESSIBLE RANCH. AN OWNERLESS HERD IN A ROCK . GIRT VALLEY. ,f" U • r -- ■s k Story of the Most Wonderful Cattle llango in the World—lndiau Tra s'r= ditions Concerning It. A few miles to tlie northweit of Meeker, Col., seventy-live perhaps, is the most wonderful cattle ranch in the world. Within a space of live miles in length and half a mile in width roam a herd upon whose sides the branding iron has never been placed and around whose horns the lariat has never tightened. But a score, or even fewer, of them have- ever seen a man or a horse, or other animal than of their kind,and in truth their kin, except at a distance of nearly COO feet above them. The Ute Indians call them “p’chek-up.” or red buffalo, and yet if ,an Indian who has seen them should be adked about it, he would laugh and slake hi* head and all the information obtainable would be “p’ehek-up, ’em red; no ketch ’em.” There are more thau four hundred of this nerd and yet no man owns them, nor is there a man, white or copper colored, who has ever j been able to possess a single hoof of I these fat and tempting beeves. The cat tle are in a prison. Out of it there is o»e 1 method ot escape,, but to travel that road means death to the adventurous brute. There is no way to get in, ext ept it b« by means of a rope a thousand feetloDg. As the Indians say: “Heap see ’em, no l ketch ’em, no come away. ” On the two long sides of the oblong space in which these cattle roam rise precipitous and. even concaved rocks four, live and six hundred feet, yawning black and insur mountable, and at either end seethes and rushes the iampa or Bear River. For miles above it plunges and stumbles on in its headlong haste to- reach the arms, of its parent, the scarcely less tumultuous but deeper Green River. Like the wonderful fiat-top mountains of Colorado, this home of the imprisoned herd has no likeness in the world. The story of the way in which these cattle came there is as strange as their existence is curt jus. Fifteen years ago, when Tthe Govern ment troops were pursuing the Mormon murderers of the innocent victims of the Mountain Meadow massacre, the Danites, or avenging angels of the Mormons, lied for their si?*ety into what was literally the wilderness. A few of those who had been the blindest followers of Lee, the Mormon fiend incarnate, and whose hands were red with the blood of women and children, found in their wanderings a pretty valley on a stream which flows from the Wasatch range in the Green River. , They struck their stakes, built their camp lires and during the night their sagacious leader had a vision which told him there to stay. They could Hiardly have chosen in all Utah a more fertile or more isolated spot. They called it A>hley, aud about them have since gathered more of their sect, until where the refugees posted their picket of guards on the lonely nights of the first Bummer has grown a thriving village. It is 140 miles from the Union Pacific Railroad, south, and 145 miles north of the Rio Grande Western. I ntil within five years it has been isolated entirely, but now it is but thirty miles from the Unita reservation, and furnishing sup plies for the agency forms quite a busi ness lor the community. It- is a proverb of the Danites that robbery or theft from a Gentile is no crime. So it was thought to be only a cunning trickßieu John Wyckliffe, one of the Moriium settlers of the new town, and his three sons made a night sortie on Henry’s Fork, in Wyom ing, and carried away 300 head of cattle ranging there. This was in 1876. The owners of the cattle discovere 1 the loss of their stock a few days after they were gone and started in pursuit. The Wyckiiffes had their friends along the trail and were warn d by signals of the coming of the pursuing party. Ac cordingly they drove the cattle as fast as they could travel on eastward across Green River aud up along the Bear, with | the intention of reaching the Elk moun tain country in northwestern Colorado, j where they would be practically safe from I detection and their stock also would se- j cure the most succulent of feed. The thieves and their stolen herd reached a mesa of inviting grass at sun down one day and halted to camp for the night. A terrific storm arose. The lightning flashed incessantly and the thunder pealed and cracked with unre mitting fury. The four men desperately held the terror-stricken cattle by riding about them constantly. But the wild fearfulness of the furious storm excited the brutes beyond measure. They surged and bellowed, every moment growing less subject to control. All at once, as if by one mad impulse, they stampeded. John Wyckliffe and his sons met their fate amid the lightning's glare and the thunder’s roar. They endeavored to head off the stampeding herd. Instead-they and their horses were swept on and driven in tire terror to escape the maddened ani mals over the brink of the awful preci pice which frowns up from the waters of the Bear. After them plunged the whole cra/.ed herd and down to the bottom of the fearful fall went horses, riders aud horned creatures. Out of this plunge of life to what was seemingly certain death for all, a few of the herd were not killed. Those which had gone ahead formed a cushion of death. Maimed, stunned, but still invested with a spark of life, when the storm was over the living cattle crawled out from the mass beneath them and formed a nucleus for the herd which now roams at will within their rocky confines. To who look at them from the edge of the pricipice they seem small and as wild [as deer. The progeny of the surviving animals from the fall are fat and sleek, and have sunny beds, deer like, where they lie for warmth in the winter. As yet no man has been able to reach them. The Utes have a tradition that savors of a romance connected with this won derful spot. It is that a young buck who was of Piah's renegade baud be came enamored of a young Sioux squaw and sought to take her to his tribe. The bucks drove Se ne-jafio and his bride away. After weeks of outlawry, often pursued, and clinging to an existence of terror, the young buck and his squaw determined they would see this cattle valley, which the Ind’ans call the “Lower Earth” and try to find some access. The buck made a dugout from a log and a paddle from a limb. Twelve miles above they launched the rude craft, them«elves lashed to it, and went Whirling and shooting on downward. When they merged from the dark walls ahio Lne wuicii nicy usu would be their impregnable refuge the dugout was bottom out and already splintered by contact with a thousand jagged rocks, while it bore on in the resistless current two lifeless and bruhed bodies. —New York Journal. ! SELECT SIFTINGS. ” A biblical omer was six pints. Damascus is the oldest city in the world. A Connecticut firm is making ink out of green apples. A camel will work seven or eight dayG without drinking. j The brain of an elephant is somewhat I larger than that of a man. In Turkey, when a man tells a false* ; hood they blacken the front of his house. There is a sign on Third avenue. New York, which reads: “Come in and buy a cigar from the handsomest man on the block ,T A California man is hatching chickens by immersing pails of eggs in spring water, the temperature of which is 102 degrees. One of Chicago’s millionaires, Mr Dale, sold for $7,0,000 not long ago a lot within the city limits that he originally paid only $75 for. The English put-a-nickel-in-the-slo machines have got so far along that they now give a chew of tobacco to any one who drops in a penny. “Hoodlum” comes from the German badler, meaning a loafer, or idler; so “bummer,” from the German bummler, a word of similar import. Paris, in a total population of 2,260,- 945, has 20 centenarians, 138 persons over ninety-five,. 040 over ninety, and 0380 who have- passed the eightieth year. The old oak tree at Waltham, Mass., which Professor Alexander Agassiz said was 700 years old; and which has been dead for some time, has been cut down. Portions of it are to be placed in the public library. A Georgia baby not quite two years old “has fallen over the foot of the bed 111 times by actual count,” besides mashing both hands rather badly, and having the surneon called about twice a week to sew up cuts in his scalp. Chinese cash £re made Horn an alloy of copper and zinc, nearly the same ns the well-known Muntz metal; aud it takes about one thousand of them to answer as change for a.dollar, so minute and low do prices run in that country. In Paris a man picks up a living by going about the streets playing on a clarionet through a canula placed in a hole in his throat after the operation ol tracheotomy. he has finished a little tune he takes the canula out and exhibits it to the audience, to show that there is no deception. The coca is the strongest sort of a tonic, and by chewing it the Chillano soldier can abstain from food or drink lor a week or ten days at a stretch. He takes a bunch of leaves as big as a quid ol tobacco in his mouth, and occasion ally mixes potato ashes with the saliva to give the juice a relish. An engine is being made in Connecti cut from a silver half-dollar. The boiler will hold eight drops of water, but the engine worked several minutes with four cm!p3. When finished, the whole affair will be placed under a glass case three-quarters of an inchin diame ter and one and one-eighth inches in height. ~ The nutmeg tree, a shrub that grows ten feet high, which is not now culti vated in Mexico aud is becoming very rare, is found in great abundance in the vicinity of Papantha. The Mexicans use large quantities of nutmegs, both as a remedy and a condiment with charac teristic improvidence. They neglect nature’s benefits and bay what- they might easily raise. Bail Marksmen Spare a Child."' Four Europeans who had been out after tiger in the Maimensing district were, says the Calcutta (India) Watch man, returning at the close of a very long day, and had almost reached the factory where they were to dine and pass the night, when the Captain ordered a halt. The “line” at once pulled up, and he said: “I hate seeing loaded ritles taken into a house (it was the old muzzle load ing days), more especially where there are children. 1 propose that we fire curs off.” “All right.” said another, “but we have not had a shot all day; what do you say to a ‘pool?’ ” “There’s nothing to fire at,” observed a third. “There’s that gliurrah,” said, the Captain, point ing to an earthen vessel which some ryots who were working at a little distance, had as usual, brought their day’s supply ;of drinking water in. “Very good,” said the fourth, “but, what with bad light aud distance, it’s by no means an easy shot. I propose we each put a chick on. ’ “How shall we decide as to the order of tiring?” said one. “Oh,” re plied the ( aptain, generously, “com mence at your end of the line.” The mark was by no means an easy one to hit, for the distant e was well nigh a hundred yards, the guns smooth bores, and the light that deceptive kind w hich one gets just ! between daylight and dark. But, on the other hand, the hunters were exception ally good men, all excellent shots, either j of whom could hit a running deer from the back of an elephant twice out of three times. “Fire away,” said the cap tain. No. 1 grazed the right side of the vessel, aud it was thought must have hit it. No. 2 went just over it. No. 3 went a little to the left. “Thank you, gen tlemen,” said the captain; “I’ll trouble you for those 12 rupees.” He raised his gun as he spoke, aud the next moment the jar was covered with earth; the bul let had cut the ground beneath it. Pres ently the vessel was seen to wriggle, and then to kick, while a feeble cry pro claimed it to be a baby. Consternation was depicted on every face. The ele phants bolted, the sahibs jumped down and rustled to the spot, the parents run ; ning from the opposite direction. The little mite hadn’t been torn hed, and was carried off bv the father and mother with great rejoicing. They also took the “pool” along with them, and right glad the sahibs were, under the circumstances, to pait with it. GLASS ORGANS OF VISION. ■£s?~w -pp, rf-.v q THE MAKERS AND WEARERS OJt ARTIFICIAL EYES. w '* Wr: * Some Beautiful Specimens of These ■ v Translucent Optics—l'ne Opera -7 tion of Enucleation. Upward of 5000 New Yorkers weal artificial eyes, and of this goodly num ber the majority are ladies, whose sole ambition is ceutered in the hope of be coming attractive. Artificial eyes may be classified into two distinct classes, viz., glass and composition. Until re cently those who had the misfortune to lose an eye have provided themselves with artificial ones of glass to hide the deformity. Oculists and opticians say that thou sands who make use of this valuable and important artifice show no evidence ex cept to an expert of any impaired sight. 'i"he glass eyes which are manufactured in this country are really made of glass. Thriy have many defects, among whiclr may be mentioned their liability to be broken and the hard pressure of their edges Yipon the fleshy parts. A fail or blow will often break them, or they will sometime.* crack spontaneously, and, in addition to the losa of the artificial eye, the patienJ’s eyelids are frequently wounded. This accounts for the fact of children being rarely provided with glass eyes on accoun* of them not being able to handle them without danger. Th» composition eye, which is made of a substance resembling celluloid, is now in- universal demand. It is much worn by ladies and children, as it pre vents a distortion of the face. After the human eye is once impaired aud total blmdnessf sets in, the faae will be dis torted if no artificial eye is worn, by the falling in of the eyelids. The composi tion eyes are imported from Germany, and have destroyed the market of the glass specimens which are exclusively manufactured in this country. Some of these are remarkable for close imitation, while others ara beasatiful specimens of art. They are generally worn by those who have an injured eye extracted, but the ma ority of artificial eye wearers are recruited from the ranks of the fair sex, who- perchance are squinted or possessed of some other trifling ocular deformity. In certain diseases of the eye it be comes necessary to extract the orb so affected, as the eyes are so intimately con nected through their nervous structures that one diseased eye will ultimately ruin the other by sympathetic ophthal mia. The operation of removal is known as “enucleation,” by which the muscles are left behind to assist in moving the artificial eyes. These are not round, as is popularly supposed, but shaped like a shell, and cause little or no trouble in being intro duced. They are generally removed at night and the parts washed with water or lotion. They generally last three years, after which they lose their polish aud become unfit for wear. New ones are then introduced after the same fashion, and when once accustomed to this routine the wearer experiences very little inconvenience in their adjustment. The composition eyes possess the ad vantage of lightness, and the composi tion may be trimmed with a penknife or a file to adjust it accurately anti comfort ably to the parts. No artificial eye is of perpetual duration, because by its in cessant movement it loses its smooth surface. It is surprising to think ot the vast number of parsons who wear glass eyes. The largest percentage, of course, are ladies, who annually expend large sums in the purchase of those translucent optics, and unless a person thoroughly experienced in handling those eyes no other could discover that they are imitations. Glass eyes cost all the way from $8 to $25 each, but composition eyes which are imported cost extravagant sums, though some may be purchased at comparatively low prices, depending, of course, on the qv.ality of the material. You know cattle also wear glass eyes, and thousands of men find themselves the possessors of horses and.other animals ornamented with those eyes which they purchased on the supposition that they were free from defects. A sheep’s eye resembles the human eye. Young opticians often use the eye of a sheep in learning many of the most critical points connected with their pro fession. The insertion of artificial eyes requires great skill on the part of the operator, as the comfort aud stability of the artificial orb to the patient are de pendent on the process of transforma tion. The eye is taken between the fore finger and thumb of the right hand, while the other hand is placed on the forehead and its extremities used to raise the upper eyelid. It is then intro duced i.nd»# the upper eyelid, the lower one is drawn down by the disengaged, fingers, and behind this the piece at once pla es itself. In extracting a glass or composition eye the easiest way is to catch hold of it between the fingers and draw it out ward. Should any difficulty be expe rienced the head of a pin or some blunt instrument inserted under the head at once removes the obstacle. This is where the folly of using glass eyes be comes apparent, for if not allowed to rest or fall on a handkerchief or somej soft material, they break, and their re-’ placement at frequent intervals costs a considerable amount. Glass eye making requires judgment in the selection of proper glass. This ia composed of sand, soda, saltpeter, pot ash, lime and chloride of lead. All tnese ingredients are put into a melting pot for a period of at least twenty hours and subject to a heat of 1800 degrees, 'ihe sand and other chemicals then unite in forming a liquid. The glass-blower then uses an iron pipe heated enough to make the glass stick to it. This is stirred in a circular direction until a ball is formed. The pupils, which are made in the same manner, from glass of differ ent shades and colors, are now inserted into this globular mass, aatl allowed to cool, alter which the congealed substance is paired off in any form or manner re quired. Glass eyes never produce irritation or become painful except when exposed for a long time to a strong tiame. —New Y orb Press. There are 100,000,000 English-speak ing people, 60,000.000 who" speak Ger man, 61.000,000 who speak Russian, and 4 ,100,000 who speak French