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REV. Dli TALMAGK.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE’S
SUNDAY SERMON.
•Subject: “The Divine Mission of
Pictures ”
Text: ‘'The way of the Lord of Hosts
sha'l he upon all pleasant pictures .”—
Isaiah ii., parts of the 12th and 10th verses.
•Pictures are by some relegated to the realm
of the trivial, accidental, sentimental or
worldly, but my text shows that God scru
tinizes pictures,'land whether they are good
are bad, whether used for right or wrong
purposes, is a matter of Divine observation
and arraignment. The divine mission of
pictures is my subject.
That the artist's pencil and the engraver’s
knife have sometimes been made subservient
to the kingdom of the had is frankly admit
ted. After the ashes and scoria were re
moved from Herculaneum and Pompeii the
walls of those cities discovered to the explor
ers a degradation in art which cannot be ex
aggerated. Satan and all his imps have al
ways wanted the fingering of the easel; they
would rather have possession of that than the
art of printing, for types are not so potent
and quick for evil as pictures. The powers
of darkness think they have gained a tri
umph, and they have, when in some respect
able parlor or public art gallery they can
hang a canvas embarrassing to the good, but
fascinating to the evil
It is not in a spirit of prudery, but backed
up by God’s eternal truth when I say that
you Lave no right to hang in your art rooms
or your dwelling houses that which would
be offensive to good people if the figures pic
tured were alive in your parlor and the
guests of your househo’d. A picture that
you have to hang in a somewhat secluded
place, or that in a public hall you cannot with
a group of friends deliberately stand before
and discuss, ought to have a knife stabbed
into it at the top and cut clear through to
the bottom, and a stout finger thrust in on
the right side ripping clear through to the
left. Pliny, the elder, lost his life by going
near enough to see the inside of Vesuvius,
and the further you can stand off from the
burning crater of sin the better.
Never till the Books of the Last Day
are opened shall we know what has
been the dire harvest of evil pictorials and
unbecoming art galleries. Despoil a man’s
imagination and lie becomes a moral carcass.
The show windows of English and American
cities in which the low theatres have some
times hung long lines of brazen actors and
actresses in style insulting to all propriety,
have made a broad path t~> death for multi
tudes of people. But so have all the other
arts been at times suborned of evil. How
has music been bedraggled! Is there any
place so low down in divsoiuteness that into
it has not been carried David's harp, and
Handel's organ, and Gottschalk’s piano and
Ole Bull’s violin, and the flute, which though
named after so insignificant a thing as the
Sicilian eel, which has seven spots on the
side like flute holes, yet for thousands of
years has had an exalted mission. Architec
ture, born in the heart of Him who made the
worlds, under its acres and across its floors
what bacchanalian revelries have been en
acted I It is not against any of these arts
that they have been so led into captivity.
What a poor world this would be if it were
not for what my text calls “pleasant pict
ures!” I refer to your memory and
mine when I ask if your knowledge
of the Holy Scriptures has not
been mightily augmented by the woodcuts
or engra\ ings in the old family Bible, which
father and mother read out of, and laid on
the table in the old homestead when you
were boys and girls. The Bible scenes which
we all carry in our minds were not gotten
from the Bible typology, but from the Bible
pictures. To prove the truth of it in my
own case, the other day I took up the old
family Bible, which I inherited. Sure enough,
what I have carried in ray mind of Jacob’s
ladder was exactly the Bible engraving of
Jacob's ladder; and so with Samson carrying
off the gates of Gaza; Elisha restoring
the Shunamite’s son; the massacre of
the innocents; Christ blessing little
children: the Crucifixion and the
Last Judgment. My idea of all these is that
of the old Bible engravings which 1 scanned
before I could read a word. That is true
with nine-tenths of you. If I could swing
open the door of your foreheads I would find
that you are walking picture galleries. The
great intelligence abroad about the Bible
did not come from the general reading of the
book, for the majority of the people read it
but little, if they read it at all; but all the
sacred scenes have been put before the great
masses, and not printer’s ink but the
pictorial art must have the credit of the
achievement First, painter's pencil for the
favored few, and then engraver’s plate or
woodcut for millions on millions! What
overwhelming commentary on the Bible,
what reinforcement for patriarchs, prophets,
apostles and Christ, what distribution of
Scriptural knowledge of all nations, in the
paintings and engravings therefrom of
Holman Hunt’s “Christ in the Temple;” Paul
Veronese’s “Magdalen W ashing the Feet of
Christ;’’ Raphael’s “Michael the Archangel;’*
Albert Durer’s “Dragon of the Apocalypse;”
Michael Angelo’s “Plague of the
Fiery Serpents;” Tintorpt’s “Flight into
Egypt;” Ruben’s “Descent from the Cross;”
Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper;’’ Claude’s
“Queen of Sheba;” Bellini's “Madonna at
Milan;”. Orcagna’s ‘,‘Last -Judgment,” and
hundreds of utiles of pictures if they were
put in line, illustrating, displaying, drama
tizing, irradioing Bible 'truths until the
Scriptures are not to-fftty so much on paper
as on canvas, not so much in ink as in all the
colors of the spectrum. In 1833 forth from
Strasburg, Germany, there came a child that
was to eclipse in speed and boldness and
grandeur anything and everything that the
world "had seen since the first color
appeared on the sky at the crea
tion, Paul Gustav Dore. At eleven
years of age he published marvelous litho
graphs of his own. Haying nothing of what
he did for Milton’s.“ Paradise Lost,” emblazon
ing it on the attention of the world, he takes
up the Book of Books, the monarch of litera
ture, the Bible, and in his pictures, “The
Creation of Light,” “The Trial of Abraham’s
faith. ‘The Burial of Sarah,” “Joseph Hold
by Ins Brethren,” “Tlio Brazen Sernent,”
Boazand Ruth,” “David and Goliath,”* “The
Transfiguration,” “The Marriage in Cana,”
Babylon Fallen,” and two hundred and
five Hcriptura! scenes in all, with a boldness
ana a grasp and almost supernatural afflatus
that make the heart throb, and tjie brain
reel, and the tears start, and the cheeks
blanch, and the entire nature quake with the
tremendous things of God and eternity and
the dead. I actually staggered down the
steps of the London Art Gallery under the
power of Dore’s “Christ leaving the
Praetorium.” Profess you to lie a Christian
man or woman, and see no divine mission in
art, and acknowledge you no obligation
either in thanks to God or man?
It is no more the word of God when put
before us in printer’s ink than by skillfully
laying on of colors, or designs on metal
through incision or corrosion. What a lesson
tn morals was presented by Hogarth, the
painter, in his two pictures, “The Rake’s
Progress,” and “The Miser’s Feast:” and by
I nomas Cole’s engravings of the “Voyage of
Human Life.” and the “Course of Empire;”
and by “Turner’s Hlave Ship.” God in Art!
Christ in Art! Patriarchs, prophets and
apostles in art! Angels in art! Heaven in
art l
The world and the church ought to come
to. the higher appreciation of the divine
mission ot pictures, yet the authors of them
nave generally been left to semi-starvation.
*j st ’ the great painter, toiled in unappre
ciation till, being a great skater, while on
tne ice he formed the acquaintance of General
Howe, of the English army, aud through
coming to admire West as a skater,
they gradually came to appreciate as
much that which he accomplished by his
hand as by his heel. Poussin, the mighty
painter, was pursued, and had nothing with
which to defend himself against the mob but
tne artist s portfolio, which ho li*ld over Ills
hi ad to keep off the -stones hurled at him.
The pictures of Richard Wilson, of England,
were sold for fabulous sums of money after
bis death but tbe living painter
was glad to get for his “Alcyone” i piece of
Btdton cheese. Prom 1(1 (0 to 1(143 there were
-K 00 pictures willfully d stroved in the
reign ( f Queen Elizabeth it was the habit of
some people to spend rnueh of their time in
knocking pictures to p eces.' In the
reign of Chares the First it was
ordered by Parliament that all pictures
of Christ be burnt. Painters were so
badly treated and humiliated in the begin
ning of the eighteenth century that they
were lowered clear down out of the sublimity
of their art, aud obliged to give ininuse
accounts of what they did with their colors,
as a painter’s bill which came to publication
in Scotland, in 1707, indicated. The painter
had been touching up some o’d pictures
in the church, and he sends in this itemized
bill to the vestry: “To filling up a
chink in the Red Sea and repairing the dam
ages to Pharoah’s host:” “to a new nair of
bands for Daniel in the lion’s den, and a new
set of teeth for the lioness;” “to repairing
Nebuchadnezzar’s beard;” “to giving a blu-h
to the cheek of Eve on presenting the apple
to Adam;” “to making a bridle for the Good
Samaritan’s horse, and mending one of his
legs;” “to putting on a new handle on
Moses’ basket and fitting bulrushes, and
adding more fuel to the fire in Nebuchad
nezzar’s furnace.” So painters were humil
iated clear down below the majesty of their
art. The oldest picture in England, a por
trait of Chaucer, though now of great value,
was picked out of a lumber garret. Great
were the trials of Quentin Matsvs, who toiled
on from blacksmith's anvil, till as a painter
he won wide recognition. The first mission
aries to Mexico made the fatal mistake
of destroying pictures, for the loss of which
art and religion must ever lament. But why
go so far back when in this year of our Lord,
18S8.and within twelve years of the twentieth
century, to be a painter, except in rare ex
ceptions, means poverty and neglect? Poorly
fed. poorly clald, poorly housed, because
poorly appreciated! When I hear a man is
a painter, I have two feelings,one of admira
tion for the greatness of his soul, and the
other of commiseration for the needs of his
body.
But so it has been in all departments of
noble work. Some of the mightiest have
been hardly bested. Oliver Goldsmith had
such a big patch on the coat of his left breast
that when he went anywhere he kept his hat
in his hand closely pressed over the patch.
The world renowned Bishop Asbury had a
salary of ?G4 a year. Painters are not
the only ones who have endured the lack
of appreciation. Let men of wealth take
under their patronage the suffering men of
art. They Tift no complaint; they make no
strike for higher wages. But with a keenness
of nervous organization which almost alwavs
characterizes genius, these artists suffer
more than anyone but God can realize.
There needs to be a concerted effort for
the suffering artists of America, not
sentimental discourse about what we owe to
artists, but contracts that will give them a
livelihood; for I am in full sympathy with
the Christian farmer, who was very busy
gathering his fall apples, and some one
asked him to pray for a poor family,
the father of which had broken liis
leg; and the busy farmer said: “Icannotstop
now to pray, but you can go down into the
cellar and get some corned beef, and butter,
and eggs and potatoes; that is all I can
do now.” Artists may wish for our prayers
but they also want practical heip from men
who can give them work. You have heard
scores of sermons for all other kinds of suffer
ing men and women, but I think this is the
first sermon ever preached that made
a plea for the suffering men and women of
American art. Their work is more true to
nature and life than any of the master
pieces that have become immortal on the
other side of the sea, but it is the fashion
of American? to mention foreign artists,
and to know little or nothing about our
own Copley, and Allston and Inman, and
Greenough and Kensett. Let the affluent
fling out of their windows and into the back
yari> valueless daubs on canvas, and call in
these splendid but unrewarded men, and tell
them to adorn your walls, not only with
that which shall please the taste, but enlarge
the mind, and improve the morals, and save
the sou’s ot those who gaze upon them.
Brooklyn and all other American cities
need great galleries of art, not only open
annually for a few days on exhibition, but
which shall stand open all the year round,
and from early morning until ten o’clock at
night, and free to all who would come and
go. What a preparation for the wear
and tear of the day, a five min
utes’ look in the morning at some
picture that will open a door into some larger
realm than that in which our population
daily drudge! Of what a good thing the half
hour of artistic opportunity on the way
home in the evening from exhaustion that
demands re -uperation for mind aud soul as
well as body! Who will do lor Biook
lyn or the city where you live what W.
W. Corcoran did for Washington, and what
I am told John Wannamaker, by the dona
tion of De Munkacsy’s great picture, “Christ
before Pilate,” is going to do for Philadel
phia? Men of wealth, if you are too modest
to build and endow such a place during your
lifetime, why not go to your iron safe, and
take out your last will and testament, and
make a codicil that shall build for the city of
your residence, a throne for American art?
Take some of the money that would otherwise
spoil your children, and build an art gallery
that shall associate your name forever,
not only with the great masters of
painting who are gone, but with the
great masters who are trying to live; and
also win the admiration and love of tens of
thousands of people, who, unable to have
fine pictures of their own, would be ad
vantaged by your benefaction. Build your
own monuments, and not leave it to the
whim of others. Some of the best people sleep
ing in Greenwood have no monuments at all,
or some crumbling stones that in a few years
will let the rain wash out name and epitaph;
while some men whose death was the abate
ment of a nuisance, have a pile of polished
Aberdeen high enough for a king, and eulo
gium enough to embarrass a seraph. Oh,
man of large wealth, instead of
ieavingjto the whim of others your monumen
tal commemoration and epitapliiology to be
looked at when people are going to and fro
at the burial of others, build right down in
the heart of our great city, or the city where
yon live, an immense free reading room, or
a free musical conservatory, or a free
art gallery, the niches for sculpture,
and the walls abloom with the rise
and fall of nations, and lessons of
courage for the disheartened, and rest for the
weary, and life for the dead; and one hun
dred and fifty years from now you wili be
wielding influences in this world for good
among those .whose great-grandfather was
your great-grandchild. How much better
than white marble that chilis you if you
put yeur hand on it when you touch
it in the cemetery would be a monument in
colors, in beaming eyes, in living possession,
in splendors which under the chandelier
would be glowing and warm, and looked at
by strolling groups with catalogue in hand
on the January night, when the necropolis
where the body sleeps is all snowed under.
The tower of David was hung with one thou
sand dented shields of battle; but you, oh
man of wealth, may have a grander tower
named after you, one that shall be hung not
with the symbols of carnage, but with the
victories (if that a'-t which was so long ago
recognized in my text as “pleusant pictures.”
Oh. the power of pictures! I cannot deride,
as some have done, Cardinal Mazarin, who.
when told that lie must die, took his last
walk through the art gallery of his palace,
saying: “Mast I quit all this? Look at that
Titian! Look at that Corregio! Look at
that deluge of Caracci! Farewell, dear pict
ures!” As the day of the Lord of Hosts, ac
cording to fihis text, will - jrutinize the
pictures, I implore all parents to see that
m their households they have neither
in book or newspaper or on canvas anything
that will deprave. Pictures are no longer
the exclusive possession of the affluent. There
is not a respectable home in these cities that
has not specimens of woodcut or steel en
graving, if not of painting, and your whole
family will feel the moral uplifting
or depression. Have nothing on your
wall or in books that will familiarize
the young with scenes of cruelty or wassail;
have only those sketches made by artists in
elevated moods, and uoiie of those sCeueS tuat
seem the product of artistic delirium tremens.
Eictures are not only a strong but a uni
versal language. The human race is divided
into almost as many languages as there are
nations, but the pictures may speak to
people of all tongues. Volapuk many nave
hoped, with little reason, would become a
world-wide language; but tbe pictorial is
always a world-wide language, and printer’s
types have no emphasis compared with it.
We siy that children are fond of pictures;
but notice any man when he takes up a book,
and you will see that the first thing
that he looks at is the pictures. Have
only those in your house that
appeal to the better nature. One
engraving has sometimes decided an eternal
destiny. Under the title of fine arts there
have come here from France a class of pic
tufes which elaborate argument has tried to
prove irreproachable. They would disgrace
a. barroom, and they need to be confiscated.
Your children will carry the pictures of
their fatlier’s house with them clear on to
the grave, and, passing that marble pillar,
will take them through eternity.
Furthermore, iet all reformers, and all
Sabbath-school teachers, and all Christian
workers realize that if they would be effec
tive for good, they must make pictures,
if not by chalk on black-boards,
or kindergarten designs, or by pen
cil on canvas, tneu by words. Arguments
are soon forgotten; but pictures, whether
in language or in colors, are what produce
strongest effects. Christ was always telling
wnat a thing was like,and His Sermon on the
Mount was a great picture gallery,beginning
with a sketch of a “city on a hill that cannot
be hid,” and ending with a tempest beating
against two houses, one on the rock and the
other on the sand. The parable of the prodi
gal son, a picture; parable of the sower, who
went forth to sow, a picture: parable of the
unmerciful servant, a picture; parable of the
ten virgins, a p.cture; parable of the talents,
a picture. The world wants pictures, and the
appetite begins with the child, who consents to
go" early to bed if the mother will sit beside
him and rehearse a story, which is only a
picture. When we see how much has been
accomplished in secular directions by pictures
—Shakespeare's tragedies a picture," Victor
Hugo’s writings all pictures, John Ruskin’s
and Tennyson’s and Longfellow’s
works all pictures—way not enlist, as
far as possible, for our churches and schools
and reformatory work and evangelistic en
deavor, the power of thought that can be
put info word pictures, if not pictures in
color? Yea, why not all young men draw
for themselves on paper, with pen or pencil,
their coming career, of virtue if they
prefer ;that, of vice if they prefer that.
After making the picture, put it on the wall,
or paste it on the tiy leaf of some favorite
book, that you may have it before you. I
read the other day of a man who had been
executed for murder, and the jailor found
afterward a picture made ou the wall of the
cell by the assassin’s own hand, a pict
ure of a flight of stairs. On the lowest
step he had written: “Disobedience
of parents;” on the second: “Sabbath break
ing;” on the third: “Drunkenness and gam
bling;” on the fourth: “Murder,” and on the
fifth and top step: “A gallows." If that man
had made that picture before he took the
first step, he never would have taken any of
them. Oh, man, make another picture, a
bright picture, an evangelical picture; I will
help you make it! I suggest six steps for this
flight of stairs. On the first step write the
words: “A nature changed by the Holy
Ghost and washed in the blood of the Lamb; ’
on the second step: “Industry and good
companionship;” on the third step: “A Christ
ian home with a family altar;” on the fourth
step: “Ever widening usefulness;” on the fifth
step: “A glorious departure from this
worldon the sixth step: “Heaven 1 heaven 1
heaven!” Write it three times, and lei tbe
letters of the one word be made up of ban
ners, the second of coronets, and the third of
thrones! Promise me that you will do that,
and 1 will promise to meet you on the sixth
step, if the Lord will through His pardoning
grace bring me there too.
And here lam going to say a word of
cheer to people who have never had a word
of consolation on that subject. There are
men and women in this world by hundreds
of thousands, and some of them are here to
day, who have a fine natural taste, and yet
all their lives that taste has been sup
pressed, and although they could appreciate
the galleries of Dresden and Vienna and
Naples for more than nine hundred and
ninety-nine out of one thousand who visit
them, they never may go, for they must sup
port their households, and bread and school
ing for their children are of more importance
than pictures. Though fond of music, they
are compelled to live amid disccrd.and though
fond of architecture, they dwell in clumsy
abodes, and though appreciative of all that
engravings and paintings can do, they are
in perpetual deprivation. You are going,
after you get on the sixth step of that stairs
just spoken of, to find yourselves in the
royal gallery of the universe, the con
centered splendors of all worlds before
your transported vision. In some way all
tbe thrilling scenes through which we and
the Church of God nave passed in our earth
ly state will be pictured or brought to mind.
At the cycloraina of Gettysburg, which we
had in Brooklyn, one day a blind man, who
lost his sight in that battle, was with his
child heard talking while standing before
that picture. The blind man said to the
daughter: “Are there at the right of the
picture some regiments marching up a hill?”
“Yes,” she said. “Well," said the blind
man, “is there a General on horseback
leading them on?” “Yes,” she said.
“Well, is there rushing down on these
men a cavalry charge?” “Yes,” was
the reply. “And do there seem to be many
dying and dead?” “Yes,” was the answer.
“Well, now, do you see a shell from the
woods bursting near the wheel of a cannon?”
“Yes,” she said. “Stop right there!” said
the blind man. “That is the last thing
I ever saw on earth! What a time
it was, Jenny, when I lost my eye sight!”
But when you, who have found life a hard
battle, a very Gettysburg, shall stand in the
Royal Gallery of Heaven, and with your
new vision begin to see and understand that
which in your earthly blindness you
could not see at all, you will point
nut to your celestial comrades, perhaps
to your own dear children who have gono
before, the scenes of the earthly conflicts in
which you participated, saying: “There
from that hill of prosperity I was driven
back; in that valley of humiliation I was
wounded. There I lost my eyesight. That
was the way the world looked when
I last saw it. But what a grand thing to get
celestial vision-, and stand here beioro the
cyclorama of all worlds while the Rider on
the white horse goes on “conquering and to
conquer,” the moon under His feet and the
stars of Heaven for his tiara!
Temperance News ami Notes.
Albany, N. Y., has 1200 places where liquor
is sol i—one to every 00 inhabitants; $25,000
is received for licenses.
• The Hupreme Court of lowa has decided
that the railroads cannot bo compelled to
transport beer in that State.
At Widdeck, Germany, a perstsi addicted
to intemperance cannot obtain a license to
marry, tbe law forbidding it.
Eight mission ships are now cruising in
the North Sea. each of which is a combina
tion of church, chapel, temperance hall and
dispensary.
More than one million signatures have
been attached to the Women's Jubilee peti
tion to Queen Victoria in favor of closing
public houses on Sundays.
An important feature of the Swiss Alcohol
act recentiy passed, giving the government
control of ad alcoholic drinks'soid in that
country, is that ten per cent, of the net rev
nue which the cantons will gain from the al
coholic tax is to be spent in unfolding to the
people the effects of alcohol.
A commission appointed by tile French
government to investigate the process of the
manufacture, of wines and brandies with a
view to suggesting changes in existing laws
for the prevention of adulteration, has found
that the complaints as to the impurity of
these 1 leverages are well founded. This com
mission extended its inquiries ill the direction
of the liquor shop, and recommends high
license for the purpose of reducing the num
ber of saloons.
The six Powers contiguous to the North
Sea —Great Britain. France, Belgium, Ho!
land, Germany and Denmark—hare entered
into an agreement whereby the sale of spir
itu us liquors to fishermen and other persons
on ooard fishing ves.als is prohibit*! 1
EATS AND MICE.
CURIOUS FACTS CONCERNING
THESE RODENTS.
Habits of the Mouse—lts Love for
Music The Black and the
Brown Itats —How to Get
Kid of Rats.
Eats and mice derive their name “ro
dent” from the peculiar structure of
their teeth, which are especially fitted
for gnawing. Tlieir jaws are heavily
made and very large in proportion to
the head, this size being needful for the
support of their gnawing teeth and their
continual development. Their chisel
like front teeth pass deeply into the jaw
bone and they are continually nourished
by a kind of pulpy substance from which
the tooth is foimed and which adds
fre;h material in proportion to the daily
waste. The covering enamel of the front
face of the incisor teeth is much harder
than that which is laid upon the back
part of the teeth. As the enamel and
dentine of the softer part wears away
much faster than the harder front sur
face, the peculiar chisel-edge structure is
continually preserved. “When one of
these teeth is broken, or the animal is so
confined as to he prevented from using
his sharp-edged tools, the sufferer dies, as
the growth of the teeth is continual, and
they push forward to enormous lengths,
sometimes forming a complete circle.
This malformation is tolerably frequent.
The family “Murid.v,” to which the
mice and rats belong, has thirty-seven
ganera, with 330 species. They are all
lound in parts of the Old World, hut are
not natives of America. There is a small
animal, resembling a mouse, which is
exclusive y American. This family has
eighty or more species. The little meadow
mouse is an example. The only rodent
common to both i.urope and America is
the b avtr, which is not regarded as the
same in both countries; and the squir
rels are considered the highest form of
the gnawing animals. Our domestic
mic arc foreigners, introduced by our
forefathers. Of the genus “Mus” or
mouse, there are 100 species, all natives
of the Old World. 4 hey have three
simple molar teeth in each jaw, their fore
feet have four toes and a rudimentary
thumb; the bind feet have live tees ; tne
feet can be turned outward and the claws
hitched upon any convenient pro jection
when descending a wall. The common
mouse readily colonizes every region,
arctic, temperate or tropical.
The jumping mice, or jerboas, are na
tives of the Mediterranean region. Their
usual jump is ten or twelve feet. They
think nothing of jumping the "width of
a good sized room at one spring. They
do not always leap about. When they
are not startled or in a hurry they run on
all four feet, and when they make their
winter homes fai down in the warm
earth they dig a long passage till safe
from the hard Rosts that freeze the
ground, and there they make a comfort
able, warm, snug roll themselves
into balls, wrap their long tails around
them, and go to sleep for the winter. It
is specially interesting to know that
when a mother mouse is frightened and
wants to hide with her children, she
takes great leaps, with her babies hang
ing fast to her sides. No matter how
long her jumps, or how far she goes,
every little mouse holds on like “grim
death” till a safe hiding place is found
and she can rest.
Perhaps the most amusing power the
mouse has is his ability to sing. They
show a strong love for music, and a
power of imitating Eie song of a bird.
There has been a giiijt deal written on
their singing powers, and it is discussed
whether they really do possess this fac
ulty, or whether it is merely the conse
quences of throat disease. The field
mouse sings like the cricket. I read of
a saucy little mouse who built his home
under a setting hen’s nest, and nibbled
the feathers off the tail of the patient old
hen to make feather beds for her chil
dren.
The field mouse is said to have a great
antipathy to either fhe cat or brown rat,
and will leave a house whenever they
appear.
The black and brown rat are particu
larly deserving of notice, and are the
most widely distributed over the world.
They both appear to be natives of the
central part ot Asia. The brown rat
found its way to Europe in the beginning
of the eighteenth century, and reached
Britain and the western countries of
Europe about the middle of that epoch.
They are sometimes erroneously called
the Norway rat.
The brown rat is larger and more
powerful than the black rat, and they are
deadly foes. The brown rat has suc
ceeded in causing an almost total disap
pearance of the black rat in places where
it was very numerous. According to
Air. liodewell’a theory the manner in
which the brown rat has supplanted its
black foe is by love instead of war. The
browns, being the stronger, carry off the
females of the blacks by force, and thus
he accounts for the curious kind of
particolored offspring which may be
found in France. These rats infest ships,
and so aro carried to the mest distant
parts of the world, some of them getting
ashore at every port and establishing
new colonies. Tiie black rat is nearly
seven inches long and the brown grows
to be ten inches, with a tail eight inches
long. Both species are extremely prolific,
producing from ten to fourteen at a birth.
When they are pressed by hunger they
do not hesitate to devour the weaker of
their kind.
The rat's never-failing appetite is
especially useful iu devouring animal
and vegetable substances the putrefac
tion of which would otherwise be pro
ductive of pestilence. It is said that the
visits of the plague to Western Europe
and Britain have ceased from the time
when rats became plentiful. Wood gives
us the suggestion for stopping up their
tunnels, when they are making them
selves a nuisance, as follows: “Fill the
rate hole with mortar or cement, well
studded with pieces of broken glass. - ’
And he advises to place “a few table
spoonfulsof quicklime in the hole before
it is stopped up,” as lime burns their
feet.
Their sense of smell is very acute, so
much so that ratcatchers are careful to
glove their hands when setting their
traps. The professional ratcatcher in
England wears a bi ass image of a rat as
a sign of his business. The ways and
means of catching them are a professional
secret. They procure them alive and sell
them to rat-pit keepers. These pit keep
ers have a sort of hole where they letthd
rats loose and dogs are set on them.
Crowds of boys and men pay to see this
cruel sport. The skin of rats is made
into gloves in Paris, and in Siberia there
is a field mouse that stores up such
quantities of dried roots and other food
to last through the long winter of that
country that half-starved people there
hunt their nests and carry off most of
the food for their own use. —San Fran
cisco Chronicle.
The Einbalmer’s Art,
“Embalming will soon take the place
of ice altogether in cities for preserving
bodies before burial,” said the under
taker who recently buried "millionaire
Sands, to a New York Telegram reporter.
“In tenement houses, for instance, it is
more a work of labor than of love to
carry ice enough to the top story to keep
a body for a day or two.
“Embalming fluids composed of car
bolic acid and other antiseptics are more
effective, and besides that arc good dis
infectants, cleanly to use, and the body
has a natural appearance. All the re
pulsive features of a funeral are thus
avoided.”
“How long could you preserve a body
by the modern embalming process?”
“For three months, or longer if neces
sary, by Ire ;uent injections of the em
balming fluid.”
“Egyptian mummies have been pre
served for years. Is this method a lost
art?”
“Well, it is and it isn’t. The process
of the ancient Egyptians would be re
pulsive to people of the present day.
They disemboweled the bodies, taking
away all the viscera and filling the body
with embalming stuffs. This would be
called horrible mutilation in these days.
An Egyptian mummy is a caricature of
the human form—a dried up, desiccated
piece of crumbling leather at best.”
“Hut could Egyptian embalming be
done with our present knowledge?”
“I suppose so, if we used the same
means aud had the same dry climate.
But who would care to have relatives or
friends preserved in that way? Another
thing, it would he an unpleasant job,
that no modern undertaker would care to
engage in. The pickling process would
rob death and burial of all its sentiment,
and the present generation has hardly
arrived at that stage of cold bloodedness
yet. I see no reason for trying to imi
tate the ancient Egyptians and taming
our beloved ones into mummies.”
The Inventor of invisible Hatches a
Tramp.
A melancholy-looking man, with a
shaggy beard, wearing an old slouch hat
and trousers with deep fringe around
the bottom and a big, shaggy overcoat,
stood in front of the Philadelphia post
office, holding his hands on his chest.
Everybody looked at him as they passed,
and some young fellows jeered at him
for wearing an overcoat. The melan
choly-looking man paid no attention to
them. He wandered up Ninth street
aimlessly and shambled up Market
street holding his hands over his chest as
he walked. A reporter asked him what
he wore an overcoat for with the ther
mometer at eighty degrees. He spoke
in gasps and said: “Because I’m always
cold. I can’t get my breath hardly half
the time. I have been cold for years. I
I used to work at my trade for eighteen
hours a day. I am a shoemaker. I
caught cold about ten yeais ago, and
hard work to breathe ever since.
Sonffmmes I’m afraid to go to sleep for
f ear I’ll lose my breath. I’m the man
who invented the invisible patch on
shoes. That’s a good maiiy years ago.
of it. I’m the inventor of the
invismle patch and I haven't got a cent.
I ought to be getting a royalty from every
shoemaker in the country. I was a
soldier in the Prussian army. I made
many a pair of hoots for the officers.
Where am I going? Nowhere.”
The man laughed harshly'. Then he
coughed with a hacking sound and went
wearily on his way.
What is a “Jag;”
In that section of the country called
“down East” the word “jag” is one of
common use, hut it appears to possess a
very different signification there from
what it does “out West.” Webster
defines it as a “small load,” but there are
some who object to this definition, claim
ing that a load must he a full load; that
such a thing as a “small load” cannot be.
If the burden is less than a full load,
some other term must he used to correctly
express it. The word “jag”
have been expressly coined for this place,
and it is certain that down East it is
used invariably to denote a portion of a
load. If a farmer is asked if he has got
all his hay in, he would reply, should the
facts warrant it: “All but a jag.” In the
West the word is entirely misapplied, if
the above dissent from Webster is well
founded. The expression is seldom heard
except in the case of a drunken man.
One sees a man laid out in a drunken
stupor or staggering through the street
and he hears some one say, “That chap
has a jag on.” Everything indicates
that the party is full, has a full load and,
therefore, it is not a “jag.” By the
same token it is correct to say a man has
a jag on when he is a little hilarious oi
“just so, so.” There can be no question
as to there being big jags and little jags
even if there cannot be big and little
loads, it would, therefore, he hard to tell
how many “jags” it would take to make
a “load.” —Chicago Herald.
An Arctic Railroad.
An important engineering enterprise
now in progress is a railroad in the Arc
tic circle. The Swedish and Norwegian
railroad now buildipg from Lulea, on
the Gulf of Bothnia to Lofoten, on the
North Sea, is partly situated within the
Arctic circle,.ai d is some 1200 miles
further north than any railroad in Can
ad*. An interesting meteorological
fact stated in relation to this work is
that the snowfall is found to be actually
less than in some more southern lati
tudes, while the darkness of the long
winter nights has been partly compen
sated by the light of the aurora. The
object in view in constructing this line
is to tap the enormous deposits of iron
ore in the Gellivara Mountains, the ap
proximate exhaustion of the ore in the
Bilboa district rendering very desirable
a new field of non-pho-qihoric ore suit
able for steel rail making.— 2few York
Sun.
Victor Hugo said that God had created
woman the coquette as soon as he had
made man the fooL
A Mender of Artificial Limbs.
The place, says the New York Teh
gram, looked like a ghastly caricature of
a butcher shop in the land of the canni
bals, but it was only the inner sanctum
of a manufacturer of artificial limbs.
Arms, legs, hands, feet—what you will
—hung on walls screened in glass cases
or laid about in heaps, greeted the eye
wherever it rested. There were audacious
pictures of gentlemen in various active
employments who, having “tried your
valuable leg would have no other.” One
of those grateful men wa3 pictured in
the act -of riding a bicycle. Another
bore his whole weight on an artificial
leg while plying a miner’s pick at a mass
of rock over his head. Still another
stood on his sound leg, and with the arti
ficial leg drove a spade deep into the soil
of a garden plot. Three were farmers
following the plow, blacksmiths shoeing
horses, and a pedestrian without a nose
—all with at leastone artificial leg.
“Do they really do all that?” inquired
the reporter.
‘"‘Perhaps not quite as well as you’d
suppose from the cut, but it is true that
there are a good many thousand men
with artificial legs doing work that one
would think likely to require the aid of
sound limbs.”
“Then you come pretty nearly sup
plying any natural loss.”
“Pretty nearly. The war gave a great
impetus to the manufacturer of artificial
limbs, and we are still making limbs for
the veterans.”
“How long does an artificial limb
last?”
“That depends upon whether it is an
arm or a leg and upon various other con
siderations. I’ve known an artificial leg
to be in use twenty-five years. The more
elaborate attempts to counterfeit nature
the more liable the member to get out
of order and require renewal. We make
arms and hands with which the wearer
writes, uses knife and fork at table and
performs many operations that one
might think impossible.”
“What is the cost of artificial limbs?”
“Anything from a few dollars up to
hundreds. The simplest ‘peg legs’ or
wooden legs cost from $5 to SSO each.
Arms cost from $25 to $75. Hands are
from $lO to $25. Then there are in
numerable contrivances for hiding de
formities. They may cost almost any
thing—the price varying with the nature
of the deformity to he corrected. Oh,
our friends with a leg or arm missing
are not so badly off as they once were,
and if science goes on in its march of
progress there is no telling how soon the
so-called cripples may be objects of
envy.”
An American Farmer For Australia.
Several months ago Commissioner Col
man of the United States Agricultural
Department, received from the Chiei
Secretary of the British colony of Queens
land, Australia, a courteous request to
recommend to the Colonial government
for employment an American citizen
competent to serve as instructor of the
American system of agriculture. The
Commissioner took an active interest in
the matter and still has it under con
sideration, a large number of Americans
having volunteered to accept the ap
pointment and the contingent salary of
S3OOO, with traveling expenses, but the
selection has not yet been made.
The Commissioner has received a sec
ond letter from the Chief Secretary,
which contains information of interest
regarding the colony, and embodies,
moreover, an increase in the salary
fered to the seiecteu instructor: i
“With regard to your request,” the
Chief Secretary writes, “to be furnished
with particulars in connection with cost
of living and other matters pertaining to
personal comfort of which possible can
didates for appointment might be de
sirous of being informed, I may mention
that the price of food and clothing in
this colony is little more than in England
and less than in the United States of
America; that a good house in town
be rented at from S4OO to SSOO per
annum, and that the wages of female
domestic servauts are'from $2.50 to $3 a
week. jj
The climate is healthy and though the
heat In summer is great as measured by
tire thermometer, the atmosphere is dry
and the nights aro almost always cool.
In the winter months the climate is not
excelled for en joyableness and salubrity
by that of any other country in the
world.
“I have to intimate also that with the
view of securing a thoroughly qualified
instructor this Government is now pre
pared to offer a salary of $3750 per an
num, instead of S3OOO, as proposed in
my previous letter.”— Neva York Herald.
Misquoted Lines.
It is a peculiai faculty of human mem
ory, says the Philadelphia Times, to mis
quote proverbs and poetry, and almost
invariably to place the credit where it
doeajiot belong.
Nine men out of ten think that “the
Lord tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb” is from the Bible, whereas Law
rence Sterne is the author.
“Pouring oil upon the troubled waters”
is also ascribed to the sacred volume,
whereas it is not there; in fact no one
knows its origin.
Again, we hear people say: “The
proof of the pudding is in chewing the
string.” This is arrant nonsense, and
the proverb says:
“The proof of the pudding is in the
eating thereof and not in chewing the
string.”
Nothing is more common than to
hear:
“A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still.”
This is an impossible condition of
mind, for no one can be convinced of
an opinion and at the same time hold to
an opposite one. What Butler wrote
was eminently sensible:
“He that complies against his will
Is of the same opinion still.”
A famous passage of scripture is often
misquoted thus: “He that is without
sin among you. let him cast the first
stone.” It should read: “Let him cast
i stone.” *
We also hear that “A miss is as good
as a mile,” which is not as sensible or
forcible as the true proverb: “A miss of
in inch is as good as a mile.”
“Look before yo i leap” should be:
“And look before ydu ere you leap.”
Franklin said: “Honesty is the best
policy,” but the maxim is of Spanish
origin, and may be found in “Don
Quixote.”
The English Bishop of Truro has in
herited $400,000 from an uncle.