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Me Uitj Ties.
THENTON, GEORGIA.
Lord Wolseley, Commander-ia-Chief
of the British Army, declares in favor of
compulsory military service.
Wh le \ ermont is almost stationary,
Nevada is the only Sta’e in the Union
that is actually declining in population.
The Emperor of Japan is the first
Asiatic ruler who has promulgated a con
stitution guaranteeing certain rights to
his subjects.
China is calling upon other nations to
aid her starving millions, and vet $1 ,-
OuO.OOO are to be spent on her young
Emperor’s marriage.
About $ i 0,('O ',000,000, or one-seventh
of our total national wealth, is invested
in our railway system, which comp lses
more than halt the total mileage of the
world.
The Courier-Journal facetiously an
nounces that “the King of Samoa is dis
contented, not because his salary is only
S2O a month, but because he has to take
part of it in cocoanuts.”
All European Governments acknowl
edge that Uncle Sam has the strongest
weapon of war in the Zalinski dynamite
gun. A French paper says every one
such gun is equal to five iron-clads.
St. Louis now sots up its claim to be
the leading mart for the sale of staple
cotton goods in the country, not except
ing either New lork or Chicago, and
her newspapers present facts and figures
to prove it.
Leprosy is dying out in Canada. The
report of the Agricultural Department
Bhows that there are nineteen patients,
eight males and eleven females, in the
Lazaretto at Tweed e. New Brunswick.
In its early history the institution con
tained twice the present number of
lepers.
We have all heard of buildings in
Europe which are epics in stone, but it
remained for an eccentric Philadelphian
to construct a remarkable structure
which he calls a “poem in brick.” The
style of the architecture is a mixture ol
arabesque and very early American. And
it is completely covered with stucco
work, representing eagles, animals,flow
ers, fruit and goddesses of liberty.
The great Eiffel tower at the Paris Ex
position stands 981 feet high and weighs
8600 tons. The committee have selected
three different models of elevators. Two
elevators will go up to the first plat
form, two others to the second, and an
other lift will move between the second
and third platform in a vertical line.
The whole trip will take five minutes
and the cages will be able to take up 750
persons an hour.
There were 19 5 accidents on the
railroad* of the United States during
1*88; There were 04 collisions, 1032
derailments and 99 other accidents, Cf
the collisions 404 were from the rear,
311 were hutting and 89 on crossings.
Defects in load caused 18 • derailments;
defects of equipments caused 148, and
neglect in operating caused 117,' The
killed numbered ii 37, x>f whom 434 were
employes and 108 passengers.
No Government on the European Con
tinent, according to the Kew York
Time , has done more for the develop
ment of heavy ordnance for naval pur
poses than that of Italy. The national
policy for twenty years has been to ob
tain great war ships, arm them with
monster guns and give her vessel en
gines of prodigious powers. So well has
Italy succeeded in carrying out these pro
jects that her naval strength is of vast
proportions, embodying war vessels
which in size and tonnage have but few
equals.
The Asso dated Tea Planters (Lim
ited , says the London Figaro, is an
undertaking with a capital of $ 150,000 in
$5 shares, whose object is to establish
markets in the United States of America
and in Canada for the sale of tea grown
on plantations in the East Indies. It
does not appear that anything in the
shape of purchase-money is to be paid,
but intending investors will require to
know the nature of the agreement which
has been entered into with Mr. W.
Macgregor, “a gentleman who has been
extensively connected with the tea trade
in New York.”
Despite all the means of popular
education, asserts the San Francisco
Chronicle, illiteracy is increasing in this
country, and, what is a far worse
symptom, the ratio of criminals con
victed of grave crimes is growing every
year. The official figures show these
facts: In 1850 there were 290 prisoners
in our penitentiaries to each million of
population. In ten years this ratio had
grown to 607, and in another decade to
853. By 1880 this ratio had been swollen
to 1169, and if the same percentage is
maintained the opening of the next
century will see the ratio reach the
enormous number of 1800.
TROUBLESOME NEIGHBORS.
Oh, could there in this world be found
Some little spot of happy ground
Where village pleasure might go round
Without the village tattling.
How doubly b’est that spot would be,
Where all might dwell in liberty,
Free from the bitter misery
Of gossips’ endless prattling.
If such a spot were really known,
Fair Peace might claim it as her own,
And in it she might fix her throne
Forever ami forever;
There like a queen to reign and live,
While every one would soon forgive
The little slights they might receive,
And be offended never.
’Tis mischief makers that remove
Far from our hearts the warmth of love,
And lead us all to disapprove
W hat gives another pleasure.
They seem to take one s part, but when
They’ve heard ou. cares, unkindly then
They soon retail them all again,
Mixed with their poisonous measure.
And then they’ve such a cunning w y
Of telling ill-meant ta es; they say:
“ Don’t mention what I’ve said, I pray,'
I would not tell another!”
Straight to your neighbor’s house they go,
Narrating everything they know,
And break the peace of high and low,
Wife, husband, friend, and brother.
Oh, that the mischief-making crew
Were all reduced to one or two,
And they were painted red or blue,
That every one might know them!
Then would our villagers forget
To rage and quarrel, fum? and fret,
Or fall into an angry pet
With things so much below them.
For ’tis a sa l, degrading part,
To make another’s bosom smart,
And plant a dagger in some heart,
We ought to love an! cherish.
Then let us evermore be found
In harmony with all around.
W hile friendship, joy, and peace abound,
And angry feelings perish.
—New York Sun.
THE TELEGRAPHER,
BY HELEN FORREST GRAVES.
It was a gray day in early March.
The ground was yet frost-bound; the
first bluebird had not whistled its signal
call, and yet one felt instinctively that _
the great heart of Mother Nature was
stirring underneath its winter coat-of
mail.
I wa3 dimly conscious of this, even
while I buried myself in the frothy
pages of the last new novel, trying
vainly to beguile the tedium of the long
journey, when suddenly the train
slacked up, gave a jerking start, and
then stopped altogether.
“What’s happened ” huskily croaked
the fat man behind me, half-rising to
his feet. I
“Lame! I’ope ithain’t a haccident,”
said the woman at my left, who had
been noisily comsuming sandwiches and
cold tea, out of a nat basket.
Some of the passengers sat still, others
i'umped up and thrust their heads out of
lastiiy-opened windows. Nothing,
however, was visible, save a double wall
of black-green pines, inclosing the rail
road track on either side, and a solitary |
little station of unpainted pine boards, 1
with a miniature platform extending in
front of it.
“Isay, conductor,” I called out, jeer
ingly, ‘ “I thought this was an express
train 1”
The much-badgered official looked
helplessly at me. The woman of the
sandwiches was pulling at his coat-skirt,
and the fat man had resolutely button
holed him.
“80 it is. sir,” said he. ‘But there’s
a freight train wrecked at the unction,
three miles al ove, and we’re signaled to
wait until the track is c.ear.”
“How long will it be?”
“Two or three hours, maybe—perhaps
less. It's a stone-tram' and a complete
breakdown. I don’t think ihe company
ought to allow them bothering freights
to run so close ahead of us, ” he added,
sadly.
“But. conductor—”
The slamming of the car door an
swered me. I got up and stretched my
self, took out my cigar-ease, and stepped
out on the platform. \e fates! what a
lonely spot it was, shut iu by giant
pines, whose balsamic breath pervaded
the whole air, with the rush of an un
seen cataract sounding somewhere close
by-
I looked around for a minute, Jhen en
tered the station, where a pretty young
woman sat in the telegraph window.
She looked calmly up as I came in. I
took off my hat.
“>
“Good afternoon, sir!” said the tele
graph operator.
“Have you heard from the junction?"
The telegraph operator smiled.
And then I perceived, what a pretty
dimple she had in the left cheek, and
how her dark-blue eyes sparkled under
their brown laches.
“I have been ‘hearing’ steadily for the
last three hours,” said she “I suppose
they thought I would be foolish enough
to let the express run into them. But
they need not have been afraid.”
“A bad breakdown, eh:” said I.
“Very bad,” answered the telegraph
operator.
“What prospect is there of our getting
on?”
“Not much at present.”
“We shall be detained some time?”
“Until seven o’clock, at the very
least,” said the telegraph operator.
“The wrecking train from Old Ormiston
has only just arrived.”
I whistled under my breath; the tele
graph operator went on calmly arrang
ing her olahks.
“Very awkward,” said I.
The telegraph operator made no re
plv.
“What place is this?” I asked, after a
pause.
“Pine ' alls.”
“Indeed?”
For 1 remembered now that an old
friend of my father’s, one Ma or Meri
vale, had a place near Pine Kails.
“I’ll walk out there,” said I to my
self, “and extend the right hand of fel
lowship o him. It may serve to pass the
time away.”
One of the passengers came in just
then to send a telegram.
I left the station, asked my way of the
freight master, a cross old man in a
shaggy gray suit and a fox skin cap,
that made him look like the old pictures
of Daniel Boone.
“Its a right smart step, I allow,” said
he; “but it ain’t noways fur. Ye carn’t
miss yer way. ef ye keep right ahead.”
i aniel Boone wfl|. right. I had
scarcely crossed tjie roll ring cataract on
a bridge unsafe,
before 1 saw of a
at least of ahoWfffiatTiad beWfcfine in its
day. ‘•Dilapidated” was the only term
to apply to it now.
The colonnades of the rather preten
tious portico were settling to one side ; a
part of the fence had been leveled to
earth with the last wind; the old stone
sun-dial in the centre of the lawn was
overgrown with a complete network of
wild briers and b ambles; and a range
o; greenhouses extending toward the
south were all in ruins.
1 raised the rusty knocker with a curi
ous premonition that I should find the
house shut up and deserted.
but it had not yet reached this stage
of dissolution. An old woman, in a
frilled cap and a clean, checked apron,
answered the summons after some delay.
Ma or Merivale was at home, she said.
Would I please walk into the study.
It was a big room, furnished with
black-gretu hangings, a carpet worn to
threads, and chairs and tables that had
the black polish of extreme old age.
At the further end a big base-burning
stove winked its red eyes at me.
A seven-leaved Japan screen shut in a
co/y corner, where an elderly gen
tleman sat reading at a table heaped
high with books, and the next minute I
received the warmest of welcomes.
“Frank alconer, as I live!” said the
Major, with the genial graciousness of
your thoroughbred gentleman. “And
the image of your father, too! I need
not say how pleased I am to welcome
you to Aierivale’s Rest. Sit down—sit
down! Let me have the pleasure of
sending for your baggage at once. I can
entertain no more welcome guest than
yourself, my dear boy. But at least”
when I had explained to him the acci
dent which had brought me thither for
only a brief season —“you will dine with
me?”
He rang the bell sharply.
“Jennings,” he said to the old woman
with the frilled cap, “where is Miss Bar
bara? Let her know at once that we
have company.”
Jennings fingered the hem of her
ap.on rather awkwardly.
“Miss Barbara ain’t Rome, sir,” said
she— “leastwavgMfidt just this-minute.”
“Not at home”’ The Major’s thick
eyebrows met like a shaggy line across
the bridge of his nose. “It seems to me,
. ennings, that Miss Barbara spends very
little Of her time at home. You can
send for her, I suppose?”
Jennings shifted from one foot to the
other.
“I don’t rightly know, sir, whether
she’s taking her music lesson at Mrs.
Sombrely’s, or spending the day at Miss
Lennox’s, or —”
“That will do, Jennings!” sharply in
terrupted the Major. “Let dinner be
served at once. Y T ou won’t object,
Falconer, to d ning with me—eh? To
tell the honest truth, 1 am a sort of King
Lear, with only one daughter, and she’s
not of the Cordelia type. Ha, ha, ha! I
must confess to you that I do not see
-much of and yet, when one
comes to it, one can hardly ex
pect a sprightly young girl to be satisfied
■L,th the monotonous life that I lead.
nature of things. I should
■KjLjtfL f-1 you to make her acquaintance
fell fP talking about the old
timjtovhen he and my father had been
collie chums at Yale.
We had a very nice little dinner—
clear soup, a delicate fish, whose gamey
flavor suggested the nearness of some
wild woodland stream, a roast fowl, and
an apple-tart, powdered with cinnamon
and latticed over with bars of crisp pie
crust; and to this la or Meiivale added
a bottle of very old claret.
“It belongs to my palmy days, my
boy,” said he. “A relic of the past. I’m
not able to buy such now, aid I only
bring it out when I have an especial
guest like yourself. Eh—what’s that?
The whistle of the train?”
I jerked my watch out in hot haste.
“By Jove, sir,” said I, “you are right !
There is only one train on this road, and
it has left me behind! That wreckage
bus.ness must have been got over with
quicker than they imagined.”
“All the better for me.” said the
Major. “Y’ou will be my honorable
cautive for to-night. I dare say to mor
row w T ill be quite time enough for your
business, and 1 shall be favored indeed;”
Once more he rang the bell for Jen
nings.
“ et the purple bed-room be prepared,
Jennings,” said he, “and a good fire
lighted on the hearth. Mr. Falconer re
mains with us all night.”
“What cannot be cured,” saith the
old adage, “must be endured,” and I
found myself setting down into a most
agreeable state of resignation, as my
host got out a line old iDlaid chessboard
and a set of ivory chessmen, carved to
imitate the Ssltan of Turkey and his
subordinates.
We were hardly through the first
game, however —Major Merivale was no
mean opponent —when the door behind
him opened and in walked—the tele
graph operator!
My finger was just poised above the
Queen’s Bishop’s pawn. It fell, scatter
ing the pieces in hopeless confusion, as
I recognized her.
She turned very red, but from behind
her father’s shoulder she made a gesture
to me to keep silence.
How I understood it I know not, but
I saw plainly in those dark-blue orbs of
hers the words: “Do not betray my
secret!”
Ma or Merivale turned abruptly
around.
“Why, it’s Barbara.” said he, “home
at last! Come, my girl, and let me in
troduce to you the son of my dearest
friend, Mr. Falconer!”
I rose and bowed.
Barbara murmured a word or two, and
sank into a chair.
A most embarrassing stiffness pre
vailed, and not until Ma or Merivale went
up stairs personally to ascertain that my
room was comfortably warm to sleep in,
did either one of us “thaw” in the
slightest degree.
“Lou mustthink this very strange,”
said Barbara, lifting the curtain of dark
lashes that had hitherto veiled her eyes.
“Well—rather so, I must confess.”
“Papa don’t know it, and I wouldn’t
have him know it for the world.”
“Don’t know—’’
i “That lam telegraph operator down
at the station,” explained Barbara. “Be
tween our old servant woman and me,
we have kept him totally in the dark. I
think it would break his heart if he
dreamed that a descendant of the Meri
vales earned a daily salary by daily work.
But we are so poor—*o very poor. If the
taxes had not been paid, even this old
home would have been taken away from
us, and papa would not have had where
to lay his head. I paid the taxes. 1
look after the butcher and the baker, or
we should starve. I learned telegraphy
through the assistance of Mr. Lennox, one
of our kind neighbors, who was in the
plot. His cousin is president of the road,
and he gave me the place. I think I dis
charge the duties well—at least, I try my
best. And uow you know it all. You
will keep the harmless secret, will you
not?”
“With my life!” I answered, betrayed
into more vehemence of expression ;han
the circumstances would seem to war
rant.
But Barbara Merivale was so exceed
ingly pretty, and the whole thing was
so like a leaf out of some old romance.
! I slept well that night at Merivale
Rest.
But I did not see Barbara the next
morning. The Major explained to me,
with some displeasure, that his daughter
had an engagement with some of the
neighbors, that rendered it impossible
for her to breakfast with us.
“I told her,” he said, “that no en
gagement could justify this infringement
of the rules of hospitality, but she would
have her way. I told you, didn’t I? that
I was a modem King Lear, and she is
my Goneril and Regan in one. But, at
all events, you have promised to come
out here in April, and try the fishing.
| Don’t forget that, my boy!”
And when I weut down to the station
to await the train, the telegraph operator
sat quietly in her little railed inclosure, a
pen-handle held between her losy lips,
her eyes intent on the clicking machine
in front of her. So busy was she that
I had scarcely time to wish her good-by.
“I hope you will come again,” she
said, wistfully. “Papa enjoys company
so much, and he leads such a solitary
life!"
“I shall certainly come again,” said I,
“ifyou wish it, Miss Merivale!”
And then the train whistled in the dis
tance, the freight master, with the shaggy
suit and the foxskin cap, rattled his
barrow over the platform, the few
passengers made a rush for the door, and
my last impression of Pine Falls was a
breath of balsamic sweetness and the
waving glimmer of biacii-grssa boughs.
This happened more than two years
ago. I don’t know why I have put it into
words, unless because it is one of those
idyllic happenings that come to nearly
every life in one shape or another.
If my sweet wife Barbara were to read
it, I wonder if she would recognize her
own identity? If my father-in-law, the
gracious, genial-hearted Major Merivale,
were to come across it, I wonder if he
would discover the secret we have so
carefully kept from him?
I know one thing; I never shall see
the sweet face of a telegraph operator at
a ionely waysido station again without a
quick heart-throb.
Barbara says lam a goose. Perhaps
she is right. —Saturday Night.
Dry-Shod Through the Sen.
The storms that too frequently ushei
in the wintry season along our coast
bring pallor to so many of the faces and
fear that is so like despair to so many
of the hearts of those whose dear ones
go down to the great deep in ships, that
whatever alleviates the possible horrors
of a wreck under stress of such storm?
is an obje t of interest. Nothing has
yet been used in the way of rescue quite
equal to the present system of relief for
the ships dashed against our rocks or
stranded on our sand-bars, where the
waves can leap aboard and tear thorn to
pieces. In our life-sa mg stations a
small mortar-gun is used to discharge a
ball to wh eh is attached an inch rope,
and which .an carry the ro .e some foiu
hundred yards. The ball being shot ovei
a wreck, the rope of course talis upon it,
and the people there draw in by its
means a stouter line, and with that aa
other, till one end of a big hawser ha?
been made fast on fie wreck as the other
end is made fast and taut on the shore.
By means then of the second rope a light
tarmadeof galvanized iron, and capa
ble of holding four adult persons or eight
children, and of closing so as to be nearly
water-tight, is hauied to and fro from
the wreck to the shore till all the crew
and passengers are in safety. It takes,
under such circumstances, just half an
hour to get the whole apparatus at works
and the car requires about ten minute,
for a trip through the wildest surf, aud
has been known to take off a couple of
hundred people before a ship went to
pieces. The whole thing is of peculiar
interest to women, because it carries
them and their children to safety when
probably nothing else could, and that,
too, sometimes without wetting a foot
or even allowing them to get damp.—
Bazar.
A Dynamite Expert’s Black Cat.
Captain Zalinski, the perfector of one
of the greatest of modern inventions, the
dynamite gun, has a pet in the shape
of a black cat which never leaves Fort
Lafayette. Until I went down to the
fort to witness the last experiments
made with this gun the feline bad no
name and at my suggestion he was
christened “Dynamite.”
Dynamite is a soldier, a gunner and a
fisherman, and knows more about pneu
matic pressure than any one iu or about
Fort Lafayette, save Captain Zalinski.
When the cat is hungry it goes to the
water’s edge, sits on a flat stone and
waits patiently for prey in the shape of
fish, great or small. With the left paw
carefully poised Dynamite watches until
some member of the finny tribe swims
close to the stone and then a quick
motion of the paw and a dexterous
twitch of that same member lands the fish
high and dry on the land.
On one occasion Dynamite happened
l to fix his claws (irmly in the back of a
large blue ish, and the result was a cold
and briny bath, which his catshipdid not
relish. He likes noise and follows
j Captain Zalinski to his gun whenever a
test is to be made, and sits down purring
until after the monster of destruction has
hurled a projectile loaded with dynamite
a mile or more away, aud if an explosion
follows Dynamite announces his pleasure
with a self satisfied yowl suggestive of a
certain feeling of enjoyment over the
success of the experiment. —Brooklyn
Citizen.
A WEDDING IN JAPAN,
THE GRACEFUL AND STATFLY ORI
ENTAL NUPTIAL CEREMONY.
An Odd Festival—Rich Habiliments
—The Husband Assumes the
Wife’s Name.
Once upon a time, writes Eva Best in
the Detroit Free Preen, a card came to
me bearing these words:
; Kito Halimo and Lady
; Request your presence at the marriage :
; of their daughter '.
; mino :
5 Hunyadi Simotsuke. :
Then followed date and place. Of
course I weut. There was a sound of
soft music as I entered the place, where
I found many other Americ ans. We had
not to wait long, for soon there was a
gentle commotion that made itself mani
fest behind a large screen placed in front
of a doorway, and then the bridal party
entered.
First came the bride’s parents —and I
was—being an Amer.can lady—some
what surprised to see Mino’s papa enter
first. He came slowly forward, keeping
time to the stately march with graceful
wavings of his fan to and fro. In his
wake followed Mino’ maternal relative—
as tall as her lord and, little less dark
and homely. These two approached
the oriental drugget allotted the bridal
pair, and after turning about face, sank
in some mysterious, gra eful way upon
the rug to the right of the expected
groom. Then came the bridegroom’s
father and mother—he with downcast
eyes, she with an enormous bow between
her shoulder blades—of course, there
were other adjuncts—but one noticed
these two peculiarities. They marched
slowly and in stately, serious gait to the
left side of where the bridal party were
to sit upon the floor, and after much
“salaaming” and astonishing low bows
they, too, sank as easily back upon their
reserved rug. Then came the “priestess,”
or “wedding maid,” followed by the
parties of the first part —as slowly, as
solemnly, as joyless as the others. Mino
wore a white robe and a thin veil which
allowed her plain dark features to be
easily seen, while Huuyadi had donned a
magnificent “pjama” and a sort of skull
cap. They advanced in Indian file, the
priestess leading, to where the reverend
parents of Mino sat, gently swaying
their indigenous fans, and sinking to
their knees, bride and bridegroom made
an obeisance by getting upon their all
fours and beading their bodies until
their foreheads almost touched the floor.
At this the bride’s parents also bowed
above the heads of the prostrate pair,
which ceremony was performed in turn
before the groom’s parents. The priest
ess, or “best lady”—it seems they have
no “best man”—took her place behind
the bridal couple and the bridesmaids
entered. This was really a pretty sight.
Three upon each side, two entering at a
time, “salaaming” with graceful ease,
touching fan tips as they bent their
lithe bodies almost double. After de
liberate and deep obesiances to each
couple in turn, two by two, they sank
slowly upon their “heels," then gradu
ally, gracefully took their positions on
each side of the respective parents.
Then came forward the priestess with
a tiny moresque table, which she set
amongst the party, after which she
brought three cups and three saucers
and a tiny teapot and poured the steam
ing tea from it into the three cups she
placed upon a small salver, She offered
the three to the groom and the bride’s
parents first, which they drank “in con
cert" with much pomp and ceremony.
Then the bride and groom’s parents had
their bitter share meted out to them and
in their turns the bride’s maids. Fach
looked critically into her cup. raised it
—all three in exact unison—quaffed it
with, it seemed to me, an extravagant
throw.ng back of marvelously coiffured
heads, and ended with another searching
glattco into the cup. Then followed the
eating of rice alls, which, at a given
signal, the company thrust hastily iDto
their mouths and ate ravenously indeed.
I feared oue dark-eyed damsel would
choke upon the boiUd grain.
By this time, we, the invited guests,
were provded with cups of sugarless
tea, which we drank w.th as seemly
countenances as we could command, and
were told that each guest was to take his
dainty cup and saucer home with him—
or her—as a remembrance of this odd
festival. ,
After all were served the priestess pre
sented a two spouted teapot to bride and
froom, from which spouts each in turn
rank. This was the real solemnization
of the marriage; audits meaning, that
they were to share the sweet and bitter of
life together, was quite apparent—
though I doubt that the sweet, save in
one’s imagination—were there.
Then the wedding party, after much
more salaamiug and bending of closely
wrapped bodies, tiled out in silent pro
cess on to go to the bridegroom’s house
—a ceremony most important. I was
told that after that the young husband
went home with his Miuo to live, and
that he not only took the bride’s name
instead of her taking his, but adopted
also the business and vocation cf his
father-in-law.
Surely the Japanese are our antipodes
in every way—think of a young husband
buying a coffin for himself as an article
of furniture the very first thing! Aftera
year or so the young folks move into a
house of their own—co lin and all; and
there with their simple houskeeping ef
fects and their ghastly “memento mori”
goto work at home—making for them
selves.
But the sight of that odd little train
—the prodigious bows -the rich habili
ments—the waving funs, the graceful
figures will be a picture I shall gladly
hang on the walls of memory’s lumber
room.
Razors Affected By Electricity.
The statement recently made by a
barber of Chicago—viz.: that electricity
affects the edge of razors—seems to be
concurred in Jay a number of tonsorial
professionals. A Kansas City barber
thinks that “the electrical currents with
which the atmosphere is filled, together
with the personal magnetism of the per
son shaved, are the causes of the tem
porary loss of edge in many razors.
France owns five of the islaads of the
West Indies, a colony in South America,
and her citizens have for sevetal years
past been building a ship canal across
Central America.
AUNT MARTHA’S SPINNING
WH£EL.
With spider-webbing tattered
In travesties of lace,
Mid treasures years have scattered—
Onctf miracles of grace—
Imploring Time to spare it
With rnsty tongue of steel,
Behold it in the garret—
Aunt Martha’s spinning-wheel.
With slow and pensive fingers
I wipe tne webs away,
While loving Fancy lingers
To paint an olden day.
When youth and beauty crowned it
What gay songs used to peal 1
Now crickets wail around it—
Aunt Martha’s spinning-wheeL
I softly touch the treadle;
It gives a plaiutive squeak;
It begs me not to meddle,
In murmurs sad and meek.
Alas! the feet that litbely
Once twinkled through the reel,
No more shall pat it blithely—
Aunt Martha's spinning-wheel.
How off its noisy turning
Hath served a lover’s need,
And kept Ago from discerning
What only Youth should heedl
’Twould drown both vows and kisses
That lovers love to steal;
A dear old treasure this is—
Aunt Martha’s spinning-wheel.
For fear of house adorner
In search of bric-a-brac,
Far in the garret corner
With sighs I put it back;
And there just as I found it,
I leave for wo or weal
With ghosts to glide around it
Aunt M irtha’s spinning-wheel.
—Samuel Min turn Peck, in Independent.
HUMOR OF THE DAY.
A cold deal—The ice trust.
Current literature—The theory of the
tides.
A pig is well supplied with brains; in
fact, he has a hog’s head of them.
Isaac Walton did not spoil the child
—at least he didn’t spare the rod.
The most melancholy spectacle in the
world is a cold paucake.— Siftings.
There are few brass bands who can
play as many airs as the drum major
puts on. '
'lhe mirror, unlike many of its adher
ents, doesn’t force its reflections upon
us.— Life.
Many people are still keeping diaries
for 1889, but they are stationers. — New
York News.
A pupil in a boys’ school lately defined
numeration as “the process of multiply
ing one number together.”
He—“ Why can t you love me?” She
—“Because I hear some other girl re
fused you.” — New Yor* Sun.
When Bismarck grasps Samoa’s isle,
And from her rulers trees her,
’Tis that he may in great south seas
Be called the Great South Seizor.
Yankee Blade.
Now we know why a Jap wears such
a pained look on his face. The Japanese
cucumber is over three feet long.— New
Y rk Journal.
Malicious. “Tell me, is your wife
curious?” “She? I. really believe she
came into the world only out of pure
curiosity.”— FUegende Blaetter.
Stranger (in the court room) —“What
time have you got, please?” Prisoner
(at counsel’s table —“I can tell you
better after the tiial.”— Jeweler's Weekly.
He’d studied till wisdom
Had soaked him clear through.
Yet he never cou'd learn
W hen his board bill was due.
\jeichan l Traveler.
Mother (to seven-year-old daughter)—
“( arrie.i what makes you look so sad?”
Carrie—“l'm thinking what a bother that
little brother of mine will be to me
about ten years from now, when I enter
society and have a beau.”— Siftings.
Descriptions often ten amiss
The jester shows a wordy sport,
For palest man.are toinetimes flush,
The tallest char, is often short.
- r ' — 'Sen hunt Traveler.
Teacher--“ What does Condillac say
about brutes in the scale of beings"
Seminary Girl—“He says a brute is an
imperfect man.” Teacher —“And what
is mans" Seminary Girl—“ Man! Oh,
man’s a perfect brute!”— Spotted Cayuse.
Polite ( lerk (showing goods)—“Here
is something I would like to call your
attention to, lady. It’s the very latest
thing out.” Mrs. Rounder (absently)
—“lf there’s anything out later than my
husband I’ll take it, if only for a
curiosity.”
We are never weary of reading a good
epitaph—one which indicates the work
of a lifetime in a few short, crisp words.
Here is one, for instance, which needs no
explanation. It was inscribed on a tomb
of a cannibal: “He loved his fellow
men I”
Miss Cazenove —“Who is it, Parker?”
The New Man—“lt’s that Lor-rd Seven
rich, me leddy.”—Misses Cazenove
(breathlessly) —“Show him up!” The
New Man —“All th’ daily papers did that
this mor-rnin’, savin’ yure presence, but
Ol’ll do it again, if ye say so.”— Time.
Dealer (to clerk) —“What did that
young lady want, James?" Clerk—.
“She asked for anatomical brussels car
pets, and I told her we hadn’t such a
thing.” Dealer—“ Great Scott, James,
that young lady is from Boston! She
wanted body brussels, and we’ve |got an
overstock of ’em.”
Even fowls will ape humanity; two roosters
met and passed
The time of day, as sadly as if each breath
were their last;
Each was too fat to crow; but said “As sure
as lam born,
All I can show for my year’s werk is a good
crop of corn.’’
—Siftings
“And so,” said ho, bitterly, when he
realized that she had rejected him, “and
so you have been liirting heartlessly with
me all the while. Well, thank Heaven,
I have found you out at last ” “Yes,”
she replied, “you have; and, what la
more, I think you will always find me
out hereafter when you call.”
The first chapter in a novel has the
following: “And so the fair girl con
tinued to sit on the sand, gazing upon
the briny deep, on whose hea’ ing bosom
the tall ships went merrily by, freighted
—ah; who can tell with how much of
joy and sorrow, and pine lumber and
emigrants, and hopes and salt fish?”—
Mercury .