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REV. DR. TAL11 AGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE’S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject; ‘‘The Gambling Evil.”
Text: “Let My people go that they way
serve Me; for I will at this time send all My
plagues .”—Ex. ix., 13, 14.
Last winter, in the museum at Cairo.
Egypt, I saw the mummy or embalmed
body of Pharaoh, tlie oppressor of the an¬
cient Israelites. Visible are the very teeth
that he gnashed against tho Isrneiitish
brickmakers, the sockets of the merciless
eyes with which he looked upon tlie overbur¬
dened people of God, the hair that floated in
the breeze off the Red Sea, tho very lips witli
which he commanded them to make bricks
without straw. Thousands of years
after, whon tho wrappings of the
mummy were unroiled, old Pharaoh lifted
up bis arm us if in impioration, clutch his but shat¬ his
skinny bones cannot again compel that
tered scepter. It was to tyrant
to let the oppressed go free that the memora¬
ble fen plagues were sent. Sailing the Nile
and wallring amid the ruins those of Egyptian plagues
cities, I saw no remains of
that smote the water or the air. None of
the frogs croaked in the one, none of the lo¬
cust* sounded their rattle m the other, and
the cattle bore no sjgn of the murrain, and
through the starry nights hovering about
the pyramids no destroying angel still swept sting¬ his
wing. But there are and ten plagues cities, and
ing and befouling cursing our only the
like angels of wrath smiting not
first born but the last bom.
Brooklyn, New York and practically Jersey City,
though called three, are one.
The bridge already fastening two of them
together will be followed by other bridges
and by tunnels from both New Jersey aud
Long Island shores, until what is true now
will, as the years go by, become condition more em¬ of
phatically true. The average
public morals in this cluster of cities is as
good if not better than in any other part of
the world. I’ride of city is natural lived to in men
in all times, if they live or have a
metropolis note)' of native dignity Rome, or Lycurgus prowess.
Caesar boasted his
of Sparta, Virgil of Andes, Demosthenes of
Athens, Archimedes of Syracuse, and Paul
of Tarsus. I should suspect a man of base
heartedness who carried about with him no
feeling of complacency in regard to the
place of his residence; behavior; who who gloried looked not in with its
arts or arms or
no exultation upon its evidences of pros¬
perity, its artistic embellishments and scien¬
tific attainments.
I have noticed that men never like a place
where they have not behaved well. Men
who have free rides in prison vans never
likes the city that furnishes the vehicle.
When I see in history Argos, Rhodes, Smyr¬
na, Chios, Colophon and several other cities
claiming Homer, I conclude that Homer be¬
haved well. Let us not war against this
pride of city, nor expect to build up ourselves
by pulling others down. Let Boston have
its commons, its Faneuil Hall and its magni¬
ficent scientific and educational institutions.
Let Philadelphia talk about its mint, and In¬
dependence Hall, and Girard College, and its
old families, as virtuous as venerable. When
1 find a man living in one of those places who
has nothing to say in favor of them, I feel
like asking him, “What mean thing did you
do that you do not like your native city?” I
New York is a goodly city and when say
that I mean the region between Spuyten
Duyvil Creek and Jamaica in one direction
and Newark flats in the other direction.
That which tends to elevate a part elevates
ail. That which blasts part blasts ali. Sin
is a giant, and he comes to the Hudson or
Connecticut River and passes it as easily as
we step across a figure in the carpet. The
blessing of God is an angel, and when it
stretches out its two wings one of them
hovers over that and the other over this.
In infancy the great metropolis was laid
down by the banks of the Hudson. Its in¬
fancy was as feeble as that of Moses sleep¬
ing in the bulrushes by the Nile; and, watched like
Miriam, there our fathers stood and
it. The royal spirit of American commerce
came down to the water to bathe, and there
she found it. She took it in her arms, and
the child grew and waxed strong, and the
ships of foreign lands brought gold itself and dp
spices to its feet, and stretching
into the proportions of a metropolis, it has
looked up to the mountains and off upon the
sea—the mightiest of the energies of Ameri¬
can civilization. The character of the
founder of a city will be seen for many years
in its inhabitants. Romulus Pilgrims impressed his
life upon Rome. The relaxed not
their hold upon the cities Philadelphia of New England.
W illiam Penn has left an in¬
heritance of integrity and fair dealing, and
on any day in that city you may see iu the
manners, customs and principles of its people
his tastes, his coat, his hat, his wife’s bonnet
and his plain meeting house. The Holland¬
ers still wield an influence over New York.
Grand old New York! What southern
thoroughfare was ever smitten by pestilence, them
when our physicians did not throw
selves upon the sacrificd! What distant land
has cried out iu tho agony of famine, and
our ships have not put out with bread3tuffsl
What street of Damascus or Beyrout of or
Madras that has not heard the step our
missionaries! What struggle for national
life in which our citizens have What not poured
their blood into the trenches! gallery
of exquisite art in which our painters department have
not hung their pictures! What
of literature or science to which our scholai ‘3
have not contributed! I need not speak the of
our public schools, where the children of
cordwniner and milkman and glassblower of
stand by the side of the flattered sons
merchant princes; or of the insane asylums
on all these islands where the they tombs, who went
cutting clothed themselves, their among minds; now of
sit, and in right or
the Magdalen asylums, where the lost one
of the street comes to bathe the Saviour’s
feet with her tears, and wipe them with the
hairs of h*r head—confiding in the pardon of
Him who said: “Let him who is without sin
cast the first stone at her.” I need not
speak of the institutions for the blind, the
lame, the deaf and the dumb, for the incur¬
ables, the widow, the orphan, and the out¬
cast; or of the thousand armed machinery
that sends streaming down from the reser¬
voirs the clear, bright, sparkling, God given
water dsshes that rushes through our aqueducts,
and out of the hydrants, and tosses
up in our fountains, and hisses in our steam
engines, and showers out the conflagration, of
and sprinkles from the baptismal font our
churches; sparkle, and crystalline with silver note, and golden hun¬
dreds of and thousands chime, says to in the
of our population,
authentic words of Him who said: “I will;
be thou clean!”
All tbis I promise in opening this course of
sermons lest on the stupid teu jSlagues might of these I three
cities, some man say am
speak deprecating the to-day place of my residence. the plagus 1
to you concerning
of gambling. Every men 'interested and woman in
this house ought to be in this
theme.
Some years ago, when an association for
the suppression of the of association gambling was organized,
an agent came to a prom
inent citizen and asked him to patronize the
society. He said. “No, I can have no into*
est. in such ftn organization. I am in no \Vis«
affected by that evil.” At that very time
his son, wiio was his partner in business, Haarne’s was
one of the heaviest players in fa
irons gambling establishment. Another re¬
fused his patronage on the same ground, not
knowing that his first only bookkeeper, thousand tiiougu dollars, re¬
ceiving a salary fifty o£ a hundred dollars
was losing from to one
per night'. The president patronize of ttie a railroad institution, com¬
pany refused to
saying, “That society is good for the defense
of merchants, but the railroad people are not
injured by this evil;” not knowing that, at
that very time, two of his conductors were
spending three nights of each wee ; at faro
tallies in New York. Directly or indirectly,
this evil strikes at tho who.e world.
Gambling is tho risking of something moro
or less valuable in the hope of winning moro
than you hazard. The instrument o." gaining
mav differ but the principle is the same. The
shuffling and dealing cards, however lull of
temptation, while, is not gambling, the unless hand, stakes
are putup; on other gam¬
bling may he carried on without cards or
dice, or billiards or a ten pin alley. The
man who bets on horses, on elections, on bat¬
tles—the man who deals in “fancy” stocks,
or conducts a business which hazards extra
capital, or goes into transactions without
foundation, but dependent upon what men
call “luck,” isagambler. neighbor Whatever without you ex¬
pect to get from your of¬
fering an equivalent iu money or time or
skill is either the product of theft or gaining.
Lottery tickets and lottery policies come into
the same category. Fairs for the founding
of hospitals, schools and churches, conducted
ou the raffling system, come under the same
denomination. Do not, therefore, associate
gambling necessarily with any instrument,
or game, or time, or place, or think the prin¬
ciple depends upon whether you play for a
glass of wine or one hundred shares of rail¬
road stock. Whether you patronize “auction
pools,” “Frenchmutuals” or “book-making,”
whether you employ faro or billiards, rondo
the and keuo, cards or bagatelle, professes the very idea of
thing is dishonest, for it to be¬
stow upon you a good for which you give no
equivalent. It
is estimated that every day in Chris
tendon eighty million dollars pass from
hand to hand through gambling practices,
and every year in Christendom one hun¬
dred and twenty-three billion one hundred
million There are dollars in this change cluster hands of in cities that about way.
eight hundred confessed gambling estab
Isshments. There are about three thousand
five tmndren professional ganrorers. uuc
of the eight hundred gambling establish¬
ments, how many of them do you suppose
profess to be honest? Ten. These ten pro¬
fess to be honest because they are merely
the ante-chamber to the seven hundred
and ninety that are acknowledged fraud¬
ulent. lishments. There You are first class the gambling marble stairs. estab¬
You ring the bell. go The up liveried servant in¬
troduces you. The walls are lavender tinted.
Tho mantels are of Vermont marble. The
pictures are “Jephthah’s Daughter” and
Dore’s “Dante’s and Virgil’s Frozen Region
of Hell”—a most appropriate selection, this
last, for the place. There is the roulette
table, the finest, the costliest, most exquisite
piece of furniture in the United States. There
is the banqueting room, where, free of charge
to the guests, you may find the plate and
viands and wines and cigars sumptuous be¬
yond Then parallel. to the second class
you come To intro¬ gam¬
bling establishment. card through it you “roper-in.” are
duced by a some
Having entered, you must either gamble quick¬ or
fight. Sanded cards, dice loaded with
silver, poor drinks, will soon help you to get
rid of all your money to a tune in short
meter with staccato passages. You wanted
to see. You saw. The low villains of that
place watch you as you come in. Does not
the panther, squat in the grass, know a calf
when he sees it? Wrangle body not will for your be thrown rights
in that place, or street, your dead into the East
bloody River. into You the along or little further and find
go a
the policy establishment. In that place you bet
on numbers. Betting on two numbers is called
a “saddle,” betting on three numbers is called
a “gig,” betting on four numbers is called a
“horse,” and there are thousands of our
young men leaping into that “saddle” and
mounting the “gig,” and behind that
“horse” riding to perdition. door—“Exchange,” There is always
one kind appropriate of sign on the title for the door, for
a most
there, in that room, a man exchanges health,
peace and heaven for loss of health, loss of
home, loss of family, loss of immortal soul.
Exchange sure enough and infinite enough.
Men wishing to gamble will find place* in
just suited to their capacity, cellar, not only tha
the underground the oyster curtain, covered or at with
table back of
greasy cards, or in the steamboat smoking
cabin, where the bloated wretch with rings
in his ears instead of his nose, deals the pack,
and winks in the unsuspecting traveler— in
providing free drinks all around—but
gilded parlors and amid gorgeous surround¬
ings.
Again, this sin works ruin by killing indus¬ hun¬
try. A man used to reaping scores or
dreds or thousands of dollars from the gaming
table will not be content with slow work. He
will say: “What is the use of trying to make
the® fifty dollars in my store when I can get
five times that in half an hour down at
‘Billy’s?’’” You never know a confirmed
gambler who was industrious. The men
given to this vice in spend their time, idleness not ac¬
tively engaged the game, iu or
intoxication or sloop, or in corrupting carpenter’s new
victims. This sin has dulled tha
saw and cut the band of the factory wheel,
sunk tiie cargo, broken the teeth of tha
farmer’s harrow and sent a strange light¬
ning to shatter the battery of the philoso¬
pher. The very first idea in gaming is at
war with all the industries of society.
This crime is hous9 getting its lever under cities, many anil
a mercantile in our great
before long down will come the great estab¬
lishment, crushing reputation, home, oom
fort aud immortal souls. How it diverts and
sinks capital may be inferred from some
authentic statement before us. The ten gam¬
ing houses that once were authorized in Paris
passed through banks, yearly, three hundred
and twenty-five millions of francs. Where
does all the money come from? Tho whole
world is robba i ! What is most sad, there
are no consolations for the loss and suffering
entailed by gaming. pities aud If men society fail commiser¬ in lawful
business, God
ates; but where in the Bible or in society is
there any consolation for the gambler? From
what tree of the forest oozes there a balm that
can soothe the gamester’s heart? In that
bottle where God keeps tho tears of His chil¬
dren are there any tears of the gambler? Do
the winds that come to kiss the faded cheek
of sickness, and to cool the heated brow of
the laborer, whisper hope and cheer to the
emaciated victim of the game of hazard?
Whenau honest man is in trouble he has
sympathy. “Poor fellow!” they say. But
do gamblers gambler? come to weep at the agonies of
the
In Northumberland was one of the finest
estates in England. Mr. Porter owned it,
and in a year gambled it all away. Having
lost the last acre of the estate, he came
down from the saloon and got into his car¬
riage; went back, put up his horses and car¬
riage and town house aud home, played. and He in threw side
and lost. He started a
alley met a friend from whom ho borrowed
ten guineas; went back to the saloon aud be¬
fore a great while had won twenty thousand
pounds. He died at lass a beggar in St.
Giles. How many gamblers felt sorry for
Mr. Porter* Who consoled him on the loss
of his estate? What gatn War subscrioad to
put a stone over the poor man’s grave? Not
one 1
Futherm re, this sin is the source of un
count -1 dishonesties. The game of hazard
itself is often a game of cheat. How many
tricks and deceptions in the dealing of the
cards! The opponent’s hand is ofttinaos
found out by fraud. Cards are marked so
that they may be designated lrom the back.
Expert gamesters have their accomplices,
and one wink may decide thegame. The dice
have been found loaded with p.atina, so that
•■doublets” come up every time. These dice
are introduced by tbe gamblers, unobserved play;
bv honest men who have come into and
tins accounts for the fact that ninety-nine
out of a hundred who gamble, however
wealthy they began, at the end are found to
bo poor, miserable, allowed ragged wretches, the that
would not now be to sit on door¬
step of the house that they once owned. In
a gambling liouso in San Francisco a young
man having just come lrom the mines de¬
posited a large sum upon the ace. and won
twenty-two thousand dollars. But the tide
turns. Intense excitement comes upon the
countenances of all. Slowly the cards went
forth. Every eye is fixed. Not a sound is
heard until the ace is revealed favorable to
the bank. There aro shouts of “Foul!”
* ‘Foul!” but the keepers uproarissilenced of the table produce and the
their pistols, and tbe
bank has won ninety-five thousand dollars.
Do you call this a game of chance? There is
no chance about it.
But these dishonesties in carrying on of
the Tame are nothing when compared with
tlie frauds which are committed in order to
ret money to go on with the nefarious work.
Gambling widow’s with its greedy and hand the has snatched of
away the mite daughter's portion
the orphans; has sold the virtue to
get the means to continue the game; has
written the counterfeit vault' signature, etnp tied
the banker’s money and wielded the
assassin’s dagger. There is no depth of mean
ness to which it will not stoop. There is no
cruelty warning at of which God that it is appalled, will There is no
it not dare. Merci¬
less, unappeasable, fiercer and wilder it
blinds, it hardens, It it rends, it blasts, it
crushes, it damns. has peopled our pris¬
ons and lunatic asylums. How many rail¬
road agents and cashiers and trustees
of funds it has driven to dis¬
grace, incarceration and suicide! Wit¬
ness years ago a cashier of a railroad who
stole one hundred and three thousand dol¬
lars to carry on his gaming practices. Wit¬
Brooklyn ness forty bank thousand dollars stolen from a
within the memory of many
of you, and the one hundred and eighty
thousand dollars taken from a Wall street
insurance company for the same purpose!
Thesa are only illustrations on a large scale
of the robberies every day committed for
the purpose of carrying out the designs of
gamblers. Hundreds of thousands of dol¬
lars every year leak out without observa¬
tion from the merchant’s till into the
gambling hell. A man in London keeping
one of these gambling houses boasted that
he had ruined a nobleman a day; but if all
the saloons of this land wero to speak out
they might utter a moro infamous boast,
for they have destroyed a thousand noble
men a year.
.Notice also the effect of the crime upon
domestic happiness. It has sent its ruthless
til plowshare the wife through hundreds of families, daughters un¬
sat in rage, and the
were disgraced, infamous practices and the sons grew up to the
same or toon a short cut
to destruction across the murderer's scaffold.
Home has lost all charms for the gambler.
How tame are the children’s caresses and a
the wife’s fire devotion to the gambler! How drearily
burns on the domestic hearth 1 Thera
must be louder laughter, and something to
win and something to lose; an excitement to
drive the heart faster and fillip the blood
and fire the imagination. No home, however
bright, call can keep bounds back the gamester. The
sweet of love back from his iron
soul, and all the endearments are consumed
in the flames of his passion. The family
Bible will go after all other treasures are lost,
and if his crown in heaven were put into his
hand ho would cry: “Here goes one mors
game, my boys! On tjiis one throw I
stake my crown in heaven.” A young
man in London, on coming of age,
received a fortune of one hundred aud
twenty thousand dollars, and, through gam¬
bling, in three years was thrown on his
mother for support. An only son went to a
southern city; he was rich, intellectual and
elegant on his departure in manners. from His home parents their last gave bless¬ him
ing. The sharpers got hold of him. They
flattered him. They lured him to the gam¬
ing table, and let him win almost every time
for a good while, and patted him on tlie
back and said, “First rati player.” Butful
ly in their grasp they fleeced him, and his
thirty thousand dollars were lost. Last of
all he put up his watch and lost that. Then
he began to think of his home and his old
father and mother, and wrote thus:
“My Beloved Parents—You will doubtless
feel a momentary joy child at the reception of this
letter from the of your bosom, on
whom you have lavished all the favors of
your declining years. But should a feeling
of joy for a moment spring up in your hearts
when you should have received this from
me, cherish it not. I have fallen deep—
never to rise? Those gray hail's that I
should have honored and protected I shall
bring down with sorrow to the grave. I will
not curse my destroyer, but oh! may God
avenge the wrongs and impositions shall practized
upon the unwary in a way that best
please him. This, my dear parents, is the
last letter you will ever receive from me. I
humbly pray your forgiveness. It is my
dying prayer. Long before you have re¬
ceived this letter from me the cold grave
will have closed upon mo forever. Life to
mo is insupportable. I cannot, nay, I will
not, suffer the shame of having ruined you.
Forget and forgive is the dying prayer of
your unfortunate sou.”
The. old father came to the postofflee, thought got
the letter and fell to the floor. They
he was dead at first; but they brushed back
the white hair from his brow and fanned
him. He had only fainted. I wish he had
been dead, for what is life worth to a father
after his son is destroyed? When things go
wrong at a gaming table they shout: “FoulI
Foul!” Over all the gaming tables of the
world I cry out: “Foul! foul! Infinitely
foul.” gambler?
Shall I sketch the history of the
Lured by bad company he finds his way
into a place where honest his men ought never but
to go. He sits down to first game,
only for pastime and the desire of being
thought sociable. The players deal out
the cards. They unconsciously play into
Satan’s hands, who takes all the tricks and
both the players’ souls for trumps—he being
a sharper at any game. A slight stake is
put up just to add interest to tha play. Game
after game is played. Larger stakes and
still larger. They begin to move nervously
ou theirchairs. Thrir brows lower and eyes
flash, until now they who win and they who
lose, fired alike with passion, sit with set
from their sockets, to sea the final turn be
fore it comes: if losing, pale with envy and
tremulous with unuttorod oaths cast back
red hot upon the heart—or, winning, wub
hysteric laugh-“Ha, ha! I have it! I have
A few years have passed and he is the only the
wreck of aman. Seating himself at game
ere lie throws the first card, he stakes the
sszmZ
The same is lost, and staggering back in ex¬
haustion be dreams. The bright hours of
the past mock his agony, and in liis dreams
fiends with eyes of tire und tongue of flame
circle about him with joined hands to dance
and sing their orgies with hellish chorus,
chanting “Hail! brother!” kissing his clammy
forehead until their loathsome locks, flowiug
with serpents, crawl into his bosom and sink
their sharp fangs and suck up his life’s
biood, and coiling around his heart pinch it
with chilis and shudders unutterable.
Take warning! You aro no stronger than
tens been of thousands who No have by this practice in
overthrown. young man our of
cities can escape being tempted. Bewure
the first beginnings! Thisroad is a down
grade, and every instant increases the mo¬
mentum. Launch not upon this treacherous
sea. Split hulks strew the beach. Everlast¬
ing storms crarts howl into ut) and Hellgate. down, tossing un¬
wary the i speak oa
what I have seen with my own eyes. I liav
looked off into the abyss, and I have seen
the foaming, and tho hissing, and the whirl¬
ing of the horrid deep in which the mangled
victims writhed, one upon another, uud
struggled, strangled, blasphemed and died—
the death stare of eternal despair upon their
countenances as the water gurgled over
them.
To a gambler’s deathbed there comes no
hope. He will probably die alone. His for¬
mer associates come not nigh his dwelling.
W hen the hour comes his miserable soul will
go out of a miserable life into a miserable
eternity. As his poor remains pass tho house
where he was ruined, old companions may
look out a moment and say, “There goes the
old carcass—dead at last,” but they will not
get up from the table. Let him down now
into his grave. Plant no tree to cast its shade
there, for the long, deep, eternal gloom that
settles there is shadow enough. Plant na
“forget-me-not” for flowers or eglantines around th«
spot, blasted were not made to grow on
sue h a heath. Visit it not in the suu
shine, for that would be mockery, but in the
dismal night, wb«n no stars are out and tbs
spirits of darkness come down hors;d on the
wind, then visit the grave of the gambler 1
LIVINGSTON’S LETTER
In Which He Suggests a Regu¬
lation in Crops.
Col. L. F. Livington, president of the
Georgia Alliance, has written the follow¬
ing letter to Colonel L. L. Polk, president
ot the National Alliance:
Atlanta, Ga., February 19, 1891.—
Colonel L. L. Polk, Washington, D. C.—
Hear Brother: I am satisfied that the
alliance organization should endeavor to
so regulate the products of the soil as to
furnish a full supply of the necessities of
life at least, and at the same time avoid
an overproduction iu any given crop. To
do this our farmers must have some means
by which they can understand what the
markets of the world demand, and then
some plan of co-operatton, so as to meet
hese demands w ithout producing a glut
in any given product. A step in this di¬
rection by our order would result, per¬
haps, in an intelligent and safe croppiug
on our part. As an illustration of what
we neecl to do, in my opinion, the cotton
growers of the south should lessen the
cotton production in this (ountrv at least
25 per cent. This would bring the pro¬
duct to a safe limit, ‘1 enhance the
price of tho American si. 'Je at least 20
per cent. At the Mime time the acreage
for other crops should be devoted to such
crops as are needed for home supply id
the utmost possible extent Such a course
would give much better living at home
aud more money for he cotton crop. To
this end I suggest for the cotton belt, at
least, a conference between alliance ofli
cids in conjunction with the
associations officials of other agricultural
at sonic conven¬
ient point for the consider;!:ion of a wise
and . remunerative . cropping, and , ft ., this , .
meets your app: o a ion, I wish you to
call the conference ; ml request the proper
officials of other state organizations to
join you in the cull. Something must be
done to direct and influence our people
iu adjusting certain crops to the demands
of the world before we can calculate upon
certnin and fixed pr fits. This plan
would to some extent cover the difficulty.
I am taking for granted that ibe assertion so
universally made to-day the present
low price of cotton is on account of over
proc fuetion. If ibis be not true a move
in the direction suggested would readily
develop the fact aud enhance the price of
the present crop. Yours fraternally,
L. F. Livingston.
I concur most heartily iu this request
aud suggestion. W. L. Peek.
THE AGENT’S SCHEME
To Influence Legislators Re¬
garding School Books.
A Charleston, W. Va., dispatch says: in
Ed. B. Dyer, of Kanawha county, rose
his place in the house of delegates Tues¬
day and announced that a book agent had
thrust $50 into his vest packet, and that
he regarded the “present” as a “bribe”
to influence his vote on the question of a
change of school books throughout the
stale. Delegate Dyer then hauded the
$50 over to the speaker of the house. An
investigation was ordered, and the
st rgeant-nt-ivms was sent to arrest the
agent. The investigation, it is said, will
involve some who would rather be not
known in this affair.
COTTON STATEMEMT.
Issued by the New Orleans Ex
Cnfillgc.
Crop r statement by the New Orleaus
Cotton exchange, . lssui.ci issm-rl Friri-iv l riduy, from non.
September 1st to February 21.'th inclusive:
Port receipts, 5,CGI,590, against 5,259,-
259 last year; overland to mills and Can
stocks fa. 838,MO, in excess a K of «inst Septemmr 796,158; 1st, mlcjio, 411,
079, against 240,950; southern mill
takings, 332,800,against 231,374; amount
0 f crops brought into sight during 173
^ 7) 245,029, against. 0,026,647;
of crops brought into sight for the week,
145*625, against 76,G23; crops brought
j n ; 0 s jght for tlie first twenty days ' of
**>»* »«.<«•
A TWILIGHT STORY.
"Auntie, will yon tell a story."' said my little
niece of three,
As tho early winter twilight fell around u*
silently,
So I answered to her pleading: "Once, when
I was very small,
With my papa and my mamma I went ont to
make a call;
And a lady, pleased tl * i us, gave me quite
a large bouquet,
Which I carried homeward proudly, smiling
all along the way.
"Soon I met two other children, clad in rags
and sad of face,
Who grew strangely, wildly joyous as I
neared their standing-place.
Tivas so good to see the flowers* ‘Give ns
one—oh, one!’ they cried.
But I passed them without speaking; left
them with their wish denied.
Yet the mem’ry of their asking haunted me
by night and day.
•Give us one1 heard them saying, even in
my mirthful play.
“Still I mourn, because in childhood I re¬
fused to give a flower;
Did not make those others happy when 1 had
it in my power.”
Suddenly I ceased my story. Tears Were in
my niece’s eyes—
Tears of tenderness and pity— while she
planned a sweet surprise:
“I will send a flower to-morrow to those little
children dear.”
Could I tell her that their childhood had
been gone this many a year*
—Mary J. Porter, Harper's Baxar,
HUMOR OF THE DAY,
A peck of trouble—Henpcck.
Can’t be cured—The stage haut.
Brevity is often a sign of the poverty
of wit.
The gilded youth is simply fashion
plated.
Losing caste—An operation for stra¬
bismus.
Sunshine is molasses on the bread tof
nature.— Washington Star.
We hate to see girls throw kisses. Tbs
average girl is such a bad shot.— Mercury .
Take love and taxes out of life, and
not much is left .—Indianapolis Journal.
The man who can’t sing and has a baby
if usually made to sing .—Elmira Qa
sette.
The hand that rocks the cradle is the
hand that wields the slipper a few years
later.— Life.
People who live in glass houses should
raise early vegetables for the New York
markets.— Life.
The New Theory: “Do you believe
in a single tax?” “Not a single tax! ”
—Lowell Citizen.
"ou cannot tell from the number of
-Lf. ’ft h'>W tone- a Mill a do cm will
have .—Norristown Herald.
Funny, when a man starts out on a
business career the more checks he re¬
ceives the sooner he gets there.— Bing¬
hamton Leader.
It is one of the curiosities of natural
history that a ho.’se enjoys his food most
when he hasn’t a bit in his mouth.—
Texas Siftings.
“It seems that lam not in it,” said
the boy to the shark. “No,” replied
the shark, picking its teeth, “you’re out
of sight .”—Chicago News.
What is more pathetic than to see the
simple faith with which a bald-headed
man will buy an infallible hair restora¬
tive from a bald-headed barber*
Canine Person —■ i ‘I am extremely sorry
my dog has bitten your wife,sir. ” Affable
Old Gent—“Don’t mention it, I pray,
sir; I like a dog to be a dog.”— Judy.
The kiss I stole from Eulie,
With my choicest poem ranks;
Beeause, to tell you truly,
It was, “Returned with thanks.”
—Judge.
Barker—“She didn’t return your bow,
did she?” Parker—“No. The next time
I meet her I will explain to her the rea¬
son I was with you.”— Munsey's Weekly.
“That Sallie Harkins is the greatest
girl for getting bargains at second
haiftV” “Isn’t she? I understand she’s
going to marry a widower .’’—New York
Sun.
A lady who advertised for a girl “to
do light housework,” received is letter
from an applicant who said her health
demanded sea air aud asked where the
lighthouse was situated.
M~b. Ilomeseeker—“These apartments certainly
are charming and the price is
reasonable. Are you sure there arc no
nuisances connected with the building?”
Honest Agent—“Well, mum, it has a
juuitor.”
Where Coral Comes From.
The largest quantity and the hand¬
somest corals come from the Algerian
coast. These coral grounds have been
worked since the middle of the sixteenth
centcry. Other coral grounds are found
on the coast of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia,
Spain, the Balearics and Provence. More
than 500 Italian barks and over 4200 per¬
sons are engaged in the coral fishery.
Beside these, French and Spanish barks The
are engaged in the same occupation.
Italian fishermen pay a high royalty to
the French Government for their right
of fishing for corals on the Algerian
coast. There are more than sixty work
shops in Italy, forty of which are in the
little town, Torre del Greco, at the foot
of Vesuvius. These shops give employ¬
ment to about 9000 persons, mostly
women and children.