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A. Eq&AR WI3C.
The cruiser Bennington was storm
tested off Cape Ilatteras, and found,
congratulates Once a Week, to be all that
we claim for her—-a fast and seaworthy
gun-boat that neither tempest nor wavo
can disconcert.
The Canadians are troubled because
the exodus to this side takes the best ele¬
ment of the population. It is believed
the census of last year will show more
than a million Canadians in the United
States, or one-fifth of the population of
Canada.
Professor Thomas E. Edison’s latest
suggestion is the most stupendous, thinks
the Washington Star, of any he has
made. He says that by surrounding a
mountain of magnetic ore with wire, it
would be possible to hear sounds from
the sun. It would be going to a good
deal of trouble, .adds the Star, merely for
the sake of hearing a loud noise.
The people of Iceland are the latest to
be affected by the general spirit of dis¬
content that pervades Europe, observes
the Philadelphia Record. Numbers of
them have within the last few years set¬
tled in Manitoba, and it is now said that
there will be a large immigration to
Alaska. The Icelanders have long been
itriving to secure autonomy in their
borne affairs, but so far the mother
country, Denmark, has refused them a
fuller measure of legislative power.
Charles H. Moore, a prominent lum¬
berman ol Galveston, Texas, contem¬
plates, it is said, the shipping of a hugfl
raft of logs from Galveston to London,
He thinks there is les3 risk in this trip
than in shipping from St. Johns, New
Brunswick, to New York. Old sea cap¬
tains assure him that his plan is entirely
feasible. It is proposed to build the raft
In three sections, firmly lashed and
spiked together. It will be composed
of yellow pine for building purposes.
The London Financial Times place*
the European wheat crop at 1,068,000,
000 bushels this year, a decrease of 263,.
000,000 bushels from 1890. It esti¬
mates the net decrease in the wheat crop
of the world at 78,000,000 bushels. The
net requirements of importing countries
are put at 467,000,000 and the surplus
of exporting countries at 390,000,000
busheb. It concludes that the deficit in
wheat, as well as the larger deficit in the
rye crop, must be made up by imports oi
corn and provisions from America.
The following sentence from a lettei
from one of out friends in West Africa,
remarks the New York Observer , shows
how some of our missionaries live: “1
think it would greatly add to our live)
and strength to have fresh meat once
in two months instead of once in two
years, as has been about the average
since we came to Africa. ” This state¬
ment was made in view of the fact that
there is now a better prospect of securing
a supply of animal food at Kamondongo.
Such provision is most desirable, and
we are happy to learn that it can prob¬
ably be met.
Notwithstanding the improved me¬
chanical prrecautions, the greater skill of
employes, and the close
which corporations, in their own interest,
are bound to maintain, the frequency of
railway accidents is said to be increasing
in this country. The long series of
aerioua wrecks this summer is strong
evidence of the truth of this statement.
A fact which must work to that end is
the deterioration of roadbeds. One of
the disasters which occurred on Western
railroads this summer was manifestly due
to the insecure condition of the rails.
'The railway authorities of the State in
which it occurred notified the officers of
the corporation that they must see to it
that the road was properly repaired, or
forfeit their franchise. The railway
company’s officers replied that the road
did not pay and therefore did nol
warraut them in making the expenditures
necessary to keep it in good physical
condition, which was tantamount to an
acknowledgment thet the road had nol
been kept in a condition fit for use. This
is no doubt an isolated case, but it is
probable that many railways constructed
in this country during the liat twentj
years are getting to that where repairs
are neceesarv.
the mightiest water power.
Boast not of the roaring river,
Of the rocks its surges shiver.
Nor of torrents over precipices hurled,
For a simple little tear drop,
That you cannot even hear drop,
Is the greatest water power in the world.
—Chicago Tribune.
A CONSUMING FIRE,
BY C. A. P. AND B. W. P.
He is a man who has failed in this
life, and says he has no chance of suc¬
cess in another; but out of the fragments
of his failure he has pieced together for
himself a fabric ot existence more satis¬
fying than most of us make of our suc¬
cesses. It is a kind of triumph to look
as he does, to have his manner, and to
preserve his attitude toward advancing
years—those dreaded years which he
faces with pale but smiling lips.
If you would see my friend Hayden,
commonly called by his friends the con¬
noisseur, figure to yourself a tall gentle¬
man of sixty-five, very erect still and
graceful, gray headed and gray bearded,
with fine gray eyes that have the storm
tossed look of clouds on a windy March
day, and a bearing that somehow im¬
presses you with an idea of the gracious
and pathetic dignity of his lonely age.
I myself am a quiet young man, with
but one gift—I am a finished and artistic
listener. It is this talent of mine which
wins for me a degree of Hayden’s es¬
teem and a place at his table when he
has a new story to tell. His connoisseur
ship extends to everything of human in¬
terest, and his stories are often of the
best.
The last time that I had the honor of
dining with him, there was present, be¬
sides the host and myself, only his close
friend, that vigorous and successsul man,
Dr. Richard Langworthy, the eminent
alienist and specialist in nervous diseases.
The connoisseur evidently had something
to relate, but he refused to give it to us
until the pretty dinner was over. Hay¬
den’s dinners are always pretty, and he
has ideals in the matter of china, glass,
and napery which it would require a
woman to appreciate. It is one of his
accomplishments that he manages to live
like a gentleman and entertain his friends
on an income which most people find
quite inadequate for the purpose.
After dinner we took coffee and re¬
fused cigars in the library.
On the table, full in the mellow light
of the great lamp (Hayden has a distaste
for gas), was a bit of white plush on
which two large opals were lying. One
was an intensely brilliant globe of broken
gleaming lights, in which the red flame
burned strongest and most steadily; the
other was as large, but paler. You would
have said that the prisoned heart of fire
within it had ceased to throb against the
outer rim of ice. Langworthy, who is
wise in gems, bent over them with an ex¬
clamation of delight.
“Fine stones,” he said; “where did
you pick them up, Hayden?”
Hayden, standing with one hand on
Langworthy’s shoulder, smiled down on
the opals with a singular expression. It
was as if he looked into beloved eyes for
an answering smile.
“They came into my possession in a
singular way, very singular. “When I
was in the West last summer, I spent
some time in a city on the Pacific slope
which has more pawnbrokers’ shops and
that sort of thing in full sight on the
prominent streets than any other town of
the same size and respectability that I
have ever seen. One day, when I had
been looking in the bazars for something
a little out of the regular line in Chinese
curios and didn’t find it, it occurred to
me that in such a cosmopolitan town there
might possibly be some interesting things
in the pawn shops, so I went into one to
look. It was a common dingy place,
kept by a common dingy man with
shrewd eyes and a coarse mouth. Talk¬
ing to him across the counter was a man
of another type. Distinction in good
clothes, you know, one is never sure of.
It may be only that a man’s tailor is dis¬
tinguished. But distinction in indiffer¬
ent garments, that is distinction indeed,
and there before me I saw it. A young,
. slight, carelessly dressed man, his bear¬
ing was attractive and noteworthy beyond
anything I can express. His appearance
was perhaps a little too unusual, for the
contrast between his soft straw-colored
hair and wine-brown eyes was such a
striking one that it attracted attention
from the real beauty of his face.
“On the desk between the two men
lay a fine opal—this one,” said Hayden,
touching the more brilliant of the two
stones. “The younger man was talking
eagerly, fingering the gem lightly as he
spoke. I inferred that he was offering
to sell or pawn it.
“The proprietor, seeing that I waited,
apparently cut the young man short. He
started, and caught up the stone. ‘I'll
give you—’ I heard the other say, but
the young man shook his head, nothing and de¬
parted abruptly. I found that
I wanted in the place, and soon passed
out.
“In front of a shop window a little
fuither down the street stood the other
man, looking listlessly in with eyes that
evidently saw nothing. As I came by he
turned and looked into my face. His
eyes fixed me as the Ancient Mariner’s
did the Wedding Guest. It was and an ap¬
pealing yet commanding look, I—
felt constrained to stop. I couldn’t help
it, you know. Even at my age one is
not beyond feeling the force of an im¬
perious attraction, and when you are past
sixty you ought to be thankful on your
knees for any emotion that is imperative
in its nature. So I stopped beside him.
I said: ‘It was a fine stone you were
showing that man. I have a great fond¬
ness for opals. May I ask if you were
oilering it for sale?’
“He continued to look at me, inspect¬
ing me calmly, with a fastidious expres¬
sion. Upon my word, I felt singularly
honored when, at the end of a minute or
two, he said: ‘I should like to show it
to you. If you will come to my room
with me, you may see that,and another;’
and he turned and led the way,I follow¬
ing quite humbly and gladly, though
rather surprised at myself.
“The room, somewhat to my astonish¬
ment, proved to be a large apartment, a
front room high up in one of the best
hotels. There were a good many things
lying about that obviously were not hotel
furnishings, and the walls, the bed, and
even the floor were covered with a litter
of water-color sketches. Those that I
could see were admirable, being chiefly
impressions of delicate and fleeting at¬
mospheric effects.
“I took the chair he offered. He
stood, still looking at me,apparently not
in haste to show me the opals. I looked
around the room.
“•You are an artist?’ I said.
t Oh, I used to be when I was alive,’
he answered, drearily. ‘I am nothing
now.’ And then turning away he fetched
a little leather case, and placed the two
opals on the table before me.
“ ‘This is the one I have always
worn,’ he said, indicating the more bril¬
liant. That chillier one I gave once to
the woman whom I loved. It was more
vivid then. They are strange stones.’
“He said nothing more, and I sat in
perfect silence, only dreading that he
should not speak again. I am not making
you dnderstand how he impressed me.
In the delicate, hopeless patience of his
face, in the refined, uninsistent accents
of his voice, there was somehow struck a
note of self-abnegation, of aloofness from
the world, pathetic in any one so young.
“I am old. There is little in life that
I care for. My interests are largely
affected. Wine does not warm me now,
and beauty seems no longer beautiful,
but I thank heaven I am not beyond the
reach of a penetrating personality. I
have at least the ordinary instincts for
convention in social matters, but I assure
you it seemed not in the least strange to
me that I should be sitting in the private
apartment of a man whom I had met
only half an hour before, and then in a
pawnbroker’s shop, listening eagerly for
of matters wholly personal to
It struck ms as the most natural
and charming thing in the world. It
was just such chance passing intercourse
as I expect to hold with wandering
spirits on the green hills of paradise.
“It was some time before he spoke
again.
“ H first,’ he said, looking at
the paler opal, as if it was of that he
spoke, ‘on the street in Florence. It
was a day in April, and the air was liquid
gold. She was looking at the Campa¬
nile, as if she were akin to it. It was
the friendly grace of one lily looking at
another. Later, I met her as one meets
other people, and was presented to her.
And after that the days went fast. I
think she was the sweetest woman God
ever made. I sometimes wonder how
He came to think of her. Whatever you
may have missed in life,’ he said, lifting
calm eyes to mine, and smiling a little,
‘you whose aspect is so sweet, decorus,
and depressing, whose griefs, if you have
griefs, are the subtle sorrows of the old
and unimpassioned’—I remember his
phrases literally. I thought them strik¬
ing and descriptive,” confessed Hayden
—‘ 1 ‘I hope you have not missed that
last touch of exaltation which I knew
then. It is the most exquisite thing in
life. The Fates must hate those from
whose lips they keep that cup.’ He
mused awhile, and added, ‘There is
only one real want in life, and that is
comradeship—comradeship with the di¬
vine, and that we call religion; with the
human, and that we call love.’
“ ‘Your definitions are literature,’ I
ventured to suggest, ‘but they are not
fact. Believe me, neither love nor re¬
ligion is exactly what you call it. And
there are other things almost as good in
life, as surely you must know. There is
art, and there is work which is work
only, and yet i3 good.’
“ ‘You speak from your own experi¬
ence?’ he said, simply.
“It was a home thrust. I did not,
and I knew I did not. I am sixty-five
years old, and I have never known just
that complete satisfaction which I be¬
lieve arises from the perfect performance
of distasteful work. I said so. He
smiled.
“ ‘I knew it when I set my eyes upon
you, and I knew you would listen to me
and my vaporing. Your sympathy with
me is what you feel toward all forms of
weakness, and in the last analysis it is
self-sympathy. You are beautiful, not
strong,’ he added, with an air of finali¬
ty, ‘and I—I am like you.’
“I enjoyed this singular analysis of
myself, but I wanted something eke.
“ ‘You were telling me of the opals,’
I suggested.
“ ‘The opals, yes. Opals While always made
me happy, you know. I wore one,
I felt that a friend was near. My father
found these in Hungary, and sent them
to me—two perfect jewels. He said they
were the twin halves of a single stone. I
believe it to be true. Their mutual rela¬
tion is an odd one. One has paled as
the other brightened. You see them now.
When they were both mine, they were
of almost equal brilliancy. This,’ touch-
ing the paler, ‘is the one I gave to hers
You see the difference in them now. Hev-s
began to pale before she had worn it a
month. I do not try to explain it, not
even on the ground of the old supersti¬
tion. It was not her fault that they made
her send it back to mo. But the fact re¬
mains; her opal is fading slowly; mine is
burning to a deeper red. Some day hers
will be frozen quite, while mine—mine
—’ his voice wavered and fell on silence,
as the flame of a candle fighting against
the wind flickers and goes out.
“I waited many minutes for him to
speak again, but the silence was ua
broken. At last I rose. ‘Surely you did
not mean to part with either stone,’ I
said.’
“He looked upas from a dream. ‘Part
with them? Why should I sell my soul?
I would not part with them if I were
starving. I had a minute’s temptation,
but that is past now.’ Then, with a
change of manner, ‘You are going?’ He
rose with a gesture that I felt then and
still feel as a benediction, ‘Good-by. I
wish for your own sake that you had not
been so like my poor self that I knew
you for a friend.’
“We had exchanged cards, but I did
not see or hear of him again. Last week
these stones came to mo, sent by some
one here in New York of his own name
—his executor. He is dead, and left me
these.
“It is here that I want your counsel.
These stones do not belong to me, you
know. It is true that we are like, as
like as blue and violet. But there is
that woman somewhere. I don’t know
where, and I know no more of their
story than he told me. I have not cared
to be curious regarding it or him. But
they loved once, aud these belong to her.
Do you suppose they would be a comfort
or a curse to her? If—if—” the connois¬
seur evidently found difficulty in stating
his position. “Of course I do not mean
to say that I believe one of the stones
waned while the other grew more bril¬
liant. I simply say nothing of it; but I
know that he believed it, and I, even I,
feel a superstition about it. I do not
want the light in that stone to go out, or
if it should, or could, I do not want to see
it. And, besides, if I were a woman,
and that man had loved me so, I should
wish those opals.” Here Hayden looked
up and caught Langworthy's amused
tolerant smile. He stopped, and there
was almost a flush npon his cheek.
“You think I am maudlin—doting, I
see,”he said. “Langworthy, I do hope
the Lord will kindly let you die iu the
harness. You haven’t any taste for
these innocent green pastures where we
old fellows must disport ourselves, if we
disport at all. Now, I want to know if
it would be—er—indelicate to attempt
to find out who she is, and to restore the
stones to her?”
Langworthy, who had preserved
throughout his usual air of strict scien¬
tific attention, jumped up and began to
pace the room.
“His name?” he said.
Hayden gave it.
“I know the man,” said Langworthy,
almost reluctantly. “Did any one who
ever saw him forget him? He was on
the verge of melancholia, but what a
mind he had!”
“How did you know him, Lang¬
worthy?” asked Hayden, with pathetic
“As a patient. It’s a sad story. You
like it. You had better keep your
without the addition of auy of the
facts.”
“Go on,” said Hayden, briefly.
“They live here, you know. He was
the only son. He unconsciously ac¬
the morphine habit from taking
of the stuff for neuralgic
during a severe protracted
After he got better, and found
what had happened to him, he came to
me. I had to tell him he would die if
he didn’t break it off, and would prob¬
ably die if he did. ‘Oh, no matter,’ he
said. ‘What disgusts me is the idea that
it has taken such a hold of me.’ He did
break it off, directly and absolutely. I
never knew but one other man who did
that thing. But between the pain and
the shock from the sudden cessation of
the drug, his mind was the unbalanced for a
while. Of course girl’s parents
broke off the engagement. I knew they
were traveling with him last summer.
It was a trying case, and the way he ac¬
cepted his own weakness touched me.
At his own request he carried no money
with him. It was a temptation when he
wanted the drug, you see. It must have
been at such moment, when he contem¬
plated giving up the struggle, that you
met him in the pawn shop.”
“1 am glad I knew enough to respect
him even there,” murmured Hayden, in
his beard.
“Ob, you may respect him, and love
him if you like. He died a moral hero,
if a mental and a physical wreck.
“And the woman?” asked the con¬
noisseur.
“Keep the opals, Hayden; they and
he are more to you than to her. She—
in fact it is very soon—I believe that she
is to marry another man.”
“Who is—”
“A gilded cad. That’s all.”
Lang worthy took out his watch and
looked at it. I turned to the table.
What had happened to the dreaming
stones? Did a light flash across from
cne to the other, or did my eyes deceive
me? I looked down, not trusting what
I saw. One opal lay as pale, as pure, as
lifeless, as a moon-stone is. The other
glowed with a yet fierier spark; instead
of coming from within, the color seemed
to play over its surface in unrestricted
flame.
<<8ee here I” 1 said.
Langworthy looked, then turned hi9
head away sharply. The distaste of tire
scientific man for the inexplicable and
irrational was very strong within him.
But the old man bent forward, the
lamp-light shining on his white hair,
and with a womanish gesture caught the
gleaming opal to his lips. “A kunaan
soul!” he said. “A human soul. —
Harper's Weekly. %
Alaska’s Great Glacier. —1
A sun-burned but jolly party of tour¬
ists arrived »t the Palmer House the
other day. They wore Commodore John
J. Dickerson, of the New York Yacht
Club, his wife aud two children, Miss
G. Seeley and W. H. Chapman. The
travelers are returning east after a two
months’ trip to Alaska and the Yellow¬
stone Park.
“I have traveled from the Hawaiian
Islands to Egypt, but I never beheld a
more beautiful sight than the Nyer
glacier, two miles north of Sitka,” said
the commodore, while at the Palmer last'
evening. “The glacier is one mile wide
and over 200 feet high, and it throws
out the most magnificent colors. I have
seen hundreds of glaciers, but none like
the Neyer. hills of ice
“Generally the monster delicate tint. are
dirty and do not contain a
Not so with the huge mass in Alaska. It
is as clear a3 manufactured cakes of ice,
and contains the most gorgeous colors.!
At the base the color is a beautiful sap¬
phire blue and at the top a snow white.
It was a rough trip to get the re,but I do
not have any regrets for the hardships 1
was compelled to undergo. all
“The Neyer glacier keeps moving
the time at the rate of seventy-five feet a
day. It moves out into the bay where
the water is 200 feet deep, and chunks
of ice as large as the Palmer House fre
quently break off and float away. Some
times a chunk three times at large as the
hotel will break away from the glacier,
and the sound that is made when the
crack in the ice takes place is like the
report of a thousand cannons fired simul¬
taneously. moving
“The reason the glacier keeps
out into the bay and chunks constantly
break away is because of the enormous
pressure behind the mass, The ice that
constantly keeps accumulating behind
the glacier,which is situated in a kind of
ravine a mile wide, weighs millions of
tons, and room must be made for it.”—
Chicago Tribune.
Russia is the Rye Country.
Russia is the rye-producing country of
the world. The crop is very poor, and
the Czar lias commanded that none of it
shall be exported. The Germans, who
eat rye and not wheat, are alarmed. The
soldiers are grumbling seriously at the
prospect of being obliged to feed upon
wheat bread, this year. Incidentally, the
few millions of bushels of rye grown in
the United Btrtes have advanced in
value.
It is very curious to observe how the
different nations eat different grains. In
the United States we feed largely upon
corn, which in England is thought to be
only good for horses. A very few years
ago we ate no oats; at present we con¬
sume more oatmeal than does any other
people. We don’t care much for rye,
except for distilling into whisky, and so
our production of it is comparatively
small. Germany and Russia eat rye,
while all western Europe feeds upon
wheat. Go into a German beer-saloon,
and it is always rye bread that you will
find upon the bar. China and Japan
choose rice for their grain. So does
India. The latter also is a large con¬
sumer of millets—grassy-looking cereal
plants, which are only considered fit for
forage in this country.— Boston Tran¬
script.
A Human Footprint in a Stone.
On May 13, 1882, Mr. John B. Wig¬
gins, of Waverly, N. J., while searching
for ethnological specimens on top of Blue
Mountain, Perry County, Pennsylvania,
discovered what is now believed to be
the earliest trace of man in America. It
is a piece of stone composed of meia
morphic lime, about nine and a half
inches thick, nine inches long, four
indhes wide, and weighs six pounds. In
the solid rock is the perfect impression
of the right foot of a man. The foot¬
print is seven and a half inches long,
three and a half inches wide across the
ball of the foot and three inches wide
one-half the distance from the small too
to the heel. The pint is about a half
inch deep, and distinctly shows the toe3,
five in number, the whole being a per¬
fect impression of a shapely foot. Who
was this early American, and in what
age of the world did he step on that
piece of soft clay which has now lieen
transformed into a solid rock?— St. Louis
Republic.
A Moose Horn Grafted Into a Tree.
Something of a curiosity is on ex¬
hibition in a show window at D. J. Hen
nessy’s. It consists of a very large
moose horn, grafted into a base of a
tree. It has been in that position for
years, as the tree has grown around it so
as to get such a grip on it that cutting
the wood away is the only means of
separating the two. It was found near
the Kitty O’Brien mine on the High
lands, south of town, by Tom Gordon.
It is evident that at some remote period of
a huntsman was chasing the monarch
the woods, who, in running away, was
caught in a tree and in trying to extri
cate himself the horn was broken off.—
Butte ( Montana) Inter-Mountain.