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“CONSCIENCE FUND." Mysterious Contributions Sent to Washington. From Two Cents to Thousands of Dollars Received. The United States Treasury receives many mysterious contributions sent in by unknown persons whose conscience accuses them of having swindled tho government in one way or another. Most of the frauds thus rectified are committed against the customs and internal revenue laws. The majority of people seem to regard the govern¬ ment as they do a corporation, which having neither a soul to be saved or a body to be kicked, may be cheated to any extent justifiably; but now and then an individual turns up who got a worried about it afterwards. Such penitents send the amounts they think they owe to Washington usually, where the sums pass through the hands of the bureau of public money into the Treasury. Contributions of this sort as low as a two-cent stamp are received, while sometimes they are as high as several thousand dollars. A while ago eight halves of as many $1000 notes came in, accompanied by a notifica¬ tion that the remaining halves would follow if acknowledgment was made of the receipt of the first consign¬ ment. Some of the communications arc rather amusing. One correspondent writes from Erie, Pa: “Inclosed find $40 which I return to the government, having beaten her out of that amount in minor ways from time to time.” Another sends $200 saying: “This is on account of amount I defrauded tlie government of and which I have paid back, thank God!” An old soldier, who is regarded as a regular customer, sends $5 from time to time on account of $100, which, he writes, “I obtained by unfairness seventeen or eighteen years ago, as well as I can remember, and which I hope to liquidate. I give my God the benefit of the doubt, relying on his boundless mercy.” Another penitent incloses $10 and says: “This money is to be placed in the United States Treasury to the credit of an unknown debtor. Pay this money where it belongs and keop your record clear.” A person whose conscience is in proportion to his means sends $4905, accompanied simply by a scrap of pa¬ per with “conscience” scrawled upon it. Two postage stamps are inclosed in a wrapper on which is written: “Money that belongs to the govern¬ ment.” Similarly a woman sends from France $20, with the words “C’est potirie tresorio.” A case of smug¬ gling repented, doubtless. An unintentional and very con¬ scientious smuggler $1.26 iu a paper with the words, “Duty on five pairs of gloves, visible but not taxed.” The very small contributions sent in this way are probably in most in¬ stances acknowledgments for having used government paper for private purposes, for having utilized canceled stamps to carry a letter or some such peccadilloes. The Treasury is often bothered for money by people in whose family traditions exist to the effect that a great-grandfather or a granduncle de¬ posited with the institution ever so long ago sums which have since mounted to fabulous proportions. It is desired by the heirs, very naturally, that their inheritance shall be dis¬ tributed, and they sometimes go so far as to threaten legal proceedings. These money myths are preserved bv gener¬ ation after generation, and those con¬ cerned never seem to lose faith in them altogether. Think of the imaginary treasures that have been heaped up in he Bank of England for centuries merely waiting their long-sought own¬ ers to come and claim the golden bean stalk 1—[Washington Star. One Rock Avoided. Mrs. Tiptop—How iu the world did you persuade yourself to marry a baker ? Mrs. Van Oven (formerly Mrs. I)c Fine)—I determined that for my sec¬ ond husband I should mafry a man who could hake his own biscuits.— i New York Weekly. A MeeM ulting Saw. General Manager l’otier of the Homestead mills of Carnegie Brothers & Co. has invented a cold-saw for tho purpose of sawing iron and steel, which has proved a great success, and is creating considerable interest. For some years an instrument has been in use, known as the hot saw, that is, it could only cut metal that had been heated to redness, but it is not equal to the new saw brought out by Mr. Potter. The hot saw leaves a burr on one edge, but the new old saw does clean, smooth work and is not very expensive. A reporter had a talk with a gen¬ tleman who had seen the saw at work a short time ago, and secured from him the following description of the new invention: The instrument itself is simply a circular saw of fine steel, tempered somewhat hard and about one-quarter of an inch in thickness at the periphery. It i* ground slightly Biinner at its center to clear itself easier in a deep cut. It is made to re¬ volve at a slow speed, while the old hot saw was run at a high rate and did its work by means of the intense friction created rather teeth. It cuts but one inch a minute. The machine differs from tho ordi¬ nary circular saw in this respect, that it is not tho work that moves up to the saw, but the work is fixed station¬ ery and the saw is made to travel along tho table through it. It is driven by a worm wheel and screw of some four or five feet in length, along which it can be moved easily by hand- screw gear or by self-acting feed gear. The saw runs in a tank of sola- tion, and the greatest cave is necessary in regard to the quality of the mater- ials in this solution. It is made up of ten pounds of whale oil soap, fifteen pounds of sal soda, two gallonsjof lard oil, with water added to make forty gallons of mixture. Tho new saw will be used in cutting tho armor plates for the Government the proper size. A Muscular Minister. Dr. Rainsford, says a correspondent of the Richmond (Ya.) Dispatch, is the most unique figure in New York today as I saw him in Beecher’s old pulpit in Plymouth Church not long ago. Over 6 feet in height, his form is straight and he carries himself with the precision of a German drillmaster. Ills sparse hair was carefully parted in the middle. His countenance was open and frank, and iiis eyes beamed through a pair of pebble pince nez. Dr. Rainsford is a perfect type of the English'parson whom Anthony Trol¬ lope loved to depict. He is a Londoner by birth. His cheeks bear the glow of ruddy health. He is a fine oars¬ man, a good cricketer, as enthusiastic an angler as ever whipped a stream, and he can ride to hounds, box or do a twenty-live miles’ walk a day with¬ out turning a hair. His church is very large and lias ho end of societies and relief committees at work. His con¬ gregation numbers nearly three thou¬ sand persons. He is popular with the young and an advocate of the people’s pleasure, indeed, an enlarged edition of Walter Besant, and he would like to have a people’s palace in every city in the Union. Making Her Proud. He was a carpet-cleaning man and lie had solemly agreed to have every¬ body’s carpet cleaned and sent home by Tuesday. lie sat in his basement office Tuesday afternoon when a wo¬ man entered and curtly demanded: “Well?” “Y'ou are Mrs. Blank of Second avenue?” ‘ ‘I am. ” “Your carpet was to be delivered this morning. “Mrs. Blank, I’m sorry to be obliged to inform you that”— “Your wife is dead, or you had a fire, or the machinery broke down? Those are no excuses, sir.” “Certainly not. The trouble is that your parlor carpet got mixed up with one belonging to a nabob on Fifth avenue and we haven’t got it back yet. The wagon has just gone after it. We sometimes got those elegant fabrics mixed up iu spite of all we can do.” “Oh! That was it! Went to a nabob’s, eh? Well, Mr. Renovator, I know you must bo worked and wor¬ ried almost to death, and if you get it around tomorrow it will be all right.” —[New York World. 0UFFK PHYSIC. Methods of the Chinese to Rid Themselves of Disease. The Remedial Value of Various Insects and Snakes, Chinese drug stoves, which may bo numbered by tho scores in the Mongo¬ lian quarter, are in themselves com¬ plete and unabridged museums of in¬ sects. In the hundreds of neat draw¬ ers which line the walls and in the nu¬ merous jars of fantastic design and barbaric form which ornament those establishments, are to bo found pre¬ served Hies, beetles, bees and every other species of insect life, not to mention every variety of toad, snake and lizard. Every box is carefully la¬ belled with Chinese signs, and the con¬ tents are carefully dried before being stored away for medical use. The Chinese druggist and his clerks wear the same haughty and secretive airs which so become their Caucasian colaborers. Should an ailing fellow- countryman call at the establishment to have his pains relieved and his ills cured he merely steps into the store. The druggist’s knowledge of Mongo¬ lian diseases enables him to diagnose at once where the seat of the suffering man’s ailment lies. The wise and all-discerning pharmacist shrugs his shoulders and mutters a werd or two. A clerk steps up to box and draws forth a dried snake, coiled and lreld in that position by skewers. IIc P asscs U to an aUentlant ’ a,ld whil ° llis P aUcnt is countln ° out thc $2 tho snake is reduced to a powder and P ut a package. 1 ho snl- ferer ^oes his way with a gleam of hope in his eyes, for every Chinese knows that the snake powder is a de¬ termined foe to rheumatic pains. Indigestion, such a baneful disease where cook's do not mind their parts, is cured by a powder of dried horned toad, provided it lias been carefully caught and prepared when tho moon is on the wane. Centipedes, which m life produce agonizing blisters in the neighborhood of their bites, still carry with them in the powdered state tho faculty of raising blisters when made into a poultice. Scorpions, according to the Chinese way of thinking, are invaluable when employed as a remedy for a badly congested liver, which ailment caii only be surmized by the Chinese drug¬ gist to be the one which afflicts his sore and wearied customer. Powdered bees and beetles are Ugli¬ ly regarded by the Chinese physician in the treatment of throat troubles, and if they do not instantly effect a cure oil being taken the patient de¬ serves to suffer. Blood troubles, malignant cancers ami scrofulous diseases hie away when brought into combat with powdered lizard. The materia medica of the Chinese physician would be shorn of much o its value did it not contain a sea-horse. Sea-horse is a general cure-all, and if a Chinese druggist was unable to sup¬ ply his customers with any other rem¬ edy they would stiil have iihplicit faith iu their ultimate recovery if powders of that curious fish were fre¬ quently administered. The grasshopper, which is so dreaded by the farmer in the Western states, is highly valued in its pow¬ dered state by Mongolians. The weak and afflicted Chinese or¬ gans of vision are returned to their normal condition by a poultice of mascerated hornets. Broken limbs rapidly knit together under the beneficent influence of a de¬ coction of cockroaches. It must not he supposed for a mo¬ ment lhat these are all the remedies dispensed by the Chinese druggist. The few mentioned are but the staple remedies which may be found in the medicine chest of every Chinese fam¬ ily. The wily Mongolian, too, does not trust his well being to them alone, but invokes the aid of his house¬ hold deity to rid him of his suffer¬ ings. The evil spirits which constantly beset the pathway of the Mongolian are charged with being tho causes of all diseases. Such a thing as attrib¬ uting physical troubles to bad sewers, being out too late at night or going to the lodge, would not he given the honor of consideration by any Irfgh minded and honorable Chinese. If the gods and insects will not aid him ho closes his eyes in serenity as his end approaches and calmly yields up his spirit—fate has decreed it.—[San Fraucisco Chronicle. Where Nature Is Reversed. Yuma! What recollections the name itself brings up! Yuma, where they dig for wood and climb for water. W r here there are more Mexicans than Americans and more Indians than either. Where the thermometer “sel¬ dom gets above 118 iu the shade,” where tho river is the color of the earth and the earth the color of water, where steamboats run comfortably on moist sand and the prisoners in the penitentiary keep store in the public yard. Where they eat strawberries in January and where tho desert blos¬ soms like the rose, where the rainfall is Jess in a year than it is in Now York in a day, and where the old men pitch pennies and fly kites. Whore the Indian warrior is practically peace¬ ful and where the entire world seems topsy-turvy. Such is Yuma, a picturesque town situated in the heated corner of the world, whore Arizona, California and Mexico meet. There are few quainter or more in¬ teresting places than this singular city —possibly for the same reason that it is so full of paradoxes, all of which exist precisely as I mentioned them, says a writer in the Omaha Worid- llerald. While one hears the liquid Spanish tongue more frequently than the English and gutteral Apache dia¬ lect is heard much more than the voice 0 f u, e Anglo-Saxon, the American as a ma ttcr of course leads the intellectual 1H . ocess i on> He is at present “just humping Yuma,” to use tho local vernacular, and has brought it to the attention of the United States Senate. It has had no Proctor Ivnott to laugh it into prosperity after the manner of Du¬ luth, but it ha9 taken up and coddled its most imposing and unsightly fea¬ tures, thc great Colorado desert, and by that means expects to reach a glory and a greatness that shall make St. Paul and Minneapolis, Tacoma and Seattle hide their diminished heads as progressive and growing cities. Mules the Draft Animals of Australia. “Mules are the draft horses of Aus¬ tralia,” said Charles F. Stansbnry of Melbourne, Australia, at the Sturte- vant House. “This may seem some¬ thing like the Irishman’s remark about riding to Dublin the next time he walked; but it is a fact with us. Any man who can possibly get a good mule will let his horse go every time. A mule is the best riding animal a man can get for a long distance. Very few mules are bred with us, owing to the scarcity of good jacks; but the breed¬ ers are going into the business more and more every year, as it is extreme¬ ly profitable. “A good pair of well coupled 15.2 hands high mules in Melbourne will bring $1000 without any trouble. Mules will pull a load that horses twice their size could not budge. When horse3 find that the load does not inovo they jump back and throw themselves into the collar. A mule will get down on his knees and pull, but the load must come somehow. I am thinking of buying two or three hundred mules here and shipping them to Australia. I have never seen finer animals than those in some of the trucks here. I am told that they come from Tennessee, and am going down there te see how they are bred.”— York Telegram. Chances of Survival. Tho game statistics of these coun tries prove that brute strength, handi¬ capped by bulk, offers a very slim chance of success in the struggle for survival. Of the nine species of large carnivora once abounding in southern Europe and western Asia, seven have almost disappeared, while foxes and minks hold their own without the slightest assistance of protective game- laws. At least ninety per cent, of the east American bear-population has succumbed to powder and lead since the arrival of the first Caucasian colo¬ nists, but raccoons are still found in nine out of ten counties of the Atlan¬ tic States, and squirrels and polecats will probably not disappear before the demolition of the last acre of wood¬ lands.— [Belford. Two Heroes. “To make my fortune X have a plan— I’ll conquer the world,” said the timoroui man. Ho started forth, but a lion ran Into his path: said the timorous man: “The lion will kill me; 1/ I can, I’ll turn back now, I’m a timorous man.” And having tried it once in vain, He never tackled the world again. Then came that way the valorous man Who there his battle of life began. He saw the lion; it roared and ran. Intent to devour the valorous mati, Who drew Ms sword and said: “l ean Kill the lion!” The valorous man The flag of victory then unfurled, And marched on, conqueror of the world! — [Mrs. M. L. Ilayne in Detroit Free Press. HUMOROUS. There is a great future for the nut¬ meg. Never loan you watch to a musician, he has too strong a predilection for keeping time. Every silver lining has its cloud. You can’t earn a half-dollar without working for it. It is hard for the young man who is just learning to rido the bicycle to lead an upright life. No man knows how desperate a women can look until he has seen hei undertake to rido a bicycle. Next to rolling off a log, the easiest thing is to tell other people how they ought to bring uji their children. If we all had the gift to see our¬ selves as others see us, very few of us would be persuaded to act as grand marshal in a holiday parade. It is a mournful commentary on human vanity to see tho mourners looking back, on turning the corners, to see if the procession is worthy of the corpse. Lady (who is about to move, to neighbor’s little boy)—And what will you do when I go away, Sammy, and leave no one in the house? Sammy— Break all the windows. “There’s a good deal of sarcasm In that,” remarked a man suffering from ague, as the druggist handed him a bottle of medicine labeled, “Shake before taking.” “See that fellow over there? He doesn’t know where he’ll get his next meal.” “You surprise me. He looks well-to-do.” “lie is; but he doesn’t know whether lie’ll dine home or at the club.” Ancient Beau: Emma, I think you are charming. Could I persuade you to accept my hand and heart? “Have you said this to my mother?” “Why, yes, twenty years ago, hut I don’t sea how you knew it.” “You have a very fine collection of coins, Bronson.” “Yes.” “Did you sver see an American dollar with two sagles on it and two dates?” “No. Nor you either.” “Yes, I have. It was made up of two halves.” Jones was catechising his newly married friend. “Did you kneel down when you proposed ?” he asked, “No,” replied the friend. “Did you promise to give her all your money every week and to be home every night at dinner?” “No,” answered the friend, “I married a widow.” His moral standard is so high^ be, So high his worthiness must That in the men who pass him by No jot of virtue can he see. Our Sequoia Forests. Counting as forests all areas of a thousand acres and upward, Mr. Frank S. Walker computes that there are now 37,200 acres of Sequoia forest in tho United States, divided as follows: King’s River forest, 7500 acres; Kaweah River, 13,000; Tulo River, 14,000; Kern River, 1700 acres. They are all south of King’s River, and nearly all of they in Tulare County, Cal., and extend over a belt of coun¬ try beginning at Converse Basin on the north, and ending with the Indian Reservation forest. The groves and forests within this region are more than twenty in number, with an aver¬ age distance between them of perhaps three or four miles. Tho southern limit of the Sequoia is the Deer Creek Grove, which contains less than 150 Sequoia, scattered over an area of per¬ haps 300 acres. Too many of thseo noble woods have already passed into the hands of speculators, and are doomed shortly to disappear.-*- [Popu¬ lar Science Monthly.