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SUNDAY MORNINC. Presidents inßented Houses is not the first time that a President of the United R., States has been obliged to oc ggQ cupy temporary quarters on account of repairs at the White House. Such a thing occurred at the beginning of Mr. Arthur’s administra tion when, Garfield having died, the Executive Mansion was put through an elaborate course of renovation, the new Chief Magistrate meanwhile tak ing up his residence in the big house on Capitol Hilt which had been built by Gen. B. F. Butler. This building, now tenanted by the Marine Hospital Service, came in those days to be known as the Gray House. Perhaps the most famous of all dwellings serving as temporary homes fftMmtUCtXT tViPPOH ji of Presidents Is the Octagon House. This picturesque old residence was used by Madison as Executive Man sion after the British had burned the White House. It was here that the celebrated beauty Dolly Madison held her court. In August, 1813, a party f invited guests were sitting down to a banquet in the state dining room of the White House, when a troop of British soldiers hurst in and set fire to the building. The fire made small headway, as a drizzling rain was fall ing, and soon went out. However, on tho next day,- it was rekindled by the British, doing serious damage, so much, in fact, as to make the mansion uninhabitable. The Madisons fled. The next year, 1814, they established their household in the Octagon House, and it becume popularly known as the ''Annex Executive Mansion.” This old residence is of queer shape, being eight-sided, as Its name suggests. It has a fascinating round room on the second floor over the front door, which Dolly Madison used as her boudoir. The dwelling has three stories and a basement, and was allowed to fall Into decay, having been empty for a num ber of years, until comparatively re cently, when it was put in perfect re pair. It is now used for offices, being in a most convenient situation, at the corner of New York avenue and Eighteenth street, only one block away from the War, Stale and Navy departments, gp President Madison occupied the Oc tagon House until tne close of his ad ministration on March 4, ISI7. Pres ident Monroe also lived in this his toric dwelling during the first year of his term. At the end of that period he moved hack into the White House which had been repaired and recon structed and was again ready for hab itation. It had been coated with white paint from root to foundation, aud gets its name from that tact. The reason the Octagon House re mained uninhabited for many years was because it was reported to bo haunted. Many ghosts were said to walk recklessly through the rooms. One of the stories was that great ban quets were held every night in the dining room where the lovely Dolly had entertained so delightfully. An other was of a slave who moaned and oiled at intervals in a most blood curdling way, having been put to death by a cruel master. There was also a cat who roamed up stairs and down. In fact, nobody could be persuaded to live in the dwelling for love or money. Several of the Presidents, including Arthur, Grant and Lincoln, spent a - Sderable part of their time each iTTEfIP&AKV WTt HfllfttT & CUITIEP e\ PKtilMNt K(Vtiy yen' at what ia Known as the "Presi dential Cottage,” at the Soldiers' Home in Washington. In the spring when the city became warm, they would move out of this pretty house, which is situated in an ideal spot, the "Home” being simply a most beauti fully kept park. Another President who moved out of the White House so that it might be renovated was Mr. Buchanan. He occupied a suite of rooms ht the Na tional Hotel, on the second floor, and facing Pennsylvania avenue and Sixth street, as his temporary quarters. It was whilq he was staying at this hos telry that some of the guests were ac cidentally poisoned. The Cat Columns. One of the features in which Eng lish periodicals for women differ from American magazines of the same class is in the "cat column.” There Is a section devoted to cat gossip in many of them, in which well known catteries are described, the good (mints of their inmates aail the moth ods of their owners set forth, and the troubles of correspondents discussed, all with an unconscious grav ity and a dignity of stylo which approach the humorous in American eyes. The illness and con sequent absence from a show of a famous cat is thus gravely chronicled In a recent publication: “She wag prevented from appearing at Edin burgh by an unfortunate accident, having got a fishbone firmly fixed in her nose while eating her supper. She has got well over the effects, barring a slight weakness of the eyes, which will, no doubt, pass off in a day or two.” MORMONS WORK IN ENGLAND, Their Missionaries There Are Gain ing Many Converts. There is commotion at Sarum and the sleepy old city is being roused out of its somnolency by the aggres siveness of the Mormonistic propa ganda, says the London News. The agents of the “Latter Day Saints'" cult have stormed the citadel of Episcopacy and captured some of the pillars of the Church and lights of the Dissenting churches. These dar ing raiders have laved their captives in the classic waters of the Avon at midnight in the chilly months of De cember and January. Strange scenes have been enacted under the stars and in semi-secrecy. There Is wail ing in many homes, and Eliminations from pulpits Episcopal and Noncon formist. On Wednesday evening last the rector of Fisherton sacrificed the Mormon doctrines and pilloried the emissaries. Two of the Mormon eld ers and one of their converts were present, but sat unmoved. On tno authority of the editor of the Salis bury Times the evil is spreading, and there are at least two thousand elders from Salt Lake City in this country actively engaged in proselytizing work. A Supplication. Let me but hold thy hand, And, through the valleys, dark with toil and care And disappointment I would pass with stride That faltered not, and I would count as naught The doubts and fears that now assail me, fraught With whispers of False Hope—twin brother of Despair. I’ll scale ambition's peaks untorriOed, Could I but hold thy hand. Just once, I’d lean back in my little chair And bet the limit sure, wliate’er be tide. Unnumbered stacks of “reds and blues” I’ve bought And lost. You've won all night; I haven't caught A thing to help along a sickly “pair." Give me that “flush," and joy with thee abide: Oh, let me hold that hand! —Charles B. Graves in New York Times. A Good Hater. Two elderly ladies are conversing in the room of an invalid, who is not nearly as ill or as fast asleep ns sue pretends to be. First elderly* lady—Yes. my dear, it’s awful the extent to which some people will carry their spite. 1 was talking to Mrs. Bloggs yesterday about pocr Annie on the bed there and she sox. —you kn< ■ they can't abear one another —she sez, "Well, it anythink should happen.” she sez. “you'd never ketch mo going to her funeral." she sez, "and ” The invalid (loudly)—And you may tell Mrs. Bloggs that if she don’t come to my funeral 1 certainly won’t go to hers. —London King. Hard to Catch. Over on the eastern shore of Mary land in the district represented by Congressman Jackson there was a man who was suffering from a severe case of “shakos,” as they call fever and ague in that country. One morn ing the local physician called on the patient and asked him how he felt. “N-n-not a bit b-b-better,” was the shaking man’s reply, "Your ease is a very peculiar one, and hard to take hold of,” remarked the doctor, sympathetically. “Yes, th—that's so." remarked the patient, trying to smile. "The c-case sh-sh-shakes so l don't w-onder you c-c-an’t get hold of it.”—Washington Post. Queer Place for Petroleum. There is probably no ether city in the world that can show a hospital, with several oil wells in the grounds, within a few yards of the building. This strange sight may be seen in Los Angeles. Cal., a couple of miles from the business center. The wells may be profitable, but whether they are entirely unobjectionable, from a hygienic standpoint, some people would be inclined to doubt. Incident ally it may be mentioned that in the same institution a dozen nurses are recovering from typhoid fever. THE BRUNSWICK DAILY NEWS. c <j) 5a b WEIRD noise broke * upon the stilly Um* night. It sounded Sip like the faint wail a babe in pain, then rose crescen do into the well-de fined caterwaul of a Thomas cat with a powerful alto voice. There came an answering high soprano waii, and the nightly duet was on. Loveson Ahta, the poet, put down his pen, pushed his hands through his abundant hair, drew a little harder at his pipe, and went to the window to gaze out into the moonlight that bathed in its effulgence the pretty vil lage of Dingle in the Myrtles. “I hate cats,” he said. “Confound ’em. Confound all cats —always—cats of all colors, black, w'hite, gray; by night a nuisance, and by day—-con found the cats! Here, I come to this bowery Eden bubbying over with joy at the thought of escaping from the ceasless roar and rattle of the city, to be disturbed by eats! Why, their noise is more destructive to inspire tion, more trying to the nerves than the clanging of a hundred trolley ears. No, the comparison won’t do. There is a certain fascination, a strange, wild, stirring harmony in the diapason of the city’s hum, and in the singing’ of the rushing trolleys. Whereas cats —” He ceased witii a gesture indicating that words failed him in which to ex press his opinion of the offending felines. Mrs. Loveson Ahta, who, while making a pretense of working at some embroidery, had • been rocking hcr , self in contented ■H indolence and Jl. watching the " * changing expres sion on her husband's handsome face as he wrestled with the muse, laughed the little rippling laugh that was one of her many charms, and that from the very first time he had heard it had always been the sweetest music to hts ears. “Well, it can't be helped.” she said. ‘Let Hercules do what he may, the eat will mew.’ ” “There are such things as guns, and airguns at that By Jove, a happy thought! I’ll get one. They say you can kill a cat with an airguu at I don't know how many yards.” “Fie! you wouldn't hurt poor harm less, necessary pussy! Besides, you forget, dear, that a cat has nine lives.” "Oh. no, 1 won’t do a thing to poor pussy. Did you ever hear anything like it in your life?" Loveson Ahta put his lingers in his ears and gazed desperately around for a missile. “And then,” continued his wife, “if you were to shoot a cai you would be lilled with remorse and haunted by a ghostly tabby for the rest of your days. Didn’t 1 see you release a struggling fly from that sticky paper Nora keeps in the kitchen?” “They arc no good, anyway,” per sisted the poet, with growing wrath. "They ought as a public nuisance to be exterminated.” “They catch mice." “Not as well as a mousetrap. And they are cruel and treacherous. They a don't kill sHi ™ as other and self-respecting animals do. but needs must make sport of it and sub ject it to the refinement of torture. And they arc that deceitful and ca pricious you never know how to take them—just like women. Somebody says somewhere that if a cat has nine lives, a woman has nine cats' lives.” "Oh!” “That is. of course, other women. You are not like other women.” "What do you know about other women, pray?” demanded Mrs. Love son Ahta with a suspicion of asperity and flushing slightly. “Nothing, nothing, of course, from personal experience, my dear. But they have the reputation. It’s a well known fact.” “Oh. is it? Indeed!" “Yes, and as I am saying," went on the poet evasively, “they are no good, they are utterly worthless, they are tit for nothing on earth—the cats, I mean.” "Well, manufacturers make muffs and boas 'and all kinds of things with the skins.” "Do they? Then I'm glad to know the brutes serve some useful purpose —when they are dead. Now a dog—” “Never mind about dogs. We are talking about cats, and my purpose is to prove that they are good for noth- w gsggiayf’ "Yes I’ve heard & * of it raining cats and dogs." "In some parts of France they eat cats!” "Peuh!” “You needn't look incredulous —they do. They call them ‘gibier de la rue’— street game—and In a stew you wouldn’t know the difference between a cat and a rabbit." “You have tasted it?” “Oh. no.' denied Mrs. Loveson Ahta. hastily. “At least not to my knowl edge; but I’ve read about it.” “Then they are principally useful as a dainty to tickle the palates of some French epicures, I take it. I can’t Im agine any more ways than those you have enumerated in which they can render service to mankind.” “They are useful as timepieoe3.” ‘What!’’ “I aiu perfectly serisus. In China they serve as very bandy clocks. It’s this way: The eyeball of a cat con tracts constantly from dawn until noon, at which hour it is merely a thin horizontal line. From noon the eyeball gradually dilates until it reaches full expansion at sundown. So that in places where there are no clocks or dials or where there are _ dials and the day is . . cloudy a Chinaman just picks up a cat and ™ .learns the hour by looking at its eyes.” ”! had no idea that you had made a special study of cat lore, but there’s no use talking, yon Vassar graduates know everything under the sun.” “Cats have still another virtue. Rheumatism can be cured by rubbing tho affected part with a ginger-colored pussy.” “You are a veritable encyclopaedia dear.” “That is nothing. 1 have lots of tal ents you haven’t yet discovered. How ever, that will do for the present, and it now behooves you—the duet having terminated—to sit right down and in dite an ode to the Cat of Cats.” “Strophes to a cat—catastrophes. 1 can’t do it; but I will dash off rhapsodic stanzas ad libitum to the most adorable little champion who ever defended the cause of cats.” Tried for Not Going to Church. A book of forms, supposed to be a hundred years old, written probably by some former clerk of the court, lias been discovered in the clerk’s of fice of the Corporation Court, Lynch burg, Va.. says the Richmond Des patch of June 38. Among the orders appeared the following: “Judgment on a presentment of the grand jury for not going to church. “W. 8., who stands presented to the grand jury for absenting himself from his parish church, having been this day fully heard (or having been duly summoned) and not appearing, tho’ solemnly called, it is considered by the court that for the said offense he forfeit and pay to the church war dens of B. parish, whore the offense was committed, five shillings or fifty pounds of tobacco to the use of the poor of the said parish. And that ho pay the costs of this prosecution and may he taken, etc.” The Deacon's Protest. The Rev. Dr. S. makes rather long prayers, cowring in his petitions an extensive territory. One of his dea cons—a man of piety, but of a ner vous temperament—finds these pro tracted devotions trying, and one Sunday ai dinner amused his family by saying, with the utmost serious ness ; "l)r. S. made a beautiful prayer this morning, a powerful prayer, but I could have suggested ways in which ho could have shortened it up. He needn't have gone from Alaska to Africa and then to China, when he could just as well have cut across, and anyhow. I do not see why he could not lump the Indians and the Freedmen. They are so much aiiko.” Millions of Corks for Milwaukee. Fifty-seven bales- of cork reached Milwaukee Monday from abroad. It is said that there is no city in the world where a greater number of bottle corks are used than in Milwau kee. The consumption amounts to over 4.OMK) bales, 60,000 gross, or 56,- 000,000 corks a year, of a value of $350,000. Supplies of these corks are assured by contracts which provide for future deliveries, as there is no cork warehouse in Milwaukee from which large quantities may be sup plied at short notice, though there ha3 recently been organized a number of agencies which are making arrange ments to meet orders for quick deliv eries.—Milwaukee Journal. An Up-to-Date Child. 1 It was in a photographer's studio, and a lady called and stated that she wished to have her child's portrait taken. “Certainly, madam," said the photo grapher. "This is the little man, is it? Coo-roo. Bless ’im. little tootsle wootsie. Dear ’iekle fellow.” "Mother.” said the up-to-date child in a voice of scorn, “will you kindly inform me whether the deplorable condition of this person is due to lack of education or hereditary insanity? Kindiy proceed, sir. and make as creditable a likeness as lies within your apparently limited capacities.” Growth of World's Commerce. The volume of toe world’s com merce is two and a half or three times as great as it was thirty year* ago. THE LAND OF DEATH r _ RAN CHACO, the most mys ■[■ terious Bpot on the American >i continent, and po&sibly in the world, has claimed another hand of victims; again the Piiccmayo river has proved Itself de serving of the title given to it by the natives of Paraguay, Argentin and Bo livia—River of Death. The last victims of tho unknown place are the famous Italian explorer, Guido Boggiauo, and his party. From Asuncion in Paraguay the news has reached American geographers that the party has been officially pro nounced dead. With the slaying of Boggiano, Gran Chaco, triumphantly keeping it3 secret, has successfully defied five nations —France, Spain, Germany, It aly and Paraguay. Each of them Entrance to Land of Death. sent its best explorers and to none did their men return alive. Creveaux, of France; Ibarretta, of Spain; Lista, of Paraguay; Sirvent. of Germany, and Boggiano of Italy, all started from the borders, dived into the primeval forests of El Gran Chaco, reached the Pilcomayo river and disappeared forever. No man has gone in and emerged alive. Wbat lurks in Its twilight for ests that slays so surely? Look on the map of South America. Between the tropic of Capricorn and latiture 30 south, and between longitude 58 and 55 west, is a patch that is left almost entirely blank. That patch contains more than 75,000 square miles, about which man knows nothing. It. is the terra incognita of the American continent. Five months ago Guido Boggiano started, from Asuncion with an ex pedition of six Indians and a peon to follow the path that so many others had taken before him and that had led them to death. Men heard from him only once after he had left civ ilization, as he passed through Puerto Casado. Then came a week of silence, broken by the arrival of two of the expedition. Even in that one week hardships and terrors had become too much for them and they had fled to ward settled country. They reported that the line of march had been, through constant dangers and through constant mystery. Unseen enemies had attacked therf®by day and bv night. Unseen animals had prowled on their trail. Unseen things had terrified the Indian helpers, so that even then Boggiano was finding it al most impossible to force them on. That is the last that has been heard by man of Guido Boggiano and his party. No doubt the entire expedi tion -was destroyed, presumably by the fierce, practically unknown Tobas Indians. This makes the second expedition to vanish within a year. First to meet fate in Gran Chaco was Dr. Crereaux. He started into the interior in 18SG with a large and well-armed party, and forced his way for several months through the wilder ness along the Pilcomayo until he penetrated into the Tobas country, near the Bolivian boundary, wher the expedition, worn and' thinned out by constant fighting and hardships, fell into the hands of the Indians, who suddenly appeared from all quar ters and massacred all. The fate of the Creveaux expedition only served to increase the eagerness of explorers to tear the veil that hid the unknown land. And that eagerness next was to cost the life of one of the most suc cessful and earnest and daring ex plorers that ever was in South Amer ica. He was Ramon Lista, to whom the world to-day owes much of its knowledge of Paraguay, Argentina and Patagonia. For many years he Ramon Lista. had lived almost constantly in the wildest parts of the continent. He was the first man to send out from the depths of Patagonia the report of the possible existence there of a monstrous animal, the mylodon, a giant sloth as great as an ox, that still survived from prehistoric days, tie reported subsequently that one evening he had even shot at some huge creature that might have been It. But Its hide turned his bullet, and the gloom of the forest made pur suit impossible. Ramon Lista. thus on the threshold, possibly, of an epochal discovery in modern world history, set his fade to ward El Gran Chaco. He passed be yond tha uttermost frontier of human NOVEMBER .2 dwellers, and with canoe and men paddled away to reach the Pilcomayo river. And when he paddled thus away he passed out of human sight forever. For the River of Death has never given him up. Fragments of his story have drifted to the outer world, and from the stories told by boastful Indians and the scattered rumors brought to Bo livian and Paraguayan and Argen tinian frontier posts, it Is known that he forced his way far up the river contending against nature and wild beasts and wild men alike, until, thor oughly worn out and sadly diminished in numbers, the expedition found it self cut off from either retreat or ad vance by the allied forces of human foes and hunger. For the Indians, rarely showing themselves, but con stantly lurking around the party, not only picked off any members of the expedition who strayed even slightly from the main body, but prevented all hunting. At last the party was so reduced by privations that, panic seized some and despair others. And then came annihilation, so that none returned. Lista hUm-ielf, so men have learned since then, was one of the last to dide. He was brained while he lay starving. And scattered over many miles of forest trails lie his com panions, pursued and killed in fight. While Boggiano’s fate was still un known, Capt. Sirvent, a German in structor in the Chilean army, started with his son to enter the Chaco coun try from the weSt. Ho expected to return in a month. But three passed and no sign came from the unknown land. Now, according to news just re ceived in America Capt. Rojas, of the Paraguayan army, who started freta the east to search for him, nas returned to Villa Hayes—named after President Hayes to commemorate his settlement of the Paraguay Argentina boundary dispute with the almost pos itive information that this expedition also ha3 been destroyed. Capt. Ro jas found that it bad approached tho vicinity of the scene of Iharreta’s death, and there, on the banks of Typical Scene on Pilcomayo. the Pilcomayo river, had perished, to prove anew that the River of Death still defies the world’s efforts to dis- ( pel its mystery. Telescope to Start a Land Boom. Prof. Turner declares that the erec tion of tho observatory on Mt. Hamil ton sent up the value of land in that region considerably. Accordingly, some enterprising gentleman in an other neighborhood, desiring to test the generality of the !aw that if a large telescope were built the value of land in the neighborhood would go up, announced a still larger tel escope, and ordered two 40-inch discs of glass for the lens. The experiment succeeded admir ably and they were so well satisfied with the rise in price which followed ou the mere announcement (so the story goes), that they considered it unnecessary to proceed further with the instrument. The two lenses were produced, and, r.ot being claimed, w-ere left on the maker's hands, the result being that the favorable opportunity for the pur chase was brought to Mr. Yerkes’ at tention, and he bought them for the great telescope that bears his name. This, at least, is Prof. Turner’s ver sion of the story.—San Francisco Ar gonaut. What the World Speaks. Some interesting information re garding the chief languages of the earth are given by a German statist. Leaving Chinese out of the question, which in its various dialects is the language of four hundred millions, English is easily first. Roughly speak ing. English is spoken by one hundred millions. German comes next with sixty-nine millions, and, if the Low German dialects be included, there are eighty-five millions. Russian follows with sixty-seven millions. Two lan guages which once covered the world. French and Spanish, are now spoken by only forty-one and forty millions respectively, and Italian,, which has lately show r n signs of spreading, thirty millions. Wanted to Know. Congressman Bingham is telling about the handsome and popular wife of a senator who has been well to the fore in Washington affairs since last December. Mrs. Senator was recently accosted at a fashionable recaption by. an overdressed, affected woman, the wife of a western lobbyist, and asked: "Have we met. before? Your face seems familiar to me.” "I do not think we’ve met.” replied Mrs. Senator graciously. "Perhaps you've seen my pictures. There have been many of them in the magazines recently.” "That's it!” exclaimed the stranger. “Ive seen you in the magazines. And I want you to tell me, if you will, is that soap you Indorse really as good a3 you say it to?” '