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ANCIENT FARM HOUSE.' French Hostelries During the Middle Ages. MEN AND THINGS HAVE CHANGED. A Very Reckless Lawyer, But He Wins His Case—Our Sun a Star—A New Apparatus for Measuring the Sea Level Other Interesting Arti cles on Various Subjects. The houses of the fanners and the country people differed then as now, ac cording to their rank and prosperity, and also according to the district they inhabited. The yeoman farmer, and even the well to do husbandman, dw«lt in a solid house of brick or stone, tiled or slated, with a paved yard separating it from the barn and outhouses, the dai ry and cattle pens. The farm house — which in England was always construct ed with a southern aspect—as invariably faced the east in Aquitaine, while to the rear well open to the west was a long tiled veranda, where in winter after noons the hemp picking, the wool card ing, etc., were done. Within the vast kitchen glowed in the light of the fire —almost as unextinguish able as the vestal virgin’s—peat, coal and wood were each abundantly employed, and for a trifling rent, generally paid in kind, the lord of the manor would per mit the farmers on his land to cut their turfs from his bog or their boughs from his forest. Fuel was not only actually but relatively cheaper in the middle ages than today, for the bogs were not drained in those days, the forest covered ' great expanses, and the cost of carnage made it almost impossible to transport their produce. In almost every shire of France and England the supply of fuel was in excess of the demand. This hospitable fire flared up a chim ney proportioned to its size, lighting the huge brick oven, the iron firedogs, the bellows, shovel, gridiron, ladles, cal drons, .saucepans, mortar, tin pails and other utensils that stood on the brackets of the hearth, and irradiating the brass and copper pots, the metal candlesticks, the lamp, the lantern, the not unfrequent silver beaker, and the glass drinking cups that were ranged on the chests and cupboards round the walls. Near this fire stood a high backed settle, the mas ter's corner, and under the great mantle of the chimney narrower benches were set in the brick. Within easy reach of the hearth a deep oak chest held the logs for burning. It was generally matched by a handsome wedding chest with carved or painted front, long enough to conti i a grown person full length, butmore -lly filled, it must be admitted,with the best clothes, - the trinkets and the savings of the house- The registers of thechatelet record 'no crime so common as the breaking open of such wedding chests; and it is surpris ing how many clasps of jewels, girdles of pearls, golden headdresses and rings, and purses full of gold were stolen from quite humble households. Our fore fathers invested their capital in cups or trinkets of precious metal, pretty to look at, easy to hide, and readily con verted into cash when necessity demand ed a sacrifice. —Fortnightly Review. A Daring Argument. A quick witted and daring western lawyer once saved a guilty client from sure conviction on a charge of poisoning. It was proved that the poisoning had been done by means of certain cakes, a portion of which was produced in court. When the counsel for the prisoner had finished his speech, he said: “And these, gentlemen of the jury, are some of the alleged poisoned cakes. We declare to you, gentlemen of the jury, that they are not poisoned cakes. They are as harmless cakes as ever were made, and in order, gentlemen of the jury, to show you that these cakes are not poisoned, 1 will eat one of them right here in your presence.” And he did eat one. He took good care, however, to leave the room at the earliest opportunity, and to make a bee line for an adjoining room, where he had an emetic in readiness and an anti dote. But the jury never heard about the emetic or the antidote until the law yer’s client had been acquitted.—San Francisco Argonaut. Our Sun a Star. Most young folks now know that the difference between night and day on this planet of ours arises simply from the fact, that among the innumerable multi tude of stars there is one infinitely nearer to us than all the rest; being so much nearer to us that when we see it we have day. When by the earth’s movement on its axis the sun has set in the west we have night; at which time we depend for light upon the more distant stars— unless, indeed, the moon is shining. In the main, it is true that the enor mous difference in the intensity of the light that we receive from the sun in the one case, and from all the stars seen at night in the other, depends upon the fact that the Bun is the star nearest to us, and the other stars are suns infinitely re moved. —J. Norman Lockyer in Youth’s Companion. To Measure the Sea Level* ■ A new apparatus for measuring the mean level of the sea has lately been in stalled at Marseilles. It is based on the principle that when a liquid wave trav erses a capillary tube or a porous parti tion, its amplitude diminishes and it is retarded in its phases without the mean level of the wave changing. It consists of a glass tube, the lower end of which communicates by a flexible pipe with a plunger which is lowered beneath the lowest water level. There are two cells in the plunger, the lower being filled with sand and open to the sea, the result being. that the column of water in the .”»e uses ana rails very nine wnn me tides, and the mean sea level can be read from a graduated scale.—New York Times. Everything Shipshape. Small Boy—Say, dad, why does the leaves fall off the trees every fall? Dad (an old salt) —Bless you, boy, don’t you know? The winds is high in winter, an’ the trees has to lower sail. — New York Weekly. A Drop in the Market. He—Darling, this engagement ring is worth $350. She—The last one I had cost S4OO. He—You are older now! —New York Herald. Favorite Initiations at Harvard. The favorite mode of torment seems to be to make a man go out and sell some thing, or perform some manual labor in the streets. Not long ago a student who was very much in love with a pretty Cambridge girl was compelled to go to the home of her parents with a Jew ped dler’s pack and sell all the members of the family the cheap handkerchiefs and atrocious brass jewelry with which he was loaded down. The match was not broken off, but there was a frigid cool ness in that house until the real object of the visit was afterward explained. Another rich and immaculate young swell was ordered into a ditch where some Italians were digging in the main street of Cambridge, and into it he went with pick and shovel, clad in a dress suit, which was made part of the com mand. Rubber boots, an ulster and a fur cap are frequently ordered on a victim in the hottest days of term time, and they must be seen on him whenever he appears out side his room. Cambridge, like other college towns, has become partly accus tomed to these college vagaries, and whenever any one is seen upon the streets acting particularly like a lunatic people class him at once as a candidate for a college society.—New York Star. Moor Baths. The moor baths, of wliich much is now heard, and which are provided at many Austrian and German health re sorts, were first used at Franzensbad. In 1823 Dr. Poschmann, a physician there, believed that he had found in them a new curative medium, and they have since become popular. Some physicians still question their efficacy, while others in Austria and Germany rely upon them to render good service in many maladies. Though the bath is composed of peat or moor earth to..vhich enough water has been added to make a thick paste of the mass, yet the peat is different from that which is extracted from a bog in Ireland or Scotland. In both Ireland and Scotland the peat is used as fuel; at Franzensbad the min e. ’ -«d peat will not serve such a pur pose. The bog from which it is extract ed has been saturated throughout count less ages with mineral water, and the product is a strong chemical compound. Thus a moor bath is a mineral bath in a concentrated form, and effects are pro duced upon the system by taking a course of these baths which cannot be produced, according to experts, by any n.'neral water.—Blackwood’s Magazine. Umbrellas In England. Ho rany umbrellas are manufact ured h. is country annually? There are no oh. _jl returns giving the number in this country, though in the United States it is calculated that one umbrella is made annually for every six persons. If we apply this proportion to the popu lation of the United Kingdom—now cal culated, in round numbers, at 38,000,000 —over 6,000,000 umbrellas are made an nually. Upward of 2,500,000 umbrellas were imported by sea into Calcutta in the year 1888-89, and the yearly exports of umbrellas from this country are valued at £581,000. In France, in 1830, um brellas were manufactured by 160 makers to the value of £280,000; in 1847, £405,000 worth by 303 makers; in 1882 their value was £1,180,000, and 890 manufacturers. Price averaged four francs each. There were thus made in France in 1882 7,500,- 000 umbrellas, or nearly one for each in habited house.—London Tit-Bits. How Old Spiders Live. Old spiders, which have neither web nor the materials to make one, often hunt about to find out the webs of other spiders, younger and weaker than them selves, with whom they venture battle. The invader generally succeeds, and the younger spider is driven out to make a new web, and the old spider remains in possession until a stronger spider in vades the web and drives it out. When thus dispossessed the spider seldom ven tures another attack, but tries to subsist upon the few insects that may fall acci dentally into its clutches, and eventually dies of hnne™. —'London Standard. North, V East, South, West. That’s where Pear line goes. Wherever there’s yi M LZI fiJl (F* ( ha rd work for wo- * Ilk O O LL U \ men, there it’s x. needed. Easy •■ washing goes Easy washing and better washing, with it. . Washing that doesn’t-wear out the clothes, or hurt the hands or fabric, or tire the washer. Washing that aas^=Jr: ’ saves money but costs / (b? no more than the wash- ing that wastes it. When it does all this and more, is it any wonder that Pearline goes ? And it docs go. It goes to the help of millions of women every day. T3ut there are some who won’t be helped. And they’re the ones who need it most. TJ 1 • Peddlers and some grocers will tell you, “ this is as good as ” or “ the DIO WID O' same “ Pearline.” IT’S FALSE—but what a pull for Pearline. O : S 8 JAMES PYLK, New York. THE TRIBUNE-UF-ROME, SATURDAY MORNING FEBRUARY 28,1891. HIS OB.IECT. H« Had Had a Hard Time and He Could .lw> Talk. “Gentlemen,” he said, as he approached the four of us seated in a row in the wait ing room, “it grinds me to the soul to be obliged to ask favors of strangers, but I’ve got to do it right here and now.” “What’s your case?” asked the man on my left, who looked like a judge. “Tve lost a wife and five children.” “Well?” “Then my house burned down and I got no insurance.” “Well?” “Then I fell out of a tree and broke my leg, and didn’t walk for a year.” “Well?” “Then I sold a pieceof real estate—the only property I had—and a fellow robbed me of every cent.” “Well?” “Then I got a heavy cold, consumption set in, and one of my lungs is gone and the other going.” “Well?” “Well, Tm ragged, poor, hungry and sick, and want money to buy a supper and pay for a night’s lodging.” “I see. You are hard up, indeed. I should think you were tired of life.” “I have just one object in firing.” “And that?” “When I was a boy 10 years old, and lived in Vermont, I stole a watermelon from a farmer. My crime was never discovered, but it has weighed like lead on my conscience, and I know it has hastened my end. I want to live long enough and collect money enough to en able me to return to Vermont, go to that farmer’s house, and, standing be fore him, say: “ ‘Mr. Pritchard, thirty-nine years ago, when I was a giddy boy, I stole a watermelon of you. I am sorry. I want to be forgiven before I die, and I want to make such reparation as I can. Here is $30,000 in gold. Take it and buy a steamboat and say I’m forgiven.’ ” “You are an infernal dead beat and liar!” roared the judge as the man stood in an attitude of humility, but we chipped in half a dollar apiece and sent him away rejoicing.—New York Sun, New Mode of Engraving, A French scientist has lately intro duced a process for the engraving of de signs on wood, leather or similar ma terials by means of a pencil or tool, the point of which is constantly at red heat. After a series of experiments with hot irons ar.d platinum wire heated by elec tricity, a special tool was finally devised by the inventor of this process, which renders the operation extremely simple. The tool in question is another applica tion of the cautery instrument used by surgeons. The pencil has a wooden han dle upon which is mounted a small plat inum tube with a fine point. Two sepa rate receptacles communicate with the tool by means of a rubber tube; one of these contains a hydro-carbon, such aa alcohol, benzine or wood spirit, and the other contains compressed air. A constant flow of the hydro-carbon vapor is maintained at the point of the tool, which is thereby kept in a state of intense heat. Both receptacles are pro vided with regulating apparatus, by which the supply of ink can be adjusted or cut off, as desired. The operation of tracing designs on wood work and leather is thus simplified to the utmost possible extent. A tracing of the design is made im the article to be ornamented, and any degree of relief is instantly effected, very little skill on the part of the operator being required. The new process will be of the greatest service to bookbinders, carpenters and others, as well as afford ing a ready means of labeli, g cases, barrels, etc. —New York Comme. "al Ad vertiser. The Mason and Dixon Line. The Mason and Dixon line runs along the parallel of latitude 39 degs. 43 min., 26 degs. 3 min., separating Penn sylvania from Maryland. It was drawn by two distinguished English surveyors, Charles Mason and Jere miah Dixon, who began their work in 1763 and finished it in 1767. The line is marked by stones set at intervals of five miles, each having the arms of Lord Baltimore engraved upon one side and those of the Penn family upon the other. Besides these large stones set to mark each fifth mile, smaller stones were set at the end of each mile, these haring a large P engraved upon one side and the letter M on the other—these intended as initial letters of Pennsylvania and Mary land. All of these stones were engraved in England. The Mason and Dixon line was’not the line separating the free and the slave States. The fine settled on in the compromise of 1820 was 36 degs. 30 min. The Mason and Dixon lines as shown above, runs along the parallel of 89 degs. 43 min.—St. Louis Republic. $2.50 * FOR * si.2? jw. On receipt of ONE DOLLAR and TWENTY-FIVE CENTS we will mail to any address, postage prepaid, a copy of “Sunshine for Little Children,” two beautiful engravings, and the WEEKLY • TRIBUNE For One Year, an offer which cannot be bought in any other way for less than Two Dollars and Fifty Cents. “SUNSHINE” is a large folio magazine, edited by Rey. J. Henry Smythe, D. D„ LL. D., of Philadelphia, and t'.e engravings are lithoed water colors by Ida V z augh, the great American artist. The magazine is full of beautiful stories for children and will give splendid satisfaction to all who buy it. The engravings are really worth 50 cents each and are lovely in style and finish. Read what has been said of them by two great men; Pray accept my heartiest thanks for I have received two numbers of u Sun- the charming set of children’s picture shine ’ and a collection of pictures of * , >. . . . . v , T , . children’s heads accompanying them. I heads which has just reached me. It is a am very mnch pleased p wi / h Httle delight and a refreshing to look them gallery cf childhood, which represents it over. The beauty of childhood was with all its untaught grace and uneon- never more sweetly depicted. I am, very ® ci ? us beauty They wid carry sunshine J 1 1 j t o tue walls of the darkest room—one truly, thy triend, that gets all its daylight from a northern John G. Whittier. window. Oliver Wendell Holmes. m im w Has been completely overhauled by the new management and is full of good reading. Every citizen of North Georgia should take advantage of the above liberal offer. FOR EIGHTY-FIVE CENTS ‘ Sunshine,” the two engravings and the Weekly Tribune will be sent for six months. FOR SIXTY CENTS The Tribune for three months, a copy of “Sunshine” and the two engravings. attention! HOWTO GET A GOLD WATCH roany person who will get up a club of ONE HUNDRED SUBSCRIBERS at $1 25 e<ch for the Weekly Tribune one year, together with a c-'py of “SUNSHINE,” and the two engravings, the managemeut wili pre.l I sent a handsome gold watch with first-class movement and fully guaranteed. To any who will get up a club of fifty a fine coin silver watch, warranted a good time keeper. Os. course the cash must accompany the names. This is a fine oppor u njty to secure a handsome watch and at the same time give the members of >our club $2.59 worth for $ 1.25. Let’s see now, who Will get the first watch. All orders should be addressed to THE TRIBUNE-OF-ROME. A .W®: ■ ROJVLEL GEORGIA* 7