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It is an interesting fact, and one not generally known, thas it costs on an av¬ erage more than twice as much to get a patent in England as it does in our coun try. Newfoundland has taken to agriculture. It produced the past year hay and pota¬ toes to the value of $888,000, and butter to the value of $00,000. The fishing industry is very precarious, and the re¬ sort to agriculture seems to be the only hope for the colony. Mrs. Elizabeth Carroll, of Warren, Ind., claims to have been horn in Penn¬ sylvania in 1774. Her husband was a soldier in the war of 1812. There is good reason to think that Mrs. Carroll is really 113 years old, although she is as active as a woman of sixty. A Western judge has decided that a stockman occupying the public domain as a cattle range acquires no right to the same that will enable him to prevent other stockmen from turning loose rattle on the range, even though the first oc¬ cupant has deyeloped the water on the -ange and has it fully stocked. The Times of India ■ ays that a general order is about to be issued by the com¬ mander-in-chief directing that cavalry, like infantry, shall henceforth cheer when charging. It is suggested that when coiouels give out their commands on other matters, soldiers might also be permitted to express their approval by a “hear! hear!” The world’s coal supply seems to be increasing rather than diminishing. A vein of coal sixteen feet thick has just been found at Whitewood, Dakota, twelve feet below the surface, and sev¬ enty feet beneath that another vein more than three times as thick has been dis¬ covered. The coal is said to be as good as any in the country. The English Board of Trade has made a report, in which it alleges that the number of paupers in the country now are only 24.7 to the 1,000, while in 1870 there were forty to the 1,000, and that the total number has fallen from 900,000 to 697,000, while the population has increased by 5,700,000. In London, it is alleged, there are now only twenty-one paupers to 1,000 inhabitants. A Chicago clothing manufacturer says that he i8 obliged to pay particular at¬ tention to the hip pockets which he puts in trousers destined for the AV'estcrn trade. His Kansas and Iowa customers demand a pocket capable of holding a quart flask, but for the far AYest trade the pocket is made deep and narrow, with an unusually strong lining, so that a pistol will fit snugly in it. Michael Cahill, of San Francisco, is well known in Washington. As far back as 1876 he sent his application for a patent for his rain-making invention to the patent office, and as often as the law required renewed his caveat by paying $10. The drawing which accompanied the application was a marvel. It repre¬ sented the rising moon and the setting sun, a balloon, a man smoking a pipe and a huge rain-storm. When Cahill finally went to Washington it did not take long for the officials to confirm their previous impression that he was a crank. At the same time they guard his crazy ideas with great care and treat the whole matter with amusing seriousness, because he has not legally abandoned his absurd claim. Commissioner Hall is particularly inclined not to allow Cahill to be made sport of by the papers. “You may laugh at me,” he said, “but I have no doubt that the time-will come when man will be able to bring rain out of the sky whenever he desires to do so. ” Justice Jaunaech, of Kalamazoo, Mich., has a parrot that he wouldn’t sell for its weight in silver. On five different occa¬ sions has this intelligent bird saved the house from being burglarized. The last time was on a recent night. The burg¬ lar got the door unfastened, but when he opened it the parrot a-kefl, in a stern and harsh voice: “Hello, there 1 What’s the matter ?” The burglar didn’t answer, but fell over himself in his desperate hurry to get away. “The general climate of England is favorable to the development of cancer says the London Standard. “Out of every million deaths from all causes, those from cancer number about 30,000. This proportion is only exceeded by phthisis, old age, convulsions, bron¬ chitis, pneumonia and ‘debility.’ Next to consumption, cancer is the most fatal of all the constitutional diseases; and it has been steadily gaining ground for more than twenty years. The deaths from cancer per million of persons living were in 1802, 301; in 1872, 431; in 1881, 520; in 1882, 532; in 1883, 540; in 1884, 500; in 1885, 506, and are now close upon 600." Madame Patti is not the only singei with a castle to call her home. Minnie Hauk owns a castle among the Swiss mountains, where she spends her vaca¬ tions. It was at one time used as a fortress, and the stout walls are six to eight feet thick. The rooms are large, but are so well filled with furniture, and thewalUso thickly hung with pictures, that they seem quite cosy. Here Madame Hauk keeps the trophies of her career, and here her husband stores his ethno¬ graphical collection. Three fine dogs are Madame Hauk’s especial pets, anc, she is very fond of roaming the moun¬ tains, while they follow at her heels oi bouud up the steep paths in front of her. Hour Glasses aud Half-Hour Glasses Long before hour glasses, or sane glasses, were used In churches to indi¬ cate the time occupied in the delivery of sermons, they were used in tournaments to limit the duration of combats and prevent them from being really sanguin¬ ary encounters. Of two adversaries en¬ gaged accounted in “a gentle passage of arms,” he was victor who obtained the greater number of advantages before the sand had run from the glass turned at the commencement of the combat. Sand glasses were employed, also, in scholastic discussions. Pascal, for in¬ stance, in one of his letters, mentions a discussion in which he took part in the Sorbonne, when he spoke for half an hour by the sand glass or sable. And they were, eventually, so identified with scholarship, as well as preaching, that artists frequently placed an hour glass as well as a book in the background of their portraits of eminent scholars. They were also made use of at sales. But though sixteenth thus used in the fifteenth and centuries, it was in the pulpit of the seventeenth century that they obtained their wider, popularity, period aud that on they tombstones cf the same were most fre¬ quently delineate!. The high pew, or “pue,” as it used to he written, the long sermon and the hour glass by the pulpit, are as vivid a presentment of Queen Anne’s time, too, as would be the snuff¬ box, the clouded cane, or the fans and brocades of the fashionable folks who took the air in the Mall. Precise and gentle George Herbert wrote down his conviction that an hour’s duration was long enough for a sermon. These are his words: “The parson ex¬ ceeds not an hour in preaching, because all ages have thought that a competency, and he that profits not in that time will belike afterwards the same affections which made him not to profit before, making him then weary,and so he grows from not relishing to lothing.” But we must not assume that all sermons were of a length that required an hour’s atten¬ tion. We may be sure, on the contrary, that the sand in the hour glass with which so many pulpits were furnished was not always run out before the preacher brought his discourse to an end. —The Quiver. Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them. MEXICAN DISHES WHAT THE WEALTHY PEOPLE OF MEXICO EAT. lfctin£ Roses Preserved Entire and Other Dainties—Some Natural Z»ishes—A Mexican House¬ wife Making Duler. Fannie B. Ward writes from Mexico that not only the aristocrats, but all Mexicans with any pretensions to social standing, require that every dish, if it be but a spoonful of -peas, be served as a separate course, for which clean plates must be provided, making the most and common-place dinner a long always ceremonious affair. Wine is served with the substantial, and coffee and cigarettes after dessert. The Mex¬ icans have no fondness for sour things, therefore vinegar, pickles, etc., find no place here but §ugar-tooth everybody has and a duleies, well developed (sweet-meats), “ in great ” demand. are There is no end to the varieties of duler which a Mexican house¬ wife will compound, from simple taffy to the most elaborate preserved and or candied fruits, sauces, jellies here, mar¬ malades. Canning is unknown and it is not needed in a summer coun¬ try where fruits are perennial. entire, each I have deli¬ eaten sugar-frosted roses preserved leaf intact the cate, upon fairy; stem, making a conserve fit for a and everybody knows that preserved rose-leaves, like guava jelly, are common in tropical larders. Since stoves are comparatively unknown, and therefore ovens are non est, except those ponderous b:ca(l affairs of adobe used by the bakers, pies and cakes are never seen in the Mexican menu. To be sure, there are various articles called cakes to be found in a few French bakeries, but they bear no more likeness to the cake which graces the daily tea-table of every Amer¬ ican than tortullas resemble American bread. During my first year in this country I greatly missed the accustomed edibles, and found it extremely difficult to sub¬ sist upon diet so entirely new. One of my earliest experiences was to reside for four long months in a Mexican fami.y who spoke no word of English and were ontirely unacquainted with any mode of living but people that essentially and Mexican. educa¬ They were of kind-hearted, wealth tion, and exeedingly is called “good livers.” hospi¬ table what Four times a day their table literally groaned under its burden of national de¬ licacies; yet I grew thin and thinner, and actually retired every night so downright hungry that I could have wept, if tears -would have brought some good fairy with a slice of Fankee bread and butter! Just fancy it —four months without butter, tea, steak, potatoes, pie, cake—in short, without anything tomed, to compelled which one had suffer been the accus¬ yet to tor¬ tures of day, Tantalus by being seated four times a an hour at a stretch, beside tabies loaded with dishes one turned from in rapid disgust. of flesh, Suspecting the cause of my loss a sympathetic German friend, who resided near the border, sent me a huge, round loaf of jelly cake, large as a milk pan and de¬ licious enough to gladden the eyes of any home-sick Yankee. It arrived in the forenoon, and, of" course, I carried it, uncut, to my hostess, with a request to put it upon the table. But what was my surprise, on being called to dinner, to find that the usual menu had been set aside in my honor, and the festive board bore not a single article except the big cake, cut in enormous slices. Well, we ate and ate of it, there being nothing else to eat—and an hour or two later there were three sick children; whereupon the lady of the house, with her hand upon her diaphragm, the “American remarked Pan Duler” that she (sweetened thought bread) not so wholesome as Mexican food! In this family it was the custom at diucer to put ripe grapes into the soup, or to slice peaches into it, or any other fresh fruit that happened to be on hand; and every one of them poured molasses or curdled milk over the frejo'es which had been fried in grease and mixed with onions and cheese. AVith them a favorite delicacy was young kid, especially the brains and head. When¬ ever eabesa do cabrila (kid’s head) was a dinner-dish there was great rejoicing among the youngsters and an expression of deep-seated the satisfaction upon the faces of elders. The mistress of the manse would arise and thrust her knife just back of the forehead, scooping out the brains and spreading upon hot 9 I tortillas for the clamorous children. 1 One day the lady of the house—who, 1 by the way, was a lovely woman, a | devout Christian, a tender mother and devoted to her husband and home, I accomplished, withal, for a Mexican | woman—came to my room with the astonishing information kitchen that she was going duler, inhonor into the to make some of her eldest son’s ‘‘saint’s day," and wouldn’t I come out in the course of an hour and witness her in the act ? Certainly I would, and gladly, too, for when a Mexican lady condescends to put her dainty feet and unaccus¬ tomed hands into the servants’ domain, it is a household event by no means to be overlooked. So I wrote a dozen pages, and to give then her repaired time to get the well under which way, situated the to other kitchen, was on side of the great casa, beyond the sunny court yard, with its flowers and fountain, its banana and orange trees, at least an eighth though of enclosed a mile within from my apar: mcnt, the same adobe walls. There she sat flat upon the floor, in the middle of the kitchen (there being, as usual, no chairs), her round arms bared above the elbows, and her pudgy little hands immersed in some sticky compound, while no less than five ser¬ vants ran hither and thither to do her bidding, bringing a little more sugar, flour or water, stirring the coals in the brasier beside her, greasing tins upon which to drop the duler when cooked, etc. Her beautiful dark eyes glared with the excitement of the occasion, and her husband and brother-in-law, Loth men of middle age, one a celebrated physi¬ cian, watching the other her a dignified admiring judge, stood with pride de¬ picted upon every line of their swarthy countenances. Presently the children joined the group. Several neighbors dropped the in to add their domestic plaudits, and soon innumerable dogs, that cats, pigs and parrots—seemed to feel something remarkable was in progress and shared the general excite¬ ment. The duler turned out to be a sorfc of candy, made of white sugar and flour, resembling feeble imitation caramels of those when which finished—a may be bought anywhere in the United States for fifteen cents per pound. That night the exhausted but triumphant lady re¬ tired to rest in the happy consciousness of a great achievement-, and for the next* week we had caramels for breakfast, dinner, supper, and “between meals." A Lake Disaster Recalled. The Lady Elgin, a lake steamer, col lided with a sailing vessel named Augus¬ ta, and sunk in Lake Michigan, Septem¬ ber 8, I860. There were 297 persons lost,many of whom were from Milwaukee. Only about one-fourth of those on board were saved. A song commemorative of the accident is given below. It was sung, says the Detroit Free Press, from Maine to California, and will still be a sad and re¬ minder to many who lost friends relatives with that ill-fated steamer: THE LADY ELGIN. Up from the poor man’s cotttage, Forth from the mansion door; Sweeping And across along the water Caught echoing by the the shore; Borne the morning breezes, Cometh the on evening mourning, gale— voice of A sad and solemn wail. Chorus. Lost on the Lady Elgin/ Numbered Sleeping to with wake that no more; three hundred Who failed to reach the shore. Oh, ’fcis the cry of children Children Weeping for parents gone: who slept at evening But orphans woke at dawn; Sisters for brothers weeping, Husbands for missing wives— Such were the ties dissevered By those three hundred lives. Stanch was our noble steamer, Precious the freight she bore; Gaily she loosed her cable A few short hours before; Grandly Joyfully she swept our harbor, little rang her bell— Ah. wa thought e’er morning She would toll so sad a knell. AVhat Is a Drought? Mr. Symons, the English meteorolo¬ gist, would have three kinds of degrees of drought recognized and precisely de¬ fined. A period of fourteen or more con seeutive days without rain should be termed an absolute drought; one of twenty-eight or more consecutive days with a rainfall not exceeding a quarter of an inch should be called a partial drought; and at least sixty days with not over two inches of rain should be a long drought.