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A wealthy Frenchman who has a hatred of sharks has been cruising in a steam vessel for a year passed and killed over 3,000 of the monsteis. When he began work in the harbor of Havana the au¬ thorities warned him off. The Sioux Reservation, onc-lialf of ■which it is proposed to open up to set¬ tlers, contains an area of 37,000 square miles. That is to say. it is larger than the State of Kentucky, and only a few square miles smaller than the State of Indiana. During the last famine in China it re¬ quired fifteen days to transport relief to the people over a distance of 200 miles. Contrast with that the fact that at the time of the big Chicago fire in 1871, a relief train from New York traveled 1,500 miles in 21 hours. There is a considerable increase in the force of Protestant missionaries in Mex¬ ico. Tlie results thus far are anything but discouraging. With only about a hundred ordained missionaries upward of 350 congregations have been organ¬ ized, with 18,000 church members and 35,000 adherents. The Queen of Madagascar recently at¬ tended the opening services of two Christian churches at Ambokimanaga. In fourteen years 700 Protestant chapels have been built in Madagascar, making the number now 1,200. There are 8,000 Protestant communicants and all the churches are self supporting. A little gill of Met/, Alsace, 14 years old, named Louise Fuchs, has been con¬ demned to eight days’ imprisonment foi having insulted the Emperor of Ger¬ many. The insult consisted in writing a private letter to one of her little friends, in which there was something disrespect¬ ful to his majesty. Such sentences are -Said to be quite common in Alsace-Lor¬ raine. It has been calculate d that the quan¬ tity of beer brewed yearly in the under¬ mentioned countries is about as follows: Great Britain, 1,050,000,000 gallons; Germany, 900,000,000; Austria, 270,000, 000; Belgium, 180,000,000; France, 150, 000,000; Bussia, 50,000,000; Holland, 33,000,000; Eetimark, 30,000,000: Swe¬ den, 30,000,000: Switzerland, 17,000, 010; Norway, 10,500,000. Frederick Ellison, who was appointed Consul to the Island of St. Helena by President Cleveland, has handed in his resignation of the position, and returned to his home in Indianapolis, Iud. He says that St. Helena is so dismal that he wonders that Napoleon survived so long as he did his exile on that dreary rock. Mr. Ellison landed on the island at night. Had he reached it in the daytime he says hs would never have gone ashore. A recent lecture given at the National Museum at Washington, by Fernow, undertakes to show the need of forest protection and forest culture for the fourfold reason: (1) Forests furnish our material in the industries; (2) they are regulators af climatic conditions; (3) they are regulators of hydrologic condi¬ tions influencing the waterflow ir. springs, brooks and rivers; (4) they are regulators of soil conditions. A Government agent traveling in Alaska says that the American citizens in some portions of that country still piay for the Emperor of Russia. Iu one town only one man was found who knew the cam# Of an American city, and that wa3 San Francisco. The repoit says: “After laboring with them one man was found who had sqmehow heard of Chicago. Boston, New York, Phila¬ delphia and Washington were unknown regions. At the close of the war there were only forty-eight miles of railroad in the State of Arkansas. In 1874 there were only about 700 miles. Now, there are near 2,000 miles, and as many more miles projected on the different lines, which will be built ere long, some of which are in course of construction. Soon our State, says the Arkansas Traveler, will be checkered by these pioneers and indispensable adjuncts of civilization. This is a great country, remarks the New York Sun. A photograph taken in Los Angeles, Cal., of the servants of an American lady living there shows six persons. On a wheelbarrow, trying hard to keep from giggling, are two pretty maids, one Welsh, the other Scotch. Behind them stand the colored cook, in cap and apron; the Mexican gardener, the English groom, and the Chinese waiter man. The mistress calls the gathering a “Congress of Nations.” The efficiency of oil, when dropped upon the water to calm boisterous waves may now be regarded as established. It is astonishing how small a quantity of oil will answer the purpose. Admiral Clone gives the amount as from two to three quarts an hour dropped from per¬ forated bags hanging over the sides of the ship in positions varying with the wind. The oil, then, by its own out¬ spreading, extending over the waves, forms a film of less than a two and a hall millionth part of an inch in thickness: and this is enough to reduce hi caking waves and dangerous “rollers” to un¬ broken undulations that are practically harmless. The oils that have been found most effective are seal, porpoise, and fish oils. Mineral oils, such as are used for illumination, are too light; but the lu¬ bricating oils are denser, and may be found sufficient. The fagots. Under the name of C’agots there live in the Pyrenees and the old Aquitauian Spanish re gions both sides of them—in the Upper and the French Lower Navarre, in Bearn, Gascony, Guienne and Lower Poitou—a peculiar race who have been much talked about and attracted the at¬ tention of the peoples about them from very ancient times. Formerly the Cagots (whose name linguists derive from canis Gothicus, Gothic dog) were confounded with Cretins. The association was a mistaken one for the Cagots, with their large, muscular form, shapely skull, prominent nose,strongly marked features, blue eyes and smooth, blonde hair, are decidedly different from the weak minded, deformed and goitrous in class: fact, and their physical the appearance, etymology of their goes to sustain name that we have mentioned, and to indicate a possible derivation from the Aryan Goths. The type of which we speak also corresponds fully with the race relatives of the Cagots living out¬ side of the Pyrenees, who are variously called according to the place, Cahets, Caqueux, Caquins, Cocoas, Collibrets, etc., and are spread to Lower Poitou, in Brittany and Marne, and far do/ n into Spain. The of the Cagots for hun¬ race was dreds of years superstitior.sly avoided by the other inhabitants of the country, despised, persecuted, repelled, treated as if abandoned and outcast and restricted in all legal and social rights. Dark superstition attributed and the prejudice them of constant earlier times to a leprosy; they were supposed to be have desti¬ a peculiar repulsive exhalation, to tute of eavlaps, to be color blind, to see in the night like cats aud owls and were accused of pretended, likewise disgrace¬ ful, offenses. They were treated as feeble beings, "moral afflicted with contagious should disease and impurities, who not be touched and with whom as little busi¬ ness intercourse should be liad as pos¬ sible. Down to tire seventeenth century they were thus treated. If they lived in the towns they were confined to a particular quarter in which the other citizens rarely came; if they < ame out of their quarter they were obliged to wear a piece of of their red cloth on some conspicuous others might part recognize dress, so that them and keep away from them.— Pop¬ ular Science Monthly . . RUSSIAN PEASANTS. A GRAPHIC PICTURE OF STOLID SUBMISSION TO FATE. A Country With Gorgeous Churches but Bereft of Schools -Distress and Degradation—Pronipt . lies in Paying Taxes. There is a very strong contrast between the appearance of things on the two sides of the boundary between Germany and Russia—as much as between the rural districts of Massachusetts and Missis sippi, says a correspondent of the Chi cago New. On the German side the homes, landscape with is dotted evidence with beautiful, cosey every of prosperity and thrift, with well cultivated fields, vine-clad stables, neat-looking kme, hedges tastefully trimmed, and patches of flowers, while in the town and villages are handsome railway stations, tempting cafes, large factories, handsome school houses, and every symbol of a higher civilization and prosperity. On the east side of the line there are none of these, and the change takes place instantly, Thrift and comfort are replaced-by dis uncultivated, tress and degradation. patches The fields and are except in here there—spots where it was the easiest to plow—the cattle are lean and hungry, the hones of the people are log or mud huts, and there is not a schoollmuse to be seen from the boundary line to the There are churches enough, however, for iu every collection of cabins rises a splendid temple with a gilded dome and spire, sheltering candlesticks a mass and of precious vest- of incuts, altar plate i solid silver, and usually an altar of ] malachite, lapis-lazuli, or some other I precious poverty-stricken stone. One always and desolate finds, in the most vil lages, icons, as the images of the Saviour and called, ornamented covered with with shields of gold, all sorts of ewels. . The vestments of the priests cost more than all the rest of the clothing in the village, and the contributions for the support of the church are usually equal to, if they are not greater than a third of the combined incomes of the people. Of the scanty earnings of the moujik one-third goes to the church and another third to the crown, and both exactions are The paid moujik without is only the glad slightest that the resistance, gatherer do-not priest and the tax take it all. Centuries of oppression have left their stamp indellibly upon the character of the people. The most striking characteristics of the Russian peasant are sadness ancl submission and the desire for strong drink. A Russian seems to be truly happy—1 am speaking of the lowest class—only under two conditions. One when he is drunk on vodka, he the corn brandy, and the other when is saying his prayers before his favorite saint. To him the interior of the church, gilded from floor to dome, decorated with icons that are covered with sheets of pure go’d, is a representation him of the heaven the priests their teacli is awaiting those who say prayers, fast on fast days, and obey the Czar. He is always loyal to the church and to the State. The peasant is never a nihilist, never an atheist, but pays his taxes and his tithes without murmuring, and expects no more than his father got, which was nothing. is The into only gaudy recompense chapel, he bow has to creep some his head to the floor ia front of the icon of his favorite saint, and let his dull and listless mind enjoy the visions of para¬ dise that float over it. The church, with its marble pillars, the vestments of gold brocade, and the gold-incrusted pictures, makes the most beautiful spectacle his foggy imagination can conceive of, and to live in such a place always, like the effigies lie sees there, is heaven enough for him. There is said to be no instance in which a peasant ever refused to pay his . taxes. Once a year the collector enters the village, taps the window and culls “Kaza 1” Then the man or woman of the house comes out with the money, which is always ready, tos-es it into the bag of the collector, who does not count it, be¬ cause he knows it is*all the monjik lias got. When night house corfies in the collector village, enters the best the hangs his money-bag under tiro image of the Saviour, and carouses or sleeps till morning, being will perfectly be disturbed, confident that his money not because of the veneration for the Czar, whom he represents, and the image under which the treasure is placed. How the people live is a mystery to those who have not investigated the subject. The ordinary traveler only sees their little gardens, where are grown a scanty allowance of potatoes, corn, when turnips they and hungry, cabbage. They eat bage are generally cab¬ soup, always simmering on the fire, are drunk as often as they can get vodka, and when night comes curl up some¬ where on the floor in a warm place like a kitten or a caterpillar. In the citbius one seldom finds a bed or a table or a chair, and very few dishes. They have no comforts whatever, not even what we consider the necessaries of life—the church takes the place of them all. The Only Female Mayor, “Female Mayors are no good,” said t i, e ex-Cily Marshal of Argonia, Kan. “Why, Mrs. Salter has just killed Argo nia . j used to have a hotel there and was city Marshal, scooted, but I couldn’t stand it, so I just and I expect I’m to blame for her election, too. “You know she wasn’t nominated in an y 0 f the conventions. About 9 o’clock on 'lection day all us .boys were feeling gay an d agreed to meet at a hall and nominated a candidate to knock out Wilson. Jack Ducker—he is the tough est man in the place and the undertaker— got up in the meetin’ and nominated Mrs. Susanna Medora Salter for Mayor, and the nomination was made unanimous, We rushed into the streets and corn menced to work for our candidate. At nooll her husband came to us and us to qu it the racket, say in’ it was anin su i t to his wife. We wouldn’t do it, and the voters commenced to come our way j n dusters. We got full of whisky and enthusiasm, and at 4 o’clock everv one was votin’ for our candidate. Weil, you know as how she was elected. We had a jollification, and when she took her sea t like a man all our fun was busted, “I sent up to Kansas Citv for some cra b apple cider just to please the boys, She heard of it and asked me to stop it. y ou can’t fight a woman and she the Mavor. Then I started a little poker ,. 00 m, more for sociability than anything heard e lse. Chips and were only 10 and cents. She of it came to me I had to st 0 p. Then the druggist, before she was elected, used to keep blue grass bit ters, lemon rye and extract of malt, and a few other things like that. He don’t do it now. The Mayor heard of it. Then two billiard rooms were Tunning, Thev’re closed up now. The Mayor don’t think it is fashionable to push the ivories. That’s the way it is with every thing. I just couldn’t stand the towu an( l so I came up here.” “She’s she the only woman Mayor on earth, is not?” “That’s just what she is. You ought to see the letters she gets, foreign autograph, letters an a the like, askin’ for her and askin’her if it is true that she is the Mayor, and all questions like that, when I was Marshal I used to act under her, and many’s the letter she has shown me from abroad.”— Indianapolis Journal. Benner’s Prophecies for 1888. Samuel Benner, an Ohio farmer, who has gained the considerable far his notoriety predic¬ through of future newspapers and who tions events, a few years ago and published a small volume on the ups downs of prices, which had a great sale, has now communicated to the Ileal Estate Journal, of New York City, his prophecies for the year 1888, in which he says: “This year, 1888, being the closing year in this cycle of low prices—seven years from 1881—is the golden oppor¬ tunity to commence the foundation for a business. If there is any benefit to be derived from a knowledge of these cycles in trade, it will be in taking advantage of them. “Young men who are about to com¬ mence their business career should em¬ brace their present opportunity. There are few of these characters in an ordi¬ nary life. It requires about ten years to complete an up and down in general trade. “When the depress ions” which follow commercial crises reach their lowest limit, as determined by these 'price cycles, they afford the best opportunities for investment, and the height of specula¬ tive make eras are the most dangerous in any* periods to a commencement enter¬ prise. “This is the mine, opportunity build for investors to open a to a furnace, to erect a mill, to baild a ship, to equip a railroad, and to make investments in agricultural, operations. commercial and industrial “Geerge Peabody laid the foundation for his fortune by buying American? securities iu one of our commercial de¬ pressions. ”