Decatur Democrat, Volume 35, Number 5, Decatur, Adams County, 24 April 1891 — Page 2

©he democrat decaturTind. H BLACKBURN, ... Pueubhxb. Opals have been found in Oregon. ■ ■it''*" ■ "—~ ' Marie Antoinette instituted the custom of wearing feathers in the hair. At Savannah, Ga., are five brothers, each of whom is six feet three inches in height. The number of suicides in the United States in 1890 was 5,640, while in 1889 it was 2,224, and in 1888 1,187. There are two counties in Georgia which are without either a lawyer, a doctor, or a dentist They are Charton and Echols. The five largest lumber producing States are in the order named: Michigan, Pennsylvania, 'Wisconsin, New York and Ohio. A loafer is a good deal like a cork that has been pushed into a bottle. It floes no good where it is, and is not worth fishing out. The Lord put so much love in a mother’s heart that it is a pity He did not put a greater memory for that love in the hearts oi the children. In the of the heavens in course of preparation in the .Paris conservatory, it is. calculated that 64.000,000 stars will be represented. ' Chicago delights in bjg things. It has one of the largest avenues in the world—Halsted street. It is eighteen miles long, and perfectly straight. An important gastronomic question has arisen in Baltimore. Shall the size t of guests’ mouths be taken into consid- !• eration when raw oysters are served at dinner. I A species of the duck known as the ( “murre” is .readily captured at Portland, Me., as it seems insensibly to fear, and will not move until the hunter is • upon •’*- . A .arm at Pithole, Pa., which was bought some years ago, dnring the oil excitement, by Chicago speculators for sl,soo,ooo,’was sold recently at a tax sale for SIOO. Advice too often leans over its neighbor’s fence, and points out the weeds <n his garden, thinking the neighbor will not see the weeds that are growing in Ms own. ; o . ... J You can safely doubt the religious fervor of the man who spreads out his hankerchief on the floor before he kneels dz>wn to pray, but you can’t doubt his good sense. Statistics show that one-fifth of the native married women of Massachusetts are childless. It is said that in no => country save France can a similar condition of affairs be found. A Scotch terrier is a regular deadhead on the West Shore Railroad, and will only ride on a first-class train. He spends his whole time traveling and is well liked by railroad men. „ Some thirsty people of Steubenville, Ohio, got’into a saloonkeeper’s cellar, bored a hole through the ceiling into a barrel of whisky, took what they wanted and allowed the rest to go to Wasta In New York City they have associations of men who do not drink during business hours. In a big city where competition in all lines of business is so great, a cool and clear head is necesV Bar *’ - - There is great anxiety about the decline of the Foochow tea trade, which was worse than ever last year. Numerous failures have occurred and great distress prevails in the tea districts. The Mayor of Argonia, Kansas, is a lady—Mrs. Salter. She not only attends to all her public duties, but she performs all her own housework, which includes washing, ironing, and cooking for a family of five. Autograph hunting is a thing of the past. Like all manias it had its run, and it has now been dropped for another fad. Public men are asked to give their ideas on marriage, religion and politics and other subjects. The Russian Government discourages the importation of machinery, tools, books, pictures, and even of fine goods, declaring that if the common people begin to get new thoughts they Will be sure to plot against the Czar. The presents which the Sultan of Turkey has sent to the imperial family Germany since the accession of the young ‘emperor are almost endless in number. He recently sent three Arabian horses to the three oldest sons of his majesty. A Chicago thief has for his pal a good-looking young woman who enters a jewelry store, faints away whilolooking at something, and , during the excitement that follows the thief manages to pocket something. If you own a jewelry store look out for the pair. A sleeping-car porter on a New England railroad says there is a marked difference between a Yale professor and a Yale student. The,former tips him a quarter after the brush, while the latter hands him a cigarette, and remarks: "Go smoke and kill yourseif!” Chas. G. Jefferson, of Clinton, Mass., is the champion weight-lifter. He recently lifted, with his hands, a mass of iron weighing 1,571$ pounds, fie therefore excels the feat of David L. Dowd, who, in,. 1883, in Springfield, Mass., raised 1,442$ pounds. A Texas woman sat mending her husband’s pants. A uJnther entered the * fey, 1 > ' , , :

house, rubbed against her knees and purred like a cat, and after playing around for a spell he seized the panh and trotted off with them and gave the woman a chance to faint. Build a high board fence in a conspicuous place in the city and print on it in large letters, “Post all your bills here,” and there would not be a bill posted there in six months. People never like to do things they are given the liberty of doing. Antoni 6 Guerro, a Mexican gentleman who did not believe it was compatible with his dignity to labor, was convicted the other day of eight murders and fourteen assaults. The judge in the case said he was sorry, but he really felt-compelled to sentence Antonio tc death. There recently passed through the mails, in a perforated box, a pretty little dog about a week old. It arrived safely in the hands of the lady to whom it was addressed, a resident of Mishawaka, Indiana. None of the mail handlers had any suspicion of the contents of the box. Under the new laws in Russia against the Jews any Russian who gets drunk is expected to enter a Jew’s house and punch his 4 head, smash his furniture, insult his wife and kick his children. If he doesn’t do something of this kind the judge sends him up for sixty days. Phillip Walsh, a Philadelphian, who went to Spain to study the manners and customs of the people, sums up the result as follows: /I don’t know»what Spain was when / Washington Irving was there, but I know what itHs now, and if I Owned Spain and Hades, I would sell Spain.” Four different mountain peaks in Idaho are from thirteen to twentythree feet lower, by actual measurement, than they were fifteen years ago, and it is believed that this settling is going on with many others. The idea is that quick-sands have undermined them, and that the mountain market will go still lower. It was shown in a suit in Cincinnati the other day that One shyster lawyer had visited thirty-six different people in the course of a year and encouraged them to begin libel suits against different newspapers, offering to take a retainer of $5 and half of what migjit be got before a jury, A good share of the libel come about in this way. Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher relates an incident in which a Brooklyn reporter did not, as she thinks, treat her fairly. She has treasured it up against reporters in general, and when one called on her lately to inquire when, in her opinion, was the happiest hour in a woman’s life, she replied: “The hour before reporters were invented." , Lord Wellesley’s aide-de-camp, Keppel, wrote a book of travels, and called it his personal narrative. Lord Wellesley wad quizzing it, and said to Lord Plunket: “Personal narrative—what is a personal narrative, Lord Plunket ? What should you say a personal narrative meant ?” Plunket answered: “My Lord.'Vou know we lawyers always understand personal as from real.” Good progress is being made by the Forestry Department of Bengal, both in extending the area of forest protection and in increasing the annual receipts. The forests are confined to the districts bordering on the sea, the sub-Himalayan tracts, and the plateau of Central India so far as it extends into Chota, Nagpore and Orissa. The richest districts of the interior of Bengal are altogether without public forests and are consequently supplied very de- i ficiently with fuel. , Wearing rubber overshoes on a dry night caused the arrest of a carpenter in Chicago. Charles Graham, a resident of Dearborn Street, had been suffering from a severe cold for some time, and imagining that the {removal of his overshoes would only tend to aggravate his illness, he continued wearing them without regard to the weather. He was hastening home not long ago, |when a vigilant Lieutenant Police arrested him as a suspicious character. The next day he was fined $5. One Touch ot Nature. A crowd had gathered at the cornet of Fifth avenue and Washington street, and those on the outside were crushing and shoving in order to catch a glimpse inside the circle. “What’s wrong? A fight?” and similar querries were propounded. A cable car had stopped, several teams were blocking the thoroughfare, and all interest was centered in the one spot. On the hard stones of the pavement lay a poor, bony, old horse, his protruding ribs mutely te a tifying as to his inability to exert any 'more strength. Standing by his head was the owner or more appropriately the companion, of the stricken animal. He took off his tattered old patched coat, carefully folded it, and tenderly placed it under the head of the poor old horse. Then, with a sorrowful look at his dying friend, he forced his way through the crowd and went away. Perhaps he had another coat to shelter him from the wind: more probably he had not.— Chicago Herald, « Jeff Wore No Hooped Skirt. “While the camp was being plan dered,” writes Mrs. Davis concerning the capture of the Confederate president, “there was a shriek dreadful tc hear, and our servants told us it came from a poor creature, who, in prying up the lid of a trunk with his loaded musket, shot off his own hand. Out of this trunk the hooped skirt was procured which had never been worn, but which they pretended to have removed from Mr. Davis’ person. “No hooped skirt,” she writes, “could have been worn on our journey, even by me, without great inconvenience, and I had none with me except the new one in the trunk. I have long sines ceased to combat falsehood, and I now rest the casG ’ * 1 - ’ ; **?'- * -j - . ....

A BRILLIANT RELIGION. SERMON DELIVERED BY DR. —-X TALMAGE. “The Crystal 'Cannot Equal It”—Job xxril!, T, the Eminent Divine’s Text—Religion Is Far Superior to the Crystal In All Desirable Qualities. Dr. Talmage’s text was, “The crystal cannot equal it” (Job xxviii, 7). Many of the nrecious stones of the Bible have come to prompt recognition. But for the present I take' up the less valuable crystal. Job, in my text, compares saving wisdom with a specimen of topaz. An infidel chemist or mineralogist would pronounce the latter worth more than the former, but Job makes an intelligent comparison, looks at religion and then looks at the crystal and pronounces'the former as of superior value to the latter, exclaiming, in the words of my text, “The crystal cannot equal it.” Now, it is not a part of my sermonic design to depreciate the crystal, whether it be found in Cornish Mine or Hartz Mountain or Mammoth Cave or tinkling among the pendants of the chandeliers of a palace. The crystal is the star of the mountain; it is the queen of the cave; ft is the eardrop of the hills; it finds its heaven in the diamond.* Among all the pages of natural history there is no page more interesting to me than the page crystallographic. But I want to show you that Job was rjght when taking religion in one hand and the crystal in the other, he declared that the former is of far more value and beauty than the latter, recommending it to all the people and to all the ages, declaring, “The crystal cannot equal it.” In the first place, I remark thak religion is superior to the crystal in exactness. That shapeless mass of crystab, against which you accidentally dashed your foot is laid out with more exactness than any-earthly city. There are six styles of crystallization, and all of them divinely ordained. Every crystal has mathematical precision. God’s geometry reaches through it, and it,is a square, or it is a rectangle, or it is a rhomboid, or in some way it hath a mathematical figure. . Now, religion beats that in the simple .fact that spiritual accuracy is more beautiful than material accuracy. God’s attributes are exact. God’s law exact. God’s decrees exact. God’s management of the world exact—never counting though He counts the grass blades, and the stars, and the sands, and the cycles. His providences never dealing with us perpendicularly whjm those providences ought to be oblique, nor lateral when they ought to be vertical. Everything in our life arranged Without any possibility of mistake. Each life a six sided prism. Born at the right time; dying at the right time. There are no “happen so’s” in our' theology. If I thought this was a slipshod universe I would go crazy. God is not an anarchist. Law, order, symmetry, precision, a perfect square, a perfect rectangle, a perfect rhomboid, a perfect circle. The edge of God’a-robe of government never frays out. There are no loose screws! in the world’s machinery. It did not just happen that Napoleon was attacked with indigestion at Borodino, so that he became incompetent for the day. It did not just happen that John Thomas, the missionary, on a heathen island, waiting for an outfit and orders for another missionary tour, received that outfit and those orders in a box that floated ashore, while the ship and the crew that carried the box were never heard of. The harking of F. W. Robertson’s dog, he tells us, led to a line of,,events which brought him from the army into the Christian ministry, where he served God with world renowned usefulness. It did not merely happen so. I believe in a particular providence. I believe God’s geometery - may be seen in all our life more beautifully than in crystallography. Job was right. “The crystal cannot equal it ” Again I remark that religion is superior to the crystal iu transparency. We know not when or by whom glass was first discovered. Beads of been found in the tomb of Alexander Severus. Vases of it are brought up from the ruins of Herculaneum. There were female adornments made out of it 3,000 years ago—those adornments found now, attatched to the mummies of Egypt. A great many commentators believe that my text means glass. What would we do without the crystal? The crystal in the window to keep out the storm and let in the the day; the crystal over the watch defending its delicate machinery, yet allowing us to see the hour; the crystal of the telescope, by which the astronomer brings distant worlds so near-he can inspect them. Oh, the triumphs of the crystals in the celebrated windows of Roden and Salisbury! But there is nothing so transparent, in a crystal as in religion. It is a transparent religion. You put it to your eye and yo.u see man—his sin, his soul, his destiny. You look at God and you see something of the grandeur of his character. It is a transparent reliigon. Infidels tell us it is opaque? It is because, they are blind. The. natural man receiveth not the things of God because they are spiritually discerned. There is no trouble with the crystal; the trouble is with the eyes which try to look through it. We pray for wisdom, Lord, eyes might be opened. When the eye salve cures our Blindness : then we find that religion is transparent. ! It is a transparent Bible. All the I mountains of the Bible come out—Sinai, the mountain of the law; Pisgah, the mountain of prospect; Olivet, the mountain of instruction; Calvary, the mountain of sacrifice. All the rivers of the Bible come out—Uidekel, or the river of paradisaical beauty; J ord aor the river of holy chrism; Cherith,/or the river of prophetic supply; Niles, or the river of palaces, and the purelriver of life from under the throne, clear as crystal. While reading the Bible after our eyes have been touched by grace we find it all transparent, and the earth rocks, now with crucifixion agony and now with judgement terror, and Christ appears in some of His two hundred and fifty-six titles, as far as 1 cjin count them—the bread, the rock, the captain, the commander, the conqueror, the star, anti on and beyond any capacity of mine to rehearse them. Transparent religion! The providence that seemed dark before becomes pellucid. Now you find God is not trying to put yoh down. Now you understand why you lost that child, and why you,lost your property; it was to prepare you for eternal treasures. And why sickness came, it was the precursor of immortal juvcnescence. And now you understand why they lied about you and tried to drive hither and thither. It was to put you in the glorious company of such men as Ignatius, who, when he went out to be destroyed by the lions, said: “I am the wheat, and the teeth of the wild beasts must first grind me before I can become pure bread for Jesus Christ,” or the company of such men as Polycarp, who when standing in the midst of the amphitheater waiting for the lions to come out of their cave and destroy him, and the people in the galleries jeering and shouting, “The lions for Polycarp,” replied, “Let them come on,” and then stooping dowq. toward the cave where the wild beasts were roaring to get out, “Let them come on.” Ah, yes, it Is persecution to put in glorious company; and while there are many things that you will have to post-* Jone to the future world for explanation, tell you that it is the whole tendency Z . ■ . I. - . ■

of your religion to unravel and explain and interprete and illumine and irradiate. Job was right. It is a glorious transparency. “The crystal cannot equal it.” I remark again that religion surpasses the crystal in its beauty. That lump of crystal is put under the magnifying glass of the crystallographer, and he sees in it indescribable beauty—snowdrift and splinters of hoar frost and corals and wreaths and stars and crowns and castellations of conspicuous beauty. The fact is that crystal is so beautiful that I can think of but one thing in all the universe that is so beautiful, and that is the religion of the Bible. No wonder this Bible represents that religion as the daybreak, as the apple blossoms, as the glitter of a king’s ban-, quet. It is the joy of the whole earth. ' People talk too much about their cross and not enough about their crown. Do you know the Bible mentions a cross but twenty-seven times, while it mentions a crown eighty times? Ask that old man what he thinks of religion. He has been a close observer. He has been culturing an aesthetic taste. He has seen the sun-’’ rises of a half century. He has been an early riser. He has been an admirer of cameos and corals and all kinds of beautiful things. Ask him what he thinks of religion, and he will tell you, “It is the most beautiful thing I ever saw.” “The crystal cannot equal it.” Beautiful in its symmetry. When it presents God’s character it does not present Him as having love like a great protuberance on one side of His nature, but makes that love in harmony with His justice—a love that will accept a’l those who come to Him, and a justice that will by no means clear the guilty. Beautiful religion in the sentiment it implants! Beautiful religion in the hope it kindles! Beautiful religion in the fact that it proposes to garland and enthrone and emparadise an immortal spirit. Solomon says it is a lily. Paul says it is a crown. The Apocalypse says it is a fountain kissed of the sun. Ezekiel. says it is a foliaged cedar. Christ says it is a bridegroom come to fetch home a bride. While Job in the text takes up a whole vase of precious stones —the topaz, and the sapphire, and the chrysoprasus—and he takes out of this beautiful vase just one crystal, and holds it up until it gleams in the light of the eastern sky, and he exclaims, “The crystal can not equal it.” Oh, it is not a stale religion, it is not a stupid religion, it is not a toothless hag, as some shera to have represented it; it is not a Meg Merriles with shriveled arm come to scare the world. It is the fairest daughter of God, heiress of all His wealth. Her cheek the morning sky; her voice the music of the south wind; her step the dance of the sea. Come and woo her. The Spirit and the bride say come, and whosoever will, let him come. Do you agree with Solomon and say it is a lily? Then pluck it and wear it over your heart. Do you .agree with Paul and say it is a crown? Then let this hour be your coronation. Do you agree with the Apocalypse and say it is a springing fountain? Then comp and slake the thirst of your soul. Do ydu believe with Ezekiel and say it is a foliaged cedar? Then come under its shadow. Do you believe with Christ and say it is a bridegroom come to fetch home a bride? Then strike hands with your Lord the King while I pronounce you everlastingly one. Or if you think with Job that it is a jewel, then put it on your hand like a ring, on your neck like a bead, on your forehead like a star, while looking into the mirror of God’s Word you acknowledge “the crystal equal it.” Again, religion is superior to the crystal in its transformations. The diamond is only a crystallization of coal. Carbonate of lime rises till it becomes calcite or aragonite. Red oxide' of copper crystallizes into cubes and octohedrons. Those crystals which adorn our persons and our homes and our museums have only been resurrected from forms that were far from lustrous. Scientists for ages have been examining those wonderful transformaitons. But I tell you in the gospel of the Son of God there is a more wonderful transformation. Over souls by reason of sin black as coal and hard as iron God by his comforting grace stoops and says, “They shall be mine in the day when I make up my jewels.” you, “will God wear jewelry?” If He wanted it He could make the stars oC Heaven His belt and have the evenmg cloud for the sandals of His feet, but He does not want that adornment. He will not have that jewely. When God wants jewelry He comes down and digs it out of the depths and darkness of sin. These souls are all crystallizations of mercy. He puts them on and He wears them in the presence of the whole universe. He wears them on the hand that was nailed, over the heart that was pierced, on the temples that were stung. “They shall be mine,” saith the Lord, “in the day when I make up my jewels.” Wonderful transformation! “The crystal cannot equal it.” There she is, a waif of the street, but she shall be a sister of charity. There he is, a sot in the ditch, but he shall preach the gospel. There, behind the bars of a prison, but he shall reign with Christ forever. Where sin abounded grace shall much more abound. The carbon becomes the solitaire. “The crystal cannot equal it.” Now, I have-no liking for those people who are always enlarging in Christian i meetings about their early dissipation. I Do not go into the particulars, my brothi ers. Simply say you were sick, but make no display of your ulcers. The. chief stock in trade of some ministers and Christian workers seems to be their early crimes and dissipations. The number of pockets you picked and the number of chfckens you stole make very poor prayer meeting rhetoric. Besides that, it discourages other Christian people who never got drunk or stole anything. But it is pleasant to know that those who were farthest down have been brought highest up. Out of infernal serfdom into eternal liberty. Out of darkness into light. From coal to the solitaire. “The crystal cannot equal it.” But, my friends, the chief transforming power of the gospel will not be seen in this world, and not until Heaven , breaks upon the soul. When that light falls upon the soul then you will see the crystals. Oh what a magnificent setting for these jewels of eternity! I sometimes hear people representing Heaven in a way that is far from attractive to me. It seems almost a vulgar Heaven as they represent it, with great blotches of color and bands of music making a deafening racket. John represents Heaveh as exclusively beautiful. Three crystals. In one place he says: “Her light was like a precious stone, clear as .crystal.” /In another place he says, “I saw a pure river from under the a throne, clear as crystal.” In another place he says, “Before the throne there was a sea of glass clear as I crystal.” Three crystals! John says : crystal atmosphere. That means health. : Balm of eternal June. What weather ■ after the world’s east wind! No rack of storm clouds. One breath of that air will cure the worst tubercle. Crystal light on all the leaves. Crystal light shimmering on the topaz of the temples. Crystal light tossing in the plumes of the equestrians of Heaven on white horses. But “the crystal cannot equal it.” John says crystal river. That means joy. Deep and ever rolling. Not one drop of the Thames or the Hudson or the j Rhine to soil it No onfe tear of )human sorrow to imbitter it. Crystal, Y the rain out of which It was made. 4 .

Crystal, the bed over which it shall roll and ripple. Crystal, its infinite surface. But “the crystal cannot equal it” John says crystal sea. That means multitudinously vast Vast in rapture. Rapture vast as the sea, deep as the sea, strong as the sea, ever changing as the sea. Billows of light Billows of beauty, blue with skies that were never clouded, and green with depths that were never fathomed. Arctics and Antarctics and Mediterraneans and Atlantics and Pacifies in crystalline magnificence. Three crystals—crystal light falling on a crystal river; crystal river rolling into a crystal sea. But “the crystal cannot equal it.” “Oh,” says some one, putting his hand over his eyes, “can it be that I who have been in so much sin and trouble will ever come to those crystals?” Yes, it may be —it will be. Heaven we must have, whatever else we have or have not, and we come here to gel it. “How much must I pay for it?” you say. You will pay for it just as much as the coal pays to become the diamond. In other words, nothing. The same Almighty power that makes the crystals in the mountains will change your heart, which is harder than stone, for the promise is, “I will take away yout.stony heart and I will give you a heart of flesh.” “Oh,” says some one, “it is just the doctrine I want. God is to <do everything, and I am to do nothing.” My brother, it is not the doctrine you want. The coal makes no resistance. It hears the resurrection voice in the mountain, and it comes to crystallization, buLypur heart resists. The trouble witlr--s«&u, my is the coal wants to stay coal. Ido not ask you to throw open the door and let Christ in. I only ask that you stop bolting it and barring it. Oh, my friends, we will have to get rid of our sins. 1 will have to get rid of my sins, and you will have to get rid of yonr sins. What will we do with our sins among the three crystals? The crystal atmosphere would display-our pollution. The crystal river would be befouled with our touch. The crystal sea would whelm us with its glistening surge. Transformation now or no .transformation at all. Give sin full chance in your heart .and the transformation will be downward instead of upward. Instead of a crystal it will be a cinder. In the days of Carthage a Christian girl was condemned to die for her faith, and a boat was bedaubed with tar and pitch and filled with combustibles and set on lira and the Christian girl was placed in the boat, and the wind was off shore and the boat floated away with itsjprecious treasure. No one can doubt that boat landed at the shore of Heaven. , Sin wants to put you in a fiery boat and shove you off in an opposite di-rection-r—off from peace, off from God, off from Heaven, everlastingly off; and the port toward which you would sail would be a port of darkness, and the guns that would greet you would be the guns of despair, and the flags that would wave at your arrival would be the black flags of death. O, my brother, you must either kill sin or sin will kill you. It is/ no wild exaggeration when 1 say thatß any man or woman that wants to be saved may be saved. Tremendous choice! A thousand people are choosing this moment between salvation and destruction, between light and darkfiess, between Heaven and hell, between charred ruin and glorious crystallization - - -• ■ £ The Overgrowth of Cities. All over the world the cities are growing faster than the country that must feed and clothe them. Population is rising everywhere, even in almost stationary France, nearer to high-water mark. It is running westward in strong currents through every open way it can find, and as it runs the whirlpools are ’ getting deeper and quicker that sweep the yeomanry into the maelstrom of city life. The country feeds the city with its grain and meat, and with the fresh life its consuming energies demand. Its unceasing cry is, Give, give! This is an age of concentration—con 4 centration of money, of power and, not by any means the least significant, of population. The figures of this citifying of the population of tHisTbountry, as given in the compendium of the censuq just published, are startling. In 1790 one-thir-tieth of our people UA-ed in cities; in 1800 one-twenty-fißn; in 1810 one twentieth. This was .not changed in 1820. In 1830 one-sixjteenth; in 1840 onetwelfth; in 1850 one-eighth; in 1860 one-sixth; in 1870 one-fifth; and in 1880 the city population is 22.5 per cent, of the whole, or almost one-quarter. In England the population increased between 1871 arid 1881 by 3,113,170. Os that the cities/gained 2,860,079. Almost all ofz-tne increase was in the hiving centers. The figures for France are still more striking. In 1876 the population of the whole nation was 24,945,064, and of this 11,960,724 were in the towns. In the five years that have followed the whole country has gained but 389,679, and of this Paris has absorbed 337,000. Out of anjmpzfaL advent of 77,934 new souls the metropolis captures 67,400. The rest of the (country gets only the remaining 10,500;, All the tendencies of modern fife have been toward rhe development of the agencies of exchange and production. Prices that used to be fixed in thousands of local independent markets that hardly ever heard from each other are now regulated either by some of our giant combinations or by the cosmopolitan influences of boards of trade and stock exchanges. The spinners who once drove their wheels by the fireside of home with one foot on the treadle and the other on the rocker of have been consolidated into mammoth factories. The weaver is no longer a village figure in the landscape of England. Our artisans, Once their own masters, have had to enlist in the service of steam, and are .massed by the railroads at the strategic joints of trade and commerce.— Chicago Tribune. A Model Home. One of our exchanges has a column headed “Our Home,” and at the top it gives an illustration which is supposed to represent that hallowed retreat. The husband and father is represented as reading a bread board; the mother, dressed in a bunting dress with an overskirt two feet longer than the dress proper, is reading a cigar box or a checker board, and the rest of the family, some thirteen or fourteen souls, cluster wound the table reading different kinds-of things’, while a daughter in one corner of the room is climbing up on the key-board of the piano With her feet, and her face is wreathed in a smile that wraps her rosebud mouth twice around her Grecian head and buries itself in her clustering hair. One of the boys has dropsy of the brain and his pants are too short. Another is trying with great difficulty to tie the cat’s tail around the table leg, and a little daughter is pouring the sawdust vitals out of o a rag doll down a knot-hole in the floor. It is a perfect picture of home contentment and perennial joy.— Laramie Boomerang. A. Chicago surgeon advertises to sure hare-lip. He don’t give his niunst hast tt !■ probably Philip.

Competitive Examination. An eminent psychologist in the Porpular Science Monthly furnishes some expert testimony regarding the fallacy of competitive examinations as a test of brain power and practical knowledge, which might have been of service if it could have been introduced in the recent debate upon the Civil Service Reform biH in Congress. Like all those whose intimate association with competitive examination authorizes them to pass judgment upon their value, he holds that as true tests of inteUigence they are superficial and worthless. As illustrations he cites the cases of two young men, candidates for admission to the Royal Military Academy of England. One of them, Brown, passes fifth in the list and is admitted; the other, Smith, fails and is rejected. Twenty years after Smith and Browti meet. The latter has jogged along and has made a decent citizen, has never done anything very wise or very foolish; while, on the other hand, Smith has developed into a man of remarkable force, has become a leader in public sentiment and shapes political measures while he writes clever books, his intellect proving to be one of the strongest and his mind one of the most brilliant in England. . Those who conducted the examination supposed it to be a test of the brain power and the intelligence of the candidates, when it was nothing but a demand upon the memory and not upon the reason. One of the young men had the faculty of retaining what had been crammed into his mind; the other had original force, inventive genius and a natural comprehension of logic. ° But it is not necessary to go to England to secure illustrations of this fallacy. They are found iu all the departments at Washington and in every institution of learning in the land. Technical questions, making demands upon the memory and not upon the reasoning faculties and practical experience of the student are no test of his intellectual force or general capacity, particularly when men of ability to conduct practical transactions are sought for, and it is herein that the competitive examination misleads the inspectors and does injustice to the candidates. The only practical test that can be depended upon is a trial of fair duration, in which the faculties of those who enter upon it may be demonstrated by active contact with the affairs that are to be managed. Burgling as an Art. The methods of the American thief are very comprehensive and skillful, says the C|leveland Herald; more so than are those of the profession, for such has thieving become, of other countries. It is commonly acknowledged among the first police officers in tiie world that, for a fine job, the thief is far ahead of the other nations. Why should they be? That Sis somewhat of a mystery, unless to the training he has received under the tutelage of the best of English thieves hekadds the peculiar daring, coolness, cunning and skill that seems to be inherent in the fully developed American, but Ho matter for what reason, the fact renrfains unchallenged that he stands at the head of the craft. A consideration tof his ways, gentle and otherwise, will be interesting to read. He is divided in many families, but first and foremost among thieves is the bank burglar or “high tobyman. ” He is the king bee in the criminal hive, and affects to be a gentleman when not otherwise engaged on a “lay.” The history of nearly every large and wealthy city abounds in instances of the bank robber’s daring roguery. He comes and leaves mysteriously, and his presence would not have been felt had he not left a “kit” of beautiful tools beside a wrecked safe or bank vault, and taken in exchange greenbacks and bonds that may be thousands, but more often is millions. This in his peculiarly sportive tnoments he might term a fair exchange, and does; but no amount of sportive wit can persuade the bank officers into thus regarding the visit. Bank burglars are not in the habit of working alone. The Chinese should be good fighters—fast colors do not run and the Chinese certainly wash well— Boston Bulletin. People who lose their money in bucket shops would rejoice at a chance to kick the bucket

This is the Season

In which to purity and enrich the blood, restore the lost appetite, and build up the nerves, as the system is now especially susceptible to benefit from medicine. The peculiar medicinal merit of, and the wonderful cures by, Hood's Sarsaparilla have made it the most popular spring medicine. It cures scrofula, salt rheum, and all humors, biliousness, dyspepsia, headache, kidney and-, liver complaints, catarrh, and all affections caused or promoted by low state of the system or impure blood. Hood’s Sarsaparilla •When my boy was two years old he was attacked and suffered a long time with scrofula sores. The physician at length told us to give him Hood’s Sarsaparilla, which we did. Two bottles cured him. He is now 10 years old and has not had any sign of scrofula since. We recommend Hood’s Sarsaparilla.” Mbs. E. C. Clippeb, 8 Kidder Street, Cleveland, Ohio. Hood’s Sarsaparilla T recommend Hood’s Sarsaparilla as the best spring or fall medicine ever known. I was troubled with that tired feeling, particularly in the morning. Hood’s Sarsaparilla gave me strength and made me feel well.” Alex. Oehleb, 624 West Cross Street, Baltimore, Md.

Hood's Sarsaparilla

Sold by all druggists. $1; six for $5. Prepared only by C. I. HOOD & CO- Lowell, Mass. 100 Doses One Dollar

• “Thebesbis aye Hie cheapest/ «/oid imitationsF oEand substitutes rousMf "cake of scouring soa-p Try Hn your next house-cleaning. REAL ECONOMY. It is worse than nonsense to buy a cheap article with which to damage more valuable property. Scouring soap is at best only a trifling expense, but with a poor and cheap article it is likely to do considerable damage to fine marble or other property. ’ * • ’DISO’S REMEDY FOR CATARRH.—Best. Easiest to use. Cheapest. Relief is immediate. A cure is certain. For Cold in the Head it has no equal. ■ It to an Ointment, of which a small particle is applied to the

A Timely Hlntt When Henry Ward Beecher was at the bight of his popularity, Plymouth Church was so crowded one Sunday evening that a lady fainted. She was surrounded by a curious crowd, which prevented the air getting to her, and annoyed her friends. Mr. Beecher at once dropped his discourse and said pointedly: “When I was a boy at home I was always taught if a guest dropped a knife or fork, or created a momentary disturbance, not to notice it. I would like the congregation to be seated again.” The fainting member was then safely removed, and Mr. Beecher resumed preaching. The hint was not thrown away.— Free Press. Bi( Drift or,Big Story. “Some pretty big stories,” remarks the Kennebec Herald, “are told of the snow drifts in Aroostook County, Me., but the biggest comes from a commercial traveler this week. He had -recently come from there and said some men were chopping wood. A large tree fell the wrong way and stretched its giant trunk directly across the road. The snow on either side the road was so high that, after clearing away the limbs, it was found that it would not interfere with travel in the least, as a horse and sleigh could easily pass under it. The narrator himself had done so.” Struggling Up Life's Bugged Hill With youth, vigor, ambition and an indomitable will to help us,Jß.bo such grievous matter, but tottering down again, afflicted by the ailments which beset old age—our backs bent with lumbago, our elastic muscles and oints stiff and painful, is a woeful piece of business. For the infirmities which the decline of life too often brings, Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters is a beneficent bouicj of relief, a mitigating solace always to be depended upon. No regulating tonic evolved by botanic medical discovery is so well calculated, so thoroughly able, out without undue stimulative effect, to help the aged, the delicate and the convalescent—to resuscitate the vitality ot a frame which time and physical decline have impaired as this. Kidney and bladder weakness and disorder, costiveness, malarial complaints, dyspepsia and rheumatism are among the bodily afflictions which this sterling recupexant and regulator overcomes. Queer Appetites. A butcher of Seymour, Ind., is said to have found in the stomach of a slaughtered cow a silver half-dollar, several small bones, a lot of needles and pins, and a quarter of a pound; of iron nails. But a more remarkable discovery was that made by a servant in a St. Louis restaurant. While he was opening clams the other day there dropped from one of the bivalves a gold ring inscribed “S. S. to R. S.” The clams had been purchased from a New York house and were gathered from the ocean bed near Fire island. A man who has practiced medicine for forty years ought to know salt from sugar ; read what ne says: Toledo, 0., Jan. 10,1887. / # Messrs. F. J. Cheney & Co.—Gentlemen—l have been in the general practice of medicine for most forty years, and would say that in all my practice and experience have never seen a preparation that I could prescribe with as much confidence of success as I can THall’s Catarrh Cure, manufactured by <you. Have prescribed it a great many times ana its effect is wonderful. and would say in conclusion that I have yet to find a case of Catarrh that it would not cure, if they would take it according to directions. Yours truly, L. L. GORSUCH, M. D., Office, 215 Summit St. We will give §IOO for anv case of Catarrh that cannot be cured with Catarrh Cure. Taken internally. F. J. CHENEY & Co., Props., Toledo, O. fi®"Sold by Druggists, 75c. Kansas and Greenland Houses. The sod house on the Kansas frontier and the dwelling of a Greenland Eskimo much alike, about the only difference being an overground burrow in the hpnio of the Eskimo. All Greenland houses are of the same size, face the same way, and are built of the same material—layers of rough granite, sod, and mortar. Population of the World. In the journal of proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society fonjannary, 1891, it is estimated that of the world in 1890 was J 1,487,600,000, representing an average of thirty-one to the/square mile, and an increase of 8 per cejxt—dwring the decade, Mothers, don’t let your children suffer with 111-health. Try Dr. Bull’s Worm Destroyers—dainty candy lozenges. It will do them no harm, and may be just the remedy they need. By mail, 25 cents. John D. Park. Cincinnati, Ohio. Judge on a Bicycle. The Nevada Legislature having refused to appropriate money for the|traveling expenses of the District Judge, one of them has bought a bicycle on which to make his magisterial circuit.

That the people appreciate the merit of Hood** Sarsaparilla is shown by the fact that this medicine has The Largest Side of any sarsaparilla or blood purifier in this country. If you doubt this, ask any honest jobber or retail druggist Hood's Sarsaparilla is to-day on the sud tide of popularity, and has reached that pre-eminence by its own intrinsic, undisputed merit *1 take Hood’s Sarsaparilla every year as a spring tonic, with most satisfactory results.” C.Pabmblbb, 349 Bridge street Brooklyn, N. Y. The Spring Medicine ■When I lived in Plqus I was sick a long time, from what the doctor said was ague or malaria fever. I decided to take Hood’s Sarsaparilla and it brought me out all O. K. I take it every spring, and any time my appetite is poor I go for Hood’s Sarsaparilla, which always does me good.” H. E. Collins, of Wightman & Collins. 5 Bolivar Street, Cleveland, Ohio. The Spring Medicine ■I consider Hood's Sarsaparilla the best spring medicine, and can truly say that it 'Makes the Weak Strong.’ I take it all seasons of the year when needed, and would give five dollars for a bottle of it if I could not get it for less.” Albebt A. Jagnow, Douglaston, L. I, N. Y.

y Sold by all druggists. »1; six for $5. Prepared only by C. I. HOOD & CO„ Lowell, Mass. 100 Doses One Dollar