Decatur Democrat, Volume 37, Number 45, Decatur, Adams County, 26 January 1894 — Page 6

' >- — ©he democrat DECATUR, IND. K, BLACKBURN, . , . ■ Ptnn.imas. The waiter girl is willing to marry while she waits. A baby always helps to make home happy—particularly when the baby |s asleep. If the people give to the anarchist Just What he clamors for he will feel sorely hurt over it. Tris Is the time of the year when the farm hand, returning from the dance, falls asleep on the railroad track and the early milk train does the rest. Forty British troops were “massacred” by the Matabeles. Let us see, what is the correct word to use when 3,000 Matabeles are put. to death with Maxim guns'? Fall River, Mass., is a decaying village, 'it used to boast of a stirring murder every few weeks. Now it has to be content with the efforts of a venerable tirebug. A Detroit baker was found dead with his head and shoulders buried in, a mass <sf dough. There was an inquiry into the cause of death, but what the Detroit people most want to know is what became of the dough. 1 How insignificant a decayed tooth looks after it is out: When it was at home and busy at work it felt fs big as a meeting-house, bht after It has been kicked out of'floors it looks so small that it seems like effrontery to tender it to the dentist in payment for his services. With regard to the choice of friends, there is little to say, for a friend is never chosen. A secret sympathy, the attraction of a thousand nameless qualities, a charm in the expression of the countenance, even in the voice or manner, a similarity of circumstances —these are the things that begin attachment. These anarchists are not a very valiant crowd after all. The desire to redeem mankind is not strong enough to overcometheir love of life. Godina, who threw the bomb in the Liceo Theater, says that he had intended to throw two, but he saw a detective watching him after the first had done its execution, and he sneaked away with the missile hidden under his coat. Frank Wyatt, a Chicago newspaper man. riding in a street car, drew his revolver and made two thieves give back the goods they had just taken from a fellow passenger. In doing so he was guilty of carrying concealed weapons, breach of the peace, assault with intent to kill, and, so far as the thieves are concerned, with grand larceny and highway robbery. Which illustrates the difference between law and justice. Chang, the Chinese giant, was buried recently at Bournemouth. The coffin was nearly eight feet six inches long. A Congregational minister conducted the service. He leaves two sons who are of normal height. His wife, who was English, died a little while ago. The great point about Chang was that he was a genuine giant, well built, and well ! proportioned. He had’ a face of the typical Chinese wisdom and benevolence, and bore himself with the greatest courtesy and dignity. Reports from Brazil seem to indicate that Admiral Mello is eager to have the Nictheroy squadron come and attack him, while the commander of that terrifying aggregation of extemporized men-of-war is thirsting for blood and also eagerly awaiting attack. It is this policy of awaiting the attiick ot the enemy and firmly refusing to go and seek him which enables our sanguinary neighbors to the southward to conduct frequent wars without in any degree increasing the death ratq in their country. New York Journal: Very genteel fellows, those train robbers out West! They apologize to engineers for the trouble of halting their locomotives: and while they harvest the gold watches and diamond pins of the incautious travelers they remark: “We are poor workingmen and must have Shoes to wear.” Evidently this formula is borrowed from the Spanish brigands, who invariably begin with the remark: “We are poor men, Senors,” as if that were an all-suf-fleient excuse., The workmen of the Mississippi Valley should hunt down the villains who are. injuring them by claiming to be “honest” toilers. One of the strangest diseases known to mankind is the uncontrollable desire to alter signs, thereby turning the most staid and sober inscriptions into the. most ridiculous twaddle. Although largely restricted to smell boys the alllictiop sometimes clings even after man's estate has been reached. All the passenger coaches on the Philadelphia and Reading Road bear inscriptions which read: “Passengers must keep off the platform until the train stops.” Many of these, by a little ingenious rubbing, have been made to read: •Passengers must keep off'the platform until the rain stops.” From the fact that a large number of the signs have been doctored in precisely the same manner the supposition

naturally in that they have all been J altered by the same person. Here is a subject for a specialist on brain disorders. l The State of New York has a law requiring examiners to go through j, thousands of papers about this time at Albany, the authors being under 18. One of the themes on which an B essay was asked was “Macbeth.” A .. paper on this subject was short and to the point. Macbeth was pronounced a wicked man who had killed t the whole Duffy family. It is need--1 less to say that the writer was a young tiger who got a little ancient history mussed in a mysterious way j around the lonely figure of a well- , known political character in New I York, an ornament to the benct, Jus--5 tice Duffy. The failure of New York to do the right thing about monuments showed in a paper on Nathan Hale. The wr/ter unhesitatingly declared that Nathan had just been celebrated by the unfurling of tw< monuments) It is historical knowledge and literary skill like this that is going to adorn future statesmen of New York. As the Pole hates the Russian, as the German hates the Pole, as the Frenchman hates the German, as the Spaniard hates the Frenchman, as the Portuguese hates the Spaniard, so, with the increased vehemence of family aversions, does the Norwegian hate his brother, the Swede. .Years ago Sweden united Norway to itself on a footing highly honorable to the smaller country. Ever since then the terms of the understanding have been subjects of dispute. Norway desires to retain the right of forming alliances and of declaring war on foreign powers for its own parliament. This would make the suzerainty of the Swedish king purely nominal. The Norwegians are ultra-demo-cratic; the Swedes are aristocratic by nature and tradition. It is only a question of time when another collision will come, unless the great powers, themselves at swords' points with each other, step in and play the role of peacemaker between the two ill-mated partners. The anti-tax war in Sicily has assumed proportions so formidable that 36,000 troops of the third section of one army class not previously under arms for some years have been ordered there in addition to the large regular contingent stationed in the island. This means fierce suppression of the revolt. Sicily has a population exceeding 3,000,000, fourfifths of them unable to read or write, living for the most part on small tillage and reduced to desperation by octroi and other taxas. Revolutionary demagogues have found quick sympathy among the victims of triple alliance extravagance, and arms have bee A 'imported during the past summer at a rate that meant a rising if not cheeked in time. The King is evidently go!ng to give the check now, but if he pin the island down with a bayonet he cannot collect any taxes. The land cannot be worked without labor, and the sullen Italian, menaced by soldiery, will not work. The situation is serious enough, and collisions between the troops and people are likely to inflame other parts of the kingdom instead of quieting a discontent profound and universal. The thousands ot Chicagoans who found intellectual enjoyment, in examining the priceless exhibit of Pope Leo in the Convent of La Rabida at the World's Fair will be pleased to learn that efforts are now being made to secure many, if not all, the features of that exhibit for the Columbian Museum. iThe willingness of the Pope to donate a part of the exhibit encouraged the museum directory to ask for all of it. The assistance of Cardinal Gibbons has been enlisted, and already he has begun correspondence with the Pope. There is no estimating the value, either financial or educational, of the Vatican exhibit. It was the most interesting of La Rabida's contents. It consists of rare historical documents pertaining to the discover}' of America, pictures, ancient tomes, etc. For centuries they had lain in the archives of the Vatican, and only by courtesy of the Pope, whose intense interest in the great Exposition was manifested in so many ways, were they permitted to be removed for pifblic inspection. Duplicates of several articles are not to be found in aify of the world’s museums, which makes them more desirable for the Columbian Museum. It is sincerely hoped that the efforts of the directory, aided by Cardinal Gibbons, will result in success. Visiting Cards. The Chinese, who seem to have known most of our new ideas, used visiting cards 1,000 years ago; but their cards were very large, and not really the prototypes of our visiting cards, as they were on soft paper and tied with ribbon. Venice seems to have been the first city in Europe to use cards; some dating from the latter part of the sixteenth century are preserved in a museum there. The German cities followed the Venitian i custom in 10b years or so, then London followed suit, for the first visit- ( ing cards in Great. Britain were play- ' ing cards, or parts of such cards, ’ bearing the name of the bestower on the back. They were first used in England about 1700. We do not i know when they were first used in s this country, probably not long after 1 their first introduction into British ( society. Tattoo! Dg in Japan. The* Japanese tattooers now pto--1 duce in colors an exact photograph ! of any cherished friend whose image ' the tattooed person may desire to i have constantly with him.

" ' , , , ■ ■ TALMAGE’S SERMON. I I AN ELOQUENT AND IMPRESSIVE DISCOURSE. ' “The Lord Hath Made Bare Illa Holy Arm"—A Wonderfat Reaerve of Power— Achievement* Without Effort—On the Winning Side. » The Bare Arm ot God. Rev. Dr. Talmage took for his subI jeet, "rhe Bare Arm of God,” the text being Isaiah ill, 10, i "The Lord hath made bare His holy arm.” i It almost takes our breath away to read some of the Bible imagery. There is such boldness of metaphor in my text that i have been for some time getting my courage up to preach from it. Isaiah, the evangelistic prophet, is sounding the jubilate of our.planet redeemed and cries out, “The Lord hath made bare His holy arm.” What overwhelming suggestiveness in that figure of speech, "The bare arm of God!” The people of Palestine to this day wear much hindering apparel, and wlien they want to run a special race, or lift a" special burden, or fight a i special battle, they put off the outside apparel, as in our land when a man proposes a special exertion he puts off his coat and rolls up his sleeves. Walk through our foundries, our machine shops, our mines, our factories, and you will find that most of the toilers have their eoats off and their sleeves rolled up. Isaiah saw that there must be a tremendous amount of work done before this world becomes what it ought to be, and Ke, foresees it all accomplished by the Almighty, not as we ordinarily think of Him. but by the Almighty with the sleeve of His robe rolled back to His shoulder, "The Lord hath made bare His hojy arm.” The Creation of Light. Nothing more impresses me in the Bible than the ease with which God does most things. There is such a reserve of power. He has r .ore thunderbolts than He has ever flung, more light than He has ever distributed, more blue than that with which He has overarched the skv, more green than that with which lie has emeralded the grass, more crimson than that with which He has burnished the sunsets. I say it with reverence, from all I can see, God has never half tried. You know as well as I do that many of the most elaborate and expensive industries of our world have been employed in creating artificial light. Half of the time the world is dark. The moon and the stars have their glorious uses, but as instruments of illumination they are failures. They will not allow you to read a book or stop the ruffianism of your great cities. Had not the darkness been persistently fought back by artificial means the most of the world's enterprises would have halted half the time, while the crime of our great municipalities would for half the time run rampant and unrebuked: hence all the inventions for creating artificial light, fi-om the flint struck against steel in centuries past to the dynamo of our electrical manufactories. VVhat uncounted numbers of people at work the year round in making chandeliers and lamps and fixtures and wires and batteries where light shall be made, or along which light shall run, or where light shall poise! How many bare arms of human toil—and some of those bare arms are very tired—in the creation of light and its apparatus, and after all the work the greater part of the continents and hemispheres at night have no light at all, except perhaps the fireflies flashing their small lanterns across the swamp. Made With His Fingers. But see how easy God made the light. He aid not make bare His arm: He did not even put forth His robed arm: He d'id not lift so much as a finger. The flint out of which Ho struck the noonday sun was the word, “Light.” "Let 'there be light!” Adam did not see the sun until the fourth day. for, though the sun was created on the first day, it took its rays from the first to the fourth day to work through the dense mass of fluids by which tnis earth was compassed. Did you ever hear of anything sq easy as that? So unique? Out of a word came the blazing sun, the father of flowers, and warmth and light! Out of a word building a fire-place for all the nations of the earth to warm themselves by! Yes, seven other worlds, five of them inconceivably larger than our own,and seventy-nine asteroids, or worlds on a smaller scale! The warmth and light for this great brotherhood, great sisterhood, great family of worlds, eighty-seven larger or smaller worlds, all from that one magnificent fireplace, made out of the one word —Light. The sun 886,000 miles in diameter, I do not know how much grander a solar system God could have created if He had put forth His robed arm, to say nothing of an arm made bare! But this I know, that our noonday sun was a spark struck from the anvil of one word, atad that word “Light.” "But,”says pne, “do you not think that in making the machinery of the universe, of which our solar system is comparatively a small wheel working into mightier wheels, it must have cost God some exertion? The upheaval of an arm either robed or an arm made bare?” No; we are distinctly told otherwise. The machinery of a universe. God made simply with His fingers. David, inspired in a night song, says so—“ When 1 consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers. ” The Tc*tlm->ny at Itavkl* A Scottish clergymen told me a few weeks ago of dyspeptic Thomas Carlyle walking out with a friend o®e starry night, and as the friend looked’ up and said, "What a splendid sky!” Mr. Carlyle replied as he glanced ipward, “Sad sight, sad sight!” Not so thought David as he read the great Scripture of the night heavens. It was a aweep of embroidery, of vast tapestry. God manipulated. That is the allusion of the psalmist to the woven hangings.pf tapestry as they were known long before David’s time. Far back in the ages what enchantment of thread and color, the Florentine velvets of silk and gold and Persian carpets woven of goats’.hair! If you have been in the Gobelin manufacture of tapestry in Paris—alas, now no more I —you witnessed wondrous things as vou saw the wooden needle or broach going back and forth and in and out’; you were transfixed with admiration at the patterns wrought. No wonder that Louis XIV bought it, and it became the possession of the throne, and for a long while none but thrones and palaces might have any of its work ! WhaL, triumphs of loom ! What victory of skilled fingers! So David says of the heavens that God’s fingers wove into them the light; that God’s fingers tapestried them with stars: that God’s fingers embroidered them with worlds. A Great Undertaking. My text makes it plain that the rectification of this world is a stupendous undertaking. It takes more power to make this world over again than it took to make it at first. A word was only necessary for the first creation, hut for tne new creation the unsleeved and unhindered fore arm of the Almighty! The reason of that I can understand.

In the shipyards of Llverpbol or Glasgow or New York a great vessel is constructed. The architect draws out the plan, the length of the beam, tho capacity of tonnage, tho rotation of wheel or screw, the cabin, the masts and all tho appointments of this groat palace of the deep. The architect finishes his work without any perplexity, and the carpenters and the artisans toil on the craft so man) hours a day, each one doing his part, until with flags flying, and thousands of people huzzaing on the docks the vessel is launched. But out on the sea that steamer breaks her shaft and is limping slowly along toward harbor, when Carribbean whirlwinds. those mighty hunters of the deep, looking out for prey of ships, surround thnt wounded vessel and pitch it on a rocky coast, ami she lifts and falls In the lireakers until every joint is loose, and every spar is down and every wave sweeps over the hurricane deck as she parts midships. Would it not require more skill' and power to get that splintered vessel off the rocks and reconstruct it than it required originally to build her? Aye! Our world that God built so beautiful, aud which started out withall the flags of Edenic foliage and with tho chant of paradisaical bowers, has been sixty i centuries pounding in the skerries of sin and sorrow, and to get her out, and to get her off. and to get her on the right way again will require more of omnipotence than it required to build her and launch her. So I am not surprised that though in the drydock of one word our world was made it will take the unsleeved arm ot God to lift her from the rocks and put her on the right course again. It is evident from my text and its comparison with other texts that it would not be so great an undertaking to make a whole constellation of worlds, and a whole galaxy of worlds, and a whole astronomy of worlds, and swing them in their right orbits as to take this wounded world, this stranded world, this bankrupt world, this destroyed world, and make it as good aS when it started. Evils toOverrome. Now, just look at the enthroned in the way, the removal of which, the overthrow of which, seem ta4&q<iire the bare right arm of omnipotence. There stands heathenism, with its 860,000,000 victims, I do not care whether you call them Brahmans or Buddhists. Confucians or fetich idolaters. At the World's Fair in Chicago last summer those monstrosities of religion tried to make themselves respectable, but the long hair and baggy trousers and trinkled robes of their representatives cannot hide from the world that tliose religions are the authors of funeral pyre, and juggernaut crushing, and Ganges infanticide, and Chinese shoe torture, and the aggregated massacres of many centuries. They have their heels on India, on China, on Persia, on Borneo, on threeforths of the acreage of our poor old world. I know that the missionaries, who are the most sacrificing and Christlike men and women on earth, are making steady and glorious inroads upon these built up abominations of the centuries. All this stuff that you see in some of the newspapers anout the missionaries as living in luxury and idleness .is procorrupt Americans or English or* scotch merchants, whose loose behaviour in heathen cities has been rebuked by the missionaries, and these corrupt merchants write home or tell innocent and unsuspecting visitors in India or China or the darkened islands of the sea these falsehoods about our consecrated missionaries, who. turning their backs on home and civilization and emolument and comfort, spend their lives in trying to introduce the mercy of the gospel among the downtrodden of heathenism. Some of those merchants leave their families in America or England .or Scotland and stay for a few years' in the ports of heathenism while they are making their fortunes in the tea or rice or opium trade, and while they are thus absent from home give themselves to orgies of dissoluteness such as no pen or tongue could, without the abolition of all decency, attempt to report. The presence of t he missionaries, with their pure and noble households, in those heathen ports is a constant rebuke to such debauchees and miscreants. If satan should visit Heaven from which he was once roughly but justly expatriated, and he should write home to the realms pandemoniac, his correspondence published in Diabolos Gazette or Apollyonic News, about what he had seen, ho would report the temple of God and the Lamb as a broken down church, and the house of many mansions as a disreputable place, and the cherubim as suspicious of morals. Sin never did like holiness, and you had better not depend upon satanic report of the sublime and multipotont work of our missionaries in foreign lands. But notwithstanding all that these men and women ot God haj’e achieved, they feel and wp all feel that if the idolatrous lands are to be Christianized there needs to be a power from the heavens that has not yet condescended. and we feel like crying out in the words of Charles Wesley: Arm of the Lord, awake, awake I Put on thy etreugth, the nations shake ! Aye, it is not only the Lord's arm tnat is needed, the holy arm. the outstretched arm, but the bare arm! The Niagara of Inebriety. There stands also the arch demon of alcoholism. Its throne is white and made of b.eached human skulls. On one side of that throne of skulls kneels in obeisapce and worship democracy, and on the other side republicanism, and the one that kisses the cancerous and gangreened foot of this despot the oftenest gets the most benedictions. There is a Hudson River, an Ohio, a Mississippi of strong drink rolling through this nation, but as the rivers from I take my figure of speech y#tiptv into the Atlantic or the gulf this mightier flood of sickness and insarftty an ® domestic ruin and crime and bankruptcy and woe empties into the heayts, and the homes, and the churches, and the time, and the eternity of a multitude beyond all statistics to .number or describe. All nations are mauled and sacrificed with baleful stimulus, or killing narcotic. The pulque of Mexico, the cashew of Brazil, the hasheesh of Persia, the opium of China,' t'he guavo of Honduras, the wedro of Russia, the soma of India, the aguardlerfte of Morocco, the arak of Arabia, the mastic of Syria, the raki of Turkey, the beer of Germany, the whiskey of Scotland, the ale of England, the all drinks of America, are doing their best to stupefy, inflame, dement, impoverish, brutalize and slay the human race. Human 1 power, unless re-enforced from the heavens, can.ncver extirpate the evils I mention. good has been accomplished by the heroism and fidelity of Christian reformers, but the fact remains that there are more splendid men and magnificent women this moment going over the Niagara abysm of inebriety than at any time since the first grape was turned into wine and the first head of rye began to soak in a brewery.| When people touch this subject, they are apt to glv© statistics as to how many millions are in drunkards’ graves, or with quick tread marching on toward them. The land is full of talk of high tariff and low tariff, but what about the highest Sf all tariffs in this country, the tariff of 8900,000,000

■ which rum put upon the United States ■ I in 1891, for that Is what it costs us? > I You do not tremble or turn palo when ■ I say that. The fact is we have be--1 come hardened by statistics, and they 1 make little impression. But if some > one could gather into one mighty lake ) all the tears that have been wrung out > ot orphanage and widowhood, or Into i one organ diapason all the groans that ■ have been uttered by tho suffering 1 victims of this holocaust, or into one > whirlwind all. tho sighs of cen- • turlcs of dissipation, or from the wicket ' of one immense prison have looked ' upon us the glaring eyes of all those ■ whom strong drink has endungooned, i we might perhaps realize the appalling desolation. But, no, no, the sight would forever blast our vision; tho sound would forever stun our souls. Go on with your temperance literature; go on with your temperance platforms: go on with your temperance laws. But we are all hoping for something from above, and while the bare arm of suffering, and the bare arm of invalidism, and the bare arm of poverty, and the bare arm of domestic desolation, from which rum hath torn the sleeve, are lifted up in beggary and supplication and despair, lot the bare arm of God strike tne breweries, ami the liquor stores, and the corrupt politics, and tho license laws, and the whole inferno of grogshops all around the world. Down, thou accursed bottle, from the throne! Into the dust, thou king of the demijohn! Parched be thy lips, thou wine cup, with fires that shall never be quenched! Plenty of Ammunition. But I have no time to specify the manifold evils that challenge Christianity. And I think I have seen in some Christians, and read in some newspapers, and heard from some pulpits a dlsheartenment, as though Christianity were so worsted that it is hardly worth while to attempt to win this world tor God, and that all Christian work would collapse, and that it is no use for you to teach a Sabbath class, or distribute tracts, or exhort in prayer meetings, or preach in a pulpit, as satan is gaining ground. To rebuke that pessimism, the gospel of smashup, I preach this sermon, showing that you are on the winning side. Go ahead! Fight on! What I want to make out to-day is that our ammunition is not exhausted: that all which has been accomplished has been only the skirmishing before the groat Armageddon; that not more than one of the thousand fountains of beauty in the King’s park has begun to play; that no mere than one brigade of the innumerable hosts to be marshaled by the rider on the white horse has yet taken the field; that what God has done yet has been with arm folded in flowing robe, but that the time is coming when he will rise from his throne, and throw off that robe, and come out of the palace of eternity, and come down the stairs of Heaven with all conquering step, and halt in the presence of expectant nations, and flashing his omniseient eyes across the work to be done will put back the sleeve of his right arm to the shoulder, and roll it up there, and for the world's final and complete rescue make bare his arm. Who can doubt the result when according to- my text Jehovah does his best; when the last reserve force of omnipotence takes the field: when the last sword of eternal might leaps from its scabbard? Do you know what decided the battle of Sedan? The hil.s a thousand'leer high. Eleven hundred cannons on the hills. Artillery on the heights Givonne, and twelve German batteries .on the heights of La Moncello. The crown prince of Saxony watched the scene from the heights of Mairy. Between a quarter to 6 o'clock in the morning and 1 o’clock in the afternoon of Sept. 2, 1870,theJhills dropped the shells that shattered the French host in the valley. The French Emperor and tho 86.000 of his army captured by the hills. So in this conflict now raging between holiness and sin “our eyes are unto the hills.” A Great Victory. Down here in the valleys of earth we must lie valient soldiers of the cross, but tho Commander of our host walks the heights and views the scene far better than we can in the valleys, and at the right day and the right hour all Heaven will open its batteries on our side, and the commander of the hosts of unrighteousness with all his followers will surrender, and it will take eternity to fully celebrate the universal victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. “Our eyes are unto the hills.” It is so certain to be accomplished that Isaiah in my text looks down through the field glass of prophecy and speaks of it as already accomplished, and I take my stand where the prophet took his stand and look at it as all done, "Halleluiah, ’tie done.” See! Those cities without a tear! Look! Those continents without a .pang. Behold! Those hemispheres without a sin! Why, those deserts, Arabian desert, American desert, and Great Sahara desert, are all irrigated into gardens where God walks in the cool of the day. The atmosphere that. encircles our globe floating not one groan. All the rivers and lakes and oceans dimpled with not one falling tear. The climates of the earth have dropped out of them the rigors of the cold and the blasts ot the heat, and it is universal spring! Let us change the old world’s name. Let it no more be called the earth, as when it was reeking with everything pestiferous and malevolent, scarleted with battlefields and gashed with graves, but now so changed, so aromatic with gardens, and so resonant with song, and so rubescent with beauty, let us call'it Immanuel’s Land or Beulah or Millennial Gardens or Paradise Regained or Heaven! And to God, the only wise, the only good, the only great, be glory forever. Amen. Destruction of the Forests. The United States sells its forest lands at $2.50 an acre,” lumber companies indirectly acquiring a square mile of land for little oypr $1,600, while the timber on it is often worth $20,000. The French government forests return an average profit of $2.50 an acre annually from timber sales, or two and a naif per cent, interest on the value of the land. The United States now owns only enough forest land to provide a continual timber supply to its present population, If forests are managed and lumber used as in Germany. The United States is exactly in tho position of a man making large drafts on and using an immense idle capital, which, if properly invested, would return an interest sufficient for Ms expenditures. In 1885 the government of Bavaria sent an expert forester to study the timber of the United States, who stated: “In fifty years you will have to Import your timber, and as you will probably have a preference for Amerlcatrklnds, wejshall now begin to grow them, in order to be ready to s jnd them to you at the proper time.”—Century. Women are famous judges; the slightest action of the most secret thought is not bidden from them.

l “ALL RIGHT. BILLY,” > _______ 1 And Then the Trained Steer Lend* th« Other* to the Slaughter-Homos , In the slang parlance of sonieof out i great cities a bunko steerer Is a man t whose occupation consists in luring > unsuspecting countrymen into gatuei of chance and defrauding them ot I their money. Billy Bunko, however. 1 is not a man, but a Texas steer, and ’ is probably the greatest archtraitor I in the land. For sx years he has , been employed in such a wholesale , betrayal of his comrades that the r burden of his sins, as expressed null merleally, is simply astounding. ’ Billy is owned by Armour ACo., * the great Chicago beef-house, and bls J vocation consists In leading cattle to j slaughter. The cattle on arriving at i the stockyards, are much alarmed at . the smell of blood, and it Is exceed- , inglv difficult to drive them, as they > seem to have a premonition of their i impending doom, but where one of 1 their number leads they follow i blindly. So when the pens are . opened Billy is at hand to lead his , trusting companions to their death. [ An employe opens the gate of a pen and calls out: "All right, Billy,” ! and Billy witbnut delay places him ■ self at the head of the frightened 1 herd and unhesitatingly matches to 1 the door of the slaughter-hou!e, where bo quickly steps aside, while his deluded followers are driven to 1 meet their fate. He then makes his way back to the yard and wait for ‘ the next pen to be opened, and at the . signal, “All right, Billy,” he con- . ducts fresh victims to the house of i death. i It is impossible to have very much respect for this wholesale and pro1 fessioned betrayer, Billy, but perbaps be is not so much to be blamed, as he probably knows that it he should fail to perform the unpleasant duties connected with his office he , would forfeit his head and disappear > in the house whither he has seen so • many of his kind enter, never to appear except in the form of steaks, roasts, and canned beef. It is probable that he purchases his life at the expense of his happiness, forth s betrayal of nearly a million lives a year is telling on him, and he wears a sad and shame-faced expression; so, possibly, some day he will mix with the herd as they «g<> to their death, and sacrifice his life to atone for his misdeeds.— Harper’s Young Feople. In n Michigan Forest Fire. ‘The most exciting experience I ever had," said T. E Spencer, “was in a forest tire near Manistee, Mich. I had visited a small lumber camp and letired to rest In one of the bunks provided for the choppers. I was awakened by a strong light from the north, and, going outside of the wooden shanty, it seemed to me that the entire world was on fire. It cracked and snapped, danced and jumped, as if the demon of fire was holding a high carnival and celebrating the end of the world. From every side could be heard sounds like the tiring of cannon and the shrieks of dying human beings. It was the falling of the boughs and the sighing of the wind, but 1 never heard so horrible a sound nor witnessed so weird an£..j£rrible a sight Hastily awakening the other "men in the camp, I mounted a horse and fled from the flames. But the horse could not keep pace with the progress of the tire. The lurid heavens looked as though they were a moulten heat: the air was stifeling: the smoke a), most suffocated me, while falling leaves and boughs burned my horse, and the sickening odor of burning flesh added to the horror. Within two or three hours I was in an opening, where 1 was no longer in danger, but my horse was badly injured, while my clothing was full of holes where embers had struck me. I will take my chances with cyclones or earthquakes, but notwith a burning forest again.’’—St Louis Globe-Democrat That Fool Bookkeeper. A lady who buys provisions regularly of a dealer in Boston was a little puzzled over one of the items of her monthly bill, says the Detroit Free Press. Ti c item was as follows: ‘To 3 lbs psalmon, 90.” It suddenly occurred to the lady that she bad purchased three pounds of salmon on the date given, and the meaning of the mysteriously spelled word was apparent to her. Greatly amused and feeling well enough acquainted with the provision dealer to tell him of the little laugh she had enjoyed at his expense, she said when she went to pay the bill: “Mr. Blank, 1 had quite a laugh over the way sejpe one in your establishment spellsAuiTmotk’ ” When the item had been pointed out to him Mr. Crown said in a tone of contempt for such ignorance: “That’s the work of a new bookkeeper I have. I’m ashamed to have such bills sent out and I shall have to (peak to him about it- He is a good bookkeeper, but he’s got to learn to spell it he stays in my employ. Let me correct the bill." Taking a pen Mr. Brown drew several lines across the word and wrote above it: “Sammon." “There, ma’am,” he said complacently, handing back the bill, “I’ll reach that bookkeeper how to spell , •salmon' when he comes in or tell him to And a new place.” Prefers Comedy. "1 have probably half-read more novels than any other man on earth,” remarked the philosopher. “I begin all the new works of the day. The descriptive matter and the i'ghter complications of the characters divert me. But when the author begins to pile on the agony, I quit him. Why should I allow my feelings to be worked upon by imaginary suffering when there is so much real misery in the world? One’s sympathies can healthfully receive only just so much of a strain. Nine-tenths of the ' stories of real life being tragedies, I > protest that at least nine-tenths of the romances should be pure comedy." i — .. — Some practical sister could make monev by inventing a brand of soap that “Will Effectually Scour a Boy i Clean.” The kinds for sale have too | much perfume in them, and not enough lya i Tell’s womacr once that, she 1$ , beautiful, and the devil will repeat It to her ten times ■ ‘ ' ■■■ *

A WOMANLY EMPRESS. I’root* That th* Flr«t L»<ly In Jnp*n i'oa<H *«»«• « Warm Heart, H The Empress of Japan has uponl many occasions openly i vinccd her in- ■ terestln children, giving freely to in-■ stitutions that exist to benefit them ■ in any way, even practicing all sorts ■ of little economies that she may be ■ able to swell her contributions M H certain charities that most interest j her. Tho conduct of this wo®en I upon a certain sad occasion '•ijfisr de- ■ voted subjects are never wdary of de, ■ scribing, says Harper's Bazar. I Prince Iwakura, a fearless Japanese I leade’, in the momentous days ot ue ■ crisis—from which the lovely j pclago is still trembling in its sulfl, dence to what seems assured stablWy —lay dying in hisyashikl. The Empress announced her intention of paying Iwakura a visit in person. The poor Prince, weak and about to die, was thrown into a dangerous state of excitement upon receiving the news, but he managed' to borrow from some hidden nervous force sufficient strength to grasp his writing box and brushes and to paint her ait urgent but most respectful request not to think of coming to him. He forced upon her as excuse for declm- , ing so great an honor the fact of his rapidly approaching death, and his consequent inability to acknowledge her visit with even u sixteenth part of tho homage it demanded. He ' begged her to deign to kindly consider how ill he must be when it remained an impossibility to throw off the malady even for her entertainment In reply, winged with speed, came a missive whoso import was as follows: “I come not as your Empress, but as the daughter of your fond wellwisher and coadjutor and as your own anxious friend." Shorn ot all ostentation and display the Empress arrived and remained beside her grateful subject until his final summons. Some years ago, when the imperial palace was burned, the unselfish Empress, amid all the excitement and discomfort she was for the nonce called upon to endure in a hasty flight to a comfortless old yashiki, thinking first of her subjects’ natural concern for bee comfort, sat down and wrote them a dainty little rhyme, which proclaimed as erroneous the report that she had changed her residence. It coyly asserted that her home had always been in the hearts ot her people and that she sincerely hoped that neither by flame nor by cold could she be driven from that dear abode .... .. i Nothing Unusual. When the Captain of the steamship Abana, from Dundee, came Into port a tew weeks ago and told a yarn about a ball ot fire doing Insane things about the decks of bis ship, there were some people who heard the tale with scorn, and others who wrote poetry about it And now here comes another Dundee skipper who tells of a similar electric display. He is Captain Lord ot the British steamship Croma, which lately arrived from Dundee. Captain Lord says his ship encountered heavy weather from the start Seas beat high and the barometer dwarfed itself to 28.45. That was on December 5. That night there was a succession of heavy hail-squails, and the Captain asserts that during each squall every mast-head, yard-arm and sail was ablaze with composants, or St Elmo’s lights, as mariners prefer to speak of them. They came and went as the squalls blew and subsided, and, as these lasted throughout the night, the ship was several times illuminated with the dancing tips of fire. The ship during this time was driving before the gale with engines stopped. She was lightly laden, and the seas were swinging so high that ft was found necessary to stop the engines to check the frightful racing of the propellers. Waves constantly dashed over the'ship, and one of the vessel’s ciew was badly injured by being thrown to the deck. Toward morning the wind fell light and then came in fitful gusts. Then the lightning got in its play, and for an hour or two the ship was in a perfect blaze of sheet lightning.—New York Times. Funerals on the Continent. More outward manlfestat ons of respect are paid to the dead in Paris then in any other city. When a funeral procession passes through the streets of Paris every man takes off. bis hat and bows h!s head until the rear of the cortege gets past him, The women stop and express their Conventional sorrow by courtseying. In Germany the hearses are peculiar. A common style is a sort ot combinat on hearse and hack. A place in the forward part is constructed to contain the coffin, while in the rear are seats for the near relatives Another style cons sts ot a low, long waggon, with little wheels, and the l»dy of the contrivance is like a flat car, with no covering. The biggest corteges the writer has ever seen were at St Petersburg. There a funeral is quite a jolly affair, and the city is full of professional mourners. The richer the man the bigger tho funeral, because the more mpurnors his family can hire. The employment of these professionals Is a recognised custom, and many men and women at tbe czar’s gay capital make a good living out of their curious business The str,pend of St. Petersburg mourners varies according to the length of t'me the'r services are required and the character of costumes they are required to wear. They are alsoexpected to make the church hideous with their moansand wails,and at the grave they engage, to scream and yell as if in a wild paroxysms of grief. If they discharge the r duties with proper unction they are treated to a bauquet after the funeral. A Tasty Dish. A good way to make egg cutlets is to boil three or four eggs for ten minutes, dip them In cold water foi a minute or two ana strip off the shell; cut o.Tthe ends of eacff'eggand divide Into four slices, dip each piece in the well-beaten yolk of an egg, then in bread crumbs rather highly seasoned with pepper, salt and a teaspoonful of very finely minced parsley; fry in boiling butter until brown, serve with potatoes sliced thin and fried to alight brown; garnish with parsley. S' ■’’h'•' f ■ '■ ’- .L.'•*'> :• ■‘IL