Decatur Democrat, Volume 38, Number 44, Decatur, Adams County, 18 January 1895 — Page 7

I ©he remocrnt I DECATUH, IND. B| • SZXZNZXZWSO A I M. bi.ackhurn, .-, ■ .j\ rmwtn. I New York must take better care of I her lunatics.—New York Advertiser. I Good! ______ I It takes the average war correspondent a tremendously long time to suspend hostilities. The use of croton oil for vaccination purposes tn a small-pox*epidemic Is quite certain to be followed by grave results. A New York man has just been arrested for stealing a Bible. He probably never had seen one before, but knew what he needed. If the killing of Bdwen puts an end to prize fighting in this country, we see nb reason why Corbett should not found a school of oratory and elocution. It is estimated that there are 8,000 marriages a day throughout the world. We haven't looked up the statistics, but presume the divorces reach at least 5,000 a day. A dispatch from China says that General Wei, who was sentenced to be beheaded for cowardice, escaped by hiring a substitute. Such a scheme was certainly Wei's. A new telephone company says that within a short time telephones will be sold for a string and every man will own and operate his own wires. We think they are “stringing” the public. A wealthy man dying in the Efast refused to make a will, saying that he wanted his relatives to have a good fight It is not often that one can be so certain that his wishes will be carried out Some bacteria thrive ten days in a solution of strychnine, a small dose of which would be fatal to man, but they can live only two hours In a solution of tannin ‘which could do us no more harm than to pucker our lips. The fact that the publication of Dr. Mary Walker’s poem, “If You Want a Why Take It,” has not been folan agitation has been suuneu rvi abolition of after-dinner speaking. It will be hard to better the proposal of the late Mr. Thackeray, that the speaking, like the carving, should be done at the side table. An official of the Standard Oil Company has written a book to prove that the gravitation theory of Sir Isaac Newton is Impossible. It long has been understood that the Standard Oil Company owns the earth, but we believe it ought to leave the law of gravation alone. There has been a season of terrible murders, in each of which several people were concerned. It would be comforting if the eye of prophecy could look Into the near future and see a series of hangings in which the same people would be concerned. But the eye of prophecy is unequal to the task. The possibilities of the trolley car are daily being demonstrated.* At Camden, N. J., one of the machines bumped into a can of oil, fired it with an electric spark and the whole car blazed up so suddenly that the passengers barely escaped being toasted a seal brown. It is beginning to be believed that the trolley car can do anything malicious short of chasing a man up a tree. This is a good time a year to remind some folks to "keep your mouth shut”— for hygienic reasons—both day and night It was an old superstition that devils would find their way into one who leaves the mouth open, but modern science gives getter reasons for. using the mouth only for eating and speaking, and depending on the nose for breathing. Shut your mouth and open your eyes, and you’ll take in enough to make you wise. The “trusted bookkeeper” of the Council Bluffs bank who shot an inspector was paid the munificent salary of $45 per month. But before you begin to feel sorry for him remember that a trusted bookkeeper in the New York Shoe and Leather Bank who received $l5O a month managed to get away with $354,000. The Council Bluffs sal- | ary may have been low, but look at the | possibilities wrapped up in It The one protection against dishonest banking which outweighs all the rest is the relentless enforcement of the law. This does not exist in this country. The national banks come nearest to it and defalcations and swindles are correspondingly less. But banks and bank officers are perpetually compromising those cases. The same day that the Shoe and Leather Bank in New York was robbed of $541,000 another bank adjusted a smaller loss without criminal proceedings. The number of such cases which reach the papers is large, and the number which do not is still larger. Forgery is rare in the Bank of England because for three centuries the Bank of England has never compro- | raised a forgery, cost- what it may. Only ; one case of dishonesty among its employes has occurred tn half a century, I and the last was careless and not dis- « honest banking, the cashier who was removed having made advances to favorites on poor securities. If American banks adopted the same rigid rule to prosecute all offenders, and If district attorneys were deaf to all pleas to

suspend prosecutions in order to aid the recovery of stolen funds, defalcations would be less frequent. Emperor William’s sympathies seem as correct as his imperial ambition is unlimited. While aiming at total abolition of free speech in Germany on a number of paramount subjects which the people should always be free to discuss, he turns around to send a delicate message of sympathy to the widow and family of De Lesseps. Something of Frederick the Good is In his headlong son and may yet dominate a character full of contradictory impulses, In which medieval despotism blends with the simple and noble inclinations of modern manliness. The appalling casualittes to railroad employes are set forth in the latest report of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Out of a total force of 873,802 there were 2,727 killed and 81,728 Injured last year, making a total of dead and wounded of 34,455. Many a great battle has been less sanguinary. One would suppose that the legislative enactment requiring the application of automatic couplers and other appliances on the locomotives and cars of the railways had been'of no avail, but it must be remembered that the new systein has not yet been put in actual operation to any considerable extent and that it takes time to get it into good working order. While there Is special peril In railway service travel by rail seems to be exceptionally safe. With all the millions of passengers riding by rail only 299 were killed and 3,229 injured during the year covered by the report SOME FAMOUS BELLS. They Are Scattered All Over Europe and the Eastern Hemisphere. The invention of bells is attributed by some of the best foreign campanologists to the Egyptians, who are credited with having made use of such percussion instruments to announce the sacred fetes of Osiris. In China they are said to have been knovVn nearly 3,000 years before the birth of Christ The Greeks and the Romans, it is said, never used bells of a large size. Yet the hour of bathing and the opening of the market places were advertised daily by ringing bells, and it appears to me that small ones would scartfoly Mrs answered the purpose. In the time of Thucydides, 400 B. C., --kx midnight the delirious ■oorybantes or Gain; always jingled during the wild celebrations of their festivities; and also that the priests of the Cabiri did the same while performing their obscene rites. Tydeus, one of the seven chiefs of the army of Adrastus, puts bells on the handle of his shield; and Rhesus, a king of Thrace, and a warrior of “difficult and ravaging hand,” used them to decorate the harness of his swift and noted horses. As we have seen, India and China had very large bells before the rest of the world. Two Arabs who journeyed through China in the ninth century have delivered down to us an interesting account of the great popular justice bells, then in use throughout the whole of that country. In each town there was a bell of a large size fixed to the wall above the head of the prince or governor, and to it was attached a rope a mile or so in length, and laid so temptingly along the main thoroughfare that the humblest sufferer from injustice seldom hesitated to tug at it without fear. As soon as the bell sounded, the governor sent for the petitioner, and “serious business, craving quick dispatch,” met with instant and honest recognition. And even above the head of the emperor himself there was such a noisy friend to the people, but he who rang it without sufficient cause—and his, celestial majesty was often difficult to please in this particular—was switched in a evry lively manner. Our Own Jessie McLean. The Hon. Mrs. Spencer Cowper, who has just been figuring in the London bankruptcy court with liabilities of about $400,000 and assets of less than SB,OOO, is no other than the once popular American actress, Jessie McLean, hailing from Newburgh-on-the-HUd-son, and who achieved a great deal of celebrity in the United States and West Indies in “Colleen Bawn” and othe. similar plays. It was at Nice that she met and married the old rake who, although he figured in the peerage as the son of the late Earl Cowper, Is known by everybody to have been a natural son of Lord Palmerston. It was he who sold Sandringham to the Prince of Wales. Three Divisions of Life. When a little boy Sheridan Le Fanu wrote the following essay on the life of man: ‘A m: Ts life naturally divides Itself Into three parts—the first, when he is planning and contriving all kinds of villainy and that is the period of youth and innocence. In the second he is found putting in practice all the villainy and rascality he has contrived; that Is the flower of manhood and prime of life. The third and last period Is that when he is making his soul and preparing for another world; that is the period of dotage.” Why He hasn't Happy. Dr. Holmes, several years ago, asked a friend: “What Is your Idea of happiness?” And the prompt answer, “Four feet on the fender," gave him great satisfaction. Some time later, perhaps a year or more; this friend found Dr. Holmes In his study, sitting alone by the fire, looking not very happy. To the visitor's solicitous greeting came ths reply: "Only two feet on the fender.’’

CRY OF THE Have you thought, In your momenta of triumph, O you that are high in the tree, Os the days and nights that are bitter— So bitter to others and met When the efforts to do what is clever Result in a failure so sad, And the clouds of despondency gather And dim all the hopes that we had? Have you thought, when the world was applauding Your greatness, whatever it be, Os the tears that in silence were fall- \ Ing— Yes, falling from others and metWhen the hardest and latest endeavors Appeared to be only In vain, And we’ve curtained our eyes in the night time Indiff’rent to waking again? For it wants but little reflection, And you'-11 be the first to agree That the favors in which you are basking Are darkness to others and me. And it’s hard when you lie in the sunshine Os fortune so smiling indeed. If you have not a thought for the many Who’ll never—can never succeed. —[Pall Mall Budget. 8 Pali ol Bimmers. Before bicycling became a craze with women there never had been even so much as the shadow of a quarrel between Mr. and Mrs. Cranston. But after Mrs. Cranston bought a bicycle and learned to ride well there was a disagreement which came very near breaking up a happy home. They had been married three years, and they had often said their married life had been one long honeymoon. Tom had yielded so readily to all of his wife’s whims that she had unconsciously gained an opinion that her word was to him like the laws of the Medes and the Persians. But the idea was all knocked to pieces when one morning as they sat at breakfast Mrs. Cranston said: “Tom, I'm going to order my dressmaker to make a suit of bloomers for me to-day. Ido so much bicycling now that skirts are too heavy for • - “What!*'shouted. Tom, dropping his spoon in the oatmeal and spatteraU oyer “I said/’ she repeated, “that i was going to get a bloomer suit. What strikes you as particularly strange about that?” “What Strikes me as particularly strange?” he repeated, with a wild look in his eyes. “Do you think for one instant that I will allow my wife to race around town looking like a lithograph of a variety entertainment? Not much." “But, Tom,” said Louise, in atone that had never failed to persuade her husband that she was right and that he was wrong, “I don’t see why I can’t have bloomers. Mrs. Kynaston and Mrs. Bentley and Mrs. Jenkins all wear them and their husbands don’t object, so why should you?” “It makes no difference why I should,” said Tom, doggedly. “I don’t intend to have my friends on the exchange coming to me and saying: ‘Tom, I see your wife’s wearing bloomers,’ Not if I know it- ” “But, Tom,’’ she be£an, “I ” “Oh, don’t talk any more nonsense, Louise,” he broke in. “I am sick of it. You shan’t wear bloomers, so that settles it,” and Mr. Cranston, whose appetite had been taken entirely away by his wife’s announcement, got up from the table and started for the door. “Good-by,” he called from the hall, and then the door slammed, and Louise sat at the breakfast table wondering how it was that she had never before known that her husband had a will of his own, She had told all of her friends, only the day before, that she would be wearing bloomers within a week, and when they had suggested that her husband might object she had said: “What I Tom object? Why, he never objects to anything.” And now Tom had absolutely refused to allow her to wear them, with a facial expression which showed that he would not *stop short of the divorce courts to prevent it. Finally she arose from the table and went to her room. She had an idea which she thought, if properly carried out, would gain Tom’s consent to the wearing of bloomers. She wrote a hurried note to her dressmaker ordering a bloomer suit of a pattern which she had already selected, and then donned her old bicycle suit to pay a call on Mrs. Kynaston, who had a husband who did not object to bloomers. She told her troubles to the vivacious Mrs. Kynaston, who was not sparing in her sympathy for the poor friend who had a narrow-minded husband who objected to a convenient bicycle dress. ‘Why, how foolish of him,” she said. “I don’t believe the poor man .has ever seed a proper bicycling costume. I’ll tell you what we’ll do, We’U all go bicycling this afternoon, and come back by your house at just ! the time your husband gets home, land he will see what a bloomer suit looks like.” And so the bicycle party was ranged, and when Thomas Cranston arrived at his house that evening he saw five women riding In front of the house and four of them were in full ‘. A**"’ . ’ ' ~ \ -- '

bloomer costume. The fifth, who wore skirts, was his wife. He was not so badly shocked as he ! thought he would be, and he wished that he hud not been so decided in his refusal of his wife’s request, bub he made up his mind that it would be unmanly to yield after his remarks of the morning, and so with a bow to his wife and her companions, he went indoors and began to dress for dinner. That night Lonise again broached the Subject of bloomers, but tier husband silenced her by saying: “Now, see here, Louise, don’t speak to me about bloomers again. You may go in for women’s rights if you like, and you may wear standing collars and men’s waistcoats, but 1 you shall not wear trousers, even if bicycling does justify it in your eyes.” “Trousers!” cried Louise, indignantly, “ who said anything about trousers? I was talking about bloomers.” “I know you were,” said Mr. Cranston, “and please don’t talk about them any more. I’m tired of it, and I won’t hear it mentioned again.” The next morning when Mr. Cranston put on his coat to start for his office his wife called him back and said: “Tom, I’ll promise you never to mention bloomers again, but if you ever change your mind about them, please tell me, for I’m really very anxious to wear them.” The smile which for twenty-four hours had been absent from Tom Cranton’s face came again, and he kissed his wife. “That’s a dear good girl, Louise,” he said. “I hated to refuse your request, but really I don’t like the idea of your wearing those things. And now if* there is anything else you want me to do for you just name it, and I’ll doit.” He went away, but returned in a moment and called out: “Oh, Louise, I’m going to a dinner at the club to-night, and I want you to have my dress suit handy when I come home. Goodby.” “Now, then,” said Louise, as she went up-stairs, “I’ll see if 1 can’t make Mr. Tom change his opinion about bloomers. That promise of his was the very thing I wanted.” The hour longed for by both came at last. Tom entered the house and rushed to his room to put on his dress suit. “Oh, Tom’!” Louise called, while he was dressing, “come down here; her and dress goods, scattered alt around. “Well, what’s all this?” he asked.,, “Are you making a rag carpet? What is it you want me to do for you? If it’s to clean up all this mess here I shall refuse/for I have some work to do next week.” “No-,” she said, laughing, “I don’t want yoa to clean up the mess and I’m not making rag carpet. I’m making a bicycle dress, which I must have early to-morrow morning, and I want you to let me drape the skirt on you so that it will hang all right.” “But, Louise,” he objected, “I’ve got to go out to thft dinner at 8 o’clock, and it’s'now nearly 7. I won’t have,time. Let the dress go for to-night.” “I can’t let it go, for I must have it to-morrow morning,” she insisted. You’ve promised to do what I asked, and now when I want you to do a little thing like this you refuse, and I think it’s real mean.” Mrs. Cranston stood up holding a pattern in one hand and an unfinished dress in the other, and looked as though she were-about to burst into tears. “Oh, come now, Louise,” he said, impatiently. “Can’t you see that your request is trivial and unreasonable, and I must go to that dinner.” The tears that had seemingly been held back with such an effort now became visible and rolled down her cheeks. “I think it’s mean,” she sobbed. “You promised to do anything I wanted you to, and now you won’t keep your word, I’ve cut up my other dress, and the bicycle party is of just as much importance as your old dinner.” Mr. Cranston looked grave. He did not want to lose that dinner and he didn’t want io break his promise. “How long will this fitting business last?” lie questioned, after several moments’ silence, broken only by the sobbing of his wife. “About half an hour,” she replied, brightening up a little. “Well, then, hurry up,” said Cranston, throwing off his coat and standing erect. “Bring the thing here.” And so the gown was put on Mr. Cranston, and Louise dropped on one knee and began pinning the draperies in a hurried manner. “You see, Tom,” she said, as she tucked up the first fold and surveyed it with a critical eye, “this is of the greatest importance to me and I know you will help me out.” “Um,” was the only answer her husband made. He was looking! stfaight at the clock and wondering how it was that the minute hand was | moving so fast. , He thought that the clock must be | out of order.- He pulled out his watch and that the minute hand ! there movea with the same railroad speed, and it was 7:80 o’clock. “Are you anywhere near through?’’ lie asked impatiently. She shook her litiad and turned her , attention to the dress. Tom fumed as he noticed that it was now 7.45. ‘ “Have you any idea how soon you

will be through?” he asked with a forced calmness, “Not the slightest,” she replied, in a voice that was either muffled by pins or laughter. Tom couldn’t tell which, for she was stooping and studying the hem of tAe dress. At that moment the door opened, and Mr. Kynaston. the husband of Mrs. Cranston’s bloomer-wearing friend, threw open the door and stood gazing in open-mouthed astonishment. “Why, Tom,” he said, when he recovered himself, “I thought you were going to call for me if you left downtown first? You know you told me so, and eaid If I got ready first I was to come here and walk right in. Are you going to the “This will be all over the Exchange to-morrow,” groaned Tom inwardly. “Yes, I’m going to the dinner il Louise ever gets through with this miserable skirt,” he added, aloud. “Oh, nonsense, why don’t she wear bloomers? Come on. We are late already,” said his friend. “Louise,” whispered Granston, “if you'll call my promise off you may have bloomers or anything else you want.” “Oh, you dear, good boy,” cried Louise, with well-feigned surprise. “Go to your dinner. Now hurry or you’ll be late.” Then Tom, after kissing her goodby, rushed off to the club. Louise put on her bonnet and went to Mrs. Kynaston’s house. “Katie,” she cried, as her friend welcomed her at the door. “I’m to have bloomers.’ And then she told the story of the manner in which her husband had been induced to change his mind. And she said in conclusion: “I bought the bloomers yesterday, and I’ll wear them to-morrow.” “You really cried, did you?” asked Mrs. Kynaston. “Well, Louise, il you went in for woman suffrage we would have it in twenty-four hours. Talk about men’s executive ability ! Why I believe you could make your husband wear bloomers himself.” A CRANBERRY BOG. How the Berrie Are Grown on Cape Cod. The men, women and children of Cape Cod, Mass., earn considerable money every autumn by picking cranberries in the bogs. A large portion of tha cape is bog land, which was practically worthless a few years ago Thousands of acres Jiave been reclaimed and extensive one of the districts of the world. The cranberry growers make great preparations for the. small army of people which must be housed and fed during the picking season. The accommodations are rude and primitive. Some of the pickers live in board cabins, but most of them dwell in tents. It is a curious and novel sight to see several hundred pickers in camp about the swamps. The cranberry pickers are out in the bogs soon after daylight, and they remain as long as they can see a berry. In large cranberry bogs, where several hundred people are at work, the pickers are divided into companies, each company consisting of 120 persons. The company is in charge of a “boss,” who keeps account of the amount each picker gathers during the day. The bog is lined off into rows with and eaqh picker has a strip about three feet wide, which must be picked clean. The pickers, men, women and children of all ages, work along the bog on their knees. The berries are usually gathered from the vines by hand, although a picking machine is sometimes used. When pickers are scarce the berries are raked off with a garden rake. The pickers are paid by the measure, which is a broad 6-quart pail. The price paid is from eight to ten cents a measure. The amounts which pickers will gather in a day vary from 150 to 250 quarts. Some of the most expert workers,when the yield is heavy, have’been known to garner sixty-five measures, ’ or 800 quarts of cranberries in a day. There are always many boys and girls in the bogs picking berries, and when they work together time flies rapidly. After the day's w’ork is done young couples are seen walking home "hand in hand. The tots are carried

in father’s or mother’s arms. The cranberry season lasts about three weeks, and when it is over the children are sent back to school and theii lessons. Many of them are sorry that the vacation is at an end. Suicidal Impulse. Is the impulse to suicide incurable! Not directly. It depends on family, on race, on the strain of that competition which marks our advancing civilization. Os these the first two are ineradicable, though doubtless capable of being modified in the course of generations through judicious marriage. The third is, for the mass of men, unattainable, yet individuals who know that they have a hereditary taint might, of their own free will, withdraw from those occupations which rouse the nervous system to abnormal excitement, and even at the sacrifice of some of the world’s goods lead wholesome lives, which would give the murderous instinct less chance to conquer them. Physical weakness, especially that resulting from overstrain, betrays and weakens 4he control over the mental flaw. ’Tie the old story. The mens sana cannot permanently dwell except in the corpus sanuxu.

A WONDERFUL TABLE. Mad* of 800.000 Pieces and 76 Va* pieties of Wood. A table about a yard square, with 800,000 pieces of wood in it, is the work just completed by Charles F. Adam, a carpenter of Bridgeport, Conn. It is without doubt the most remarkable piece of woodwork ever constructed in this State. The table is Mr. Adam’s second attempt at this kind of work. It was begun in 1891, and was intended I for exhibition at the XV orld’S Fair, but could hot be completed in time. Three thousand three hundred .and sixtyfour hours of actual labor were put by Mr. Adam on the table. In the centre of the revolving top is a good representation of the White House, at Washington, surrounded by the Stars and Stripes. The border of the top is a handsome piece of mosaic work, and on the four sides are shown Washington’s birthplace, in Virginia; his familiar Mount Vernon home, the birthplace of Grant, in Ohio, and the place where Grant attended school as a Tastefully interspersed with these are many quaint designs that, taken as a whole, make up a pattern which much resembles the production of the weaver’s art. The supports consist of two pieces of oak placed together in the form of a letter “X,” placed upright, cut out in ascroll, and with a gracefulcolumn after the Corinthian order of things. On each face of these oak supports are two panels, making sixteen in all. on which are shown trees, birds, leaves of different kinds, and all varieties of plant growth. On the lower part are shown an American eagle, with outspread wings, clutching a cluster of arrows in its talons; a deer's head, stork, sparrow, and two roosters, Washington’s Valley Forge headquarters, the birthplace of Lincoln, in Kentueky, and Ford’s Theatre, where he was shot,- and the house near by where he died : the birthplace of Columbus, at Genoa, Italy, on a background of dark rosewood; a cloister in Spain, visited by Columbus: the ship Constitution, Libby Prison, a cluster of lilies and daisies, twentysix varieties of leaves, with ferns, fruits, Ac. —There is nothing in the nature of a paint, dye, or stain of any sort on the whole stork, the various effects, which are very beautiful, being brought out by the natural colors of the woods, of which there are seven-ty-six different varieties. Some of !V "d of The End of Books. It has been pointed out by M. Delisle, librarian of the Bibliotheque Nationale, that paper is now made of suenTnferior materials that it will soon rot. and very few of the books now published have the chance of a long life, says AH the Year Round. The books of the present day will all have fallen to pieces before the middle of next century. The genuine linen rag paper was really calculated to last, and even the oldest books printed on it, if kept with due care, show very little of the effect of time) but the woodpulp paper now largely used, in the makiugof which powerful acids have been employed, is so flimsy that the very ink corrodes it, and time alone, with the most careful handling, will bring on rapid decay. Perhaps from one point of view this is not altogether an unalloyed misfortune. Only remnants of present day literature wgll survive for the information of future generations, and great national collections, such as that in the British Museum library, formed at great expense, and intended to be complete and permanent, will offer to the literary historian of, say, the twenty-first century, but a heterogeneous raa-s of rubbish, physical laws thus consigning to oblivion a literature of which t but a tithe is intellectually worthy to survive. The papermaker thus 1 unwittingly assumes the function' of the great literary censor of the age. His eriticfejn is mainly destructive, and it is too severe. Without the power of selective appreciation, he condems to destruction good and bad alike Something of Dreams.

Ariel could put a girdle round about the world in forty minutes, but he was slow compared with the most ordinary dream. Many stories are told showing the different count of time. Lord Brougham relates that he dreamed a dream of long continued action during a'short doze while a droning counsel was pleading before him. “ Lord Holland fell asleep while listening to some one reading, dreamed a long dream, and awoke in time to hear tiie> conclusion of a sentence the first word# of which were in his ears when" he became" unconscious. Dr. Abercombie relates that a gentleman dreamed that he had enlisted for a soldier, joined his regiment, deserted,-had been apprehended, carried back, tried, condemned to be shot, and at last led out for execution. After all the usual preparations he awoke with the report, and found that a noise in an adjoining room had both produced the dream and Awakened him. Another dreamed tlfat he had crossed the Atlantic and spent a fortnight in America. In embarking, bn his return, he fell into the sea, and, having woke with the fright, he found that he had not been asleep teii yynutes. [ The Shah of Persia a pony only*, twelve inches high. -ss