Decatur Democrat, Volume 39, Number 50, Decatur, Adams County, 28 February 1896 — Page 8

©he gJenunxat DECATUR, IND. X. BLACKBURN, ■ - - Publishes. ; The Virginia peanut trust has dltk Solved. It never amounted to shucks, anyway. ' | I The London Chronicle has settled again the Venezuelan dispute. This Baily “settling" in England convinces the Britons there are no grounds left. I "It is our duty to give the Sultan time,” says Lord Salisbury; but meanwhile what about the Armenians, to iWhom time signifies the probability of exteriplnation? But one sugar plantation in Cuba is said to be left standing. As rations ?.re scarce in Havana, it would be well o put tax-gatherers on the retired list bnd send them back to Spain. I ' Still, in case of trouble with any foreign power, it is some satisfaction to know that the Blacktail Buck Battalion of Washington County, Idaho—so called because of the fact that every member of the company can hit a blacktail buck at 300 yards every time—is ready for immediate service. i The slaughter of , men, women and bhildren in Turkey from religious fanaticism will cease when the sultan’s authority is destroyed, and not before. England has 50,000,000 Mohammedans in India, more than three times the number found in Turkey, and not one of them is molested on account of religious belief. 1 Forest fires cost Pennsylvania last year $1,000,000. But this is a small item compared with the $1,2p0,000,000 which the State Forestry Commission says has been lost in forty years by the burning of young saplings in Pennsylvania. There are other losses connected with the wasteful destruction of forests, but these are enough to point the moral. A French submarine boat recently invented is intended to carry passengers without seasickness, or, in time of war, to explode torpedoes under the keels of hostile ships. It is driven by an electric motor, has fins and other queer appliances, and is entirely invisible from the surface of the waves. It is claimed that a roomy passenger ship can be built on this pattern to cross the Channel forty-five feet under water. ■ > _ ■ England in its isolation is a sort of Ishmael among nations, but the downfall of the British Empire is not quite so near as some of the prophets think. England’s money has disarmed enemies and bought allies in more than one exigency when the world seemed to be arrayed against her. That country is almost as w’ealthy in proportion to the test of the old world as it ever was, and it is fully as resourceful and audacious. i Western youths no longer go in great numbers to the older institutions of the East for a college education. They go to their own State universities or to the great Michigan university at Ann Arbor. The young men sent from the Mississippi valley to Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the University of Virginia are usually the sons or relatives of men educated in those institutions. The West, is not always up in the latest Paris fashions, nor does it go 'wild after the latest fad of European capitals; but it keeps its schoolmasters busy. Come West, young man, and get a liberal education. There is a measure of consolation even for the rude man who, in the secret operations of his intellect, curses the woman with the high hat who sits in front of him at the theater and keeps him dodging'from side to side in his efforts to catch a glimpse 0f,., the proceedings on the stage. He knows that the eccentric movements of her occiput are made in an effort to establish a line of vision through the field of female plumage between her and the performance. By the middle ■Of the third act he reaches an absolute state of felicity over the knowledge that she, like him, will go home supremely ignorant as to whether she has been in attendance on a tragedy or a Humpty Dumpty pantomime. ' An exchange calls .attention to the 'fact that a man weighing 150 pounds can travel rapidly on a “safety” bicycle only one-seventh as heavy as himself, while the vestibule train must carry at least twenty times the weight of its passengers. For equal rates of speed, and to carry the same weight of passenger, ithe train is fully a hundred times heavier than the bicycle. Since the latter Is eminently a practical machine it folllows that if the train be not now pronounced unnecessarily hefevy it probably will be so esteemed a few years jjence, with the result of earnest scien(tific effort to reduce it. It may be impossible now to say how the reduction Is to bo effected, but science may be trusted to find the way. , Lord Leighton’s death removes a curious personality from the intellectual London. As Sli;Frederick Leighton, the President of' the Royal Acad* emy of. Painting, the eminent painter occupied a lofty place and filled it very gracefully. His annual speed! at the Academy banquet was almost as Important a function as the ministerial I pronouncement a l Greenwich.-, Lord Leighfbn was a delightful host in his lovely studio-home, in Holland Park :Road, where he bad united the wonders t Qf architecture ..nd painting on a re- ' duced scale in the "happlest manner. It .was once said of him by a witty

lean that he could do everything ad-! mlrably—except paint—which was; rather hard on a painter at the head of his profession. He was handsome and distinguished in manner, and leaves thousands of friends. An architect is reported to have offei ed for a named sum to build for a grea man in Rome a villa so constructed tha. no one outside could see anything that passed within its walls and to have received the reply that he could have) twice as much for a building so constructed that every Roman citizen could see all that took place inside it. It now looks as if the idea of the great man is about to be actualized, at least in part, by means of the processes initiated by Roentgen. Not only what passes the house, but what exists and is going on inside the body, even to the marrow of the bones, may be exposed to the gaze of the curious by means of the new photography and its scientific consequences. The war cloud between England and Germany grows smaller each day, evidently not because the Emperor has any less sympathy for his Dutch cousins in the Transvaal so much as his discovery that he cannot make an alliance as against England, and that if he should go to war alone against his grandmother he would be overwhelmed in speedy order. He could not get his troops to England, and England would not need to get her troops to Germany. If his handful of vessels went out upon the ocean to try conclusions with the huge British fleet hd would soon have ho vessels. For this reason, and because Russia has not consented or agreed to help him, and because the French are saying that they do not Intend to interfere between England and Germany, the Emperor Is climbing down from his lofty perch and is giving it to be understood that his original warlike dispatches were simply expressions of personal opinion growing out of his Irritated state of mind; that his irritation has now passed away; and that the relations of Germany and Great Britain are again cordial and everything is lovely—which is better after all than fighting or making faces at each other. The early reports of the astonishing investigations made by Prof. Roentgen of Wurzburg seemed almost incredible, but there is little reason to doubt longen that the German scientist hag made a discovery of prime importance in thei world of science. Since the news reached this country a number of American students have been Investigating and experimenting for themselves as to the practicability of photographing the interior of opaque substances and tha result of their efforts more than confirms the importance of Prof. Roentgen’s discoveries. Prof. John Trow bridge, of Harvard University, and Prof. A. W. Wright, of Yale, have both succeeded In photographing with tha the cathodic rays, and Edison Announces similar results from his own investigations. Prof. Trowbridge, with imperial apparatus, has succeeded ir photographing not only the bones of : human hand but the graphite in a lead pencil and two dimes through an Incl of wood. He also succeeded in photographing coins in a pocketbook througli three thicknesses of sealskin leather! The explanation of the phenomenon by which these remarkable results are obtained is not easy to make clear. A! Edison says, this new work of photo graphing through opaque substances ii not an invention but “a new' develop ment in the field of physics,” which is now' in its infancy and may yet grow to be of Incalculable practical importance. The medium by which the photographs are obtained—the so-called “cathode rays”—are the rays of energj emanating from the cathode or part of a galvanic battery by which the electric current leaves. Roentgen’s discovery W'as that a sensitized plate placed near a cathode pole will be affected by the cathode rays when the latter an passed through substances opaque to ordinary light. If a sensitized plate bo placed in a camera obscura, and in front of it there be suspended an object impervious to light rays, there Is shown on the plate a shadow due to the sun rays. Substitute for the sun’s rays the rays of energy from a cathode and let a wooden instehd of a glass plate be placed before the sensitized disk and the cathode rays penetrate the board as tlie sun does glass. The experiments, important as they may be in their practical application, have an additional value as demonstrating the existence of a force which has long been knowm only in theory. This force is itself but a form of energy, or, as Edison terms it, a “disturbance of ether” analogous to the ethereal agitation or vibration which is known as electricity, and as little understood as the motion of ether which results in what we cajj light. A Horse’s Teeth. At 5 years of age a horse has forty teeth—twenty-four molars or Jaw teeth, twelve incisors or front teeth and four tusks or-canine teeth, betw'een the molars and incisors, but generally missing in the mare. At birth only the two nippers or middle incisors appear, and when a year old the incisors are all visible of the first or milk set. Before reaching the third year the permanent nippers have come through; a year later the permanent dividers—next to the nippers—are out. At 5 the mouth is perfect. At 6 the hollow under the nippers, called the “mark,’’ has disappeared from them and diminished in the dividers, and at 7 the mark lias disappeared from the divid* er§*and the next teeth, or corners, arq level, though showing the mark; at 8 the mark disappears altogether. Hampton Belle—l Wouldn’t allow 1 horrid man to kiss me, would you! Newport News Girl— Of course not; 1 -don't tafiw. any. such.*—Norfolk.

AMONG o TRAITS OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE FIGHTING FOR LIBERTY.* * IT' ' ** Houses of the Rich and Poor in Havana --In the Streets—Courting Among the Young Folks. The Cuban house of the better class is of the ordinary, typical construction. It is enormously heavy, built of adobe or soft stone, to withstand earthquakes and to resist heat. The rooms are enor-1 mous, with ceiling from 15 to 20 or 25 I feet high, all floors, even in the bedrooms, being of stone, and the windows covered with great iron bars. These windows have a grewsome suggestivoness of colls, dispelled only by the artful glance or laughter of the woflien who stand peering out or recline languidly on swaying hammocks or rockers within. They are the courting places of the youth of the island, and are, curiously enough, preferred, because the whispered confidences there are free front the presence of parents or any guardian,which is inevitable when the young couple meet within the house. The young man, standing outside the bars day after day, Is known to every neighbor and passer-by as the senorita’s sweetheart. The houses of the lower class look no different from without, but are awful within, and there the cause of Havana’s scourges of yellow fever is at once apparent. The city is badly drained. The bay, with no free course of water, and comparatively little tide, is a reservoir, uncleansed, of the city’s offal. It breeds disease, and in squalor where personal uncleanliness is added to the perils Incurred by municipal neglect, the houses of the poor have become incubators of pestilence. In the day time few people, except those in business or “common folk,” are seen in the streets of Havana. The sun is always hot. At night, when the military bands play -4» the park, the town turns out, and then the Spanish and Cuban girls and women, under the inevitable mantilla, and a few with their sweethearts, are there in all their native glory. It is a display of evening dress out of doors. . It is not a company which represents the most polite society of Havana. It is a laughing, chattering company, mindful of nothing but the pleasure of nonsensical gossip, brightened now by a liberal scattering of uniforms on officers from the thirty regiments defending the city, and yet the restraints of respectability are not too tightly drawn, nor do they deprive the crowd of some of the most beautiful girls of Havana. Curiously enough, the young men and the girls seldom walk together. If they do It is a fair presumption that serious matters between them have been canvassed by the parents on both sides, and that the church,, has been consulted and signified its approval. The conditions of courtship are unfavorable to even innocent flirtations, and the Spanish character has brought into its everyday life many difficulties to discourage an insincere lover. An evening in such a company, the air filled with voices that drown the music, the black sky spangled with stars as brilliant as they are in the tropics, will long be remembered. Although Havana is in a sense besieged, although Gomez with the insurgent army is burning towns so near the city j that the glare may be seen on the sky at night, although wounded and dying soldiers are brought in on every train that the troops can get through, and the war and its horrors might be supposed to be on every tongue, no one thinks of it, and it is a gala night. Tomorrow is permitted to take care of itself. Sunday is Havana’s holiday. There are no bull fights going on now, as the people are too poor from the war to support them. But there are other amusements, so that Sunday maintains a violent contrast with the rest of the week. Every store, nearly, is open. The newspapers are published in editions throughout the day. The cases are filled from morning till night. The one theater which has not succumbed to the depression puts on the best operas and sells every seat. It is a day to entertain and pay calls and spend hours in the parks. So much license is given to everjr form of recreation on Sunday, that it is actually possible to go out of the city for several miles into the country without disturbance from the soldiery, despite the war. As for the churches, thousands of women religiously attend. In Cuba the church and her children are a woman’s .life. She soon loses her husband as her companion in the home. She does not read. She never heard of a New Woman. She has her little circle of friends like herself, and some day dies. But, she has been faithful to the church, and the most striking thing about a service in the great Cathedral is the presence of the women of Havana and the absence of the men. The lottery is the curse of Havana. One of the first cries heard on the street in the morning is the shrill voice of a Cuban yelling that he has lottery tickets for sale. It is often the last sound heard at night. In the cases, women annoy you incessantly, offering any part, from one-tenth to a whble ticket or more. In the stores some one gently touches your arm. It is a lottery ticket peddler. As the theater crowd copies out, the rabble is not cab driver and newsboys, but lottery ticket sellers. A card is sent to-your room in the hotel. Its strange name indicates the courteous attention of some citizen, who bows low, smiles, talks of the weather and the beauties of Havana, and then offers to sell a lottery ticket. In the Botanical Gardens, at the Custom House gates, at the very Cathedral doors, the long yellow sheets

are thrust into every face till it would seem that all Cuba must gamble to support so formidable a company of fakirs. All other storekeepers are courteous and unobtrusive. They are so polite that one feels as if he were rudely trespassing in entering their stores to purchase. Money is generally plentiful in Havana, and as there is not a savings bank in the Island, and Cubans are born spendthrifts, it is striking to note the general excellence of everything offered for sale. American goods are the favorite. French and German wares are popular, but everything is 1 of the highest grade, and a native or Spaniard will never buy anything but the best. A visitor experiences great difficulty In purchasing anything characterisically Cuban in the stores, but tluit is because Cuba produces only two things, sugar and tobacco, and buys everything she uses—even buys back her sugar refined.A RATCATCHER’S SECRET, His Way of Clearing a Place of Thes Pests. “I’m rough on rats. I am; yes, sir my name is Joe Peoples, and 1 catche rats. Look here,” and Mr. Peoplet slowly drew a hand from one of his capacious trousers pockets, and that hand firmly held nn enormous rat. It (the rat) blinked and wriggled slightly, after which it remained quiet The man put it back in his pocket. As he did so, it was noticeable that he allowed the rat to slip out of his hand into his pocket instead of placing his hand in and drawing it away. He appeared to be fairly infested with rats, for he had one or more in each pocket, large enough to hold one. He even took one out of his sleeve, and it is possible that he had one in the crown of his hat. He was an odd-looking character. He had unmistakably the air of a sailor; his expressions were sailor-like, and his critical observations of the ships in the river smacked of long sea -experience. ----- ... , : “See that ’ere bark over yonder, said Mr. Peoples. “She were alive with rats, forward and aft, ’tween decks and in the hold. Well, I cleaned every rat out of that bark in less’n four days' time. You ask the mate about it.” Mr. Peoples mentioned several vessels, including a well-known coast steamer, and several hotels which he had cleared of rats, in no case taking over ten days’ time. “How do Ido it? Well, y’see, that would be heavin’ the whole thing overboard as far as my profit is concerned. It took me a long time to learn how. I am the only one in it at the present time, and I make bread and butter for Mrs. Peoples and me out of it. It’s not strictly bong-tong, but there’s money in it and it’s interestin’. There’s no four-footed thing on earth that’s up to more dodges and up to more tricks than an old bald-headed rat. He winks at poison and laughs at traps. “No, I never poisons ’em. More will come, and you have the dead one lyin’ ’round between floors. I don’t trap ’em, either, only a few' that I fixes up and turns loose again. Now’, if you won’t give it away, I’ll let you on to part of the scheme. You see this big fellow. I just caught him up to the Hotel this morning. He was too smart for a trap, but I laid for him and caught him with my bands before he could get back to the hole. Now. I’m goin’ to give him a torch and a bell to carry, and I’ll dip him all over in something else that I won’t tell you about, and then to-night Til take him back to the hotel and let him go free. “I mean by ‘torch’ that I’ll paint his back w’itli phosphorus paint, so he’ll be a ‘beautiful sight and shinin’ light’ in every rat-hole he gets into, and by ‘bell’ I mean a genooine bell, like this.” Here the rat-catcher drew from his pocket a tiny round'bell, like a sleigh bell, but smaller. “This ’ere bell I’ll fix around bls neck with a wire, so, ; even if the phosphorus w’ears off, he’ll still be able to surprise his mates wherever he goes. Course, he feels sociable and friendly-like, in spite of the fix he is in, and wants to get back to his mates and spin a yarn to ’em, maybe, about his funny adventure with the ratcatcher. But his mates, they don’t recognize him. They give him the marble heart.. They don’t like his burnin’ back, nor his alarm bell, and, what’s more than anything else, they don’t like the smell of him. He smells like a thousand ferrets. All his mates will leave in a body as he comes around; he’ll keep tryin’ to get with ’em, and finally it’ll end by every last rat leavin’ the ship or the buildin’. I’ve known ’em to jump overboard and drown if they couldn’t get off any other way. And they won’t come back for a long time. I guarantees every place for a year. You see, that stuff I soaks the rat in scents up every hole and runway he goes through, like a ferret would, only worse, and my doctored rat goes over every rat promenade of the place chasin’ his friends before they leave the ship or the buildin’ f _No rat will allow himself to go into any place where he smells a ferret. No he. He just winks one eye and says: ‘I don’t think this place good for my health,’ and gets out.”—Portland Oregonian. How to Manage a Burglar. A young woman, who. successfully resisted a burglar at night, though he drew a revolver, gives this advice to her sex for use on like occasions: Think quickly. Never lose your presence of mind. Use all the weapons nature has given you. Hold your breath when you are being chloroformed.' Don’t let a little thing like being gagged divert your mind. If .you can’t scream throw things at the window to attract attention. Rememb&r that, while you be as strong as he is, ten to one you are much —New York World

NOTES AND -COMMENTS. Antartic exploration is agitating the minds of would-be Europaw discoverers at the present time to a notable degree. 'The Royatl Geographical Society of London is now endeavoring to raise funds to fit out an expedition. A similar soclerty in Belgium will send a ship to south polar regions in June, and a joint Austrian-German antartic expe dltion has been projected, which, it is estimated, win cost $250,000. An Englishman can go round the world and touch on British territory all the way, viz.: from England to Halifax, N. S., across Canada t,o Vancouver, across the Pacific to Hongkong, thence to Singapore, Penang, Mauritius, Cape Town, St. Helena and England, or from Penang to Ceylon, Bombay, Adon, Perlm, Malta, Gibraltar, and home. This is a “sea connection” thnit no other nation in the world poel sesses. The recent poultry show in New York city calls attention to the high virtues of the hen. She contributes over $135,000,000 to the annual production of the United States alone. In al) parts of the globe she is patiently, silently and steadfastly toiling for the health, wealth and happiness of the human race. She has caused the rise and growth of that worthy class, the chicken farmers. They are as a class is quiet, peaceful and contented as their hens. All honor to the hen and to those who Hve by her industry. A recent traveler is reported to have said that the Icelanders, who number 12,000, have a better average cultivation than any European people. Then; are 287 churches, 12 of them of stone, 246 of wood, and 29 of turf. Only 51 of them possess a harmonium, and even the cathedral of Relkaivik has no organ, but only a large harmonium. Church services after the Lutheran form are well attended, and the Bible is diligently read, though the children do not receive education in schools, but from parents and ministers. : Here in America, as in every other civilized country, the authorities offer a pecuniary reward for the finding and the recovery of a drowned person, a corpse being, therefore, of greater financial value to boatmen than a rescue. The French Government has now inaugurated a scheme for providing a monetary rewards for the saving of people from drowning, and the innovation is one which merits the consideration of our authorities here, since to a man who has a starving family at home the temptation to allow a person to drown for the sake of securing the reward granted for the finding a corpse is so great that it may prove in some eases beyond the power of resistance. Belgium has over 50,000 draught dogs, drawing milk and vegetable carts and other light vehicles, being generer.illy assisted therein by the ablebodied Belgian woman, who adds to that function the auxiliary one of distributor and purveyor. There is a regular dog market, whore the animals can be purchased cheaply, and they are important factors in the industry of the various towns and municipalities. They are more abundantly used in Belgium than in any othqr European country, though the local economist angues that it would be judicious to gradually substitute for them small horses and donkey, on the ground that when the latter were worn out they would be convertible to good, merchantable sausages, while such a use of the dog encounters “an obstinate and irrational local prejudice.” There is a unique war being waged in the household of Claus Spreckels, the millionaire sugar refiner. Two years ago he gave each of his sons $6(10,000. They were not satisfied with this- trifle and rebelled. In order to pacify them the old man sold them three-quarters of the stock in his Hawaiian Commercial Company for something over a nyllion dollars, payable in three installment! This did not have the desired effect, and tihe two young men packed up and left their father. The latter tried to prevent his sons from raising the money by getting the promise of all the money lenders in San Francisco not to lend them any money. They, however, raised the money somehow, and now seem victorious. Clans Spreckels landed in New York more than haff a century ago with wooden shoes on his feet and $3 in his pocket. His life has been one of continual struggle, until now he ie the recognized “sugar king” of the continent. Russia has suffered from a genuine plague of rats and mice, and the story is aittnaotlyely told by United States Consul Heenan at Odessa, in a report to the State Department. The vermin first appeared in -southern Russia in the autumn of 1893, and they increased in number with marvelous rapidity, owing to the heavy grain harvests leaving much unithreahed grain, and to the mild weather. In addition to the common house and field mouse, another and new variety appeared, having a long, sharp nose. mice overran every place, and they moved in vast numbers like armies, and in instances did not hesitate to attack men and animals. While the rats were not so numerous as the mice, they were more destructive, eating everything, gnawing away woodwork, and even ruining entire buildings. After exhausting all other means, ■file ’pilague was finally t?erminaLed in 1894 by resort to bacteriology, when the vermin was destroyed by the inoculation of a few rodents with contagious disease germs. One of-the m<wt prolific subject® of invention, judged by the number of applications for patent, is the churn. Inventive geniuses W>ho have to “man the dflghor” for bound together when

the butter Stubbornly refuffes “come” frequently utilize the time 1 thinking up of making t ’ butter churn itself. This is general by some kind of intricate gearii ’ turned by a crank or treadle. Os Cour ’ such machinery merely caste moi makes more friction, and uses up mo strength in the end than the old-fas 1 loned churn, which continues <to ho 1 its own with nine-tothtlis of the (putt ( makers. But ft Kentucky man has i ccntly secured a patent on the ve acme of churn devices. His jjhtjm > simply a box mounted on rockers, a beside the Ixix is a comfortable ee ■ so that the farmer’s wife can *%lt fti ■ sing her self away to everlasting blltw , pare apples, knit, visit with callere • read her favorite novel, while tax ■ riously rocking to and fro, happy ■ the thought that she is doing the cMir , ing at the same time. The invent '/ claims that by the time the “plot begl • to thicken” the cream follows suit, ai before the point is reached where th , “marry and live happy ever oftei the butter is ready to remove t»*t ( cooler. Dr. William T. Harris, United Stat I Commissioner of Education, tn h - fifth annual report, just issued, for tj • school year ended November 30, 189 > presents an interesting and imports > series of statistics relating to the pu ! lie schools of the country. The repo > shows that in the year 1892-93, tl • whole number of pupils enrolled • schools and colleges, public and pi vate, in the United States, was 15,085 ( 630, or 22.5 per cent, of Che entire po ' ulaitlon. This was an lherease over tl preceding year of 370,697. The euro ment of pupils in the public echoo for the year numbered 13,510,719, a ’ increase of 1.92 per cent, for the pr j ceding year, while the average atten ( anee Increased 3.45 per cent ’ were employed in the year 122,055 ml and 260,954 female teachers. The nut ! ber of schoolhouses were 236,426, va ued, with their contents and appurt ! nances, at $398,435,039. The echo revenues for that year were $165,00( 000; the total expenditures were $&5 ’ 000,000. There were 451 universltl ‘ and colleges for men and for bot i sexes; of these 310 were co-educaitio al, an increase of 3 per cent in tw years. The total number of Instructo was 10,247, and of pupils 140,053. O leges for women alone numbered 14 with 2,114 teachers and 12,949 st ' dents. As a result of professional ed cation in the year, there w’ere gra< tutted 4,911 medical students, rf,Bi dental students, 3.394 pharmacist ’ 6,776 law students, and 7,836 theolo 1 leal students. The graduates of no mal schools numbered 4,491; the nut 1 ber of Rtudenits was 53,465. i — k Strange Fish. A fishing smack belonging to the fl« i that plies its trade on the, Bahadl banks, was scurrying along before tl strong west wind one day when tt captain and crew, who were below i dinner, noticed that she suddenly righ ed and the rattling of the reefie ; points told that she was shaking up i the wind. “What are you luffing for?” the ski; per shouted up the companlonwa; “Keep her on her course.” Buttno repl; The reefing points continued to bej their tattoo and the big mainsail roa , ed a loud protest. The skipper sprang up the compm ionway to find the man at the whe< lying on the deck almost senseless, few moments later he recovered su fleienty to explain that he had JU»e knocked down by a violent blow, an a bruise upon his head was evident that this was true. But what could have struck th helmsman? There was absolutel i nothing to explain it until suddenly th i captain caught a movement in th scuppers and in a moment had in h > hands a highly colored fish with Iqjo wing-like fins, its head as hard as bon armament could make it. It was the' flying gurnard—a livin ■ arrow, a flier without wings, that ha dashed from its native element au , gone soaring along in its flight, strikffi • the helmsman so terrific a blow thi i he was rendered almost unconscious. . Such incidents are rare, yet the o i dinary flying fish, especially the Paclfl form, that is eighteen inches in lengtl , is a formidable object wnen dartin through the air as is its habit whe , alarmed. I have heard of one ths . .flew aboard a steamer and dashe ! through a pane of heavy glass, strikin , the wall of the room with a fort that would easily have knocked ! cupant down. Not infrequently boa men are struck by them, and the writ< has had once occasion to dodge the« > uncertain living projectilesz j An Active Lizard. t Travellers through the tropical so i ests of the East sometimes see a slngi i lar object, rich in its brilliant coloring I darting from tree to tree, resemblir , some gigantic insect. It is a llzaji - draco volaus. or flying draco, a strikin s and beautiful example of this provlsio -of natffte which enables the lizard t i leap Into the air and soar away seen , ingly with all the freedom of a blrdf The draco, like other lizards, live < among the verdure, clinging to th t limbs of trees, finding protection In I remarkable mimicry to the objeci j which surround it. When It deslreji t . reach a distant tree, instead of runnln down the trunk, aftef the manner < } ordinary lizards, it darts nimbly to ti t topmost bough, and boldly laud|hes 1 . self into the air, swooping down, su] . ported by a singular membranous pa , achute that fs Iroomed out by falf , ribs and successfully bou.vs up J# little animal, bearing it rapidly throng the f This lizard is a most beautiful crei t ture when in mid-air, the sun flashin . on its many colors, giving it the appea ; ance of some gorgeous insect. —Atlant i Constitution. ss