Daily Greencastle Banner and Times, Greencastle, Putnam County, 3 April 1897 — Page 3

THE DAILY BANNER TIMES, GREEN CASTLE. INDIANA.

A HOOSIER GENIUS.

MISS FURMAN OF EVANSVILLE HAS WON FAME.

Th« Authoress of “Ktorlrs of * Sitnetllled Town” fTss » (Senuine Kustlr In l,rr childhood Iisys—A Close Observer of Nature and Customs.

(Evansville (Ind.) letter.)

• l H E success of

'Sto-

ries of a Sanctified Town” lias brought many inquiries to iV’S this city as to the personality of its distinguished author. In a life so short as Miss Furman’s, there are naturally few details to give to the public. She was horn and brought up in an old and prominent South Carolina family, and her mother, Jessie Collins Furman, was a Kentucky girl, who was greatly admired for her beauty of person and of character. When Miss Furman was but seven years old her mother died, and eight years later her father was taken. Both parents were intellectual, and the little girl inherited an unusually bright mind, which with her alert way of looking at things, and her original humor, w’as a guarantee that something out of the common might be expected of her. Perhaps no one enters so intimately into the homes and hearts of people as their family physician, and nearly all doctors could, if they had the leisure and the literary inclination, tell true tales that would hold the mind imperatively. As a little girl, Miss Furman

xs i < \

soon as he sees your camp pitched, takes possession of it. He neither respects nor fears man, and is an incorrigible thief. He eats anything from a cartridge to a member of his own tamily for he is a cannibal. "I remember one instance of this,” writes our author, “when our dog unfortunately killed a young bird before we could prevent it, which was too small to eat. '1 he parents made a decent show of grief over their loss, and then, being quite sure that the little one was dead, they proceeded to eat its still w - arm remains.” The weka fights all comers for undisturbed possession of the camp he has annexed. His histrionic talent is great, and he can sham death to perfection. But for the fact that he is a first rate scavanger, he would, to his human host, be an intolerable nuisance. After some weeks of tenderness and self-sacrifice, the weka ail at once becomes a brutal husband and father. That is when the youngsters have grown up, and, as he thinks, are able to forage for themselves; still, he is unnecessarily harsh, not to say shamelessly selfish. If his place of sojurn be rich In food, he banishes his wife and children; if it be not, he treks elsewhither. The egoistic fit lasts until next he becomes a father, and then altruism Is hardly the word for his self-renunciation. Let Mr. Harper describe him and his wife; “The parent birds while rearing their young hardly eat anything themselves and grow as poor as a church mouse, everything they find is carried to the youngsters. When a pair lias only one chick it is very ludicrous to see them rush ing up to it and jostling one another in their eagerness to give it a piece of bacon or bread, and sometimes asking It to try a piece of a jam tin, or tempting it with a choice copper cartridge case.” The weka would appear to be "as good a camp companion as one could wish for, with his tameness, impudence and almost human power of expression. He is a bird with small, unformed wings, unable to fly, and varying in size from a partridge to pheasant.”

BABY BOAS.

The Little Wrigglers Are Weird Ad'

dltloun (• u Strange Studio.

Two boas came into the world last night in the captivity of Higby’s studio, in the attic of a building on East Fourteenth street, where there are painters, musicians, artisans and men of business, who are not, as Hlgby is, outlandish, says the New York Journal. The j baby boas are in two thin coils, brown and gray, black and white, in a pasteboard box, which Higby covers with a white cloth and keeps in an ebony ease. There is a saucerful of water beside i them, but how they are fed, since their mother is ill and separated from th”m i by a shelf in the case, is Higby’s se- ' cret. He will not tell it, but he alludes vaguely to hypodermic injections, made in spots almost imperceptible. Higby has seven snakes in his studio. One of them is a cobra de capello; another is the sacred boa of the Hindoos, a sinu-

WILD DOGS IN WOODS.

THEY

dogs attacked men or children, but they still rre not a class to be fooled with.”

INFEST THE HILLS CALIFORNIA.

A STRANGE ISLAND.

The

Sentries Are Ordered to Kill Them — More of the Wolf Than of Man's Couipaulon Hhoivs Itself In These Animals.

HERE is a band of wild dogs in the woods on the Presidio reservation, and they have grown in numbers and boldness to such an extent that an order has been issued to all sentries to shoot them on sight, says the

San Francisco Call. These canine va-

ous snake Higby calls aptly a living i grants are said to be ferocious, alrainbow, for it is violet, indigo blue, though they rarely venture beyond the

Temperature Inc reuMeH its the

Mountain Top In Keaehed.

Sabhalien, on the eastern coast of Siberia, presents a very curious anomaly of climate, says Cosmos. The

island is bathed by two cold ocean phorescent tea,

GHOSTLY TEAS A PARIS FAD. Uncanny A O'clock Uathrrlne* Undar

Phosphorescent Light*.

In the restless effort to find new means of stimulating the Jaded appetites of social pleasure-seekers France holds her own well, says the Nashville Banner. Her latest and the most freakish idea is the "5 o’clock phos-

which is a combina-

green, yellow, orange and red under the light; another is a cannibal snake, lemon and black, like Harlequin’s doublet. Higby plays with them, lets them coil around his long arms and neck, and shows his tongue to them when they hiss theirs out in his face. Higby plays for them on a mandolin, lirs which they do not hear, but catch in strange vibrations that the stamp of his foot on the floor at intervals punctuates. He has raised to them a shrine carpeted with Persian rugs, ornamented with a seven-armed candlestick and surmounted by a skull, through the eyes of which the smoke of the incense which he burns passes. Incense dissipates the charm of guilty meditations. There is need of incense in Higby's studio, for he has filled it with the funereal population of ghouls, of specters and of monsters that flourish in

confines of the friendly forest that has afforded them shelter and a home. Their lair lies somewhere on the hills, hidden in a jungle of trees and underbrush. and their daily menu is a choice

currents, and in winter nothing protects it against the icy northwest winds coming from Siberia. At the sea level the snow falls continually and stays on the ground till the end of May. and the seashore is very cold. Farther inland, especially as we go higher up, the climate is modified—just the opposite to what is observed elsewhere. It has often been observed in Siberia and in central Europe that in winter the cold is greater in the plains and the valleys, and that the highlands have a sensibly milder temperature. It is as if the denser cold air accumulated in the lowlands. This fact is very often observed in our climate. There are several very good examples of it. All the trees and shrubs of a valley have been known to be killed by frost, while above a certain level, very clearly marked out, on the hill or the moun-

varlety of rabbits and quail that fill the taIn lhc vegetation has not suffered

woods out there, with water from

streams that empty into Mountain

lake.

The dogs—or at least some of them— were once tame creatures, but they strayed away from the conventional and perhaps constrained path of the | city dog’s humdrum life to virgin fields where thoughts of tin cans to tails j might never torture more. They wound up in the government territory, away 1 from the pound wagon and small boys. 1 In time they formed a community and began to increase in numbers until the ; band now has a very respectable mem-

LUCY F. FURMAN, often rode with her father on his daily rounds of visits in town and country, and thus early acquired an insight into the lives of the people that lias been in valuable to her. When in later years the singular experience of sanctification took complete posfession of a certain little community in which she was interested, it was but natural that she should put pen to paper and tell about the ludicrous and the pathetic incidents that thrilled the simple hearts in the sanctified town. It was equally natural that so young a girl should b; doubtful of her own powers. At the suggestion of a friend, Miss Furman sent some of her stories to James Whitcomb Riley, whom she has never met. Surely no more cheering and helpful words were ever written in reply by a famous writer to one just beginning the hazardous path of authorship; and though Miss Furman has had many laudatory letters since her book appeared, there is not one of them that she Cherishes as she does the first from Mr. Riley, bidding her godspeed. The first stories she wrote were published by the Century Magazine. The Century Company issued her first and only volume, ‘‘Stories of a Sanctified A II.” Miss Furman has been for several rears a resident of Evansville.

XVatcli-Testlnc at Keiv.

There has been watchmaking at Coventry as long as there has been a watch trade in England, which is for Hie last 200 years or thereabouts. There used to be three centers of the English trade, these being Liverpool, Coventry and London. Now there are practically but two, Coventry and Birmingham. The test of great discoveries in other directions while they were really seeking to solve the problem of the Niger. The only result of these investigations was '. fresh crop of erroneous theories. One of them conjectured that the Niger reached the Atlantic, and each one had an opinion of his own. All these speculations were duly recorded on the maps, and the cartographic delineation of the Niger from 17‘Jl to 1832 is som”thing wonderful to contemplate. It would seem to be a simple matter to keep to the river, when once it was reached, and follow it to its destination; but that was the very thing the explorers were unable to do. Hut it was the German geographer Reichard, in his library at home, who solved the Niger riddle, some fifteen years before the Lander brothers in 1932 proved his assertion true. Everybody knew of the numerous little rivers emptying into the Gulf of Benin, and they were supposed to be independent streams of small importance. But Reichard said that the long stretch of coast where these streams readied the ocean was the sea front of a great delta, and that ’Tie Oil rivers were nothing but the subdivisions of the mighty N'ig^r. That was true, and we know now that the Niger delta is the largest in Africa.

KENTUCKY BEAUTY HONORED. MIm C'ustlemun Paitl Proud Tribute by

Swell Society. (Special Lcter.)

Miss Alice Castleman of Louisville, Ky., is accorded the distinction of being one of the prettiest society women in America. At the grand charity ball in New York city a week or two ago, John Jacob Astor, to whom fell the honor of selecting the belle of the night placed the crown on Miss Castleman’s head. The beautiful Miss Castleman, to whom this honor was entirely unexpected and far from welcome, was so confused by the notoriety into which the Astor’s artistic approval immediately brought her that she left the city and returned to her southern home, In the suburbs of Louisville. Miss Castleman’s mother was a Miss Alice Barbee. On her mother’s side Mrs. Castleman was descended from several distinguished Irish and English families. She was the daughter of the Hon. John Harbee, who was the mayor of Louisville In the palmy days of 1854 and 1855. The Hon. John Harbee was the grandson of Elias Barbee, one of the pioneers of the young state. He with his five brothers and his father, enlisted in a Virginia regiment of the Revolutionary army. Upon the close of the war. father and sons, still united, went to Kentucky. Tall, straight as an arrow, General Castleman, the father of this queen of women, was a famous figure all through the stormy days of the GO’S, when he rode as a major in Hie wake of Morgan.; Alice Castleman is a girl of nineteen summers, with oval face, broad brow, violet eyes, waving chestnut hair, Grecian nose, a mouth denoting determination, a perfect chin, divinely dimpled, standing five feet eight inches, a creature of beauty, grace and symmetry. Miss Castleman is a good dancer, an accomplished musician, plays tennis and golf equally well, and is a fearless rider and driver. She never appears to better

of Oditon Redon's -drawings. These have profoundly impressed him. He has an easel gilt in ormulu with heads of lions inlaid with emerald eyes; the skeleton in plaster of a winged child wearing a myrtle wreath, veiled with black gauze and standing in a bush of laurel; a bust of a woman of the Renaissance, in green bronze, with burnished silver eyes; a wax head painted with inanimate eyes and half-open lids, in a copper basin filled with red lilies

e

the opaque and venomous atmosphere < bar.u U-i it aei ms th<v T , , , , , have one and ail retrograded gone

back a step or two in the social scale, for they are wild, shy of man in the open, but Imbued with ferocity if crossed in the shrubbery where they live and roam about. More of the wolf than of man's faithful companion

shows itself in them.

“The bulldog got in among the pack,” said an officer at the Presidio, “and now it appears that brute’s strong blood has asserted itself in the whole lot. That is why they are considered i dangerous and why they are vicious.

A itHigiitfui Art-i.ifc-. [ suppose, too. that as they are a menFrom the Outlook: Sculptors, de- | ace to the people the order was issued

singers and modelers have workei! side by side in the embellishing and beautifying of a home for books in a life ! at once unique and delightful, seen only once before in this country—in j Chicago, when some of these same men j lived and worked together—and to be i repeated only as our art world grows | and newer buildings are erected requiring the aid of their genius. It is a nev-er-to-be-foigotten life for those who i share its good fellowship, and it is possible only when a group of brilliant i men are gathered together in one space, | all interested in each other’s success, all willing to receive ami give well- : timed, generous criticism, and all working in diverse directions to one com- | mon end—to give the highest expression in their power to a National Art. ! ‘ They have worked under the very !i roof of the Library Itself—away up iron |' steps that break your knee joints (the | f elevators were not completed when 1 ] climbed them),—up where the; huge wa- jj ter-tanks are hung, the attic stairs end, , and trap-doors begin. There you reach • a great square loft of a room, bare of'j! partitions except some dividing screens and curtains, and lighted on both sides I its entire length by big windows. The whitewashed walls are covered with | sketches in charcoal and scratches of ; colored chalk. There are long tables, too, and heaps of drawings, books and | rolls of sketches, showing smeared corners where the hand of the workman has soiled them in studying their lineu. ! There are drawing-boards propped up i on saw-horses, over which lean men in | knickerbockers and flannel shirts, the j ashes of their briarwoods dropping into j

their color-pans.

at all. The cold air often flows from the summits toward their bases.’ This is what takes place at Saghalien. The cold air accumulates in the low regions of the island and on the coast. The higher regions have a more elevated temperature. So it happens that the lower parts have an arctic vegetation, while the intermediate altitudes have the vegetation of a temperate zone, sometimes subtropical. The birch, the ash, the pine and the fir abound in the low regions and form often impenetrable forests, but toward the center of the island appear bamboos. hy- | drangeas, azalias and other plants that one is greatly surprised to meet and whose presence can be explained only by the altogether abnormal climatic

conditions of the island.

Character Told by the Hair. It is a pretty hard .thing to conceal one's true character nowadays. A new fad is hair reading, and this is said to "give us away” in an unpleasantly accurate manner, says an exchange. The new science is not fully developed yet, but its devotees have already discovered many interesting facts, and are constantly searching for more. Fine hair is said to denote gentle birth, and

THE GRANDEST OLD MAN OF THE CENTURY.

tion of the stock in trade of spiritualistic fakirs with the schoolgirl tricks of a juvenile party. Five o’clock in France just now is the twilight hour, when curtains are usually drawn and lamps are lit. Instead of lamps the guests, the furniture and the cups and saucers furnish the light at the phosphorescent teas. On walls, ceiling, divans, chairs, carpets and costumes there is spread a phosphorescent substance that absorbs light during the day and at night causes the room to glow with a weird, unholy light. The effect is said to be so unearthly that every one moves about the room with a cautious, timid step and the conversation is involuntarily carried on in subdued tones, as though a funeral were the subject under discussion. Ghastly and ghostly seem the guests, weird and woe-begone the faces of the servants who hand around the gleaming tea-cups, while the hostess, in her phosphorescent costume, looks like an unholy wanderer from the spirit world. All that is needed to make the illusion of unearthiness complete is the presence of the ghostly musicians, who, half hidden behind banks of phosphorescent shrubbery, produce slow and mythical melodies from instruments that sparkle and flame with the same substance that illuminates the tearoom. The substance used is a patent mixture that is guaranteed not to emit an obnoxious odor. With the ordinary phosphorescence the company would either have to meet with doors and windows wide open, to allow the sulphuric smell to escape, or run the risk of asphyxiation. So much of a success has it become, in fact, that the phosphorescent ball is an event that will come off in Paris shortly. The programme for the hall is based on the same idea as the tea, and the effect will be still more weird and striking. Instead of the sulphuric guests sitting quietly around a room discussing tea and exchanging gossip couples wrapped in gleaming garments of dull flame will glide around the darkened ballroom like spirits of the departed in the deserted halls of a ruined mansion.

LIONESS LOOSE IN A CIRCUS.

3

r/f

Not Afraid of it Mount*. Young and pretty Miss Lillie Cosgrove entered the postofflee at Grand Hend, Pa., a few days ago with several young ladies, and, clasping one of her legs at a point above the knee, looked fixedly straight before her. “Girls,” she whispered to her companions, "when those men go out I want to tell you something.” The men soon departed, and she released her grasp upon her skirts, when a dead mouse fell upon the floor. She felt the intruder cavorting about her. but she never screamed a scream or tried to mount the table or the letter boxes. She just gripped him. stood quiet and squeezed the life out of that rodent's body. i'.\IllKIttl <‘<l ItC'KOlirCCK. ‘‘What are you bothering your father | about?” asked the boy’s mother. ‘T want him to tell me a story, and he i says he doesn't know any.” "Perhaps he will make up one as he goes along.” j “I asked him to. But he said he had ; been testifying before an investigating : committee all day, and it had used up all his material.”—Washington Star. rrojrr«*** in tli«* South. “How long have you been on this i route?” asked the drummer of the conj doctor on a primitive southern rail- ) road. "Ten yeahs. suh.” “Indeed? You must have gotten on several miles south of where I did.”— Detroit Free Press.

▲ S<'*ne of Wild Confusion at a Fnblto iVrfnrmaiK-ft In iSIrmlngham. An exciting incident occurred at Blngley hall, Birmingham, after the close of a public performance which is being given there. The entertainment is called the "World’s Fair” and consists of a collection of shows, including a circus and a menagerie. At the conclusion of the entertainment on Monday, shortly after 11 p. m., the lion trainer, Orlando Macomo, thought it necessary to remove a lioness lately added to the menagerie from the small den In which she was placed on arrival Into one In which she would have the companionship of other animals of her own breed already trained, says the London Times. While the change was being effected the electric light was suddenly cut off and the men who were holding up the cage to the level of the van containing the trained Hons became panic-stricken and dropped it. Unfortunately the door had just been opened to allow the lioness to pass through and as the den fell to the ground she escaped and made her way into the center of the building. A scene of wild confusion ensued, the attendants fearing every moment that the lioness would spring upon them. Happily, she made across the hall to the sides on which the circus horses and mules were tethered. There she turned her attention apparently to a rough-coated horse, which had that morning been through the first stages of training for the circus. No one saw the lioness attack her prey, but it was afterward found that she had sprung upon the horse's neck, digging her claws into his shoulder. The animal shrieked with pain and terror was so general among the others tethered near by that two mules broke loose and went careering round the hall. When the lights were again turned on the escaped lioness was still clinging to the neck of the horse, whose flesh was partly eaten away. The lion trainer at once went forward with a loaded gun, which, after three futile attempts, he discharged full In the face of the savage beast, killing her upon the spot, the lioness and the horse falling dead upon the ground together. In the darkness and confusion one of the attendants had his hand mangled by a lion, having incautiously grasped the bar of the den. One of the elephants in his fright broke down his house and rushed trumpeting into the middle of the arena, but was secured before any mischief had been done. The extinguishing of the electric light appears to have been due to a misunderstanding of the manager's order, which was intended to apply only to the public portion of the hall.

“SLUMP” IS A DANISH WORD. Not Slant; an Hum Hern Commonly Supposed. A good deal has been heard lately about the ’’slump” in the city. The word is expressive and is generally believed to be "slangy,” but at one time it was in general use, although it is now only to be heard in out-of-the-way districts of the provinces, says the Westminster Gazette. The African Review points out that it is of Danisli origin and, according to Dr. Raven, was applied in many a metaphorical way. In his recently published "History of Suffolk" Dr. Raven says that it is still of common use in this country. Unsuccessful litigants were slumped. “Slumped again!” says Palmer in his ’’Perlustration of Great Yarmouth,” was shouted derisively to one who had been a second time unsuccessful. Forty explains it “to sink suddenly into deep mud or rotten ground,” and Moore cites “I came in such a slump.” But, then, he never knew what a Throgmorton street slump was like.

1'olnls of View. Bonnet in hand, obsequious and Uis

creet,

The butcher that served Shakespeare with his meat.

At Portland, Me., the other day Neal Dow, the great leader of the invincible temperance cause, celebrated his nineI ty-third birthday. The day was made j the occasion of great rejoicing among ! the populace and many prohibition leaders of national fame came from

Doubtless esteemed little, as a man, different parts. Mr. Dow was born in

Who knew not how the market pricei ran. —T. B. Aldrich.

One of New Keataixl'e Cnrlonk Itlrde. A curious little bird is the weka, which is found in the Alpine region in the South Island of New Zealand. It is described by Mr. Arthur P. Harper, D. A., in an account of his explorations, Just published. The weka, as

^ i iiin i'wi MISS ALICE CASTLEMAN. advantage than when in the saddle She is one of the dashing members of the riding club and is familiar with the pedigree of all blooded stock the world over. Footgear In Foreign Land*. The Portuguese shoe has a wooden sole and heel, with a vamp made of patent leather, fanciful, showing the flesh side of the skin. The Persian footgear is a raised shoe, and is often a foot high; it is made of light wood, richly inlaid, with a strap extending over the instep. The Muscovite shoe is hand-woven on a wooden frame, and but little attention is paid to the shape of the foot; leather is sometimes used, but the sandal is generally made of silk cordage and woolen cloth. The Siamese shoe has the form of an ancient canoe, with a gondola bow and an open toe; the sole is made of wood, the upper of inlaid wood and cloth, and the exterior is elaborately ornamented in colors with gold and silver.

PERSONALS.

The Charleston News and Couriei

j Portland, March 20, 1804. He is of I Quaker parentage. In 1851, while a i member of the state legislature, he se- ! cured the passage of what is called the ; "Maine law,” which, under severe pen-

alties, prohibits the sale of Intoxicating liquors. In 1884 this provision was incorporated in the constitution of the state. He was twice chosen mayor of Portland, and during the civil war served as brigadier-general of volunteers, holding at different times three separate commands. He was twice wounded and once taken prisoner. He resigned from the army in 18G4. In 1880 he was the candidate of the National Prohibition party for president of the United States.

prints pictures of the present state offl-

! to shoot at the pack on every occasion.

There are 233 convents in Great Britain.

cers and members of the legislature. Of 123 men only two wear eyeglasses ot spectacles It is rumored in Paris that Prince Henri d'Orleans, who is now on his way to Abyssinia, has other than scientific objects in view, and that his journey is made in the interests of a great commercial and mining syndi-

cate.

Russian authorities ascribe the recent marked decline In- the immigration of Polish and Russian Jews into this country to the fact that South Africa has now taken the place of the United States as the bourne of the Heber exodus. An operation has been performed upon Dalton Query of Blue Ridge for appendicitis, but he cannot possibly recover Query has been an inveterate chewcr of gum, and in the appendix was found a ball of wax almost as large as a hen’s egg. The new Canadian census shows the surprising fact that seventeen in every thousand of the Canadian population were born in the United States. This is seven more in the thousand than the number reported from all European countries outside of Great Britain

There aie many people here who fear

them and children won’t go near the woods on account of the stories going j round the post about the dogs. “There used to be only a few dogs, but now they make their appearance in packs of half a dozen or twenty and all running together. The sentries shoot at them but have not killed off any of late, for the dogs are growing timid of the rifles and keep back in the trees. If the leasts keep on increasing they

the amount of care the hair shows will determine the mode of life. It is also claimed that the closer the ends of the hair cling together, that is naturally, without artificial force, the greater is the intellectuality the owner possesses. A tendency to curl denoteu inherent grace and a poetic nature. Straight hair is the sign of a firm, positive and practical disposition. Such bad qualities as treachery and jealousy are generally found in people with black, lustreless hair. The lighter the hair the more

will become such a pest that the woods | sensitve and "touchy” the owner genmust be fenced against them. erally is. Brown hair must be a very "The reservation is overrun with deuirable thing to possess, for the hair rabbits, but of late I think they have j readers say it is always found on peonot increased much, as the wild dogs pi e having in a high degree common | live upon them. You may see the packs j sense, good judgment and reason. Red charge upon the cottontails and kill a j hair is a sign of honesty and also of

few. Then you hear the snarl, yelp, growl of fighting'dogs and off they are

again under cover.

“It would be a good thing if they were able to eat up the rabbits, because these little animals are a pest already, and men come here with guns to shoot them, causing no little trouble to themselves and the guard. A few days ago a man went hunting for cottontails and forfeited his gun. So the rabbits are left to the dogs exclusively. No, there has been no instance where the wild

cleverness. Nothing whatever is said about freak* of temper as an accompaniment to red hair. It may be therefore safe to conclude that another popular idea has been dissolved by the searchlight of science and investigation.

Ancient School llmi'cn. Probably the oldest school house now used in Maine is situated in West Gardiner, and which is 104 years old. It has been known as the Merritt road school house for half a century.

(’Hine from I'urope. There were 06,227 cabin passengers landed at the port of New York from Europe last year. The number of Ueerage passengers aggregated 252,350. BOOKS AND AUTHORS. Prosecutor Pobiedonostzeff is desirous of having Tolstoi tried by the holy synod of Russia for heresy. Boehm's characteristic statue of Carlyle on the Thames embankment at Chelsea is to have its replica placed in Edinburg. Olive Schreiner is about to pay a visit to England. Although she has published little during recent years she has not by any means been idle. W. Clark Russell, the English novelist, has been an invalid for nearly twenty years. His tales of the sea have all been written in his London house, it having been over fifteen years since he has seen the sea. Zola has recently declared that Max Nordau, the author of "Degeneration,” is nothing more than a “literary dustman,” who has swept into his basket all the absurdities and lies which are floating about concerning prominent men. A physician, who is also a man ot letters, Dr. Gustave Toulouse, has examined Zola, explaining all the mental aa well as the physical habits of the author, and concluding that he is a "superior degenerate.” Zola was delighted. Jules Verne is at present busy in the execution of a plan to publish a series of stories bearing on different countries. Unlike many authors, he thinks of the plot last, letting it form in his mind as he reads up geographical, historical and other books of scientific nature on the part of the world he is going to treat.

Free Until**. Weary Watkins—Wot you think ot this scheme of free baths? Hungry Higgins—They won’t git none from me. No man is goin’ to git me fo bathe without payin' me for it.—Indianapolis Journal. NOTES FROM FOREIGN LANDSThe St. Petersburg newspapers announce that the king of Siam will visit there next summer. A memorial to Elizabeth Barrett Browning is about to be placed in Kelloe church, Durham, w-here she was baptized. The princess of Wales and Princess Victoria are expected at Copenhagen early in March on a visit to Prince and Princess Charles of Denmark. The hereditary grand duke of Baden, a first cousin of the German emperor, has been appointed general in command of the eighth army corps. The budget committee of the Norwegian storthing has unanimously nominated Dr. Nansen as professor ol zoology at the Christiania University. Herr Gustav Eim, the Czech politician, w-rlter and party leader, died rather suddenly in Florence while making a tour for the benefit of his health. It is announced from St. Petersburg that the Emperor Francis Joseph will return the czar’s visit on April 27. The emperor will be accompanied by Count Goluchowski. The gold yield of Western Australia for the year 189G amounted to 281,265 ounces, being an Increase of 49,753 ounces as compared with that of the previous year. . The details of the Emperor William’s return visit to the czar were, it is reported, settled during Count Muravieff’a visits to Berlin and Kiel, and will probably be made known shortly. Mme. Munkacsy, the wife of the celebrated artist, in a letter to a relative residing at Buda-Pesth, expresses the hope that after h period of complete rest her husband will recover his' health. She adds that he already feels much better.