Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1886 — Page 6

THE HOMESTEAD. BY JOHN GEENLEAF WHITTUEB. Against the wooded hills it stands, Ghost of a- dead home, staring throngh Its broken lights on wasted lands Where old-time harvests grew. Unplowed, unsown, by scythe unshorn, The poor, forsaken farm-fields lie. Once rich and rife with golden com And pale green breadths of rye. Of healthful herb and flower bereft, The garden plot no housewife koeps; Through weeds and tangle, only left The snake, its tenant, creeps. A lilac spray, once blossom-clad, Sways bare before the empty rooms; Beside the roofless porch a sad, Pathetic red rose blooms. His track, in mold and dust of drouth, On floor and hearth the squirrel leaves, And in the tireless chimney’s mouth His web the spider weaves. • The leaning barn, about to fall, Resounds no more cm husking eves; Ho cattle low in yard or stall, Ho thrasher beats his sheaves. So sad, so dear I It seems almost Some haunting presence makes its sign; That down yon shadowy lane some ghost Might drive his spectral kine 1 O home, so desolate and lorn 1 Did all thy memories die with thee? Were any wed, were any bom, Beneath this low roof-tree? Whose ax the wall of forest broke, And let the waiting sunshine through? What good-wife sent the earliest smoke Up the great chimney flue? Did rustic lovers hither eomo ? Did maidens, swaying back and forth In rhythmic grace, at wheol and loom, Make light their toil with mirth? Did child feet patter on the stair? Did boyhood frolic in the snow? Did gray age, in her elbow chair, Knit, rocking to and fro? The murmuring brook, the sighing breeze, The pine's slow whisper, can not tell; Low mounds beneath the hemlock trees Keep the home secrets well. •Cease, motherland, to fondly boast Of sons fur off who strivo and thrive, Forgetful that each swarming host Must leave an emptier hive.l O wanderers from ancestral soil, Leave noisomo mill and chaffering store; ■Gird up your loins for sturdier toil, And build the home once more 1 Come back to bayberry-scented slopes, Aud fragrant fern, and ground-mat vine; Breathe airs blown over holt aud copse Sweet with black birch and pine. Wliat matter if the gains are small That life’s essential wants supply? Tour homestead’s title gives you all That idle wealth can buy. All that the many-dollard crave, The brick-walled slaves of 'change and mart, Lawnß, trees, fresh air, and flowers, you have, More dear for lack of art. Tour own sole masters, freedom-willed, With none to bid you go or stay, ‘Till the old fields your fathers tilled, As manly men as they I With skill that spares your toiling hands, And cbemic aiu that science brings, Reclaim the waste and outworn lands, And reign thereon as kings I — Atlantic.

THE SYRINGA BUSH.

BY PAUL PASTNOR.

Mr. Maginnis was not afraid of ghosts. He never had been—he never would be. If he had said so once he had said so five hundred times, perhaps more. It was one of the supremest satisfactions of his life to laugh at the women folks and the children when they talked about ghosts. “Pooh, pooh, my dears!” he would cry. “The idea of being afraid of what doesn’t exist—afraid of nothing! I declare, it makes me tired!” (Mr. Maginnis fully sympathized ■with the recently published views of Mr. 'Walt Whitman on the subject of American «lang.) It sometimes used to make Mr. Maginnis turn fairly purple in the face with laughing to hear how the visiting servant girls came in all of a shiver in the evening after seeing Mr. Maginnis’ own last week’s underclothes mistily waving upon the •clothes-line. It was always with a fiendish •delight that the worthy man beheld a white cow or an old spavined and decrepit milkwhite horse abroad in the golden eventide, for he knew that in a very short time somebody—presumably an old maid or a schoolma’am, or a fat cook with a dozen bundles "under her arm, would be frightened out of "their false teeth. Such was Fletcher Ma•ginnis—a disbeliever in things supernatural; a little, pudgy, bay-windowed, prosaic, short-breathed, every-day grocer, who never sanded his sugar because he fully believed that somebody else had attended to that liitle matter before him. Now it happened in the regular course of events that winter approached, with its usual heralcby of frosts and mittens and the arrival of the man with the five-inch stove-pipe elbow under his arm. Mr. Maginnis, as usual, resurrected his ulster, and cracked the same old chestnut, is he met the blue-nosed ice man delivering bis last blocks of crystal comfort at the back door. Mrs. Maginnis began to gather in her choice plants, lamenting meanwhile that she had neglected this important domestic duty until the complexion of her nose, tweaked by the remorseless fingers of Jack Frost, must «urely attract the attention of passers by. One delicate syringa bush (Maginnis called it syringe bush, but then Maginnis had no eye for beauty, no olfactory •organ capable of aesthetic titillation) she •debated long over, undecided whether to Temove it, roots and all, to the cellar, or venture to intrust it to the chilly embraces of winter. Finally she*decided to give it a nice, fashionable, corn-colored ulster of •straw, which Maginnis should purchase for her, and some competent son of Erin cut and fit to suit the requirements of the bush. But meanwhile a sharp night threatened; Maginnis had gone to the store, to be absent “rather later than usual,” he said, as it was “lodge night;” and unless some covering were provided for it the precious syringa would probably freeze. So Mrs. Maginnis went into the house and got an old skirt of hers and a sheet. It was quite dark, but Mrs. Maginnis laughed as she spread out the balloon-like garment and slipped it over the bush, thinking what if anybody should see her now! Then she wrapped the sheet, fold on fold, around the bush, and fastened it with that woman’s rade mecum, a pin. * * * * * * * It was considerably “small” in the morning when Maginnis got away from the “lodge.” 1 He felt queer. The piercing air •of the early morning cut to his very marrow? He shivered, actually trembled—something he had not uone for twenty-three -years, although he wan a married man.

Somehow, his head seemed to be barsting. He grabbed his hat-rim, and with the greatest difficulty dissevered the connection between his brow and the tightening band, and tilted the hat upon the back of his head. How strangely the stars looked! How the ground seemed to glide forward and backward beneath his feet. He started dizzily in the direction of home, every now and then stopping to allow the shifting earth time to subside; then, clasping the unbuttoned ulster feebly with both hands, he staggered on again. Fletcher Maginnis was drunk—a little. Not so drunk that he didn’t realize it himself, but just drunk enough to be somewhat dazed and apprehensive and oblique of vision. He had no difficulty in finding his wuy home, but the way seemed long and strangely full of terrors. He shook like a leaf as he passed the low iron fence of the cemetery, aud once, as the wind passed with a long, rustling sound through a pile of leaves, he started to run, but his flapping ulster catching him between the legs, twirled him squarely around and brought him face to face with a ghastly gravestone close against the fence. The cold sweat stood on Mr. Maginnis’ brow when he staggered into bis own yard. He stopped for a moment and rubbed his hands across his eyes. Good heavens! what was that nodding back and forth in the rising winds? Mr. Maginnis’ heart gave a great thump, and his hair wiggled about under bis hat till it nearly pushed it off. He advanced a step—then retreated two. It surely was a ghost! It swayed from side to side like a person in great mental agony. Maginnis was sure that ho heard a low* moan escape his lips, and saw it wring its clammy hands. Just then a fierce gust of wind swept around the house. The figure seemed to shake itself aud expand. Another gust—and horrors! with an awful rustling and a clap that shook every bone in Maginnis’ body, the ghost left its moorings and floated swiftly toward him. One piercing, agonizing cry, more like the bray of a lost mule than the utterance of a human being, burst from the disbeliever's lips, and Maginnis fell back more dead than alive, while the trailing garments of the ghost passed over him and swept away in the darkness. ******* Mrs. Maginnis and the fat cook dragged Maginnis into the house. He was so badly scared that he could not speak an audible word for ten minutes; then he opened his ashen lips and groaned; “Where is the ghost?’’ If he had asked to see his maternal great-grandfather Mrs. Maginnis could not have been more taken aback. The idea of Maginnis admitting the existence of a ghost! By gentle degrees the wife of his bosom drew from him the haiTowing tale. At the story of the ghost in the yard she pricked up her ears. As Maginnis in his recital located the specter, a smile began to creep from the comers of the good lady’s mouth. When the ghost left its base and sprang upon Maginnis, she grinned. When he described the flop, and the rustle, and the trailing garments, she laughed outright. Maginnis in his turn was amazed. Mrs. Maginnis laughing at a ghost—the idea! He charged her with woman’s inconsistency. Her reply was brief and to the point: “Maginnis, you are a fool!" Maginnis rose on his eltynv. “That ghost you saw was the syringa bush, done up in a ” “And the trailing garments?” “The sheet blown off by the wind.” Maginnis has bought his wife a two-hundred-dollar seal-skin sacque and the cook a red dress, and their lips are sealed.— Chicago Ledger.

A New Wrinkle for Modern Society.

As there are flirtations and rumors of flirtations in the air the expected early importation of the system of screens now in vogue at Paris will come none too soon. No drawing-room will then be considered complete without screens enough to render each couple in the room secure in the privacy of the enfolding panels. Well, the one couple left out, of course, will not require a screen. The idea is to obviate all the difficulties now in the way of conversatipn, don’t you know, and remove the tension imposed upon the nerves of a person who is trying to make a few pointed remarks and at the same time look totally unconcerned in the eyes of the probably observing company. There are a score of advantages to be gained from the screen scheme in society. Each person will fit a set to his own particular wants and needs, and when the hour for striking the blow in favor of the new reform arrives, the city will be ready to a man to say a word in its behalf. How charming Mrs. Whitney’s new ball room will look broken into scores of cosy nooks, each with its own pretty decorative arrangement and central motive. Thinking of a few r parlors in town now, I believe the screen notion is not entirely unknown in the city. Mme. de Struve arranged her parlors with subdivisions and nooks, with banks and hedges of greenery arranged, and everybody was charmed with the supremely artistic effect.— Washington Republican.

Descent of Queen Victoria.

The line runs thus; Egbert, the first Saxon King of all England, Ehelwulf, Alfred the Great, Edward the Elder, Edmund, Edgar, Ethelred the Unready, Edmund Ironside, Edward (not a King), Margaret, wife of Malcolm, King of Scotland; Matilda, who married Henry I. of England, thus uniting the Saxon and Norman lines; Maud, wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet; Henry 11., John, Henry 111., Edward 1., Edward 11., Edward 111., Lionel, Duke of Cla v ence; Philippa, who married Edward Mortimer, Earl of March; Roger Mortimer, Earl of March; Anne Mortimer, who married Richard, Earl of Cambr dge; Richard, Duke of York; Edward IV., Elizabeth, who married Henry VII., thus uniting the York and Lancaster branches of the royal house; Margaret Tudor, wife of James IV. of Scotland; James V. of Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots, James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, Elizabeth, wife of Frederick, Elector Palatine; Sophia, wife of Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover; George 1., George 11., Frederick, Prince of I Yales; George 111., Edward, Duke of Kent; Victoria. —lnter Ocean.

PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

A Terrible Mistake. —The monstrous. horrible lios that are told chiliren to make them obedient by workng upon their fears are numbered by scores. Such children are easily identified, for they are almost paralyzed when they see the strangely craw.ing snake; a rat or mouse, of interesting habits, may set them into convulsions; that charming feature of the country, the woodland, where many a happy hour may be spent, is the home of bears that live on innocent little children; that interesting object, the worm, about which Darwin wrote a whole volume, causes a shudder of repulsion; and various other creations of nature that children love to be told about become sources of the keenest pain. We once knew a mother who tried to govern her children by telling them that “the old man will be after von;” in consequence of this, in fear and trembling, they shunned all old men — those fellow-beings of ours who are particularly fond of children. Young people grow out of these fears in time, but many of them haunt them through life. The most lasting of these are caused by peopling darkness with ghosts, hobgoblins, and dangerous men, thereby filling with terror the darkness of night, whether outdoors cr in the unlighted room of a house.— Deli-oit Free Press. Household Games. —It is not necessary that a great amount of money be spent in toys and games. If the children are properly encotiraged, and directed a little, they may prepare the materials for their own games, thus accomplishing two desirable things—acquiring manual and mental facility in the manufacture and production of something with which to be afterward instructed and amused. Iu the card games many can be prepared on plain bristol board cards in manuscript, involving simple facts in history, botany, geography, etc., or the always valuable and interesting word-making game can be prepared on small bits of cards by drawing the letters with pen and ink, or pasting on letters cut from hand bills, newspapers, etc. In board games the cover of a paper box serves well for the surface to be decorated with the pen, pencil, or water-colors. In “ye olden times,” when this country was not cursed with manufacturers of games, our grandfathers cut the lines of fox-and-geese, twelve-men-morris, and checkers on the side of pine boards, coloring the spaces, when necessary, with red chalk, and using buttons, red and white corn, or colored beans for counters or men, and it is related by those who claim to know that more pleasure was derived from these rude constructions than the children of ! the present generation get from their most elegant editions in gold and colors. Many most valuable and interesting games have gone out of the market, and are not to be bought, but which may be reproduced under the instructions of some older persons who may have played them in their youth; and if the details are not fully remembered, others equally good may be originated.

All games are made by some one, or by a number of persons, either at once or by slow growth, with practice and various changes, modifications, and additions, so that there is no reason whv any one may not originate others as good as the best in the market, and in one sense a home made game is much more valuable to its originator or possessor than another which in other rospects is equally good or better—as an original painting may be more valuable than a jar in ted copy of a much better picture, because no one has a duplicate of it. The invention of games and social amusements is as good mental exercise as anything the schools offer, because it requires the exercise of the inventive faculties, in the combination and adaptation of knowledge already possessed, or which must be hunted up for this purpose. Original thought in any direction exercises the inventive faculties, and the construction of games, puzzles, anagrams, rebuses, etc., is one of those exercises which are fascinating and pleasing when once understood and practiced. —Good Hotisekeeping.

The Capture of Gen. Scott.

After Hull’s surrender in August, 1812, the army was greatly demoralized, and it was evident that an attack must be made to retrieve the national honor. The Army of the Center, under Gen. Van Renssalaer, was therefore massed on the banks of the Niagara River, with the purpose of invading Canada. Oct. 13, Van Renssalaer crossed the river at Lewiston. The British were entrenched on Queenstown Heights, nearly opposite. The lauding w r as desperately resisted. Col. Scott and Capt. Wool led the Americans in charge after charge, driving the British before them. Three times they won the victory. Van Renssalaer then returned to the American shore to bring over the rest of his troops. These were mainly. New York militia, altogether unus d to the terors of battle. The sight of the bloody druggie on the opposite side of the river, of the field strewn with dead and lying, wholly unnerved them. To the General’s order, therefore, their officers returned the reply that he had no right to take the militia out of the State, and hey refused to follow him. “f ifteen mndred able-bodied men,” says an listorian of the time, “stood cowardly >y their constitutional rights while heir comrades vainly struggled against he odds of the r swarming foes.” Scott, m the other side, finding that no help ould be sent lnm, mounted a log beore the remnant of his troops, and irged them to renew the attack. ‘Hull’s surrender,” ho said, “must be redeemed. Our condition is desperate.

Let us die arms in hand. Our co.ntr/ demands the sacrifice. The example will not be lost. The blood of the slain will make heroes of the living. Those who follow will avenge onr fall and our country’s wrongs. Who dares to stand?” A loud “All!” rang along the line. Another charge was made with desperate courage, but the numbers of the enemy were overwhelming, and all who were not killed were taken prisoners. In January, 1813, Scott Was exchanged, and joined the army under Gen. Dearborn as Adjutant General.— Inter Ocean.

The Poles in Prussia.

The Prussian Government, in the summer of 1835, issued an order for the expulsion of all Poles from the country. They were to be allowed a certain time to dispose of their effects, and at the end of that time were obliged to depart, whatever their circumstances or condition of health. As the Russian Government refused to admit these banished people unless they could prove that they were born in that country, their hapless condition aroused much sympathy in the German states, and upon the meeting of the Reichstag, or German Parliament, a resolution was passed requesting an explanation of this action. To this Chancellor Bismarck replied that the matter was a Prussian affair wholly, and as he could not admit the right of the Reichstag to concern itself in those affairs that were exclusively the province of the states, he could give no explanation. Subsequently, liowever, a similar resolution was passed by the Prussian Landtag, or Local Assembly. To this Bismarck replied, Jan. 28, 18SG, at some length. He said ihat the primary cause of the Government’s action was the disloyalty of the Poles to the German crown. They were always, he said, engaged in intrigues, endeavoring to set foreign states against Prussia, and keeping up a continual agitation against the Government. The Government had therefore decided to banish the evil element that made all this trouble. The Government had decided to purchase all the real estate owned by the Polish nobles in Prussian Poland, and place German colonists on the land hitherto occupied by the expelled people. None of the Poles were to be allowed to repossess the land, even by renting it, and to make its colonization more permanently valuable to the German Empire, the colonists were to be forever prohibited from marrying Poles.. While it is admitted that the Government will have some difficulty in carrying out these extreme measures if they are not concurred in by a majority of the Prussian Assembly, it is certain that neither Bismarck nor the King is likely to concede a single point of the plan, and their influence is quite powerful enough to bear down all opposition to these measures.— Inter Ocean.

Phases of United States Banking.

The banking law of 1791 established one organization only, the United States Bank, with a stock limited to $10,000,000. The present system, founded upon a number of different acts passed between 1863 and 1875, provides for a practically unlimited number of banks, and fixes the inside limit of capital at $50,000, SIOO,OOO, and $200,000, according to the population of the city where organized. In the old United States Bank, the Government took $2,000,000 of stock, and three-fourths of all private and corporate subscriptions were to be paid in United States bonds, the remaining one-fourth to be paid in coin; in the National banks the Government takes no stock, but guarantees each bank’s notes of issue, on condition that 111 per cent, of these notes is deposited in the United States Treasury in the form of Government bonds, as security. No part of the law of 1791 restricted the issue of the bank’s notes, this matter being left to the accepted prudence of the bank’s directors. As this prudence is not so fairly calculable a quantity at the present day, the question of security limits each bank’s circulation. The circulating notes of the Bank of the United States were made receivable in payment of all dues to the United States; the present law provides that National bank notes “shall be received by the Government in payment of all taxes and other dues, except duties on import -, and are payable for all debts or demands owing by the Government, except interest on the public debt, and in the redemption of the notes themselves. ” These are the salient points of contrast between the two systems, to which we may add the fact that the law limited the existence of the charter of the United States Bank to ten years, to be extended at the pleasure of Congress; while the National banks are made, if their solvency continues, permanent institutions. By no means all of the specifications of these laws are here quoted, as the circumstances under which they were framed are widely different. —Inter Ocean.

Arabian Manuscripts.

The collection of manuscripts which the Sultan of Morocco has turned over to the Medresseh, or High School, of Fez, proves to comprise copies of numerous West Arabian works which in Spain were destroyed by the holy inquisition. In scientific attainments the scholars of the Moorish Universities were several hundred years ahead of their Trinitarian rivals, and by ignoring their existence Christian historians of civilization have been obliged to assume a thousand years interregnum of science. In the ghastly night of the middle ages Bagdad and Cordova were the intellectual Losliens, still en;oving the light of a sun which in the land oi their neighbors seemed to have set forever at the downfall of the Roman Empire.

HUMOR.

People who wear pepper-and-salt suits are always in season. Thebe is an experienced thresher to be found in erery.school of whales. Ah in-cider —the boy who fell into a tub of apple juice.— St. Paul Herald. A close call—let me look at one of yonr ready-made suits.— Boston Courier. Mutton chops, properly cooked, are delicious; and then mutton is always sheep. “The dearest ‘pot’ uneai-th to me*” sang the man when he “opened on aces.” A Buffalo cobbler calls his trade “Open Confession,” because it is good for the sole. The man who pounds the bar to attract the attention of the saloonist is a spirit rapper.— Buffalo World. Scamps, as a rule, always scamper, when danger draweth nigh. For as W. Shakspeare observes, “A guilty conscience makes cowards of ns all. ” Your bluff old chap, that boasts of always doing things “by the card,” is very apt to perform his gambols with a sort of an ante-lope. Yonkers Gazette. “How can I ascertain the weight of the earth?” asks a correspondent. First time you get a chance, weigh it. That’s the only weigh we know of.— Maverick. “Either a Millionaire or a Lunatic” is a head-line in an exchange. As soon as we get time we shall take an invoice and ascertain which class we belong to. —Maverick. Phlit says sometimes he is ornamented with wood-cuts and sometimes with steel-plates, just as his mother happens to get a shingle or a shovel.— Merchant Traveler. “With a population of about 300,000,000, China lias not a single insane asylum,” says an exhange. Exactly, but, my dear brother, you should remember that China hasn’t a single book agent either.— Newman Independent. “In Thibet the women do all the hard work, leaving the men co do the visiting and gossiping.” We shouldn’t think t ie women of Thibet bad sufficiently robust constitutions to lounge around the saloons eighteen hours out of twenty-four, discussing affairs of state, and inventing schemes to boom business and disentangle foreign complications.—Norristown Herald. The moon shone softly down on them, And life seemed more than words could utter. He said: “We’ll live on love, my gem.* She said she wanted bread and butter. —Merchant Traveler. A puff in the paper will cause one delight, For it maketn the world seem fair; But a puff in the face from a dirty old pipe Is enough to make a man swear. — Coodall's Sun. The youthful pitcher’s good-night: If you’re waking, can me early, call mo early, mother door, For I’m to pitch in the .Jackßon Nine In the biggest game of the year; We licked the High School fellows last week, and now we claim Wo can knock the stuffing out of them in a consolation game. —Brooklyn Times. Rev. Mr. Beecher says that “as a rule, the good and the bad die about alike, and go out of this life through a gate which has oiled hinges.” But it would be more comforting to our “wicked contemporaries” to be assured that the good and the bad alike enter the other life through a gate which has oited hinges.— Norristown Herald. THE MAIDEN’S FAREWELL. The time has come and we must part, The teardrop dims mine eye. How oft I’ve clasped thee to my heart With joy in days gone by! When first I saw thee I was sure Thou earnest to me to stay, But nothing earthly doth endure — All things must joass away. How oft in days forever past My form thou hast embraced I Another takes thy place at last f And clasps me round the waist. But such is life —we meet to part, In midst of change we dweffi I clasp another to my breast — Old corset fare thee well. —Boston Courier.

Voters in Canada.

There are assessment qualifications required for voters by the election laws of nearly every part of Canada. In Ontario and Quebec a vote is given to every male subject who is the owner, occupier, or tenant of real property of the assessed value of S3OO, or of the yearly value of S3O, within the limits of cities or corporate towns; or, of the assessed value of S2OO, or yearly value of S2O, if not so situated. In New Brunswick, a vote is given to every male subject of the age of 21 years, assessed in respect of real estate to the amount of SIOO, or of personal property, or of personal and real, amounting together to SIOO, or $lO annual income. In Nova Scotia the franchise is with all subjects of the age of 21 years, assessed in respect of real estate to the value of $l5O, or in respect of personal estate, or of real and personal together, to the value of S4OO. N oting is by ballot. Indians not resident with their tribes are allowed to vote under the same qualifications as white men, and by a law passed by the Dominion Parliament in August, those Indians who are stifl with their tribes are, with certain property restrictions, allowed to vote for members of the House of Commons, as well as concerning matters of local government.—lntel' Ocean.

Citrate of Silver.

Thomas Kay urges that bottles containing citrate of silver be stowed away in life-boats. Seven ounces of the citrate will turn enough sea-water into drinking water to supply a man for a week. Congressman Hottk, of Tennessee, educated himself while working at the cabinetmaker’s trade and by reading by firelight at night.