Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1891 — FOR THE CHILDREN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FOR THE CHILDREN.

In 1819 the United States purchased Florida from Spain. Work is the best remedy for heartaches. To cure vonr own sorrow, help your neighbor. At last it has been proved mathematically that it is impossible to squarejthe the circle. Thus in time does science overtake experience. In 1894 it will be 100 years sine Hungary became an independent government, and it is proposed to celebrate the anniversary with great pomp. Grand Rapids, Mich., leads the world in its percentage of divorces to marriages. This year it was one to five and last year one to six. The total number of dissolutions was 213. The report that 22,000 people have died of smallpox in Guatemala within six months sounds almost too astonishing to be true. If it is correct, the vaccinator evidently lias a fine field for work there. Jan. 8, 1815, was the day on which the battle of New Orleans, in the second war with Great Britain was fought. Wonderful victory of Gen. Andrew Jackson with his entrenchments of cotton bales. Four hundred out of every 1,000,000 of the residents of Saxony, in Germany, commit suicide. In Leipsic the proportion is the highest in the world, reaching 450 per 1,000,000. In London it is only 85 per 1,000,000. if Arasi Pasha is slowly dying in Ceylon. It has been suggested that an appeal be made to the British Government asking that some more fitting place be selected where the unhappy Egyptian chief can serve out his exile. A recent invention is an electric mineral ore detector, by which it is claimed that the presence of ore may be detected. By this means a comparatively inexperienced person is able to tell whether the sample contains ore or not. Had Jack Dempsyran for the presidency of the United States and been defeated he would not have felt the bitterness of it half so much as he does the ' affair at New Orleans. When a champion is downed earth has no further charms for him. Henry Daneorth, an lowa well digger, completed his 464th well two days before Christmas, and was being drawn up in the bucket when the rope broke and he was killed by the fall. He had remarked not an hour before that he guessed he was born to be hung. Although whales grow to enormous size, sometimes eighty and even ninety feet long, the throat is so small that the animal couldn’t swallow a bite as large as a tea biscuit. This applies to the common whale. The spermaceti has a mouth large enough to swallow a man. One telephone was put in at a small town in Kansas, and the owner of a house to rent immediately raised the price $5 per month. Then he went over and called up a saw-mill half a mile away and burst a blood-vessel trying to keep up a conversation over the wire. It is pretty evident that every band of Indians will fight before they will surrender their rifles, but the only way to keep the red man docile is to disarm him and dismount him. If he can fight the soldiers with stones and shillalahs he is welcome to the satisfaction. Gen. Ben Butler, though nearly seventy-five years old, is one of the hardest working lawyers in Boston. He comes down from Lowell every morning and goes back at night after a day of toil, and he does not hesitate to burn the midnight oil when occasion requires. The track mileage of street railways in the five leading cities of the United States is said to be as follows; New Tfork, 368; Chicago, 365; Boston, 329; 8r00k1yn,324; Philadelphia, 324. Three cities have elevated roads: New York, 32 miles; Brooklyn, 24 miles, and Kansas City, 5 miles. The custom of the Japanese in not permitting a father to see his child until it is three months old was founded on the idea that the youngster wouldn’t know his dad at a,n earlier age. Having never seen him, how he should know him at three months is a question the Japs entirely overlooked. John Beals was arrested in Kansas for malicious trespass. He promised the Sheriff not to dig his way out of jail if left unwatched, but inside of three days he went through the brick wall, stole the Sheriff’s horse and buggy, and then took Mrs. Sheiiff in with him and galloped away to parts unknown. x--T —: A citizen of Portland, Me., applied to another citizen for relief, claiming to be in destitute circumstances. He was arrested next day on a charge of false pretenses, as it was discovered that he had a quart of whisky and nine cents

when he applied for relief. The law will now have to define what “destitute” means. An Austrian professor says that many women who keep lap-dogs suffer from an affection of the liver caused by a small parasite which is peculiar to the dog’s liver. This explains everything. It never did seem possible that the silliness of some women’s demonstrations over pet dogs was.due to an affection of the heart. A black convict in the South Carolina penitentiary made his escape the other day, but after two days »of freedom he returned of his own accord, saying that he could not find as good a place outside of it for the amount of labor he was obliged to perform. In fact, when he got home he found nothing to eat and the fire all out. Mayor Yancey, of Lynchburg, Ya., announced that he would remit all the fines of citizens for failing to remove snow frpm their premises,as he considered it unjust to fine a citizen for an offense that the city was guilty of. He then issued rules against the superintendent of the city hands and the city engineer to appear before the court to show cause why they did not do their duty in cleaning snow off the city property. One of the most excellent of recent innovations is the introduction of metal ceilings in place of wood and plaster. These ceilings do not shrink or burn like wood; they will not stain, crack or fall off like plaster, but being permanent, durable, fireproof and ornamental, will eventually supersede both wood and plaster, besides being in the end far more economical than either. - - - Dr. Felix L. Oswald has contributed an article to the Medical Tribunt on “The Night Air Cure,” in which he maintains that night air from the outside is far more healthful thau the vitiated, disease-laden night air of ordinary human dwellings. In Germany successful experiments have been tried in summer of having patients with pulmonary disorders sleep all night in the open air of the pine woods. At any rate it is all we have to breathe at night, and it had better be fresh and pure as possible. A correspondent of the London Times says that he and his party saw a rainbow which formed a complete circle, visible for nearly half an hour during their ascent of the Finsteraarhorn. “There were,” he says, “heavy clouds lying some 4,000 feet below on the Aar glaciers, and it was on these that the beautiful brilliantly colored ring lay. A second circle was also visible. We were near the summit of the peak when we first observed it, and from that point the face of the mountain on the Grinsel side is almost perpendicular.” In Britain the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are turning their attention to the condition in which cattle are landed from the Atlantic and to the treatment they receive. In a case at Birkenhead a seaman was charged for cruelly ill-treating a steer at the freight landing stage, and was sent to prison for twenty-one days, with hard labor. It would be well if our American Societies would look after the treatment of animals here in the various stockyards throughout the country. In many instances the animals are treated in the most cruel manner. You think you kuow what a servaut is. Well, don’t be too sure about it. Not long ago a Rhode Island gentleman died, directing in his will that the sum of $12,000 be equally divided among his servants. And when the division was made the woman who had washed the windows of his house was left out, on the ground that she did not technically come under the designation of a servant. Of course she has brought suit to find out why this is thus, and the lawyers may be expected to make a pretty fight over the point whether the washing of a window is a menial act de jure or only a menial act de facto. The youngest married couple that ever passed through the barge office in New York put in an appearance last week. The husband, Yussef Gosn, was only 16 years old, and his wife, Malacha Simaan, was of the almost infantile age of 11. The couple were from Lebanon, in Syria, the husband having been in this country before for two years and having returned seven months ago to claim his bride. He was accompanied by his mother, a woman 40 years old, who said that the marriage of the two children had been sactioned by the parents of both. The young couple will ply the trade of peddlers. One of the curious products of Mexico is the jumping bean, a vegetable curiosity, whose freaks of acrobatic agility has never been fully explained by the scientists. They grow in pods, each pod containing three beans. Each segment is rounded on one side and A-shaped on the other, greenish yellow color, and in circumference about the size of a large lead-pencil. When placed on a table they roll over and skip about, sometimes actually jumping a good two inches. When held between the thumb and forefinger they are felt to beat as strongly as the throbbing of a strong man’s pulse. The Agricultural Department’ at "Washington has been ac painted with the rarity sin ce 1884.

How Polly Saved Me.

WSk-iVS my friend and %j»J| I were sitting by Imv fire-side the other evening he flrplain why, in the burning of my house two months ]I. before, I had saved my parrot A V instead of other $ ? more valuable ■fi things. In answer B J I told him the folPijj lowing story: s4l One night, not 'ttjh after I had Am moved We3t, I 'just come in from attending to

the cattle, and was sitting down to supper, when I remembered that I had not left two of my little calves in proper shelter for the night, as there were all appearances of its being a very stormy one, so, bundling myself up, I started out again. It was snowing very hard, but I did not have much difficulty in reaching the barn, a 3 the wind was not blowing much yet, and I had no trouble in keeping nay lantern burning. I was detained longer than I expected with the cattle, and when I was ready to start back again I found I would have a worse job getting back than I had in coming. Still I started out. The night had grown intensely dark, the wind blowing a gale, and the snow so blinding that with the aid of my lantern I could not see more than a yard in front of me, and it blew out in no time. Then I could not see anything. I thought I would go back to the bark and light it again, so I stumbled along in the righf direction, as I thought, for five minutes without reaching it, and then I began to be very much frightened, so I thought I would make for the house instead, but that was no better. I waded on and on through the big snow drifts, stumbling down every little while, with the snow and wind beating in my face, for hours it seemed to me, and I felt that I could not keep up much longer, when, as I stopped for breath a few seconds, I heard a voice calling. “Bill! Bill! Polly wants her supper.” It was my parrot. I had left the window where her cage was hanging a few inches open, and now as she was tired of waiting for me she had commenced to call, and that is how she saved me, for she kept up a steady noise all the time, and by going a few steps and then waiting till I heard her again I reached the house in safety, otherwise I think I should have frozen to death. So two months ago, when I had a chance to save Polly, I did it, and now we are even.— M. L. S., in Harper’s Young People. In the Suow. Do you see me? I’s a turkle wld a cover on my back. Speck I’ll lose myself toreckly ’cause de snowflakes hides my track —

Den when mamma comes to And me won’t it be a lot of fun, ’Cause she Is afraid of turkles, and I’ll make her scream an’ run.

Bright Sayings of Little Ones. The new and eminently practical idea of a “vacation school” in the manual arts struck the Tuffboy family as just the thing to keep Jimmy out of mischief, and he was posted off to learn the use of tools. After the first half-day he came in excitedly. “Got any rags, ma?” “Bags, why? What’s the matter?” “Nothing much; I knocked my thumb nail askew, cut my hand with a chisel, drove a shingle nail into my knee, and a chip flew into my eye. It’s all right as soon’s I pull this sliver out o’ my finger. ’Spose the liniment’ll hold out ?” Jimmy will play ball the rest of the vacation." A lady teaching her little daughter, four years old, pointed to something in the book and asked; “What is that, my.dear?” “Why, don’t you know?” inquired the child. “Yes,” said the mother, “but I wish to find out if you know.” “Well,” said the little miss", “I do know.” “Tell me then, if you please,” said the lady. “Why, no,” insisted the little one, with an arch look; “you know what it is, and I know what it is, and there is no need of saying anything more about it.” A youngster of 4, rather noted for, his depravity than otherwise, was taken into his mothers bedroom the other day and introduced to his baby sister, one day old. He seemed to look on the new arrival with considerable embarrassment, not unmixed with disapproval, and at the same time to appreciate the fact that it devolved upon him to say something worthy of the occasion. Finally he remarked, with a rising inflexion expressive !

great unctuousness. “Well, I hope she’ll be a Christian.” A little Vermont girl asked a minister, “Do you think my father will go to heaven?” “Why, yes, my child. Why do you ask?” * “Well, because if he don’t have his own way there, he won’t stay long, I was thinking.” “Come on! come on!” saida gentleman to a little girl at whom a big dog had been barking furiously. “Come on; he is quiet now.” “Ah,“but,” said the little girl, “the barks are in him still.” “Oh, dear,” exclaimed Bertie, “that cat won’t stay with her kittens; she has left them again!” “Yes,” said little Nellie; “but she has hired another cat to stay with them; I saw it.”— Arkansaw Traveler.