Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1891 — Page 4

the gemgadit gertintl RENSSBLAW. HUMANA. t IW. JMma. - - - Pctumm.

There is no sweeter repose than that which is purchased by labor. A. shock of earthquake was felt at Pepperell, N. H., and adjoining towns. It rattled crockery ware and rang sleigh bells. Advices by cable from Melbourne report the total shipment of wool from Australia to America this season as 28,000 bales. The city of Havana has over two hundred cigar manufactories. Every factory pays a tax of $5 a year for each person it employs. The best horsemen in Europe are found in Bussia. , In that country blinders are never put upon a horse, and a shying horse is rarely seen.

A telephone line about five miles long has been established in Iceland, and is regarded as a great curiosity, being the first ever established on the island. Discriminate carefully between the man who is willing to take an office when the people want him to take it, and the man who is after it whether the people want his services or not. He only is great who has the habits of greatness; who, after performing what none in ten thousand could accomplish, passes on like Samson and “tells neither father nor mother of it.” A Mrs. Fletcher, who died lately in England, was the collateral descendent of Shakspeare, being in a direct line from Joan Hart, the poet’s sister. She was the proud owner of his jug and stick. A new law in Missouri provide? that the fees of no executive or ministerial officer of any county, exclusive of the salaries actually paid to his necessary deputies, shall exceed the sum of $5,000 for anyone year.

The Presbyterian Church of New Bedford, Pa., has declared itself in favor of matrimony. It is demanding that a newly elected deacon resign because he does not come up to the rule requiring that a deacon shall be “the husband of one wife and ha ve his children in subjection.”

The English quarter, at which wheat is quoted in the English reports, is 560 pounds, or one-fourth of the ton gross weight of 2,240 pounds. The English legal bushel is seventy pounds, and eight of those bushels is a quarter—equal to nine and one-half of our bushels of sixty pounds.

The true French plum—large, jet black, soft and juicy—comes from the shores of the Garonne and its affluent the Lot, and is the fruit of the tree known as the prunier d’ente, or grafted plum. The center of the district is Clairiac, a quaint little old-fashioned town built on a steep hillside overlooking the Lot.

An Eastern phrenologist who made a study of noses offered to wager SIOO that he could go out on the street and pull certain makes of ncses and not even be blasted in return. The first one he tried, however, brought a blow which laid him ilnconscious and lost him four good teeth. His diagnosis was off. A farmer living near Jefferson City six years ago put a pump in a well that contained six feet of water. Lately the well went dry, and when he came to examine the cause, he found that two cottonwood trees, one twenty feet and the other thirty feet distant, had sent out their roots and drank up all the water in the well.

It has been twenty years since Europe had such a winter as this, and they don’t know how to take it. While four or five feet of snow is peeled off American railroad tracks at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, a fall of twenty inches has blocked half the lines across the ocean, and caused hundreds of factories to shut down.

Railway companies in Australia, after experimenting with various kinds of “quick fencing for railways, especially with a view to keeping out snow drifts,” have settled upon hedges of the “Rose of Provence.” It is said that a fence 6| feet high and 3| feet thick will chbck snow drifts. The blossoms are salable and so the fence is profitable. A short time ago a band of twenty Arnauts entered Prisrend and coolly attacked the house of the Chief Justice in broad daylight. The Judge and federal of his servants were murdered, and the house, after being sacked, was burned to the ground. The Zaptiehs, or Turkish policeipen, did not attempt to interfere, and all the brigands escaped. Prince Nicholas, of Montenegro, has ordained in his official gazette that every one of his active warriors shall plant during 1891 200 grape vines, every brigadier must plant twenty, every commander and under commander of a batalion ten, every drummer or color-bearer five. Every guide, moreover, must plant two olive trees, and •very corporal one. The gazette calculates that in consequence of this order

Montenegro will have 4,000,000 grapevines and 20,000 olive trees on Jan. 1. If Dempsey’s nose is really broken he will never be handsome again. Surgical skill works wonders in many cases, but when the bridge of a man’s nose is broken the organ can never be restored to its erstwhile symmetry. A NewYorker spent over $20,000 trying to get his nose back after a break, but the best the surgeons could do was to leave a sag in the middle.

Miss Lilian Baird, aged nine years, is becoming famous as the youngest problem composer in the world. She has a fine instinct for chess, which has been cultivated by much practice and an hereditary talent for problem composing. Her first problem, comjmsed before she was eight, has been printed in about twenty chess columns in England, Germany, and America. .

Statistics given in St. Petersburg papers show that the Jews are increasing with great rapidity in Bussia. While the birth rate among Russians is 21 per cent, that among the Jews is 50 per cent. An Italian statistician says the Hebrew population of Europe doubles itself in thirty years, the Bussian in about ninety years, and that oi Europe generally in 150 years.

A stroke of good luck came to John Tobin, a poor man, residing in Long Island City, N. Y. Being short of firewood, he broke up an old oaken chest, which he had bought in London two years ago. Th? trunk had a false bottom, and in one of the secret compartments was a little tin box which contained twenty-two small diamonds. John sold them to a jeweler for SSOO.

The sight of a gang of convicts in prison suets of broad black and yellow stripes at work in the public parks of Bichmond strikes a Northern man as a peculiar feature of the Virginia reformatory system. They work even in the shadow of the State House, keeping the walks and lawn in order. They are short-termed men, and do not require much watching to prevent their escaping.

More cabin passengers arrived at New York in 1890 on the ocean steamers than ever before in the history of that port. The steamers made a total of 914 trips, bringing 99,189 cabin and 371,593 steerage passengers. British steamers made 304 of the trips and landed 54,971 cabin and 119,679 steerage passengers. During the total 914 trips there were 49 births, 63 deaths and 11 suicides.

It is not impossible to find ladies not more than fifty years old who let their ]>ianos stay unopened because, they say, they are too old and their fingers are too stiff to play any more. But the people who pass along Winthrop street, says the Lewiston (Me.) Journal, it is reported, often hear music from a piano fingered by Mrs. Matilda Sewall, who, though ninety-six years old, plays with the skill and energy of a girl.

At Straubing, in Bavaria, some Celtic tombs have been opened and found tocontain most interesting bronze ornaments and iron weapons belonging to the people of Rhaetia before the Roman conquest. The long sought-for Roman cemetery has also been discovered —through the unearthing of a Roman tomb containing cinerary urns—flanking the old military road from Serviodurum (Straubing) to Abusina, both situated on the Danube.

Mrs. John M. Weigle, of Augusta Ga., excitedly called the attention of her husband to a little animal which was sporting on her sitting-room hearth one night. Mr. Weigle soon saw that it was a pretty flying squirrel. He tried to capture it, but it escaped from the room and was overhauled by the dogs. There was no possible way for the little fellow to get into the room except down the chimney in the face of a hot burning coal fire.

The new railway to connect ths Argentine Republic with Chili, about which so much has been written by engineers, is being built. Passing through the Andes Mountains, there are to be eight tunnels o'l an aggregate length of ten miles. These tunnels are to be bored by electric drills. The cataract of the Juncalßlo River, a few miles away, that has a fall of 600 feet, is being already utilized as the power to drive the 1,000-horse power eigines that do the work. Tha water of the river is also being utilized to carry off the earth and rock dri.led out. Boring has begun at twenty points along the route already, and it is said the work is being done for less than half the cost of any other method.

A curious story of “spontaneous hypnotism,” as it is termed, comes from Hancock, Minn. The husband of Mrs. Edward Day left the house one day last October to go to the barn, andon his return his wife shrieked and badejhim leave -the room. He expostulated, but she denied ever having seen him, insisting that her name was Margaret Hill and that she lived in Philadelphia. All efforts of friends and physicians to convince her to the countrary were unavailing. Being asked her age she. answered, “Fifty-six,” though she is only twenty-four. She was sane on all othei subjects. Three weeks later she was again in her noxynnl mind. A week afterward she once more fancied herself Margaret Hill, spinster, of Philadelphia.

FOR THE LITTLE FOLKS.

A Word fir the Children. Children, make your mother happy, Makeher sing instead of sigh; For the mournful hour of parting May be very, very nijh. Children, make your mother happy; Many griefs she has to bear; And she wearies ’neath her burdens— Can you not those burdens share? Children, make your mother happy; Prompt obedience cheers the heart, While a willful disobedience Pierces like a poisoned dart. Children, make your mother happy; On her brow the lines of care Deepen daily—don't you see them?— While your own are smooth and fair. Children, make your mother happy; For beneith the coffin-lid All too soon her face, so saint-llke, Shall for evermore be hid. Bitter tears and self-upbraidings Cannot bring her back again; And remorseful memories Are a legacy of pain. Oh, begin to-day, dear children, Listen when dear mother speaks; Bender quick and sweet obedience; For your highest good she seeks Loves you better than all others—. For your sake herself denies; She is patient, prayerful, tender. Gentle, thoughtful, true and wise. Never, while you live, dear children. Though you search the rounded earth, Will you find a friend more faithful Than the one who gave you birth. —LI tie Giant.

How Tony Sold Rosebudg. He was only a dog, but a very smart dog, indeed. He belonged to the class known as shepherd dogs, which are noted for their sagacity and fidelity. His master was a little Italian boy, called Beppo, who earned his living by selling flowers on the street. Tony was very fond of Beppo, who had been his master ever since he was a puppy, and Beppo had never failed to share his crust with his good dog. Now Tony had grown to be a large, strong dog, and took as much care of Beppo as Beppo took of him. Often, while standing on the corner with his basket on his arm, waiting for a customer, Beppo would feel inclined to cry from very loieliness; but Tony seemed to know when the “blues” came, and would lick his master’s hand, as much as to say, “You’ve got me for a friend. Cheer up! I’m better than nobody! I’ll stand by you!’ But one day it happened that when the other boys who shared the dark cellar home with Beppo went out early in the morning as usual, Beppo was so ill that he could hardly lift his head from the straw on which he slept. He felt that he would be unable to sell flowers on that day. What to do he did not know.

Tony did his best to comfort him; but the tears would gather in his eyes, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he at last forced himself to get up and go to the florist, who lived near by, for the usual supply of buds. Having filled his basket, the boy went home and tied it round Tony’s neck. Then he looked at the dog and said: “Now, Tony, you are the only fellow I’ve got to depend on. Go and sell my flowers for me, and bring the money home safe, and don’t let any one steal anything.” Then he kissed the dog and pointed to the door. Tony trotted out in the street to Beppo’s usual corner, where he took his stand. Tieppo’s customers soon saw how matters stood, and chose their flowers and put the money in the tin cup within the basket. Now and then when a rude boy would come along and try to snatch a flower from the basket, Tony would growl fiercely, and drive him away. So that day went safely by, and at nightfall Tony went home to his master, who wa» waiting anxiously to see him, and gave him a hearty welcome. Beppo untied the basket and looked in the cup, and I shouldn’t wonder if he found more money in it than he ever did before. That is how Tony sold the rosebuds; and he did it so well that Beppo never tires of telling about it. —Canadian Queen.

A Stray Bird. One summer morning Helen and Berta went out under the cherry tree, to watch Mrs. Redbreast up in her nest. They listened, and thought they could hear a little “Peep, peep.” Running into the house they called Uncle Burr. He climbed the tree, and found four little featherless birdies,’ with four little wide-open mouths, calling for their breakfast. He only stayed in the tree a moment, for Mr. and Mrs. Redbreast came llying back with food for their babies.' Helen and Berta watched the nest every day, and it was not long before they could see four little baldheads peering over the side of the nest. In a few more days they saw them sitting on the side of the nest, while Mr. and Mrs. Redbreast were trying to coax them to fly, but they w.ere too timid to start out. boon Helen came running into the house, calling: “Oh, mamma, mamma, something is the matter with one of our baby robins; he is all over flour!” Sure enough, when mamma went to look there were three brown birdies and one white one.

They could not account for it for some days. Uncle Burr fixed a sieve, and caught the little white fellow; and sure enough it was a real robin. He was soon at home in a nice brass cage, happy and contented. He grew very tame, and was allowed to flv around the room. He would eat dainties from the little .girls’ fingers, as they always fed him regularly and never frightened him. He grew very fast, and before winter had his full plumage, and a strange one it was for a robin redbreast. He was pure white all over, except his plump little breast, which had just the lightest shade of salmon on the tips of the feathers. His bright little eyes were pink, like those of white mice. He sang the same note i as his darker brothers and sisters, and seemed to enjov himself just as much. He was certainly surer of having plenty to eat a

and of not getting hurt than he would have been outdoors.— G. B. Green, in Our Little Ones.

STREET LIGHTING IN PARIS.

Great Attention Paid to Artistic LampPosts. Paris has about 1,300 miles of gas mains and pipes, and consumes in the manufacture of gas over 1,000,000 tons of coal yearly. There are over 50,000 gas lamps, consuming different quantities of gas, according to the importance of the locality. With a population of about 2,225,000, the city consumed in 1889 312,258,97(5 cubic meters of gas. The lanterns are mostly circular, that form being preferred as casting the least shadow, and of glass beautifully white and clear. Beflectors are commonly used, as it is estimated that they increase the light 30 per cent. The lamp-posts are of

bronzed iron, and great attention is paid to artistic form and solidity of pose. They taper gracefully upward from a conical base to the lantern, which is itself handsomely ornamented and surmounted, usually, by a castellated design. They are from eight to about ten feet in height, and the gas company is required to keep them, as well as the lanterns, in perfect order, under the penalty of a 1 considerable drawback for every case of negligence. < The lighting of the streets and public places is effective and slightly theatrical. It is in general profuse in localities whose transactions it is desired to emphasize, and in streets that are much frequented. The most lavish use of light is in and about the Palais Boyale. The garden, which is entirely shut in by buildings and surrounded by long arcades wita shops, covers an area equal to about two blocks in an American city. Within the garden there are fifty-five lanterns, mostly lighted by electricity, and in the arches of the arcades, at intervals of ten feet, are suspended 200 more. In parts of the building adjacent are nearly 100 more, making 350 brilliant lights.

Value of Country Life.

What, then, are the means of perpetuating good family stock in a democracy ? The first is country life. In this regard, democracies have much to learn from the European aristocracies which have proved to be durable. All the vigorous aristocracies of past centuries lived in the country a large part of the year. The men were soldiers and sportsmen for the most part, and lived on detached estates sparsely peopled by an agricultural and martial tenantry. They were oftener in camp than in the town or city. Their women lived in castles, halls, or chateaux in the open country almost the whole year, and their children were born and brought up there. The aristocratic and noble families of modern Europe still have their principal seats in the country, and go to tow n only for a few months of the year. Next, a permanent family should have a permanent dwelling place, domicile or home town. In older societies this has always been the case. Indeed, a place often lent its name to a family. In American cities and large towns there are as yet no such things as permanent family houses. Even in the oldest cities of the East hardly any family lives in a single house through the whole of a generation, and it is very rare that two successive gene.atidns are born in the same house. Rapid changes of residence are the rule for almost everybody; so that a city directory which is more than one year old is untrustworthy for home addresses. It is almost impossible for the human mind to attribute dignity and social considerations to a family which lives in a hotel, or which moves into a new flat every Ist of May. In the country, however, things are much better, in the older States there are plenty of families which have inhabited the same town for several generations; there are a few families which have inhabited the same house for three generations. The next means of promoting family permanence is the transmission of a family business or occupation from father to sons. In all old countries the inheritance of a trade, shop, or profession is a matter of course. Under right conditions a transmitted business tends to make a sound family more secure and permanent, and a permanent family tends to hold and perfect a valuable business. This principle, which is securely founded on biological law, applies best in the trades and professions, in ordinary commerce, and in the industries which do not re quire immense capitals; but in Europe many vast industries and many great financial and mercantile concerns are family properties, and there is in our own country already a distinct tendency to this family management of large businesses as being more economical and vigilant than corporate management, and more discerning and prompter in picking out and advancing capable men of all grades. — President Eliot,'in Forum. Charity covers a multitude of sins, but most of them contrive to kick off the covers.

THE GERMAN EMPEROR.

Emperor William 11. is a very busy man. Having spent seven hours in bed he rises promptly at 7, and thirty minutes later he and the Empress eat breakfast together. The meal includes tea, rolls, omelettes, beefsteak or cutlets and fowl. The Emperor goes from the table to his work-room, where huge packages of sorted letters await his attention. Sil hundred letters are his usual mail. He glances at every one of them, sends the petitions, which constitute the vast majority of all, to the civil cabinet and indicates the replies to be made to the more important part of the correspondence. After discussing the programme of the day with an adjutant the Emperor goes to the children, kisses them once each and gets a general idea of what their lessons for the day will be. He returns to his work-room to hear the court marshal review the condition and prospects of the imperial housekeeping and to listen to reports and comments of the cabinet ministers and president of police. He then goes walking or riding in the street if the weather is fine; in the riding hall if it rains. Only on days of military reviews, when the Emperor must sit five or six hours in the saddle, are these walks or rides omitted from his programme. At 2 o’clock the Emperor, Empress and little Hohenzollerns take a second breakfast of soup, boiled meat with vegetab’es, a roast and pudding. After the meal the Emperor makes calls or rides again. The rest of the afternoon is devoted to audiences and the preparation of state papers. At 6 o’clock dinner is served, and then the Emperor plays with the children and exercises with the broadsword and foil. At 10:30 o'clock he takes supper, consisting of salad, a joint, or fish, and sweets. At 11 he retires to his study. He works there till midnight, when he retires to bed. Even the_i he does not resign himself entirely to rest. He keeps at hand pencil and paper, and often awakes in the night to jot down memoranda of plans for the next day. Even when visiting the Czar or the Queen, or other fellow sovereigns, the Emperor does not rest from the routine of his state labors. By telegraph he keeps himself in the closest com-

EMPEROR WILLIAM II.

munication with all his Cabinet officers, and directs the administration of all matters of importance.

Kansas Philosophy.

A woman will give up anything for love except the man she loves. You can make a martyr of the meanest man on earth by killing him. Wet his whistle often enough, and you will make a musician of any man. If a man meets nothing else in a day’s journey, he will meet his turn to tickle. The only way to win a victory is to go to war, and run the risk of being whipped. Something more than gray hairs is required in old age in order that it be reverenced. After a man has met his disappointment, he is very apt to confound it with sarcasm. Humanity is a good deal like the cal that is never so affectionate as when it is kungry. For every man in love, there are nine hundred and ninety-nine men who think they are. The smaller the town you live in, the more people there are interested when you get your hair cut. If there is anything harder than being polite when you don’t feel like it, we don’t know what it is. When a sheep-killing dog is safe at home, he is a great dog to give alarms. He is thinking of himself. Everyone knows how to cure sorrow, but everybody has it. The principal thing recommended is “not to think of it.” • There is no disguising the fact that more men are on the way to the bad place than are traveling the road to the good place. Experience goes to prove that there is more domestic unhappiness when the wife does not trust her husband’s judgment at all than when she trusts it too much.— Atchison Globe.

Haggard as He Is

Rider Haggard, while undergoing the tortures of an interview in New York, is described as a tall, lank, middle-aged man. fidgeting about in an alleged easy chair, tying his legs into bow-knots, and doing everything -with his hands that the hands of a naturally awkward man ever did do when he was in a state of nervousness. He is over six feet high, somewhat loosely put together, with a slight stoop of the shoulders. He has dark hair, but the delicate mustache which adorns his lip is quite light in color. A long, pointed nose gives his face a thinish appearance, but a careful look at him shows that he has a full forehead and that his eyes are well apart. He has an agreeable manner and a pleasant smile. Fear of death is the great -envalist.

WHITTIER WRITES NO MORE.

Th* Aged Poet Besigos All Mental Effort and Awaits the End. Whittier tells us that his work is done. The white-haired poet has laid down the pen. he says, forever. The twilight is closing softly round him; the vital fires that have kept him clear-

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

sighted and erect for more than eighty years are burning low. But it is a kindly and most delightful twilight; one that is more to be desirecf than the bright glare of many a splendid noon. There is in it no hint of despondency or darkness. If he who sits within the purple circle glances backward it is to a glorious day whose light of freedom his own pen ‘helped to kindle; if onward it is toward the eternal stars that are rising over the changeless hills. Not to many mortals is vouchsafed such a happy, tender hour of restfulness and waiting; there are not many mortals who have so deserved its benediction. For it was not in peaceful repose or easy contentment that the memories that hallow and the homage that surrounds Whittier’s declining years were won. The young people of to-day think of the Quaker poet as a gentle, lovable old man who dreams the hours away before the embers of his open fire at Oak Knoll, and whose occasional verses breathe an exquisite serenity and peace. But time was when the hand of this kindly dreamer struck hard and sharply a tense chord that helped wake the sleeping conscience of a nation. Time was, and that not so long ago, when the Quaker enthusiast gathered up and fused into burning intensity in his songs all the longing and wrong and soriow of a race in bondage. The nation heard: blqpd-drenched battlefields and heaps of broken shackles were its answer. It is for his dauntless services in behalf of the weak and oppressed that the mature men and women of the English-speaking race to-day hold Whittier in such veneration. It is because ip the face of a great national crime he made himself the voice of the justice that is divine and the love that is diviner than justice: because his unshrinking devotion to humanity took no account of accidents of color; because when the pulpit was silent, the press dumb, he battled fearlessly and unselfishly for his 4 fellow-men, that Whittier has so rich a reverence in the love of the world’s best men and women. He has been prophet and poet all in one. There have not been many like him, and there will not be. Not only America but the world is better and richer to-day for his life and labors. One of the bravest and purest of humanity’s helpers, Whittier has amply won his rest.

A TRIBE OF "BIG EARS."

What Some American Indians Consider Ornamental. Along the various streams which are tributary to the mighty Amazon in South America lives a peculiar tribe of Indians, the Oregones, or ‘Big Ears.” They live near the Napo River, one of the tributaries of the Amazon, and are entirely naked, if we except the won-

derful “earrings” worn by them. They have a custom of introducing a bit of wood into a slit in the ear and gradually in-

creasing the size of it until the lobe hangs upon the shoulder. The accompanying cut shows the style of “earring” worn by the Oregones. It is made of a very light species of wood, hollowed out and filled in with a substance similar to and as light as chalk. The rings in the center probably denote the title or dignity of the wearer. It is fully two inches in diameter, and is worn with the flat side towards the head. The one illustrated

HE USED TO WEAR IT.

was taken by permission from the “gentleman” ■whose stoic features appear herewith.

She Took Him at His Word.

He (11:15 p. m.) —Why, I’d do anything in the world for you! She (yawning)—You will ? Then for heaven’s sake sneak home. I’m sleepy. —Texas Siftings. Sleeping, or taking tobacco on the “Lord’s Day in the time of the public exercises,” in 1662, was punished by the authorities of Portsmouth, N. H., with imprisonment in a cage. Exhobtek—“Brother, do vou want to be saved?” Young Broker (absentmindedly)—"Anything in it ?” Speaking of hydropathic cures, it strikes us that well water ought to be good for nek people,

EARRING.