Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1891 — Page 4

fijegmiotraficJentiwel; RENSSELAER. INDIANA. ( I. W. McEWEN, - - - PPBLnm 1

Six million letters are annually torn and sold as old paper in Washington. Vassar girls consume forty bushels of onions in a year. That is one of their strong points. The highest inhabited place in the world is Galera, a railway village in Peru, 15,635 feet above the sea. Two English chemists have concluded from experiments that phosplioresence can be produced by ozonized water. A Wellington, Kan., couple, who were married in two weeks after they met, were separated in just two weeks after they were married. A butterfly captured in the Sierras was sold to the Smithsbnian Institution for $1,500. It was an individual of a fossil species, supposed to be extinct. When you meet a man who tells you that “we all have our faults,” you have met one who secretly belives he hasn’t any at all. A Dallas, Texas, juryman was fined S6OO for stepping into a saloon without inviting the deputy sheriff and the other eleven jurymen. A Kansas boy earned a Dice Bible by committing ten hundred verses to memory, and then he traded his Bible for a shot-gun, and. he accidentally shot his aunt in the leg. A man in Florida recently exchanged a weekly paper for a mule. This trade was not so unappropriate as it would seem at first blush. They are both elevators of the human rate. Crickets are an article of commerce in some parts of Africa, and people make a business of rearing them. The natives are very fond of their music, thinking that it induces sleep. The German Empire, by the last census, has forty-nine and a half millions of population, Prussia having of these thirty millions, and the next division, Bavaria, having five and a half millions. Soundings in the Black Sea show that beyond a depth of 603 feet the water is so impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas emanating from decaying animal and vegetable matter that living organisms are not found there. The latest novelty in telephone invention, it is claimed, will convey a whispered conversation intelligibly over a distance of three miles. It has a glass diaphragm resting on glass rods and communicating with the ordinary wire. A venturesome deer wandered into Dubuque, lowa, and was lassoed by a a handy policeman. But when he attempted to lpad the animal to the sta-tion-house, it. gave him a lively dance around the town, and finally escaped to the woods. One of the deepest coal mines in the world is the Ashton Moss Colliery, in Lancashire, England. Its lowest level is 3,120 feet below the surface —six feet greater than eleven times the distance from the sidewalk to the top of the spire of Trinity Church, New York. A new device for signaling at sea has been successfully tested. With a machine, something like a magic lantern, letters from six to twelve feet long can be thrown on a sail at night, and made so conspicuous that they may be easily read a mile from the ship displaying them. The late King Kalakaua held a $5,000 membership in an American life insurance fraternity order, and many a lodge member throughout Ohio and other States, therefore, received official notice of the monarch’s demise. The notice gave his occupation as “king” and his residence as Honolulu. The disbanding of the Union army commenced June 1, 1865, and 786,000 officers and men were mustered out of the service by the, middle of the following autumn. It is corsidered one of the greatest wonders of government, this transformation of vast armies of men to peaceable citizens in the short space of 150 days. Dr. Henry Wade Rogers, the newly installed President of the Northwestern University, is only 36 years of age; President Thwing, of Adelbert College, just inaugurated, is but 34 years of age; President Harper is likewise a comparatively young man; and Sena-tor-elect Kyle, of South Dakota, is but 34 years of age. The Compagnie Generale des Voitures of Paris are about to start a paper entitled Paris Voiture, which will be procured by putting a 2-sou piece in a slot in every cab. The paper will contain the bills of the theaters, a few illustrations and tips for the races. The purchaser will also be insured during his drive. Edison once became known to fame, says an exchange, o a cockroach annihilator in this wise: The building in which he worked was infested with them. There was a couple of sinks in the building where they held high carnival. Edison ran a wire about the sinks in such a manner that every cockroach must crawl over it on his way to tha tp lk-mdte, and turned on an elec-

tric current, not very strong—about cockroach power, in fact. The cockroaches tumbled to it, literally. They were shoveled np, by thousands for a few nights, and -after that peace reigned. __ At the end of 1889 there were twen-ty-seven cotton mills at work in Japan, having a total number of 200,500 swindles. The gross amount of ooiton manufactured during the year was 27,936,116 pounds. Much of the raw cotton is imported fiom British India, as there is not yet enough grown in Japan to supply the demand. A Canadian farmer got an idea that his wife was acting a little queer, and he took the S3OO in bills out of the parlor stove find substituted paper in their place. Next day she skipped, taking what she thought was the boodle with her, and the husband says be would give $25 to have been around when she met the Buffalo man and placed the “cash” in his fist. New cures for consumption are coming along faster th/in we can keep track of them. French physicians are using goats’ blood and dogs’ serum with excellent results if we may believe their own reports. Dr. Bruce is testing the utility of hypodermic injections of aniline on some of the consumptive patients of Charity Hospital. He finds that it relieves distressing coughs, and improves the night’s rest. One of Bradlaugh’s last characteristic expression of views was that he favored woman suffrage, and would do so even if he were sure, as he had been informed, that the effect of giving the woman of Northampton Parliamentary suffrage would be to insure bis defeat. Bradlaugh was largely endowed with ambition, but was always willing to sacrifice his immediate advancement to gain a point for a principle In Prof. Koch’s wide search for something to kill consumption bacilli, lie found that light was as potent as chemicals, that sunlight would kill them in a few minutes or hours, according to the thickness of their bed, and even ordinary daylight will exercise the same effect in from five to seven days. If we cannot let daylight intc our lungs, we can let more of it into onr houses by liaviog less closed blinds and drawn curtains. Almanacs were first published in 1470 by Martin Hkus at Buda. The first almanac in England was printed at 1673. “There were,” says Wood, “thirty thousand of them printed, besides a sheet almanac for two-pence that was printed for that year; and because of the novelty of the said almanac and its title, they were all vended. Its sale was so great that the society of booksellers in London bought off the copy for the future, in order to engross it in their own hands. The remarkable peculiarity of the grip in Japan was its prevalence among the upper classes, whereas the cholera selected its victims among the poorer people. Some idea of the extent of the epidemic may be gathered from the fact that, at Yokohama, the sufferers officially reported numbered over 50,000, and it is estimated that the unreported cases throughout the prefecture were nearly twice as great. Of the 130,000 inhabitants of Kobe, 25,000 were attacked by the disease. In Tokio the epidemic raged with great virulence, and similar reports come from some of the Chinese cities.

The bulk of Barnum’s property ■will go to Barnum Seeley, his only grandson. Barnum paid taxes on about $1,000,000 worth of real estate in his home city, Bridgeport, Conn. When he had, by the accumulation of wealth, passed all quostion of financial trouble, he used what his foresight had secured to him for the benefit of the poor people of Bridgeport. He established the system of building houses and selling them to the working people on long payments and low rates of interest, and hundreds of the pretty residences now owned by the working class in that city were secured through Mr. Barnum’s generosity. Dr. Brush, of Mt. Yernon, thinks there is no basis for the customary prejudice in favor of sugar of milk in the preparation of artificial food for infants. In experiments of his own, he has come to regard it as leos nutritious than ordinary sugar, because he finds that milk sugar of commerce is eliminated by both kidneys and bowels, whereas in infants fed at the breast there is no such elimination of milk sugar. His criticism is directed against the milk sugar of co;-mercd — that which can be bought in the stores —and owing to its unreliability, he would prefer the cane sugar, or ordinary sugar. New Caledonia, an island of the Pacific Ocean, is a French penal colony, and it has a convent to which the women convicts are sent. To this convent the male convicts are permitted to go for the purpose of select ing wives, after they have obeyed the rules of prison life and earned the right to live in liberty outside the prison walls. Such marriages havo probably been permitted or encouraged on the presumption that married life would conduce to contentment aad better behavior, but the Mother Superior of the oonvent thinks it is a bad plan. She asserts that criminals thus paired off are more likely to descend to lower depths of depravity, and that the children of these unions are if possible more degraded than their parents. In her opinion, the regeneration of criminals through the family life is a prodigious failure.

YOUNG FOLKS’ READING

CHARLIE’S REFERENCES WERE THE BEST. How an Energetic and Well-Meaning Boy Secured a Place on His Own Recommendation, While Others with Plenty of Kef. erences Failed. “ WeR, I will just take a try for this place, mother," said Charlie, looking up from the paper he held in his hand. “They want a strong, willing boy, who can bring references from his last place. I can’t do that, since I have never worked anywhere before, but perhaps they will be willing to give me a trial if they do not have any boy apply with just the references thev want.” After he had brought up the coa and filled the wood-box and water pail, little services which his mother never had to remind him of, Charlie started to answer the advertisement. He was afraid if he took the time to walk into town he might be too late to have any chance of getting the place, so he resolved to invest five cents for car-fare. It was a cold, raw morning, and the only other person in the car was au ole gentleman well wrapped up in a heavy great coat. His cane was standing beside him, and as Charlie entered the car he struck it with his foot, and it fell down. “I beg your pardon, sir,” said Charlie, picking it up and restoring it to its owner. Presently an old woman, loaded down with a heavy basket as well as a bundle, signaled the car, and the driver waited for her to come some little distance, as at that hour in the morning the cars did not run very frequently. Charlie looked out of the window and saw her coming. “I’ll give you a hand with your basket, ma’am,” he said, jumping off the car; and picking up the basket, which was not a very heavy burden, in his strong arms, he carried it into the car and deposited it beside the old woman, who seemed very grateful for the assistance. A little later, another bov got in the car. He was much better dressed than Charlie, and he might have been a very prepossessing boy if it had not been fora rather unpleasant expression on his face/ He left the car door open behind him. and the old gentleman coughed as the cold air struck him. “Will you be kind enough to close that door V” he said to the boy who had loft it open.

“Guess you are able to shut it yourself. if you don’t like it open,” was the rude answer. Charlie had noticed that the old gentleman was evidently lame, and as he saw that he was about to rise, and close the door himself, he stepped forward and shut it. “Thank you, sir,” said the old gentleman raising his hat as courteously as if the favor had been conferred by any grown gentleman. It was a polite deed politely done, and Charlie was as much of a gentleman as if he had been well dressed. Presently the car reached the street where Charlie wanted to got out, and he was surprised to see that the other passengers, with the exception of the old woman, got out, too. “Perhaps this boy is after the same place I am,” he thought to himself. He was not wrong in his surmise, for when the two boys reached the store that had advertised for a boy, both of them went into the place, where three other boys were already waiting. “Mr. Scovil has not come in yet; he •will be in pretty soon, and then he will see you,” the clerk told them, and they seated themselves to wait with the rest.

You can imagine the surprise of the two boys who had entered together when the old gentlemen who had been thefr fellow traveler in the horse-car entered, and was addressed as Mr. Scovil by the clerk. “I’ve got first-class references, but I suppose it is all up w ith me, and I may as well go,” muttered the boy beside Charlie. He was right, for as soon as Mr. Scovil’s eye fell upon him he pointed to the door. “You may go, sir, for I hav* no use for a boy who lacks common civility.” He examined the references of the other boys, and dismissed them, and then turned to Charlie. “Have you references?” be asked. Charlie explained that he had never had a place and so could not produce references, but ho would try to work well if he had the chance. “I think I have seen your references,” said Mr. Scovil, with a pleasant look in the gray eyes that could be very stern. “I rode down in the car with you this morning, r.od I saw enough of you to convince me that you were kind and obliging, and would be just the kind of bov we want here. I will give you a week’s trial, and sec if I am not right.” r I need not tell you that he deserved his employer’s confidence, for a bov who is true to himself will be true to his employer, and the boy who will be polite and helpful and obliging when there is nothing to be gained by it, is the one who will have the tact and courtesy which are necessary to make a successful business man. —Minnie E. Kenney, in Presbyterian. Children’s Sayings. One day Owen was riding with bis papa and mamma in the country, when he saw a cow' in a field with a calf bv her side and a bell on her neck. “Mamma,” said he, “why does that cow wear a bell?” Mamma did not answer, her attention being otherwise employed. Owen waited a little, and then said: “Is it to call the calf to dinner?” Little Harry came rushing into the house one day. saving: “Mamma Mr. Clark is sick.” “Is be?” said his mother. “What’s the matter with him?” “The doctor says it’s a theoretic throat,” he answered. “Mamma, what made the preacher keep saying something about his ears ?• asked Oeorgie. “I didn’t hear him say anything about them.” said mamma.

“Well, he said, ‘Oh, my hearers/ and I thought that meant his ears.”—Youth’* Companion.

Science of the Ancients.

A\ e pride ourselves on living in an age of discovery and invention, anc pity our ancestors for being born too soon. Yet much of this is misplaced, says William. Alva. The real truth seems to be that the ancients knew about everything we know, only the knowledge was not generallv diffused. The learned man 2,000 or 3,000 years ago was so far superior to the majority that he was regarded as a wizard, and. prudently kept his learning to himself. In our schools at the present day we use “Euclid’s Elements of Geometry ” written by Euclid 2,200 years ago. Euclid also wrote on music and optics, antedating much which we think we discovered. The ancients were wonderful glassworkers and discovered a method of making it malleable, which we have not been able to do. They could spin glass into garments, dye it in every shade of the rainbow, and etch it with marvelous skill. Electricity derives its name from the Greek word for amber, electron, because Thales, about 600 B. C., discovered that amber, when rubbed, attracts light and dry bodies, and in the twelfth century the scientific priests of Etruria drew lightning from the clouds with iron rods. All the mechanicalppo r ers, the screw, lever, pulley, incline plane, wedge, wheel, and axle, were known to the ancients and used in everyday life. They were expert builders, as existing relics testify. Natural gas conveyed in bamboo tubes was utilized in China centuries ago, and one of the Mongolian authors writes of boxes which repeated the sound of voices of men long since dead —an approximation to the phonograph of Edison.

In medical skill the Oriental physicians of India practiced vaccination 1,000 years ago. Anaesthetics were known in the days of Homer, and the Chinese 2,009 years ago had'a preparation of hemp, known as “Una yo.” to deaden pain—something similar to the modern cocaine. In all that pertains to sculpture and painting, the ancients knew so much that their superiority has never been questioned, and their work remains as unsurpassed models. We may say with truth that much of our boasted light and mechanical wisdom is but the match put once again to the old candle of our ancestors. The old times w r ere days of war and oppression, and the inventor hid his invention for fear of being robbed. The vast majority had no money to buy a laboring device, even if they had brains to use it. It was not a practical age, and the knowledge, as well as wealth, was confined to the few. Nowadays an invention of value spreads over this world like a flash of gunpowder, and in the light of modern common sense the invention of the common friction match has doubtless done more for the good of mankind than all the discoveries of antiquity.

His Wife Prescribed for Him.

“Well, I’m in for it,” he said as he dropped into an easy chair, wiped the perspiration from his brow, and looked across the room at hiswife. “I’ve been afraid of it all along, and lately I have thought I’d get through, fiut I’m landed.” What s the matter ?” she asked, looking up from her book. “The grip. I’ve been fighting it off for three or four days, but it’s no nse— I’ve got it.” “Dear me!” she exclaimed, laying the book aside. “I’ve been afraid you’d come down with it. It’s fatal in so many cases now, too. You must be awfully careful, John.” “I propose to be,” he said firmly. “I shan’t go to the. office to-morrow at all. I’m going to stay in bed and break this thing up at the start.” “That’s right, John. I’m glad you realize the importance of prompt measures. What are your symptoms “Well, I think I caught cold when we had this sudden change in the weather early in the week. That wouldn’t bother me in itself, but it hasn’t gotten any better, and I’ve been perspiring profusely, whether indoors or out, ever since. I have a feeling of suffocation, and I tell you, Maria, I’ve made up my mind that it will be dangerous to trifle with it any longer. I get no relief until I get my nightshirt on.” She looked at him for a moment and then said: “John, if when you felt the first symptoms you had laid aside your winter underclothing perhaps this tired, suffocating, hot feeling would have left you. If i were you, John, I would soak my feet in hot water to break up the slight cold, put on some lighter underclothing, and a light overcoat instead of an ulster, and go to work tomorrow without saving a word about grip.” Then she took up her book again and he thought and thought about the fool he was.— Chicago Tribune.

Great Depreciation.

A London financial authority says that the magnitude of the losses" which have been sustained by English investors in Argentine securities may be obtained from the statement that the decl ne within the past two years in the value of Argentine railway stocks and bonds listed on the London Stock Exchange amounts to $150,000,000. The par value of the securities is $336,359,000, of which a little over SIOO,000,000 were guaranteed by the Argentine General Government, over $42,500,000 more had the guarantee of the pro' inces, and nearly $183,750,000 are without guarantee.

Afraid He Would Miss Him.

There was a pistol duel between Smith and Jones. Jones fired and missed Smith, whereupon Smith raised his weapon to take aim, and said pleasantly to his opponent: “Jones, would you be so kind as to step a little nearer, as I am shortsighted, and I don’t want to miss you if I can help it. ”

FUN ON A STRING.

Fantastic and Comical Kites— Ho«r to Make and Hy Them. For the proper construction of a kite that will really soar, straight, smooth lath, abont three-eighths of an inch thick and one and a half broad and some cane—willow or bamboo are needed; also strong, fine twine, and whatever the kite is to be clothed with —paper, cloth, cambric, or silk. The “lady-bug” kite is not difficult to make. After the frame is made and covered with white paper, the head, the edges, and the little three-cornered piece between the wings are to be painted black, the neck in red stripes, the wings with brown veinings, and the under wings with light gray. The attennse can be cut out of brown paper or card and gummed on. Then you will have an enormous lady-bug, which, when properly fitted with a kite-tail’ will “fly away” at a fine rate.

LADY-BUG KITE AND FRAME.

For the kite-tail, a long, slender cord, knotted every four inches into nooses, will be necessary. Slip through each noose-knot a donbie strip of paper four or five inches long. The tail should be about five times as long as the kite, for a kite three feet long, and proportionately longer as the kite is made larger, so that a kite six feet tall, which some ambitious youth may like to build, will need a tail some eighty feet long. Of course the higher the kite is to be flown the longer the tail needs to be. The frame for the “lady-bug” kite is also adapted to the “old woman” kite. Cover the frame with white paper, and paint in green, red, yellow, and skyblue, the figure of a good-natured old dame.. Leave the apron, face, and stockings white, paint the dress green, the hair red, and touch up the features with black and yellow. It really seems

MISS HIGHFLYER KITE AND FRAME.

a shame to send the old lady up aloft in windy weather, when she might catch rheumatism or toothache, but youth is inexorable, and away she goes. “Miss Highflyer,” now. looks as if she might enjoy the breezy trip. The frame for this kite is not difficult to make. The cross-sticks should be securely fastened together with fine wire, and a strip of cane or bamboo bent to make an outline for the skirt, the ends being securely tied together with strong twine and fastened so they join the ends of the cross-pieces. The head is a circle of wire attached by cords to the frame, and the remainder of the frame is outlined by cords. After the frame is covered with paper, the woman’s figure is painted as illustrated, or dressed in fashionable style with bits of brown striped calico and silk. These can be sewed on, remembering to fasten, them only to the edge of the frame.

ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE.

How People Would took if They Always Did Exactly What They Said.

“He called for macaroni and ale the dish with great relish.” The Joys of tlie Suburb*. “Why do you live in the country, anyhow?” asked a New-Yorker of a suburban friend. “To save money.” “Is the cost of living less?” “No; slightly higner.” “Then how do you save? ” “No opera, SSO a season. No concerts. $25 a season. No big dinners to friends, SIOO a year. No fun of any kind, SSOO a year.” “Say!” said the city man, seized wi h an inspiration, “wouldn’t you save money if you died?” Two young men went to Yisalia, CaL, lately and took out licenses to marry the same girl.

HE SMOKED IN A STREET CAR.

Bat the Little Conductor and the Driver Got Him Out. The man inside the horse-car was very large and red. The conductor of the car was small and pale. Uhe large red passenger was infringing the rules of the railroad company by lighting a cigar. The small conductor had watched this audacity, and when he was satisfied that the cigar-lighting process w r as not an illusion he remarked, with considerable sternness of voice for a diminutive man : '“You’ll have to put that cigar out.” The large red man took no notice of the observation, but puffed huge volumes of smoke. “You’ll have to put that cigar out, I say.” Still the large man puffed serenely on. “I say, you’ll have to put that cigar out. The large man turned his small pig eyes laterally, and said : “Save yer“ voice, young feller, saveyer voice.” The conductor looked the large man over \ He observed that he was about, the size of Sullivan, the pugilist, and he wondered whether his salary as conductor was large enough to induce him to risk his life in a physical encounter with the burly ruffian. There is a personal pride in nearly all men, and that conductor forgot the corporation he was serving and its rules, and determined that he, as an individual, would not be crushed. “You'll have to put that cigar out,” he repeated. His admonition waspainfully unchangeable in diction and tone, and it was beginning to annoy the large red man. “Say, young feller,” remarked the latter, “ring the bell andletverselfoff.” The conductor walked forward to the driver’s platform and said a few quiet words to his coadjutor. Then he returned.to his own platform, and for a moment or so, as the car went on, he was silent. Finally he directed his attention again to the smoker. “You’ll have to put that cigar out,” he said.

The large red man rose to his feet, and as he did so the conductor pulled the bell for the car to stop. The smoker strode out to the platform, and, glowering down on the little conductor, held the lighted cigar under his nose, saying: “That cigar ain’t goin’ ter be put out. See!” The car was now at a standstill and the driver was looking back at the two men on the rear platform. He saw the little conductor let fly his fist at the large red man, and immediately he let go of his brake and gave each of his horses a sharp cut with the whip. They leaped forward and galloped awav with the now empty car. When the driver looked around again he saw the figure of the large man standing ruefully in the middle of the car track a block behind. A small boy went out into the street to see what the man fell off the car for. The determined smoker was dusting himself. There was no cigar near him. He looked about in a dazed way. and then said: “What was that conductor’s number ?” The small boy did not know, so the comedy will never have a tragic sequel. —New York Sun.

The Child.

The child is near the savage in hi 3 love for myths and lairy stories. What is the myth ? The shell, the beautiful shell that has brought truth to us adown the ages. Without the myth we should have very little of the past. The savage looked down to the earth and the earth said: “What am I?” and the poor savage with his untutored mind replied, “Thou are God,” and worshiped it. And he looked up to the sun, and the sun said: “W’hat ami?” and the savage bowed reverently and said: “Thouart God.” The child has this spirit of inquiry; the stars are the naij holes in the floor of heaven; the doll is a fetich to the child. A stick or a bundle of rags is loved by the child as it loves its life. That is a fetieji. Would you rob the child of its fetich ? Would you tell it “That is not true, little girl. That doll is only a bundle of rags V” Thank God, no philosophy has ever entered a mother’s heart so terrible as that. You remember the few bits of broken plates and a shingle or two where you received company, fed them, talked to them, dismissed and sent them home. Your mind peopled the whole air with fairy forms. “That was not true,” says the Puritan. It was true. It was truth coming to that child in the way God intended truth to come. What is this fancy which comes in the myth and the story told by the cradle ? That growth of fancy is the growth of spiritual life. Confine the child to the stern world of fact and he becomes a very stern fact. He must live in the world beyond; he must have faith in the spiritual life. The child is a born naturalist. There is not a child alive who does not love nature. It is a good plan for us to go back to our early childhood and see what we loved. Every child is a horn lover of music. What is the cause ? The organized human bemg is made up of rhythm. The light comes to us in cadenced rhythm; sound comes to us in cadenced rhythm; thunder comes to us in rhythm, and we march the world in cadenced rhythm. Even the rattling along the street has its rhythm and the child responds to rhythm .because it was born and created in it.— F. W. Parker, in Texas Journal of Education.

To Cut Glass with Scissors.

One can cut glass with a scissors as easily as though it were an autumn leaf. The entire secret consists in plunging the pane, of glass into a tub of water, submerging also the hands and the scissors. The scissors will cut in sti aight lines without a flaw. This result is achieved in consequence of the absence of vibration. If the least pntion ot ie tc's os is left out (f the water the vibration will prevont the glass cutting.- -Post-Dispatch.