Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1891 — CHILDREN’S COLUMN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CHILDREN’S COLUMN.

A DEPARTMENT FOR UTTLE BOYS AND GIRLS* Something that Will Interest the Juvenile Members of Every Household Quaint Action* and Bright Sayings of Cute Children. Amusement for a Oompany. A quiet but interesting game is that of “doublets,” in which any number of persons may join. Two words of the same number of letters are first agreed upon, aud each of the players endeavors to connect them by a column of other words called “links,” each of which shall differ from the one before it by only a single letter. Thus “cat” and “dog” may be connected in many ways, of which two examples follow : Cat, cot, cog, dog. Cat, pat, put, pug, dug, dog. The object of the game is to make as few links as possible. There are several methods of scoring. For instance, the player who makes the greatest number of links may score nothing, and each of the others oue point for each link less than his; or the one who has the fewest links may score a numl>er previously agreed on, and each of the others as many points less as he had less links. The best plan in joining the doublets is to write them side by side and then work downward from each. Thus, suppose the words agreed on are “hand” and “legs.” When these are written side by side it is seen that the h in hand must be turned into au 1; this is done by writing “land.” The g in legs must become an n, so legs changes to lens, while the word lend now completes the chain, which reads: Hand, land, lend, lens, legs. With some words many complications ensue, and the player will not find the game quite so easy as it appears. Doublets makes au interesting solitaire game. The easiest doublets to connect urs those in which the vowels in one correspond in position to vowels in the other and consonants to consonants. The difficulty increases also with the length of the words. It is said that this game was invented and named by Lewis Carroll, the author of “Alice in Wonderland,” a book which in England is regarded almost as a classic, but with which American children are not quite so familiar. Some interesting experiments mavße tried on draughts of air. One is to open on a crack the door between a cold room and a warm one and hold a lighted candle at various heights close to the crack. The windows must be open in either room. At the top of the door the flame will be blown toward the cold room and at the bottom toward the warm About halfway up there will be a place where the flame is blown very little or not at all. The reason is that oold air, being heavier than warm air, flows into the room along the floor and forces the warm out at the ceiling. A lively game is what might be called catch-as-catch-can, and it is very popular among the younger boys. The players seat themselves upon the floor in a circle, with one of their number in the center. They have a light rubber ball, and the game is to throw it from oue Bide to the other, and keep it going thus without letting the one in the oenter catch it. If he succeeds in doing so, the player who threw the ball exchanges plaoes with him, and the game goes on merrily, amid great shouting and laughter.—New York Herald. A Drawing Puz'l*. Here is a little exercise for your pencil and your more or less skillful use of it. Suppose you desire to draw a pug dog. Well, first draw that figure at the top on the loft. It looks for all

the world like a sack, tied at the upper corners. Then add the piece shown in the second figure between the tied ends, shaped as much like a lump of coal as anything else. Add ears, tail, and doubled-np legs, and you have a very dignified pug. If you would like to have a life-like picture of three fishes, all the work of

your own hands, first draw a Y, as shown in the lower part of the cut. Add three lines in the middle figure, and then give the finishing touches, as shown in the last figure. There you have the nucleus of a menagerie. A Hoy's Essay on Tobacco. Tobacco grows something like cabbage, but I never saw none oooked. I have heard men say that cigars that was given them election day for nothing was mostly cabbage leaves. To bacoo stores are mostly Rent by wooden Injuus who stand at the door and fool little boys by offering them a bunch of cigars which is glued into the Injun’s hands, and is made of wood also. I tried to smoke a cigar onoe, and I felt like Epsom salts. Tobaooo was invented by a man named Walter Baleigh. When the people first saw him smoking they thought he was.a steamboat and were frightened. M> sister Nancy is a girl. 1 don’t know whet her she likes tobaoco or not. There is a young man named Leroy who comes to see her. I guess she likes Leroy. He was standing on the steps one nightr,, and he had a cigar in his mouth, and said he d dn’t know as she would like it, and she said, “Leroy, the perfume is agreeable.” But when my big brother Tom lighted his pipe Nancy said: “Get out of the house, you horrid creature: the smell of tobacco makes me sick.” Snuff is Injun meal made out of tobacco. I took a

little snuff once and then I sneezed.— Every Thursday. .... •* A Good Joke on a Lion* He must.bave been a bright boy, a very bright little boy, who said to his mother, “I wish a lion would eat me up. ” “Why?” the mother asked. “Because it would be suoh a good joke on the lion; he would think I was inside of him, aud I should be up iu hetLvea.”—C^ngregaHonalißL