Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1891 — REMAINS OF COLUMBUS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

REMAINS OF COLUMBUS.

Where The? Best end How Jealously They Are Hoarded. J. B. Bose, of Chicago, during a visit he paid to Havana, was granted the rare privilege of viewing the remains of Christopher Columbus. It is in the Cathedral that the remains lie. As one enters the great Boman doorway the eye is struck with the apparent

vastness of the interior. Far away in the distance was the high nltar. The! tall images became blurred and indis-| tinot masses of masonry when viewed; from the entrance. Beneath the vaulted! roof lay the remains of the great discoverer, and it is with feelings of awe: and reverence that one approaches the' ohancel to gaze upon the bones of the man who did so much for the newt world. Eight men were necessary toi bring the moldering bones to view, as, each one possessed a key to certain, looks which the others could not open. On the gospel side of; the altar, or the left side as! viewed from the church entrance, is the tomb of Christopher Columbus. The heavy fastenings were as each priest or official stepped to the; tomb. The leaden casket was taken 1 out and opened. Only a few bones! left of all that was mortal of the great disooverer! As the lid was pressed back an inscription conld be seen on the inner side. There appeared the, words, “HI tre y Es de Varon dn. Christoval Colon”-—“Illustrious and Benowned Man, Christopher Columbus.”

As is known, Columbus died at Valladolid in 1506. About twenty-five years after the death of the immortal

navigator his bones were removed from Seville, Spain, whither they had already been removed from Valladolid, and transferred across the seas to the cathedral in San Domingo, Hayti, whence, on the cession of that island to the English, they were again exhumed from their resting place of two oenturies and a half, and in 1795 buried for the third time with great pomp in Cuba in the Cathedral of Havana (named for Columbus —San Crystobel de la Habanos).

For a long time the sounds of almost all English vowels were, as the makers, of dictionaries explain at length, in a state of transition. In different words we now have the same vowel pronounced in almost all the various ways known to European languages, and in several that are peculiar to English speech. Probably the pronunciation! of more than half the words of the English language has been changed. There can be no doubt that English vowels originally had the same sounds they now have in most continental lan- 1 guages. Thus a was pronounced as it. still is in father, e as ei in rein, i as in ravine, and u like oo in school. But the English people, having a way of changing the sounds of vowels in speech, gradually converted each one of them into something quite different. The change is going on still. The vowel a, in London speech, is gradually rqoeiving the sound of long I. An American in London is asked if he l wishes to “take in a piper”—and is puz-j zled until he discovers that this is En-i glish for “taking a daily paper.” This tendency has become so marked! that the “pipers” thembelves have be- 1 gun, at least in a whimsical way, to print words which have a long a with ay instead. The Pall Mall Gazette, in an article on “Primrose Day,” devoted to the memory of Lord Beaconsfield, fancies Englishmen singing: But who will syve old England from the sbyme, ( And her sons and daughters who will syve? j For In vyne, alas I In vyne we deplore the honoured nyme ' Of Lord Beckingsflfeld now lying in his gryve This vicious pronunciation has begun to creep into a limited circle in America, whose members affect English ways. It should be rejected and resolutely discouraged by every one who wishes to speak good English.— Youth’s Companion.

A hew glass is said to have been invented which is as hard and tough as cast-iron. It is proposed to employ it in the manufacture of stairs, street lamp-’ posts and gas and water pipes. If it can be usea for the last named pur-; pose, and thus do away with the dangerous lead pipe, it will be an acquisition indeed. It is Thought that these and similar articles can be made of this new glass thirty per cent, cheaper; than they can be made of cast iron. j * \ 1

BOSES OF COLUMBUS.

CATHEDRAL OF HAVANA.