Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1893 — Page 4

TO MY SATCR. title watch, fast ticking oat All the hours of paiu and doubt, All the tumult, toil and strife Making up our span of life, All the heart-wrung sighs and tears Falling faster with the years. As the petals drop and lade From the bloom life’s Summer made, Ah! what though s each other chase As I look upon your face! Every tick your motions give, One tick less have I to live. Did I realize this thought, With such solemn meaning fraught, When some new-born joy diew nigh In the happy days gone by, And your slight ban Is all 'oo slow Bound about your face did go ? Ah ! those tardy hours have passed Would they were not now so ast 1 Never stopping in your flight Never pausing day or night; Not a moment’s rest you crave From the cradle to the grave. With a never-ceasing motion, Steadfast as the tides of ocean; Seeming evermore to hurrv, Tet without a moment’s flurry; Till our worn hearts almost pray That you would a moment stay. All things rest—the clouds at noon, And the leaves in nights of June; And the grief-bewilde ed brain When sleep falls like softest rain; And the stars when day awakes, And the day when Keeper shakes Gleams of gold from out the ski as Into wandering lovers’ eyes. Yon alone speed on your way, Never resting night or day. Yet what joys those hands have brought Golden days with rapture fraught; Golden days by sunlit iountain; Golden days on breezy mountain; Days made more divino by love Than by radiance from above. Ah! those hands that to the sense Bring such joya and bear them hence; Could we know what Time concea's 'Neath those little ticking wheels! Yet when those slight hands shall mark That last hour when all grows dark; And shall still keep ticking on When e rth’s light from mo is gone, little watch, your face shall be Still a memory sweet to me, Though diviner light may shine On those opened eyes of mine. For your bands that never cease Bring at last the perfect peace. —[Temp’o Bar.

TRAILED BY A PANTHER.

In the spring of ’73 I entered the service of the Canadian Government in the capacity of a rodman in one of the numerous parties which at *hat time were engaged in trying to locate a practicable route for the projected Canadian Pacific Bailway through the howling wildnerncss which stretched away westward from the shores of Lake Superior. My party had spent the summer in running levels between Thunder Bay and Lake Shebandowan, and late in the fall had gone into camp near the first rapids of the Kaministiquia River, distant about twenty miles from its mouth. More than two months had passed since the receipt of our last mail; so immediately upon our arrival at the river, a messenger had been dispatched for it to Prince Arthur’s Landing, about twentythree miles down streaip, with instructions to return without delay. Six days had elapsed since Sandy Macpherson, our messenger, had donned a clean shirt and bade us good-bye, with many a hearty assurance of a speedy return; and we were still looking anxiously and vainly down the trail for the first sign of his bushy whiskers. On the evening of the day aforesaid the situation in camp had become simply desperate. Twenty big-fisted Highlanders sat on the trunk of a fallen tree just outside the camp and cursed Sandy Macpherson; and they were still at it when, late in the afternoon, I threw myself bodily into the ever-widening breach and announced my intention of starting for the Landing at once. A lull in the men’s swearing succeeded my declaration, and Sandy McPherson’s heartless desertion, of his brother Scotts in distress was forgotten as twenty pairs of hard, honest hands helped me to gird on my armor, which consisted of an old muzzle loading “Colt’s,” and a heavy hunting knife. The day had been a gloomy, threatening one, and just ns I had completed my arrangements for departure, a cold drizzling rain set in. But off I went at an Indian lope, a half hour of which brought me to the junction of the trail with the Pigeon River mailroad, at which point and close to the river bank, a crew of wood-choppers from the old Hudson Bay post of Fort William had recently erected a log shanty. As I was passing this lonely habitation two men, who were pushing a punt in the stream, hailed me and inquired whither I was bound. Upon learning that I was on my way to the settlement, they offered me a seat on a pile of empty meal sacks in the bpttom of the boat, informed me at the same time that they were about to pull down to the company’s farm, distant about six miles, to bring back a cargo of potatoes. I gladly accepted the invitation, and we were soon bowling down stream as fast as a two-mile current and four stout arms could send us. My fellow-voyagers, who were both Scotchmen, seemed well pleased to have a guest, and chatted almost incessantly as the ugly craft shot down the swollen current. We had been running in mid-stream from the start, but as the boat rounded a sharp bend in the river it shot info a narrow cove, which gradually terminated in a dark ravine. The craft was laid

alongside the banks, and after having been told fully half a dozen times that I would find the mail-road by striking out to the right from the head of the ravine, I leaped ashore amid a perfect shower of 4 *gude luck to ye.” I lost no time in getting out of the ravine, for night was closing fast, and it waa of the utmost importance that I should reach the road while light enough remained to keep three trees in line. Reaching the level, I laid my course carefully and followed it at a'run. I was going along in good shape when suddenly I found the ground sloping away sharply to the front, the slope terminating in a shallow ravine densely timbered with spruce and “Jack” pine. It was quite dark in tikis bottom, and the spruce grew in almost impenetrable clumps, making it impossible to follow a straight line. As I pushed my way with nervous haste through the dripping boughs I began to realise’ that the darkness about ms was not entirely due to the lay of the ground and thickness of timber growth, she dull twilight had faded out as suddenly as if the sun had been instantly

snuffed out of existance. As the daylight died the rain changed to a steady downpour, drenching me to the skin and chilling me to the marrow. After a half-hour of struggling through a tangle of hazel thickets where the branches thrust themselves aggressively into my eyes, and a few remaining watersoaked leaves clung to my cheeks with a contact like that of a drowned man's hand, I came to the conclusion that I had been traversing the ravine lengthwise and in a direction parallel to the line of the mail road. 1 was on the point of changing my course when the ground sloped abruptly upward, and, scrambling up abank of very greasy clay, I found myself in a clearing, one side of which seemed to me to stretch away indefinitely into the darkness. There was a smell of wet ashes and cinders in the air, and the half burned trunks of fallen trees were scattered about in a careless, unstudied manner. For the twelfth time I extricated myself from an involuntary embrace with Mother Earth, and I was groping around for my hat, which had been lost in the last tumble, when my hand suddenly slipped downward into space, and a black gulf yawned before me, from falling bodily into which I was saved only by throwing myself heavily backward; in falling my hand came in contact with a partly consumed pine not. This I grasped and threw far out into the darkness. One, two, three seconds passed, and then the sound of a faint splash came from somewhere bglqw. The missile had fallen into the river. Then for the first time I became vividly conscious of the disagreeable fact that I was lost, and I had presented to me the delightful alternative of perishing from cold if I remained much longer in a state of inaction, or of breaking my neck if I moved from the spot. As I sat staring into the darkness — my eyes gradually becoming accustomed to it—the indistinct outline of the river bank slowly unfolded itself to me. Trusting to my keenness of vision to keep me from tumbling over the bluff, I arose and began making my way slowly along it. I knew that down stream lay to the left, and I was making tolerably good time in that direction when suddenly, from out of the darkness behind me, there came a sound that seemed to draw the last drop of blood from the chilled extremities to the heart, stilling that organ until I fairly gasped for breath.

A laugh, a wild exulting laugh, rose high above the roaring of the storm, followed in the next instant by a succession of unearthly screams that caused each hair of my head to stand out as if electrified. While my hand instinctively clutched the butt of the revolver, yet I drew it forth with a feeling thut I had to contend with something more than mortal, against which earthly weapons would be of no avail. Cold, fatigue, the possibility ot perishing from exposure—all were forgotten as I listened to that thrilling cry. It was the cry of a panther—the mountain lion of California, the puma of Mexico, the jaguar of the Amazonian forests—and it came from the top of a clump of lofty pines not twenty yards away. Then I knew that the dark object which had glided past me in the darkness was no creature of the imagination, and my teeth chattered violently from something besides cold when I thought of how close the treacherous brute had been to me. Passing the Colt’s into the left hand I drew the hunting-knife and tightening the loop around my wrist, I dashed away down the river as fast ns the roughness of the country and the darkness would permit. I had no hope of eluding pursuit as I tore through hazel thickets, stumbled over fallen trees, tumbled into slippery gullies und scrambled frantically out of them again. But I knew that less than a mile down stream, on a narrow strip of bottom land, I should find—if I should ever live to reach it—a small block house w r hich for years had been occupied during the haying season by laborers from the Catholic mission at Fort William.

As I sped along I seemed to see my back trail stretching out in perspective before me as if reflected in a mirror. A deep gully whinch I at once recognized on account of having fallen into it—stood out with a startling clearness, and on its farther edge I saw the gaunt form of a gigantic panther, craning its long, sinewy neck out over the gulf as it sniffed vigorously at the spot where I had fallen. Suddenly it gathered itself up, gazed intently in the direction that Inad taken, cleared the gully with a vaulting spring and came bounding after me, screaming at every bound! There was no mistake about the screaming, for the forest was ringing with it ,when I staggered out into the clearing on the further side of which stood the block house. I knew that on the left of the clearing a deep pool lay, bordered by a quagmire, which, at one point, was separated from the river by a strip of low ground,scarcely ten yurds in width. This pool found an outlet into the river by means of a sluggish creek, about twenty feet in width, with a broad margin of deep mire. Fortunately I had visited this clearing early in the summer, while running “trail” lines out from Fort William, ana had taken many a meal with the mission haymakers in the old log house. Moreover, I had been specially assigned to the duty of charting the pool and its outlet, to which circumstance I am, no doubt, indebted for not having died a death by suffocation that night in the almost bottomless mire of the creek.

Near the creek stood a low haystack with its “binding poles” reaching nearly to the ground. Thrusting the revolver in its holster, and taking the knife in my teeth, I seized pne of these poles, tore it from its fastenings, and pushed it into the creek until its outer end was clear of the strip of mire. Although the pole sank under me until I Was knee deep in the clinging mud, I managed to reach the deep, open water. I knew that there was a good landing place near the mouth of the creek, so plunging in, I struck out down the stream. I had taken scarcely a dozen strokes when my knees bumped against a smooth, hard bottom. I reached the top of the bank with the utmost difficulty', my limbs had grown so benumbed. As I reeled against the blockhouse door I tried to shout for help, but the words died in my throat. I felt around for the old latch string, which I had always found “hanging outside." It was missing, and in its place was a huge padlock. The door was locked hard and fasti In vain I threw myself against it—equally vain was my search for something that could be used as a battering-ram. I had just given up trying to break the look with the butt of my revolver, when the panther broke cover across the creek. There was not a moment to lose, for I knew that my foe was a good swimmer. In the rear of the shanty, and about six feet from it stood a tall haystack, the Bides of which were almost perpendicular. My only remaining hope lay in reaching the top of that stack. The rough corners of the shanty afforded an excellent foothold, so that I reached the

roof without difficulty. Running along the ridge, knife in hand, I leaped to the stack, and driving knife downward into it, pulled myself to the top. Tearing away a portion of the thatch, I worked my way, head foremost, into the newly gathered hay, to the centre of the stack. Half dead from the cold and exhaustion, I lay there with the quick surge of my pulse sounding in my ears with the distinctness of a drum beat. While I did not care to hope that I had wholly outwitted the panther, I was at least safe from immediate attack. Moreover, I was assured of a breathing spell, without which I should have been as a child in the clutches of the powerful brute that was making the clearing resound with its cries.

Suddenly the cries ceased, and the stillness of death reigned in the great gloomy bottom. I clutched my knife tightly and listened. I had just begun to flatter myself that the panther had lost the trait at the creek, and had abandoned the pursuit, when a deep throated growl came from the roof of the shanty, and in the next breath the stack was shaken from top to bottom, as the savage beast landed upon it directly over my head. And there it lay, a dead, suffocating weight, waiting, no doubt, for some untoward accident to betray my true position. For fully fifteen minutes I lay there, hardly able to breathe, much less to stir a muscle, when I was suddenly taken with an acute chill, and in spite of every effort to keep it back, a convulsive shiver ran through •my frame. That settled it. In the next instant the swaying and rocking of the stack told me that the ferocious creature was digging down to me with teeth and talons, and that the crisis of my life was close at hand. The brute was digging right over the spot where my head lay. Changing my position slightly, I turned on my left side just as a paw was thrust into the space which my head had lately occupied. Of course I could not see the paw, but I could feel it, for it brushed against my face as it buried itself deeply into the hay alongside me. I knew that the sharp fangs would soon follow. I clutched the sinewy leg that rested so close to my face that I might have touched it by simply thrusting out my tongue. With a quick movement of my right hand I forced the knife upward through the hay until I felt a spasmodic twitching in the muscles of the leg, around which my left hand had closed in a death-grip. The point of the knife had found the panther’s hide. Throwing the whole of my failing strength into the effort I drove the knife sharply upward—once, twice, thrice, as far as the hilts would let it go—and loosened my grip on the leg. With a yell of agony the mortallystricken brute sprung upward, fell back on the staok, thrashed around there for a while, and, finally rolling off, struck the ground a dead thud, that told me how well the knife had done its work. I had not the faintest recollection of leaving my hiding place that night, but when morning dawned I was found by one of the Mission herders miles down the river wandering about the woods in a delirium of fever, and with a bloody hunting knife dangling by its loop from my wrist. In a little whitewashed bedroom of the old Mission I saw, during the following fortnight, panthers enough to have stocked a dozen menageries. When at last I was able to sit up and talk I learned that during the first week of my illness searching parties had scoured the woods in quest of the supposed victim of the bloody knife that had been found on my person. At last an Ojibway trapper struck my back trail and followed it up. At the foot of the haystack in the clearing he found the carcass of the panther lying just where it had fallen, with its heart divided in two. The creature weighed 102 pounds; and measured seven feet three from tip to tip.

Tricks of Memory.

“A man never realizes how much of everything is stored up in the human mind until he begins to draw on it for a continuous period of time,” said Marvin Temple. “And these two things come back-to one when entirely forgotten, and one really imagines that now here is something new and original until one learns better. This is especially true with old songs. Airs that at one time filled in moments of loneliness and gloom, but with 100 other little details have long since passed out of mind, return. One stops and wonders at the beauty of them, and not having heard them before, according to memory, one takes credit for originality. I did this once. One morning I awoke with something pretty running through my brain. I framed in my mind a jingle, and I could -hear it just as plain, but to save me I could not give it sound. Finally, after fretting about an hour and having completed my toilet, I sat down before the tire and began to rock. “Then all at once the power came, and I hummed my new air over and over again with extreme delight. Visiting an old chum that evening, I brought up the subject of music. Then I whistled my new tune and asked him if he did not think it pretty. ‘I like that tune especially because my sister, who has been dead some 13 years, sang it for me when I was still a schoolboy.’ I eyed him with astonishment. ‘You never heard that before,’ I said. ‘Why that’s origi, nal.’ ‘Original nothing,’ came the re joinder; ‘l’ve got the piece in my trunk.’ And, sure enough, after rummaging through a great stock of useless treasure he produced a faded piece of sheet music—my very tune, and with words to it. Then I gave myself up to reflection, and eventually recalled the song as I bad known it years before.”—[St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

Oldest Settlements in the United States.

In 1565 the first permanent settlement in the United States was made at St. Augustine, Fla., by a party of Spaniards under Melendez. Between the years 1540 and 1583 Francisco Vasquez do Coronado, Captain Francisco de Coronado and Don Antonio de Espeio explored New Mexico and occupied temporarily various points in that region. In the latter year Don Antonio de Espejo took possession .of a native pueblo, or town, called Tueas or Toas, and named it La Ciudad de Santa r Fe, which was identical in site with the present capital of New Mexico. Between '.590 and 1595 forts, colonies and missions were established in Mexico by Juan do Ouate. In 1607 the first permanent English settlement was planted by the London oompany in Virginia at Jamestown, which was so called in honor of Janies I. In 1614 the Dutch planted an irffant settlement on Manhattan island, which they called New Amsterdam, and in 1615 a settlement was made at Albany by the same nation. All animals whose habitat is the Arctic regions turn white in winter.

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OP EVERYDAY DIKE. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures Which Show That Truth Is Stranger Thau Fiction. According to the Chicago Horseman, the question of color of a horse is a very important one with a Russian, and gentlemen of means would never permit other than a white, gray, or black horse to occupy a position in their stable. Their particular fad is to drive a crossmatch span composed of a black and a white horse. The majority of Russian horses, however, are grays. Of course there are some mixed colors, but these are used only by the poorer classes of peasants for rough work in the interior districts. So high a value does the Russian place upon color that the Government will have none but white or gray stallions on their breeding farms. In Russia horsemen believe that the gray horse possesses far more courage, is capable of standing the rigors of their Winters better, has greater powers of endurance, and better blood than that of any other color. Their 125 years of Government control of breeding has so nearly reduced the question of transmitting colors to a science that the Government will have only white or gray stallions in service, claiming that color goes with the sire almost universally. Seventy-five per cent, of the Russian race horses are white or gray.

It appears from British consular reports just published that there is a place on the face of the globe where intoxication, instead of being regarded as a vice, is looked upon as a virtue, and where drunken laborers are actually at a premium. This peculiar condition of affairs prevails in the Portuguese possessions of South Africa. It seems that the natives there, when employed for any definite object, have to be carefully and laboriously instructed how to perform their work. If a man be temperate in his habits he will in one or two months earn sufficient to maintain himself in idleness for nearly a year, and the consequence is that he returns to his home, and the instructions which have been given to him are ontirely lost. With an intemperate native the opposite state of affairs exists. Month after month, on the receipt of his wages, he spends his entire earnings in liquor, and never having sufficient funds to take him home, remains with his employer for years, becoming more and more valuable as time passes by reason of the fact that the repetition of instructions becomes gradually less necessary. The town of Warrenton, Ga., was treated to some excellent music a few days since and the producer was a onearmed colored lad who hails from Florida. The wonderful feature about this talented musician is that he performs splendidly on three instruments at the same time, guitar, harp and a call bell. Having only one arm it seems impossible for him to perform this great feat. His arm his off near the elbow, so to this ho fastens a stick about the size of your little finger and eight inches in length, which he uses to beat on the guitar strings instead of picking them. On his shoulder he has a rack to hold the harp in place and he works the bell with his foot. It is indeed wonderful how he can handle these instruments with such accuracy. He is also a splendid dancer.

Says a medical practitioner of long experience: “I believe that a good many Eeople who are supposed to die of ydrophobia scare themselves to death. They are bitten by a dog—perfectly harmless dog, usually—and they brood over it and worry about it until they develop all the symptoms of hydrophobia. I should test every case of alleged poisoning by rabies by putting the patient tinder chloroform and watching him during the stupor when he was coming out of it. If the convulsions continued then the case would be genuine, but if, in that interval, the patient had forgotten what ailed him, I should laugh him out of it. Dog bites are the commonest of injuries. Even a rabid dog may bite a man without producing any ill effects.” In other countries than England there are peculiar and unaccountable pronunciations of proper names. The island of Terra Nuova, off the coast of Honduras, is called “Turneff.” The Boca d’Agua, iu Jamaica, h called “Bogwalk,” and the Agua Alta, in the same country, is known as the “Wag water.” In Scotland there is a county called “Kirkoobree,” of which the correct spelling is Kirkcudbright. Then there is the Toliver family in this country, whose name is properly spelled Taliaferro.

Four miles southwest of Mount Vernon, Texas, is a great phenomenon on the farm of Marvel Holbert. Last July he dug a well. Going to the depth of fifty feet and getting no water, work was suspended and the well oovered up. One day recently Mr. Holbert, passing by, uncovered the well, and to his surprise hot steam gushed out in his face, and on examination it was found that a vein of hot water about six inches iu diameter had burst in through the bottom and stands at a depth of eighteen feet, boiling like a teakettle over a slow fire. Queen Victoria’s fondness for domestic pets is indicated by the fact that in the grounds of the royal dairy there are two monuments erected by her Majesty’* order to the memory of two dogs which she once held dear. One of these canine favorites was a dachshund named Boy, which departed life in 1802; the other a Scottish terrier, Boz, once the property of the Duchess of Kent and afterwards the Queen’s favorite. Her Majesty is nowadays especially interested in collies.

The office chair occupied by ex-Post-raaster-General Wanamaker, although of the ordinary size, has been found to be so inconveniently small for the Hon. AVilson S. Bissell that he has secured a requisition for a new chair, which will be made of heavy quartered oak, thirty inches across the seat, supported on straight legs, three by four inches, weighing about as much as the heavy mahogany desk before him. It is contrary to law in Mexioo for a woman to take the veil. The Government is so strict in enforcing this law that a young woman of the City of Mexico who started the other day to enter a convent in this country was arrested by the authorities and taken back to the city. The plea was that her relatives were opposed to her taking the veil.

An earnest hand-clasp caused the death of Dennis O’Leary, of Bristol, Pa. He was walking in a Boston park, where he met a robust friend. The latter squeezed his hand so forcibly that the nails entered O'Leary’s palm, causing a slight wound, from which a few drops of blood issued. Blood-poisoning resulted, and in a few days O’Leary was a corpse.

An Ohio man has a queer hen. Neat the barnyard there is a large “cooler” hanging on a crane; and the hen in question insists on regarding this' cooler as her nest. She does not get into it, however, but sits perched on its rim, in consequence of which her eggs are all broken by the fall. A medical gentleman in Kansas has succeeded in an agricultural experiment which will interest all classes. He has crossed the tomato with the potato, and produced a vegetable which possesses some of the qualities of both articles. He calls it the “potomato.” Wee Hun Pens, who was cook in a mining camp only three years ago, is no longer wee in the financial sense. He owns the whole of one and the half of another important mine in Arizona, and is reputed to be worth at least $3,000,000.

HOW THE CHINESE WORSHIP.

A Description of Tlielr Temples and Curious Customs. Every Chinese temple is a house of prayer or worship, but no sermon is preuched, no priest installed, no religious instruction given and no seating accommodations provided, according to a recent census bulletin. There is always at least one shrine, the more frequented temples having several, eo that a number of persons can perform the usual ceremony, each for himself, without being obliged to take turns. The worshipers do not meet in a body, nor is any particular time set for devotions. When about to enter upon a new enterprise or to take a journey, or when in doubt concerning any particular course of action, the Chinese are careful to consult their gods and patron saints. Every worshiper provides himself with incense sticks, candles and sacrificial papers, which are generally to be had of attendants at small cost. Offerings of wine and meat are added on special occasions. The candles and incense sticks are lighted and placed in their proper receptacles. If wine is used it is put in minute cups scarcely larger than thimbles, and these are pluced in a row before the shrine. The meat offerings may be roast chicken, roast pig or any other table luxury. When everything is properly placed the genuflexions begin and the request is presented. If the answer required is a simple affirmative or negative the worshiper drops a pair of lenticular pieces of wood on the floor a number of times and calculates the answer from the number of times each face turns up. Another method of obtaining responses, particularly when fuller responses are desired, is by shaking a box filled with numbered slips of bamboo, one of which will fall out, and then consulting a book containing numbered answers in Chinese verse.

The interior of Chinese temples is often highly decorated. The walls and ceilings are hung with tablets having inscrptions in the Chinese character, and there are often row’s of lanterns and embroidered silk umbrellas. Fine wood carving is also to be seen. The decorations are the gifts of worshipers. Most Chinese temples are free to all. No register is kept of members. Of the four temples in New York city, one, Chung-wa-kung-saw, claims 7,000 worshippers; Chap-sing-tong, 700; Hok-san-kung-saw, 1,000; Lung-kong-kung-saw, 1,000. Chung-wa-kung-saw is an organization in which every Chinaman in New York is supposed to be interested. Chap-sing-tong admits laundrymen only, and the other temples are supported by those who come from Hok-san and Lung-kong, respectively. A laundryman from the district of Hok-san may, therefore, be a member of three of the temples. For this reason no statistics of members can be given. Chinese temples are usually well supported. The revenues are derived largely from the privilege, sold at auction to the highest bidder, of selling the articles ol worship, which every worshiper must have. Thus the privilege of selling foi the Lung-kong-kung-saw of San Fransisco brought in 1890 $12,365.50, and that for the Ilow-wang-mew in the same city $3,861.60. According to the returns of population there are 107,475 Chinese in the United States, of whom 72,472 are in California, 9,540 in Oregon, 3,260 in Washington, and 2,935, the next largest number, in New York. In view of the fact that one of the four temples in New York city claims 7,000 worshipers, while the whole state has a Chinese population of less than 3,000, there would seem to be a large discrepancy. If that one temple has 7,000 worshipers, the number of visitors must be greater than the resident Chinese population. Doubtless 7,000 is the number that worship in the temple in the course of a year. In other words, the same individual is counted many times. A considerable number of the Chinese are members of Christian churches.—[Wash ngton Star.

A New Scheme for Fairs.

Among the new devices for making money at church fairs and other charitable entertainments is one which its originators term “The Living Library.” A certain number of books are chosen beforehand, and each one is represented by some young woman who is dressed appropriately to indicate either the title of the book or some leading character therein. Each impersonator must also be thoroughly acquainted with the volume she represents, and her actions and behavior must be in accord with the character chosen. A catalogue is prepared, and furnished on application, and whenever a book is called for, a curtain is drawn aside, and the living copy stands revealed. The regulations usually governing “The Living Library” are that: First, all books must be secured from the librarian; second, the fee for each book shall be ten cents for ten minutes’ use, payable in advance; third, books cannot be called for twice in succession; fourth, persons having called for and obtained the books must relinquish them upon notice from the librarian that the time paid for has reached its limit, or, failing to do so, shall pay at the rate of two cents a minute for overtime; and finally, that nc book can be retained for a longer period than twenty minutes. The rules do not provide for it, but it is understood, of course, that during the busy hours of the fair no book 6hall be taken off on a promenade through the en-tertainment-room, and the books themselves are forbidden by the uriwritten laws to drink lemonade and eat ice-cream be tween the hours of eight and ten at night Altogether this living library seems destined to prove a great success. Black bordered stationery is no longer the correct thing for mourning. A thick, dead white paper, with the address engraved in rather heavy script, and the envelope closed with black scaling wax, is what the fashionable woman now uses

EUROPE OUTSTRIPPED.

The United States Now the Leading Manufacturing Country. R. 11. Edmonds, in the Engineering Magazine, says: The United States is now the leading manufacturing country in the world. We have far outstripped all other nations in the magnitude of our industrial operations. It is almost incomprehensible that in ten years the increase in capital invested in manufactures should exceed the total invested only twenty years ago. The value of our manufactured products increased about 60 per cent.; add 60 per cent, to the output of 1890 and we would have $13,700,000,000 in 1900—but that ie too much to expect. The same ratio of growth in mining interests in this decade as in the last would make our mineral output in 1900 nearly $1,200,000,000, while a smaller percentage ol gain only equaling in volume the total increase in 1890 over 1880 would bring the figures to over $950,000,000. If our coal miners add to the output of 1890 as many tons as they added to that of 1880, ignoring in this the percentage of growth, 217,000,000 tons will be the production of 1900. No other country in the world ever advanced in population and wealth as the United States is doing. The progress of the past shows no signs of halting. In fact, the development of our foreign and domestic trade and commerce, and of our industrial interests is steadily broadening out.

Contrast our position and condition with Europe, with resources surpassing those of all Europe, with wealth-pro-ducing possibilities in soil, minerals, timber and climate unequalled by Europe, and practically without limit to their profitable utilization, with a homogeneous population of 05,000,000 people unvexed by the arbitrary regulations of half a dozen different governments, and free from the drain of standing armies, the United States justly commands the wonder and admiration of the world.

Great Britain is no longer the manufacturing center of the world, for we have taken the foremo3t position in that line. Its vast iron and steel business is yearly increasing in cost of production, while ours is decreasing. It cannot meet the world’s growing demand for iron and steel because it cannot increase its production to any great extent. It produces less pig iron now than it did ten years ago. Much of its ore it imports from distant countries. Its cotton is all imported. It spends about $750,000,000 a year for foreign foodstuffs. On the continent every nation is burdened with dtbt, and none of them can ever hope to pay off its obligations. Measured by their natural resources and advantages for continued growth against their debts and the many disadvantages under which they labor, they are practically bankrupt. In all of them the cost of production and living must steadily increase. In the United States we have scarcely laid the foundation for our future greatness. In natural resources we are richer than all of Europe; we are paying off our debts faster than they are due, we have barely scratched the ground in the development of our mineral wealth, and our agricultural growth can scarcely be limited.

Fishes That Do Not Move.

A groat many of our well-known fishes do not move from Christmas to Easter, and often for a much longer period. I paid a visit to the chief Canadian fish hatchery, which is under the superintendence of Mr. Wilmot, at Newcastle, Ont., early in December. In some of the tanks were carp, and in others were eels. One large eel was in the form of a letter 8, aud poised midway in the water; when I returned to Newcastle, early in March, the eel had not changed its place or its form, and Mr. Wilmot assured me that it had not moved in all that time. The carp lay close to the bottom of the tanks, and did not move either. They like to go into deep, reedy lakes or ponds, get close to the bottom, and remain there till the ice above their heads has melted Unless they are disturbed, I doupt if some of these hibernating fishes move so much as a fin during the winter. A frog will remain for four months, looking apparently into the heavens with wide-opened eyes, without once moving them or any other portion his body. At the New York Hospital they related to me a curious occurrence bearing on the hibernation of fishes. In the conservatory in the upper part of the building they had several glass jars in which were gold-fish, which is a species of carp. One morning the caretaker found a jar broken and the water frozen through and through, the fish, of course, being as rigid as ice. The lump was taken away and thrown into an old rubbish barrel, where it remained several weeks. One March day the sun was unusually strong audit split the cylinder of ice, but what was the astonishment of the caretaker to see the tail of a fish wriggling out of a part of the broken block. The actual freezing had not killed the fish, which was removed to another tank, where it swims about as if nothing had befallen it.—[Our Animal Friends.

African Pluck.

Mr. Alfred Coode Hore, in his ElevenYears iu Central Africa, speaks .veil of the tribes of the Tanganyika region, which he finds are peaceable and industrious for the most part, but turbulent and aggressive when they have learned to dread molestation by strangers. “It seems hard,” he says, "that a man should be called lazy because he has ample leisure between his busy times; who has made with his own hands from N ature’s raw materials, his house, his axe, hoe, and spear, his clothing and ornaments, his furniture and corn-mill, and all that he has, and who, though liable often in a lifetime to have to commence the whole process over again, has the energy and enterprise to do so. Too often have the same people been called savage and bloodthirsty who, through all experience and by all their traditions regarding armed strangers as enemies, defend themselves and their own with the desperate energy which, as displayed by our own ancestral relations, we term patriotism and courage.”

Beryls in New Hampshire.

Several varieties of precious stones are found in New Hampshire, but the ones attracting the most attention are the beryls found at Acworth. Acworth, says the Jewellers’ Circular, has become famous on account of the large and valuable specimens which have been sold to go into cabinets in all parts of the world. There is one eight inches in diameter in the royal cabinet in Vienna, represented as coming from Acworth, and its description tallies with the one reported to have been sold in New York for |15,000.

THE WORLD’S WONDERS.

Some Remarkable Facts Not Generally Known. Some butterflies iay over 100.000 eggs. Tortoises have been known to live 300 yean. There are forty-eight varieties «f the common fly. The Nile has a fall of only six inches in 1,000 miles. The speed of the falcon often exceeds 150 miles an hour. A teaspoonful of microbes contains over 4,000,000 individuals. The largest mammoth tusk yet discovered was sixteen feet. The earth receives only one two-bil-lionth of the heat of the sun. The lungs of the average jaan contain about five quarts of air. Daniel Lambert, the fattest man ever known, weighed 739 pounds. In one summer the descendants of a. single fly will number 2,080,320. The longest bridge in the world, ove the St. Lawrence river, is 9,144 feet. The catacombs of Rome contain the remains of about six million people. Rivers hold in suspension over onehundredth of their volume of solid matter. The highest falls in the world are the Ribbon Falls of the Yosemite—3,3oo feet. A speok of gold weighing the millionth part of a grain may be easily seen by the naked eye. The largest building is the Coliseum at Rome, 615 feet in greatest diameter and 120 high. The oldest monument in the world is the mound covering the Tower of Babel, erected B. C. 2247. The average weight of the male infant at birth is seven pounds; of the female six and a half. The most remarkable springs in the world are in California; they produce sulphuric acid and ink.

The highest mountain is Mount Everest in Thibet, 29,002 feet, or five aud three-quarter miles. The largest single fortification in the world is Fortress Monroe. It has already cost over $3,000,000. The oldest flute in the world is made of the thigh-bone of a sheep and was found in a tomb on the Nile. The highest tower in the world is the Eiffel, 1,000 feet; the next, the Washington Monument, 555 feet. The first wooden bridge, so far as known, was the Sublician Bridge at Rome, built in the Seventh century. A dollar loaned for 100 years, and compounded at 24 per cent., will amount in that time to $2,551,799,404. The Great Eastern was the largest ship ever built—6Bo feet long, 83 broad, 60 deep and 28,627 tons burden. The largest tomb in the world is the Pyramid of Cheops, 461 feet high and covering thirteen acres of ground. The largest theatre in the world is the Paris Opera House. It covers three acres and cost 100,000,000 francs. The highest inhabited place in the world is the Custom House of Ancomarca, in Peru, 16,000,000 feet abovethe sea.

The highest volcano is Popocatapetl, Mexico, 17,748 feet, with a crater a mile in diameter and 1,000 feet deep. The largest church in the world is St. Peter’s in Rome; the smallest, a church ten feet square in the Isle of Man. The most wonderful vegetable in the world is the truffle; it has neither roots, stem, leaves, flowers nor seeds. A thousand millions of the animalculae found in stagnant water do not collectively equal the size of a grain of sand. The canon of the Colorado is 300 miles long, and the cliffs on either side are from 5,000 to 6,000 feet above the water. The oldest statue in the world is of the Sheik of an Egyptian village. It is •believed to be not less than 6,000 years old. The earliest library was that of Nebuchadnezzar. Every book was a brick, engraved with cuneiform characters. The largest desert is the Sahara; 3,000miles from east to west, 1,000 from north to south; area, 3,000 square miles. The amount of air that a man will inhale in twenty-four hours will fill seventyeight hogsheads and weigh fifty-three pounds. The Brooklyn Bridge, the largest suspension bridge in the world, is, with its approaches, 5,989 long and cost $13,000000.

The longest single span of wire in the world is used for a telegraph line over the River Kistuan, in India. It is 6,000 feet long. If a man could jump as far, in proportion to his size and weight, as a flea, he could at a siugle leap, pass from St. Louis to Chicago. The first mention of the pipe-organ in history is in connection with Solomon’s Temple, where there was an organ with ten pipes. The largest Gothic Church in the world is Cologne Cathedral. Its foundation stones were laid in 1248, and the edifice was completed in 1880. The largest cut stones in the woild are in the Temple of the Sun,"at Baalbec. Many are more than 60 feet long, 20 feet broad, and of unknown depth. The largest bell in the world is in the Kremlin, Moscow. Its height is 21 feet, 4$ inches; its circumference, 67 feet, 4 inches; its weight is estimated at 443,772 hundred weights.

Beauty and Climatic Conditions.

The handsomest people in the world are the people of the Danube Valley. They are the descendants of the ancient Scythians, who were crossed by an Asiatic race, which has been pretty clearly identified with the Mongolians. It is not easy to see from which of these sources the belles of Pesth and Bucharest could have derived their beauty, and the student is driven to the conclusion that a naturally homely race became handsome under the stimulating effect of a congenial climate. Again, the old Romans, including under that head the Italians from the Alps to Calabria, were a tall, stalwart, muscular race; but the Italians of to-day are short, slight and not remarkable for strength. Are we to infer that an alternation of ages of luxury with ages of misery and starvation gradually deteriorated the national type? Where the conditions remain unchanged the human type remains the same. The figures on Egyptian monuments drawn 5,000 years ago might be taken for portraits of the fellahs of today. But no one would ever suspect the peasantry of the Morea of being akin to the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae. —(Sen Francisco Cail.