Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1893 — Page 4

A DEATH AND A LIFE.

BY LUCY LARCOM.

Fair young Haunah, Bon, the sunburnt fisher, gayly wo as; Hale and clever, For a willing heart and hand lie sues. May-day skies are all aglow. And the waves are laughing so ! For her wedding Hannah leaves her window and her shoos. May is passing; ’Mid the apple boughs a pigeon coos. Hannah shudders. For the mild southwester mischief brews. Round the rocks of Marblehead, Outward bound, a schooner sped. Silent, lonesome. Hannah’s at the window binding shoes. • ••».. Sailing away! Losing the breath of the slio -es in May, Dropping down from the beautiful bay, Over the sea slope vast and gray 1 And the skipper's eyes with a mist, arc blind, For a vision comes on the rising wind Of a gentle face that he leaves behind, and a heart that throbs through the fog bank dim, Thinking of him. Far into night He watches the gleam of the lessening light Fixed on the dangerous island height That bars the harbor he loves from sight, And he wishes, at dawn, he could tell the tale Of how they weathered the southwest gale, To brighten the cheek that had grown so pale With a wakeful night among spectres grim— Terrors for him. Yo-heave-yo! •Here’s the bank where the fishermen go. Over the schooner’s side they throw Tackleand bait to the deeps below, And Skipper Ben in the water sees, When its ripples curl to the light land breeze, Something that stirs like his apple trees, And two soft eyes that beneath them swim, Lifted to him.

Hear the wind roar, And the rain through the slit sails tear and pour! “Steady! we'll scud by the Cape Ann shore, Then hark to the Beverly bells once more!” And each man worked with the will often; While up in the rigging, now and then, The lightning glared in the face of Ben, Turned to the black horizon’s rim, Scowling on him. Into his brain Burned with the iron of hopeless pain, Into thoughts that grapple and eyes that strain, Pierces the memory, cruel and vain— Never again shall lie walk at ease Under the blossoming apple trees That whisper and sway to the sunset breeze, While soft eyes fioat where the sea gulls skim, Gaziug with him. How they wont down Never was known in the still old town. Nobody guessed how tho fisherman brown, With the look of despair that was half a frown, Faced his fate in the furious night— Faced the mad billows with hunger white, Just within hail of tho beacon light That shone on a woman sweet and trim, Waiting for him.

Beverly bells Bing to the tide as it ebbs and swells ! His was the anguish a moment tells The passionate sorrow death quickly knells. , Bat the we iriug wash of a lifelong woe left for the desolate heart to know, whmse tides with the dull yo .rs come and go, Till slope drifts dead to its stagnant brim, *\ Thinking of him. • V s • • • Pooir lone Hannah, Sitting at the window bindin ' shoes, Faded, wrinkled, Sitting, stitching, in a mournful muse, Bright-eyed beauty once was she, When the bloom was on the tree; Spring and winter, Hannah’s at the window, binding shore. Not a neighbor Passing nod or answer will refuse To her whisper; “Is there from the fishers any news? Oh, her heart’s adrift with one On an endless voyage gone! Night and morning, Hannah’s at the window, binding shoes. ’Tis November, Now no tear her wasted cheek bed jws, From Newfoundlands Not a sail returning will she lose, Whispering hoarsely, “Fishermen, Have you, have you hrard of Ban V” Old with watching, Hannah’s at the window, binding shoe*. Twenty winters Bleach and tear the ragged shore she views. Twenty seasons— Never one has brought her any news. Still her cim eyes silently Chase the white sails o’er the sea. Hopeless, faithful, Hannah’s at the window, binding oho s.

SHORTY LOCHINVAR.

I think it may be stated, without fear of successful contradiction, that at no period of a man’s existence does Cupid strike so deeply and cause so much sleeplessness as at the age of one score or thereabout. I have known quite a number of young men of about that age to be deeply, passionately, desperately in love, ana ultimately to recover and go through similar but less agonizing experiences several times thereafter. The victim of this first attack is a pitiable creature, particularly when there are “obstacles,” which is usually the case. I always feel sorry for a chap in this ■ort of a pickle, and I felt particularly sorry for poor Shorty Fleming. I know I ought not to encourage him, but he ■was such a good little beggar, and so much in earnest, that I would have defied a far more severe man than his brother Jack for his sake. Besides, Shorty was not one of the chaps who get over anything easily, and I know failure would go hard with him. Moreover, Jack was not the only “obstacle.” Sam Parker, Shorty’s Nettie’s papa, also objected. Parker was a shrewd Maine Yankee, with a total disbeleif in the ability of womankind to use reason and a record of some sixty years of devotion to an earnest hustle for the fascinating but elusive American dollar. Nettie was the <*lv darter and the youngest child in a family of seven, and the old man, doee-fisted as he was, had spared no expense in educating her liberally. It

was only natural, therefore, for him to object, especially as Nettie was barely eighteen and had only been out of school a few months. He called on Jack one afternoon, not casually, as he usually called, on his way to or from town, but with a direct purpose. Jack was under the weather, and lay on the sofa. I was reading to him when Parker walked in. “Howdy, Flemin’, laid up, air ye? Howdy, Faber; purty warm, ain’t it? Thanks, I will set a spell.” And he sat down on the edge of a chair and began tracing figures on the floor with his big spur. He seemed nervous, and I rose to leave the room, but he waved his hand and said: “Set (laown, Faber. Set still. Guess I ain’t got nothin’ t’ say but what ye mout ez well hear.” Here the old man stiffened up in his seat and stated the object of his mission in a good-natured but thoroughly decided way, closing with: “Neow, Fleming, I ain’t no ’bject’on t’ th’ leetle feller—not a mite, he’s a tiptop good boy, an’ all that. But tain’t in reason th’t I’m goin’t’ spend more’n $3,000 eddicating a young ’un, an’ then let ’er go an’ marry ’nother young ’un, ’thout ary red. An’ that’s what it’ll come tew, fust thing we know.” Now, Parker’s remarks were in the nature of a revalation to us. Of course, we knew that Shorty had put in a good many evenings at the Parker ranch, but we had never guessed that his visits there had any significance. A courtship, too, with six big brothers loafing around is a difficult matter. It is easy enough to fall—just fall—in love with a girl if there is no one to hinder. But with six young men, with whom one is on good terms, sitting around and occupying a large portion of one’s attention, it is a matter of getting in love, which, accomplished, is rather more serious than a mere fall into the same. Fleming sat up and ran his fingers through his hair gravely. Then: “I quite agree with you, Mr. Parker. I don’t know what to say to Percy, but I will try a little strategy and see if he can’t be kept at home. If that don’t do I can talk to him.”

And here began my connection with Shorty’s love affair. That evening I was writing busily when some one opened the door of my den and walked in. It was Shorty.. lie sat down quietly and took up a paper, which he looked at for several minutes, while I scratched away at my work. Then he threw down the paper suddenly and turned to me with: “ Faber, what was old Parker here for to-day ? ” I tried to dissemble, but Shorty is nobody’s fool, and interrupted: “Oh, rot! ” said he, “ I reckon you think I’m a fool. Now, honestly, what was he here for ? ” Finally I told him about the conversation between his brother and Parker. He sat silent for a few minutes. I could see his face twitch. Then he turned his eyes to my face and said, slowly: “Faber, I know I’m young and all that, hut—l know my own mind. Jack’s a good brother and feels in duty bound to take care of me, but"l guess I can 'tend to that myself. I—l’ve made up my mind to marry that girl, if she’ll have me, and all the Jacks and Sam Parkers in the world oan’t stop me.” and Mr. Percival Fleming set his mouth hard and walked ont. He called at Parker’s the next evening despite Jack’s “strategy.” There was another oaller at Parker’s that evening, in the person of Morris Cottrell, a wealthy rancher from up the “Five-Mile.” Shorty, when he got home, mentioned thia fuct to me, with some feeling in his tones. Cottrell was no old duffer. He was a man of thirty, and well-read, and a gentleman and the prospect of having him for a rival would have sent despair to the heart of any penniless young man less determined than Shorty Fleming. For two or three months Shorty continued his calls at Parker’s, growing more and more gloomy and savage as the days went by, for old Sam Parker was something of a strategist and managed to keep the poor lad from getting a single private interview with Nettie, thereby giving Cottrell a clear field, which was evidently satisfactory to the latter, although he did not seem to make much progress. One evening Shorty came to my room in a state of mind. He had seen Sam Parker that clay, and the latter had told him, as gently as possible, some galling truths about his age and his penniless condition, concluding with the cheerful information that he “reckoned Net; had ’bout d’eided t’ take up with Cottrell, anyheow.” Of course Shorty was despondent, but he was none the less determined. “Faber, I’m going to see her to morrow afternoon and—and ask her.” The time and the hour favored Shorty, but I hardly think Nettie knew her own mind. The boy who came riding slowly home through the shadows next evening was a very much downcast boy, indeed. He told me all about it later; how Nettie had wavered and finally told him that she could give him no auswer. She cared a great deal for him, she said, but she was not sure she cared enough for him. Besides, her father objected to him, and she could never cross her father’s wishes when he had done so much for her. Sam Parker must have heard of this interview, and made up his mind to something. Although he was usually so good natured he was as determined as a bull-dog, and I think he used some influence in deciding matters, for, two weeks later, he “dropped in” to tell Jack that Nettie and Cottrell would be married on Thanksgiving Day, two months later.

Shorty must have seen the news in my face, for after supper he drew me aside and asked me what I knew. I hated to tell him, but did so, the best way I could. The poor lad stood still as stone for several seconds. Then, with a shuddering sob, he turned away. In the morning he was gone with his horse and clothes, leaving no word. Jack and Joe, the other brother, were much worried, but, as Jack for the first time acklowledged, “the bpy could take care of himself.” Jack and I talked it over doring the day, and he expressed a great deal of regret, thinking, however, that Nettie had decided for herself, and that Shorty had no one to blame for his failure. “If it had been different,” he went on, “and Percy had persevered and won, I would have given in, and I think Parker would, too, for next year Percy will come into about fifteen thousand. “You see, I’ve never told him of it because I wanted him to grow up on his own merits and be self-reliant. I think it has been for the best. Joe never knew, until he was of age,, that he had anything, and we didn’t tell Percy of it then, because he was only seventeen. Joe put his money into the ranch here and kept quiet about it. He sat silent for a minute, then continued, “Of, course, this is between ourselves. But do you know, I wish the boy had won. He’s a good deal of a man, and, now I come to think of it, the affair has hit him hard. They could have waited a couple of years, you know.”

And Jack walked off slowly, taking long whiffs at his pipe. Several weeks pissed, during which I saw Nettie Parker several times. She seemed different. Her laugh was not the jolly laugh I had been accustomed to hear, and she seemed pensive at times. Was it her approaching wedding, or— Shorty? I hoped it was Shorty. But. somehow when people pine they eeem tolose color and get thin, and Nettie Parker did neither. And still no word from Shorty, and the day for the wedding only a week away. It was Wednesday of Thanksgiving week and there had been great preparations at Parker’s. The people for miles arouml were invited to the wedding, which old Sam ’lowed would be “th’ bang-uppist thing they ever had in th’ kentry.” I .rode to town on behalf of Jack and myself for something to pre sent to the bride-elect. In the post office some one tapped me on theshouldeL I turned. It was Shorty Fleming— Shorty, with a handsome moustache and smiling quite happily. “How long before you’re going out?” he said. “Right now.” “Bully! Faber, go and borrow ahorse until to-morrow—tell ’em yours is lame, and you’ll have to lead him. Nobody has recognized me back of this overcoat collar and the hirsute adornment, and I don’t want ’em to. I’ll walk out and head up the road. Hurry up with the horses!” In about twenty minutes I was following him, riding a horse I had borrowed from my friend, the doctor, and leading my owu. I soon caught up with Shorty, and we hurried on. Shorty showed me a letter signed “Nettie,’’and proceeded to unfold a plan he had in mind, which, for the quality of pure “nerve,” I had never heard surpassod. Thero was nobody at the house but Manuel, the cook, and Shorty soon had him sworn to silence, after which he proceeded to camp in the cold, little upstairs storeroom off my den. where nobody could find him. Jack was not to know of his presence, he said, because “Jack is so thundering honest and persnickety, and would squeal or spoil the job.”

The half-hundred guests at Parker’s had been enjoying Thanksgiving Day to the full. All of Mrs. Parker’s good things had been stored away where they would do the most good. The minister from town was getting ready for the ceremony, and the guests were bustling about, amid some confusion, trying to find the best points for observation. Nettie Parker, pale for once, stood near the front door, pulling her fingers nerviously, waiting, supposedly, for her father. Some one knocked at the door. Nettie pulled it open, gave a little cry, grabbed a man’s hat from the back of a chair and an overcoat from a peg near by and rushed out, slamming the door. Everybody who saw the performance stood still, dazed. Then, as we heard horses hoofs clattering up the road there was a rush for the outside. Up the road, disappearing fast, were two horses, whose riders were evidently in a hurry. ’There was another rush—this time so: the stables—led by old Sam Parker. But, somehow, the doors would not open. They had been nailed up very securely by a person who was at that moment making hypocritical efforts to get one of them open. When they finally succeeded in mounting two or three men for pursuit, the runaways had three or four miles’ start. At this juncture, Cottrell, as cool as if he had never thought of attending his owd wedding, came up and spoke quietly tc old fParker, who was so dazed that he had not opened his mouth so far. “The old man started. “By gorry, Morris, mebbe thet’s c’rect. No use yowlin’ over spilt milk. Come on, boys.” And they rode off, but not very rapidly. “I told the old gentlemen,” remarked Cottrell to me ; as we turned towards the house, “ that it was no use trying to head them off. They’ll be married inside of an hour.” Then, in a tone that betrayed no trace of bitterness, lie continued: “It is far better to have happened now than—than later. And—as it is—l think maybe there will be only one unhappy person, instead of three. That was Morris Cottrell—philosopher and man. Mr. and Mrs. Percival Fleming were met at the Justice’s office by old Sam Parker, who remarked; “ Wa-al, I swowl Yew air a nervy boyl Ain’t ye both ashamed on’t ? ” No, they were not; and, after Nettie had had a good cry in her father’s arms, the runaways were escorted back to the Parker ranch to receive the congratulations of their friends, foremost among whom was Morris Cottrell.—[The Argonaut.

Gold in Dig Lumps.

The biggest lump of native gold ever found was in the Hill End Mine, New South Wales. It was 4 feet 9 inches high and weighed 040 pounds. It was worth #148,000, and the owners were living on charity when it was found. Welcome Stranger nugget was found in Mount Mollegel, Australia, weighing 190 pounds, and was worth #45,600, It was raffled for SIO,OOO at #5 a chance, and was won by a man driving a baker’s cart. He sold it to a bank. The Welcome nugget, was found in Bakery Hill, Australia. It weighed 184 pounds, 9 ounces, 10 pennyweights and was worth #44,356; was raffled for #50,000 at #5 a chance, and was won by a small boy in a barber shop. Oates and Delson nugget was found in the Donnelly gold field in 1880, in the roots of a tree, weighed 189 pounds and sold for #50,000. The Leg of Mutton nugget, named from its shape, was found at Ballarat at a depth of sixty-five feet. It weighed 134 pounds 11 ounces, and was sold for #33,380. Lady Ilotham nugget—named in honor of the wife of the Governor of New South Wales—was found in Canadian Gully. It weighed 98 pounds 10 ounces and 13 pennyweights, and was sold for #33,557. No-name nugget, found in Canadian Gully, Ballarat, at a depth of twentyfive feet, weighed 84 pounds, 3 ounces 15 pennyweights, and was sold for #2O- - No-name nugget, was found in Canadian Gully, at eighteen feet below the surface, weighed 93 pounds, 1 ounce, 11 pennyweights, and sold for #22,350.

How Apricots Pay.

M. B. Fassett, of the North Ontario Fruit Company, vouches for the statement that one Southern Californian fruit rancher sold his crop of Royal apricots this year from three acres for between #I,OOO and #l,lOO. That is nearly #4OO pei acre for apricots, and if any body has * better showing we would like to heat from him. The price received was only one cent a pound, so that there must have been about twenty tons, to the acre. —[Ontario (Cal.) Record.

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF EVERYDAY MFE. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures Which Show That Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. “Talking of strange things,” said Jarvis Walton of Livingston county, N. Y. “I never heard of a stranger or more inexplicable thing than the one that happened to William Coe and his uncle, Lewis Coe, in South Livonia, up in our county. AVill Coe was cuttin" wood one day, and his axe slipped, striking him on the top of his left foot, and cutting a deep gash four or five inches long. Ilis uncle Lewis was with him, and dressed the wound, bandaging it with his handkerchief. As soon as the handkerchief was bound on the foot the pain, which had been intense, left it, and immediately Will’s uncle, Lewis, was seized with a terrible pain in his left foot, at exactly the same spot where Will’s wound on his foot was. Lewis took off his shoe and stocking, and found a ridge on his foot exactly the same length and shape as the cut ou his nephew’s foot. Will Coe never had a return of the pain to his foot, but his uncle’s foot pained him continually until Will’s wound had entirely healed, •when it left him. The strangest part of the whole thing was that the cut ou Will Coe’s foot left not a trace of a scar, but a red seam remains oa his uncle’s foot to this day, just as, one would naturally supjiose, a scar would have been a reminder on Will’s foot of the wound made by the axe.”

Onk of the latest things in surgery is the employment of vegetable substances in abdominal operations. When a portion of the intestine has been removed something is required to keep the walls apart and hold the opposing ends together for some hours, or until the cut surfaces have become firmly agglutinated. For several years catgut rings and plates of bone, from which the salts had been removed by acid, were used for this purpose. These substances are usually quite hard, and in many cases not readily absorbed. To overcome this difficulty plates cut from raw white potatoes, turnips, parsnips and carrots were used, with the result that they held the ends of the intestines together long enough to allow a firm union of the ends, and then were acted upon by the digestive fluids and absorbed, so that all traces of them disappeared entirely. A man entered the police barracks in Melbourne, Australia, several weeks ago and asked the officer in charge if the police could tell him who he was. It was found that the man had completely lost his memory. The physicians examined him, tried to treat him, and hundreds of people came to see him, but the man could remember nothing before the day he entered the police station, and no one could identify him. In default of his real name, which he did not know, the keepers, who it is explained, had read “Looking Backward,” named him “Edward Bellamy,” and by that name he was known up to last reports, when his mind was still blank a 9 to his history. The only sign of returning memory he has shown is that he played many tunes on the barracks church organ after hearing the first few notes of each. At the Aquarium in Berlin there is a big gorilla whose habits are about as correct as those of most of his distant relatives. He gets up at Bin the morning, takes a bath, and uses soap without hesitation. When his toilet is completed'he takes a cup of milk, after which lie eats two loaves of bread, with Frankfort sausages aud smoked Hamburg beef, all of which he moistens with a glass of weiss beer. At 1 p m. he takes a bowl of soup, with rice and potatoes, and a wing of a chicken. He uses his knife and fork and his napkin like one of our own Four Hundred; but when he thinks that his keepers are not observing him lie discards the impediments of civilization and plunges his muzzle into the bowl, as if to give evideuce of the melancholy fact that even a gorilla can be a hog.

Two Americans in the employment of the government of British Columbia recently accomplished a feat hitherto deemed impossible by crossing the Selkirk mountains in the depth of winter. The object of the trip was to ascertain if it were possible to lay out a pack and cattle trail over the range from Golden to Kalso. The men traveled 150 miles on snowshoes, fifty miles over the wildest mountain country, where glaciers abounded, They found a pass at an altitude of 6,500 feet that is practicable for cattle and pack trains in summer. The thermometer was below zero during most of the trip, which occupied nearly a month. W. A. Fi.annigan of Lincolnton, Ga., has a curiosity in the shape of a pig. It is a sort of pet around the house, and stays with the dogs most of the time, even sleeping with them at night, and has developed some of the dogs’ characteristics. Mr. Flannigan says he was going home through the fields the other day and saw the pig chasing a rabbit for dear life, and apparently with as much earnestness as the best trained dog. Mr. Flannigan is undecided whether to fatten the pig for pork or train it for a fox hunter.

A Maxi*factu ring concern in Birmingham, England, drives something of a trade in crowns. They are real ones of solid gold, with cap of crimson velvet, incrustations of garnet, topaz, and other kinds of cheap but showy stones, and are supplied to the kings of Africa, of whom there are several hundred, at a highly satisfactory return of ivory and other merchandise. The time has gone’ by when an ancient plug hat, adorned with turkey feathers, sufficed to impart a halo of magnificence to Ethiopian royalty. It is not an uncommon thing to make a man eat his own words, or to cram them down his throat, but it is rather an unusual proceeding for a prisoner to eat the evidence of his guilt, and to do it right in open court in the bargain! Whaley, the Buffe lonian, raised a money order, and when arraigned in court picked up the order and ate it. The judge ordered him to suspend digestion at once and take an emetic, but the plan failed to work. A peculiar accident happened on the Bakersfield and San Miguel Railroad at Asphalto, Cal. The train was made up and ready to start for Bakersfield, when a young burro was seen rubbing himself on the switch. When the train started the shriek of the locomotive whistle frightened him and he jumped with.suoh force against the switch as to throw it open just as the train arrived. As a result the locomotive and four of the cars were ditched. The death of Lady Sydney recalls a remarkable incident in the career of her father, the first Lord Anglesey, the Duko

of Wellington’s intimate frier, i end companion. It was he who commanded the light cavalry at Waterloo, and who lost a leg by the very last shot fired at that memorable battle. The limb was buried with military honors, and later a monument was erected in its memory on the banks of the Menai St aits. A decree has been issued in Belgium forbidding any Belgian to capture or destroy fiugs, to consign them by any conveyance, to expose them for sale, or to buy or sell them, either whole or in part. Scientific men may buy them for experimental purposes, and in certain places, where frogs arc reared for the French market they may be exported to France. King Leopold is determined his subjects shall cease to be frog eaters. During the football season of 1892-3 in Great Britain there were twenty-six deaths on the field or resulting from football accidents, thirty-nine broken legs, twelve broken arms, twenty-five broken collarbones, and seventy-five other injuries. Football is much more generally played in England than here, and every village and hamlet has its team or teams, and seemingly its killed or injured. A French statistician has estimated that a man 50 years old has worked 6,500 days, has slept 0,000, has amused himself 4,000, has walked 12,000 miles, has been ill 500 days, has partaken of 36,000 meals, eaten 16,000 pounds of meat and 4,000 pounds offish, eggs and vegetables, and drunk 7,000 gallons of fluid, which would make a lake of 800 feet surface if three feet deep. The Eagle’s Nest is a celebrated rock 1,200 feet in height, among the Ivillarney lakes in Ireland. It is noted for the extraordinary effect of its echoes, and tho slightest whisper will be repeated a thousand times, clear and distinct, from the various projecting points of the cliff. Thk Great Pitch lake of Trinidad covers ninety-nine acres, and contains millions of tons of so-called pitch. This is in reality a mixture of asphalte and oil, which is continually oozing up through cracks and crevices beneath tho pressure of the strata of rock above. A petrified body, evidently the remains of an Indian, was unearthed near Hughes Springs, Texas. Bits of copper and earthen vessels were also brought to light.

A “Broiler Factory.”

In an article on the big farm of Ex. Vice-President Morton, on the Hudson, the New York Tribune says: Tho poultry departmental'rather the “broiler factory,” for that is really what it is, remains to be notioed. This consists of a group of buildings from which are sent to market each week about 500 artificially incubated chickens, that is, between 20,000 and 25,000 a year. Ten incubators, Prairie State and Pineland, are kept in constant use, and all the desirable eggs that can be bought in the neighborhood are consigned to the developing care of these inventions. About half of the eggs put in hatch out alive. About 20 per cent are found clear and therefore unfertile on candling four days after starting. Three-fourths of the chicks go safely through- the brooders and are sold as broilers at eight to fourteen weeks from hatching, weighing when ready for market about one and a half pounds. The brooding arrangement is very simple. It consists merely of a pen, five by fifteen feet, across which, near one end, run four inch-and-a-half hot-water pipes covered with a board and screened on each side by a flannel curtain. Forty-eight of these pens are arranged in an L-shaped building, 168 feet long one way and 108 feet the other; and, as each pen accommodates 100 voracious little chicks —which pass from pen to pen as they grow, the height of the top board of the brooder varying from four and a half inches for the babies up to a foot for the graduating class—the animation of the scene may be imagined. It is intended to breed poultry largely, as well as to hatch it, keeping white breeds exclusively. It is thought that by crossing white Plymouth Rock cocks on white Minorca hens, whose eggs are particularly large, white and attractive, a select trade in “fancy” eggs may readily be acquired

Unique Cure for Idiocy.

The cure of an idiot by means of the surgeon’s knife is ihe unique task now being attempted at the Hahnemann hospital, and it bids fair to prove entirely successful. The second and final operation was performed yesterday afternoon. It is one of the rarest and most delicate operations in medical science. The patient is a little 4-year-old boy named Freddie. When brought to the hospital, his case seemed one of hopeless idiocy. He was utterly incapable of speech as well. The usual openings in the skull, allowing his brain to attain its normal development, were in his case absent. The sole hope was to perform the operation of craniotomy—that is, to create these openings artificially. Two linear sutures had to be cut in the skull, one on each side of the head. The first was successfully made some time ago, and even that half operation produced immediate and noticeable results. The poor little lad became able to articulate a few words and gave wonderful promise of a return of the brain to its normal functions, in case the second suture could be as successfully performed. This operation was necessarily delayed owing to the shock to the patient. The second suture was cut, however, yesterday, and the triumph of the entire surgical feat seems assured.— [Philadelphia Record.

A Feathered Room.

Uastle Moritzburg, on the Dresden Heath, has ot late become prominent as the trysting-placeof two sovereigns, Emperor William I. and King Arthur of Saxony. The old time-worn mansion, surrounded by lakes well stocked with fish, played an important part in the history of the Saxon dynasty, when August the Strong gave his sumptuous entertainments within its walls and grounds, which rivalled those of the Trianon epoch in France. The greatest curiosity of the pretty hunting chalet, which contains over 200 rooms profusely decorated with magnificent antlers and hunting trophies, is the “Feathered Room," a space in which the tapestries, rugs, bedspread and tester curtain are made of the plumes of numerous exotic birds. Everything in this room is Mexican handiwork, and was the gift of the King of Spain to August the Strong.—|New York World. Professor Dolbear, of Tufts College, thinks there can be no doubt that telegraphing without the use of wires is near at hand. There is good reason to believe that wires will not be necessary even for commercial purposes. He declares there is no doubt that within a year electrical trains will run at the rate of 120 mileskn hour.

NOTES AMD COMMENTS.

The American Cultivator ciaims that "the white man’s covetousness of lands owned by Indians has probably always exaggerated their value. Certain it is that in most parts where forests had to be cleared off the land today only represents the cost of improvements made on -it. By this rule the unimproved land as held by the Indians had little or no appreciable value. It may prove the same with some of the Western Indian reservations only lately brought into market. While out of reach the Cherokee strip was fondly pictured as the finest agricultural country that the sun ever shone upon. The Indians at least sold it under this impression for a pretty good sum of money. Now it appears to have been a mistake. Much of the land will not be taken up, for the reason that, if preempted, nobody would be likely soon to come along and pay a big price for it. The Western boomer stops his booming if he finds it does not induce an Eastern tenderfoot to come along and buy his property at the boom prices. Too much Eastern capital has gone in that way already. The whole country will be richer if more Eastern capital stays at home to develop the resources of the communities where it was made.”

In a recent work on criminology, the learned investigator says that out of ninety-eight young men criminals fortyfour per cent, did not blush when examined. Of one hundred and twent-two female criminals, eighty-one per cent, did not blush. If our novels are to keep up with science, they must change their indicia of emotion. It must be the men who blush and the other sex whose sensitiveness must not be a regular feature. Leander blushes as he declares himself or is suddenly brought up against a sentimental outcrop. But Hero takes it calmly. The scientist also notices that women blush about the ears rather than on the.cheek. This, also, requires a change in the novels. It is a pointer, too, for the ladies’ man who is watching for signs that he is making an impression. If he fastens his gaze upon the left ear. he may see something that will tell him he may consider himself happy. In reference to the viking ship that has been constructed at the World’s Fair and modeled after the one dug up at Goking in 1880, it may be of interest to know that the etymologists have had a severe wrestle with the problem of the derivation of the word “viking.” There used to be a current popular notion that the word had something to do with king, and it had a correspondingly lordly promiueuce in vocabularies. Then an iconoclastic philologist came along and proved convincingly that the word meant simply a predatory sea robber who dwelt in a vik, or village, by the sea and made piratical excursions therefrom. The latest authorities derive it from the Icelandic vig, a warrior, and thereby restore the word to some of its old-time glory. It is a curious fact that, while the westward movement of the population has covered no less than !) 1-8 degrees of longitude (9 degrees, 21 minutes, 7 seconds), this movement has run almost on a straight line, the extreme northern and southern variation embracing less than one-third of a degree of latitude (18 minutes, 56 seconds). To put the contrast more distinctly, we may say that, while the western movement for the century aggregates 505 miles, the extreme northern and southern variation is a little under twenty-two miles, and the finishing point of the line is only some six miles south of the starting point. A weld-known New York physician says that he gives bread pills and sugar pills in his practice to compose the nerves and stimulate a belief that they are gettingbetter in people who have nothing the matter with them. Chronic invalids, lie says, are to be found chiefly among people who have nothing to think about but their livers, and they devote their minds to their aches and pains with great assiduity. He would like to recommend work, but he knows that his hypochondriac patients would get angry at such a suggestion, and would engage another physician. There can scarcely be a better gauge of the general prosperity of the State than the amount of the savings of the great class of wageworkers and persons receiving salaries. These people comprise the bulk of the savings-bank depositor*. According to the report of the Superintendent of Banking, issued recently, there was an increase in the deposits last year, as compared with the previous year, of nearly $41,000,000. A natural element by which the city of Boise, Idaho, derives a great benefit, is a great volume of hot water that gushes out of several deep artesian wells. The water possesses no medicinal value, but a six-inch pipe has been laid from the springs into the city, and hot water will oe conducted into nearly every residence and business house in the city. The cost of heating with hot water is estimated to be 50 per cent, less than with coal.

The Shrike or Butcher Bird.

The shrike bird is very common in Florida and generally known by the name of butcher bird. It is a most cruel and vindictive bird, and it seems to have the same traits North or South. Most varieties of orange trees, especially seeding trees, are covered with thorns, often three or four inches long. It is oommon to find beetles, grasshoppers, katydids, and the harmless chameleon impaled on these thorns, and one often surprises the bird in his cruelties. I was once taking dinner with a friend in town; the windows were open and in one end of the room was a canary bird in its cage. Suddenly a butcher bird darted in a window, and flew around the bird cage. The poor little canary seemed fascinated and drawn to the side of the cage, when the cannibal thrust its head in between the wires and, with a most dexterous twist, took off the head of the capary and,- dropping it on the dining table near my plate, flew out of the window. So quickly was it done that, though seven persons sat at the table, none of us realized the catastrophe until the helpless little head fe’l on the table. Only a conple of weeks ago I came across two 'boys on the road who had killed a black snake some five or six feet long, which they were stretching across the road. While standing looking at the snake, and within a few feet of it. a butcher bird pounced down and, almost as quick as lightning, seized and twisted off the end of the tail and flew away with some four inches of it to ornament some thorn on an orange tree. Therk is no proof of the extinction of the buffalo so convincing and saddening as the great piles of skulls, horns, and bones of these animals that are seen near the railroad tracks on the Northwestern plains. The sale of these bones by farmers and ranchmen who find them gives them a small return in ready money. Most of the bones are shipped to the East, where they are converted into bono charcoal, which is used for filtering in the sugar refineries.

BREAD UPON THE WATERS.

Showing How Kindness to Others May Bring Interest. “In the fall of 1849,” 3aid David McLeod, the white-haired pioneer, “ I sailed from New Orleans for California by way of Panama with S2OO in my pocket. On my arrival at Panama I took the Chagres fever and bad to lie over. I was a carpenter and had brought my tools along. One night as 1 lay in my tent Spauish thieves broke in, stole all my money and even carried away my tool*. When I woke up my condition was desperate. However, I was about well of the fever and I set out to trail the thieves. At length I found the broken open and with a few of the tools yet remaining. I went to a man who kept a hotel there and told him I was robbed, was a carpenter and had nothing to eat. I told him I must have some work. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘l’ll give you $lO apiece to cut windows through the walls.’ I accepted the offer and he took me in. It was an old Spanish building, and the wood inside of the brick was very tough. It took me three days to cut one window. Finally, however, I discovered how to cut the wood easily, and then I made two windows a day. In this way, and by doing other work, I finally got together nearly S2OO again. The steamer Panama was then just leaving, and I got on her as one of the carpenters, the agreement being I should pay my passage in this way. I had put in a wooden bulkhead in the enginewhile the Panama was in the harbor, and pleased the Captain so well that heplaced the best stateroom at my disposal. But shortly after we sailed it developed that there was a man sick on the deck, and I went to him and gave up my stateroom and took his place, spreading my blankets on the deck. On our arrival here I went to work at carpentering on various ships in the harbor, and the sick man, who had at length got well, took the position of cashier in or General Naglee’s bank. Theic were fifty , sixty vessels here, a great many being from Sydney. The first day I made sl6 and some days I made S3O, and again as high as S6O and even more. I did so well that, though I arrived in May of 1850, by October I had $4,800, all of which I had deposited with the cashier in Naglee’s bank. But just then the bank broke and its doors were closed. I went to the bank, but officers guarded it. I at length saw the cashier and he said the bank had gone to pieces and he didn’t know whether he could get my money out or not, but fie wouid do so if possible. He was permitted to go in at 7 o’clock each evening, and that night I stood in the rain and darkness as he came out and hauded me the bag containing all my wealth. ‘You did me a kindness once,’ said he, ‘and here is your gold. I won’t forget it.’ I got away with my money in the dark and nobody was ever the wiser. This has taught me to always favor a man whenever I can, for no man knows how badly he may need to have it some day reciprocated.—* [San Francisco Examiner.

The Bed of the Atlantic.

Proceeding westward from the Irish coast the ocean bed deepens very gradually; in fact, for the first 230 miles the gradient is but six feet to the mile. In the next twenty miles, however, the fall is over 9,000 feet, and so precipitous ig the sudden descent that in many places depths of 1,200 to 1,600 fathoms are encountered in very close proximity to the 100-fathom line. With the depth of 1,800 to 2,000 fathoms the sea bed in part of the Atlantic becomes a slightly undulating plain, whose gradients are so light that they show but little -alteration of depth for 1.200 miles. The extraordinary flatness of these submarine prairies renders the familiar simile of the basin rather inappropriate. The hollow of the Atlantic is not strictly a basin whose depth increases regularly toward the centre; it is rather a saucer or dishlike one, so even is the contour of ita bed. The greatest depth of the Atlantic has been found some 100 iqiles to the northward of the Island of St. Thomas, where soundings of 3,875 fathoms were obtained. The seas round Great Britain can hardly be regarded as forming part of the Atlantic hollow. They are rather a part of the platform banks of the European continent which the ocean has overflowed. An elevatioa of the sea bed 100 fathoms would suffice to lay bare the greatest part of the North Sea and join England to Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and France. A deep channel of watei would run down the west coast of Norway, and with this the majority of the fiords would be connected. A great part of the Bay of Biscay would disappear; but Spain and Portugal are but little removed from the Atlantic depression. The 100-fathom line approaches very near the west coast, and soundings of 1,000 fathoms can be made within twenty miles of Cape St. Vincent, and much greater depths have been sounded at distances but little greater than this from the western shores of the Iberian Peninsula. —[Nautical Magazine.

Which Was First Admitted.

It will never be known which was ad mitted first—North or South Dakota—says the Detroit Free Press, which makes this explanation: “When the two proclamations were presented for the President’s signature, somebody raised the question of priority, and the President, finding it hard to decide which to sign first, ordered the documents, which were exactly alike, to be covered down to the blank sleft for his name. They were turned face downward, and rapidly changed about until nobody could tell which was which. After this they were turned over, and the President wrote his name on each. The ink was allowed to dry without the use of blotting paper, and then the documents were again turned down and again shuffled about. They were then taken up and the coverings removed. One of them came into the Union before the other the length of time it took the President to write his name.”

He Cornered the Cucumbers.

The Shah of Persia is passionately fond of cucumbers. On one occasion, early in the season, a pile of them was placed before him. Now, in Persia, * early cucumbers are almost worth their weight in gold. The Shah never said a word, but began to put himself outside of as many of these cholera-provokers as he could safely do. He buried a couple of dozen of them, and the host and his more prominent guests began to indulge the hope that their turn would soon come, when His majesty quietly and solemnly stowed the remainder away in his various pockets, and left the table literally loaded. —[Yankee Blade. New vails are made of very fine Russian net, bordered around the lower edge with three rows of very narrow black velvet ribbon, and tied in front with three tiny bows.