Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1893 — Page 4

THE DEAD LOVER. j A ROUMANIAN FOLK SONO. Ho whom I loved bo well la in his long, long Bleep; Yet I lament him not, For he told me not to weep. t More dear to him the grave l Than I could ever be; For though I go to him, He does not come to me. I envy not the grave What yesterday was mine, But bow my head and say, Keep him for he is thine. Bat keep not, grave, my youth, Which cannot p ofit thee; My smile and my light step— O give them back to me! But the grave answered, No; For these rhinos still are dear, Since he, dep ived of t iem, Wou d bs too lonely hero. The i to the doad I pr iv: Restore my youth t > me, That wh n we meet ag .i.r I be not old to thee. But he heari nor sees, For his eves like mine ere d m; So to his grave I come, To get them hack from him. For only in the grave Are tears no longer shed, And the liviug happy made Besides the happy d ad. —[R. H. Stoddard, in Harper’s Magazine.

JACK WATSON'S EXPERIENCE.

Jack Watson drank heavily while v e ■was in college, but we called him a goo.. fellow. After he left college he began to drink heavily and to be a good fellow, but we called him a drunkard. When he was 25 years old I looked upon him as a lost man. I believed that he would be a mere sot at 30, and that he would die miserably before he was 35. We lost each other for some years and then, after a chance meeting in New York, I dined with him most happily in the comfort of his home and in the light | of a beautiful woman’s eves. When the light was withdrawn and we were left to dim the remaining illumination with a haze of tobacco smoke, I fell into the deep thought upon the agreeable failure of my prophecy. What had saved Jack? I might have said it was his marriage, but I knew that he had fallen into the depths again soon after. Hearing that report, I had pitied her exceedingly, and bad thought the worst of Jack. Yet I could not doubt that he was at last in the sure way. Knowing him so well I felt that some surprising incident must have changed the course of his life, and my euriosity craved the slory. “I know what you're thinking about,” said he. “You’re wondering why lam here instead of being in the gutter.’’ “Oh, • no, Jack,’’ said I, ’“nothing of the sort. I always knew you’d come out all right. You drunk a little at one time, of course, but--” “No, I didn’t, said Jack. I never drank a little. I drank a barrel. Moderation wasn't in me. I was a drunkard. I lived the life of a drunkard. I died the death of drunkard. “Metaphorically?” “Littrully. That may sound absurd hut it is only the truth. Nothing but derth could save me.” “Not even—” “No; not even Alice.” His eyes filled with tears of tenderness at the mention of his wife’s name. “ I was never so wrong headed,” he continued, as to suppose that a man can be saved by love alone. Any person who has had experience in such matters knows that an added motive for sobriety is an added temptation to the drunkard. You see a man marry and keep sober for a while. Then you see him take a drink again. Y T ou say it is because his love has waned with the honeymoon. It’s no such thing. At first he does not drink because the novelty of the situation keeps bis mind off the subject. Marriage seems like a great vacation from the dullness of life. And then love grows stronger until he begins to realize what it is. The preciousntss of his possession reveals itself to him. He who has more than his due is never free from fear. What if he lose her? He reviews the dangers. In the front rank of them he sees his appetite. And that is the end of him. As soon as he knows that it will be absolutely fatal for him to touch a diop of liquor, he is certain to do it. That was my experience; and my sin was the greater because I knew it all beforehand.”

“Yet .you escaped the consequence." “No: it killed me, as I have already mid. I will tell you the story. You can make a farce comedy or a tragedy out of it, just as you like, It was a ghastly joke. Mother nature is the grimmest practical joker, after all, and this is the way she it on me. But first I must let you into the mysteries of our early housekeeping. The details seem trivial but they contributed to final catastrophe. “I began with the usual drunkard's balance—on the wrong side of the books. We took a flat in that long row I pointed out to you as we came up town on the L. Our furniture we prooured on the Installment plan. It was not luxurious, of course, but you should have seen how pretty a home Alice made with it. There were weekly payments to be met; and for a month or more the rising sun and I were equal models of punctuality.

Then I let it go for a week. Nothing happened. I was somewhat surprised at that, for my contract with the dealer had been more binding than the shaekels of Israel in Egypt. Another week slipped by, and another. Various causes reduced our funds to a low ebb. Presently I owed S4O. A polite collector came. I promised immediate settlement, and he departed. I was to receive my monthly check from the Philadelphia office in a few days, and I relied upon that. Something delayed it. I borrowed SSO from John Ennis, and, as h« gave me the cash he looked at me in a peculiar way. “ 1 He thinks I’ll go off on a spree and spend this money,’ said I to myself, and • hr... » rdded ‘Great heavens, what if I should.' ••xi seems absurd to be sentimental about a few sticks of furniture, but when *• man is newly married and has a home for the first time in ten years, he may be pardoned for an excessive anxiety to keep it undisturbed. That anxiety was, of course, my chief danger. The drunkard is always on the edge of a precipice, and if he looks down he will cast himaelf into the depths. It is the same, perhaps, with all moral perils: they have a fascination. I looked down that day and was dragged over the brink. •That was the beginning of such degradation ss I could not name to any mTn but a true friend. The poverty which

drunkenness entails Is not aoawy fifes worst of it, and yet that alone is heart rending to endure or to look back upon. What Alice suffered doubtless I do not even know. How she unfailingly forgave the Angel of the Book must have recorded in words we have not learned on earth. Through it all I think her principal anxiety was to preserve our home.

“I will not weary you with the story of her struggles. There is nothing so mean as money, and thfe less you have of it the meaner it is. One can reap a fortune at arm’s length, but a few pennies will sneak into an intimacy with their owner which will desperately assail his self-respeot. May Heaven forgive the man who will not guard his wife from that, if he can; and I could, but did not, for the sake of my appetite. “At last there came to me a day like that when I borrowed the money from Ennis, only far more serious. It was Wednesday, and the polite collector had mentioned Friday —the day when men arc hanged—as the probable occasion of a humiliating experience for me. After many heartbreaking disappointments I raised the necessary amount. I had preserved my connection with Allen & Graves, and was still in charge of their New York office, but my position was in jeopardy because of my habits, and my salary w - as overdrawn and squandered. I borrowed that money of one of our customers, Andy Playson. You know him. He said that he wanted to ‘talk business.’ Andy cannot talk business comfortably except in a liquor saloon. The demon inside me welcomed him as a friend. Here was certainly an excuse. It was a matter of business to preserve ray friendly relations with Andy. “The next thing I remember "distinctly is opening my eyes in total darkness. I thought at first I was blind. How long it took me to discover where I was lam unable to say. In reality I was lying in the little vestibule of my office. I got upon my feet, opened the inner door and turned on the electric light. My watch had stopped, but from the window I could see the illuminated dial in the tower of City Hall. It was nearly midnight. “But what midnight? I had no idea whether I had been unconscious three days or a month. My mind’ was- so stupefied that I could not ascertain the date of any of the ways which would have suggested themselves to me in my normal condition. There was a newspaper on my desk. My eyes rested upon it without intent, but at least one word seemed to detach itself from the page. It was the day of the week in the date line of the paper and thnt day was Friday; then it was nlrcadv too late.

“There was a pistol in the drawer of my desk, and, somehow, though my hands trembled so that I could hardly hold a key, I managed to open the lock and at last to secure the weapon. Yet it it seemed an idle and cowardly thing to do, to die without a struggle, to accept the consequences of my fall as final. I put the pistol into my pocket and hastened from the office. But thought was in my mind, to learn the worst at once. She would forgive me certainly. Even a brother can claim seventy times seven, and I with a far more potent right would plead again. This fall should be my last. “It seemed I was at home as if by magic. The key turned in the street door. I climed the dark stairs and came to the third landing breathless with my haste. The small key turned in the lock but the door did not open. There was nothing alarming about that; Alice often used the second lock to make herself more secure.

“Alice!” I called, and shook the door. There was no response, I listened. Surely there was a confused sound within, a murmur as of the weeping of one who is exhausted with the shedding of tears. It was almost a relief to find thnt she was there. We had no friends to whom she could go in an emergency, hut if the rooms were bare she might have taken refuge even with comparative strangers. I spoke her name again. It seemed ns if the noise within ceased. I thought that she was coming to the door, but she did not. Certainly she had heard me.

“Did she deliberately exclude me? Had she learned of my debauch? Had I been guilty of something more disgraceful than drunkenness? In the darkness which concealed the last three days what madness and folly lay. forgotten but irrevocably written in mv past? But perhaps she was asleep. I made a loud noise at the door, as loud as I dared, fearing to let the other inmates in the house know of my disgrace. There was no answer.

“Confused, alarmed, and utterly sick at heart, I sank down upon the floor and sat there leaning against the wall, I do not know how long. At times I felt resentment against her, and then I excused my own fault with weak arguments; again, I fell into abject pleading, with my lips almost against the door. And then, in desperation, I thought of the weapon in my pocket, and was on the brink of death. Yet through it all one idea grew stronger as the others faded; I longed to see her again. Pledges rose to my lips which no man could utte;- and then violate; which no woman Ajuld hear, unmoved, from one she loved “It came into my mind to burst the door, and I had got upon my f*et to make the effort, when I was aware of the sound of some person ascending the stairs below me. I had no wish to be discovered in such plight, and so I put my back against the door and kepi, quite still. The hall was dark as a oeffin. I did not see the man who passed, nor did

he have a suspicion of fay presence. He went up the stairs to the next landing and there paused. I waited for the noise of the door’s closing, hut it did not come. Instead, I heard a light, peculiar sound which even in my miseries aroused a faint curiosity. I remembered suddenly that the Lawrpnces who occupied the flat above were away from the city. What was the man doing at that door? “I ascended- the stairs noiselessly. There was a ray of light above. It came from a dark lantern in the hand of a man who kneeled before the door examining the lock. In an instand a wild and absurd thought came to me. I drew my my revolver and advanced upon thiß man. He heard me and turned. Enough of the light from his lantern struck upon his face to show me a picture of fright. This burglar evidently had not the courage suited to his profession. “‘Don’t be alarmed,” said I. “If vou do what I tell you and do it promptly, I will let you go.’ “Helooked at the revolver, and then he uttered a sort of growl which resolved itself at last into the words ‘ What do you want?’

“With my left hand I struck a match and lit the in the hall in order to have light enough to shoot by. “ Come with me,” I said, and made him go down the flight of stairs carrying his tools with him. _ * “Now,” said t, “you have nippers in that little bag. Turn the key in this lock.” He did it, for he had no choice. I assured myself that the door could be opened with the small latch key My

heart beat like a trip hammer. I had na voice to tell the burglar he might go. I waved my hand and he vanished in a accond. Then I entered. “The hall was bare; no curtains hung before the parlor door. The window* stared at me. Enough light 6hown in from the street to show a room absolutely empty. My wife’s name came from my lips in atone.such as amannniyuse when he pleads for mercy in the face of death and has no hope. ‘‘l raised the pistol, which was still in my hand, and then I whispered to myself, ‘Not here.’ Even the bare walls, I thought, retained some snered memory of her which stayed my hand. That room, I said, had to me the one chance of my life; and I had thrown it away; but I would not die there. I would at least hide my disgrace from the eye of mecenary curiosity. I wished no such epitaph a 9 the papers would be likely to give me. “As for death itself it had already come. When I turned to leave that room there was upon me the peace which is the reward of the good man and the pardon of the evil doer—the common lot of us all. If there had been any hope in my soul that I could ever make amends to her I would have lived in torment if necessary to do it. But I had utterly despaired of myself. “ I tell you, Harry, I was dead when 1 left that room. The function of locomotion was all that distinguished me from one who had passed through the great change. My mind had ceased to exist and my heart to suffer. Doubtless muscular energy of my frame would have carried me to the actual physical consummation of suicide; but mentally I had died of despair and degradation. "I passed down the stairs, opened and closed the outside door and stood upon the step. In the sky was the glimmer of dawn. The physical sense which yes survived in me perceived it and wa> more weary of living at the sign of reviving life and tumult and struggling. The soul was gone and the body was impatient for dissolution. “And yet the habits of this life persist strangely in the body. What do you suppose, Harry, that this present shell of my spirit did when I ceased to direct it?”

I shook my head. “Well, sir, it walked fifty-six feet to the left—the width of two city lots—turned to the left again and entered a house. It mounted two flights of stairs, opened a door, and walked into a pretty little parlor. Then it passed into a room where a dim light burned and a woman lay asleep with one white arm stretched out as if it to greet a man whom she loved. My bodily eyes saw that, and then my soul came back, f fell upon my knees beside that bed and covered the white hand with kisses.

“ That’s the story, Harry. The soul when it came back to me was better than before. It can resist temptation; it can do it 3 own will, being no more the slave of that witch who poisoned my blood centuriesngo, perhaps; and above all, it can love without fear, being now sufficiently in harmony with what it loves to feel secure.”

“Of oourse you don’t need to be told that it wasn’t Saturday morning,” he continued. “That paper in my office was almost a week old. I had been unconscious from drink not more than six hours. As for my getting into the wrong house, I discovered the next day that the man who built that block of flats got his locks and keys cheaper by having them all alike. One of the reasons why wo moved out; and yet I forgive him for his parsimony. Indeed, I bless him for it. Otherwise I might not have died, aud if I had not died i could not have lived the new life.”—Charles W. Hooke, in Brooklyn Times.

RELIABLE RECIPES.

Boiled Corn. —Remove the outside husk, leaving the inner oae on; put into salted boiling water and boil rapidly. When done, take it out, drain, pull the silk from the end of the cob and servo in the husk. Or strip off the husk and free the corn from all the silk, put in boiling water and let cook half an hour. Serve folded in a hot napkin. Corn Omelet. —Take half a cup of green or canned corn and chop it very line; to that add the yolfc of one egg well beaten, pepper and salt to taste, and two tablespoonfuls of rich sweet milk or cream. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth and stir in just before cooking; have the griddle very hot and well buttered; pour the mixture in, and when nicely browned turn one-half over the other, as in cooking other omelets. Premium Sandwich. —The “Premium Sandwich” is made as follows: Break a fresh egg in a bowl and beat thoroughly; add one and one-half cupfuls of sweet milk, a saltspoonful of salt and a tablespoonful of melted butter. Beat well and add lightly one and three-quarter cupfuls of sifted flour mixed with one aud one-hnlf teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Bake in roil shaped gem pans. When cool cut lengthwise with a sharp knife, which will not crumble the crust. Spread thinly with butter and cover with finely chopped roast mutton, slightly salted. The mutton must not be overdone, but a trifle rare. As they are cut, lay the two parts of each muffin next' each other, so that thev may fit when put together.—f Good Housekeeping.

America’s Achievements in Astronomy

The chief problems relating to the sun are the study of its spectrum; meusures of the amounts of its radiant light and heat; registration of the phenomena of solar eclipses and of the corona; photography of the spectra and of the forms of the spots, the protuberances, the faculie; investigation of the laws governing its rotation and of the law governing the production of its heat through shrinkage, etc., etc. In every one of these departments Americans have born< or are bearing an important part. The planetary surfaces have been successfully and assiduously studied both by photography and visually; and the spectra of the major planets investigated. Minor planets (or asteroids) have been discovered in great numbers by means of elaborate stellar charts constructed for this especial purpose; seventy-eight asteroids have been discovered in America alone and their orbits have been calculated. New satellites accompanying Saturn, Jupiter and Mars have been discovered here. The brilliant discovery of ;the fact that terrestrial latitudes go through a cycle of (small) changes in about four hundred and thirty day* is due to an American. The first daguerreotype of the moon was taken in New York, and since that time the lunar surface has been assiduously and successfully photographed by several American observatories, private and public.—[Edward S. Holden, in the Forum.

AN IMPUTATION.

Rhapsodist — Her glorious hair floated upon the surface of the placid water. Bington—And did she sink?

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF EVERYDAY LIKE. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures Which Show That Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. Bob Vonus hates an alligator. At least this statement is made by the Lumpkin (Ga.) Independent. The uncanny appearance of the big ugly saurian is sufficiently forbidding to most people to make them despise him; but Bob has a better reason than that: they destroy his fish and pigs and would destroy his geese and ducks if ho had any. Six or eight years ago Bob started a goose farm on his mill pond. He knew the value of feathers, and thought the people would appreciate the opportunity of obtaining them near home for making pillows and beds. His big mill pond was such a fine place for them to swim and live and raise in. So he got up five or six hundred pairs of geese anu put them on his pond. They were in their glory, and the water was dotted with the white and blue of their plumage from morcing till night as they gracefully glided over the placid' expanse of the pond. Their nests were built in the rushes along its sides, and their melodious voices reverberated along its banks from end to end. But they did not increase according to Bob’s notion—their numbers were diminishing perceptibly. A dead one could bo seen occasionally drifting along the edge of the bordering rushes. At first Bob thought it might be minks, otters, skunks, ’possums, or what not, that were destroying them, but scon found out that it was alligators, for he actually saw one day one of the ugly creatures catch a goose and pull it under the water. Partly eaten geese would sometftnes be found. In the course of a few months Bob had the same big pond of water, but not a single goose—and, as aforesaid, Bob hates an alligator, and he and his ten boys have been occupying the dull summer months in killing them.

Mn. Campbell, the big rancher of Texas, whose scheme for exterminating coyotes by inoculating them with the mange was mentioned not long ago, reports that the plan promises success. His plan is to catch wolves or coyotes in a trap and put them in a corral with a dog badly affected with the mange, and after they have become infected to turn them loose to spread the disease. It is said the disease is incurable. Mr. Campbell has infected and turned loose about twenty coyotes and wolves in this way in three or four months. He has not yet found any dead wolves, but he has trapped several that had the disease in an advanced stage, from which he concludes it is spreading. He says nothing but a carnivorous animaljwill tuke the disease and consequently there is no danger to stock in spreading it. Wolves and coyotes have greatly increased in recent years in spite of all attention to clean them out, and stockmen nre watching Mr. Campbell’s scheme with interest.

A curious accident recently befell the four-year-old child of Frank Larsen, a Swede farmer near Skowhegan, Me., in which the little fellow swallowed a newly hatched turtle. The creature, which was about the size of a half dollar, had been sent the mother from the South, and the boy was playing with it, putting it in his mouth, after the peculiar fashion of children to clap everything there that comes in their way. The mother heard the boy gasping for breath, and running to it saw that some hard object had become lodged in the upper throat. A doctor was hurriedly summoned, and after some difficulty succeeded in getting hold of the obstruction, and drew it forth to his own and Mrs. Larsen’s astonishment. The turtle had drawn in its limbs on finding itself in close quarters, and was little the worse for its singular experience, but the boy was almost suffocated.

Fbkeman Biqos, of Hutton township, eight miles from Charleston, 111., carries the scalps of 21,000 squirrels at his belt, so to speak. As his reputation for truth and veracity is good, his neighbors do not dispute his claim that he has slaughtered 600 deer, 800 wild turkeys, and more prairie chickens than he had time to count. The mighty Nimrod is 71 years old, and his sight is just as good as ever, so good, in fact, that if the bullet from the rifle he has carried for many years fails to strike Mr. Squirrel between the eyes he will hardly throw the animal in his gnme bag—and squirrels are worth from 12£ to 15 cents. For thirty-five years “Freem” Biggs has hunted “hush tail*,” and the proceeds of his accurate aim have bought a fine farm on which he reared a family of ten children.

The natives of the San Bias const, part of the western coast of South America, have many peculiar customs. The Indian boy, after his marriage, becomes the slavo of his futher-iu-law, and must submit in all things to his will until emancipated by his own daughter’s marriage, when he sets up his owu home and becomes thenceforth master of his son-in-law. The men are very jealous of their women, and, in case of war or other grave danger, their first step is to kill their wives and children. They believe dreams and insanity to be the work of evil spirits, and the dreamer, upon telling his dream, is killed. The insane are burned alive. They allow no foreigner to sleep in one of their villages. The total population of San Bias is supposed to be about 20, COO.

Wolf, Chief of the Palouse Indians, is rich and happy. According to a Walla Walla paper, he owns 160 acres of land on the Suake River, all under cultivation, with a good house and barns, but he prefers to live in his tepee. He raises horses principally, and now has over 2,000. He is forty-nine years of age, and dresses in ludian costume, with moccasins, blanket, calico blouse shirt, trousers, and a hat decorated with turkey feathers, except on great occasions, when his favorite headgear is a hat brim adorned all around with coyote tails. For jewelry he wears rings, beads, shells, bears’ teeth and bracelets of brass.

The immense sycamore tree on the banks of the Sandusky River, just at the edge of the village of Upper Sandusky, is dying, and the fact is most regrettable, for the tree is the largest of its species east of the Rockies. It is fortyone feet in girth at the base of the trunk, and for years it has been one of the sights of Northern Ohio. Near it Colonel Crawford was burned at the stake by Indians, and the tradition is that he would have been burned at the very roots of the tree had not the ohief feared the vengeance of the Great Father for suoh an act of sacrilege.

Miss Emma Lindsay, while quarrelling with her brother-in-law in Ohio Falls. Ind., suddenly became speechless and blind and fell to the floor. The girl, at last accounts, was still blind and dumb. The experience of John Bahler, of Battle Creek, Mich.,is quite the reverse of Mis*

Lindsay’s. Thirty-two years ago it wu found necessary to remove both his eyeballs. A year ago he suddenly saw a light--a lamp upon a table. It was found new eyeballs were growing on tho ends of the optic nerves. Since that time Bahler’s eyesight has been gradually improving, and he can now distinguish pronounced colors. Richard Hodgson, LL. D., secretary of the American Society of Psychical Research, tolls the following instance of remarkable duality: Ansel Bourne, an itinerant preacher, disappeared from his home in Greene, R 1., while apparently in his usual health. Two months afterward he was discovered in Norristown, Pa., where for six weeks he had been keeping a small variety store under the name of A. J. Brown. He appeared as a normal person, but was, in fact, in a somnambulistic condition all the time.

Two little girlß, wards in chancery, and heiresses to SIOO,OOO each, were, it is said, recently arraigned as vagrants in a London police court. Their fortunes are so securely locked up in chancery that by no process of law can the money be obtained until the children are of age. They nre at present practically destitute, and unable to procure decent surroundings, clothing or education. An India paper says that the young Rajah of Poodookota recently went on a hunting expedition to Travancore, India, and shot an elephant whose tusks weighed 76 lbs. This beats the record by two pounds, Mr. Sanderson, whose record was the highest, having killed an elephant in Southern India whose tusks weighed 74 lbs.

The following curious accident is reported from Calcutta. The driver of a ticca gharry, which was at the stand at Burtoliah, was performing his devotions on the roof of the conveyance when the horses bolted, and the driver was thrown to the ground on his head. He was removed to a hospital in a precarious condition.

A son of Sampson Barker, of Ozark, Mo., while playing in the sand on the banks of the White River, near his father’s home, unearthed several tin cans which contained $1,500 in gold and silver coins ranging in date from 1840 to 1850. The money is supposed to have been blried by some one during the war.

Vincent and John Hale, brothers, separated in 1844, one going South and the other West. One entered the Union and the other the Confederate service, and each thought the other dead, until a recent Monday, when they met by accident in Ashland, Ky. They have for years been living within half a day’s ride of each other without knowing it.

Mr. John Lenfert and wife of Milford, Me., have been married sixty-five years, and have occupied the same house nearly half a century. He i« ninety-three years old and she eightytwo.

AN ELECTRICAL DETECTIVE.

Novel Way In Which a Murderer Was Brought to Conl'essiou. Those who are accustomed to frequent the courts in which murder cases aro tried find themselves drifting into the habit of attaching grea» significance to actions, gestures and expressions which under ordinary circumstances would esoape notice. A prominent eleotrical journal relates how this habit led to the conviction of a murderer through the aid of electricity. The murder had been one of unwonted atrocity and the prisoner appeared absolutely indifferent. In fact, it was impossible for the keenest eye to detect any change in his countenance or attitude during the examination of the witnesses who gave thij most damaging testimony against him. The prosecuting attorney, however, noticed that he nevor once relaxed his hold on the arms of the chair in which he sat, but seemed to support himself by the pressure which he brought to beai ou them. Knowing that under intense mental excitement, no matter how outwardly calm an individual may he, the hands will involuntarily contract and relax accoiding to the intensity of the emotion and the susceptibility of the person aflected, the counsel saw here a chance of securing evidence of great value. He thought that if the arms of the chair could only be made to communicate the pressure of the invisible contractions of the muscles of the hands and arms of tho witness, an important light might he thrown on the case. He called an electrician to his aid, and during the absence of the prisoner from the court room the arms of the chair were removed and split in half and in each was placed a hard carbon plate, which served as a variable resistant. Wires were run from metal plates, placed on either side of the carbon, through the legs of the chair and under the floor to a telephone receiver and battery placed in an adjoining closet. The arms were again upholstered and the chair replaced. Every increase in pressure on the arm of the chair now affected the carbon, which, acting as a transmitter, caused sounds to issue from the mouth of the receiver. On the resumption of the trial a court official was placed in a closet, aud by a series of signals arranged beforehand signified the feelings of the prisoner as they were betrayed through the muscles of his hands. The main points against the prisoner were thus determined. They were presently formulated and read to him in privacy, and he was so overcome that he made a confession of hisorime.—fChicage Tribune.

Burial Customs.

Corpses were often interred in a sitting posture, sometimes, doubtless, to Bare the expense of a full-sized grave, as in the case of “Rare Ben Jonsoa’’ at Westminster. The hour glass in the coffin was varied in Sweden by another kind—a looking glass—in the coffin of unmarried women, so that they can see to comb their hair when Gabriel blows his trump. In Yorkshire and other British counties the custom still lingers of sending funeral cakes to the friends of a dead person. Ic Wales the east wind is called the wind of the dead men’s feet, because the dead are buried facing the cast. In some parts of Scotland the window bi nds are taken down during a funeral and the windows covered with white sheets. The practice of putting a plate of salt on a body is, perhaps, descended from mediaeval custom. The body of Henry L of England was literally salted down, wrapped in a bull’s hide and borne to Reading for burial.

The latest proposed ship canal is to run from Toledo to Cincinnati, making Cincinnati a rival to Chicago for lake traffic.

POPULAR SCIENCE NOTES.

A Remarkable Discovery. —Two German doctors have independently arrived at the conclusion that most persons struck by lightning, nnd to all appearance dead, could be recalled to liW by applying the method of artificial respiration in use for resuscitating the drowned. This method proved successful in the cast of a trumpeter who was apparently killed at Berlin in 1891.

The Strength of Ice. —The necessities of war have not uufrequently led to valuable discoveries of a practical scientific character. Of late the French Minister of War has been studying the subject of ice from the point of view of its capacity to maintain weights. He has found that when ice has become about an inch and three-fifths thick, it begins to bear the weight of a man who is marching alone. At a thickness of something over three and one-half inches it will bear files of infantry. When it has become twelve centimeters, or nearly four and three-quarter inches thick, it sustains light artillery or carriages, and at twenty-nine centimeters, or about eleven and four-tenths inches, it bears the heaviest weight that the transporting of an army requires. These conclusions of the French military authorities may have some interest for skaters, but it should be remarked that they apply oulv to young ice. Successions of colder and warmer weather, in the course of a few weeks, produce a change in the structure of ice which greatly weakens its power of resistance to pressure. Accordingly, the measurements and estimates given above should not be trusted in the case of ice that is not of recent formation.

The Size of the Sea.— One gallon of water weighs ten pounds, so the number of gallons in the Pacific is over 200 trillions, an amount which would take more than a million years to pass over the Falls of Niagara. Yet, put into a sphere, the whole of the Pacific would only measure 726 miles across. The Atlsntic could be contained bodily in the Pacific nearly three times. The number of cubic feet is 117 followed by sevetnecn ciphers; a number that would be ticked off by our million clocks in 370,000 years. Its weight is 325,000 billion tons, and the number of gallons in it is 73 trillions. Asphere to hold the Atlantic would have to be 533 1-2 miles in diameter. If it were made to fill a circular pipe reaching from the earth to the siin—a distance of 93,000,000 miles —the diameter of the pipe would be 1,837 yards, or rather over a mile; while a pipe of similar length to contain the Pacific would be over a mile and three-quarters across. Yet the distance to the sun is so great that, as has been pointed out, if a child were horn with an-arm long enough to reach the sun it would not live long enough to know that it had touched it, for sensation passes along our nerves at the rate of 100 feet a second, and to travel from the sun to the earth at that rate would take a century and a-half, and such au abnormal infant is an unlikely centenarian.

The rest of the sea includes the Indian Ocean, the Arctic and Antarctic Seas, and various smaller masses of water. It covers an area of 42,000,000 square miles and would form a circle of 7,500 miles in diameter. The average depth may be put at 2,000 fathoms (12,000 feet), and the contents at 95,000,000 oubic miles. It weighs 390,000 billion tons, and contains 87£ trillion gallons, while it would form a column leaching to the sun of 2,000 yards in diameter. If we now combine into one vast whole these various figures we arrive at Borne stupendous results in answer to the question, "How big is the sea ?” The area of 140,000,000 square miles could be confined by a circle of 13,350 miles across. The relative size of the areas of the surface of the earth, of the whole sea, the Pacific and Atlantic, are represented by circles the diameters of which are in the proportion to one another of 158, 133, 93 and 62 respectively; or by a crown for the surface of the earth, a half-crown for the surface of the whole sea, a shilling for the surface of the Pacific, a three-penny piece for the surface of the Atlantic. Supposing the sea to be formed into a round column leaching to the sun, the diameter of the column would be nearly two and a half miles. 'The Paoific would form 53, COO, 000 miles of its total length of 93,000,000, and the Atlantic 18.000,000. If it were a column of ice, and the entire heat of the sun could be concentrated upon it, it would all he melted in one second, and converted into steam in eight seconds, which illustrates the heat of the sun rather than the size of the sea.—[Cincinnati Commercial Gazette.

Man as a Mageut.

The old-time superstitious belief that human beings should sleep with their heads toward the north is now believed to be based upon a scientific principle. Some Frenoh savants have made experiments upon the body of a criminal who had suffered death, and these tests go to prove lhat each human body is in itself an electric battery, one electrode being represented by the head and the other by the feet. The body of the subject upon which the queer experiments mentioned above were made was taken immediately after death and placed upon a pivotal board, free to move in any direction. After some little vacillation the head portion turned toward the north and remained there stationary. One of the experimenters took hold of the pivot and turned it so that the head pointed south, but upon being freed it almost immediately resumed the first-named position —turned until tbe head pointed north. To prove that this was neither accident nor coincident upon muscular twitching, as some bad suggested, the board waa repeatedly turned half around and then freed, but always with similar results.

Population of the Earth.

In an appendix toPetermann’sMitteilungen, just issued, there are complete statistics of the population of the earth, in which a table of the great cities (with more than 100,000 inhabitants) is of great interest. . Of such cities England has 30, Germany 24, France and Russia each 12, Italy 10, Austria-Hungary 6, Spain 5, Belgium, the Scandinavian States, Rumania and tho Balkan Islands each 4, the Netherlands 3, Portugal 2; the total in Europe being 116 great cities. Asia has 105, China having 53 and British India 30. In Africa there are 7, in America 40, of which the United States have 26, South America 9. Australia has only two large cities. In the whole of these great cities of the world there is a population of about 80,000,000, being about 5.4 per cent, of the whole population of the earth. Among tbe great cities London has the first place, with 4,416,000 souls; Paris the second, with 2,713,000; New York-Brooklyn the third, with 2.352,000, and Berlin the fourth, with 1,703,543.

The Instinct of Locality.

An interesting experiment was tried by a Maine farmer’s family, not long since, with a mud turtle, which had been brought to the house from a small a quarter of a mile away. It was noticed that when set free the reptile travelled off in the direction of the pond ("going back home,” said one of the lads), nnd this led them to put him to the test. He was tried under a great variety of circumstances which might tend to confuse even a mud turtle of uncommon mental capacity; but put him down in whatever way they would, or auy where, he would instantly turn his stubby nose straight for the pond and walk off with every appearance of one who knows he is right and intends to go ahead. He evidently had the same instinct or supernatura, knowledge so often observed in pigs, dogs, and cats, which will take a bee line for home when they could not possibly know its direction by any power of observation possessed by human beings. It may not be amiss to note in connection with the turtle incident the experiments tried by au eminent English naturalist with bees, which possess the same peculiar knowledge of direction. He took bees from their hive and carried them in a close box by a circuitous course to a point at a considerable distance away; but on liberation they would start straight for the hive. After testing thitf repeatedly, he stopped on the way while carrying the box and whirled it rapidly around his head a number of times. Than when liberated the bees were oonfused and flew about in various directions, not knowing where to go. From this ho attributed the faculty of flying straight for home to result from the keen attention paid by the bees to the direction taken while they were being carried away, and which the whirling of the box upset completely.—[Lewiston (Me.) Journal.

Babylon.

According to Herodotus the ancient city of Babylon stood on a broad, level plain, and was an exact square of fourteen miles each way, making the entire circuit of the city fifty-six miles. It waa protected by both a wall and a moat, tho latter being broad and deep and kept constantly filled with water. But thowall was the wonder of wonders, being 93i feet in width and an even 200 feet in height. This monster barrier was provided with 100 gates, all of solid brass, the lintels and side pieces being in bronze. Cross walls ran along the banka of the Euphrates, each provided with twenty-five gates, whioh corresponded to the number of streets running in each direction from the river. The most remarkable edifice inside the wall was the Temple of Bel, a pyramid of eight square stadia. On the summit of this pyramid stood a pure gold image of Bel 40 feet high, two other small figures of the same precious metal, and a golden table 40 feet and 15 feet wide. This wonderful city first came prominently into the history of the world in the year 747 B. C., hut since the time of Alexander the Great it has been a ruin, the site having atone time been entirely lost.—[St. Louis Republic.

“Gospel Chariots” at the Fair.

While the Fair lasts Washington will have to yield to it the title of '‘City of Magnificent Distances.” One does not realize how much physical exertion sightseeing requires until one has spent a day at the Fair. You are so occupied with looking at things that your fatigue does not find a chance to make itself felt until you turn homeward. Then you begin to wondor if you have any legs left. For this reason the wheel- chairs pushed by intelligent beings clad in sky-blue with white piping are a boon. You can "do” the Fair comfortably and systematically, and if you happen to have the same cicerone several days in succession he is apt to become en rapport with you, divining your tastes, and pushing you whither these would lead you. Many of the gracious pushers are theological students, a fact which has gradually fastened upon these chairs the appellation of "gospel chariots.” The late Mr. Cook, in the earlier days of his efforts to excite the migratory propensities of the human race, was wont to add to his circulars the announcement that "a number of marriages had been among the results of these tours.” From what I have observed, I incline to think that several of the "gospel chariot” excursions will lead to equally felicitous results.—[Century.

The Sun’s Light.

It is now many years since Doctor Johnstone Stoney, F. R. S., published his important paper in which he propounded what seems to be the most rational explanation of sunlight yet afforded, says Sir Robert Ball. Recent observations seem to have substantiated Dr. Stoney’s fundamental doctrine that the glowing clouds of the photosphere, from whence the sun’s radiation is mainly dispensed, are formed of carbon. According to this view those patches of brilliant light exhibited in solar photographs emanate from sooty iucandescent clouds hundreds of miles in length and breadth. It is well known that the flame of an ordinary candle, or of an .ordinary gas jet, derives its luminosity from, the presence of minute particles of incandescent carbon. It is also to the same element that we are indebted for the electric light, whether in the form of the arc light or the incandescent filament. It would now seem as if the great luminary itself owed its surpassing luster to the presence of "mighty glowing cloudsof the identical substance to which our ordnary methods of illumination are so much indebted.—[New York News.

Watering a Crop With an Engine.

Fortunate in having his farm intersected by one of the arterial drains of the district, Mr. Young, of Swiueshead Abbey Farm, in the neighborhood of Boston, England, determined to utilize the water thus provided, and arranged with Messrs. Merry weather & Son, Limited, to send down one of their most powerful fire engines. With this engine about eighty tons of water per hour have been pumped onto crops of mangold seed and potatoes, and land is now being drenched preparatory to cauliflower planting. Allowing for stoppages necessary for moving the 200 yards of hose from land to land and other incidentals, from three to five acres of laud are covered with 120 tons of water per acre per day. Hundreds of farmers have witnessed the operation, and from each and all the wish has been fervent that they had the water and engine too. To the oft-re peated remark that the thing must be costly, Mr. Young’s reply is: “Costly it may be, but not one-tenth part so costly as the drouth.”—[New York Witness.

A wail of distress is heard throughout Switzerland, aod the cause of it is that there are so few Americans traveling in the land of Tell this year, while the English also are very scarce.