Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1893 — Page 4

AN UNPUBLISHED [?]OEM BY SCOTT.

* The following lament for Glengarry was written by Sir Walter Scott, and has never been published until its appearance in the current Blackwood’s, having remained in the possession of the family ever since it was composed. Under date of Mavis Bank. Kothesov, April 17, 1893, Miss Macdonell writes: “My father died in January, 182 S, and my mother came to Merchiston Castle, Edinburgh, where she lived fiom May, 1828, to May, 1830. It was th- re I first saw th l ‘Death Song.’ and was -told by mother that Sir Walter Scott had written it and sent it to her. I believe she got it soon a ter ws all came south io May. 1828, and it has always been in whatsv t r houses we lived ever since,“ glexqarky’s death soso. Land of the Gael, thv glory has flown! For the star from the Nonh from its orbit is thrown; Dark, dark is thy sorrow, and hopeless thy pain, For no star e’er sh 11 beam with its lustre again. Glenga ry—Glengarry is gone evermore, Glengarry—Glengarry « e'll ever deplore. OteU of the wu-rior who nev. r did yield, O tell of the chief who was falchion and shiel t, O think of the patr ot. most ardent and kind; Then sgh for Glengatry in whom all were joined. The chieftains may gather—the combatants call, One champion is absent—that champi n was all; The bright eye of genius and valor rosy flame, Bnt who now shall light it to ho .or and fame? See the light bark how tcss’d! she’s wrecked on the Wave! See dauntless Glengarry on the verge of the grave! Bee his .eap—see that gash, and that eye now so aim! And thy heart must be steel’d. If it bleed not for him. Arise thou young branch of so noble a stem, Obscurity marks not the worth of a gem; O hear toe last wish of th father for thee: “Be all to thy country, G engarry should be.” Why sounds the loud pibroch, why tolls the death bell, Why crowd our bold clansmen to Garry’s green vale? ’Tis to mourn for their chiof— for Glengarry the brave, Tis to tell that a hero is laid in his grave. 0! hoard ye that anthem, slow, pealing on hi.’h! The shades of the valiaut are come fiom the sky, And the Genii of Gaeldoch are first in the throng, O list to the theme of their seria! song. It’s “welcome Glengarry, the clansmen’s fast friend.” It’s “welcome to joys that shall ne’er have an end, The halls of great Odin are open to thee, 0 welcome Glengarry, the gallant aud free.”

A CENTURY RIDE.

BY GRACE E. DENISON.

You never saw such a dear little yel-low-haired, dainty-featured maid as Maude Mannering, the successful girlgraduato and medical student. When she came forward at commencement, in a delightful little Greenaway gown of white muslin, peppered over with tiny dots, with the very smile of childhood in her wide blue eyes, and ber ourly hair clustering round her brows—the learned doctors, imported to adorn the commencement exercises, blinked their eyes and looked twice, and hesitated, even then, to accept her as an established faot. When she knelt to receive her degree, thepr each and all listened to hear the childish prayer, “Now I lay me ’’ issue from her little rosebud mouth. A degree for that child? Impossible! She had come to say her prayers, and be kissed and put to bed. That she could be the medical student, that she could enter a dissecting room, carve up a subject, watoh a mortal sickness, stand by a dying bed—preposterous !it might not be. And yet, it all, and much more, had been. Maude Mannering was an enthusiast on matters surgioal, and had cleverly sewn up the jagged throat of a would-be suicide—softly rating him, as she did so, for not having made a neat cut—on the very day when she knelt demurely before the Chancellor's footstool to receive her

degree. The learned doctors stared, with their unbelieving eyes, and the Chancellor smiled as they turned to one another, agape, and shook their heads, while Maude tripped smilingly back to her seat, and the students shrieked and sang to her glory. ***«*»' “Shall I go?” were the words which would have issued from her pretty lips, one day, a week later (had she been in the habit of talking to herself), as she finished reading a long and chatty letter inviting her to “come away North, and S]>end the holidays,” and concluding with these words: “We are fifty miles from everywhere, and our roads are splendid, so you bad better bring your bioycle, or velocipede, or whatever it is you ride to the horror and confusion of Auntie.” Maude turned the letter thoughtfully over, skimming from page to page. There was a postscript, of course, simply four words, “Carr is with us.” But, whatever the girl read, she saw only those four words, and it was on their acoount that she asked herself, “Shall I go?”'’ Carr was her correspondent’s brother, her escort at the wedding of that lady, and subsequently, her own rejected sweatheart of last year. Last year was a long time ago, to be sure, and Carr had not moped over things; Maude was not vain, she concluded to go. The station, away up North, was reached by Maude on a.sweet June evening, about sunset. Never did a daintier little figure descend from a palace car, and stand forlornly beside a couple of trunks and a bicycle, watching the lessening tram as it melted into the distance in the red sunset. Half a dozen houses dotted the prairie; a store, a driving abed, a small inn and the combined postoffice and station clustered close together in the vast emptiness. Within half a mile stood the last grove of trees, marking the western limit of the timber country. It required some womanhood to accept thiags, for the first view of the apparently boundless plain was trying to a mortal bred in forested Ontario. Maude turned with a gasp, and found herself confronted by Carr, who raised his straw hat silently. She held out her hand impulsively, too glad to see a familiar face to resent a lack of welcome in it. “My trunks and my wheel. lam the only passenger who got ofi here,” she faltered. Carr took her shawl-strap, the boys stowed away the boxes in the station house, Maude walked behind pushing her wheel, to where a pair of horses and alight farm wagon stood waiting. As she climbed nimbly into her place, and turned to help Carr with the wheel, which

refund to lie comfortably in the lfMJe well, their eyes mer. Unflinching and reproachful was the look from the cold and distant cavalier, and Maude realized suddenly that she had not done wisely to come; Carr had not forgotten; Carr had not forgiven her! A grove of half stunted trees partially hid a low, snug-looking farm-house, which stood in the centre of one of those immense and fruitful wheat farms which are the backbone and sinew of Northern prosperity. The warm, sweet welcome of the mistress of the farm was a blessed relief, after the unsociable evening’s ride, and the two young women passed chattering under the vine-hung portals of the house, while Carr, with a curious glance at the recumbent bicycle, of mingled contempt and interest, lifted it from the wagon and carried jt under the shelter of the wide veranda. “And have you and Carr made friends?’’ said Carr’s sister, as she affectionately surveyed the fair little traveler. “\Ve have ridden fifty miles in armed neutrality,” said Maude, incisively. “Oh Lizzie, it was perfectly awful! Carr hates the sight of me; how could vou send him after me?” Lizzie Dunlop laughed, and then sighed. “He’s just as much in love with you as ever, you innocent!’’ she whispered, and while Maude raised a protesting hand she added coaxingly; “Say, Maudie dear, won’t you ever como to care for him?” “Lizzie," cried the girl, in dismay, “if I’d thought you were going to talk to me like this, I’d never have cornel” Lizzie Dunlop putted the .small lady's shoulder soothingly. “There, there, little iceberg,” she said, “let it all be buried! It’s forgotten. You shall never be worried about it again. You are here to enjoy every moment of your holiday, and to tell me the news of civilization, and to take tides across the prairie. What a blessing we have a decent road for the velocipede—l beg pardon—bicycle! You must have lots of grit to mount that scary machine; and—oh! Maude! How can you want to be a surgeon? I should die if I saw a man cut up and mangled; but you are a murvel!’’

The Northwest farm life was somewhat lonely, after the crowded University class-rooms, the city bustle, and the odds and ends of amusement which had been tucked into the few vacant corners of Maude Maunering’s busy life during the last three years. Carr had been one of those odds and ends. Their acquaintance had begun at a water-par.y, flourished, like Jonah’s gourd, at a carpet dance, and borne the fruit of an impassioned declaration after the wedding of Carr’s sister, at which Maude and her suitor had been maid of honor and groomsman. It had died a sudden death when Maude’s pretty lips formed the disastrous monosyllable “No!" as the two tied up boxes of wedding-cako for the bridal guests. Carr had received bis refusal silently, and immediately left the town. His precipitate wooing bad made little impression upon his sister’s student friend, for when that sister had asked Maude to come and visit “the happiest couple in America,” that postscript of four works, added in an afterthought of honesty, had seemed of trivial importance. But now, Carr was behaving atrociously. When Lizzie and her husband were present, he was geniality personified, his brown eyes twinkled, and his laugh rang clear; when Lizzie, with transparent diplomacy, pleaded delicate health, and retired early, or with pretty wifely demands drew her husband aside, and left the young people en tete-a-tete, Carr knitted bis brows in an ugly frown, and sat, stood, or strolled in gloomy Bilence. Maude began to feel a sense of guilt and responsibility looming over her. She longed to do something to quit herself of the reproaches of her discarded lover. When Bertram rode far afield, and when the reapers came, and the harvest was gathered in its fair abundance, Maude went beside the farmer for miles along tbe beaten wagon track on the dainty little bicycle which Carr disapproved of. She could not say how this disapproval beoame known to ber, but she felt it and resented it in silence.

Meantime, holidays were waning, the August moon, called by the Indians, Moon of Harvest, was at the full, the land was reaped and cleared, the endless stretches of prairie spread on every side to the horizon, and the meagre foliage of the North began to turn copper and brown as autumn came on apace. One balmy afternoon, Bertram drove away to a neighboring homestead, a trifle of two-score miles distant, to see about buying some stock. Lizzie was deep in cambric and laoe and tiny paper patterns. Auntie, who had come from the South for the winter, sat knitting on the veranda, Maude was oiling her wheel, and Carr and the small emigrant boy were fixing up odds and ends about the barns. Suddenly a loud call from the emigrant boy sent Maude flying to the great barn, only stopping to whisper to Auntie, “Don’t frighten, Lizzie. I’ll see what’s the matter 1” The matter was serious enough. Carr lay on the bam floor, beside a broken ladder, and it did not require the eye of a surgeon to discover that the limb which was doubled under him was fractured. “Oh dear, oh dear," said the young lady, “you’ve gone and broken a bone! It’s a good thing that I know how to set it. I wonder could we carry you in? I don’t believe we ever could. Now, Sandy, run to the veranda, and tell the old lady to come to the kitohen door, don’t say anything but that, mind, and don’t goggle in that idiotio manner. Poor Carr, lam so sorry! Don’t try to move till Sandy comes back. Hallo, Auntie! here’s Carr with a sprained ankle; (that’s for Lizzie’s benefit!) tell Lizzie to give Sandy the mattress from his bed, and one of the factory sheets, and a pillow. I don’t want her; Sandy and I can fix him all comfey, and she can come out afterward. We’ll just make him a bed here until Bertram comes home.” Then Maude turn to Carr, with a very professional air, as she turned back the ruffles from her wrists. “I am going to set your leg,” she said, “and I’m thinking what I can get for splints. I hope Lizzie will send a good, new sheet for bandages. Now, Sandy, boy, put your mattress here, and you must take Mr. Carr by the shoulders and help him on to it, while I hold his poor leg so it won’t hurt more than can be helped. Good thing we are strong, Sandy!” She worked in silence with a steady and capable hand and when the limb was rigidly bound she gave a sigh of relief. “It’s a funny job, but it’ll do,” Bhe said; “funny looking splints, aren’t they?” “You’re a brick,” said Carr, heartily. “Shake hands with a fellow!” She laughed and gave him her hand,

and did not withdraw it, even when he gently kissed it. “How can we get the Doctor to-night," she mused, “it won’t do to leave it like that.” Carr protested, “You’ve done it up finely,” but Maude shook her head; she was calculating: “Fifty miles there, five hours, fifty miles back,’’ she thought, then suddenly she said “Look here, Carr, will you promise me something?” “Anything,” cried Carr, with a radiant smile. “Well, I don’t want Lizzie to know about your break; will you stay quietly here, with Sandy, for the night? I’ll tell Auntie and we’ll send out your tea and pipe, and when Bertram comes home to-morrow, we’ll carry you indoors. Will you just lie here and be good, and let Sandy take care of you?” So, with a smile and a hand-clasp, she left him lying on the mattress in the sweet-smelling hay barn, and was oloseted for five minutes with Auntie. The result of this confab was that Auntie told two deliberate fibs, one to Lizzie, and one to Carr, and Lizzie laughed happily and said, “Auntie, let her stay with him; “It’s all coming round right!” while Carr smiled benignly and remarked: “It’s all right, Auntie, go on in. Tell Dr. Maude to have a good nip of whiskey before she goes to bed, and let her have a good rest. She'll dream of broken legs if she doesn’t” And poor Auntie, with two fibs and a world of care on her mind, tucked Lizzie into her bed, and sat up and watched the front gate until morning.

Down the hard black road skimmed the light wheel, doing a good ten miles an hour in the gathering shades of evening. Maude’s eyes gleamed like stars with resolution and daring, her feet flew nimbly, and her baby mouth was firmly set. Once she laughed, a little half-hys-terical laugh, and her thoughts, though rather chaotic, revolved round one central idea. The doctor lived in the small inn at the railway station. The doctor had proper splints and bandages. The dootor must be had without fail. The doctor, the doctor!—and so her thoughts circled with her flying pedals, as the trusty wheel skimmed along the road, and the long twilight of the North crept softly softly over the wide prairies. Seven o’clock, eight o'clock. She took a bar of chocolate from her coat pocket and nibbled as she rode. The ate birds whirled pa«t her, the tuneful meadow lark of the West fluted a song of good night, many little chirrupings and faint rustlings sounded on either side of the road, which stretched like a dark ribbon across the plain to the halfway house. She reached the turn to the door of that rude hostelry, and sped past it, looking only straight ahead to the fading crimson of the West. Here rose a faint thread of smoke from a small dell, where were camping a party of Indians, whose mongrel dogs ran yapping after her flying wheel. An owl brushed past her, and sailed heavily away to a clump of scrub; nine o’clock, and she flashed past a “slough," as the swampy ponds are called, and a faint quacking of the wild ducks fell softly on her tired ear. How the shadows grow! But the distance was no longer a terror, for she was as good as at her goal. Ten o’clock, and she wheeled breathlessly past the outlying houses, and stepped wearily off on the threshold of the little inn, where the dootor lived. It was such a parody on a hotel—just two square rooms and a leanto below, and three tiny bedrooms above, with their sashless windows, oovered with mosquito netting, looking blank and deserted. But Maude knew tho doctor was there, splints and bandages were there, and a sudden gleam of light from the furthest window marked the lighting of the doctor’s retiring candle. She called his name softly, and he came at once, hurrying down the stairs.

“Great Scott!” he stammered, “what’s the matter? Surely ’tisn’t Mrs. Dunlop?” and he gasped at the dusty little lady, who sat on the door-step, and the wheel which lay on the roadway. “I’m choking with thirst,” said Maude. “Get me a drink of water, and I’ll tell you,” and the doctor bounced in for a dipper, and out to the pump for the required beverage. “Don't take much,” he stammered incoherently. “I’ve put a drop of whiskey in it. Now tell me, in the name of Heaven, what sent you riding across the country in this fashion?” Maude told him in a few words. “I made him as snug as I could, but you can’t do much with a bit of moulding and a broomstick,” she said, wearily. “Oh, Doctor, lam so tired; but you’ll go right away, won’t you? And be sure and take everything—your horse is good for it, isn’t he?” The Doctor laughed. “I’ll not try,” he said; “I’ll get a fresh one at the halfway house.” He looked again at the tired girl, and into his face came an expression which means a great deal. “Go up to my room and lie down. I’ll call the landlady to make you some tea. You are starving. No, not a word. You’ve done your day’s work, little woman, and earned a rest. You can come home to-morrow on the stage, if you’re rested.” So he foraged, and brought triumphantly forth half a chicken, a oouple of slices of melon and some light biscuits, with a generous noggin of milk to wash it all down. The landlady grunted an inquiry, was informed of the facte, and forbidden to disturb herself, nor emerge from her bunk in tke lean-to. Maude supped while the doctor got his traps together and saddled his horse, and then Maude brought in her wheel and watched him ride off in the dark with a much lightened heart. She was weary and sleepy, and she bathed her face and soused her yellow curls, and said her prayers, and curled up on the Doctor’s bed and fell asleep. Two hours later she awoke. The prairie was flooded with silver moonlight which streamed in through the unghzed window and made the room as light as day. She ached in every limb; a vague dread seized her, she was so far from home; she yearned for the small, vine-hung farmhouse, the rustic fence and the little grove of trees. She sat up and pushed the curls from her forehead, she left the small camp-bed, and walked stiffly and painfully to the window. The road otretched like a long black ribbon to the east, she seemed to be drawn by it; half asleep, she fastened on her little hat, drew on her light coat and wearily crept down the unpainted stairs. She would ride to the half-way house before the moon sank; then, she would seel Fifty miles there and fifty miles back—a hundred miles—A century 1 Had not some girl in the South told her she had ridden a century? Ever since that day a little envy had been in her heart of "that girl, and she sometimes wished very much that she.too,might wear upon her cycling blouse that tiny bar of gold, with its magic figures, recording a ride of one hundred miles.

As she thought, she unbolted the inu door and noislessly rolled out her wheel. She could not get away fast enough, once she was outside, but leaving the door wide open she sped off along the wagon track, with its two wide ruts and central ox-track, into the radiance of tho silver night. After a few moments she wakened up completely, the aohes began to leave her muscles, the clouds cleared from her brain, she fairly flew along! Two o’clock; she got off and walked for half-a-mile, listening, enchanted, to the song of a moonstruck prairie lark. Three o’clock, and by and by she discerned in the fading light the road to the half-way house. She looked resolutely away from it. It seemed to coax ber, to whisper of the long, lonely stretch ahead, of the Indians in their tepees, in the hollow; of a host of vague ana nameless terrors; of how lonely and weary and defenseless she was, on that vast plain, twenty-five miles—twenty-five miles—and the half-way house flashed past and was soon left far behind. She pedaled mechanically now; it was growing dark in the West, but in the East the dawn was faintly breaking. She imperceptibly lagged, her eyelids were heavy, she roused herself and saw the first of the farm fields! Her heart throbbed; her temples throbbed; every pulse in her body seemed to start into wild action, tingles ran through her limbs; she fancied a dozen times that she had come to the last field, and as she looked to see, only miles of shaven harvest fields stretched before her. She began to doubt whether she was in the right way, then she laughed, for there was only one way, one road —one track. She heard voices calling, Lizzie’s voice, Auntie’s voice; she gripped the handlebars and pedaled faster, she labored bard, but could scarcely move her wheel; it was like riding up a hill; suddenly she fell off, and as she shook herself together and wakened up, she found herself a few yards up the small ascent that ended her midnight pilgrimage. Slowly and dreamily she pushed Rie wheel up the road, sometimes standing for a moment with her left hand on the rough rails of the fence, and her eyes closed in involuntary slumber. The early morning wakened, the air was full of the song of larks. The sunlight touched her wan cheeks and glistened from the tears of weariness that gathered in her haggard eyes. Her pretty lips were drawn and pale, dust cuing to her tittle hat, and lay thick on her golden curls. When she reached the gate she would have fallen, but that watching Auntie came running and caught her in her arms. “I am tired," she said softly, and fell sound asleep. “And Carr?" Oh,his leg knitted finely, and the Doctor said that Maud was & born surgeon, and only her entreaties compelling him to meddle with her bandaging. “And then?” Well, in the fall she married him. “ Who ?” Why, the Doctor, of course!—fOuting.

COTTON STILL KING.

America’s Greatest Single Contribution to Modern Progress.

The development of the production of cotton in the United States with a single century from insignificant proportions to 9,000,000 bales a year, considering all its relations to modern industrial progress, is without a parallel in history. The facts in this case have led D. A. Tompkins to write for the Engineering Magazine a review of “Cotton as a Factor in Progress,” which contains many facts of great interest, which doubtless will prove new to a large number of readers. The present industrial development in America, in England, and on the Continent had its beginning, says Mr. Tomp kins, in four events, the absence of any one of whioh would have destroyed the greater portion of the value of the other three. These were the invention of the power-spindle, the invention of -the power-loom, the invention of the cottongin, and the response so these of the southern portion of the United States in the production of the raw material for the utilization of these inventions. It is not alone of interest that the imEetus given to the production of cotton y meohanical inventions has added to the productive capacity of Southern agriculture and increased the wealth of an important section of the United States. Every family in the whole country has been benefited by the cheapening of clothing and other articles made of cotton by reason of the marvelous increase in the extent of production of this fiber. The manufacturing and commercial interests of New England have been promoted to a remarkable extent by the same cause, to say nothing of the effect upon the cotton manufacturing interests in England and other parts of the world, and the increase in the consumption of cotton goods due to the wonderful cheapening of their cost. The single item of the benefit to the shipping interest due to the cotton carrying trade is of great extent. Cotton, more than any other one item Of freight, has been the basis of transatlantic commerce. Leaving aside these general considerations of benefits at home and abroad, to industry and commerce, and the increased comfort of the human race, we may again recur to the importance to the Southorn States of the cotton-growing industry in a great variety of directions. Cotton as a basis of wealth and of productive industry has made possible the growth of prosperous cities and towns where, at least before the development of mineral resources in the South, nothing of the kind could hare existed. The cotton interest has contributed to the success of all transportation systems in the Sonth, whether in the palmy days of steamboating or since railroa s have been constructed in every State. Even the development of the mining interests of the South has been hastened by the need of iron by railroad oompanies in preparing for the transportation of the cotton, and in the manufacture of cotton machinery, and the need of coal for transportation and manufacturing purposes, to whioh cotton has given rise. The cot-ton-growing industry, in short, has furnisheifwhat opportunity has existed in this large portion of the union, for the employment of engineering and mechanical skill, contributing thus to every branch of material progress.

Advertising As a Pill.

Most of the howling about advertising not paying, is done by men who have done little or none of it. They at one time in their lives perhaps, took one small pill of advertising and beoause it did not effect a complete cure of their malady dull times; they threw away the box and refused to take any more. ' The men who use up box after box of these advertising pills are those who enjoy the most robust and vigorous commercial health, and who are lining their pockets with a competence. Printer’s ink unlocks the coffers of the rich, as well as unties the old stocking of the poor. It is the key to success in business, and the sooner a business man finds this out and uses the key, the sooner he will be abreast of the times and take nobody’s dust.—fDansville (N. Y.) Creeze.

ANIMALS CAN COUNT.

Crows tbe Most Accomplished Arithmeticians and Dogs are Next. A Russian pbysioian has been making some curious experiences to find out bow far animals can count. He declares that the crow can count up to ten, and is thereby superior in arithmetic to certain Polynesian tribes of men who cannot get beyond five or six. The doctor had a dog, which was accustomed to bury the bones it found, each one m a separate place in the garden. One day, wishing to test the animals power of counting, the master gave it no less than twenty-six bones, which were all buried one after another in special hiding places. The next day the dog was given uo more bones, and he was forced to dig up the old ones. Without any hesitation he recovered ten and then came to a stop. After whining and running about as if in a state of great perplexity a new idea seemed to enter the canine brain, and again the dog began to dig up the hidden bones, this time adding nine to the total before his memory again failed him. Then there was a second period of whining and perplexity, after which the seven remaining bones were found with some difficulty. The doctor concluded from this that twenty-six was too large a number for the dog to take in all at once, and that he had been obliged to remember the bones, as it were, in three shorter series. The cat, it would seem, is even less than an arithmetician than the dog, not being able to count as far as ten.

Before giving his cat its regular piece of meat the doctor would put it under the animal’s nose and then withdraw it five times in succession, and it was only the sixth time that he would give the cat the morsel. This number was repeated every dny until tho cat became perfectly accustomed to waiting five times, but would spring forward of its own accord at the sixth presentation. Having thus demonstrated that pussy was able to remember up to six, the doctor tried to seven, but without success. As soon as he attempted to perform the experiment with higher numbers the cat became confused and would jump forward for the meat at the wrong time. The number six. therefore, would seem to be the limit of this oat’s power of counting. Not less interesting were similar experiments with horses. In the village of Pekoe, the doctor found a peasant’s horse which was used for ploughing, and which had aoquired the habit of counting the furrows and stopping for a rest regularly at the twentieth. So confident was the ploughman of the accuracy of his horse's calculations that at the end of the day he used to estimate the amount of work done, not by counting the furrows himself, but by simply remembering the number of times nis horse had stopped to rest. In another village the doctor found a horse which could count the mile posts along the way and which had been trained by his master to stop for feed whenever they had covered twenty-five verstes. One day they tried the horse over a road where three false mile posts had been put up in between the real ones, and sure enough, the horse, deceived by this trick, stopped for his oats at the end of twenty-verstes instead of going the usual twenty five. The saae horse was accustomed to being fed every day at the stroke of noon. The dootor observed that whenever the clock struck any hour the horse would stop and prick up his ears as if counting. II he heard twelve he would trot of contentedly to be fed, but if there were fewer strokes than twelve he would go on working resignedly. The experiment was made of striking twelve strokes at the wrong time, whereupon the horse started for his oats in spite of the fact that he had been fed an hour before. This shows a litte knowledge may be bad for horses as well as for men. —[New York Telegram.

AFRICAN RAIN MAKERS.

A Fakir Who Did His Cloud-Compel-lng With a Magic Whistle. A popular figure in Africa is the rainmaker. The office, however, is rather a perilous one, for if the chief in charge of the weather fails to produce rain on demand his life is not safe. Baker giver an amusing description of one of these rainmakers, half chief and half magician, named Katchiba, who called on the famous explorer, and said that rain was needed. “Well,” I replied, “why don’t you give your people rain?” “Give my people rain!” said Katchiba. “Give them rain if they don’t give me goats? You don’t know my people. If I am fool enough to give them rain before they give me goats they will let me starve! No, no! let them wait; if they don’t bring me supplies of corn, goats, fowls, yams and all that I require not one drop of rain shall ever fall again in Obbo. Impudent brutes are my people. Do you know they have positively threatened to kill me unless I bring the rain. They shan’t have a drop. I’ll teach the rascals to insult me!” With all this bluster I saw that old Katchiba was in a great dilemma and would give anything for a shower, but did not know how toget out of the scrape. Suddenly altering his tone, he asked: “Have you any rain in your country?” 1 replied that we had, every now and then. “How do you bring it? Are you a rain ranker?” I told him no one believed in rain makers in our country, but that we understood how to bottle lightning, meaning electricity. “I don't keep mine in bottles. I have a house full of thunder and lightning,” he most cooly replied; “but if you can bottle lightning you must understand rain making. Whatdoycu think of the weather to-day?” I immediately saw the drift of the cunning old Katchiba; he wanted professional advice. I replied that he must know all about it, as he was a regular rain maker. “Of course I do,” he answered; “but I want to know what you think of it.” ■ “Well,” I said, “I don’t think we shall have any steady rain, but I think we may have a heavy shower in about four days.” I had observed fleecy clouds gathering daily in the afternoon. ‘ Just my opinion,” said Katchiba, delighted; “in four, or perhaps in five dhys, I intend to give them one shower, just one shower. Yes, I’ll just step down to them now, and tell the rascals that if they will bring me some goats by this evening, and some corn to-morrow morning, I will give them, in four or five days, just one shower.” To give effect to this declaration he gave three toots on his magic whistle, inquiring: “Do you use whistles in your •ountry?”

I replied by giving so shrill and deafening a whistle on my fingers that Katchiba stopped his ears, and relapsing into a smile of admiration, took a glance at the sky from the doorway to see if any sudden effect had been produced. “Whistle again,” he said, and once more I performed like the whistle of a locomotive. “That will do; we shall have it,” said the cunning old rain maker, and proud of having so knowingly obtained “counsel’s opinion” on his case, he toddled off to bis impatient subjects. In a few days a sudden storm of rain and violent thunder added to Katchiba’s renown, and after the shower horns were blowing and drums beating in honor of their chief. Between ourselves, he considered my whistle infallible.:—[Youth’s Companion.

STEAMBOATING ON THE OHIO.

Half a Century Ago Sidewheelers Made Big Money for tbelr Owners. It was from 1840 to 1855 that steamboatiDg was at its height, says the Pittsburg Post. Fortunes were made in those years by men who owned and ran boats. There were lots of steamers on the river then. The embryo industries of that period depended on the river entirely, for railroads had only been proposed, not built. About 1000 steamboats were built at Pittsburg annually to run on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. That city was noted for the trim crafts it placed on the water, as some of the biggest and best running steamers were built at the head waters of tbe Ohio. The boats of the early steamboating days were all side-wheelers. It was not until late that the advent of the stern wheel boats occurred, and when it did they were not looked upon with favor by the denizens of the side-wheel crafts. The river men regarded them as an inferior kind of a boat, on whose decks it was beneath the dignity of a first-class steamboatman to tread. The packets were of good size and stoutly built. They were not supplied with swinging stages and steam capstans, and their engines were of sure but not so graceful movement as engines now, and electric lights for steamboats were not even dreamed of. But they served their purpose in making big money for their owners.

There was but one organized packet company ruuning boats down the river from Pittsburg. It was the old Pittsburg and Cincinnati Packet Line and it owned about twenty-five steamboats, some of which left the Pittsburg wharf daily. Among them were the Buckeye State, the Hibernia, Pittsburg, Crystal Palace and Pennsylvania. These boats were all stoutly built and especially adopted for fast running. The laws relat ing to racing were not so stringent then as now, and exciting contests of speed on the river occurred daily. One of the swiftest of the paokets was the Pennsylvania. She was the largest of the Cincinnati boats, and made some splendid records on the Ohio. She was 210 feet long and thirty-one feet beam. Another fast steamer was the Alleghany. She was not so large as the Pennsylvania, but was almost as speedy. Some of these old Cincinnati Packet Line boats were sunk, a few burned, and the others wore out in the river service. Besides the Cincinnati Company’s packets there were several steamers, most of them owned by Pittsburgers, which ran down the river and which had no regular trades, but made trips whenever and wherever there was occasion for their services. They were chiefly to St. Louis and New Orleans, the trip to the last named point being completed in about twenty days. There were a few boats running up the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers. Brownsville was as far up as the slackwater improvements extended on the Monongahela, and Franklin was the head of navigation on the Alleghany.

Valuable Treasures.

Uncle Sam has some very valuable treasures of gold in the National Museum. They are of great worth intrinsically, apart from the historic interest attaching to them. Among these are three massive caskets of solid gold, each as big as a four- pound candy box. They are gifts to General Grant from the cities of London, Ayr and Glasgow, respectively, containing the freedom of those towns. There is a gold card of invitation to a ball, which was sent to the hero of Appomattox by friends in San Francisco. It was enclosed in a silver envelope with the address engraved on the outside and an ordinary two-cent stamp affixed. Also there' is a gold cimeter, sent by the Emperor of Morocco to Thomas Jefferson, as well as many gold-hilted swords with solid gold scabbards. Two of these were given to General Shields by the States of South Carolina and Illinois, as tokens of appreciation for services in the Mexican war. Congress purchased them from the General’s family for SIO,OOO. — [Philadelphia Ledger.

Buying Back Their Own Diamonds

The De Beers mines employ 8,000 whites and from 15,000 to 20,000 of the natives as laborers. The natives, Mr. McGregor said, will steal diamonds, and no way had been discovered to prevent the thefts. Under the law the native laborers are kept in inclosures called compounds. They sell the diamonds which they steal at a few shillings per carat. They are purchased, although the natives are ignorant of the fact, by agents of the De Beers Company and returned to the company. Within the last two years, Mr. McGregor said, the company has paid in this way $3,500,000 for diamonds which had been stolen by the natives. Mr. McGregor said it was expected that the dry diggings would be worked out in two years, but they have been worked since 1871, and there are no indications of a bottom being found. To prevent the soil from caving in shafts 1,000 feet have been sunk, and the mining is done in chambers similar to that of American coal mines.—[Baltimore Sun.

Suicides by Cats.

Now and then one sees a paragraph on its rounds describing how a cat committed suicide by getting in front of a street car and letting the wheels go across its neck. My friend, the motorman, does not believe in the suicide theory. He said it is stupidity nnd slow thinking that costs the cat her life. “Them animals,” he save, “gets confused. You can see that ttey don’t wani to get hurt no more nor a man would,but when they see cars coming both ways and horses and wagons, and crowds on the sidewalks, and hears the noises, they don’t know which way to go. They lose their senses most at night, because the lights seem to scare ’em. Since I’ve been running a trolley car I’ve run over half a dozen of ’em and they all squatted down on the rails. But they didn’t mean suicide.” —[Boston Globe.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL PUZZLE.

Carelessness In Cool-Headed Men Lead ing to Costly Blunders. Here is a psychological puzzle for the experts. What made that brakeman on the Wabash line turn the switch and let the express train plunge in to the waiting freight which stood on the siding? The accounts of the disaster all agree that Thompson, the brakeman. was a man of experience in railroading, “a trusted man. and of more than ordinary intelligence,” says the Associatd Press dispatch. His experience had included recent repetitions of the same conditions which existed on the fatal night. He had frequently stopped at the same siding to let the same train go by, very often in two sections, and never before had failed in his duty. The night of the wreck he knew that the express was in two sections; he let the first section by, and then opened the switch with the second section almost in sight. Why did he do it? Not to wreck the traiu and kill tb& passengers. His mind wandered for a moment, he forgot his duty, forgot where he was and what he was doing, and before he came to himself the mishap was done. The mystery is that this mental failure should come at such a. time, when all the conditions conspire to produce unusual elertness. Any one oan tecall a multitude of suoh instances, some of them in his own experience. We have all known of coolheaded, vigilant men who have made costly blunders in the familiar routine of their duties—blunders which were unexplainable by any ordinary relation of cause and effect. Business men whose shrewdness and foresight unaccountably desert them, athletes whose coolness and skill depart wben in the performance of a familiar feat, cautious hunters whose care in handling their guns is proverbial, who forget all this care in an instant, and other instances innumerable. It is. not so many years ago that such a contradiction of habitual caution oost a young business man, with a promising career before him, his life at a railroad crossing. He had crossed the track at that crossing and at that hour times without number. He knew that a train passed at this time, nearly always met it and waited to allow it to pass, but the night of his death he stepped on the track with the train almost upon him and was killed. The sentinels of his brain, which always until then had warned him of danger, were apparently off duty that evening. Carelessness is hardly a complete explanation of these lapses, for there is tho carelessness itself to be accounted for. Why were these men who had never been careless before careless just at this fatal moment? Men are not prone tocarelessness when they know, as that Wabash brakeman must have known, the probable consequences of neglect. Forgetfulness is a poor explanation, and itself needs to be explained. For what is it that sends men’s wits wool gathering when most needed at home to superintend an accustomed task? Does our mental machinery suddenly fail at these times and leave our consciousness empty of impressions of outside things and ourselves oblivious of our surroundings? Let somebody wiser than we answer.— [New York World.

WARRIOR ANTS.

Insects and Reptiles Fleeing for Life from the Advancing Horde. It was in Honduras, near the Caribbean coast, while on a Government survey, that I first saw the warrior ants — those strange insects which march through the tropical forests in armies, attacking every living creature in their path. One intensely hot day, as I sat in a hammock under the thatohed roof of my bamboo hut, a native came running in, and, with excited gestures, bade me follow him. I did so wonderingly, and, going out into the open, looked in the direction he indicated. There on the rolling savanna stretched a wide black belt extending far back into the deep shadows of the adjacent forest. It rose and fell with every formation of the ground, and, like a hugesnake, slowly crept toward the village. “The warrior ants,” explained the native in a strange patois of English and Spanish which I shall not attempt to imitate. “They will soon be here,” he continued. “You had better untie your dogs, or the ants will kill them.” Acting upon his advice I loosed my dogs, and retiring to a safe distance, watched the approach, of the warriors. In countless multitudes they swarmed over the plain, marching in compact order, like a well-drilled, army. Before them scurried a heterogeneous mass of lizards, grasshoppers, frogs, beetles, and other manner of insects and reptiles, in a wild scamper to reach a place of safety. Presently the advance guard reached my hut and disappeared within, then the main column appeared, and soon the roof, floor, walls, and rafters were black with them. Like the soft lustle of dried grass stirred by a gentle breeze came the sound of their presence in the leaves of my thatched roof. The |sound increased in loudness as the rats, mice, lizards, cockroaches, centipedes, and others of their ilk, who had long made the roof their home, tried vainly to escape. Some succeeded in getting away from the house, but only to fall victims to the surrounding hordes without. One large cockroaoh, I noticed, made a. plucky fight, but, overpowered by numbers, he gradually relaxed his efforts, and was soon dismembered, each ant carrying off a portion of the body as a trophy. The most exciting battle was with a snake about three feet long that tried to slip away unseen. The ants quickly surrounded him, however, and fought with terrible ferooity. With every switch of his tail the snake killed a score of his tormentors, but their places were loon filled by the black swarm which swept unceasingly on. Finally the writhings of the snake became fainter nnd fainter and at last ceased entirely, and then, and not until then, did the ants relinquish their attack. All day long, they marched through the house, until, at sundown, the end of the column had passed and was lost to view in the thickness of the forest. I entered the house and prepared to survey ruefully my larder, but my anticipations of sorrow were premature, for there were all my provisions as I had left them—untouched. There was but one exception —a poor turtle which I had tied to a stake that morning, intending to keep him alive fora few days before making him into soup. He was Stone dead, but the rumpled earth about him showed that he had made a hard fight for life. Not a dead ant was to be seen : they had all been carried off by their comrades. I afterward learned that the warrior ants refuse to touch any food that they themselves have not caught and slain, which accounted for my provisions remaining unmolested. —[Omaha World Herald. A curiosity of Amitvvilie, Pa., is a peach tree, which is seventy years old. Peach trees ordinarily do not thrive for more than four or five years.