Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1894 — Page 6

UNITED AT LAST

CHAPTER XVll—Continued. As they approached Marchbrook Mr. Wyatt began to talk about the Benedictines and their vanished monastery. He had found out all about it in the county history —its founder, the extent of its lands, the character of its architecture. “That avenue must be 600 years old,” he said, as he came in sight of the tall elms. “By Jove! that's queer,” cried Sir Thomas, pulling out his race glass. “A fellow jumped out of that balcony, like Romeo in the play. “Except that Romeo never scaled the balcony,” said Mr Wyatt. “That summer-house belongs to Davenant, doesn’t it, Gilbert? Our friend’s m.do of exit suggests a flirtation between one of your guests and somebody at Marchbrook. ” “There’s nobody at Marchbrook but old C'lanyarde and Sir Cyprian Davenant," said Sir Thomas, “and I'll lay any odds you like it wasn’t Lord Clanyarde jumped off that balcony.” Gilbert took the glass from his friend’s hand without a word. The man who had iumped off the balcony was still in sight, walking at a leisurely pace across the wide alley of turf between the two rows of trees. The glass brought him near enough for recognition, and Mr. Sinclair had no doubt as to his identity. “If you lay onto those leaders like that, you’ll have this blessed machine in the ditch,” cried Sir Thomas Houndslow. “ What is the matter with you? The horses are stepping like clock-work. ” “Juno was breaking into a canter, ” said Gilbert, coloring. “Steady, old lady; steady, steady.’ “She's steady enough,” said Sir Thomas; “I think it s you that are wild. Memorandum, don’t drink kirschen wasser after champagne when you’re going to drive a team of young horse s. ” Mr. Sinclair took the curve by the park gates in excellent style, despite this insinuation, and pulled up before the ofd Gothic porch with workmanlike preei-ion. “There’s a pretty bit of feather-edg-ing,” said g.r Thomas, approvingly. Gilbert did not wait to see his friencs alight, but flung the reins to one of the grooms and walked off without a word lo any one. He was at the summer-house ten minutes afterward, flushed and breathless, having mn all the way. A flight of stone steps, moss-grown and broken, led up to the door of the temple. Gilbert Sinclair tried the door and found it locked. “Is there any one in there?" he asked, shaking the crazy old door savagely. “Who is that?” inquired Constance. “Your husband.” He heard her light footsteps coming toward the door. She opened it, and faced him on the threshold, with neither surprise nor fear in her calm, questioning face. “Is there anything the matter, Gilbert? Am I wanted?" “There is not much the matter, and I don t know that you are wanted in m/ house,” answered her husband, savagely. “It seems to me that your vocation is elsewhere.” His flushed face, the angry light in his red-brown eyes, to d her that there was meaning in his reply, incomprehensible a i it seemed. “I don’t understand you, Gilbert. What has happened to make you angr.v?"

“Not much, perhaps. It’s bad form to make a fus ) about it. But lam vulgar en ugh to think that when my wife plays Juliet to somebody else’s Romeo, it is time she should call herself by some other name than mine, which she disgraces. I tdmire the innocence of that astonished look. Unfortunately that piece of finished acting is thrown away upon me. I saw your lover leave you. ” “Mr. Sinclair!” with a look of unspeakable indignation. “Yes your gentle Romeo forgot that this summer-house is seen from the high-road. I saw him, I tell you, Roman —I saw him leap down from'the balcony—identified him with my fieldglass—not that I had any doubt who your visitor was. ” “I am sorry that you should he so angry at my seeing an old friend for a few minutes. Gilbert, and that you should make so very innocent an aci an excuse for insulting me. ” “An old friend—a friend whom you meet cladestinely—in an out-of-the-way corner of the park—with locked doers.” “I have spent all my mornings here of late. I look my door in order to be undisturbed, so that anybody happening t > come this way may believe the summer-house empty. “Anyone except Sir Cyprian Davenant. He would know better. ” “Sir Cyprian's presence here to-day was the merest accident. He heard .me singing, and dim ted up to the balcony to say a few kind words about my bereavement, which he knows to be the one absorbing thought of my mind just now. No friend, no brother, could nave come with kinder or purer meaning. He gave me good advice; be warned me that the;e whs selfishness and lolly in giving way to sorrow. Not one word was spoken which you might not have freely heard, Gilbert, which you would not h*ve approved. ” “Could any woman in your position say less? You all sing the same song. Once having ml le up your mind to betray your husband, the rest is a matter of detail, and there is a miserable tameness in the details. Do ycu think anything you can say—oaths, tear — will ever convince me that you did not come hore on purpose to meet that man, or that he came here to you a sermon upon your duty “Gilbert, as I stand here before God, who seewand hears me, T have told you the truth. We have made a sad mistake in marrying: there are few things in which we sympathize: eyen our great eorrow has rot brought hs nearer together but if you will only, be patient, if you will be kind'and tpue to •M, I will still try aven more eai neatly

BY MISS M E BRADDON

I . ' than I have d'dn# vet to make you a gojd wife, to Wake your home life 1 happy.” She came M,*}xim with a sad sweet smile, and laid nor hand gently on his shoulder, looking up at him with earnest eyes, full of truth and purity, could he but have understood their meaning. Alas! to his dogged, brutal nature , purity like this was incomprehensible. 1 Facts were against' his wife, and he had no belief in her to sustain him j against the facts. The lion of fable might recognize Una's purity and lie down at her feet, but Gilbert Sinclair was a good deal more like the lion of reality, a by no means magnanimous : beast, who waits till he can pounce ; up in his enemy alone in a solitary ! corner, and has a prudent dread of; numbers. As the little hand alighted tremulously on his breast, Gilbert Sinclair raised his clenched list. “Let me alone,” he cried. “You’ve made your choice." And then came a word which had never before been spoken in Constance ; Sinclair's hearing, but which some instinct of her woman’s heart told her meant deepest infamy. She recoiled from him with a little cry. and then fell like a log at his feet. I Lest that brutal word should too i weakly express an outraged husband’s wrath, Mr. Sinclair had emphasized it j with a blow. That muscular fist of his, j trained in many an encounter with professors of the noble art of self-defense, had been driven straight at his wife's ! forehead, and nothing but the man's j blind fury prevented the blow being mortal. In intention, at least, he had been for the moment a murderer. His i breath came thick and fast as he stood over that lifeless form. “Have I killed her?” he asked himself. “She deserves no better fate. But I had rather kill him. ’’

CHARTER XVIII. CYPRIAN'S VISITOR. Sir Cyprian Davenant left Marchbrook an hour after his interview with Constance Sinclair. He sent his man home with the portmanteaus and guncases, and went straight to his eiub, where he dined. It was between eight and nine when he walked to his chambers through the snowy streets. The walk through the rough weather suited his present temper. He could have walked many a mile across Yorkshire moor that night in the endeavor to walk down the anxious thoughts that crowded upon his mind. His interview with Constance—like all such meetings betw> en those whom Fate has irrevocably parted—had deepened the gloom of his soul, and added to the bitterness of his regrets. It had brought the past near to him. and made the inevitable harder to bear than it had seemed yesterday. He had seen all the < Id loveliness in the innocent face, changed though it was. He had heard all the old music in the unforgotten voice. To what end? That brief greeting across the iron grate of Destiny s prison-house only made it more agonizing to think of the long futuie in which these two, who had so met and touched hands across the gulf, must live their separated lives in silent patience. The snow lay thick in the quiet turning out of t^e ( ,Strand. There was a hansom standing at the corner by Sir Cyprian’s chambers, the horse hanging his head witlpa dejected air under his whiten d rug, the man stamping up and down the pavement, and flapping his arms across his chest. The cab must have been waiting some time, Sir Cyprian thought idly. His chambers were on the first floor, large and lofty rooms facing the river. Since his inheritance of Colonel Gryffin’s fortune he had indulged himself with that one luxury dear to men who love books, a well-arranged library. This bachelor pied-u-teri e suited him better than lodgings in a more fashionable quarter. It was central, and out of the way of his fashionable acquaintances—an ineligible feature which was to his mind an attraction.

Sir Cyprian admitted himself with his lat h-key, and went up the dimly lighted staircase. He ofened the outer door of his library, within which massive oak barrier there hung a heavy crimson cloth curtain, shutting out noise and drafight. This curtain had been dragged aside, and left hanging in a heap at one end of the rod, in a very different style from the usual neat arrangement of folds left by the mid-dle-aged valet. The room was almost in darkness, for the fire had burned low upon the hearth. There was just light enough to show Sir Cyprian a figure sitting by the fire in a brooding attitude, alone, and in the dark. “Who’s that?” asked Sir Cyprian. The man started up, a big" man, tall and broad-shouldered, whom for the first moment Sir Cyprian took for a stranger. “I should have thought you would have known Constance Sinclair's husband anywhere," said the intrude-. “You and I have reason toiemember each other.” “I beg your pardon, Mr. Sine air,” Cyprian answered, quietly, without noticing the sneer; “but as I do not possess the gift of seeing in the dark, you can hardly wonder at my being slow to recognize you.” He was not going to invite a quarrel with this man—nay, he would rather avoid one at the loss of some personal dignity, for Constance’s sake. He went up to the hearth where Gilbert had resumed his seat, and put his hand on the bell.

“Don’t ring for lights,” said Sinclair, j “What I have to sav can be said in the , dark.” “Perhaps. But I prefer to see a man’s face when I am talking to him. ! May I ask to what I am indebted for j this unexpected p easure? I thought you were at Davenant?” “I left by the train after that in j which you traveled. ” The man came in with a lighted j lamp, which he placed on the table in j front of the fire—a large carved oak I table, loaded with classic vblumes and j ponderous lexicons; for a wealthy stu-1 dent is rarely oontent with a single lexicographer's definition. | Having set down the lamp, the valet replenished the exhausted fire with that deliterate care so peculiar to a servant who is slightly curious about his master's, gue-t, and finally retired, with soft footfall, shutting the door after him very slowly, as if he ex- ' pected to gather something at the last moment, from the visitor’s impatience i to break covert.* In this case, however, the valet retired without hearing a word. Gilbert Sinclair, sat staring at the lire, and i seemed in no hurry to slate his business. He could not fly at his enemy's i throat like a.ligA*, and that was about the only thing to which his spirit moved him at this moment. Looking at his visitor by the soft, cleafr light of, the lamp, Sh*s>j>rian was not reassured by his countenance. Gilbert Sinclair's "'■"'i' Wtfr.

face was of a livid hue. save on each high cheek-bone, where a patch of du-ky red made the pervadi«g pallor mere obvious His thick red-brown hair was rough and disordered, hU large red-brown eyes, prominently placed in their orbit.-*, were b ight and gla.-sy, and the sensual under lip worked convulsively, as in some inward ar> gument of a stormy kind. ITO BE CONTINUED. - ,

The Football Team.

In the new life of the col ege the student sows less of the seeds of dyspepsia and nervous exhaustion than did bis father and grandfather, who went in for a sound mind, and were indifferent to s sound body. “To the playing of .O jtball go mental and moral qualities of no mean order,” writes Mr. MeirUm in his memorial of Dr. Noah Porter — “the soldier's virtues, although with some of the brutality of war." It was “the brutality” of the game which compe’led that Christian gentleman and scholar, Professor Green of Princeton Theological Seminary, to prohibit the “the iogues” from engaging in any football contest. There were complaints both loud and deeo uttered on the campus of Nassau Hall when that prohibition was made known: for several members of the Princeton football team were stalwart theological students, who played according to the law of natural selection —only the fittest survive. Doubtless they thought, when playing, of that ancient game in Palestine, when the players were Jews and Canaanites.

Yet, a few years ago the captain of the Princeton football team was the most devoted Christian in the college —Mr. Speer. There was no “brutality” when he ordered the game. It was a manly contest, which m ght have been opened and closed with prayers. The old Princeton and the old Yale man calls, “Halt!” He is not pleased that his boys take the gladiators of Rome for a mcdel. He says to them: “My sons, you are gentlemen, and should play football as gentlemen, and not as heathen mercenaries, hired to draw blood. let taet'es, brawn—made hard by days of self-denial — courage and endurance win; but don’t be rowdie . Don’t disgrace your ancesto -s by striking ‘below the belt;’ nor by kicking a man when he is down. “You are n t Roman gladiators, but Christian undergraduates!”

A Duck Drowned by an Oyster.

The meek and lowly oyster can sometimes become a revengeful as well as a dangerous antagonist, as an unwary Baltimore duck found to his cost. This careless duck, belonging to the tribe known as “fishermen,” was swimming about in search of food off the shore near Claitorne when he espied an oyster - a nice, fat. iuicy oyster he was—■ with shell widely narted, feeding, doubtless, on the simple and ratner intanginlo diet upon which an oyster is suppose Ito feed. The duck, true to his greedy instincts, diced for that supi osed juicy mor. el and wa; about to swallow him whole, without salt or pepper even, when the angry passions of the oyster arose, and napping his shells together caught the unsuspecting duck’s bill in a vise-like embrace. The drck rose to the surface, shook his head, m imbled apologies through his tight-shut mouth, but the bivalve’s heart was hardened, and he held on. Soon that constant load pulling down his head, and growing weightier and weightier, began to tire t ie duck and his neck arched lower and lower until finally it s-ank into the water and he was drowned. A deckhand on the steamboat Tangier saw the duck floating with head submerged and picked him up. The oyster was still clinging to his victim with a relentless, deadly grasp, and the tragedy that must have been onai ted as described wa . revealed. Both the duck and the slayer vere taken to Baltimore, and proved quite a curiosity.

Went to the Root of the Evil.

This is woman’s age, and a businessman who knows says there is positively nothing that she will not undertake. He was lounging in his office the other day when the door opened and a welldressed, comely litt.e woman appeared. She wore a resolute expression in addition to other apparel and in her hand she carried a large tack-raiser. “GoM morning,” she said, winningly. “Is this Mr. Gash’s offioe. J Will you plesse tell me what chair it is that has that nail in it'r'-” Tup business-man was confused—the nico little woman was a total Granger to him. He answered wildly: “What chair!* What nail?” “Why,” she exclaimed, “my husband has come homo three times recently with dreadful holes in his coat and trousois and he said he tore them on a chair in your office. I’m tired of darning tho e rents and thought it would be more sensible and satisfactory to come down hero, pull the nail out, and be done with it Don't you think so?" .Still in a trance the merchant agreed with her, found the offending chair, extracted the nail and with many thanks and smiles the enterprising little woman withdrew.—New York World.

Saw His Parents Sixty Miles Away.

Harry Willett), a young man who was Dearly killed by striking an arc light with the s.eel tip of his umbrella at Atlantic City, N. J., upon his recovery related a lemarkable vision which came to him as he felt the electric fluid going through his body. His home is in Camden, sixty miles from Atlantic City. “1 had left home but two days before,” he said to a leporter, “and every detail of the home life I reme tube ed, and as I fell unconscious 1 saw it again as plainly as I now see you. My father t-at by the table reading, while my mother was engaged in sewing buttons on his clothes. The picture was so realistic that my last words as I fell were: ‘My God, where am I?’ And they were heard by bystanders who did not know what cased'them.” The most marvelous part of young Willots’ vision is thar, his brother declaies that the hour the accident occurred his parents -were seated and occupied iust a i he saw them.

Unappreciated Courtesy.

Mr. Martha Moore Avery, the socialist leader from Boston, whose smooth and communistic speeches have been a feature in Philadelphia, i rides herself on her winsome and sympati etic ways with the commonest people. She was lidirg the other day in a Girard avenue car, bound for Memorial Ball, when a ragged and red-headed newsboy boarded tho car. Mrs. Avery put on an attractive smile and thj boy hurried to the end of the car and flashed his papers on her. t “No, thank you, little boy,” said that lady. “I don’t wi = h for a paper, but I am ever so much obliged to you f rcomPg in he e.” The hoy walked reproachfully away, and :s h) left the car he lemarked to the c nductor, “Say! it’s a wonder de woman didn t ask me if me wife was well.”

Matrimonial item.

According to French divorce statistics the moat unhappy period of marriage is Irom the fifth to the tenth year. After that tho figures drop rapidly. 1* you would keep the dovil in, keep the bottle corked.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

TOPICS OF INTEREST TO FARMER AND HOUSEWIFE. A Notable Illustration of What May Bo Accompitahed from a Small Acreage— The Outlook la Bee Culture-Keeping Uraaa Out of Corn—Farm Notes. A Profitable Three-Aire Farm. A notable Illustration of what may be accomplished at a comparatively small cost from a small acreage is presented In the very successful experiment performed by Mr. .7. R Porst of Greentown, Ohio, the owner and mauager of what i 9 claimed to be the largest celery farm under a single control in the United States. His home, however, is on what he is pleased to call his “ThreeAcre Farm.” From these three acres, he modestly says, he believes he secures quite as good returns as do some farmers from ten times the acreage, and that, to ■. wl h an expenditure of labor which amounts to little more than that required by ordinary morning and evening chores. One of the three acres is occupied by the home, the outbuildings, poultry yard, vegetable, and fruit garden. From the remaining two acres three Jerseys are fed from the time the clover is large enough to be cut in May until vegetation stops growing in the fall; and at times a considerable surplus Is fed to the horses and hogs. Every fall one plot of twothirds of an acre is seeded to wheat This supplies a family ot four with bread during the year. In the spring the remaining two plots of the twoacre tract—each two-thirds of an

VIEW OF J. B. BORST’S THREE-ACRE FARM.

acre—are in clover, one giving its first year’s crop, and the other its second. The latter is cut first, and from it the cows are daily supplied with fre-h green food. When this plot ha* been gone over once, and the cutting of the second plot has com nen ed, the mowed patch is covered well with a compost of muck from the celery farm and with stable manure, and at once plowed. This is not later thon the ni ddle of June, and the plot is sowed to corn. By the time, the second red clover patch has been cut the first time, the new crop at the side first mowed is again ready.

The last of August the corn Is right for feeding. From this, three horses and the hogs, as well as the cows, are fed until the ground is again cleared, about the middle of September. After giving it a dressing of the compost, winter wheat is planted. In the spring the wheat plot is seeded to clover, and l.y the time the sowed corn has all been led the young clover has attained a strong growth. Besides providing food, which is greatly relished by the stooK, the fall cutting of the young clover frees the grouud from the wheat stubble, which, if left until the following season, would be moldy, and, therefore, injurious to the feeding qualities of the clover. By his plan of soiling, Mr. Borst claims, a superior quality of butter is made. The clean clover and pure water cause a longer, more abundant and more wholesome flow of milk than is possible with cows which are given the run of large pastures, pestered by fliesin summer, grazing close for grass which has been tramped under foot, and quenching their thirst at slimy, pools of stagnant water. On the acre of land on which the house and other buildings are located there are fruits of many varieties, an abundant garden, and a poultry yard in which nearly one hundred chickens and more than a dozen ducks run—and all this without marring the beauty of the home, for the smoothly mowed lawn about the comfortable farm-house is dotted with well kept ornamental shruis, and roses and other lowers in profusion From the dairy, the poultry, the garden and the orchard, says Mr. Borst. the family of four s provided with all the necessaries of living, save the single one of wearing apparel; and quite often there is a very considerable surplus. Danger in Moldy Hay. iess than a week ago the horses in a city stable died suddenly, as S" lie investigators said, of poison, v bile others, Dr. Glass among the rest, pronounced the disease cerebrospinal meningitis, the post-mortem showing e\ery indicatiqn of this disease. Had there been a single case, nothing would have been thought of It, hut to have all the inmates of the stable taken down at once pointed to a common condition and a local cause.

Dr. J. Cheston Morris seems to have hit the nail on the head when be gives moldy hay as a direct cause for this disease. He says: months since I was present at the slaughter of a herd of cattle supposed to have been tainted with tuberculosis. While waiting for an opportunity to make certain investigations a gentleman told me that some gypsy boys, with whom he had played in his youth, had shown him a bottle which they said container a poison prepared from moldy hay, capable of producing a fatal sickness. “In speaking of this to I>r. Dickson, the bacteriol gist, I found him fully alive to the possibilities of truitful results from investigations into the transplanting of fungoid and actinomycoid growths from a vegetable basis to animals. And I was reminded that during the late war tbe very fatal epidemic of coiebrospinal meningitis broke out among

#- scldJera who were supplied with moldy hayfor bedding. This disease among horses, lam informed, is directly traceatle to moldy hay. Among the Dutch farmers at Lancaster it is called putrid sore throat The tendency of investigation during the past twenty years has been more and more j toward the Intimate casual relations between many Diseases, not formerly recogni ed as zymotic, and correspon ing fungi or bacteria. We too often forget that the?e are only terms for microscopic fungi or molds, and the same law of propagation and ; growth gov<rns them as their larger | congeners. A large step in advance i will have been made if we shall be | able to trace them from the r comparatively innocuous vig table horn s to the r dangerous migration to animals.”—Philadelphia Le .ger. Bee Keeping. G. W. Demaree, writing in the “American Bee-Keeper,” concerning the outlook in bee culture, says; “The business is settling down in more permanent form, agicultural goods and supplies are becoming moie uniform and staple in character, and less excited by doubtful and worthless invention. And ‘fitness of person’ is taking the highest rank in the bee business, in place of honeyproducing hives and fixtures. This is the most hopeful feature of our times pertaining to the future bee business." The Off Yeap with Apples. A writer in an exchange thinks that high culture and pruning wll cause apple trees to bear all crops every year. But if he had ever noted attentively the apple trees in wellmanured and cultivated gardens, says T. H. Hoskins in “Vermont

Wat hman,” he would not have been so absolute in his statement. T e truth is that it is very hard for a var ety which is even naturally an annual bearer to give a good crop of fruit on the off year. The insect enemies of the fruit are concentrated on the few bearing trees and either cause their fru.t to diop, or disfigure it so that 1 ttle of it is perfect, or would be salable, were it not for the scare ty of better.

Early Harrowing. A slight raking or har, owing given the land early in the season will be more effectual in destroying weeds and grass than ten times the labor that may be given after the weeds are established. Labor is an item of i expense, and should be used economically, by applying it at the right time and in the right place. If every farmer would consider labor as something which should he used cautiously and with judgment, according to its value, a better system of cultivation would be the result.. Wheat for Hogs. An Ohio farmer says: “Last September I had twelve fine shoats which had been on the clover all summer : and were in fine condition, weighing 1,800 pounds when putin the Den. I fed those hogs fifty bushels of wheat, soaked twelve hours before feeding. I sold those hogs at $5.00 : per hundred, and they weighed 3,000-| pounds. Again of 1,200 pounds at $5.00 per hundred would give me ! *‘m.2o for fifty bushels of wheat, I which I would have sold at s:c per ! bushel, S2O. itfow, can any farmer say it doesn’t pay to feed wheat?” \ Farm Notes? An exchange says that if a cow I gets choked w.th an apple or potato, holding up its head and breaking an egg in its mouth is a suie cure. The same remedy is Recommended for horses under similar circumstances. As to scare-crows, some one says that “the regulation dummy has become only a sign to the crows that the crop is in and to come on down to it. A few dry goods boxes in the cornfield will give all the protection necessary.

Any lator saving appliance lessens the cost of production and affords a larger profit. The enterprising larmer will keep himself well informed on this point, and always be on the lookout for labor-saving implements in every department. The dwarf Lima beans, though they are smaller in si/.e of seed than the pole kinds, are much earlier, and are also much surer under adverse conditions of rain or drought* as well as requiring no poles. They are a valuable acquisition to the list of garden cro a Good butter can be spoiled with poor salt, as well as by poor handling. They are plenty of good grades of dairy salt, and it is a great mistake to use a poor salt because it is cheap. Many creamery men have found this out to their sorrow. A medium grain is more desirable than a salt in which the grain is very fine. Quitting field work enough earlier to get the milking done by the usual time for quitting work on the farm is the best and about the only way, says a writer, to keep good help on a dairy farm. Hired help cannot he blamed for not wunt'ing to nut in a full day’s work in the field, and tnen put in an hour or more after dark milkiug and doing chores.

Sweet corn should be j refe red for /ensilage. It contains more sugar than field corn, and is more highly relished by stock. Even the hcgswill eat it when ;t is prepared properly lor i he silo, and comes out succulent In the winter. Western farmers also use it fnr supplying poultry, with &reen food during ter.ods when no other bulky material can be had.

HOW TO RIDE A BIKE.

MAY HUMP YOURSELF OR NOT, AS YOU CHOOSE. The Change from Low-Handled Racer* to Roadster* with a High Steering Gear Make* It Optional with the Cyeliat How He Look*. A* Others See Them. A middle-aged gentleman sat In the park the other afternoon watching a string of expert bicyclists shoot past at top speed, says the Chicago Times. The forms of the riders were bent away forward on their wheels, their heads were lowered, and they exerted all their leg power in racing their steel steeds. The elderly gentleman turned to a companion, who was also in middle life. “I never could ride in that style,” he said. “I should think they would build machines that a rider could sit up straight on and take things lei-

surely. Everybody doesn’t want to shoot ahead at that breakneck pace. ” The middle-aged speaker expressed a view of bicycle racing held by many who are unfamiliar with the exercise and the construction of the machines. All first-das'! bicycles are built nowadays so that they can be readily altered from the low-handled “racer” to a high handle, easy going “roadster,” upon which the rider sits upright. The transformation is effected by an adjustable handle bar that can be raised or lowered at will.

“The machine for the rider who wishes to ride leisurely and with comfort,” said an expe't, should have a turned-up handle and a seat set upon springs. If the wheel has the turned-down handle the bar would have to be raised so high in order to enable the rider to sit upright that the handles would interfer • seriously with the balancing and steering of the machine. It would make it wobble. The nearer the handle; are to the framework of the machine the easier it is for the rider to keep his balance and steer. The lowering of the handles to this position incieases the ability of the rider to speed the machine, because when he bends over he gets a better hold on the pedals and is able to exert more power in forcing the wheels ahead. And when his body is thrown forward, viyth the head down, there is less resistance to the wind. Elderly or leisurely riders would find the upright position more to their comfort

and liking, and that is why all good wheels are made so that either position can be taken. As I said before, it is a mere matter of raising or lowering the adjustable handle bar. Speeders all prefer the bar with the turned-down handles, and those who do not care for speeding select the turned-up handle bar. That is all the difference there is to the two styles of riding.” The accompanying pictures illustrate both positions.

Catching Wild Horses.

In several places of the West wild horses still abound, and men pick up a living by catching the animals and selling them to teamsters or cattle outfits. Their mode of operation is very simple. When a bunch of horses is sighted one of the party of horse hunters, of whom four or five always go together, starts out after them, and keeps close enough to them to kee,p them constantly moving. The horses see him and dash off at full speed, but seldom continue in a straight line, as they usually make g;eat turns or circles, and the hunter, by riding at angles, don’t cover a tenth of the distance. At the end of two or three hours the first driver, as he is calied, is relieved by another, and this is kept up hour after hour, the wild hoises always having a fresh and tireless pursuer on their trail. As the drives are made during the full of the moon, the hunted horses have no rest during night or day. and at the end of forty-eight or fifty hours they are so completely played out that their capture b y the rope is a very easy matter, although in many Instances when the herd begins to tire out it is driven toward a coral, already prepared, and forced into it.

Vegetables G ve Strength.

The strongest animals in the world are those that live on a vegetable diet. The lion is ferocious rather than strong. The bull, horse, reindeer, elephant and antelope, all conspicuous for strength, choose a vegetable diet.

Funny Missionary Work.

The police authorities of Baltimore, are in receipt of a communication from John Mobley, of North Carolina, asking if there is a young Woman in the prisons of that city who can be released by marrying him.

In Court.

In recent legal proceedings in London regarding the noise and vibration cayseo by a neighboring factory, a phonograph was used* to; record these noises and reproduce them In court.

ART IN AMERICA.

Ths Younger Painter Arouted to the Meeesalty of Individuality. John C. Van Dyke gives a careful review of “Painting at the Fair" in the Century. Owing to the fact that art education had to be obtained abroad, we are at the start influenced by foreign elements, he says. The influence is to our gain in craftsmanship, but it is to our loss iu originality. Parisian ideas and notions of art may be better than our own, but the point is, they are not our own, and, if we repeat them, we are playing the parrot—imitating, and not creating. American painters are not disposed to followers. On the contrary, the effort is toward being distinctly and individually themselves, but artistically they are hampered by many Gallicisms or worldisms, just as politically a good piece of American legislation is checked by forced consideration for some foreign vote. In both casts there is a compromise not altogether pleasing to either party. We come nearer to having an American school of art in landscape than elsewhere. There is a decisive note even from the younger men. In fact, there is much hope to be placed in the large band of young landscape painters at present working in this country. They have skill, and as they grow older they will gain the conviction that our pictorial view is the only one for them. It might be added, without national pride, that, as regards landscape, it is the best one now extant in the schools, and that it has little or nothing to gain from the view of others. Policy as well as patriotism should induce au American to be an American, for there is little advantage in trying to be anything else. The chief value of a nation’s art, aside from its being good art, lies in its nationality, its peculiar point of view, its representation of a time, a clime, and a people. We shall never have any great art in America unless it is done in our own way and is distinctly American. We.shall never be accounted great because of our doing something like some other people, nor by fashioning that which is best in others into an electric cosmopolir tanism.

Happily our younger painters are rousing to the necessity of individuality in their work. Year by year their styles deepen, one in refined color, another in pure line, another in brush work, another in largeness of conception, another in delicacy of sentiment. It is these added individualities that produce nationality in art when there Is homogeneity in fundamental thought and aim. We have not just now so much of the latter as could be wished for, but we are likely to come to it by degrees. That there is to be great production in painting in this country during the next quarter of a century is almost a foregone conclusion, and it cannot be doubted that our painters will find American life their strongest inspiration.

The Menken and Dickens.

A little book is associated in the oddest way with Dickens—“lnfelicia,” by Adah Isaacs Menken. It is dedicated to him, and the authoress printed a facsimile of his letter acknowledging the compliment. These verses are sought by the bibliophiles, and are essential for any complete collection, the book fetching about £2. 1 have heard Dickens relate in his richest comic manner the incidents of this introduction. The lady at one time was the talk of the town from her performance of Mazeppa, when she appeared hound to her untamed and fiery steed—of course, a very pliant, well-broken quadruped—in the airiest of raiment. “Boz” was one night seated in the stalls looking on, when her business manager, a Yankee, stood before him with a pressing invitation from the 1 air and massively built equestrienne to come round and see her. The emissary, in the usual nasal tone, represented that this meeting was the dream of her (the equestrienne’s) life. The author politely waived off the interview, deprecating the compliment; but the manager returned with more pressing Insistence, and “Boz” had to yield. He gave a humorous sketch of his Interview and the lavish incense that was offered to him. “The dream of her life” was still insisted on, hut unluckily I have forgotten the details. The lady had literary instincts, and her verses are full of Are. Sometimes, we are told, they have been “attributed to Swinburne. ” She later transferred her adoration —strange to say—to the elder Dumas, and I possess that rarest and most curious of curios, a photograph representing her and the grand novelist standing together. Later, I think, she married the pugilist Heeuan. Altogether, an'odd history.— The Gentleman’s Magazine.

A Marine Wonder.

One of the marine wonders of the world is the great barrier reef of Australia. The stupendous rampart of coral, stretching in an almost unbroken line for twelve hundred and fifty miles along the northeastern coast of Australia, presents features of interest which are not to be equalled in any other quarter of the globe. Nowhere is the action of the little marine insect, which builds up with untiring industry those mighty mountains with which the tropical seas are studded, more impressive; nowhere are the wonderful constructive forces of nature more apparent. By a simple process of accretion there has' been rearpd in the course of countless centuries an adamantine wall against which the billows of the Pacific, sweeping along in an uninterrupted course of several thousand miles, dash themselves in ineffectual fury. Inclosed within the range of its protecting arms is a calm inland sea eighty thousand square miles in extent, dotted with a multitude of coral islands, and presenting at every turn objects of interest alike to the unlearned traveler and the man of science. Here may be witnessed the singular process by which the wavy, gelatinous living mass hardens into stone, then serves as 1 a collecting ground for the fiotsam arid jetsam of tne ocean, and ultimately develops into an Island covered With a luxurious mass of tropical growth. Here again may be seen in the, serene depths of placid pools extraordinary Cirrus of marine life, aglow with brilliant colors.