Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1895 — Page 4

"LET ME NOT MUCH COM PLAIN."

me mot much complain ol life, in age, life is not faulty, wife is vrell enough, Var those who lovl their daily round of doing, Ipr ' And take things rounded, never in the rough, Twining from day to day the same old page, And their old knowledge ever more renewing I have known many such: through life they went "With moderate use of moderate heritage, ffining and spending, saving as they spent. These are wise men, though never conuted sage; They looked for li-tle, easy men to please; Alt I, more deeply drunk of life s full cup. Feel, as my lips come nearer to the lees, I dived for pearls, and brought but pebbles up. —Thomas W. Parsons, in the Century.

A HOLIDAY TRAGEDY.

All my life I had been —well, not exactly a woman hater, bat a firm believer in the idea that man is the locd of creation, and that woman is aot an absolute necessity. For ■aany years it was my proud boast that I was able to dispense with feminine aid and yet live a very enjoysbte life, as, with clockwork regularity, 1 went from my bachelor lodgings to business each morning, returning in the afternoon and spending the evening at the club or some jriaee of amusement. The idea of having a lady companion in my rambles never entered my head. True, my landlady, good old soul, prepared my meals and cleaned my rooms, but that was because I had not time to do it myself, and a man servant was beyond my means. But to all else I dispensed with woman’s aid. Boot cleaning, sewing buttons on, lighting the fire, etc., were all done with my own hands —nay, at a pinch, I have even washed a pocket handkerchief.

I desired to stand forth as a living example of the original Adam and a proof of the superfluity of the modern Eve. But my misguided companions refused to profit by my teachings or to follow my example. One by one they fell under female influence, one by one they married, and then —I cut them dead. Ah, me! "Those free Bohemian days were happy ones, as year after year I pursued way adopted course in spite of the continual falling off of my comrades. Then came a time when my circle of acquaintances had decreased so considerably that I began to feel lonely. Bachelor chums were more difficult to find than ever. To loneliness succeeded melancholy, and I grew miserable. One friend, to whom I laid bare my woes, said: “You keep to yourself too much. What you ought to do is to lodge with some family where there are two or three grown up daughters. "They would wake you up a bit.” This, to me, the hitherto ideal advocate of an Eveless Eden ! And yet, After the advice had been tendered several times, I began to think that such a change might be beneficial. Such a course need not involve the rendering up of my tenets; but, as woman still formed a part of the world, she might at least contribute to my amusement. So, after very serious consideration, I decided te seek fresh apartments, with light society thrown in. Now my troubles commenced. I could not make the direct inquiry. “Have you any grown up daughters?” £9 ( generally viewed the rooms, listening to the landlady’s verbiage, ;ti*e rent, and then casually asked, ‘“Have you any children?” and the 'reply would be, ‘‘Yes, ‘four,’ ‘five,’ or ‘six,’” (as the case might be}; “the eldest is 16 years old and the ■youngest 2 months. But they are as good as gold and never make a bit of inoise.’ The numberless journeys I made And the many desultory conversations I listened to were all to no purpose. No one appeared to possess grown up daughters—the eldest was always 10. Just when I was about to abandon any search of fortune—or was it >fate?—led me to Myrtle Villa, Paradiie Gardens, Upper Dulwich. The •floor was opened by a vision of loveliness, faultlessly dressed, and with iwight blue eyes and golden hair. “Nowly married,” thought I, “well, Ifeere at least the eldest won’t be 10!” ■She invited me in, and then disappeared; a middle aged lady entering directly after, we proceeded to discuss terms. Then came the inevit.able inquiry as to children. “J have two grown up daughters, 'the younger of whom opened the door for you.”

At last! Need I say that, within a week, I was installed in Myrtle Villa? The landlady (a widow) was a genial, homely woman,,and the youngest daughter. Annie, aged 25, i hare already described, but the other daughter, Julia, did not impress me favorably- She was neither good looking nor pleasing, and, without being exactly bad tempered, always insisted on having her own wayI now seemed to be in a new world. My boots bore a brilliant luster each waorning without my aid, and my •Uppers were laid ready for me in the •oreoing, and as for lending me a needle and cotton —the idea!—if I would only leave them ouiside they -would only be too happy. I no longer needed to seek relaxation at the club atter the labors of •the day. Julia played the piano well (her only accomplishment), while Annie sang divinely, and thus the evenings nassed all too quickly. Male acquaintances they did not seem to possess —yet stay, there was one—a -Mr. Malcolm .whose name I frequently heard mentioned, but as his calls i were always made in the daytime, I ■ever saw him . I had rapidly passed into that condition of mind which nosed a feeling of jealousy on his aeoMint, so one dav I questioned iny fiwidlady on the subject. he's a very old fHend of ours.

Once we thought he would have proposed to Julia, but nothing came of it.” What a relief! Only Julia! So time went pleasantly on, and then—how can I confess it? —my lifelong creed was thrown to the winds, my proud ambition humbled in the dust, and I became a willing slave to the sex I had so long despised and ignored. My only thought now was, how and in what words 1 should beseech my darling Annie to become my wife. Time after time I was on the point of speaking, but Julia always turned up at the critical moment. One evening Julia announced that a week theuce she had an engagement to play at a concert. Then burßtupon me a brilliant inspiration. I purchased two stall tickets for the Lyceum for that same evening, and, making pretense that I had them given to me, I persuaded AnDie to promise to accompany me. This time Julia would not be able to intrude, and I should know my fate. In two months time I should be taking my summer holiday, which would fit in just nicely for the honeymoon. On the eventful day I hastened homeward with a queer fluttering in my heart and a flower spray for Annie in my hat. Julia opened the door, and hardly permitted me to enter before she informed me that Annie had been out in the hot sun, and had been obliged to go to bed with a very bad sick headache. My fluttering heart gave one huge bound and then seemed to standstill. However, to disguise my feelings, I said: “I am sorry; and you have to play at the concert?” “No,” she replied, ‘‘the concert has been postponed.” ‘‘Then may I beg the pleasure of your company? I did not ask you before because of the concert engagement.” ‘‘Thanks. I shall enjoy it immensely.” What a miserable failure that evening proved to be ! Ido not even know what the play was called. I was thinking all the time of my poor, sick darling, and not of the acting or the woman who sat by my side wearing the flower spray that was meant for Annie.

The words were still unspoken when my holidays arrived, and, tearing myself away from the two sisters, who stood at the gate and waved their handkerchiefs as long as I remained in sight, it was with no feelings of joyful anticipation that I betook myself to Hastings for rest and recreation. Rest! Where could I find it? Not on the parade or pier amidst hundreds of, couples promenading, as I had pictured Annie and myself doing; not on the beach where the Ethiopian musicians were eternally playing “Annie Laurie,” “Sweet Annie Rooney” and “Annie, Dear, I’m Tailed Away.” For a whole week I wandered aimlessly hither and thither. Then I could stand it no longer. So I wrote a long letter commencing “Darling,” and pouring out the impassioned, pent up love that comes butonce in a man’s lifetime. I besought and beseeched her to take pity upon mo, or my lifeless body should serge in the billows that beat relentlessly on the rocks of Beachy Head.

When I had finished, I happened to catch sight of a photograph which I had purchased the previous day, representing one of the yachts preparing to start on her morning trip, with my own figure in a prominent position in the bows. “Ah,” thought I, “I’ll send that to Julia If it were possible I had now less rest than before, night or day, while waiting for the answer. Rising in the morning with haggard looks and burning brow, the other boarders would remark that the sea air did not seem to agree with me, while under the mask of supreme indifference there raged within me the fiercest volcano that ever burned in the heart of man. At last the reply came,and, bounding up to the privacy of my own room, and trembling fingers I tore open the envelope which hid from me—life or death? “Dearest, lam your’s forever. I cannot say your proposal was unexpected, for I have felt that you could mean nothing less, ever since that evening when you so openly expressed your preference for me by taking me to the theater”What! Whew! Where! ! ! I looked at the signature—“ Julia.” Oh, Heavens! I saw it all. I had placed them in {the wrong envelopes, and sent the letter to Julia and the photograph to Annie! Howl raged and fumed and tore my hair, until at last, in sheer exhaustion, I sank into a chair and endeavored to finish reading the letter. “Annie thanks you very much for photo, and she desires me to tell you that yesterday Mr. Malcomb proposed to her and was accepted. We will have the two weddings on the same day. Won’t that be nice, dear ?"

Nice? This was the last straw. Nice, indeed, for me to be married to a woman I did not care for, and at the same time to see the one I loved given to another man 1 I cannot remember what I did for the next hour or two beyond cursing my foolishness and swearing I wouldn’t marry Julia. Then, when I became calmer, I saw an action for breach of promise looming. I thought of all my hard earned savings of years being swept away by a sympathetic jury to heal Julia’s broken heart. There was no escape for me. She had my letter, which simply commenced “Darling,” and as no name was mentioned in it from beginning to end. was it possible that any body of intelligent men could be brought to believe that I Intended it for Annie when I addressed the envelope to Julia? No, no. I must go through with it—l would marry Julia. Yes, and I would teach her that man is the lord of creation, and that woman 13 but a helpmate, and not an equal, and so, in my married life, triumphantly assert those principles which I had held so long. Julia marrie 1 me at the same time and place, as Annie became Mrs. Malcolm. 1 now spend my evenings endeavoring to solve a difficult problem, and that is, why do thtey call woman the weaker sex? The average price of parrots in South America is 10 cents.

NEW GOLD MINES.

$50,000,000 MADE IN ONE YEAR BY A SPECULATOR. Engineers Say That tha Amount of Gold in South Africa is Practically Unlimited. For almost a year the world has been slowly growing more and more excited over the gold mines of South Africa. Within a year mining shares that were issued at $5 per share, and often sold for only a portion of that, have sold up as high as $165 per share, and there are many who believe that these same shares will go to SSOO. It is not impossible that mining shares of the South African properties will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange within the year. Proposals to that effect have already been made. The single little district known as the Witwaters and, in the Transvaal or South African republic, will yield this year upward of $40,000,000 worth of gold. This little district is, so far as its productive area is concerned, not over fifteen miles wide, and about sixty miles long. Ten years ago it was laid out in stock farms. To-day the mines located upon this narrow strip have a market value of more than $150,000,000. Perhaps the most remarkable man of the gold fields is B. I. Barnato, known from Cape Town to London as Barney, Barnato is still a young man. He comes of a good English family, turned out to be a wild youngster, who shipped off to Cape Colony, knocked about there as best he could, was, it is said, at one time a member of a circus company as a juggler, found himself stranded with a half crown in his pocket, went into the diamond business at Kimberley, made money hand over fist, was soon ranked as one of the diamond magnates, and when the Kimberley diamond mines were consolidated turned up at the top of the heap, worth millions. Later Barnato followed the movement to the Witwatersrand, became a leading promoter of goldmining enterprises there, and a year ago his fortune was estimated at $175,000,000. It is currently given out in London that within the last year he has made $50,000,000 in the sale of mining shares and in promoting mining enterprises. It was through the diamond mines and the gold mines tliut Cecil Rhodes came to be Premier of the Cape Colony and practically dictator of South Africa. Rhodes was a young man in ill health when he went out to South Africa and followed his brother into the diamond mines. There he not only recovered his health but showed remarkable business talent and Boon became the head of the movements to consolidate the Kimberley mines, which were then held by some 1,600 different small holders, into one vast concern. The De Beers Consolidated Mines, limited, valued to-day at $80,000,000, is practically his handiwork. Later Rhodes became interested, with other diamond magnates, in the Transvaal gold mines, and has a fortune that is estimated at $25,000,000. His friend and associate, Alfred Beit, of the firm of Wehrner, Beit & Co., is worth perhaps $60,000,000, and J. B. Robinson, of the famous Robinson mine, upward of $85,000,000. South Africa has thus far produced perhaps twice as many millionaires as did California, and the remarkable feature of the whole matter is, that if the engineers are right in their calculations as to the extent of the Witwatersrand deposits, the amount of gold the latter contain is almost unlimited. Free predictions are offered that in live years the production of gold in the Transvaal alone will have gone far toward $1,000,000,000 a year, or about twothirds as much as all the gold now mined in the world. It is a rather remarkable fact that it has been American engineers who have directed the development of the South Africa gold mines, as it was Gardner Williams and L. S. Seymour, two American engineers, who rescued the Kimberley diamond mines from disaster, and who have since directed their operations. The principal gold fields are grouped about the town of Johannesburg, which lies inland just a thousand miles northeast from Cape Town. It is reached by rail from either Cape Town, Port Elizabeth or East London, and probably by this time also from Delagoa Bay, The town is situated in the southern portion of the Transvaal or South African republic, about thirty-five miles south of Pretoria, the capital. Johannesburg has now a population of about 40,000 whites, and Pretoria is a little place, a typical Boer town, of about 10,000.

Johannesburg lies on the uplands of the Witwatersrand, and for the most of the year is a very pleasant place to live in. It is nearly six thousand feet above the level of the sea, is surrounded by a grassy, rolling country, and with tree planting and other improvements that are being made rapidly, it is becoming a pretty and attractive city. It lacks nothing of .the comforts and conveniences of civilization. The town is lit by electricity and an electric street railway line is being built connecting all the surrounding mines and villages with the central town* The mines are equipped with perhaps the finest mining machinery in the world. Johannesburg itself is a study. It lias sprung up entirely within the last ten years, principally within the last seven or eight years, and it is a typical |>oom town. It presents none of the characteristics that we used to read of in the flush days of Leadville, of Virginia City or Pioche. The rowdy element has never developed, and the -‘Man from Creede” is not there. The saloons of Johannesburg are closed on Sunday, ancl at 12 o’clock each night of the wefk. A sanitary board, elected by the people, is making many improvements, and the water works, built by Barney Barnato, have introduced an abundance of wator. Prices jin general ars not high. Good board at the hotels can be secured for about *2O a week, and while there is, of course, a general tendency to higher prices than pre-

vails here, that is fully equalized by somewhat higher wages than are paid here. However, the Transvaal offers no inducements for making money. With the discovery and development of the mines came an immense rush, so that all kinds of ordinary labor are to be had at fair prices. Moreover, a great many persons who thought to settle in Mashona Laud and Matabele Land, several hundred miles north of Johannesburg, were disappointed and have returned to the Transvaal. Then, too, almost every kind of business is represented in some way or other, and the business man of Johannesburg has his typewriter and rides his bicycle, and in general, has all the facilities and con veniences that one enjoys here. The town is rapidly building up with handsome brick blocks and fine residences and tasteful churches; streets are being paved, and the only thing so far lacking are good public school facilities. Not the least striking characteristic of the country is the presence of the gold mines on a green prairie. There are no mountains anywhere about, and the usual bare, desert-like mining country is lacking. Before the mines were discovered all this area was good farming land, and the cautious old Boers used to fight off the prospectors, and in the early days of the Transvaal there was a heavy fine attached to prospecting anywhere in the republic. Of course, that is all changed now, but it is the English rather than the native Boers who have made money out of the mines.

THE SEVERED HAND.

Its Owner Could Not Rost UntK It M/as Made Comfortable. Peter King, a lumberman of Grass Valley, recently met with a terrible accident, whereby lie lost one of his arms in a planing machine. The severed limb was buried in such a manner that when subsequently disinterred it was found that the hand andVsist were twisted. The strange feature of the affair is the fact that King suffered considerable pain until the buried member was dug up and straightened, when the cramped and strained feeling entirely vanished. The accident occurred nearly a week ago. Yesterday morning one of his associates in the yard called upon him to make inquiries as to his progress toward strength and recovery. Mr. King was progressing favorably, but in the conversation that ensued he stated to his friend that he imagined he felt a cramped and constrained feeling in the hand which he had lost. He said he felt as though it were twisted, and he could not resist the feeling of trying to turn it to a natural and easy position. This sensation had so annoyed him that he had slept scarcely any the night before. This part of the conversation was then dropped. Soon Mr. King’s business associate departed. Without saying a word to Mr. King of his intention, he enlisted the services of another attache of the yard, and the two proceeded to the cemetery where Mr. King’s dismembered arm lay buried. They disinterred the shattered member. And here comes the marvelous part of tjiis story. In the first place, they found the hand in a twisted position, similar to that described by Mr. King. They took hold of it carefully and placed it in an easy and natural position. At the moment they were manipulating the hand in this manner the distant patient, not knowing that any person was contemplating an act of tlie kind, remarked to his nurse: “Some one is fooling with my hand.” From that time he lost tho twisted and cramped sensation. The nurse, also being unaware of the intention of the lumbermen, soon after stepped over to the yard to learn if any one had gone to the cemetery to fix Mr. King’s hand. The employes had not yet returned. When they did return a comparison of watches showed that when Mr. King made the exclamation above quoted they were then placing the dismembered hand in an easy and natural position, Mrs, King asserts that from the time of this act, as related and vouched for by the gentlemen, named, her husband has rested easily and has not since complained of the imaginary constrained feeling which before had kept him awake.

Bequests of Hearts.

Bequests of hearts have been by no means uncommon. Richard Coeur de Lion bequeathed his heart to the canons of Rouen Cathedral, and in July, 1838, this remarkable relic was once again brought to light after the lapse of six centuries; the heart, wnich is said to have been surprisingly large, was inclosed in boxes of lead and silver, and withered, as it was described, to the semblance of a faded leaf. Bruce’s heart was by his dying wish intrusted to Douglas, to fulfill a vow, which he had been unable to execute in person, of visiting the sepulchre of Christ. Douglas, “tender and true,” promised to fulfill his sovereign’s last request, and after Bruce’s death, having received the heart incased in a casket of gold, set forth upon his mission. Proceeding to Spain, however, he fell in the thick of a fight with the Moors, having previous to his final charge cast .the heart of Bruce from his breast, when he carried it into the ranks of the infidels, crying, “Onward as thou wert wont, Douglas will follow thee!” Bruce’s heart was afterward recovered by Sir Simon Lockhart, by whom it was brought to Scotland and buried along with the bones of Douglas in the Abbey of Melrose. When the remains of Bruce were disinterred at Dunfermline, in 1819, the breastbone was found sawn through so as to permit of the removal of the heart.

Iron Statistics.

The production of pig iron in the United States in the first half of 18)5 amounted to 4,087,558 gross tons, and in the next six months the production is expected to be on a scale that will place the production for 1895 very little below that of 1890, when we made 9,201 t 703 tons. In 1894 the production of pig iron fell to 6,657,883 tons.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The total crop of cotton in the United States in 1791 was only 8,889 bales, and in 1795 35,556 bales. Last year's crop reached the enormous total of 9,476,435 bales! The fiscal year just passed has been a bloody one for San Francisco. More than thirty men and women were murdered in this city between the last of July, 1894, and the last of June of 1895. English is taught after a fashion in the public schools throughout France. A young American girl in a small Picardy village, interesting herself in a schoolboy’s English exercise, read as follows: “The bird has a nest." “The horse has a nest" Substituting the word “mare" for “horse” the young woman passed on the exercise as correct. Thebe seems to be an extraordinary craze for cycling in South Africa. The Johannesburg Star states that cycles are more generally used in that town than probably in any other town of similar size in the world. There are, it adds, some 4,000 machines in use by all classes, from the head of the mining industry down to clerks and shop assistants. One firm have sold 600 in the last two years. Ladies are taking to cycling freely, and so are educated Kaffirs. Gabdnee M . Sherman, of Springfield, Mass., has 555 specimens of Indian relics that he himself picked up and one of the most remarkable collections of these relics in New England, if not outside of the Smithsonian Institution. Not only is Mr. Sherman (an enthusiastic collector, but also an explorer of indefatigable patience, and he has been an omnivorous reader of all that pertains to this, his pet study, for over a quarter of a century. He is a mechanic and has had to take the odds and ends of his time for this work.

A new fact bearing on the disuse of the horse is the alleged effect on the oats market. According to the dealers the demand for oats is considerably less than it was a year ago. This is easy to believe when we learn that according to conservative estimates electricity has supplanted at least 80,000 horses on the various street railway systems of the country. A fair estimate of the grain consumed by these animals is only 14,000,000 bushels. Moreover, we hardly think it is fair to presume that every one of the eighty thousand horses displaced by the trolleys has given up his diet of oats owing to his loss of a job, Wo should be more inclined to suspect that shrewd board of trade operators were using this specious plea to depress the price of oats before buying. The St. Louis Republic thinks that the most remarkable piece of panoramic painting ever attempted was a 2,000 mile view of scenery along the Mississippi River, which was executed by John Banvard, the artist, who died ac Watertown, S. D., in the summer of 1891. This panorama, which gave faithful and clear cut pictures of bluffs, river mouths, farms, prairie dells and wooded promontories along the Father of Waters for a distance almost as great as that which separates St. Louis from New York, was painted on a strip of canvas twenty-two feet wide and nearly two miles long. Nothing similar has ever been attempted on such a gigantic scale, and, while Artist Banvard was not known as the “Michael Angelo of America,” he will long be remembered by the lovers of the curious, in either art or nature, as the man who painted the largest painting ever known. Beauty is a matter of geography, as well as the result of a transformation insthe brain of the susceptible being of a centripetal nervous current in a centrifugal and equally nervous current. These facts may comfort brunettes who covet the supreme beauty of the fair complexion. Dr. Beddoe made some careful and elaborate inquiries, and his conclusions were published in The British Medical Journal. He examined 720 women—taking them haphazard from various classes. Of these, 359 had red, fair or light brown hair; 361, black or dark brown. It proved that 60 per cent of the former were married, against 70.5 of the latter, and 32 per cent unmarried, against 21.5 per cent. The sum does not work out correctly, but it must be supposed that the deficit represents those who, for one reason or another, could not properly be reckoned. It appears, therefore, that brunettes have a very decided advantage in the lottery of marriage.

The accounts of an eye-witness of the hideous cruelty of Chinese to men of their own race in Formosa form one of the darkest pages in the history of the oriental war. A big powder magazine near Kelung exploded and scores of men were fatally or dangerously injured. They were thrown into the paddy fields, where the growing rice is covered with Water. There they lay in the broiling sun, and though their female relatives wailed over them, not one 'of the able-bodied Chinese men who stood around lifted a hand to help the suffering. In fact, they jeered at the unfortunates and laughed when the poor wretches tried to call for water and failed to make a sound. The incident is typical of Chinese barbarity to their fellow men, and it helps to explain the utter lack of concert shown by the nation in the war u with Japan. When neighbors will not help one another, even when such help calls for no outlay, what can be expected of provinces, each jealous of the other and bound by none of the principles of patriotism or honor? I>* Plymouth Township, Penn., is a new type of the new woman such as are turning up almost every day in different parts of the country. The heroine of Plymouth Township is Mrs. Frank Freas, who, divesting herself of her gown, leaped into water fifty feet deep and saved a little girl from drowning. While passing Ramsey’s quarries, on a recent evening, she heard screams:. These, she found, came from the abandoned quarry, where, in water fifty feet deep, she found a young Polish girl struggling for her life. There was »a fence rail, rope or anything of the

sort which she could throw to the struggling child and thus rescue her. Mrs. Freas hesitated but a moment, and then, divesting herself of her tea gown, she threw it toward the drowning girl, but it was not of sufficient length to reach her. She was not long in considering what next to do. for she sprang into the water and swam close to the dhild. She kept far enough away to prevont the latter from grasping her, but just near enough to throw the gown to the girl to reach it. The almost exhausted one seized the dress, and then Mrs. Freas swam ashore with the girl trailing behind. Europe has the advantage of us in age and experience, but her civilization, in the estimation of the Atlanta Constitution, is by no means an example for us to follow. During the English elections Mr. Rider Haggard was stoned by a mob for no other offense than his candidacy for an unpopular side. For the same reason the wife of a peer was assaulted in her carriage by a ruffian, who struck her in the face with his fist. But the crowning exhibition of brutality comes from Bulgaria. It seems that the funeral of the late minister, Stambuloff, was signalized by the most disgraceful violence. The widow of the murdered man just before the funeral received the following telegram from the mother of Milaroff, who was sentenced to death during Stambuloff’s administration for conspiracy to assassinate Prince Ferdinand: “Mourn over the bloodthirsty murderer, who, while making merry watching gypsies dancing and singing in the monastery of Bourgas, signed the death warrant for my son. God gave me strength, when I saw the murderer swimming in my own blood, to console myself. I send my curses to his rotting body.” While the funeral was in progress many educated people of good social position went about the streets of Sofia urging the rabble to go to the grave and curse Stambuloff’s body for the last time. The solemn rites over the dead man were interrupted by disorder and violence, and it was with difficulty that the remains of the premier were rescued from the mob. We have in this country our share of tough and lawless people in our large cities, but the scenes reported from England and Bulgaria could not have occurred here.

“SHE’S PLANTED, BOYS."

The Old Farmer's Object Lesson to the Newboys. The old man had just arrived. The odor of the barnyard on his cowhide boots and scent of ripe apples from his battered and motheaten carpetsack immediately suggested rurality. Besides there were the corroborative hayseeds on the back of the old overcoat that had faded to the color of a rusty grindstone. A crowd of newsboys had swooped down on the old man and were tugging his coat tails and pulli ig at his sleeves to attract his attention to papers, neckties, spectacles, collar buttons, flowers and matches. The old man was completely bewildered for a time, but he smiled goodnaturedly and shook the boys off. When they found he was unprofitable they started in to have some amusement at his expense. One called him Reuben and asked about the little bunch of whiskers. Another addressed him as Jasper, and inquired about the folks. “Get into the hayseed!” yelled one. The old man had retained his goodnature through it all and fairly beamed on the boys.

“Come here, boys,’’ he said, as he sat down on a trunk, placed his carpet bag between his feet and picked a wild oat straw off his sleeve. The youngest gathered around him and stood in open-mouthed curiosity. The old man placed a wild oat in the palm of his hand and said : “I may be a hayseed, but I can learn you boys something. Do you see that?” and he prodded the oat with his finger. “Well, that is a hayseed. Maybe some o’ you boys that has been in the country have wondered how hay grows wild all over the hills without being planted at all. Now I’ll tell you. The sun that ripens the oats dries up the ground makes cracks in it. Pretty soon the oat falls off, and plants itself in one of the cracks. How? Well, I’ll show you. Do you see that little thing on the end of the oat that looks like the hairspring of a watch? Well, when the rain comes it wets that like this,” and the old man moistened his finger in his mouth and applied it to the oat. “Now we’ll play this crack in the floor is the crack the sun makes in the ground.” The old man laid the oat down, and the boys watched breathlessly. The little spiral spring commenced to unwind slowly and in doing so rolled the oat over and over till it fell into the crack. “She’s planted, boys,” exclaimed the old man, and they cheered him lustily as he walked up Market street.

The Flour Dealer's Scales.

“You would be astonished,” remarked a Philadelphia flour and feed dealer, “at the number of people who come here to get weighed in the course of a week, and at the comments they make if the number of pounds is not up to their expectation. One of my customers, a very thin woman, came here yesterday and asked me to weigh her. Four months before she had tipped the scales at 118, and she remarked that she would beat her record this time. I thought so myself, for she insisted on holding a satchel and an umbrella, but to my surprise the balance struck at 104. After roundly berating me, the scales and the flour and feed trade in general, she flounced out and I lost a good customer. Sometimes, however, the balance is to the good, as in the esse of a stout woman, who found she had lost three pounds, and was so tickled that she immediately ordered a barrel of flour and said she would call to be weighed again in a week. The scales are all right, but I'll have to fix them for her benefit, in order to compensate for the loss of the tthin woman’s trade.”

A CHINESE CITY.

Picturesque Scenes in Quiirsww, on the Grand Canal. Quinsan lies at the end of a spar of | the famed Grand Canal, which hi, | next to the Great Wall, the noblest . work of the Chinese. Pagodas are | not common in China. You do not see one in every day of travel, so I remember that one is on the lone mountain that dominates the approach to the city. The outside town, such as lies by every gate to every city, is a place where a painter could spend a year to better advantage than.ln most painters’ resorts in southern Europe. Rows of white walls, heavily roofed with black tiles, face the water. The corners of all the roofs are turned up, and some have doable corners. A few roofs, no less picturesque, are of gray thatch, and a few walls are black or gray or blue, or even dark red. Fancy the gorgeonsness of the scene, with the people crowding there in new blues and faded blues! Bamboo balconies push out to the water’s edge, and carry idle women and men, in pretty clothes, looking at us. The open shops disclose workmen making shoos or coffins, or cooking the wonderful bean curd —foundation of a hundred dishes. As the heart of the place is reached it becomes picturesque beyond description. High stone walls shut in the water, and on these rise houses of white staff, with cumbrous jet roofs, and the most ornate, the most fanciful windows, paned with glossy inside scales of oyster shells. Stone steps lead down to the water, and each bears a women washing clothes or rinsing lacquered wooden pots. Sunflowers and pumpkin vines in bloom peep over the walls of the houses, and beside the walls of the stream ars innumerable boats, tied to carved dragons’ heads, crabs, grotesque faces and pretty carvings of many sorts cut in the granite. At all the doorways are tall and often handsome men in long silk coats and silken half breeches bound tight around their ankles. At the windows are the round faced, full lipped women. On and on we float. And presently we discover the long low walls of Quinsan, made ever famous by the valor of General Gordon . Under the interminable low walls of what we call Roman brick are plantations of sunflowers, and then more white and black houses. They face another jumble of boats of every fashion, from the stately cargo and chop boats to the rows of slender express boats, waiting, like omnibuses, for passengers for Soo chow and Shanghai The dyers’ shops hangout long strips of blue cloth; a bridge is draped with colored stuffs hung there to dry; an enormous vermillion banner floats from a boat that, like hundreds beside. is orange toned beneath its sheen of Ning po varnish.

Utilizing the Earth’s Central Heat.

One of the schemes for future engineers to work at, says an article in Current Literature, will be the sinking of a shaft 12,000 or 15,000 feet into the earth for the purpose of utilizing the ceutral heat of the globe. It is said that such a depth is by no means impossible, with the improved machinery and advanced methods of the coming engineer. Water, at a 'temperature of 200 degrees centigrade, which can, it is said, be obtained from these deep borings,would not only heat houses and public buildings, but would furnish power that could be utilized for many purposes. Hot water already at hand is necessarily much cheaper than that which must be taken when cold and brought up to the required temperature. Once the shaft is sunk, all cost in the item of hot water ceasee3. The pipes, if good, will last indefinitely, and as nature’s stokers never allow the fire to go out, there would come in the train of this arrangement many advantages. When, by sinking a shaft in the earth we can secure a perpetual heating apparatus which we can regulate by the turning of a key, one trial of life will fade into nothingness.

A Horse Detective.

A Jersey story comes from Newark to the effect that Constable Brown, of Union, was brought to Newark the other by a horse. This is thought to fix many thefts of farm produce and poultry in Union township on residents of Newark. The farmers have been petroling the roads for weeks, and recently surprised two men with a horse and wagon. The men fled and were fired upon. That one of them was hit is known, as blood spots were found in the direction in which they fled. The horse was turned over to Brown. He harnessed the horse to a wagon and let him choose his own way. iThe animal started off at an easy trot, and when he reached Newark, instead of going down principal streets, he went around blocks and appeared to be perfectly familiar with each turn. He finally entered a stable yard. There it was learned that he had been boarding, and the owner of the stable gave a description of the me* who owned the animal.

A Substitute.

Beggar—Thankee, 'Sir. Stranger—Why, how is this? You thank me and your sign reads “Deaf and Dumb?” Beggar—Oh, that’s all right I’m just takin’ th’ other feller’s place while he’s gone to hearth’ band play at the Park. P *