Jasper Weekly Courier, Volume 14, Number 22, Jasper, Dubois County, 5 July 1872 — Page 6

I Wonder. I wunder I often Join an auiile ort of way. Whether to morrow will ae the aauic A has been M uie to-day; II there- ner will coma n ebaaBw: It there nrrer will tc ai hour MThen I hall have time Is turn aatJ To uather a wayside Ijwc: I wonder I ftan doWill mv lite he fure-ar the asas--It. niornin dark and its events- gray. lu nooutide dull and tame. Oh ! the aluciiah. creeping hour. When I long to have theui fly II aim the wearine of life 'fill 1 altuon bag to die. Till l aiwuft t Way. I Chink I fo. If I ever fray At all ; I think 1 should like to laid away ÜnJrr the grne tall; I think 1 shiuld like to tleer Through the conntleaa MM of yaara Never to waken again to think. Or to waken again to team. For what has the futura I give. And what hw the grave to dread. When there' not in the world a heart to ache With sorrow if I wer dead? Oh! the luggiih. creeping hour! Oh ! the day with freight of pain, Wbn T nly pmy that no morrow' light Would break for me aver again !

TWO RUSSIAN I ESTE KS. Jokes, like bills, require names to back them and it will be found that, in every nation, some one personage, real or mythical, is selected as the layfigure u j on which all popular jests are by common consent display ei. The English hare their lo Miller, the Germans their Schilt burger and Tyll Eulenspiegel, the Americana their Col. Crockett, the .'rentals their Nasireddin el Khe-jah ; and, in the same way, the chosen go 1 fathers of Russian humor are Balakireff, the jester, and Marshal Suvorotl'. The latter name has long since passed into history : but the former requires some introduction to nonRussian readers. Popular traditions unite in representing Balakireff as the constant attendant of Peter the Great, who figures largely in all the storie attached to the name of his buffoon. Many of these stories are probably the labr. cation of a later age ; but a fair pro portion of them bear marks of authenticity, and. M fair specimens of national humor, are worth quoting. On one occasion Balakireff begged permission of his imperial master to attach himself Jto the guard stationed at the palace, and Peter, far the sake of the joke, consented warning him at the same time that any officer of the guard who happened to lose his sword, or be absent from his post when summoned, was put. shed with death. The newlymade officer promised to do his best ; but the temptation of some good wine sent to his quarters that evening by the Czar, " to moisten his commission." proved too strong for him ; and he partook so freely as to become completetely his debauch,, reter stole softly into the room, andcarried off his sword. Balakireff', missing it on awaking, and fright ened out of his wits at the probable consequences, could devise no better rem edy than to replace the weapon with his owö professional lath, the hilt and trappings of which were exactly similar to those of the guardsmen. Thus equip pea, be appeared on the parade the next morning, confident in the assurance of remaining undetected, if not forced to draw his weapon. But Peter, who had doubtless forseen this contingency, instantly began storming at one of the men for his untidy appearance, and at length faced round upon Balakireff with the stern order, "Capt. Balakireff, draw your sword and cut that sloven down!'' The poor jester, thus brought fairly to bay, laid his hand on his hilt as if to obeyk but at the same time exclaimed fervently, Merciful Heaven I let my sword be turned into wood !'' And drawing the weapon, he exhibited in very deed a harmless lath. Even the presence of the Emperor was powerless to check the roar of laughter which followed ; and Balakireff' was allowed to escape. The jester's ingenuity occasionally served him in extricating others from trouble as well as himself. A cousin of his, having fallen under the displeasure of the Czar, was about to be executed -. and Balakireff presented himself at court to petition for a reprieve. Peter, seeing him enter, and at once divining his errand, shouted to him, " It's no use your coming here ; I swear that I will not grant what you are going to ask 1" Quick as thought, Balakireff dropped on his knees, and exclaimed, " Peter Alexeveitch, 1 beseech you put that scamp of a cousin of mine to death !" Peter, thus caught in his own trap, had no choice but to laugh, and sent a pardon to the offender. During one of the Czar's Livonian campaigns, a thick fog greatly obstructed the movements of the army. At length a pale, watery learn began to snow itself through the mist, and two of the Russian officers fell to disputing whether this were the sun or not. Balakireff' happening to pass by at that moment, they appealed to him to decide. " Is that light yonder the sun, brother?'' "How should I know?' answered the jester ; " I've never been here before!" At the end of the same campaign several of the officers were relating their exploits, when Balakireff stepped in among them. " 1 ve got a little story to tell, too," cried he, boastfully ; "a better one than any of yours !" " Let us hear i, then," answered the officers and Balakireff began : - I never liked this way of fighting, all in a crowd together, which they have now a-days; it seems to me more manly for each to stand by himself ; and there fore I always went out alone. Now it chanced that one day, while reconnoitr ing close to the enemy's outposts, I suddenly eepied a Swedish soldier lying on the ground jut in front of me ! There was not a moment to lose; he might start up and give the alarm. I drew my

sword, rushed uion him, and at one

blow cut off his ligdit foot !" " You fool !" cried one o! the listeners, ''vou should rather have cut off his head I" "So 1 would," answered Balakireff with a grin, " but sombod y else had done tli t already !' At times Balakireff pushed his waggeries too far, and gave serious offence to hi formidable pation. On MM of thc-e occasions the enraged Knieror vumtuartly banished him trotn the court, bidding him never appear on Russian soil again.'' The jester disappeared accordingly ; but a week had hardly elapsed when Peter, standing at the window, espied his disgraced favorite coolly driving a cart past the very nute of the palace. Foreseeing some new jest, he hastened down, and asked with pretended roughness, " How dare you disobey me, when I forbade ypu to show yourself on Russian ground?" " I haven't disobey eat you," answered Balakireff, coolly : " I'm not on Russian ground now !" " Not on Russian ground f" " No; this cart-load of earth that I'm sitting on is Sweedish soil. 1 dug it up in Finland only the other day !" Peter, who had doubtless begun already to regret the loss of his jester, laughed at the evasion, and restore! him to favor.- Some Russian writers embellished this story (a German version of which figures in the adventures of Tyll Eulenspiegel) with the addition that Peter, on hearing the excuse, answered, ' If Finland beSwedishsoil now, it shall be Russian before long" a threat which he was not slow to fulfill. The stories told of Marshal Suvorotl' are of a different order, and display, j better than whole pages of description, the wonderful way in ivhich he contrived to adapt himself to the rude spirits with whom he had to deal, without losing one jot of his authority. What Napoleon was to the French army, Suvoroff was to that of Russia; now jesting with a soldier, and now rebuking a General; one day sharing a ration of 1 lack bread beside a bivouac fire, and the next speaking as an equal to princes and potentates. In fact, the two great sponsors of Russian wit form a most picturesque contrast. Bulakiretkj has very much the character of a spaniel in a lion's cage admiring, even, while mocking his formidable patron behaving toward him with a half-waggish, half-affectionate familiarity perpetually offending, perpetually forgiven. Suvoroff comes before us a an uncrowned king, one whose authority needed no symbol ; an autocrat of Nature's making, full of a rough, hearty familiarity, that was in no danger of breeding contempt, and surrounded by men who enjoyed the bonhomie, while they dreaded the displeasure of the little, pugnosed, grimy man. who was in their eyes the incarnation of earthly power and grandeur. It must be owned, however, that in his own peculiar vein of pleasantry, the old Marsual more than once met himatch. One of his favorite jokes was to confuse a man by asking him unexpectedly, " How many stars are there in the sky f On one occasion he put this question to one of his sentries on a bitter -January night, such as only Russia can produce. The soldier, not a whit disturbed, answered coolly, " Wait a little, and I'll tell you," and he deliberately began to count, "One, two, three," etc. In this way he went gravely on to a hundred . at which point Suvoroff. who was already half frozen, thought it high time to ride off, not, however, without inquiring the name of his ready reckoner. The next day the latter found himself promoted, and the story (which Suvoroff told with great glee to his staff) speedily mads its way through the whole army. On another occasion one of his Generals of division sent his sergeant with dispatches, at the same time recommending the bearer to Suvorofl's notice. The Marshal, as usual, proceeded to test him by a series of whimsical questions, but the catechumen was equal to the occasion. " Row far is it to the moon f asked Suvoroff'. u Two of your excellency's forced marches," answered the sergeant. " If your men began to give way in battle, what would you do?" " I'd tell them that just behind the enemy's line there was a wagon-load of corn-brandy." " Suppose you were blockaded, and had no provisions left, how would you supply yourself?" From the enemy !" " How many fish are there in t he sea ?" " As many as have not been caught." And so the examination went on, till Suvoroff, finding his new acquaintance armed at all points, at length asked him, as a final poser, ' What is the difference between your colonel and myself?" " The difference is this," replied the soldier, cooly; "my colonel cannot make me a captain, but your excellency has only to say the word ? ' Suvoroff, struck by his shrewdness, kept his eye upon the man, and in no long time after actually gave him the specified promotion. Suvoroff always affected the utmost brevity both in speaking and writing, the terseness of his dispatches being almost unrivalled. Thecorrespondenc wkh Prince Potemkin, relative to the assault of Ismail, is unique in military history. Potemkin, copying the brevity of his General, wrote to him thus i " Marshal, you will take Ismail within three days, at whatever cost Potemkin." The day after the letter arrived .Suvoroff carried the town by storm, with the loss of fi'teen thousand men to himself, and thirty-eight thousand to the enemy summing up the fearf ul tragedy in one doggrel couplet, which, literally translated, runs as follows : "Praia to Qnd, and era l to thee! Iamail'a ta'en. and there I be."

Tin anecdote of t lie 1:1 eat Marshal's

eceentriei'ii his hl:t of wandering of ktol the camp in disguise, his whim giving the signal for assault by crowing like a cock, Tiis astounding endurance of heal and cold, his MTafe disregard of personal comfort und neatness are beyond calculation ; but perhaps the most characteristic of all is his appearance in 1799 at the Austrian court, then one of the most brilliant in Europe, t 'n being shown to the iKm prepared for him (asplendid apartment filled with costly inirroi - ami rich furniture), this modern Diogenes said simply, " Turn out all that rubbish, ami hake me down some straw." Au Austrain grandee who came to visit him was startled at these irei.irttt.ons. and still more so at the first sight ol the Marshal's " baggage," which consisted of two coarse shirts, and a tattered ctoak tied up in a bundle. " Is that enough for Winter?" asked the astounded visitor. "The Winter's the father o. us liussians," answered Suvoroff, with a grin ; besides, you don't feel the cold when you are riding full gallop.'1 " But when you are tired of riding, what do you do?" Walk." "And when you'ie tired of walking?" " Run." " And do you never aleep, then ?'' asked the petrified questioner. "Sometimes, when I've nothing better to do," replied Suvoroff, carelessly ; " And when I want to nave a very luxurious nap, I take off one of my spurs." .The thunder struck Austrain bowed and retired, doubtless considerably enlightened in his ideas of a Russian General. It is worth while to chronicle (however out of place it may appear in a collection of jests) one more story of uvorotl. that which tells how the grim veteran, already far on the road to Um bloodiest of his campaigns, rode back for miles through the blinding storm to take one last look at his sleeping chil dren, kissed and blessed them with passionate earnestness, and then rush ed awav like a whirlwind upon his mis sion of destruction. uch a man de served more merciful judgement than the stinging epitaph written upon him by a wit of the nation, which wrought his downfall : " A good soldier, but bad general ; a good servant, but a bad courtier i a good Russian, but a bad European." AH The Year Rouml, Foreign Gossip. urdi n art laborers in I'tiMin receive 60 cents per day, and skilled laborers $1.50. THEGovernmentof Russia has ordered 30,000 cavalry revolvers of Smith k Wesson's patent, to be purchased in this country, together with a corresponding number or blank and ball cartridges. Twenty thousand of the same kind of revolvers were recently shipped under a former order. I be Italian army which is now in pro cess of reorganization comprises 171.H men on a peace footing;, and 390.0X) and oO.UOU horses on a war footing. The Japanese are engaged in reforming their currency. It will closely re semble in size, shape and value, the coin ot the United .States. a r a.fl i . ts a . .more man tour hundred beet sujiar manufactories exist in France, the in dustry having risen gradually t one of first-class importance. Tie annual income of the lady who presides over the republic of bonnets in Paris is $400.000. 1 he equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington on the Marble Arch, London, is prtdbucdy said by a French critic to strongly resemble Punch mounted on Balaam's ass. An English firm is doing quite an extensive business in supplying Australia with iron dwelling houses, manufactured in England, and set up at short notice by English mechanics wherever the purchaser desires. The Suez Canal is not a financial success, and there has been a stormy meeting of the shareholders in Pnris, where M. de Lessens narrowly escaped a vote of condemnation. The children in Germany are not only required to attend the public schools, but spend besides two or three hours a day in practical schools, where drawing, designing, modelling, spinning, weaving, dyeing, and the use of tools and machinery are taught. Genoa, in Italy, with a population of 15",0"", has now twenty-four great banking houses, with a capital of 162,900.000 francs ; twenty rorj. orations, with a capital of 42,32S,iKN) francs, and fortyfive insurance companies. Mr. Gladstone fails to maintain the national reputation in the roast-beef and plum-pudding particular. When his wife is out of town he may be Found taking his modest meal at the Univer sity Club : and very modest it is, consisting of some mutton broth, fish, bread and cheese, beer, and a cup of coffee. At Rome, Mrs. Story has recently finished three statues of " Polexena," Vesta," and " Saloma." She is now modelling a half-reclining statue of " Semiramis," and an " Electra." Miss Hosmer has begun a " Will o' the Wisp," as a companion for her well-known " Puck." In Cashmere, I0,)00 persons are employed in the shawl manufacture. The weavers are all males, most of the spinners women. A female spinner earns about 75 cents a month. The weaving of a shawl of ordinary pattern occupies three weavers for three months, the more elaborate and costly from twelve to fifteen months.

Training Wer Horse. In training the Prussian war horses, a sieve of oat held before a young home's nose while a pistol is fired over it head, accustoms and reconciles it to the sound of firing. The kindness with which the horses are treated is most remarkable; and any man caught striking or otherwi.se maltreating a horse may make sure of getting from two to three weeks' imprisonment. A correspondent adds the following curious particulars of this branch of Prussian administration i "All the young horses of the present year bore some name beginning with K Kegulua, Reinette, Ruine, Ho lerieh, Romeo, Robinson, for instance ; and. in fact, the letter R is kept exclusively for the 'romounts' of 1 870. The system of identify ing horses of a particular year by the initial of their names was introduced twelve years ago, when all the five-year-olds received at the depot were called by some name beginning with A. B. was the letter of the followinjt year. Then came C, and so on, until now R has been reached. It has been foreseen thatO,, the initial of so few proper names, might be a source of trouble ; so it was determined to reserve the letter for horses of the one-year volunteers, of whom there are seldom more than half a dozen in the same squadron. At present, then, if you once know the name of a Prussian cavalry horse ou know its age, at least up to seventeen." A Good Word for Old Maids. A quaint and gallant writer of some fifty years ago. says i I love an old maid I do not speak of an individual, but of the species I use the singular number, as sjeuking of a singularity in humanity. An old maid is not merely an antiquarian, she is an antiquity : not merely a record of the past, but of the very past itself, she has escaxl i great change, and sympathizes not in the or

dinary mutations of mortality. She inhabits a little eternity ot her own. She , is Miss from the beginning of the chapter to the end. 1 do not like to hear them called Mistress, as is sometimes the practice, for that looks and sounds like the resignation of despair, a voluntary extinction of hope. 1 do not k ow whether marriage are made in heaven : some people say they are, but I am almost sure old maids are. There is something about them which is not of the earth, earthly. They are spectators of the world, not adventurers or ramblers; perhaps guardians; we say nothing of tattlers. They are predestined to be what they are. They owe not the singularity of their condition to any lack of beauty, wisdom, wit. or good temper: there is no accounting for it but on the principle of fatality. I have known many old maids, and of them all not one that has not possessed es many good and amiable qualities as ninety and nine out of a hundred of my married ac puaintances. Why, then are they single ? Is it their fate f" Proof Reading. Few p rsons outside of printing offic-s know the importance of " proet-read-ing that is, the careful revision of the type after it is set up, for the purpose of removing wrong letters, etc. For instance a miserably scrawled marriage notice is banded in. which ought to read as follows i " Married August 1, A. Con key, attorney at-l:.w, to Euphemia Wiggins. Love is the union of two hearts tsat beat ia oft est tnelodT : Time with its nvases imparts no bitter fu-ion to lU eestacy. The notice is handed to the compositor or type-setter, whose rapid fingers fly among the type boxes lor a brief space. A " proof," or first print, is then taken of the type, and the proofreader has the following version More him: '-Married April 1, A. Lonkev. eternally at law, to 'Euphunia Piggins. 'Jove it an oniun with two head that beat in Holtest melody : Time with its cab base imparts no better food te an extra dray. The proof is then handed back to the compositor to be corrected. " b " is taken out of Con key s name, and a C inserted; "eternally" is altered to at torney, and so on until the whole para graph is in proper shape for the public eye. No insanity is more violent or unrea sonable than that which sometimes overpowers people in a sudden panic. a singular instance ot tne enect ot yielding to the excitement 'of sudden fright recently occurred in the Roman Catholic cathedral at Dublin. Dur ng a crowded service some globes of the gas brackets were knocked on. I he crash of the falling glass led the people to relieve that the windows were being broken, and a cry was raised that the cathedral was attacked from outside. An alarm of " Fire !"' was also raised. and a seriotu panic ensued. The clergy men present msuisge! to allay the ex citement to a certain extent, but not before large numbers had rushed from the cathedral, tumbling over each other, and had scaled the wall of a neighboring garden in which the owner happened to be walking. One would suppose that the panic stricken crowd might here have paused ; but with insane violence they rushed upon the unfortunate gent'teman, who was taking exercise in his own grounds, shouting, " Hang him !" " Down him !" And but for the interference of the prie-U who had followed them, they probably would havecarried their threats into execution. fixritiniNTs have recently been made to ascertain the amount of loss that coal undergoes when exosed to the weather. Anthracite and cannel coal suffer least, but ordinary bituminous coal loses nearly one-third in weight, and nearly onehalf in gas making quality. From this, it follows that coal should lie kept dry, and that to expose it to rain or damp, is to lessen its quantity and to weaken its quality.

olnsj I n and ( emiug h,wb. Thi in a rimple ...nr. 'ti trueMy MSB .re nev . r Slaw JaAnd T.t Ml try and ,-, thruu.h A little ..inch ..f od advice Ihm liMen. ...mi.u. friend, and learn to never buaat or umch renown tor fortune' whaed ia oa the turn

" U and tome come doe ia. I know a east amouat of atoeha n wi amount ml ihurrt . I aie nan tu-kl ,, mnv ollldn't like to w-.rr.nl v,.r. i na pick Idn't like " wn anu nrrer .urn the one wheae hand U hard and brown ror he la likely to roup. And you are likely to come down. Another thine you will acres -acIrl&K ma -b eoafed. Inat DMawn Aristocracy " H hut a caly thins at bet. And Madame in her robe of laee. And Uriduct in her faded sowa.' Both represent a goodly rave. rrom Father Adam handed down. Ufa ia uncertain -full of chance: ' WS hare teat will endure: An.'l 're a doctrine new aal transe . r?.l Hß9 b'h SM more ecur: AM if they fickle rddeee rnile. 1 leldins the acapter and the crown. Tta only for a little whi e. Then B gum up and A cornea down. Thii world, for all of a, my friend. Hath aomethinr more than pounds and ience Then let me humbly recommend A little use of comaaoa tewe . Thua lay all pride and place aside. And have a ears n whom you frown. For fear you'll ee him soia up. When you are only c .nunc down. Varletie. Taking is Sail A mock auction. Twt porcupines make a prickly pair lk flutings render garments musical? Seth ti keen hatched 5,000,001 young shad last year. Maine factories are doing a large business in canning lobsters. Charles Francis Adams is not a Mason, and never was. Oxly eighteen of the first Napoleon's veterans are left. Wh.s is an umbrella like a cook's perquisites? When it is dripping. What is the difference between a Christian and a cannibal ? The one en joys himseit, and the other enjoys other people. A gentleman who was buying a watch to replace one that had been stolen from him. remarked that he was ' making up for lost time." Frank Leslie i a nom de plume. The man who wears it used to be Henry Carter, and his name was changed by the Legislature. Better than a circus it would be to watch a foreigner, who attempted to study up and translate our language with the aid of a dictionary, who used as his subject a report of a base ball match. BsroRF hanging a man in Louisiana they let from fifteen to forty newtater reporters interview him for three weeks. The poor fellow is then not only willing tut anxious to be bung. A ladt teacher in an lo.va school lately punished a boy for kissing the bit girls bv making him stand upbefere all the scholars and show how it was done. She found this policy wouldn't work. The boys thought it capital punishment, and it had to be abolUbed. The Wyoming Journal publishes the following in its advertisement rates i " Fees for marriage notices as high as the eestacy and liberality of the bride groom may prompt.'' Lazv California bartenders place the ingredients of a cobbler into a tumbler, and then wait for an earthquake to mix them up. Since the San Francisco authorities have offered a premium of $1' for every dead body recovered from the lay. the Chronicle advises drunkards and Oregon flats to give a wide berth to the water-front. Ten dollars, it says, may seem a small sum for murder, but times are hard and human nature weak. An epitaph on a North Carolina mule runs as follows i "Her Itee a male, bliadaea bat; The more corn ynn'd gtxt him the h'd crow fat: He bel.iaced to the bnmvere of old Bill Sharuian. And mulea like Uiia. we all aay darn m." A California obituary- i "The de ceased was a talented man of romantic nature, lie placed the butt of his gun in the fire while he looked down the muzzle and departed hence sponta neously." Mrs. Ks lev, of Indiana, warns all women acainst her fickle, faithless hus band, who has deserted hsr. She says he may be recognized by a broken nose, which she demolished with a skillet. Teacher What bird did Noah send out of the ark ? Smallest boy in the class (after a pause) A dove, sir. Teacher Very well. But I should have thought some of you big boys would have known that I Tall Pupil Please, sir. that boy ought to know, sir, 'cause his father's a bird ketcher, sir ! American Ladies Mobbed in Edinburgh. On Sunday evening three ladies from America left the Royal Hotel, Edinburgh, about A o'clock, to see Ilolyrood Palace, They went on foot without escort, and returned by the Canongate and High street. Here their hesitation as to the route, their fashionable attire, and the lateness of the hour, it being nearly 9 o'clock, attracted .the notice of some idlers, who followed them up the street. At the north bridge the listeners to a street preacher joined in the crowd, making upa considerpble mob. No noise was made or violence ofTeied, and two policemen escorted the ladies till a cab could be procured. The ladies were then driven to their hotel, but th J crowd hung about for some time. Yesterday the two senior magistrates, after causing a strict investigatson to bo made, called at the hotel, and found that two of the ladies had left town, but they were satisfied the mob bad been attracted by their unusual apiiearance in the locality at so late an hour, and that no insult was intended. IxmHm 7rs, -funt 6.