Ligonier Banner., Volume 13, Number 40, Ligonier, Noble County, 23 January 1879 — Page 7

Che Zigonier Lanner, 3. B. STOLL, Editor and Peoprietor. LIGONIER, : : . INDIANA.

FACTS AND FIGURES. ; - NeEw York Clty rejoices in the possession of 2,000 hotels. L TaE English duty on tobaceo amounts to some $45,000,000 a year. ' - .THE world’s production of gold .is one-third less than th 185¢6. | THERE are in Prussia 8,228 doctors, 143 surgeons and 251 dentists. Lt - THE State Treasurer of Nevada has to justify in a bond of $400,000. : ~ SAN ANTONIO has shipped 8,333 tons of bones gince January, 1877, valued at $76,500. : , . IN France there are regular schools for the training of dogs. One teacher has 200 pupils. y CALIFORNIA has thisz year pgoduced enough to support ten millions of people for a year. L - DURING the academic year %{1 1877-78 there were 5,035 students at the medisal school of Paris. ¥ THE population of Metz has fallen off nearly one-quarter” sincé 1871—from 51,332 to 89,000. - |

THE Japanese Army on a peace footing consists of 31,680, and in time of war is inereased to 46,350 men. ‘THE total value of taxable railroad property in Alabama is $10,297,033, a decrease of $330,627 from last year. - THE Catholics have 239 convents for women in England, and over 400 female academies in the United States. TBE, Titusville Herald figures out that during 1878 about $12,000,000 were lost in the petroleum trade of Pennsylvania. B e ‘ " THE Dublin death-rate has for six months averaged thirty-one in one thousand, against about twenty-two in London. . SCOTLAND, says the Edinburgh Daily Review, i 8: $75,000,000 poorer than it would have been estimated by an acruary a few weeks ago. . ’ TuE medical authoritics of New York City now concede the scarlet fever to be epidemic, and reports for the year 1878 a total of 3,802 cases. - . e BosToN’s imports in 1878 were $36,610,759 as compared’ with $47,720,664 in 1877. Her exports in 1878 were $49,938,465 as compared with $43,563,229 in 1877. C THE total amount of taxable property assessed for taxes in 1878 in Texas is $318,935,707. The total amount of State taxes, including poll-tax, is $2,050,420.36. THE number of condemnations for crimes ,in Prussia is steadily increasing. In 1873, there were 11,692 convictions; in 1874, 12,844; in 1875, 12,126; in 1876, 13,197; and in 1877, 14,849, ! .

THE proportion of soldiers who can read and write in the several armies of Europe is as follows: Germany, 965 in 1,000; Sweden, 930; England, 860; Holland, 750; Belgium, 700; France, 635; Portugal, 495; Spain, 490; Austria, 460; Italy, 450; Russia, 115, Turkey, 75. REecENT official reports show that for “the year 1877 the deposits in postal savings banks inthe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland amounted to £28,740,757, and in trustees’ savings banks, £44,238,686, the increase in the former since 1871 being £11,715,753, ~and in the latter, £5,419,023. LAST year there were 142 .violent deaths in Vermont, including 3 murders, 34 suicides, 20 accidental drewnings, 13 deaths by the cars, 12. by falls, .9 by carriageaccidentsand 6 accidental ~shootings. Hanging was the favorite ~method of self-murder, and the young-. -est and oldest were 14 and 91, respectively, | ‘ THE Moffett liquor-tax system has not resulted as favorably in Virginia as has been represented, or as was hoped by the friends of the movement. The official report of the proceeds of the tax, as reeently published by the State Auditor, is as follows: Tax irom registers, counties... ... ... $140,269 13 Tax from registers, cities.._......_:._ 142,208 90 DAY e RSOI . Lioense, 5pecifictax................_.. 190.271 11 g e i penses ....... .c...00....00 Lol ... 149,165 0D o Netresulti. ... co.. too 05 9998 Ghg 14 Raised by old license system-..._._... 240,600 00 - True product of Moffet register - system . ...o.ipi L oiun il RY 660 14 THE average grain product of EuroFe is, reported at 5,000,000,000 bushels, of which Russia "raises one-third, France and Germany 520,000,000 bushels'each, and Austria 500,000,000. The United States produces‘l,6oo,ooo,000 bushels (about the quantity that Russia does), whieh, in llalr'oportlon to our population, is a much larger production than any other country can boast of. Counting our inhabitants at 40,000,000, we raise 40 bushels &;31' head, and Europe’s inhabitants at 300,000,000, she raises but 16 bushels per head. .Russia has 26 and Great Britain only 4 bushels per head. The amount of %rain consumed being | Eenerally 15 bushels per head, we produce nearly three times as wuch as we want, Russia almost twice what she needs, and Great Britain not more than one-fourth of her requirement. Thus, it will be seen, that the production far exceeds the consumption, but the excess is absorbed by breweries and distilleries, at ~home and abroad, which, more than any other cause, keeps up the price of breadstuffs. : j

* Sun Spots and Commerch}l Crises. To THE numerous explanations that have hitherto been given by various writers on commercial 'fidplgb{to account for the present depressed state of trade, there %as recently been added another—this time from the pen of Prof. W. Stanley Jevons, who, in a late number of Nature, treats the matter at some length from a scientific standpoint. 4 The fact has long attracted atten. tion that commercial crises, like the one throngh which we are mfiass‘ing,‘ are marked by a certain peri cit;‘ze in their occurrence, and they have been =¢ 5 A

associated, not unreasonably, to a certain extent with a deficiency of crops, and such deficiencies again {qve in Tecent years been supposed to be in some way connected with ¢ the sun-spot period.” M o

' Prof. Jevons, in his present paper, endeavors to establish a direct relation between the latter periods and times of | trade depression; and, although his studies have not as yet allowed him to fix 'the exact nature of the'connection, ‘the data that he furnishes exhibit at least some curious coincidences. After some preliminary accounts of what has been done in this field of research, both by himself and others, in former years, Prof. Jevons says: ‘lt is impossible in this place to state properly the facts whicfi I possess; I can only briefly mention what I hope.to establish by future more thorough inquiry. . . . Deferring, however, for the present, any minuter inquiry, I permit myself to assume that there were, about the years 1742 and 1752, fluctuations of trade which connect the undoubted decennial series of 1711, 1721 and 1732 with ‘that commencing again in the most unquestionable manner in 1768. Thus the whole series of decennial crises may be stated as follows: 1701 (?), 1711, 1721, 1731-82, 1742 (P), 1752 (?), 1763, 1772-3, 1783, 1793, 18045 (?), 1815, 1825, 1836-9 (1837 in the United States), 1847, 1857, 1866, 1878. A series. of this sort is not, like a chain, as weak as its weakest part; on the contrary, the strong parts add strength to the weak parts. In spite, therefore, of the doubtful existence of some of the crises, as marked in the list, I can entertain no doubt whatever that the principal commercial crises do fall into a series having an average petiod of about 10.446: years. Moreover, the almost perfect coincidence of this period with Mr. J. A. Broun’s estimate of the sun-spot period—lo.4s. years—--18 by itself strong evidence that the phenomena are casually connected.” Hyde, Clarke, Wilson and Danson all argued, thirty or forty years ago, that commercial fluctuations must be governed by physical causes; but the ifficulty that has beset the theory is that, hitherto, no one has been able to detect a cléar periodic variation in the price of corn. Sir William Herschel endeavored to do this at the beginning of the present century, in his inquiry as to the ‘economic eitects of the sun spots; but his facts are too meager to justify any certain inference. Prof. Jevons confesses that as yet his own inquiries have been equally without result on this point. '+ The fact is,)’! he says, ‘‘l believe that cereal crops, as grown and gathered in Europe, depend for their success upon very complicated conditions, so that tbe solar influence is disguised: But it does not follow that other crops, in other latitudes, may hot manifest the decennial period. Dr. Schuster has already pointed out, in Nalure, a coincidence between good vintages and minima of sun-spots, which can hardly be due to " accident. ‘ Now, if we may assume Dr. Hunter's famine . theory to be true, there is littie | difficulty in ‘exg_laining the remarkable series of periodic crises which I have pointed out.”” The author goes on to show that the trade of Western Europe has always been strongly affected’ by communication with the Indies, several crises being distinctly traceable to this cause; thus the crisis of 1878 is clearly connected with the recent famines in India and China, and these famines are confidently attributed tosolar influence. He states, then, that it is 'his present belief that to trade with India, China, and other parts of the tropical and semi-tropical regions, must be attributed the principal fluetuations of European commerce, although the decennial fluctuations ougnt not to be wholly laid to the account of the Indian trade, it being quite possible that tropical Africa, America, the West [ndies, and even the Levant, are affected by the same meteorological influenees which occasion the famines in India. Thus it is the Nations which trade most largely with those parts of the world, and which give long credits to their customers, which suffer most from these crises. Prof. Jevons sees nothing in his theory inconsistent with the fact that crises and panics arise from other than meteorological ¢auses; but when such do happen, they seldom, if ever, Lave the intensity, . profundity, and wide extension of the true decennial crises. _ : ; '

The conclusion which' the author draws from his speculation is that ¢‘if there is any truth in all these sun-spot speculations, there must be a geriodic variation in the sun’srays, of which the sun spots are a mere sign, and perhags an unsatisfactory one. It -is possible that the real variations are more regular than the sun-spot variations, and thus may perhaps be explained the curious fact that the decennial crises recur more regularly on the whole than the maxima and minima of sun spots.”’ To determine this mooted question, then, he suggests the importance of at once undertaking direct observations upon the varying power and character of the sun’s rays; and to this end solar observatories should be established in every country where the sun can be observed most free from atmospheric opacity. If from such observationgit be found, as will probably be the case, that the sun does vary, ‘‘the time will come when the most important news for the ecommercial world contained in the Tvmes will be cablegrams concerning the solar power.”” And he adds that certainly an empire upon which the sun never sets eannot wisely neglect to keep a watch on that great fountain of eneréy,‘ since ‘‘from it we derive our strength and our weakness, our success and our failures, our elation in commercial mania, and our desfi)ondency and ruin in commercial collapse.”— Scientific American. 1

—¢l wonder, uncle,” said a little %irl, *‘if men will ever yet live to be ve hundred or one thousand years old?”’ ¢No, mK child,”” responded the old man, ‘‘that was tried once, and the race grew so bad that the world had to be drowned.”’

—Junior, parsing: ‘‘Nthil is a noun.”’ P:;feasor: ‘“What does it come from?' Student: ‘lt don’t come at all.”’ Professor, %uizzing: * Doesn’t it come from nihilo?’ Student: ¢ No, sir. Ezxmnthilo nihil fit!”. Professor settled. K

Love of Children. THAT is a bold person who willingly confesses so flagrant a fault in his character as an absence from his composition of tne love of children. For that love has betome universally recognized as a necessary ingredient of worthy character, as, in fact, somethinf'by the absence of which one is indeed unnatural, and, so to say, monstrous. Owing to this fact, it is very seldom thatone admits, even when feeling it. that children are a nuisance, and more generally people consider it wise to pretend interest and affection whether it is genuine or not. Of course, as everybody knows, the politic person; the electioneering man, the woman with an object to gain, always begins by kissing the children; and -the behavior of many young ladies in regard to the matter was long since caricatured by Dickens in one of his sketches, where he represents them crowding round the nurse who brings in the baby to the christening, and asking, as if with innocent ignorance and & reminiscence of kittens and puppies, if the dear little thing can open its eyes yet. But there are many people who honestly think they do love children, and would be mightily indignant if told that they deceived themselves, that children annoyed them, and were on the whole rather disagreeable than otherwise to them. These individuals do love children for a little while, as an amusement when they have nothing else to do, and to caress when the child is sunny, and pretty, and sweet, and clean. But let the child be ugly, and it does not attract them; let it be neglected, and of a dirty face, and it repels them; let it scream, and they can't for the life of them see why people bring their children on journeys, orto church, or into the drawing-room, or at the table—according to the situation of the ‘particular annoyance at the moment. But they who surely and absolutely love children do not stay to see whether their faces and frocks are clean and pretty or not—the child is a lovely thing to them under all the mask of the ‘dust of which we are made, the soil, ‘the wear and tear; they do not much care whether the child screams or not; ~often, indeed, to them, as to the. old ‘miner in the California theater who, when a baby set up its pipes, called out to the orchestra to stop their strum‘ming and let him hear tbe baby yell, the sound is a sort of music; and like ‘the man who considered being beaten ‘at whist the next pleasure to beating, ‘they had rather hear a baby yell than ‘not to have one around at all. ~ Those who love children are notthose who merely love the pleasure they can get from children; those love, not the children, but that pleasure, and the moment it ceases to be pleasure, then farewell to the children. Those who really love children, love all about them, the troubling and the teasing that they,make, the washing, andjwiping, and worrying; they do not tire with their fretting, they are not disgusted with their care, they are not annoyed -with their questioning, v‘theiy are not made nervous by their bawling; they take them in their entirety; it never occurs to them to say that these things are disagreeable, for, in reality, the agreeable things, the loveliness, the velvet cheeks, the exquisite mouth with . its little pearls, the perfect eyes, the opening soul, the charming intelligence, the constant sense of‘ the creation of a new human being going on uunder the eyes, the receptivity of love, the thing for love, all so far overbalance any thing that is not in: aceord with them as to put it entirely out of sight and mind. To those who love children: it does not occur to wait before giving love in order to see if they are willful and spoiled, whether they cry too much, whether they are going to give trouble or not; they only say: ‘Here is a child; let us love it.” - They are ready to get up in the night with it, to walk the floor with it, to tread on tiptoe if it sleeps, to'abandon ‘themselves to its amusement if it | wakes, to sin% to it, to talk to it, to obey all its little tyrannies, to stay at home from other pleasure for it and think it no sacrifice, to forget themselves in -its existence, and when it is the most trouble to be thankful that there is a baby in the house. - _ These are the people who love children—not merely they, it may be seen, who love the peachy cheek which yields to their kisses with pleasant sensation, and the fragrance of the sweet baby breath; not merely they who like the tickling that their vacant or tired minds receive from the action of the young expanding intellect of the tiny creature, who -are entertained byl he stammering of the first thou%hts and the effort after the first syllables, who are pleased in fine weather and run away in foul. These latter are the suramer friends of the little people, and full soon do the little people find it out; for, as a general rule, one needs no better criterion as to who it is that loves children than observation of the fact of whom it is that the children love. It is true that children- will be amused and pleased for a while by the summer sort of friends; but let a tumble, a grief, a pain, come to them, and the summer friend isdiscarded unerringly for the one whose sympathy is steadfast, and who does not ask ‘whetheér it is a good child or a bad one, a pretty or a plain one, a richor a poor, but only whether it is a child. ““Frank, I love good little boys,” said a worthy parent, trying do his dut;‘to an obstreperous young son. ‘‘Yes, papa,’”’ came the reply of the four-year-old, ““but Uncle So-and-so loves little boys whether they are good or not.” And that, it seems to us, is the only way to love them; for it is not the way in which -we hope we ourselves are loved, not only by one anorhsr, but by the Power above us? It is alsd, indeed, the only way in which to obtain ;lutingspleuure from the little beings; for it is only when we have ;Surmndeteti ourselves, without thought of what we ‘obtain in return, but because we cannot help it, and would not l,he{git if we could, that we find out what they have | done for us, the light and joy that they have brought into the house, with nfl the labor and confusion‘and eare that | they have bfou%‘m there too; for more than once has it chanced that into a tumultuous and hafiifi household the advent of a little child has brought

peace and harmony, and love, too, not only for i!%elf, but for all around it, till it has made lives dear and desirable that before it came seemed impossible to live; for there are few such peacemakers as a baby; none such, if we may believe the poet, as a baby’s grave.—Harper's Bazar.

Business Methods in the Department of : State. ' THE number of officidl communications received at the State Department, and which require an official answer, varies from fifty to one: hundred a day, and perhaps seventy-five is about the average. The mail is opened in the Index Bureau, and the first thing done is the making out of an index of all the communications. The letters are then distributed to the different Secretaries and to the Consular and Diplomatic Bureaus. Only the most important ones reach the eye of the Secretary of State. All that the Chief Clerk is sure Mr. Evarts will not desire tosce he distributes to the heads of bureaus for | their attention. Those which he may or may not need to see go to the Assistant Secretaries, who can use their judgment about consulting Mr. Evarts. But, when the answers are prepared, all of them must be seen by Mr. Evarts or by Mr. Seward, the work of signing ' the mail being one of the final matters of each day. The correspondence is removed from one office of the Department to another, in closed wooden boxes, so that the messengers do not actually handle any of the paper which they carry, and there is no opportunity for anything to get *lost, strayed or ' stolen.’’ - A ngas

After Mr. Evarts and Mr. Seward have si§ned the letters of the day, they are sealed up by a trusted messenger, under the eye of the Chief Clerk, and put in mail-bags, which are sent to the city.Postoffice. The Department has the option of making up closed mails for foreign parts, in which case the sealed mail bag is transmitted to New York and sent abroad without being opened. Beside its regular official correspondence, the Departmenthas an immense amount of other correspondence. Letters are constantly coming in from all over the world in every civilized language, and from foreigners of many nationalities, who happen to be in the United States, asking for information, documents, etec. The Chief Clerk states that many letters come from Greece and from Sweden, and the requests that are made are as manifold as the ingenuity of man can devise. These letters, whenever any useful purpose can be subserved, receive an answer. ‘lt is here that the services of the translator are often in request. He is a man of large acquirements, but the Department is not poor in linguistic ability, and communications in the language of every civilized Nation of the world can be turned into English at short notice. Among the clerks is one who speaks Japanese fluently, and another is master of ‘conversational Russian. French, German and Spanish scholars are of course plenty. - The Department finds the use of the telegraph a daily neecessity, and has its own special operator, who is a regularly paid clerk. The Department is connected with the offices of both telegraph companies here, and the Department can fet a special wire to New York or elsewhere at any time by simply asking for it. When important negotiations are going on, messages are sent in cipher, and cable messages of some kind are passing to anfl from the Department nearly every day. One of the busiest men in the Department is the Pardon and Commission Clerk, who makes out all the papers in connection with Presidential appointments and pardons. e A

When the President decides to appoint a person to office, he makes a notification of the fact to the Secretary of State, and the nomination is made out and sent to the Senate. When the nomination is confirmed, the parchment commission, something less than a yard square, is made out and forwarded to the White House for Mr. Hayes’ signature. Then the State Department transmits it to the person appointed.— Washingion Cor. Boston Herald. taias

Mock Marriages. DoN'T iniiulge in mock marriages. If you would enter the blessed state of wedlock, do so in earnest and after due deliberation, and a license, but don’t go into the buffoonery of mock marriage business to please any of your friends. If they want amusement, let them seek it in less objectionable ways. At least this is. the advice of the HawkEye, after reading in the New York Tvmes an account of the difficulty that befel a worthy young lady who once personated the bride in a mock mary riage. There was a church wedding near New York, a few days ago, which was as large and fashionable as could be desired, but at the entrance—and only one dcor of the church was allowed to be opened—was stationed a detective, for the purpose of preventing the entrance of a certain undesired individual, while near the officiatin clergyman was posted a lawyer, armefi with all the legal documents needed to show, if anyone raised the question, that there was no reason why the marriage should be stayed. The cause for all this preparatioh was due to the inconsiderateness of the young lady, who had, a year or two before, been married in sport to some one or other thanher present husband, by a man whe turned out to be a Judge or a Justice of the Peace, or some other authority, and, in consequence of this fact, her life had been made miserable by the asgertions of the temporary brideaoom‘ that he would not permit her to married to anyone else. As it turned out, no attempt at interference was made, and thgé;firecaufions taken were, therefore, needless; but that they were even thought to be necessary indicates an amount of ‘une‘ssipess;w{iich no one would care to lightly assume, and hence the very obvious moral is that the best way to avoid entanglements of this kind is to re_fgae-to participate in any of these mock ceremonies.—Burlington Hawk-Eve. . !

—A little English 'grape ‘seems to produce a good deal of Afghan whine.

Youths’ Department.

. AFTERWARD. : WEeLL, Christmas is over, - And New Year's is past— T ‘O dear, what a pity . ¢ Such good tin.es don’t last, § Just look at my ntockihgs! Tl . Aslong and as thin As if they had »ever Been full to the brim. ; You’d never imagine v Unless you were t(fid. o How many dear treasures ; Buch small things will hold. : 1 wish you had seen them, . . For Banta Claus knows = . How to stuff children’s stockings . - Way down to the toses!g : With raisins and walnuts, And snga.rg)]ums sweet, - With fiis and French bonbons, He filled both the feet. Then books, and aPa.int-box; % ‘And dearest of all, . From ghe top of the stocking, - . .This flaxen-haired doll, With blue eyes wide open. .~ Peeped out from her place, - A Cbristmas smile lighting Her dear little face. And now, though I've eaten ; My bonbous, and all ‘ The sweet things have vanished, . I still have my doll, ; ’\ My beautiful Rosa, : "o dainty st detr! : "Twill seem like a Christmas With her, all the year. —Youth's Companion,

" JOHNNY AND THE BEAR. ONCE there was a little boy named Johnny. There are lots of little boys named Johnny, of course, but this one may be known from all the other. Johnnies as the particular little Johnny who met a bear. : hen g And this was the way of it: You see he wanted to be a hunter. No stories but ‘‘animal stories” would go down with Johnny, and the more savage they were, tho better it suited him. Bear stories were his favorites. Johnny took to bear stories as a duck takes to water, and he thought nothin would be so fine as to grow up and kifi a bear. §

- The very first big toy he asked for was an Indian bow and arrow, and he used go to creep-¢rawling through the woods and fields near his home, shooting at chipmunks and pretending they were bears, and popping away at black-birds in the orchard, and:calling them eagles. - When Johnny gat to be twelve years old, what do you suppose he wanted more than anything ®lse in the world? : f ‘¢ Dunno. What?” 4 _ Look into your own heart and guess, Master Charles: A shot-gun. ‘“ And did he get it?"’ You wait and see. One day last summer his father senthim on an errand to a friend’s house, two miles away from the village, on a farm. Of course, Johnny couldn’t go in the road, thoughthat was the easiest way. But I love the fields so well that I don’t blame him for going through them instead of along the dusty road. R i i

When he got about half-way there, he turned a little to one side to look at two big chestnut trees and see how the ‘nuts were getting along. Just before ‘he reached them, there was a clump of tall blackberry bushes, and he stopped to see if there were any ripe berries. But other things love blackberries beside boys, and before Johnny could pick even one, the bushes opened, and out stefiwped an enormous great bear. e wasn't one of the funny-looking little -black- bears, such as you see at the shows, but a big cinnamon bear, that stood full six feet high as he raised himself up on his hind legs and looked straight at Johnny with his sharp little eyes. ‘ yWell, I suppose there never was a boy so scared as Johnny was, not sihce the bears came out of the woods and made a meal of the Ig'oung sauceboxes that called good old Elijah bad names. Johnny was too :frightened even to ‘“ holler,”” and as for runninig, he couldn’t move any more than if he'd been scuck to the ground with Spalding’s glue. 'He just stood and looked at the bear, with his face pale, his eyes sticking out, and his hair all creepcrawly.. : o The bear didn't move nor say any-. thing in Earticular. He just kept his eye on Johnny, and opened his mouth with what the boy would have called a grin at any other {ime, -and panted with the heat—holding his tongue out like a dog. ' ; Johnny thought pretty fast, I can tell you, as folks do when in danger. He had heard the Bible story, and tried to remember if he had told anybody to ¢ Get up, old bald-head.” No, he hadn’t, but he had called the schoolmaster ‘ old soap-locks,” for taking his gun away. and thought perhaps that was most as bad; for the master was a very good man. ‘ He was so scared he didn't know what he did s}:{y, but this was it: ; ‘“ Please, Mr. Bear, don’t eat me up.”’ .. i The bear growled and shook his paw. . . B o s beid

- ¢ Just let me off this time and I’ll never call anybody no names agin,’’ whimé)ered Johnny. *lf you will,” hesaid, brighteningup, «“ I'llgo straight home and bring you back "a nice fat little pig-—honest and true I will—ever so much fatter’n me. I'm most all bones—honestly, now—mother she calls me her ‘wash-board’ every time she rs’c,rups my ribs; I run ;so muca, she says.” i 3 '}l’.‘h'e béar really laughed this time. He stretched his mouth, ran out his tongue, and then stuck it in his cheek, rolled his little bright eyes, and then actually began to dance! Yes, to dance. Something between a waltz step:and a march, Johnny thought, for he—Johnny, not t.hQ,‘\;_.bear—v-»_hafbeen 3 term in one of Mr. Walker}a nice classes, and knew the step better than his father did. Round and round the bear went, nodding his head, and bob--binihis forepaws up and down like a’ Shakor:” . o e 00l ks If Jonnny was scared before, he was astonished now." But spefikmior'*mn: nit(xig had made him think of his legs, and he thought it would be a md thing to * e%etit?‘ when the bear's back was turned. He hadn’t taken three steps, though, before he heard a terrible growl from the bear, and turning

his head saw the creature on all fours’ close after him. . . S ‘* Hold up!” yelled Johnny, ““I was just goin’ to get some more of the fellers to see-the show?!’ - o ¢ U-r-gh!” said the bear. > ‘“ All right,” said Johnny. . = = Then tfie bear stooped down and picked up a long stick, raised himself on his hind: le%f -again, and - held the stick tight ‘by 'his side with one forepaw, and hung the other straight down —just as Johnny had 'seen soldiers do with their muskets on dress parade. Then he passed the stick to the other side, and then *‘presented arms” by holding it straight out with both paws. ““No! no! cried Johnny, 'who had watched the bear’s actions very closely; ‘* you may be sure I won’'t shoot you. I ain’t got any gun. yet, but pap said he'd buy it next year, when I'm thirteen.” - i - The bear again began dancing, “¢Oh, no!” said Johnny, louder still this time, ‘I won’t ever have any gun or shoot anything!—honestly I won't!" : Lo o . The bear fairly capered at this. He danced faster than. ever, and ended up by standing on his head. e Johnny had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. s But the bear came down on all fours, and‘;zlicking up a little willow basket, which Johnny hadn’t seen before, marched straight toward him. This time Jé:)hn'fny found his voice, and screamed like a locomotive. .

- Just then adark-complexigned, dirtylooking man rose up from a hollow under the trees, just out of sight, and came running toward them. * Here you! Emperor!”’ he called, in a sharp voice, - ‘‘ come here this minute or I'll beat you! What for you runs away, he? ' You rascal!” . - = : The bear stopped and the man snapped a stout chain into a collar that had been hidden in his shaggy hair around his neck, clapped on a strong muzzle over his nose and strapped it tight, and then cuffed the bear’s ears soundly, saying: . ' - : “ You must watch ven I sleep. 1f you slip your chain again, you Emperor, I gif you no supper!’ .. e And the showman and his trained bear, who had performed for Johnny all the tricks that he knew, B'posing he was an audience, started for the road to continue .their travels, while little Johnny, forgetting all about his errand, scampered honfé. -~ - : ‘ He says the promise don’t count, and he will grow ug and shoot a bear. ‘“Yes—but don’t take a tame one, Johnny,” slyly says his mother.— Golden Rule. ol L s I ———— * , : - The Story of a Toad. |

ONE day last summer, when I was down at Aunt Jane's house in the country, 1 was standing in the conservatory, smelling the pretty flowers, with little' Nanny by my side, when I saw a large toad hOf»ping across the floor. -As arule, I object to toads, and I was going to drive this one away, when I'saw that the poor toad was going very slowly, as if in pain, and, as Nanny described it, * was holding one of its hands up to one of itseyes, just like a grown-up person.” Gy “Oh, mamma!’ cried Nanny, it ‘has hurt its eye; look—how swelled it is!”’ . I then saw that the eye was cut and swollen, and that was the reason why it kept raising what Nanny called its hand to its eye.” = : ‘¢ Let us watch it,” said-I; ¢ we will not hurt it—poor thing!” 1 The little creature fi,ida not seem to be at all afraid of us, but remained near, blowing out its body, and winkin%its wéll eye for several minutes. anny suddenly became so fond of it that she wanted to take it up and bathe its eye, but this I would not allowi - i % :

- So she contented herself with putting a leaf, with a grub or two on it, close to the toad; and we soon saw it darting its Pink tongue out; and catching and eating them.. When the creature had finished its meal, it hopped slowly out: of doors, and sat basking in the sun. e ]

We were glad to see that the eye looked beétter, and “so we left it. The next day, however, and often afterward, it. came back to the conservatory, where Nanny°generally managed to provide food for ‘it. It n{;tew' to know us quite well, and not only made friends with us, but also with a la'rge cat, which was a great pet of Nanny’s. Our new friend made itself at home in every part of the house. One day, to the surprise of everyone, it was found sitting before the kitchen fire, close to the cat, with its ¢‘ hands” 'r_estin%on pussy’s tail, and looking quite affectionately into her face. § oA Once we noticed that the toad’s skin was split down the whole lercxlg:th‘ of his body. We watched him and saw him twist himself until the loose skin gradually fell apart and lay in folds on his sides. We >saw him then 'put one of his legs under his arm, press down upon it and pull.it out of its covering. He did the same" thing- with his other leg, leaving his old: KMuhder his arms. With his mout J_;je;vzgw,puued the skin off his arms, and _,"w' 2 his two hands he pushed it into his mouth in a little ball, and swallowed it. - Nanny clapped her hands with glee to see how gay he looked in his bright new suit.—Church Unton. =~ = =

—Forney's Progress relates an incident in a Philadelphia household which doubtless occurs very much more frequently than people” are aware: A oung married man just starting ount fn life, and kee'Ping but oné servant, went to the play the other evening with his wife, trusting their child to the care of the *¢ hirgg girl."' - While. at the théater the lady, feeling unwell, ‘was compelled to leave, and with bher husband reached home ' about 9:30 o’clock—of .course, earlier than' was expected. To her surprise the door was locked, and to repeated rings at ihe' belldnq aixsweriw ‘obtained. The usband at last managed to get in by forcing -a back door. . Nobgd?y vwé about. The baby was found up-stairs in'% death-like s\eejy.‘ The doctor, on being summoned, declared that it had been drugged. At eleven o'elock the servant ‘l;’iat‘i?;d" She h:g bogntoa. arty and had drigged the child to Eeep it quiet. She was dkm&q?i%?‘s