Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1876 — Page 8

Three-Card Monte.

JWCMR utaTUQfJTOUIJg Confidence m&ll £ - _ a _.i .wjiow, be continued, “Itake this card dbtt» it <m tire table. Thia is the Stewitk themarkon It. I put the two Ait alt la av* Aft if avtrl vr/iti nan turnltttp now and look for yourself.” The repeater did aQ< Sure enough, the other, and transfer the one on the left to Sffiassrs hUng tn the miftdle, isn't it?” The reporter thought that such was the owe, and remarked that then was no “Pfckitupand see," said “Slippery The reporter turned over the card. It sraa-a blank. He also turned the middle, wira a l&e result, and found the marked spot on the last card to the right. *’ There, ’’ said Ned, “you see if you’d hall SI,OOO baton that you’d been left, wouldn't vout” The JSrprvas writer was forced to admit that such would have been the result, but also made a mental reservation to the effect that whenever he became the possessor of SI,OOO he wouldn’t bet it on any “ Try iteagain,” urged Ned. The reporter did so with the same reault, altirough in aaeh case the motion of Ned’s fingers were slow and deliberate. “ J’U show you.” said he. “ I take this card with the spot on it, and, bending it like the others, put it in my fingers. I imttUwQgn aathough 1 were throwing iOtjiwnt I merely shove it quickly d&wh «ttaffthrow oat the next card toit. You "keep your eye on the one thrown oat, thinking it is the one which is marked, or in a regular way, the ace, and there you get left again. Now let me ■how you.” And in a few moments it Was sq well explained that the reporter had hardly any trouble in picking up the proper card. Then the operator smutted the corner of a card a little and gave an illustration of that proceeding. When all this was fully explained the reporter proceeded to get some information concerning the mode of living by ’ h r Y r£^ i d Ned, “I used to be I pretty well up in the business, although I was young in years. Bed John first got hold of me in New York, where I was playing marbles on the street, .and he thinking I would make a good subject, started out with me. I suppose I’ve attended nearly every county fair in the country with that fellow. He first had me into business as a capper, and I worked 1 Into his hands wall, I can tmlyou. He always whacked up, too, you bet. Always honor among thieves, you know, and honor among the chaps we were, too. Had to be, or we couldn’t have run the business. But finally I concluded to go it on my own hook; so one season I left New York in July, to work up4U*farmer fairs from that time ou■ tpadtwp They would drive me in hundreds of into ft fajr grQpwd. and get liceQ&e fipni under pretense of shouting for brought up the crowd;fioon as we Mt thejy together, out came a board, aup* down I went ontite urounffi pretending to luwt a little fun an to myself. Pretty soon a country felfew would ait down What yojyptlbark. c'j M)f coww JW<«red him in a way OhjSSaifle game with some fun -HiamtrkWMtaf excited, hisnextroQMftflfi a IftUe of it, and as that wp.j9rwM*gl-MMHMHrove my opeoingTweige by ■■■«■ cards a litfa, letting him pick out the ace every time. Wjfrgn that I had him on my t I’lfatet you a quarter you can’t pick outthe adfe.’ “ * Done,’ says he, and*he threw down a He wins of course; I allow him to win ■gain and again. Then he feels elated; puts down ten dollars and wins again; twenty dollars, and still wins. If I think he has any more, down goes fifty dollars. This time 1 win and the noble Granger is busted, by thunder!” , “But don’t the officers around these fairs make it hot for you!” queried the reporter.- “ Sometime), when we beat them at our little game. Tell you the truth, I fia. J’ often beaten men at fairs whom you wouldn’t think of-—policemen, constables aoi|q|my > thedPresideute of the agri‘JBußraiptete the officers don’t allow you in, Then what?” ‘ ‘ r Sju^f j finough; if I can’t run my Jewelry .business, Igo in anyhow. Pay my way, you know. Then 1 get mad at ode of my cappers. Get a club and run him fate the remote part of the grounds, striking at him furiously, create an excite-

Wnl ijff ttliil the tiHltWc3>#i jkeftiHg.:«s. «tert up a game out there ana are all right, you see. If we’re put out ofkthijpbiMGeiiUrcly, its the easiest thinglathe world taggt going just acfoss tb[fe road /from a fair ground, If we are arrested—well, it costs I£>W of "money to get Out and that dimipUhes our profit” ..“How about being known? Don’t it require disguise to prevent being recognized on the same, rood?” asked the reporter. ‘‘Yes, it does, when we’re working the trains. My coetame generally was a stock drovers’ check bag breeches, blouse, and a whip. Always knew the man’s relations, and took him in for their sake. BiU,,wu .fqa» to equalize the thing, we had these costumes made up by poor women, generally widows, who needed the money, and we gave them big prices. We helped the poor whenever wc could.” ’"Without farther questioning as to this Robin Hood sort of morality, where Peter WBB rofiftpd taMy Paul, the reporter asked if It dltfeft require a good deal of “ smartyesjt does, and our fellows are always imart enough when out on the IO«E mt when they’re loafing about thty’re iho biggest fools you ever saw, their money lust as if they wre millionaires, end accent guin thomaah est this way, and again some jbkvS wood bank accounts. I know one gyn wkfthas a tremendous balance in a “ Lnjppose you ba’i badrfv entures'in 1 Just ’have; About as lively a time *WWk * CSNUnr, ano voou lluuceu turn

he jn«da such * ftMWtSbt the kfltfcew ’ grit after uaaxd ran «m into ths mountains. We stayed up thart waiting for the next «Uti Anti hniwrv thsTwiVanuirodto7cabin In the hill*.; When W« got to the dtar we saw a light and heard voices. Finally wc knee. He had been out hunting for us, and was determined to find us it jfossiblo. He leveled his gun, and threatened to shoot if we moved i and we didn’t move, but stood there while he made til fork over every cent we had got In the morning. Then he kicked us out in the open ain” ' 310013 “ Pleasant!” remarked the reporter, " Yea, pleasant if one looks atifin that light, but that wasn’t what made me_quit Uidbusßiftfr. 'There’s too much ts aftjF low getting beaten at nls own game. There are men so old at the business that you’ll think that you’ve got a guy, but this way and burst the bank. I know a fellow who.is nQw a murcbant In Middlebury who had his bank broken In this way and went into a more certain business.” “ Where . did you make yoitr last venture, Ned!” asked the reporter. “-It was on the Ohio & Mississippi Road, near Olnoy. I used to work that road back and forth pretty thoroughly. One day ! got an old fellow’s watch and chain, alj his money and evep his plug hat, and he squealed. The passengers went crazy. The locked the doors, jerked downs section of the bell-rope, ana were going to hang me, whether or no. They cord around my neck, but I begged so that they changed their minds, anu, stopping the train, took me out, tied me to a sapling and let me remain there. ing that way I don’t know how lever would have got out. Since that time I’ve been out of tne business and mean to stayout.’’—Terre Haute (Ind.} Express.

Insanity in the British Navy.

'Yhe extent to which insanity 1 prevails in the royal navy is shown by the tables in the annual statistical report, and in the report of the Naval Lunatic Asylum, by In-spector-Gen. Macleod, M. D., who has for many years been in charge of that institution. The number of new cases returned under the head of insanity out of a total force of 44,580 men and boys in the navy during the year 1874, was 51, and 83 cases were Invalided as unfit for service. The actual admissions into the asylum at Yarmouth during the year were 40, of whom 7 were officers, 10 pensioners aqd the remainder petty officers, seamen, The.

average number of patients' constantly under treatment in Yarmouth apIWS to be about 200, as 198 was the number remaining on the Ist of January, and 207 on the Ist ot December, the admissions during the year being 40, and the deaths and dischargee 81. The general health of the patients is reported as satisfactory, and among other interesting notes upon their treatment Dr. Macleod refers at length to the curative action of the 'Turkish baths in certain forms of mental disease. It was brought into regular use during the year 1874, in the cases of noisy, excited, destructive and wakeful patients, and it was observed that they all became calm during the action of the bath, and that this comparatively good state continued after its use. On some of the officer-pa-tients it had a very marked and well-dpt fined effect, inasmuch as they became quiet and more rational. One Case tn particular is mentioned in which an officer, who had to be pressed to take his food before he used the bath, took it without any pressing afterward, and by the time WMdF hadhis third bath he roused Hine, while this change for the better was man ifest, It also became evident that, ,as he showed more intelligence, hallucinations of hearing manifested themselves ih ST vjery decided form. In other cases the same partially successful results followedthe use of the bath. In the case of wright,who had very exciting delusions and was noisy and destructive, all tifc delusions disappeared after the aupond bath and the man became comparatively quiet and manageable his rest at night being also mneh improved* On thaother hand, crease of nidtou wds lefts noticeable as he became accustomed to the bath. In one case, a subject of chronic tetania, • complete cure followed the use of the bath. The man had suffered from acute spinal pain and had labored under delusion# iff a harmless nature. Great benefit followed the use of the bath; he spou lost the delusions and pains, becoming cheerful and hallucinations of hearing the bath appears to have beta less useful, except as improving the pati&ntts .rtst at night.) Several cases are mentioned where the power and inelinatffsAaMke’Jtai-'TiKre -bttffi fiompletely restored by its use, even in men who were previously fed with the stppr?; ach-pump. Of the twenty-four patients submitted to the action of thabath during the year oaly two made a clear but Dr. Macleod sayi that in all the cake# it induced a temporaiy calm, which was followed byrgoodnightl. Encouraged by this success the Inspector General decided to make a more extended trial of the bath in the year which Jias just closed. Another form of treatment to which special allusion is made'is that of the adminiteatton -fUUte .pytryX bean, Only two, cases, owt of the itresfgt^ln#pi x 4i4prigvement in speech and in power or motion, but not in the mental condition, while jin oho dAse the patient,' after its administration’, became stupid, drowsy *nd heavy. • zT

Genius and Debt.

Men of genius are equally facile in running into debt. Genius has no necessary connection with prudence or selfrestraint/nor does itexercise any influence over the common rules of arithmetic, which are rigid and Inflexible. Men of genius are often superior to what Bacon calls “ the wisdom of business." Yet himself did hot Follow his own advice, but was rdined by his improvidence. He was in straits and difficulties when a youth and in still greater straits and difficulties when a man. His Life was splendid but his excessive expenditure involved him in debts which .created a perpetual craving for money. One day in passing out to his ante-chambers, where his followers Were awaiting his appearance, he said: “Beseated my master; your rise has been my fall.” To supply his wants Bacon took bribes, and was thereupon beset by his enemies, convicted, degraded and ruined. Even men with a special genius for finance on a grand scale may mentof their own private affairs. Pitt managed the national finances during a period of unexampled difficulty, yet was. himself always plunged in debt. Lord Oarrington, ex-banker, once or twice, at Mr. Pitt’S request, examined his household accounts, and found the quantity of butcher’* meat in the bills wa£,HviSSbSokl bilte exceeded £2,300 a yekr. St Pitt’s

death WM’WffitWHffMttWfjr the demands of his creditors; yet his income had never been less than £6,000 a year; and at one time, with Che Wardenship of the Cinqne Ports, It was nearly £4,000 a year more. Macaulay truly says that “tha character of Pitt would have stood higher if, with the disinterestedness of Pericles and DeWitt, he had united their dignified frugality.” But Pitt by no means stood alone. Lord Melville was as unthrifty in the management of his own aftairs as he was of the money of the public. Fox was an enormous ower. his financial maxim being that a man need never want money if he was willing to pay enough for ®' ox called the outer room at Almack’s, where he borrowed on occasions from Jew lenders at exorbitant premiums, his “Jerusalem Chamber.” Passion for play was his great vice, and at a very darly age it involved him in debt to an enormous amount. It is stated by Gibbon that on one occasion Fox sal playing at hazard for twenty hours in succession, losing £ll.000. But deep play was the vice of high life in those days, and cheating was not unknown. Belwyn, alluding to Fox’s losses at play, called him Charles the Martyr. Sheridan was the hero of debt. He lived on it. Though he received large sums of money in one way or another, no one knew what became of it, for he paid nobody. It seemed to melt away in his hands like snow in summer. He spent his first wife’s fortune of £1,600 in a six weeks’ jaunt to Bath. Necessity drove him to literature, and perhaps to the stimulus of poverty we owe “ The Rivals” and the drama which succeeded it With his second wife he obtained a fortune of £5,000, and with £15,000 which he realized hy the sale of Drury Lane shares he bought an estate in Surrey, from which ha wat driven by debt and duns. The remainder of his life * was a series of shifts, sometimes brilliant, but oftener degrading, to raise money and evade creditors. Taylor, of the OperaHouse, used to say that if he took off his hat to Sheridan in the street it would cost him fifty pounds; but if he stopped to speak to him it would cost a hundred. He was in debt all round—to his milkman, his grocer, his baker and his butcher. Sometimes Mrs. Sheridan would be kept waiting for an hour or more, while the servants were beating up the neighborhood for coffee, butter, eggs and rolls. While Sheridan was paymaster of the navy a butcher one day brought a leg of mutton to the kitchen. The cook took it and clapped it in the pot to boil, and went up-stairs for the money; but not returning, the butcher coolly removed the pot lid, took out the mutton, and walked away with it in his tray. Yet, while living in these straits, Sheridan, when invlted with his son into the country , usually went in chaises and sou in one, and his son Tam following in the other. The end of all was very sad. For some weeks before his death he was nearly destitute of the means of subsistence. His noble and royal friends had entirely deserted him. Executions for debt were in his house, and he passed his last days in the custody of Sheriff’s officers, who abstained from conveying him to prison merely because they were assured that to remove him would cause his immediate death. — Samuel Smiles.

Hot-Air Poison.

' “ Hot as anoven in here!” is the usual exclamation of a man as he steps into his family sitting-room from the out-door air any time from November to April in this Northern clime. And yet he opens no window, turns off no heat from the furious coal-fire in the furnace or the patent baseburner, nor retreats into a fresher atmosphere ; he stays there with the rest—wife, children and visitor—“ gets used” to the red-hot condition of things and sits down to be—broiled. His lungs at first rebel against such usage, and demand a continuance of the pure element with which he had been feeding them in his walk or ride out-bf-doors; but' the demand is unheeded, and they are supplied with overheated air—burnt air—carbonated aircoal gas—iron gas—poison. Along with the others in the room the man is committingeldw suicide. . t ,.,. The season has arrived when this comntffo, method off the human race is being revived; Stoves are being put up, fires kindled tor the winter, coal poured in by the hodful, heat accumulated, lungs made deliqgte, headaches manufactured, diseases ffaMsrated and subjects prepared for the pftysician and undertaker. 411 this frofti the chronic habit of the people of hovering over tlttt fir* 1 and avoigUtf fresh air and openair exercise. On ttlfc subject there is no disbute among medical men and scientists —all concurring in the assertion that the stifling, devitalized atmosphere of an overhiaated anftltnvtatilated xa6m is incapable of supporting life and is most pernicious in its effect upon the human system. A noted French army surgeon once noticed that a new disease was taking hold of the patients of certain w'ards in his hospital. Investigation satisfied him that his charges were being blood-poisoned by the. overheating of their rooms. By breathing carbonic oxide, generated from apan of charcoal, many persons have been stiddenly deprived of life, as in numerous instances of suicide; and yet this deadly.gas is produced by burning hard coal. “ But does it not passup tho chimney!” I will be asked. The answer is that it does, mostly, when the drafts are well open, but When they are not the gas escapee into the rooms for carbonic oxide finds no obstruction to ite passage through rea-hot iron.

The diseases which are the outgrowth of hot rooms are more numerous than those which, come from exposure' to bold. To “catch cold” is bad enough, but. to “ catch heat” is 'worse. A person accustomed to excessive heat 'wilt take cold upon the least exposure to the cppl air, but not sooner than will a person jacmlfc, tomed to a cool atmosphere “ catch heat” from breaching hot -air, In < diseases caused by exposure, thar remedy, without which no one can become strong and healthy—pure air—is at hand to assist in correcting the evil done. In complaints brought about by confinement in a dry atmosphere there is no such helpmeet at hand as pure air to feed and brace up tlie exhausted system, neither can ft be introduced except with caution without augmenting the trouble. Men and women, who ought to know something of selfpreservation, and poor little children, from whom nothing better «kn be expected, are being slaughtered by tlm thousands annually, on account of the toleration of too much heat and insufficient ventilation in our family sitting or sleeping rooms. There are many who believe iron Stoves to be a failure, and, with seeming good reason, advise the further introduction of grates, steam-heating apparatus and terracotta stoves. The fault with iron is that when red-hot it will not confine the gases which are generated by the burning cdkl, and, as this is true, those using iron stoves cannot use too much caution in keeping the stove from remaining at red heat, except when the drafts are open; JE very person who prizes his own health and that of his family will nse great pare ip warming the house properly and watching the temperature of the home atmosphere, which alone, ifkept pure, will generally keep away those gaunt ills and discomforts—headaches, dizziness, indigestion,“sniffles,"head complaints,. throat troubles, fevers and consumption—ever lurking about the house which keeps its living rooms heated above seventy degrees, or which, for lack of ventilation, la kept filled with atmospheric poison.—Ch-icego Jourul.

In the Detrolt Police Conrt.

“80 you are a varnisher, are you!” asked Ills Honor of Albert Wayne, who lugged out a Rachel full of brushes and bottles. ” He said he was. “Well. I suppose you can varnish your statement of what happened last night,” continued the Court. They found you drunk, and now let me see you gloss it over and shine jt up,” “ Well, sir. I sat down and went to sleep, and that’s all there was of it,” answered the man. “ Too many coats of varnish there,” smiled His Honor.- “ I have been here so long that I can tell when a man’s been drunk just as easily as you can see a ring around the moon.” “Can’t I leave this town!” asked the prisoner. “ You can, but not just yet. The roads are bad, the days short, and it looks like rain. So you aeny the charge, do you!” “Mister Judge,” said the prisoner, as he,stepped back, “ don’t I know when I get drunk as w$U as you do!" “ This Court never stops business to discuss the Darwinian theoiy," was the cold reply. “ I say you were drunk.” “Sure!” “ Why, I know it. See the straw in your hair—the mud on your back—the general wild look to your eyes.” “ Well, if you say I was drunk I’ll give in,” said the.prisoner. “Make it about ninety days." And those were the chalk marks. MYSTERY. “ James Oswald, weren’t you ashamed to see four officers lugging you in here last night!” asked the Court of the next. “ Say nothing—be quiet—l’ll explain all!” whispered James, bending his long neck forward to get his nose nearer the desk. “You were brought in drunk, and there’s nothing mysterious in that,” answered the court. “ Object in view—Charlie Tweed —Boss Ross—mum is the word!” whispered the old man, “ Straighten up there, keep your nose at home, and plead to this charge!” “8h! Beware—one false step may spoil all! No one suspects my identity—betray me not!" “I’ll make it sixty days for you if you don’t quit that fooling!" exclaimed His Honor. “B’deathl Would you ruin all—have you no acumen?” * “ Sixty days—take him away!” “ Right—part of the plot—all goes well and the ducats are mine!” whispered the prisoner as he was removed. Bijah closed the corridor door and asked him if he were Charlie Ross, and the old man admitted that he was, but didn’t want anything said about it owing to his extreme modesty. The janitor came out and whispered to the Court. The audience caught the words: “ Bijah, the fool-killer will be around to-night!” and then the old man went in after another prisoner, growling to himself: “ He wants to find all the Boss Tweedses and Charlies Rosses himself!"

ABOUT A GOAT. “ Well, gentlemen, you mauled each other, did you, and thereby disturbed the peace and were escorted down here !” inquired His Honor of a pair of citizens brought out in convention. “ Judge,” answered the taller one, “ if you owned a goat and a man clubbed that goat wouldn’t you club the man?” “Judge, if you had children, and a goat knocked ’em over wouldn’t you club that goat?” asked the short one. “ A goat made the trouble, did he ?” “Yes’r,”they chorused. “Now, do either dne of you Know anything about a goat? Is a goat a carnivorous or an amphibious animal ?” “ He bunts',” answered one. *! He don’t, either,” added the other. “ Does a goat belong to the animal or vegetable kingdom ?” continued the Court. “I know he knocks children down,” ventured one. “ I know he don’t,” said the other. “Ah Hack a day!” sighed His Honor. “Here you are, both respectable men, near neighbors, supposed to be intelligent, and you fight ever a goat and can’t even class him where he belongs! I’ll fine you five dollars each for your ignorance and throw in the black eyes and bitten ears as a bargain.” “ About the goat?” asked one. “ The goat won’t hurt you,” put iff the other, * ‘ Gentlemen, the goat is not here. He hasn’t been arrested even, and I decline to render an opinion. I could go on and go it over thirty pages of foolscap, but one ot you would still own the goat and the other would have his five children. Pay your fines and go.” THE BLOOM OF YOUTH. “ Bub,” said His Honor to a pigmy who wiped his eyes before the desk, “take heed of what I say, and remember my words as long as you live. Don’t throw rocks at people. If you must hit folks, hit ’em with potatoes or apples. YeafS ago a bad boy hit me on the neck with a rock. No one can tell whatinfluence that concussion had on my future. No one can tell what influence I would have had on that boy’s future if I could have overhauled him.” I “I didn’t mean to!” wailed the boy. “Well, go and do better. You may just as well be training yourself for Governor as to'be raising contusions on pedestrians’ heads. Suppose I should throw a rock at you!” J . . ” I’d dodge!” sighed the boy. Bijah dodged him out, accompanied by applause, and the court at that moment adjourned.— Detroit‘Free Press.

Career of an Accomplished and Notorious Counterfeiter.

1 ■ J ' ■ The Chicago Tima gives the following account of the career and arrest of the notorious counterfeiter, Benjamin Boyd, recently tried and convicted before the United States District Court in Chicago. Mrs. Boyd was acquitted, the Court deciding that there was not evidence enough to warrant a conviction in her case: Boyd, as a member of Trout’s organization, was much sought after, though in vain, by the ferrets of the Government until Chief Washbume took his case in hand. His capture on the 21st of October last added the cap-sheaf to the stock of “crooks” that officer had been harvesting during the summer. He was taken with the mire of crime upon his hands, and the case against him is now so clear that the only element of doubt in it relates to the length of hia sentence. Considerable wonderment is expressed that he should stand trial at all ; but the man would not be the man he is to give up hlq liberty without the last struggle he could make to save it. Boyd is probably one of the most accomplished engravers on steel and copper that ever prostituted artistic talents to vile ends. He was the maker ot those splendid counterfeits on the flve-dollat notes of the Traders’ National Bank, of this city, and the National Banks of Peoria, Canton, Paxton and Aurora that circulated so widely last year and the year preceding it. These bills were so well executed that even the officers of the hanks themselves were taken in by them. So delicate and close an imitation was it that the Secretary of the Treasury ordered the iteue to be called, in ; and when this was done the department at Washington actually; received $20,000 of them as genuine notes, and lost that amount by the transaction. In 1871 Boyd engraved a counterfeit SSO Treasury plate, from which he printed $283,000 worth of notes that were successfully* set afloat Of this

witwirtiw » MwsaeWr Nelson liriggs got $lj(U),OOO, and the balance was divided between Lew Blate and Dr. Parker, these three being his partners in the enterprise As an Indies tion of his skill it may be stated that the printer they had In their employ being seized with a severe illness about the time the plates were finished, Boyd printed the bills himself. The copy was almost exact, and the whole issue waa gotten rid of Long befoje the fraud was suspected. He never meddled with the utterance of any of his work. Buried in the seclusion of some little river town, in an out-of-the-way house where he would take his wife to bear him company and assist in the work, he delved away at the finer mechanical parts of the trade, and avoided that point in the business which came in contact with the public. Tip and down the river, from New Orleans to Dubuque, the members of this band were Scattered, each doing his part in as unassuming and unobtrusive a style as possible. Boyd was the heart of it, and with him removed its life is gone. He lived a long time at Nauvoo; it was there that he the SSO masterpiece above alluded to. In October of last year Patrick D. Tyrell, chief of the secret force in this district, accompanied bv the elder Brooks and John R. Macdonald, went to Lyons, lowa, with the purpose of taking Boyd into custody. Boyd was living in a rented house at Le Claire, lowa, under the assumed name of Wilson. He had with him an assistant named Nat Kinsley, a man of mark and some celebrity. The detectives had tracked him there, and knew that he was at work on some fresh scheme of fraud. They went to the house on the morning of the 21st, at about nine o’clock. Tyrell and Brooks knew from the peculiar arrangement of the shades in an upper window that the engravers were at work.

They walked up the road (the house was isolated and could not be approached by anyone unseen of those within), and, as they neared the dwelling, saw Kinsley leave it and run away. They wasted no time in pursuit of him, but, leaving Macdonald a little in the rear to watch the front and sides of the house, Tyrell and Brooks went to the back door, which Tyrell entered. The first person he saw inside was Almarinda Boyd, who was standing in the dining-room. She demandeato know his business, and when he told her who he was promptly seized him by the coat-collar and began to make an outcry. Tyrell handed her over to Brooks, who returned her to the diningroom and remained with her until Macdonald had been called in and instructed to hold her until they should come downstairs. Boyd, with his coat off, had appeared at the head of the Stairs in considerable trepidation, and to him Tyrell at once addressed himself. Boyd was taken into a front room and hanci cuffed. He was quite disturbed, but on the whole took things quietly, and sat still while the house was searched. Mrs. Boyd, meanwhile, was trying to corrupt Macdonald. There was good money in the house, and she wanted it. She asked him who he

was, where he lived, and what he was going" to do, all of which questions he answered; and then she him to let her go and get the money. On his refusal, she offered him a bribe of SI,OOO, and promised never to tell; but the nnderling was true to his duty, and stuck to her closer than a pitch plaster to a pine plank until Tyrell called him to where they were ransacking the furniture. In the bedroom where they were now all assembled was a very dirty bed and a dry-goods box; this latter article being covered with a spread and having upon it a washbowl and pitcher. Tyrell searched the bed, and, failingto find anything more unusual than an inordinate population in it, turned to the box and broke it open. Inside it was found a roll of good bills amounting to $7,800. - While he was tearing the boards apart one of them split, revealing a niCeiy-cut mortise “broadway” of it, from which mortise dropped an elegantly engraved plate of the center of a twenty-dollar greenback. Then the rest of the house was gone through. In the room where the shades were so peculiarly arranged were found a work-bench and a complete set of engraving tools, together with a lot of plates, some completed, and others in process. Altogether there were some twenty-five plates captured, one set of them being Intended to copy a SIOO Treasury note, another for a twenty-dollar treasury note, another for a flve-dollar, and two sets each for Stantou and Dexter head flity-cent scrip. The flve-dollar plates were intended for bank currency; there were five of them, all necessary to the production of one note, but one of them was susceptible of changes that would suit any National Bank in the country. There were also found two other boxes, both containing contraband apparatus, and one of which Mrs. Boyd endeavored to save by covering it over with a piece of carpet and shoving it aside with her foot. The pair were brought to Chicago, and lodged for the time being in the Brevoort Souse. While there they admitted to lief Washburn, and to both Brooks and Tyrell, the fact of their business, and held several chats with those officers on matters connected with that topic and their own particular affairs.

Christmas in Germany.

Father Christmas is not only a mighty revealer of actualities, as far as matters pschyical are concerned, but a resolute dispeller of popular delusions to boot. I was brought up to believe my own country-folk the most common-sensible people in Christendomn-the Germans the most imaginative and dreamy. Christmas discloses the Englishman to me as a highly sentimental being, and the Teuton as a very incarnation of the practical. With both alike, Christmas, is pre-eminently a present-giving tittie; but the German utilizes it in a far more practical way than does the Englishman, All the members of German families capable of articulation interchange presents on Christmas Eve — that is, everybody gives everybody else something, the incumbency in this respect of the heads of families being, of course, altogether out of proportion to that of the junior branches, and, indeed, constituting a formidable item in the budget of annual expenditure. But they give one another useful things, as a rule—things that they respectively want, and would be obliged to have were there no such (anniversary as Christmas inscribed upon the calendar. Papas give their grown-up daughters woolen stockings, muffs, warm petticoats, and such like; mammas bestow upon their boys comforters, neckties, lined gloves, maps; a favorite girl gets a smart bonnet; a pet lad, a comfortable overcoat. There is, of course, a sprinkling of toys, and in wealthier families of ornaments and bijouterie; buttlie bulk of the gifts is conspicuously, obstrusively, unmistakably useful, and belongs to the category of necessary provisions rather than to that of presents, Neither is there any halo of surprise surrounding them, for the begifted ones in protpeclu know full well be forehand what they are going to receive. Borne days before the holidays set in the children of the family are instructed to prepare Wunschtettet, or “Wish-memo-randa’’—slips of paper upon which are described the articles that they particularly desire to become possessed of. These are handed in to the Chief financial authority of the house, who proceeds to sit upon them in a private committee of ways and means, sketches out his estimates, and does what he can to meet the demands made upon him. In nine cases out of ten —for the Germans are extremely kind to their children, and the children, on their

pur— A—*■ y—aibilities—the hopes that find expression in the WwiscAsatst are duly realized; so that the child approaches the WeihnacJUetMch, upon which all the family mutual gift* are disposed in festive array, with feelings of agreeable anticipation, truly, but from which the bloom of unexpectedness has been dusted to the very atom. The whole thing is an open secret, a conundrum with the answer already printed, a dynastic conspiracy to which all the members of the reigning family belong, whilst its most active and important agent is the monarch himself. Il gives occasion, however, to a charming display of affection and good feeling, and is the cause or provocator of much simple and genuine mirth. Father Christmas is a good and benignant necromancer; he casts spells in such a sort as to banish temporarily much that is disagreeable and exhibit all that is most pleasant in German character. The stiffness, pedantry and dogmatism that impress the foreigner so unfavorably in this country, if he mix much with its native inhabitants, vanish for the nonce, and a certain naivete and childlike facility of humor which underlie the German disposition, but are too frequently hidden out of sight under accumulations of learning, positivism, official morgue, military exclusiveness and self-appreciation, peep cheerily out and back tn the rays of the countless tapers that adorn ana illuminate the Christmas table. Ab such moments educated Germans are, to those whom they reckon among their intimate friends—and you must be upon exceptional terms, indeed, of intimacy with a North German family to be invited to his Christmas Eve “ Bescherung”—delightful company. I have epjoyed the privilege, during my long residence in the fatherland, of being present at more than one of their festivities, and of contemplating with mingled admiration the profusion of the presents and reverencefor the amazing practicality of mind evinced in their selection, the gifts that change hands within the penetralia of a German household UDOn these

occasions. No one is forgotten. All the servants are “begifted” with judicial impartiality. They more than expect their share in the evening’s distribution. IJpon their engagement they inquire whether the custom of “ donating” at Christmastide obtain or not in the family they are about to enter and make the reply to their question a consideration in their stipulations with respeetto wages. Aprons come to them, shawls, warm underclothing, collars and cuffs, if they be of the female persuasion ; cheap cigars, hosiery, cravats, hard thalers, if they belong to the inferior sex. As practical as their mastersand mistresses, they appraise die articles bestowed upon them with aamirable/bromptness and accuracy; and gaugC/tne/profundity of the estimation in which they are held by their employers so exactly that they are seldom out in their reckoning by the thickness of a two-groschen piece. All their gifts, moreover, are set out on the table as well as those of their social betters, and they are not only present at the first revelation of all its treasures, but are free to meander around it, more or less, throughout the entire evening. All this imparts a patriarchal and humane flavor to the celebration, which bears striking witness to German native kindliness, and is all the more refreshing to the foreigner permitted to contemplate it, because in no country of Europe are class and station distinctions, in many vital respects, so sternly and persistently defined and observed as in Germany. Thus is Christmas Eve feted in all North German houses, with great trouble, Itibor and expense to their proprietors; to none probably more so than to the venerable Emperor and Empress, who personally superintend the “ Bescherung” of all their immediate dependents and attendants, as well as of hundreds of poor widows, orphans and other objects of charity, not to mention the members of their own numerous family. .The Empress herself “ builds”-—as the simple German idiom hath it —the Christmas-tree for her bed-chamber-women, etc., in the upper .apartments of the palace; with her august husband she distributes the presents annually offered by their Majesties to the officers and ladies of the household, i The Emperor goes down to the royal stables where a giant tree is prepared and heavily laden with gifts for his grooms, coachmen, postilions, stablemen, training-boys, etc., and enhances each present with a kindly word or smile. No one is forgotten in the huge imperial establishment; and, as in the smallest private family, every one gets what he or she wante. —Berlin Cor. London Daily Telegraph.

More of Thomas’ Deviltry.

Apropos of the theory advanced to show the participation of the dynamite monster, Thomas, in the mysterious disappearance of the steamer City of Boston, of which not the least clew has even been found, we give herewith a narrative furnished to us from a reliable source. It will be recollected that the ill-fated ship left New York in March, 1870. Two months previously a man corresponding to the description given of Thomas sought and obtained a private interview with Senor Alfaro, agent at that time of the Cuban Republic, in the course of which he unfolded a most diabolical scheme to injure the Spanish navy by means of dynamite lodged in a thick, tubular glass receptacle, and carefully covered with a. coat of coal preparation. This, it was proposed, should be placed in the interior of lumps of coal, bored for the purpose, and the hole imperceptibly sealed with the coal preparation. These could be introduced clandestinely into Havana, and with great precaution scattered in with the coal supply -ofthe navy, and in whatever furnace the lumps chanced to fall the ship Would be inevitably destroyed, with'all on board. The proposal was referred to Senor Morales Lemus, the general diplomatic agent, who rejected it at once as a scheme which would result in the wholesale slaughter of innocent persons, not only Spaniards, but of other nationalities, as the coal is kept in a large yard opposite the city, from which all steamers touching there take a supply— English, French and German, as well as Spanish. The torpedo models were exhibited in pieces of coal picked at random from a pile of the fuel. The interior of the cavity was polished smooth with emery to reduce the risk of explosion by chafing while introducing the charge. The shell after it was filled and closed with a plug of brass was dropped Into a boiling mixture of coal-tar, pulverized coal and resin or beeswax, and then instantly transferred to a bucket of icewater.. The result was a coating about three-quarters of an inch thick, and the deadly contrivance, after the gloss wore off, had the exact appearance of coal in weight, smell and dolor. A diagram of the projectile was exhibited by the stranger, and a note descriptive of it accompanied the design. When his proposition was rejected he left, and was never seen or heard of again by the Cuban gentlemen.— N. F. Graphic.

—The wife of ex-Mayor T. M. Allyn, of Hartford, Conn., after suffering from blindness for seven years, has just obtained a partial restoration of her sight. The first thing tbit astbhished her was to observe how old her friend? haff grown during her interval of blindness. Bite was also greatly surprisedat what she considered the queer head-dresses of the day. _____

—Robert Nelson, of Helena, and long distinguished as the dirtiest man in Montana, has fallen heir to sso,ooo.— San Franeitco Bulletin.

Friendship.

Ths point that we wish to make to, that we should not expect to have the sentiments and actions of our friends and companions always equally satisfactory to us; and after we have once made up our minds that, on the whole, we like a certain person; that we like certain or all of his ways, opinions, tastes, qualities—whatever it to that draws us to him, it to rather foolish to be rejudging him too severely every five days on a new issue. Alter a man u once a member of the National Academy he should not bo subject to the annual weighing in the balance of the Academy’s Hanging Committee. You may say that, after we have known a man well for thirty years—and that is a long lease for a friendship in this mutable world—it fa idle to talk about its being possible for him to surprise or disappoint us. But did you ever hear of “the old man’s disease”—avarice? Do you suppose that an affliction like that eomee to the surface late in life, if the seeds have not been deep in the soil all the time? But that is a hard and cruel question. Let us rather speak of a more pleasing and no less surprising development There was an old woman about whom we once wrote, to prove by an example that it is the disagreeable young folks who make the disagreeable old men and women, and that sweet girls and boys need not be troubled by the nightmare of a sour and crabbed old age. The woman we wrote about had lived out and down three husbands, and was about as unpleasant an old gossip as you might meet in a day’s journey, yet the traits of her age were only the traits of her youth, stripped of whatever charm youth must have lent her. But presently, after we had held up this aged person as a warning and a consolation, what does she do but fall into her secohd childhood, and develop one of the sweetest and gentlest dispositions with which mortal ever blessed his or her neighbor. All she asked was her doll and her prayer-book, and all went merry as a marriage bell. No; we never know our friends. And, curiously enough, while we are gofcg on with our discoveries concerning them, they are making the same observations upon us. and are having the same surprises and disappointments.— Scribner for .February.

Chimes of Bells.

“The Poetry of Steeples,” an article which appears in Harper’ t Magazine for January, has elicited some interesting in formation relative to Christ’s Church chimes in Philadelphia. It seems that the popular legend that the bells which hang in the belfry of Christ’s Church were a gift from Queen Anne of blessed memory is a fable. A part of the communion service in that church was a gift from her, and her name is inscribed thereon; but the bells were purchased with the proceeds of a lottery, in which Benjamin Franklin took an active interest, which was drawn in 1753. The steeple was finished in 1754, and the bells were purchased in England in the same year at a cost of £9OO. They were brought out in the ship Matilda, Capt. Budden, and were made by Lester & Pack, of London. Now, Queen Anne died in 1714, and it is not probable that she had left any legacy for the purchase of the bells, or if she did her executors were a long time in carrying out her will and paying off her legacies. When those chimes were new they created such wonder and excitement throughout the colony of Pennsylvania that there was a town regulation made Providing that on every Tuesday and Friay evening they should be rung for the benefit of the'country people, who should be in the city on those days with their produce for the next day’s market; and that regulation was in frill force twenty years ago, and probably is still. Any one can have the bells rung by paying thirty dollars, half of which goes to the ringers and the other half io the church. This is not an exorbitant price for that performance, if it is done in the old English style of peal ringing, which required a practiced ringer to each bell. From another source it is ascertained that the oldest, and perhaps the largest, set of chime bells on this continent are in the belfry of Old Christ Church, Salem stecet, Boston. They were placed there in 1744, in the reign of George 11, who, with his nobhmen, raised the money to pay for them Ly subscription, and sent them over to the colony of Massachusetts from England. .

A Bear la Church.

A gentleman from North Creek, Warren County, N. Y., in the Adirondack region, in speaking of the mild winter we have had so far, related, as something very remarkable, the appearance of black bears in the villages in his neighborhood. He says that four bears appeared in one day in North Creek in broad daylight; that their presence had been discovered by their visits in the night-time by the loss of sheep and hogs, but bruin had not been bold enough to come in the day-time. On Sunday, about three weeks aince, a large bear entered the church at North Creek just after the minister had commenced his sermon, and walked leisurely up the passageway until he reached the middle of the church. The women jumped upon the top of the seats and screamed at the height of their voices, all was confusion anff the *services came to a stand-still. Bruin raised himself up on his haunches and calmly and in his native majesty surveyed the scene, with a look as much as to say, “ What is all this confusion about?" and seeming satisfied with his scrutiny, deliberately walked out. Several men immediately followed him out, and a lively scrimmage was indulged in. Butthe bear got away. It is probably unnecessary to say that the services were brought to a speedy termination, the congregation all going to the bear hunt. A remarkable thing Is noticed by the inhabitants of the Adirondack region, namely : that the bears are very bold and stay close to the villages and the deer all push J back farther into the wilderness than ever before known.— Tray (V. F.) Preu.

Look Twice.

A lady who has a great horror of agents and who has been more than usually cheated out ot time and money by them lately, was called ty the door the other morning by a resounding ring ot the bell. Upon opening it she discovered a nicelydressed man, carrying in his hand a small satchel. One glance she gave at this, then, instantly concluding he was one of her abominations, she hastily ejaculated: •* I do not wish anything this evening, sir," and brought the door to with aclick, afterward returning softly to the partly-closed blinds of a front window to reconnoiter. She beheld the supposed agent staring rather blankly at the closed door, a comical struggle, in which amusement and annoyance were each striving hard for victory, taking place on his face, while his disengaged hand, after the manner of all men when considerably taken aback, vigorously stroked his whiskers er rierv--ously twisted his moustache. '.a— _ She gave one hasty look, then another, her eyes growing larger; then there was a little half-scream of delight, a sweeping rush, a dobF swung wldeppem a man and woman rapidly, ad vanclttg, Mid then—oh! food for ye gossip-loving neighbors on the watchman audible kiss, and a woman clasped tightly in a man’s strong arms. It was the lady’s father, whom she had not seen for a number of years.—Cincinnati Timu. - Dr. Udyler calls debt “the cancerthat devours churches."