Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1884 — Page 2

—f IHK SPORT* AND THE STRANGER. Three sports got into a railroad car, A railroad car,..with a pack of cards; The called "heir" “hyar," and ’there’ was ’thar," And they always spoke to each other as •pa> ds.” For sports there are, both good and poor, Professional and amateur, Where railroad trains are running. They wanted a fourth at a euchre hand, Three wi re they, and they were on? short, Aqd they asked a stranger if he’d the sand try a little game for sport. For strangers there are where men abound, And you’ll always find a stranger around _ z Where railroad trains arc running. The stranger didn’t know the game. But he was willing to live and learn; To him the cards were all the same—- “ They was to all at first, he’d hearn!" And the sports laughed loud and dealt the pack. And gav him four queens and a thick legged Jack. As they will, when trains are running. And-then they bet on the poker hand. And lattened the po to a goodly pile. Anathey asked-the starnger if he would stand, And the stranger stood, with a simple smile, And one sport laised the oilier two, And the stranger him, as strangers do Where railroad trains are running. And then in a solemn, breathless hush. The three sports showed what they had got; But rces won't beat a royal flush, And the stranger gobbled that obese pot, For strangers and sports arc natural foes. And the former carry cards in their clo SS; Where railr ad trains are running. —Traveler's Magazine.

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE.

Neither tall nor short, neither dark nor fair, with hair between blonde and brown, and eyes that left a doubt asi to whether they were gray or hazeL —-She was just such a little bundle of uncertainties and contradictions as led the imagination captive at the first and offered constant lure to anticipation. Whether she spoke or remained silent, whether she walked or sat, expectation hung breathless upon her next word, her next pose. Hpr eyes, varying as seemed their hue, shone, none the less, with a candid ray that seemed the light of truth, and her fresh mouth, with its milky teeth showing between the not too smiling lips, irresistibly suggested the sweetest uses to which lips can be put. The heavily moving steamer had plowed through half the great Atlantic rollers, and the few passengers had all grown heartily tired of each other, when she suddenly appeared for the first time upon deck quite alone, yet calm and self-centered as the small birds that sometimes poised themselves upon spar or bulwark and gather breath for fresh flight. It was Julius Hilder who had first discovered her, leaning against the companionway railing, with the air of having just come up or down, he could hardly determine which, looking absently at the tumbling waves. Julius and his friend, Austin Drake, were seceders from a gay party who had made the tour of Southern Europe together. It was Julius who had instigated his companion to desert the others and take the German steamer for New Orleans direct, which then touched at Havre, instead of crossing by a Cunarder; and it had all grown out of the obstinate determination on the part of his sister to attach her party to that of Mrs. Smollett. Mrs. Smollett was his choicest aversion, a pretentious, intriguing woman, in whom the match-making instinct had been so developed by the effort to. establish her own five daughters that it could not rest satisfied with the accomplishment of that gigantic task. She seemed to have an endless supply of nieces, adopted daughters, or proteges of some sort, whom she dangled ostentatiously before the eyes of eligible bachelors. She had improved a chance meeting with Julius to announce to him a new acquisition, a lovely young creature, whom she was taking home with her from a Swiss Pension. “Mr. Smollett’s own niece, Mr. Hilder, and quite like my Fanny at her age. You remember Fanny ? She was your first love, I believe,” she had said with her ogling dowager smile, and Julius had felt himself seized at once with an insurmountable aversion to the fair young niece of Mr. Smollett. In the first heat of his indignation against his sister he had conceived this notable scheme of crossing by the Havre steamer, and though it had not in its development proved to be eminently amusing, he had never omitted to congratulate himself and his companion, night and morning, upon the good sense they had displayed in adopt ng it. " ’ “Nd chattering girls or designing dowagers,” he would say, as he yawned over his book or the dull game with which they strove to believe they were amusing thetoselves, “gives a man time to pull himself together and take account of stock, as it were.” Still, ■when on one of those aimless pilgrimages below which formed the only break in the monotony of this occupation, he had nearly run over this pretty youg creature leaning against the railings, a thrill of undeniable pleasure had coursed along his nerves and he had felt himself blushing with pleased surprise. Fortunately, the sea-tan had rendered the blush indistinct, but over the light that shot into his gray eyes the sea-tan had no power, nor yet ower the tongue that stammered as he tried to corfvey his apologies for nearly upsetting her, and his offers of service in conducting her to a seat. “Thank you,” she had answered coolly, “you did not startle me, as I saw you coming, and I am not sure that I ■want a seat.” There was no more to be said, and her maid appearing at the moment •with a bundle of parti-colored wraps, Julius could only lift his hat again and carry out his purpose of going below. As he had no reason for going except that he was tired of staying on deck, and as the deck had now acquired a paramount attraction he was soon back again. In the meantime the young lady had made up her mind about the seat, and had found one for herself close against the ship's side, on the weather quarter. It wa< not a pleasant location, but as she had chosen it, and had wrapped alarge shawl about her in an ex-*: elusive sort of way, he saw no plausible ground for interfering.

Nothing could have .been more discreet and retiring than Miss Elton’s behavior, but the perseverance of a man who finds .himself bored by too, much of hid oHm and his alter ego’s society, is an incalculable force against which no woman can successfully entrench herself, and so it was not long before Drake found himself eliminated, as a superfluous factor, from the sum of his friend’d enjoyment, whenever Miss Eaton appeared above deck. His success, however, was more apparent than real, for although he knew her name, and was allowed to carry her book and her shawl, and arrange her chair in the most comfortable position with reference to the wind or the sun, he had really made nO great progress in her confidence; Who she was or why she had chosen to make the voyage in this unc’onventional and eccentric way, remained as great a mystery as it had been on that jnemorable first day. It was the close of the tenth day, dating from that” of his discovery, and Julius sat beside her in that infi ; mate fashion bred of the isolation, of the sea. He had been reading to her, but the story was finished, and a silence had ensued, she appearing to be wrapped in thought and he watching her face with half-veiled glances. “Three more days and we shall be at home,” she said, rousing herself. “You count the days,” he said. “Are you eager to be there?” “No; neither eager nor reluctant. The voyage has been pleasant, but it will be nice to be on shore again, too.” —“ What, or ratber who is going to make it nice? Anybody in particular?” She put the question aside with a little wave of her hand. “You are curious,” she said, mischievously. Julius bit his lip. He was curious, and this was not the first lime she had foiled him. “You want much to know just who and what I am,” she went on. “You have made a dozen attempts to find out. Tell me why. What difference would it make to you? If I were to tell you that lam a niece of the Governor of Kentucky; mind, I don’t say that I am,” she cautioned, as Julius made a gesture, of surprise. “I say if I were to tell you so, and add that I am mistress of an independent fortune, would that enhance my value in your eyes ?” Julius drummed upon the arm of his chair, and looked at her in silence. “Suppose, on the contrary,” she went on, impetuously, and with a certain warmth of tone that seemed to spring from injured pride, “I were to tell you that I am an orphan without fortune; that I had just money enough to array me through the conservatory at Paris, and that l am hoping and expecting to make my living by teaching muisc, would that lower mein your regard?” Julius still remained silent, perhaps a little abashed by the results of his own temerity. “I see that I have embarrassed you,” she said, laughing. ‘IF insist upon an answer. I leave you to adopt whichever hypothesis best suits you.” She gathered up her shawl and book as she spoke, and made a motion to rise, but Julius laid a detaining hand upon her arm. “No, no, you mustn’t go yet,” he exclaimed, and he fancied he perceived a dewiness in her eyes as she turned them toward him, which touched him inexpressibly. . “I am emljarrass-ed, not so much by your hypothesis as by something in myself. Since you leave me to choose between these hypothesis, I will take the latter. You are, then, an orphan without fortune, hoping and expecting to make your living by teaching music. To prove to you how little I deserve your implied reproach, I will confess what I should have concealed from the Governor’s niece. Miss Elton. I adore you!” “Mr. Hilder!” she exclaimed, springto her feet, with flashing eyes, “Well,” he said quietly, “you challenged me.” “You are impertinent, sir,” and she swept away with dignity. She remained closely shut in her own cabin during the remainder of the afternoon and until quite late the next morning, when Julius, who had maintained an anxious and impatient watch on deck, found her in the saloon sipping a cup of tea and nibbling a piece of toast by way of breakfact “I hope you have forgiven me,” he said taking a seat beside her. “But 1 have not,” she answered with decision. “Which have I offened —the Governor’s niece or the orphan music teacher?” he asked with a saucy smjle. “Both. It was a darng impertinence to the one and a piece of insolence toward the other.” “Well, I don’t see what I’m to do about it It isn’t the sort of thing you can expect a man to take back.” “No.” she said, looking absently into her cup, then suddenly realizing that this was not what she should have said she hurried to add, amid a confusion of blushes: “That is. of course, you must take it back; at least yon mustn’t say anything more about it.” “Never ?” “Never.” “But that’s impossible.” “Mr. Hilder.” “Miss Elion.”

“I think we’ve had enough of this. It was my fault, I am willing to admit that. It was wretched taste on my part, and I’ve suffered all sorts of things in consequence.” She waved her hand toward her cabin as. she spoke, indicating that'dt was thus her hours of retirement were spent. “Let me go back to the first question,” she continued. “You asked me whether there was anybody to make it pleasant for me on shore. There was no reason but my own perversity why I should not have answered at once. No, nobody that I am at all sure will care to make it pleasant for me. I have a dear old uncle who has always been very good to me; but when he hears how naughty I have been I don’t know what he will say to me,” and she puckered up her white forehead into an expresr sion of compunctious perplexity. “Well,” he said, after waiting some time for her to resume, “is that all?" “That answers mv question, does it not?" '

“My question as originally put—yes, I believe it does; but it has been so amplified that you can hardly expect me' to be satisfied with that meager answer.” “Amplified! I don’tlamderstand." “Those two ingenious hypotheses, for instance—were they both pure fiction, or which was the true statement?” “Both pure inventions,” she returned, laughing and blushing again. “I am not that brilliant creature, a Governor’s niece, nor yet that more useful and respectable one, a teacher of music. The Governor’s niece was just a bit of satire. I traveled a few week once in company with such a person, and the constant iteration with which she dwelt upon her title and the amount of respect it seemed to inspire in the minds of those who heard it, gave me the impression that it was the highest rank an unmarried woman could attain in America. I think the impression must be well founded, too, as 1 noticed that it produced quite an effect upon you.” . “Not the effect you imagine. I was startled for a moment, I confess, but simply because of a slight coincidence.” “A coincidence! Do you know her ?” and a hot blush and alook of consternation sat together upon the fresh, young face of Miss Elton. “Never saw her; but there was a plot to make me cross the ocean with such a person and a lot of other women, which I defeated by running away.” “Oh! you ran away?” she breathed the words out in a startled, half-whis-per. “Yes, they went in a Cunarder, and my friend Drake and I slippedoffuhtf took the steamer at Havre.” She looked at him with widely opened eyes for a moment, during which he decided for the fiftieth time that the eyes were brown and not deep gray, as he had decided the other fifty times. “Why,did you run away?” she asked after a moment’s amused consideration. “Well, you see, I was with my sister and two or three others ; just a nice little party, all the ladies married; so a fellow didn’t have to be always on parade. We had a jolly, comfortable time until we got to Paris on our way home, and there sister took it into her head to join a woman who had been loaming about the continent with a lot of girls on an extensive husband hunt —one of those women who never look at a single man without picturing him to hesself walking up the aisle with a white tie, with half a dozen groomsmen at his back, and who has always just the girl on hand who will walk up the other aisle in white satin and meet him demurely at the altar. I had no fancy, for being cooped on a steamer with such an experienced old angler.” “And the Governor’s niece was one of the girls ? ’ “Some Governor’s niece, so I heard. Now, what is the naughty thing you’ve been doing? Come, confidence for confidence.” For sole answer, however, Miss Eaton leaned back in he chair and began to laugh immoderately. Julius looked at her for some moments, then catching the infection began to laugh, too, much to the edification of the waiters, who were beginning their preparations for dinner. “I have no doubt it’s awful funny,” he added, as she wiped the tears from her cheeks, “but I could enjoy it more if I knew just the point of view from which you see it. “Perhaps you could,” she replied demurely, checking an impulse to laugh again. “We seem to be in the way; suppose we move.” “ Come on deck,” he exclaimed, rising with alacrity and offering his arm. “Thank you, no. I don’t feel quite equal to the deck this morning.” She made him a ceremonious obeisance, and her cabin door had closed behind her before he had fully realized her purpose. She did not reappear during the day. It was their last day at sea, and Julius was in despair. The jetties’ light Was in sight when he retired, and when he awoke in the morning the smooth gliding motion of the ship announced that they were in the river. He was in no haste to see the low shores of the Mississippi, in fact hefelt at the moment that he hated them; yet he sprang up, dressed with dispatch and mounted to the deck. Everybody was there but the one he sought. He stood near the companion way, watching furtively and starting at every step. She did not some, neither was she at the breakfast table. The hours glided by, the city rose int > view, passengers came on deck with satchels and umbrellas, prepared for going ashore, but still that particular cabin door remained closed. They were at the wharf, the staging was run out, and a dozen or more citizens rushed across with that strange eagerness so inexplicable to the voyager, whose eagerness impels him in the opposite direction. Julius still maintained his watch at the companion way, felt himself gently put aside by a tall, gray-haired gentleman, in a brown *coat, who went with careful haste down the brass steps. He heard a little cry and peering through a skylight he saw Miss Elton in the arms of the grayhaired gentleman, her head pressed against his brown coat, and her eyes upturned to meet his spectacled gaze. “Her unclq!” he mutter peevishly; “who the devil is he anyhow?” He moved discontented to the side and looked at the people hurrying ashore.

“Hello, Julius! Going to spend the night aboard ?” cried Drake, coming up with a duly chalked valise in each hand. “Oh, Mr, Hilder,” exclaimed another and more musical voice. “Wait, uncle, I must introduce you; Mr. Hilder has been very kind to me.” “ What, Julius! Why, my dear boy, how d’ye ? My wife wrote me you were coming over with her. ” His hand was grasped with a hearty pressure, and he found himself gazing into the spectacled eyes of Mr. Smollett. “Oh, stupidest of stupids!” he exclaimed as he thrust slippers and brushes into his valise in the privacy of his cabin. Bagged by the Smollett ogress after all, by Jupiter!” he added as be gave tvlast twist to his fair mustache before the misty mirror.— Neu: Orleans Times-Democrat.

SHAKING HANDS.

Some of t he Variotu Modes. The pump-handle shaking is the first which deserves notice. It is executed by taking a friend’s hand and working it up and down through an arc of fifty degrees for about a minute and a half. To have its nature, force, and character this shake should be formed with a fair and steady motion. No attempt should be made to give it grace, and still less variety, as the few instances in which the latter has been tried have uniformly resulted in dislocating the shoulder of the person on whom it has been attempted. On the contrary, persons who are partial to the pumphandle shake should be at some pains to have an equable, tranquil movement to the operation; which should bn no account be continued after perspiration on the part of your friend has commenced*— . —___ The pendulum shake may be mentioned next, as being somewhat"similar in character, but moving, as the name indicates, in a horizontal instead of a perpendicular direction. It is executed by sweeping your hands horizontally toward your friends, and after the junction is effected, rowing with it from' one side to the other according to the pleasure of the parties. The only caution in its use which needs particularly to be given is not to insist on performing it in a place strictly paralell to the horizon. You may observe a person who had been educated to the pumphandle shake, and one who had brought home the pendulum from a foreign -voyage*—They met, joined hands, and attempted to put them in motion. They were neither of them feeble men One attempted to pump, and the other to puddle; their faces reddened, the drops stood upon their ioreheads,-and it—was at last a pleasant illustration of the doctrine of the composition of forces to see their heads slanting into an exact diagonal, in which line they ever after shook; but it was plain to see there was no cordiality in it, and, as is usually the case with such compromises, both parties were discontented. The tourniquet shake is the next in importance. It derives its name from the instrument made use of by surgeons to stop the circulation of the blood in the limbs about to be amputated. It is performed by clasping the hand of your friend as far as you can n your own, and then contracting the muscles of your thumb, fingers, and palm till you have induced any degree of compression you may possess in the hand ofyourfriend? —Particular care ought to be taken, if your hand isias hard and as big as a frying-pan, and that of your friend is as small and soft as a maiden’s, not to make use of the tourniquet shake to a degree that will shake the small bones of the wrist out of their places. It is seldom safe to apply it to a gouty person. A hearty young friend of mine, who had pursued the study of geology, and acquired an unusual hardness and strength of hand and wrist by the use of the hammer, on returning from a scientific excursion, gave his uncle (the gouty one) the tourniquet shake with such severity as had well-nigh reduced the old gentleman’s fingers to powder, for which my friend had the pleasure of being disinherited as soon as his uncle’s fingers got w r ell enough to hold a pen. The cordial grapple is a shake of some interest. It is a hearty, boisterous shake of your friend's hand, accompanied with modern pressure and loud acclamations of welcome. It is an excellent traveling shake, and well adapted to many friends; it is indiscriminately performed. ■ The Peter Grevious is opposed to the cordial grapple. It is a pensive, tranquib'junction, followed by a mild subsultory motion, a cast-down look, and an inarticulate inquiry after your friend’s health. The prude major, and prude minor are nearly monopolized by ladies. They cannot be accurately described, but are constantly to be noticed in practice. They never extend beyond the fingers; and the prude major allows you to touch them only down to the second joint. The prude minor allows you the whole of the finger. Considerable skill may be show in performing them with nice variations, such as extending the left hand instead of tjie right, or stretching a new glossy kid glove over, the finger you extend I might go through along list of the grip royal, and sawmill shake, and the shake with malice prepense, but they are only factitious combinations of the three fundamental forms already described, as the pump-handle,r the pendulum, and the tourniquet. Ishould trouble you with a few remarks in conclusion on the mode of shaking hands as an indication of character, but as I see a friend coming up the avenue who is addicted to the pump-handle I dare not tire my wrist by further writing.— Exchange.

Bottled Tea.

To bottle tea and set it aside for use as a cold beverage is one way, and perhaps the best, to use and enjoy this wholesome stimulant. It adds a “mellowness” to the fragrant infusion that smacks of old wine. Or Is it the delusion of the “bottle” that suggests the insiduous thought? If you have never tried bottled tea do so on the next picnic that you undertake, and . follow these directions: Make the tea in the usual way, and after it has drawn sufficiently— say twenty minutes strain the liquor from the leaves and pour into a clean hottie. It is best to have the bottle as warm as the tea, so as to avoid the possibility of cracking the bottle with the hot tea; sweeten to taste, bearing in mind that if you make it quite sweet when it is warm it will not appear so when it becomes cold. You will find Appolinaris or champagne bottles the best and cheapest to use. Cork it tightly and set aside in the refrigerator to cool. Then, when you are on your picnic, all you have to do is to fill a tutobler with cracked ice and pour in the tea, and you will realize for the first time what a fine thing this bottled tea is. Do not think that because the tea is in a bottle tightly corked it will keep a long time. After it is once sweetened it should be useil within at least twenty-four hours. If you are a workingman’s wife, and your husband cotoes home after work fired, just have ~a bottle of cold tea ready fat him. He , may get to like it so well that he will

prefer it to the glass of beer he sometimes takes on the way home.

The Social Pillar Sham.

I have just returned from a long and pleasant reunion and two-handed reminiscence with an old time friend, whose face I had not seen for nearly twenty years, i During that time he has been in the penitentiary, and I, having been more discreet, have been less hampered. Thus our paths have led us through different walks of life. At least, mine has. —« ——. — We were comparing notes yesterday, and, among other things, the conversation drifted toward the subject of real and apparent wealth. My friend, prior to his retirement, had been engaged in the wholesale burgling trade and general grand-larceny business, and his experience had sharpened his judgment and.knowledge of human nature. I call to mind, now, several of his maxims. Among others, he made it a rule never to follow a man very far who bought strawberries in January. He said that wealthy people were not the ones yvho bought the highest-priced seats to hear Patti, or ate green peas for Christinas. It is the James Crow aristocrat and nickle-plated social favorite with the tinfoil-back diamond in his only shirt who buys things because they are high, and gets side-tracked at Sing Sifig, with ten years for repentance. I wish that I had a voice like a foghorn, that I might sit on the corner of a cloud and proclaim to the world that the man who sits up nights to knock his neighbors cold with envy is liable to get a chance to recover his lost sleep under the gentle guardianship of the State and the statutes in such cases made and provided. - Fewer people are actually fooled by hand-me-down pomp than is generally surmised. Thosewhohave arrived at years of discretion, as a general rule, call to mind from twenty-seven to thir-ty-nine people in their own horizon who have sought to get there, but stepped on something while in transit, and fell with a sickening thud. This should teach us to be what we seem. Only a few months ago a young man who occupied a sls seat at the opera fainted, and when they carried him out and worked over him some time, and they were beginning to be alarmed and overhauled him a little, they found that his shirt-bosom was pinned to his vest, and that his cuffs were pinned to the inside of the sleeves of his spike-tailed coat, because there was nothing else to pin to, and he only wore one sock ! Little do we know the actual suffering that is going on all around us. Do you think it hurts my sensitive nature to be frowned upon by the proud and haughty milkman’s alternate, as he rudely jostles me on his way to the dress-circle, while I joyously climb to the peanut-gallery, softly humming to myself “Empty is the Cradle, Baby’s Gone,” or a bar from some other great oratorio? Not exactly. lam not sensitive in thaF way. I could sell a block of stock in my New Jerusalem mine, and borrow a breech-loading spy-glass, and sit in the bald-headed row myself, if I wanted to; but I’d rather not occupy a seat in a mixed company. I’d rather sit among business-suits that are paid for than swallow-tails that will have to be returned next day. I may be peculiar that way. Perhaps it's plebeian and vulgar, but it’s comfortable. Really, we need as much reform in society as we do in politics. If I hadn’t so much to attend to myself, I’d organize a two-dollar reform in this line; and I have no doubt that, with my brilliant social record and personal magnetism, I could elevate society several degrees Fahrenheit.Society is too apt to infer that the riff-raff and the common herd are fooled and blinded by the glare and glitter of rented clothes and jewelry. On behalf of the riff-raff and common herd, I desire to state that we are not. We find that by wearing blue-glass goggles we can outglare a diamond as big as a cut glass ink-stand. Let us remember that clothes do not make the man. It is the head and heart that makes the man; though of course, he should see that he has a good, light-running and durable liver. He ought also to have a stomach which will not crave watermellons in January, and snow birds in August, at thirty days.— Bill Eye, in Puck. ; . . .

His Circulation was Good.

Newspaper men are sensitive. Not concerning their dress, their piety, or their ability to pay a debt, but of their circulation. You may say that he dresses like a tramp, and may thrust insinuations at that sensitive organ, the nose, and smiling benignly he will forgive you, but let fall an innuendo besmirching the circulation of his journal, and all ties of friendship which may have hitherto existed between you are severed with the passionate sw’oop of the knife which so well knows war in the extreme. There is Colonel Harquies, for instance. He rather likes personal abuse, and upon his private life severe criticism has no more effect than an autumn drizzle falling on the back "of a hard-shell turtle; but you must not hint that his paper does not carry in its hip pocket a wad of great influence. Several days ago the Colonel was taken violently ill. He raged in the delirium of high fever, and his wife, becoming alarmed, sent for two prominent physicians. When the medical gentlemen arrived the editor was almost wild, wallowing in a tragic daze. One of the physicians approaching, took hold of the Colonel’s arm, and, turning to his companion, said: “Circulation very poor.” “What!” exclaimed the editor, springing up, “poor circulation! Why, confound you, I work sixty quires. Get away from here, you scoundrels,” and, with loud imprecations and demonstrations of violence, he drove the medical men from the room.— Arkansaw Traveler.

The bridal veil originated in the custom of performing themuptial ceremony under a equate piece of cloth held over the bridegroom, and the bride to conceal the blushes of the latter. At the marriage of a widow it was dispensed with. ,

DUELS.

Some Remarkable Ones Fought In the j n *‘ rk - In/1875, while dining at the “Star and Garter," Ball Mall, with a Mr. Chatworth, a famous duelist, William (the fifth Lord) Byron—great uncle of the author of “Childe Harold”—quarreled with his friend regarding the manner of preserving game, and also concerning the game laws; and the two retired to an adjoining room and fought by the light of a tallow candle. Byron entered the apartment first, and as Chatworth was closing the door, turning his head around he beheld his antagonist’s sword half undrawn, and whipping his own weapon out he made a quick lunge at his opponent, and ran his sword through Byron’s waistcoat, but, as Chatworth thought, through the body. His Lordship closed, and shortening his sword stabbed Chatworth in the stomach, making a wound fourteen inches deep, from which Mr. Chatworth died the next morning. Accounts have always differed as to which gentleman challenged the other, and also of subsequent proceedings concerning the shocking affair. The best authority says that Byron was arrested and tried before his peers in Westminster Hall, and that he read his defense, pleading his peerage, and escaped by his privilege—burning in the hand. Another account states that he was convicted of manslaughter by a vote of 124 out of 131, and sentenced to the payment of a fine and one day’s imprisonment. Public opinion frowned on him ever afterward, and he was pointed at as a murderer even in his self-exile. It is an interesting fact that the poet fell desperately in love with Mary Chatworth, the pretty daughter of his uncle’s antagonist, who led him on to some extent and then married another. In 1800 Henry Grattan and—lsaac Corry, members of the Irish Parliament, . indulged in vehement debate over the question whether Ireland was to dwindle into a province or retain her name among nations, during which Corry said that Grattan instead of enjoying the confidence of his countrymen, should be standing at the criminal bar to answer for treason; to which the great Irish orater replied, concluding as follows: “The gentleman has calumniated me to-night in Parliament; he will calumniate me to-morrow in the King's Courts ; but had he said or dared to have insinuated one-half as much elsewhere, the indignant spirit of an honest man would have answered the vile and venal slanderer with a blow.” The parties left the House immediately with friends, although it was quite dark, and repaired to the nearest duelground and fought with pistols, at twelve paces, Corry having his left arm shattered at the first shot. As late as 1853, Capt. Phillips, of the British army, in garrison at Bombay, India, took offense at Lieut. Sheppard of the same garrison, for trivial words, and the two officers indulged in voluminous correspondence, which resulted in a hostile meeting at night, by the light of a single candle, held by a native domestic in the service of Phillibs, who was shot dead at the first fire. Sheppard was court martialed and dismissed from the army, and afterwards tried on the charge of murder and convicted of manslaughter. Capt. Rutherford and Surgeon Cahill, of the British army officers in the same regiment on garrison duty in Scotland in 1811—quarreled over the trivial matter of Cahill carrying a file of London papers from the mess-room to his quarters, which was really contrary to garrison regulations. One word brought on another, when Rutherford, greatly enraged, challenged the surgeon to mortal combat, which the latter accepted, and named the same evening and a neighboring quarry as the time and place for the hostile engagement. The principals met promptly at the quarry at the appointed hour, accompanied by seconds, and Rutherford received a "mortal wound. The survivor was subsequently tried ami acquitted.

Navigating the Air.

But if our flag is not on the ocean, there is no reason why it should not be seen in the mid-air before many years are over. Edison, the famous inventor thinks that electricity will be the motive power in aerial navigation. ,The desideratum is to secure five times more power per pound of weight than we now get from the iiest forms of small engines. The problem to be solved is to evolve the power from coal direct without the intervention of the boiler of the engine. Electricity is now generated from zinc and other metals without the intervention of any engine. If the same could be done with coal or carbon, six-horse could be got from one pound of coal. With the boiler and engine only one-horse power is procured from three pounds of coal. Zinc is as combustible in a battery or jar as coal is in a furnace but coal develops seven times as much power as zinc, and zinc costs thirty-five times as much as coal, a difference in cost per pound of 245 to one, or 24,500 per cent. Mr. Edison says that thousands of ingenious men are now at work on this problem, which he thinks will soon be solved. In a recent interview with a newspaper man he said: “Having lightness with power, we should only need enough balloon for actual lifting power, and we would attain a very high velocity, you could hold a ten-horse power motor out in your hand, and once in the air, with five pounds of coal, could the consumption be direct, the little jigger could go an vwhere. Nobody wpuld want to ascend to great heights where the air's resistance to the propeller would decrease, but skim along over the trees and houses like a bird above the water. The rudders could all be worked,- and your ballastless balloon could be raised or lowered, turned to the right or left, by the motor itself, and a boy could do all the work. Such an arrangement could scarcely do for heavy freight, but it could carry passengers and mail matter and express parcels, and move readily at 80 to 100 Umiles an hour. If we can solve the> power question we can do anything.”— Demorest’s Monthly. One of the successful druggists of New Orleans is a woman.