Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1885 — Page 6

" CYPKKBB. > ’ J. 1 Moonlight, and love, and magnolia trees; A bare, gray house oh a lonely hill; A river below, with the sweep of seas; And an air of stillness, so strangely still— So still of trouble or strife or stir, X heard my heart as it beat for her. ■ n.' Her lover and she and the cypress tree; And If 1 Alone by the black lagoon— A place of ghosts and of mysteries— Lake lilies upheld to the loveless moon; The darkness slain by the sword of day And under the cypress trees hidden away. m. Her wondrous hair! Her eyes were as largo As torch-lost deer's, that feeding in moss, And seeing the light in the huntsman’s barge, Lifts up its head and comes Wide-eyed and dazed, and reaches its head— Trusting and reaching—and so, ehot dead I IV. '•The cypress is as secret as death, ”■ said I, , “And Death, he is dearer to me than gold.” So the cypress woods and the wave hard by Have mahy and many a secret to hold — For why did she turn to the wood and the wave And look and look as in dead love’s grave? —Joe G. Miller, in the Cwyent.

THE SEARCH FOR ROGER HALE

By Virginia W. Johnson, Author of “The Image of San Donato,” Etc. PART FIRST. I. —ONE OF THREE. In the month of June, 1884, the law office of Milliken, Frost & Co., situated on a noisy thoroughfare of the city of New York, presented its usual aspect. Three heads bent over three desks, while three pens scratched diligently at the respective tasks. Mr. Hiram Milliken emerged from the private rooms oi the firm, paused in the middle space of the office, twirling the gold seals which depended over his white waist-coat, and looked at the owners of the heads ruminatingly. The pens paused, and three pair of eyes regarded the great man in respectful interrogation, for Mr. Milliken, a lawyer of fine reputation, large connection, and ample fortune, was a very great personage, indeed, in the estimation of his clerks. Some communication of importance was about to be made, for the stranger, who had been received an hour before, was visible through the open door engaged in earnest conversation with Mr. Frost and Mr. Whitney. “As sure as you are alive something is up with old Fudge,” whispered Harry Fayall to his comrades of the desk. Old Fudge was the nickname bestowed by the facetious youth on his senior, who, unconscious of the impertinence, continued to sean the group before him. “Would either of you like to search for a missing man?” inquired Mr. Milliken. “Yes, sir,” replied John Leggat, promptly. “Expenses paid?” echoed Richard Marshall, a prudent and dry young man, whose sandy hair hung straight and limp about his face, and whose thin lips closed like the valves of certain sea-shells. “Expenses paid, land $1,000; for your trouble, if you find him,” continued Mr. Milliken. “I will find him,” said John Leggat, wiping his pen and restoring it to the rack. “Who is he? Why is he wanted?” The lawyer regarded him with marked satisfaction. Courage and energy of purpose were perceptible in the youth with the keen, gray eye, handsome features and curling, black hair. John possessed the true legal passion for tracing results to causes. Here was an opening. One of three. Prudent Richard Marshall bethought him of tft heiress he was wooing at a suburban resort, and hesitated between the bird in the hand and one on the wing. Harry Fayall was reluctant to give up a fortnight of camping in the Adirondack Mountains. John Leggat must go. He received his instructions in the private room. The missing man was an artist—Roger Hale by name. His brdther had recently died in his native town in Central New York, leaving a considerable property to be divided between two sisters and the absent Roger. No settlement could be made of sales until the artist gave his consent He had been last seen at Nice, but as a correspondent Mr. Hale left much to be desired. “I will find him,” reiterated ,John Leggat. “I shall sail on the next steamer? if they put me in the coal bunk. I ‘wonder what Katy will think of it,” he 'added, as he sought the abode of his fiancee, on the very wings of hope. The search for Roger Hale meant such a start in life as the marriage of these young people, otherwise definitely deferred. Katy White lived with her brother on the fifth floor of an apartment building, where the increasing heat and the improbability of a country holiday had aroused the imagination of the children. Tommy had made a train of cars of chairs in one corner, while Molly, seated majestically on a table, announced she was on board the steamboat, bound for Newport, and Bob imagined himself to be on the Long Branch shore, with the aid of a wooden shovel and a toy pail full of shells. "I mean to live in the country when I am married,” announced Katy, who was as sensible as she was pretty, dimpled, and rosy. “I hate the country,” retorted her sister-in-law, a pale blonde, with a fashion magazine open on her knee. John Leggat entered, was welcomed shrilly by the children, and imparted the news that he was to seek Roger Hale. Katy wept and trembled, then became sufficiently calm to listen to his projects. “Make your wedding dress, darling,” he whispered joyfully. ’ Next day he sailed for Europe. ® . * - H. —A WILL-O’-THE-WISP. When John Leggat reached Nice, traveling from Paris without stopping, he learned that Roger Hale had been in that brilliant city, but had gone on toward Italy, sketching along the shore. The information gleaned was somewhat vague when analyzed. Everybody knew Roger Hale, but no one was precise as to dates respecting his movementa. The term used was that he was generally around somewhere and a very good fellow. John departed along the shore, in turn, undeterred by fierce heat and the ■inisUr rumor that cholera had ap-

peared at Toulon and Marseilles. He searched every town,, hamlet, aud inlet of a picturesque coast until checked by the frontier and the land quarantine which bad been established on that sultry July day. Oh, joy! must not Roger Hale have been caught at this point, like a fish in a net? Is there nothing new under the sun? Ventimiglia, the familiar gateway to Italy, associated in the traveler’s mind with the 5-franc bribe of unmolested trunks, and the shaking out of ball dresses in search of imaginary cigars for the conscientious tourist who withholds the coin, presented to John Leggal a most unusual aspect. Harassed officials directed crowds of frightened third-class passengers, carrying bundles over their shoulders, while heaps of merchandise remained scattered about. “The' land quarantine is established,” said an Englishman at his elbow. “It’s only a matter of five days; but it would have been a good job to have got through yesterday.” /„ ■ The fertile plain of Piau di Latte, blooming with olive and vineyard, resort of the richer inhabitants of Ventimiglia in the autumn, bad been converted into a lazaretto, with such nice distinctions in the social grade as the lodging of John Leggat in a villa, to be served by caterers from San Remo, while those frightened fugitives of the third class, the operatives from Toulon and Marseilles, were sheltered beneath tents and fed by the bounty of their government. The hills guarding the spot, crowned by convent and chapel and merging to the snow-cap-ped Maritime Alps in the distance, looked down on the strange scene of courage, bravado, misery in the imprisonment of this human tide of captives. Roger Hale was not here. His pursuer was the fish caught in the net of delay. The Englishman, belonging to the commercial class known as a traveler, possessed a florid complexion and white eyelashes. His raiment of plaid cloth, pinkish-yellow in hue, gave him an odd resemblance to a caterpillar. A Frenchman, with white gaiters, gray moustache, and a round glass inserted in one eye, mocked at the quarantine, the Italian soldiery, the confusion of the railway station, more by a veiled cynicism than mere indiscretion of speech. He diverted a group of cadets by humming the latest Parisian song on the refrain of the Microbe. . The German savant inspected water sources and made notes. A Spaniard and a portugese, silent, dry and yellow of visage, smoked cigarettes. Officers clanked their sabers while the soldiers remained taciturn, prepared for a campaign without glory, yet as heroic as battle. The summer night fell softly. John Leggat could not sleesp. The vigilant watched. He opened the door. A. Sister of Charity glided along the corridor, followed by two assistants bearing fresh linen. She paused and addressed John in English. Rumor affirmed that a great lady was among the first at Ventimiglia; the secret of her mission unknown. • ■ - - -

The days passed slowly. The prisoners wrote letters: John to Katy, the Frenchman to a Paris editor, the cadets to comrades of the college, with caricatures of the German savant on the margin. Time was alone precious to the latter, and the pages gathered thickly beneath his pen as he traced the researches of the Greek Inspector Kock, Hippocrates, in remote ages, as equally applicable to the present time. Books and journals acquired a value calculated to inspire authors to fresh effort for such ends. Occasionally the locomotive whistle, announcing fresh arrivals, made first-comers exchange a glance. On the third day the Sister of Charity ceased to glide through the corridors.of the villa. The Frenchman paced the terrace all night, the Englishman sipped brandy and water, the Spaniard and the Portugese quarreled over cards, the cadets, waxing reckless, drank seltzer water on a wager, and feasted at the case. Next morning the cadets and the German disappeared. All mention of them was avoided. The others showed themselves on the terrace and ate with public display of appetite. At noon the German reappeared and drank a bottle of beer with his breakfast. John and the Englishman shook hands with him in silence. The fifth night came. The American listened to the moaning of the sea and watched the swift darkness of the storm as rain hissed through the gorges of the hills and vivid sheets of lightning illuminated the olive groves, where the branches writhed like souls in pain. In the blotting shadow of the gardens, and above the tumult of the tempest, brooded a great fear. d “I could not stand it another day,” exclaimed John. With the rising sun came release. The Frenchman gathered a rose for his buttonhole; the Englishman strapped his bag. In the tents those sons of toil, the laborers, who wait for hire in the world’s mar-ket-places, prepared to move on. Poor Gennaro, of Naples, and Beppo, from the Lucca Hills, once more gathered up their bundles, while Piedmontese Amadeo had laid down the burden for-, ever on the threshold.

Fertile Plan di Latte, made a prisoner between purple hills and blue sea, where "Life, like a donro .of many-colored glass Stains the white radiance of" eternity.' 1 In the train the Englishman said to John Leggat: “The Sister of Charity yvill be given the place of honor in the cemetery. Yes; the cadet’s was a fulminating case, of course.” “I wonder if Roger Hale still lives ?” thought John. PART SECOND. lIL—IN CLOSE PUBSUIT. Escaping from the land quarantine John Leggat hastened to Genoa, where he learned -’that Roger Hale was ip Milan. At Milan he was told the artist had sought the Turin Exhibition. He took the next train for; Turin, but failed to find the missing heir in the Mediaeval Castle or the Kermess Fair. The hotel secretary was absolutely sure the object of inquiry had returned to Venice. Launching letters and, telegrams, like a shower of arrows, in "all - directions, John turned his face toward the Adriatic. A fresh perplexity awaited him. Venice gained, he * lost trace of Roger Hale altogether. What had become of him? Piqued, he sought banker, con-’ .. I -V' '

tsul, hotels, and lodgings in vain. A lady at the table d’hote stated that a party of artists had gone to Titian’s country ten days before, and Roger Hale was of the number. The lady changed countenance slightly when she learned that the American had sped after the artists. “I am almost sure that was one of the names,” she mused, “or was it Smith?” . The artists cheered Johh. Roger was to join them later, and if the lawyer remained in their midst or hung about Venice, Hale was sure to turn up. The chief authority recalled, all in sketching a flight of steps, that Hale had sought Florence to copy a head of Titian’s in the Ritti Gallery. John journeyed to Florence, discovered a canvas on which a woman’s face was outlined, and learned that Roger Hale had left for Leghorn some weeks before. At Leghorn the artist was said to have gone to Sardinia with an Italian. A merchant promised to telegraph to a certain person at Rome for more accurate information. John waited, fumed with impatien.ee, fast verging to exasperation. The artist, ever within reach, perpetually eluded him. How easy it had seemed to find him! John began to tear Roger Hale was a myth —a will-o’-the-wisp. Leghorn swarmed with life; groups of girls gathered about the fountains; the air was redolent of hot oil frizzling on the domestic altar of supper in narrow streets. A funeral procession passed along a quay, the candies of the penitents flaring; a black prison-van, guarded by royal carbineers, wearing cocked hats, crept behind the four-in-hand of a Greek banker. The sun set beyond the tranquil Mediterranean in a fiery disk, dyeing the waves crimson and gold. John strolled about the gardens of the shore, and sought one of the piers. On the right the serrated peaks of the Carrara Mountains sloped to the brink of the Spezian Gulf. All about him the people laughed and talked in a babel of tongues. A Sicilian princess, with narrow, Spanish face, enveloped in opalescent draperies like the sea at sun-set, drank coffee at the next table. A piquant beauty, clad in maize-colored satin, claimed the homage of a bevy of cavaliers. One by one little boats, wreathed with swaying lanterns, became detached from shore and flitted over the water to cluster about a yacht, gemmed with lights in an ar ch of green fire. A Venetian fete was transpiring, with song and revelry. Suddenly a word, an exclamation, a cry wrought swift change to the fairy spectacle. The beauty held a telegram in her rigid hand, the Princess had started to her feet—the very waiters paused to look and listen. The cholera had reached and stricken Spezia. The eyes of adjacent towns turned to the boundary of mountain in dread of the awful moment when the pestilence should wing its noiseless and fatal way onward to strike them as welt Panic ensued. The lights went out, and the multitude surged inland to join the fugitives of Spezia at Risa in a tumult of frenzied haste. The Princess journeyed, enthroned on her own Juggage in the baggage van, father than be loft behind. At this auspicious moment John learned that Roger Hale was certainly at Naples. “Let him stay there, then,” he cried wrathfully. IV.—SAVED FROM THE MOB. Roger Hale had an idea. When he had an idea he invariably put it into execution. Was he not his own roaster? His visit to Sardinia had been brief, and gaining Rome by Civita-Vec-chia, he was meditating a return when the idea dawned upon him. A few hours of leisure decided him to write to his relatives in America. He bought some postage stamps at a tobacconist's, which the woman wrapped up in a bit of newspaper. Outside, in the shadow of a temple wall, the artist removed the paper, and consigned the stamps to his vest pocket. “They will think I’ve died of cholera long ago,” he mused, in dutiful allusion to his anxious sisters. His quick eye noted a paragraph on the morsal of paper, in which the Queen expressed sorrow for the misfortunes of Naples, the smiling Parthenope, seated on her incomparable bay.

“I have it!" exclaimed Roger Hale. “The Siren Parthenope was there cast ashore, and Neapolis was the city of Campania, built on the Sinus Carter.” He took the next train southward. A votary at the shrine of beauty, absorbed in his art, the elusive ideal of perfection now fitted before him on rainbow wings toward the Vesuvian Gulf. He had done nothing. Parthenope should redeem his years of idleness and live on canvas, a vision of loveliness, combining the golden tones of Tatian, with the redundant coloring of Rubens and the charm of Hans Makart or Cabanal. He was called’ color mad by his fellow artists.

Roger Hale was a short and stout man, with flowing beard, nose turning up at the tip, and a pair of hazel eyes, seeing everything their owner wished to discern, and further shaded by a fSlt hat, which had lost all shape in hard usage, now serving as a pillow and again protecting the owner’s head from sun and rain. He tpok his chances as they came, and life was as glorious to him as to Ernest Renan. Hence the charm of the Sifen Parthenope, a study signifying light, warmth, a goddess bathed in a luminous atmosphere, with shadow of ilex; palm, and orange groves cast athwart her draperies, and the peaks of Vesuvius and Monte St Angelo in the background. The vision intoxicated him as he passed by the ancient Via Latina' through the Campagna Felice, ...and thence onward to Naples. He pressed forward eagerly to the goal. Modern ■ competition did not dismay, but oh! he must learn if ancient art had traced on marble and fresco of temple and bath the image he sought He gained the museum, oblivious to outward event going and coming in the cool halls, enriched with Pompeiian urn, candelabra, bronze, the light gleaming on crystal and gem, Roman empresses gazing down cynically on JEreid and Venus. The artist found a stick of chocolate ip his pocket and ate it while studying the figures of a sarcophagus. He would have worked on had the custodians dropped about him, for the town was already plaguestricken. Artists have wrought thus

in siege and famine. Naples, spent with fierce summer heat, stung by sudden storms, charged with hail, enervated by tropical showers arousing sickly epuinations from the soul, must keep the festa of the Riedegrotta, with jingle of tambazza, snapping of castagnettes, and the partaking of red peppers, fried in oil, macaroni, rizza, salad, j and fruit. How to live without the | red tomato sauce ? How to banish the fig, ripening in luscious abundance for the good of man, nourishment of the Roman athlete ? The city, pouting at municipal authority, had stretched forth her hand and plucked the fruit When Roger Hale gained the town and hastened to the museum, a cry had arisen in the crowded streets, where the idler paused, staggered, fell, while his comrades fled. Roger Halo emerged on thoroughfares rapidly thinning of frequenters, ahd closing shops. Ho had come hither to seek a siren, basking on golden sands, , a< s' found the charnelUiouse. The doom of fear was written on all faces. Death met him on every side, wrapped in scanty rags in the hovel and scaling the palace alike. Old age shriveled before it; the warm current of the youth was stilled. The population surged, ( like a restless tide, dazed, frantic, or fleeing before the thunderbolt falling in their midst, as the citizens of Pompeii once fled from the lava torrent After revelry came repentance. How to analyze the cause more calmly than did the leeches of the Middle Ages, when the plague slew 20,000 in a day in these streets. The contagion had leaped from the black alleys of the Mercato to the Pendino, Vicatia, and San Cario, as a vast conflagration spreads fanned by the wind. The artist looked about him incredulously. Night was filled with rumors, fitful dreams, stifled cries, and the rumbling of heavy carts. Day found the town haggard. The King was coming, but before him was the archbishop. Saints, processions, miracles might save from doctors and witches. A Madonna had bowed to a worshiper in her church. Roger Hale decided to return to Rome by the next train. Ho went out into the streets. A procession hemmed him against a wall; girls, old men, children swept past with a startled rush of feet and rags. A boy fell forward on his knees, the old water vender at the corner threw up her arms, as if stricken by an invisible missile. Beyond a crowd of gamblers fell into an ecstacy because the lucky numbers* had turned up for Naples in the lottery. A bane ot youths begged alms of the artist, who waved them off and returned to his hotel. How wretched and somber was the scene. Rain fell heavily, and the wind, cold as November, agitated the sea, hurling back noxious vapors at the town. Neapolitan malice circumvented Roger Hale. The boys prepared the crowd for him. “See! The foreigner comes this way. He is the wizard, the poisoner, who brought the pest to Naples. He scatters a powder from his pocket on the air, in the salt, on our food. He helps the accursed doctors with his spells.” The idle listened, the turbulent paused and scowled. As the artist passed the altar improvised before a long-concealed shrike of San Gennaro, and the door of the. adjacent pork butcher, the latter sprang out and seized him by the collar. “I will teach you, wretch, to tamper with my wares so that nobody will buy them,” shouted the butcher. - The artist believed his hour had come, and the infuriated man was about to kill him for some imaginary wrong. To expostulate would be to add fuel to the flames. More than once a complete limpness of demeanor had saved him from serious disaster. Suddenly the butcher snatched up the sausage cake on the bench, brushed by the stranger’s sleeve, thrust the delicacy into his hand, and hissed: “Eat it or I will strangle you!” “Willingly,” said Roger Hale. “Your sausage is excellent.” The butcher growled; the crowd watched to see the foreigner drop dead; a girl laughed; an old woman croaked, “He can eat it, but another would die.” The mirth changed to groans and cries. A chorus of female voices expressed a desire to have the skin of Roger Hale. Two guards attempted to force their way to his rescue. The artist flung the sausage into the butcher’s face, and with an agile bound cleared the space behind the altar, gained the corner and vaulted into a carriage. He was saved. The occupants of the vehicle made way for him, too much astonished for words.• “Lord! That butcher nearly did for me.”

“You speak English?” demanded the new-comer. “Have you met Roger Hale at Naples?” Rapid explanations ensued. John Leggat has just arrived. The artist learned of his brother’s death with contrition. He confessed that he did not always read his sister’s letters quite through and seldom responded. The two men actually forgot their surroundings for the moment. The King, accompanied by his brother, was approaching the royal palace, the carriage breasting a human wave of clamorous subjects as far as eye could reach. Years before the soldier Victor Emanuel, in his shooting-coat, from San Rossore had undertaken the same heroic pilgrimage. Roger Hale doffed his hat “That’s the real article, you know,” qhoth the artist; “I don’t care much about kings, but when I meet a man braver than J am I rake off my hat to him." L In the railway carriage Reger Hale said, musingly: ' “The .picture must be Parthenope desolate, a Niobe weeping for her slain children, a Sibyl outliving the griefs of a stricken world. In the background Cassamicciola topples to ruin in the shadow of Epomeo, while at Parthenope’s feet lies a dead child, crowned wi h flowers, the summer of 1884.” In the month of October Katy White 'glanced tip through her falling tears to behold John Leggat standing in the doorway. He. had his arm linked through that of a short man, as if fearing to lose him. “My darling Katy,” exclaimed John triumphantly, “let me introduce ybn to Mr. Roger Hale."— Ch icago Inter Ocean, ■.

A Liberal Crank.

Another species of crank is the man who delights to call himself a liberal. There are liberals and liberals, and some of them are the most wholesouled, unpresutoing, generous noblemen in existence, but this kind very seldom introduce themselves by saying, “I am a liberal.” The liberal crank usually volunteers the information. You’d never iihagino there was anything liberal about him unless he told you. He is intrusive in his belief. No matter what company he may be in he airs his peculiar doctrines. One man may mention as an historical fact that the Jews lived in Judea, or Pontius Pilate was a Roman office-holder. Instantly Mr. Liberal breaks in and informs you that that is all bibld fiction, and that he is astonished that any man in these days of advanced thought—oh, how he loves that phrase—can read such a tissue of lies. Another may innocently intimate that he thinks Mr. Beecher and Mr. Spurgeon are very eloquent speakers, when to his surprise Mr. Liberal bristles up and says that he is happy to say that he has not been inside a church for so many years, and could not be hired to go, that all preachers are arrant humbugs and only after the money they can get out of it, and then he launches off into a fulsome eulogy of Mr. R. G. Ingersoll whpm he pays his dollar unwhimperingly to listen to, and never inquiries into what charity the modern apostle of liberalism turns his hardearned shekels. The liberal crank is the most illiberal of liberals. He is a canting iSater of cant, an idol-worshiping iconoclast. He dilates for hours on the bigotry and intolerance of sects, and exhibits the most intense intolerance for all who do not accept his peculiar broad-gauge theories. He claims the absolute right to condemn, malign and insult all denominations, but becomes righteously indignant if his own crowd are in the slightest manner impugned. He professes with loud flourish of trumpet to march Under the banner of “Universal Mental Liberty,” but if any poor church member claims the same privilege, and his idea of liberty does not happen to coincide with Mr. Liberal’s, he is stigmatized as a hypocrite, a priest-ridden fool, a time-serving, pandering deceiver. He professes to defy reason, but thinks that all men must reason through his quill or be wrong. He abhors superstitions of the day. He stigmatizes supernaturalism as folly, and is a faithful devotee at the shrine of modern spiritualism. His great hold however is science. Oh, what a luscious morsel is science as he glibly rolls it over his tongue. He rolls up the honored names of Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer and others with great gusto, and triumphs ntly t ells you they have disposed of the whole question, but on inquiry it will be found that his knowledge of anything pertaining To these men, except their names, is extremely meagre. He has glanced over some elementary science primer, and thinks he knows it all, and what he don’t know ain’t worth knowing. He boastfully tells you he is an agnostic, and then proceeds to show you that he knows everything. He likes to inform you that he believes so and so with Hseckel, but ask him to point out when Haeckel says it, and he is at a loss. He always saddles his puerile drivelings on some great name. His idea of liberty is not the freedom to worship God accordingto the conscience, but a prohibition of the worship of any kind whatever. The crusades this clique getup are not to disseminate truth, but in their own language to “demolish the whole religious fabric and crush out every seed of theology, priestcraft, and superstition.” Another watchword is humanity. Oh, how he deifies humanity. He quotes “the proper study of mankind is man.” He tells you that man is the noblest of all conceivable or possible evolutions, and then proceeds to prove that the human species are all a pack of idiotic fools and imbeciles or they would never be so credulous as the only humanity that is absolutely perfect is exemplified in his own person. He is a disgrace to the cause he represents, unstable as water, veered about by every wind of prejudice and passion, and the greatest obstacle in the path of true liberalism.— “Doak,” in Arkansaw Traveler.

A Dessertation on “Lye.”

A little knot of choice spirits were assembled in the back parlor of the gas office, listening to a narrative of wild and thrilling western adventure from the lips of Mr. Curry Combs, the vivacious and truthful collector of the company. “Well, it was . just as I was telling you,” continued Curry, "I was driving along from Livingstone to Miles City in a two-horse buggy and w r as having an elegant trip. Weather lovely, game plenty, and roads good. But on the third day out, just at dusk I noticed a little marshy spot ahead, but thought nothing of it. Pretty soon I heard the splashing of the horses feet in water, but it didn’t seem to be deep and I kept on. Then it seemed to me that the horses weren’t as tall as they had been and I wondered if they were sinking, but no, their motion was free and unimpeded and the water wasn’t over three inches deep. Then I noticed that the buggy was getting pretty close to the ground. All of a sudden it occurred to me what had happened. I had driven into an alkali overflow and the lye was so strong that it had eaten off about two feet of the horses legs and eaten the tires and felloes from the buggy wheels, arid they were running on the endvof the spokes. In a minute more we struck a deep place. The horses went in up to their necks and the buggy was afloat. In another second the horses and buggy were disintegrated and mingled with the alkali water and I was left swimming alone. Then my clothes commenced to drop off, and when I reached the shore I hadn’t a rag left on me.” “Why didn’t the lye eat you too?” asked an interested listener. “Oh, I’m proof against lye in any form,” replied the veracious Mr. Combs as he shifted his quid and led the way to a neighboring bar.— St. Herald. A bicycle club in Hungary is called “Buda-Pesther Kerekpar-Egyeapeljt"

POPULAR SCIENCE.

Floating bricks are made of a very light silicious earth, clay being sometimes added, io bind the material together. They can be made so light that they will float on water, while their strength equals ordinary bricks. The opinion is entertained now by many men of science that the art of making artificial stone for structural purposes is prehistoric, and that the Pyramids were, in fact, built of artificial blocks manufactured from the surrounding plain. A' curious observation has been made by Dr. Copeland, and English astronomer. While watching one of Jupiter’s satellites he was able to see it pass over its own shadow on the planet. For this to have happened, the sun, the earth, the satellite, and tne part of Jupiter’s disk occulted must have been all in one straight line, and, as seen from Jupiter, the earth must have appeared making a transit across the sun. In speaking of minor ailments connected with digestion, Dr. Lander Brunton said recently that headaches were usually dependent either upon the presence of decayed teeth or of some irregularity in the eyes, more especially in the focal lengths between the two. As persons who were subject to headaches in their youth grew older, bilious headache was very apt to be replaced by giddiness, and this change came when people needed spectacles. A German entomologists, F. Dahl, claims that spiders have perfect sight only at very short distances. Their sense of touch is consequently remarkably well developed. Their smell is so good that they can distinguish odors, and their hearing is excellent. Some of them show a.remarkable instinct in building tbeii^ebs— even their first — in perfect gefflnetrical lorm. A reflective power is evinced by their refusal of all kinds of tough which have been once attacked unsuccessfully. RfiEEM.of the Smithsonian Institute, has contradicted much of the popular belief concerning snakes. The venomous hoop snake, which takes its tail in its mouth and rolls along like a hoop, and the blow snake, the breath of which is deadly, exists only) in the imagination. The idea that serpents sting with their tongue is erroneous. An impression prevails that the number of poisonous snakes is great, but in North America there are but three species—the rattlesnake, the copperhead or moccasin, and the corah Snakes do not jump; they reach suddenly forward, perhaps half the length of their bodies.

Evolution of the Red-Headed.

An habitual frequenter of the principal streets of the large cities of this country cannot fail to have been struck by the gradual, but steady, increase of the proportion of red-headed persons to the total of persons met. The climatic conditions of America are apparently favorable to the development of red hair, and there is more than one reason to anticipate that we shall become a nation of strawberry blondes in the not very distant future. The diverse foreign elements that are gradually fused into a new national character are such as corroborate rather than weaken this expectation. We have, on the one hand, the blonde type of the Saxon races, and on the other the brunette type of the latin races, with Celtic re-enforcements of both types. What is more natural than that the union of these types in a nation as in a married couple should result in a red-headed progeny. The red head is notably associated with a sanguine temperament, and the expression “red-headed and hopeful” has become a classical phrase of local political literature. Whether redheadedness causes hopefulness or hopefulness red-headedness is irrelevant, so long as the two qualities are found to be associated with a frequency that proves the existence of some sort of logical relation. Now the American national temperament is pre-eminently hopeful, and every patriotic heart must wish that continue to be a leading characteristic, as it is generally productive of a degree of energy that accomplishes important results. Our national hopefulness is therefore likely to be encouraged. The logical result will be a corresponding evolution of red-headed people, unless some strongly marked reenforcements should arrive from foreign shores for either blondes or brunettes. Fears of miscegenation are likely to prevent any darker races from making an impression, and there are no lighter races than those which have already entered into the amalgamation. Moreover, the tide of immigration has tqrned, and immigrants who find themselves noT’wanted here are going back and telling their friends not to come, so that we shall before many years have received and assimilated the principal ingredients that go to constitute our Rational character. The evolution of the red-headed, therefore, bids fair to continue with unerring heel and head of increasing redness. — Philadelphia Times.

But He Did.

“Skip!" The exclamation was uttered by a citizen of Brady street, and was directed at a tramp who had called to ask for dinner. “Notmuch!” “You won’t, eh?” “No, sir!” “Then I’ll make yuo!” “Go ahead!” Did the citizen pull off his coat and spit on his hands and knock the tramp into the middle of next week., No, sir. He put his finger into his mouth and uttered a sharp whistle, apd his wife came to the door with a hoe-handle in her hand and inquired: - “What, another? Well, look out for splinters!” Her husband stood aside and she made a rush, but when the weapon came down the tramp wasn’t there. From the other side of the fence he lifted his hat and gently but firmly observed : <s » “Any woman who strikes a man, save in the" way of kindness, deserves the gallows! Keep vour old cold viftles and go to Halifax!"— Detroit Free Press, Thebe is nothing so holy and inexpensive as a sister’s love. ( . r- ' ■ I .. .