Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1886 — Page 2

A JTAIKBKt6 HIS SON. Aba! a traitor in the camp— A rebel, atrangely bold— > A lisping, lanching, toddling scamp, .Not mine than 4 years old. To think that I, who ruled alone • Bo’proudly in th psst. Bbou Id be ejected f ,oni my throne By my own son at last. He trots his treason to and fro, ■ As onty babies can—- . “I'xe doin' to be my mama’s bean When Fse a gweat big man l" Ton stingy boy 1 who’se always had A share fn mamma's heart Would you begrudge your poor old aa. The tiniest little part? And yet your confidence, my boy, I fear is not misplac’d— And, what is more, I note with joy * Tour excellence of taste. Tour mamma, I regret to see. Inclines to take your part— As if a dual monarchy Should rule her gentle heart 1 - But when the years of youth have apod, The bearded man, I trow, Will quite forget he ever said He’d be his mamma’s beau. .<-■> » | Renounce your treason, little son— Leave mamma’s heart to me; For there Fill come another one To claim your loyalty. And when that other comes to you, 1 • God grant her love may shine Through all your life ns fair and true As mamma's did through mine, —Chicago New*.

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

Wonderful Changes in the Commercial, Social, and Domestic Life of the World. It will astonish no one, .to be told that the telephone, without which business and»professional people in large towns would hardly know how to get alo»g, is a thing of yesterday; that the telegraph, whose convenient use enters so largely into every day’s transactions, yielded its first message in 1844; that the railway system of the United States, having only about 1,000 miles of road in operation half a century ago, has substatially grown to its present enormous dimensions since the establishment of this paper, or that there was no transAtlantic line of steamers till 1840, and Ho ocean screw steamers till 1847; hut many will be surprised to recall the number of lesser discoveries.inventions, and new contrivances that, within the same period, have come to modify our wavs of working and living. * Fifty years ago there was not a reaping or mowing machine to be heard in any field, nor was there a seed-planter to ’"be seen or any labor-saving apparatus for doing farm work except such as had existed for generations. There was the ancient plow, and the shovel, hoe, scythe, rake, cradle, sickle, and pitchfork, and they were about all. Nearly everything was done by had. The old Dutch plow was still to be seen, with its mold-board of wood protected by their plates of iron and its point of wrought iron. There was in common use no cultivator for the com and no horse-rake for the hay; not even a “bullrake” to be drawn by hand. In 1835 the farmers shot squirrels with flintlock fowling pieces, Springfield muskets, or some of the innumerable “Queen’s arms” that were said to have been picked up on tbe field of Bunker Hill. Percussion cap locks had not come into vogue, and flint locks wqre retained in both the militia and regular service for many years thereafter. The first breech-loading needle gun was made in 1836, and in the same Samuel Colt patented his revolving pistol. The first important move for the introduction of the rifle as a military weapon was made by France in 1842, and Capt. Minie produced his elongated projectile in place of the old spherical bullet about the year 1845. All vessels of war were of wood in 1835, and the combined navies of the world could have been destroyed by a singlearmed ship, such as the English Government sent into the harbor of Alexandria in 1882. In the way of heaVy crdnance even the wild tribes of the •Soudan are better, supplied to-day than all the great powers of the earth, put together, were at the time of which we apeak.

Fifty years ago such a thing as a photograph had never been imagined. Daguerre’s process, long since abandoned, was first announced to the French Academy of Sciences by Arago in 1839. '* It was in 1835 that Charles Goodyear took out his first patent for an Indiarubber cement. Before that time the few “gum” overshoes that were worn came from the crude manufacture of the [lndian’s’ of Brazill. Garden hose, waterproofs, and all the multifarious list of hard and soft rubber goods belong to the last half century. The vulcanized rubber was not made till 1844, and of course all the combs, pencil cases, and articles of use and adornment of that material belong to a later day. In 1836 the first successful machines for making pins were put into operation in New York, but these were the kind with wire or" spun heads” which had • way of slipping down toward the point and leaving the upper end of the pan to get into the thumb or finger. The process of making pins with solid heads, such as are now in universal use, was not patented until 1840.

People 'wrote their letters with quill pens in 1835, and there was no note paper, little ruled paper of any kind, no blotting paper, no envelopes and no stamps. Fine sand was used to take up the surplus ink, and only one sheet or piece of paper being allowed ip go by mail at a single rate, foolscap was largely used for correspondence on account of its size, till it was replaced by large, square sheets of letter paper. There were no postal cards and no money orders. Steel pens were not in common use then, nor for a long time afterwards, for they were neither cheap nor good. An American clergymap named Cleveland, having bought the right in England from another American to make gold pens in this oountry, induced Levi Brown, a watchmaker of Detroit, to undertake their manufacture about the year 1835, the process at first being to cut the pens with scissors from a ,thin, flat strip of gdJ4- Brown removed to New York about 1640 and laid the foundation there for the important manufacture of gold peas which now exists in that city. The nee of anaesthetics wa# practi-

cally unknown till the effect of j in rendering the patient insensible to j pain in surgical operations was an- i nohnoed in 1846. Coal was hardly • known as a fuel in this country fifty , years ago. Everybody burned,--wood. j Lucifer matches were not often seen I in those days; fire was still kindled ■ with thQ tinder-box, and candles and | pipes . were usually lighted with live coals frbm the fireplace. There was no gas for lighting streets or houses in this country. Whale oil lamps and tallow “dips” were the universal reliance.* Burning fluid, lard oil, and campheqe came later, and it was years before the discovery of petroleum and the manu- ! facture of kerosene gave us a cheaper j and better light than the fathers ever j dreamed of. As for the brilliant and wonderful electric light, it hardly dates back beyond the memory of the young- j est inhabitant, The boys and young men of ’35 had neither velocipede nor bicvple; they had no glycerine to keep their hands from chapping, and never j heard of gun-cotton or dynamite. The | housekeeper had no canned fruits whatever, and no preserved meats, soups, or | vegetables. She could get no con- j densed milk, no cocoa, and but little chocolate. She would have had to look long for a banana, and all imported fruits was scarce. She would as soon have j thought of putting a raw squash on her table as a tomato in any form. Ice did not rattle in her water-pitcher, and she j had no refrigerator. There was no- i where a general introduction of water into houses, and the only waterworks in the country were at Philadelphia. Soda water and ice cream were not at hand to cool the palate in summer, and lager beer was a fluid whose name was never pronounced on these shores. The first really practical-sewing machine had not been invented, and the household linen was sium and woven at home. Peripatetic cobblers and tailoresses went from house to house to do the making and mending, and precious few things were used among the farmers that were not fashioned on the premises. Bespectable old front doors were or- j namented with knockers, and door-bells j were a curiosity in Jackson’s time. The I carpenter prepared every piece of woodwork that went into the construction of j a house. He hewed the sills, joists, beams, posts, rafters, and braces; planed and matched the boards, shaved the i shingles in the woods and made the shash and doors at his bench in winter. Women knit their own stockings, for ! the stores held no Balbriggan hose, and the only elastics they could buy were j made of silk inclosing seyeral small cbils of brass wire. There were no bed~> springs and no mattresses of hair, wool, ; tow, or cotton; all the sleeping was i done upon feather and straw beds which j rested upon a bed-cord that had, to bel tightened about twice a year. Mack- j inac blankets were not in the market, i nor the counterpanes which are now so common.

There were nb baby-carriages such as we now r see, but occasionally a clumsy little cart with two wheels. The small children usually slept in a trundle-bed ] that was wheeled under the parental j couch in the day time. - Men smoked, but few cigars, although good “Spanish cigars, as the imported ones were called, could be bought for three cents apiece.' It was quite common for respectable ; yomen to smoke clay pipes; the doctors often directed them to smoke for indigestion. The process of electro-plating unknown in those days, and consequently the cheap plated ware of recent times could not be had. Forks were} made of steel and with but two prongs. Everybody put food to his mouth with j the knife, and the bandana spread upon j the knees was the predecessor of the ! napkin. Individual butter plates had j not appeared. Stoves were by no j means in universal use, and the j capacious brick ovens still did service j on baking days. The few fire engines! to be found were mostly of the “tub” j variety, worked by hand and supplied with water by a gang of men extending to some brook or river, who passed leather buckets from one to another. The invention of steam fire engines was j encouraged by the premium that was i offered after the great New York fire in 1835, but it was nearly thirty years before they came into practical use. The j chemical extinguishers came still later, j Fifty years ago there was not an ex-! press company in the United States. , The present system of carriage by ex- ' press originated in 1839, when William F. Harnden, of Boston, began his regu- j tar trip to New York as a public mes- j senger. It was not every householder who could afford a clock, and there was no domestic timepiece except the tall “varnished clock that clicked behind the door" with a pendulum that Pleasured seconds. Watches were rare, and a good watch was a sight that not manv eyes beheld.

— ——— In 1835 there were probably about 1,200 newspapers in the United States;! now there live times as many. The printing press had not been changed in principle since the invention of the art, and nearly every press in existence was worked by hand. The paper in all cases received its impression between a flat surface of type and an iron platen. Hoe’s cylinder press, which was the first radical departure from the press of Faust and Guttenberg, was invented in 1847, and the first great in the revolution that lias taken place in the structure of printing machines, j Wood pulp, which now constitutes the bulk of all cheap paper for printing, came into use only a few years ago. The papier mache process of stereotyping was first used on the New York newspapers in 1861, and electrotyping dates back not more than thirty-five years ago. Only the houses of the wealthy contained pianos fifty years ago. Cabinet and parlor organs were unknown, and even the melodeon existed only in the rocking or “toad” shape, and was held in the lap. Garhart’s melodeon with legs appeared in 1836. Boys and girlt in those days went to singing school and took their pitch in the choir from s tuning-fork. In the country great chests were more common than bureaus, and the “till” at one end was the depository of the family cash. People went on long journeys in wagons oi double carriages, with a trank slung underneath the axletree.—-Detroit Frit Treat.

INL NYE.

I . ! Th* Great HonsrM Advises as to ths Setting; of Hens. lam convinced that there is great economy in keeping hens if we have sufficient room for them, and a thorough knowledge of how to manage the fowl property. But to the professional man, who is not familiar with the habits of the hen, and , whose mind does not naturally and instinctively turn henward I would say: Shun her as you would the deadly upas tree of Piscataquis County, Maine. Nature has endowed the hen with but a limited amount of brain-force. Any one will notice that if he will compare the skull of the. average self-made lien with that of Daniel Webster, taking careful measurements directly over the top from one ear to the other, the well-informed brain student will at once notice a great falling-off in the region pf reverence and an abnormal bulging 'out in the location of alimentiveness. Now take your tape measure and, beginning at memory, pass carefully over, (the occiputal bone to the base of the brain in the region of love of home and offspring and you will see that, while the hen suffers much in comparison with the statement ip relative size of sublimity, reflection, spirituality, time, time, etc., when it comes to love of home and offspring she shines forth with great splendor. , The hen does not care for the sublime in nature. Neither does she care for music. Music hath no charms to soften her tough old breast. But she loves her home and her country. I have sought to promote the interests of the hen to some extent, but I have not been a marked success in that line. ! I can write a poemjn fifteen minutes. I always could dash off a poem whenever I wanted to, and a very good poem, too, for a dashed poem. I could write a speech for a friend in Congress—a speech that would be printed in the •Congressional Record and go all-over the United States and be read by no ; one. I could enter the field of letters i anywhere and attract attention, but | when it comes to setting a hen I feel that lam not worthy. I never feel my ; jutter unwortliiness as I do in the presi enee of a setting hen. When the adult hen in my presence l expresses a desire to set I excuse myself and go away. That is the supreme moment when a hen desires to be alone. That is no time for me to intrude with my shallow levity. I never do it. It is after death that I most fully appreciate the hen. When she has been cut down early in life and fried I respect her. No one can look upon the still futures of a young hen overtaken by death in life’s young morning, snuffed out as it were, like an old tin lantern in a gale of wind, with out being visibly affected. But it is not the hen who desires to set for the purpose of getting out an early edition of spring chickens that I am averse to. It is the aged hen, who is in her dotage, and whose eggs, also, are in their second childhood. Upon this hen I shower my anathemas. Overlooked by the pruning-hook of time, shallow m her remarks, and a wall- - flower in society, she deposits her quota of Eggs in the Catnip Conservatory, far from the haunts of men, and then I in August, when eggs are extremely low and her collection of no value to anyone but the antiquarian, she proudly 'calls attention to lifer summer’s 'wo(r£ This hen does not win the general confidence. Shunned by good society during life, her death is only regretted by those who are called upon to assist at her obsequies. Selfish through life, her death is regarded as a calamity by those alone who are expected to eat her. And what has such a hen to look back upon in her closing hours ? A long life, perhaps, for longevity is one of the bharacteristics of this class of hens; 'but of what has that life been productive? How many goldeh hours has she frittered away "hovering over a porcelain door-knob trying to hatch out’ a litter of Queen Anne cottages. How many nights has she passed in solitude on her lonely nest with a heart filled with bitterness toward all mankind, hoping on against hope that in the fall she would come off the nest with a cunning little brick block perhaps, i Such is the history of the While others were at work she §tood around with her hands in her pockets and criticised the policy of those who labored, and when the summer waned I she came forth with nothing but regret, to wander listlessly about and fresse of! some more of her feet during the winter. For such a hen death can have no terrors.

St. Petersburg Lodging Houses.

The habit of living in lodgings is general in St. Petersburg. Some of the richest families are coptent with lodgings, and but few of them need all the apartments which, constitute a St. Petersburg flat. A St. Petersburg lodging /'house frequently contains as many as a thousand rooms, with a population of from 2,000 to 3,000 persons. The finest apartments are on the ground floor; The poorest are reached by ascent of from ten to twelve stories. A snite of six rooms suffices for the wealthiest lodgers who have no palace of their own. Two or three supply all the needs of the well-to-do tradsman and his family; the majority of professional men who are bachelors, nearly all teachers and students, and a large class of officials find themselves amply accommodated by a single apartment. The cost of lodgings, of cburse, upon such elements as situation, number, and furnishing of rooms, hight Of flat, and service. As a rule, it may be said that, taking into consideration the general purchasing power of the money expended house rent is some is somewhat in St. Petersburg than it is in Paris or London. Rent charges in Russia are invariably exacted “in advance,” even . when a lodger suirronnds himself with luggage valuable enough to yield the amount of a whole year’s arrears. Upon personal property of this kind there can be legally no lien. Any forcible detention of property in such cases is treated by the courts as a quasicriminal offense. “ The lodging-house is actually a continuous quadrangular wall, full of apartments. the windows of winch look ofit ’ * '

upon the inclosed space within. Comrades know each other’s windows, while the corridors lead easily from room to room. Reunions are numerous under these circumstances, and no more charming or delicate part is taken in them than by the young girls, whom eager-, ness for knowledge has led to the capital, hundreds of verstb, it inay be. fromj their homes, and who, once in St Petersburg, labor with singular perseverance and a really remarkable trac-j cess to qualify themselves for the posij tions to which they aspire. —Atlantia Monthly.

The Foundation of. Jokes.

Owing to the great popular demand) for humor in this country, nearly every! editor from Dan to Beersheba has undertaken to “evolve from his inner consciousness” something that would pass for witticism or joke. In this, as in everything else, it is only a few that succeed. After an editor has failed to have his alleged jokes cbpded by his exchanges, the milk of human kindness sours in his system before he can dispose of it at the cheese factory, and he proceeds to rail at his more successful neighbors. His billiousness, which he mistook for humor, is vented at what he calls a .“chestnut” or “stock” joke. He exclaims : “Give us a rest on jokes on the pilule, the mother-in-law, the plumber, the gas-meter, the roller skate,” etc. And what is the strangest of all is that some of the reputable paragraphers have joined in the senseless cry 4>f these unsuccessful numskulls. There are only six mechanical powers or principles. No man ever has or ever canjmake one of those principles, but the records of the United States Patent Office show that the inventive faculties of men have combined those six principles into over 300,000 useful machines. They could make the fnachines but not the principles—could make over 300,000 machines with six starting points, as it were. Just so with the mule joke, the mother-in-law joke, etc. Any man who can make a new combination of the six mechanical powers is an inventor; so any man who can get up a new combination of ideas that will make people laugh about a mule or a mother-in-law is a humorist. But as some men invent more machines and better ones than others, so some men are greater humorists than others. There is just as much reason for condemning a man for inventing a machine that you never thought of. One-fourth of the machines that will be useful have not been invented, neither has onefourth of the mule jokes been written. Of course there are many retold jokes, but we are not defending them. What we defend is the subject of the joke. The people insist that the combination of ideas be new, and that they contain a new point, blended with the element of surprise. Then they will laugh simply because they can’t help it.-—Cali-fornia Maverick.

The Romance of Death.

It is not a little singular that the Greeks have scarcely eVer failed, to make the deaths of their literary heroes as marvelous as their lives. Homer, they tell us, died of a broken heart because he could not guess a riddle. As Horace had been warned by a witch that a chatterbox would be his death, so had Homer been warned by an oracle that he should be killed by a riddle. And the day came. —or rather hearing (for th* traditiAn Of his blindness is too universal to be discredited)—some young fisherman in a boat, he unfortunately asked them what sport they had met, to which they replied: “Wliat we caught we left behind us, and what wel have not caught we have brought with} us.” This was too intricate and per-) plexing a problem for the author of thqj “Iliad.” He guessed and guessed until he cftuld guess no longer and finally died of sheer despair. “Vexation and grief,” he said, “will wear out any man.” The riddle was this: The fishj ermen had no luck, so they denude*) themselves and divested their persons of vermin, casting the lice as fast as caught into the water. What they caught they left behind them; what they did not catch they brought with them. And Aristotle went off in precisely the same way as Homer, because he could not comprehend a more polite and interesting riddle set by nature—namely, the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the river Euripus. “Since,” fie indignantly and impetuously exclaimed, “I cannot conceive the Euripus, let the Euripus< receive me,” and he strangled beneath its mystic flood. Then, too, Diodorus, the ingemous inventor of the horned and vailedjmphism, having met his match in the person of Stilpo, who caught him with another sophism which he Was unable to solve, went home, wrote a book and died of despair.— Stockton Maverick.

After Many Days.

On a Michigan Central train a prominent citizen of Detroit, who had a seat in the smoking car, crossed over to a young man who was vigorously puffing away and asked for a light. The favor was granted, and the prominent Detroiter observed: “Live in the city?” “Yes.” , “Going to Chicago?” “Yes.” “Aren’t von in the grocery business?” “No, sir."” “Ah! I thought I had met yon before at some time or other. Your face looks familiar. ” “I—l used to court your daughter!” stammered the young man. “Oh-ho! About three years ago?” “Yes.” “And I gave yon the bounce?” “Yon did. ” “Ali I I believe Id« recall the circumstances. I don’t know but I kicked you?” “Yes, yon did.” “Ah! Well, I bounced and kicked so many that I can’t be expeeted to remember names and faces. I take advantage of this occasion to beg your pardon, and hope you’ve fully recovered from the effects. Have a cheroot ?” Detroit Free Press. The •Government now maintains 2,0C0 light-houses, lightships, and stakelights mi coasts and rivers, besides innumerable fog and whistling and other baoys. v

VALENTINE WAGSTAFFS DOWNFALL.

The Sad History of the Young Han Who Gazed Not Wisely But Too Long in the Pawnbroker’s Window. It was hanging .in, the window of a pawnbroker’s sales store, attached to a card which read Tlfis fine, 18-karat, gold, hunting case chronnometer balance, full jewelled, stem winding, patent lever, Puffengruntz of Geneva maker, warranted fur ten years, price only $lO. What diabolical influence directed Valentine Wagstaff’s attention to this object he could not, for the life of him, explain. He had never dreamed of owning a watch before. It was the first time in his existence that he had even looked at a pawnshop. But here he stood, gloating upon the glittering bauble and feeling his month’s salary in his pocket, and as he gloated it seemed to him that a human instinct began to animate and give expression to the object of his scrutiny. The hurrying little second hand whirled around with a dazzling activity which quite bewildered him, and the big minute hand appeared to beckon him. It beckoned him to his doom. Before he knew it he had the watch in his pocket and was $lO short of his salary. And from the moment he set foot upon the street again he was an altered man. He timed himself every five minutes on his way home, and compared notes with every clock he passed; he looked at the hour seven times during his dinner, and pulled his chronometer balance out so often during the Rev. Howler’s lecture that a young gentleman in the next row audibly expressed his fear that he would wear the case out before he got to bed. But sarcasm fell as lightly from the plumage of Mr. Wagstaff’s new fledged vanity as rain drops from a duck’s wing. Nor was pride the only curse his purchase had already imposed on him. It had perverted his moral instincts to that extent that he assured Miss Crook, as lie worked the stemwinding apparatus for the fourth time in two hours, that the watch was an heirloom which had been among his family jewels a century or so. At the mention of family jewels Miss Crook’s eye lighted up, and it was noticeable that her treatment of Mr. Wagstaff M as characterized by more than usual fervor till they parted at her door. For the the first time in their acquaintance Mr. Wagstaff dared squeeze her hand that night, after which he drank two glasses of soda, M r ound the Avatch up again, and -went to bed as placidly as if he had never told a lie in his'life. The descent of the wretched youth from this time forth ivas steady and swift. Within a week lie drew upon his bank account for a chain to completed his horological equipment. The chain made Iris clothes look so shabby that he set aside his rule of two suits a year, and patronized a tailor three months ahead of time. Then a friend who had got hold of a pin at ja, bargain and M’antecl to realize sold it to him dirt cheap. A week later he bought a $22 solitaire at a Grand street secondhand shop. In brief, by the Fourth of July Valentine Wagstaff was the owner of a watch, chain, Brazilian crystal pin, Parisian diamond, studs* and cuff buttons, a solitaire and a.cane with a gilt knob, his bank account had been reduced to seven cents, and Miss Crook had renounced him as entirely too worldly and carnal in his tastes to do oredit to herself IDE' the tabentaole. Valentine Wagstaff accepted, his renunciation with the abandon of confirmed depravity, and the same night took the young woman who attended the lunch counter at the Gowanns Dairy to hear “The Mascot, ” and wound up with oysters and lager beer and a kiss on the doorstep.— To-Day.

The Persian Shah.

Nusr-ed-Deen Shah, the reigning sovereign of Persia, is a man of good and progressive ideas, patriotically inclined, often hampered by the character of his entourage and the menacing aspect of Russia, frowning upon any progress in Persia that would tend to add to the independence of an ancient monarchy that sheftTOpea eventually to absorb without resistance —a problem that, in my opinion, - is not likely to be os easy as she supposes. The Shah is a man fond of the chase, a bold and skillful marksman, of social disposition, and prefers, as far as possible, to drop the irksome ceremonies of state which surround him. On one occasion said to an elegant and accomplished? Persian gentleman whom he had,.honored by a visit to his superb counffcyseat, “If only I could for a while lay aside the embarrassments of my position, how I should enjoy a free conver-. sation with a gentleman of your tastes and culture!” He gives an audience to his ministers every morning about six, receives their reports, and gives his orders for the administration of affairs. In the afternoon, and sometimes in the evening, he engages in social converse with one or more of his favorite courtiers, or listens to the reading of foreign periodicals. On such occasions there .is sometimes a freedom of expression allowed his courtiers which in former reigns would have cost them their heads. But Nusr-ed-Deen Shah is a man of noble and generous impulses. The tendency to modify the strictness of the court etiquette at Teheran is shown by the manner of receiving foreeign ministers. His Majesty receives them standing at the upper end of the audience chamber, which is the magnificent half Containing part of the crown jewels, when an audience is granted to a the entire diplomatic corps on state occasions. When an audience is given to single person for 1 a special object, the king receives him in one-of the smaller but scarcely less splenuld apartments of the palace. Nothing furtth§r is required of the minister except to leave his galoches, or outer shoes, at the gate of the palace. He is attended by the Zahiri Douleh, or master of ceremonies, and when the massive embroidered portiere is raised and discloses the Shah-in-Shah opposite him, resplendent in rubies and diamonds, he bows, and repeats this mark of. respect when he has reached his Majesty, who stands as near to Mm as two gentleman in ordinary conversation. The minister rejjnains covered, as indicating the equality of the two powers and waits'for the

Shah to begin the conversation, which becomes free and easy if his Majesty is in pleasant humor, or is favorably inclined to the minister and his country. The Shah speaks French, and sometimes condescends for a moment to dispense with the Court interpreter and converse directly with the minister, although such condescension may be accepted as a mark of high favor. In former days the Shah would terminate the audience by saying, “You have leave to retire,” but the present king simply keeps silent or takes a step back, which is the signal for the minister to withdraw from the “blessed presence,” taking care not to turn his back to the king until he reaches the door. This manoeuvre is not an easy one when the entire diplomatic corps at Teheran is forced to retire down a hall over a hundred and fifty feet in length, and to be careful not to stumble over the chairs of beaten gold on either hand, and to avoid slipping on the highly polished pavement of variegated tiles.— S. G. W. Benjamin, in Harper's Magazine.

Goldsmith.

Oliver Goldsmith ran a great risk of being set down as a shiftless vagabond. His genius saved him, but his genius was discovered almost by accident. He became the mp§t illustrious of Bohemians. Few lives of forty-six years have compassed a greater variety of fortunes and misfortunes. He was born in Ireland, the son of a poor clergyman, which was calamity number one. In childhood small-pox marked him for its own. At Trinity College, Dublin, he had a “sizar’s” life, M'earing its badge of poverty and fulfilling its menial offices. At an early age he mastered the fine art of borrowing. The pair of scarlet breeches in which he presented himself to a bishop for examination for orders cost him his chances in the church, that color being considered fashionable but not canonical. Once his passage was paid to America, but the ship sailed, 1 earing him in the midst of a good time with friends inland. Again he was given £SO to go to London to study law, but he lost the money at play in Dublin on the way. Then he undertook to study law at Edinburgh, whence he was presently driven by his creditors to the continent. For the next year or two he “tramped it” through Holland, France, Germany, and Switzerland to Italy. Then he hurried himself in London, and at last came to the surface holding a pen in his hand with a drop of ink at Jhe end of it. It was the drowning m'an clutching at the straw. Thereafter Goldsmith Goldsmith—until he died, in 1774. An office-seeker, a hack-Avriter for the reviews and the booksellers, an unlucky publisher, and a jolly good fellow; hand and glove with Johnson, who afterward w rote his epitaph, Avith Smollet, and with Sir Joslma Reynolds ; and at last a successful author on liis oavu account ; he both conquered fate and tempted her; but fast as he made money, he spent it faster, and when he died his fame was about all that was left to him. But what a fame it was! In a score of witching traits no Avriter in the English language has ever equaled him, and few men have won in a fuller degree the sympathy and kindly regards of their race. With an inexhaustible fund of experience to draw upon; with a marvellous power of transmuting the real into the imaginary ; Avith every re-, finemant and delicacy of thought; with humor, tenderness, and grace; and with a style unapproachable in its charm of ease and simplicity, he left a store of Avritings in prose and vejse, the best of which are immortal.— Anon .

Mountaineer Trot.

Not long since I followed one of these dashing trout-streams from the valley up the mountain. Nature seemed to have done her best to protect the little fishes that live in the dark, deep pools and eddies. The higher I climbed up the"mountain, the more fish I found; the stream became a succession of falls, some of which were three feet or more in height—the brook in its track forming steps down the mountain —and I began to wonder bow the fish Tame to be up tbere. In the village, I chanced to mention the subject to a friend who owned a mill on the same stream ; and he told me that the fishes’ ascent was a puzzle to him, until one day his boy called him 'out to the dam, where the riddle was solved. The dam was nearly four feet high, and to relieve the stream, several auger-holes had been bored in it, allowing a small stream of water to jet forcible out and go splashing down into the clear pool below. As my friend approached the spot, and looked through the bushed, several large-sized trout were seen moving about under the mimic fall, evidently in great excitement, and carting into it as if enjoying the splash and roar of the water. Suddenly, one of the fish made a quick rush that sent it up the falling stream, so that it almost gained the top; but by an unlucky turn it was caught and thrown back into the pool, where it darted away, evidentlymueh startled. Soon another made the attempt, dart-" ing at it like the first, and then rapidly swimming up the fall, but only to meet the fate of its predecessor. This was tried a number of times, until finally, a trout larger than the others made the dash, mounted the stream, and entered the round hold. The observers were almost ready to clap their hands, but it was not successful yet. As the water stopped flowing for a moment, they saw that though the althletic trout had surmounted the fall, the hole was too small for it to pass through, and there the poor fish was lodged. The lookerson hastened to relieve it, and fonxid that its side or pectoral fins were caught in the wood, but by pushing the fishes head, which you may be sure they did, they liberated it, and h darted away into the upper bond. Here, then, was the explanation. The trout climbed the mountain by swimming up the falls, darting up the foaming masses, and adopting every expedient to accomplish their journey. For these fish deposit their; eggs high up stream, so that the young fry, when may not be distured by predasory fish and other foes living in the lower water.— C. F. Holder, in SL Nicholas.