Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1889 — Page 2

KING SOLOMON’S MINES.

BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.

* CHAPTER V.— Contiki ed. THK.DBSKKT. We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and old Jose da Silveetra’s chart, which, considering that it was drawn by a dying and half distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing to work on. Stall, such as it was, our sole hope of success depended on it. If we failed to find that pool of had water which the old Don marked as being situated in the middled! the desert, about sixty miles from our starting-point, and as far from the mountains, we must in all probability perish miserably of tbist. And to my mind the chances of our finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost infinitesimal. Even supposing da Silvestra had marked it right, what was there to prevent its having been generations ago dried up by the sun, or trampled in by game, or filled by the drifting sand? On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy sand. The karoo bushes caught our shins and retarded us, and the sand got into our veldtschoons and Good’s shoots ing boots, so that every few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night was fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort of creamy feeling to the air, we made fair progress. It was very still and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. * Good felt this, and at once began to whistle the “Girl I left behind me,” but the notes sounded lugubrious in that .vast place, and he gave it up Shortly afterward a little incident occurred which, though 4t made us jump at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good, as the holder of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he thoroughlv understood, was leading, and we were toiling along in single file behind him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most extraordinary hubbub, snorts, groans, wild sounds of rushing feet In the faint light too we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, bat remembering that there was nowhere to bolt cast themseves upon the ground and howled out that it was the devil. As for Sir Henry and myself we stood there amazed; nor was our amaaement lessened when we perceived the form of Good careering off in the direction of the mountains, apparently mounted on the back of .a horse and holloaing like mad* In another second he threw up his arms, and we heard him come to the earth with a thud. Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled right on to a herd of sleeping quagga, on to the back of one of which Good had actually fallen, and the brute had naturally enough got up and made off with him. Singing out to the others that it was all right I ran oward Good, much afraid lest he should be hurt, but to my great relief found him mtting in the sand, his eyeglass still fixed firmly on his eye, rather shaken and very much startled, but not in any way injured. After this we traveled on without any further misadventure till after one o’clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water, not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, started on again. On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose tight, that changed presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across toe desert. The stare grew pale and paler still, till at last they vanished, the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out clear against her sickly face like the bones on the face of a dying man; then came spear upon spear of glorious light flashing far away across the boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day. btill we did not halt, though by the time we should have been glad enough to do so, for we knew that when the sun was fully up it would be almost impassible for us to travel in it. At length, about six o’clock, we spied a little pile of rocks rising out of the plain, and to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would haye it here we found an overhanging slab sf rock carpeted beneath with a smooth sand, which afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we crept, and having drunk some water each and having eaten a bit of biltfmg, we lay down and were soon sound asleep' It was three o’clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our three bearrere peparing to return. They had already had enough of the desert and no nnmberof knives would have tempted them to come a step further. So we had a hearty drink, and having emptied our water bottles, filled them up again from the gourds they had brought with them and then watched them depart on their wenly miles’ tramp home. , At hall-past four we also started on. It was lonely and desolate work, for with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single living creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain. It waß evidently too dry for game and with the exception of adeadly-loOk-•cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, was abundant, and that was the common or heuse-fly. There they came, “not as single spies, but in battalions,’’ as I think the Old Testament says somewhere. He is an extraordinary animal. Go where yoa will you find him. and so it must always have been. I have seen turn in■closed in amber, which must, I was told, have been a half, a million years old, looking exactly his descendant of to-day, and I have little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he iFili bebazzmg round—-if that event should happen to occur in the summer —watching for an opportunity tc settle on his nose.

At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At ten she came up beautiful and serene as ever, and with one halt aboutdwo o’clock in the morning, we trudged wearily on through the night, till at last the welcome sun put a period to our labors, We drank a little and flung ourselves down, thoroughly tired out, on the Sand, and were soon all asleep. There was no need to set a . watch, for we had nothing to fear from anybody or anything in that vast unten-

anted plain. Our onlv enemies were heat, thirst and flies, but far rather would I have faced any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time we were not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from glare of the sun with the result that gbout seven o’clock we woke, up experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to * breakfast on a gridiron. W e were literally being baked through and through. The burning sun seemed to he slicking the very life blood out of us. We Bat up and groaned. “Phew,” said I, grabbing at the halo of flies, which bussed cheerfully round my Head. The heat did not affect them. “Mv word! said Sir Henry. ' T t"is hot!’ said Good. It was hot, ludn-ed, and thereiWas not a bit of shelter to be had. Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an tinending glare, rendered dazzling by the hot air which danced over the surface of the desert as it does over a red hot stove. “What is to be done?” asked Sir Henrv; “we can’t stand this for long.” We looked at each other blankly. “I have it,” said Good, “we must dig a hole and get in it and cover ourselves with the karoo bushes.” It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was better than nothing, so we set to work, and with the trowei we naa brought with; us and our hands succeeded in aboutan hour in delving out a patch of ground about ten foot loDg by twelve wide to the depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low scrub with our hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole pulled it over us all, with the excep'ion of Ventvogel, on whom, being a Hottentot, the sun had no particular effect. This gave us some slight shelter from the burning ray sos the sun, but the heat in that amateur grave can be better imagined than described. The Black Hole of Calcutta must have been a fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not know how we lived through the day. There we lay panting, and every now and again moistening our lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we followed our inclinations we should have finished all we had off in the first two hours, but we had to exercise the most rigid care, for if our water failed us we knew that we must quickly perish miserably. ■ But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and somehow that miserable day wore on toward evening. About three o’clock in the afternoon we determined that we could stand it no longer. It would be better to die walking than to be slowly killed by heat and thirst in that dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little drink from our fast diminishing supply of water, now healed to about the same temperature as a man’s blood, we staggered on. We nad now covered some fifty miles of desert If mv reader will refer to the rough copy and translation of old Da Silvestra's map, ne will see that the desert is marked as being forty leagues across, and the “pan bad water” is set down as being in the middle of it. Now ■forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we ought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if any should really exist. Through the aiternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely doing more than a mile and a half an hour. Through the afternooh we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely doing more than a mile and a half an hour. At sunset we again rested, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to get Borne sleep. Before we lay down Urnbopo pointed out to us a slight and indistinct hillock on the flat surface of the desert about eight miles away. At that distance it looked like an ant hill, and as I was dropping off to sleep I fell to wondering what it could be.

' With the moon we started on again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat Nobody who has not felt it can know what we went through. We no longer walked, we staggered, now and again (ailing from exhaustion being obliged to call a halt every/bour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to speak. Up to now Good had chatted and joked, for he was a merry fellow; but now he had not a joke left in him. At last, about two o’clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came to the foot of this queer hill, or sand koppie, which did at fij st sight reeemole a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering at the base nearly a morgen (two acres) of ground. Here we halted, and driven by our desperate thirst sucked down our last drops of water. We hid but half a pint a head, arid we could have drunk a gallon. Then we lay down. Just as I vtfas dropping offto sleep I heard Umbopa remark to himself in Zulu—“lf we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises to-mor-row.” I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death is not pleasant, but even tne thought of it could not keep me from sleeping. CHAPTER VI. WATXft! watxr! In two hours’ time, about four o’clock I woke up. As soon as the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the torturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could sleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find myself in that arid wilderness, and to remember that, as Umbopa had said, if we did not find water that dav we must certainly* perish miserably.' Nq human creature could live long"without water in that heat I sat up and rubbed my grimy rface with my dry and horny hands. My lips and e/elids were stuck together, and it was only after rubbing and with an effort that I was able, to open them. It was not far off the dawn, but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was thick with a hot murkiness I can not describe. The others were still sleeping. Presently it began to grow light encugh to read, so I drew out a little pocket copy of the “Ingoldsby Legends” I had brought with me, and read the “Jackdaw of Rheims.” When I got to where “A nice little bov held • golden ewer, Em basted, end filled with water as pare as guy that flows between Rheims and Namur,” I literally smacked my cracked lips, or rather tried to smack them. The mere

thought of that pure water made me mad. If the cardinal had been there with his bell, book and candle, I would have Whipped in and drank hia water up, yea, even if he had already filled it with the suds of soap worthy of washing the hands of the Pope, and i knew that the whole concentrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall upon me for so doing. I almost think .1 must have been a little light headed with thirst and weariness and want of’food; for I fell to thinking how astonished the cardinal and his nice little bov And the jackdaw would have looked to we a burned up, brown-eyed, grizsle-haired little elephant hunter suddenly bound in and put his dirty face into the basin* and swallow every drop of the precious water. The idea amused me so that l laughed, or rather cackled aloud, which woke the others up, and they began to rub their dirty faces and get their gummed-up lips and eyelids apart. As soon as we were all well awake we fell to discussing the situation, which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the water bottles upside down, and licked the tops, but it was a failure, they were as dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the bottle of brandy, got it out and looked at it longingly; but Sir Hen»*y promptly took it away from him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitate the end. “If we do not find water we shall die,” he said. »‘lf we can trust to the old Don’s map there should be some about,” I said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from that remark. It was so evident that no great faith could ,be put in the map. It was now gradually growing light, and as we sat blankly staring at each other, I observed the Hottfentot Ventvogel rise and .begin to walk about with his eyes on the ground. Presently-he stopped short, and uttering a guttural exclamation, pointed to the earth, t “What is it?” we exclaimed, and simultaneously rose and went to where he was standing pointing at the ground. “Well,” I said, “it is pretty fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?” “Sprigbucks do not go far from water,” he answered in Dutch.

“No,” I answered,“l forgot; and thank God for it.” This little discovery put new life into us; it is wonderful how, when one is in a desperate position, one catches at the slightest hope, and feels almost happy in it. On a dark night a single star is better than nothing. Meanwhile Ventvogel was lifting liis snub nose, and sniffing the hot air for all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger. Presently he spoke again. “I smell water,” he said. Then we felt iubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct these wildbred men possess. „ Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand a sight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot our thirst. For there, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like silver in the early rays of the morning sun, were Sheba’s breasts; and stretching away for hundreds of miles on each side of them was the great Suliman Berg Now that I, sitting here, attempt ‘to describe the extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems to fail me. I am impotent even before its memory. There, straight before us, were two enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to be seen in Africa, if, indeed, there are any other such in the world, measuring each at least fifteen thousand feet in height, standing not more than a dozen miles apart, connected by a precipitous cliff of rock.and towering up in awful white solemnity straight into the sky. These mountains standing thus, like tfee pillars of a gigantic gateway, are Bhaped exactly like a woman’s breasts. Their bases swelled gently up from the plain, locking, at that distance, perfectly round and smooth, and on the top of each was a vast round hillock covered with snow exactly corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch of cliff which connected them appeared to be some thousand feet in height, and perfectly precipitous, and on each side of them, as far as the eye could reach, extended similar lines of cliff, broken only here and there by flat, table-topped monntains, something like the worldfamed one at Gape Town; a formation, by the way, very common in Africa. To describe the grandeur of the whole view is beyond my powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering about those huge yolcanoes —for doubtless they are extinct volcanoes—that it fairly took our breath away. For awfiile the morning lights played upon the snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as though to veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange mists and clouds gathered "and increased around them, till presently we could, only trace their pure and gigantic outlines swelling f host-like through the fleecy envelope, ndeed, as we afterwards discovered, they were normally wrapped in this curious, gauzy mißt, which doubtless accounted for our not haying made them out more clearly before. Scarcely had the mountains vanished into cloud-dad privacy before our thirst —literally a burning question —reasserted itself.

It was all very well for Ventvogel to say he smelled water, bat look which way we would we could see no signs of it So far as the eye could reach there was nothing bat arid sweltering sand and karoo scrub. We walked round the hillock and gazed abohf anxiously on the other side but it was the same story, not a drop of water was to be seen; there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring! “You are a fool,” I said, angrily, to Ventvogel; “there is no water ” But still he lifted his ugly snub and sniffed. “I-smell it, Bass’’ (master), he answered; “it is somewhere in the air.” “Yes,*’ I said, “no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months he nce it will fall and wash our bones.” Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is on the top of the MU,” he suggested. . “Rot,”laud Good; “whoever heard of water being found on the the top ©i a hill!” “Let us go and look,” I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled np the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped as though he was petrified. “Nanzia manzie!” (here is water), he criei with aloud voice.

Con tinned next week.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. Osman Digna, the lieutenant of the Mahdi in Egypt, is by 1 birth a Frenchman. His name was Vinet before he abjured it and his religion to marry one of the late Mahdi’s numerous daughters. * Canterbury, N. H., has a Quaker church that was built in 1792, and has not been shingled (since that time. The shingles then put on the roof were of heart pine, and fastened on with wooden pegs. London Life says that Lord Sackville is in Paris, and besieged by journalists. A smart little French maid, with a neat cap’and aquick eye, answers the door. “Monsieur,” eays she, “has had quite enough of journalists in America; he hopes never to see any more of ces inessieu's.” A South German newspaper illustrates the consequences ofi>ad punctuation as follows: “After him came Lord Salisbury on his head, a white hat on his feet, large but well blacked boots on hia brow, a dark cloud in his the unavoidable walking stick in his eyes, a threatening look in gloomy silence.” The farmers around Elberon, Ga., know the worth of persimmons, and for years have made it a point never to cut down a persimmon (tree. .In places so many trees have been left standing that the fields look like orchards; and indeed they are persimmon orchards, the trees of Which bear fine of fruit almost as valuable as corn for fattening hogs. The farmers say that the persimmon tree draws but little strength or moisture from the soil, and that excellent crops are grown even beneath their shade. Since May 5, 1883, the killing of deer on Cape Cod has been forbidden by law, under a heavy penalty, and the result is that the 50,000 acres between Bandwich, Falmouth and Plymouth are thronged with deer, now quite tame. When the law was not in force about 200 deer were killed .yearly. For over 2 0 years thataregion has been a favorite bunting ground. Among the relics at Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, is an old rifle, once owned by a famous hunter of Plymouth, and on the stock are 200 notches, each notch representing a deer slain by the Puritan Nimrod. Mr. Leary, of big raft fame, may console himself for the loss of the great raft that broke up off the New England coast with the knowledge that the logs are net floating in vain. They are still making their way eastward and southward in large numbers, and when sighted by vessels their exact position is noted, and a memorandum is sent to the Hydrographic Office in Washington. Already many of these reports have been received and compared, and the result is a chart, that could not have oeen obtained in any other way, showing the courses of various ocean currents. The town of Arroyo Grande is on the boun ’ary line between Arizona and Mexico, a fact which enables the topers to work an old game. They step into a saloon on the Arizona side and ask for a drink, laying down an American dollar. The chances are that the bartender will give them a Mexican dollar in change, it being worth only ninety cents. Then they strike a saloon on the Mexican side and tender the Mexican dollar for a drink, getting an American dollar for change, which in this case is worth only ninety cents. The truthful Editor of “The Arizona Howler” says that the practice has broken up all the salmons in the town. Harry Mullen, near Ellenville, N. Y., while out bird shooting, saw a big hear, but not being loaded for bear he gave it a wide berth for the time being. The next day he set a trap, and the day following visited it armed with a Wincheste. rifie. The trap was undisturbed, but as he was going away he heard a noise in the bushes and saw the bear running off. Harry fired and the bear fell. It got up at once, however, and started toward him. A second ball fired at its broad breast did the work. The animal weighed 420 pounds. The two bullets which bad been fired into opposites ends of the animal were found within eight inches of each other. “Well,” 6aid a well known man abont town,"“perhaps if we succeed in excluding English actors from our theaters the American language will bdpevived in New York. It is scracely spoken any more in the uptown stores. The clerks are all phenomenally English, and the simplest question pat to them abont the goods they are offering brings out ‘My dean sir,’ or ‘Pon me honor,’ to saj nothing of such words as harf and paret and ‘that sort of thing, you know.’ Why, when ! priced a scarf in a Sixth avenne store ,the other day the clerk said he was surprised at my wanting to know, ‘becahse,’ he said, ‘it’s the sort oi thing the blacks are wearing.’ N. Y. San. . Mr. Qeorge W. Childs,of Philadelphia, is said to have entertained more famous people in his h~»spttable home than any other private citizen of America. Kings, and princeß, and nobles without number, have slept under his roof, not to mention 1 Presidents and Generals, and an endless number of men of letters and others. Mr. Childs entertains in royal fashidki, and when he has distinguished guests at hia country place he puts everything at their disposal. He makes no demands upon their time, but his time is theirs, anj£shey are permitted to go and come as they please, to have their breakfast and luncheon whenever

sails them best, bat all are expected to meet at the dinner, which is the one formal meal of the day. A middle-aged woman went to a prominent physician of San Diego not long ago, and asked him to amputate her two great toes. He examined them, assured her there was nothing wrong with them, and said that he wouldn’t feut them off. She begged him to, saying that if they were off she could wear No. 2 shoes instead of 4s, as then. Her toes were her own, sbe said, to do what she pleased with, and she would give S3OO to have them off. The doctor refused, and the woman went in quest of some one with less conscience. A San Diego newspaper says she found some one to do the job successfully, for two weeks la‘er she went to Ban Francisco wearing the best pair of No. 23 that could be bought in San Diego. t h , The husband Of Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett is a quiet man of rather studious exterior, who practices medicine in Washington and puts up at the Sydney when in New York. He has a very profound respect for Mrs. Burnett, but it is an exceedingly difficult thing to get hinvoto Jalk about “Little Lord Fauntelroy.” He sticks with a good deal of pertinacity to his practice in Washington, though it is said not to be very large, and it is asserted that hiß income is not so great as that of Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, whose play alone is giving her an income of more than $60,000 a year. The authoress travels constantly between Washington and Boston, with occasional stopover trips to New York and Philadelphia. Old and big as the business of the Western beef company ia, there is still a heap of deception and fraud in the way the retailers carry on their part of it. Niarly all 1 the butchers buy and sell Chicago beef, but many of them display signs that “no Chicago beef is sold here.” Other give their more particular customers a choice between what they call local and Western beef, but the Western is the only kind they keep. The trade is constantly growing and one of the ways in which it is developed is by the absorption in the Chicago companies of these bfitchera who make the strongest fight against the new fashioned beef. Many a salesman' and depot manager in aDd around New York was recently in business for himself, but found it wise to shut up ’his shon and take a salary from his big antagonist . —N. Y. Sun. S. B. Thompson, well known in Lady Lake, Fla., was for four years a helplesß cripple, and the doctors had told him that the spinal disease which prostrated him was incurable. On the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving he dreamed that the Lord spoke to him, telling him to go to church next day, to go to the altar and pray, and get the congregation to pray for him, and he would be cured. Without telling his dream, he had himself carried to the church, and at the close of the services was placed at the altar.' Then the congregation, led by the pastor, prayed for him, and he also prayed for himself in a loud voice. He says that while the prayers were being offered he heard a voice within say, “Arise and walk.” At the third command he arose to his feet, and, crying, “It is done!” tried to walk down the aisle. Several men started to aid him, but he waved them off and walked steadily out of the church, hnd to his own home, shouting and praising God. Since then he seems perfectly well. The Leesburg Leesburger has investigated, and is satisfied that these particulars are true.

Opinions of Thinkers.

Lobstein: Charity is'not an action; it is life. Luther. To do so no more is the truest repentance. ’ Magoon: Truth is like a torch; when shaken it shines. Bartol: Character is a diamond that scratches every other stone. Bonnard: Silence is the wit of fools and one of the virtues of the wise. Thomas a’ Kempis: a.ll is not lost when anything goes contrary to you. Diterot: Few persons live to-day but are preparing to do so to-morrow. Lessing: A single grateful thought toward Heaven is the most effective prayer. Countess de Gasparin: The saddest thing under the sky is a soul incapable of sadness. ' . Matthew Henry: No great characters are formed in this world without suffering and self-denial. Froude: You can not dream yourself into character; you must hammei and forge yourself one.

A Modest Judge.

Youths’ Companion. Alvo Yusupn, Chief Judge of Bagdad was remarkable for the modesty which accompanies wisdom. So conscious was he of his ignorance of many topics that he often entertained doubts, where men of less knowledge and more presumption pressed their opinions with decision. Cnee, after a long investigation of the facts of a case, he publicly confessed that his knowledge was not sufficient to enable him to decide it. “Pray,” said a pert courtier, “do you expect the Caliph to pay yon for your ignorance?” t i “I do not,” meekly answered the Judge. “The Caliph payi me well for what I know, if he were to attempt to pay me for what I do not know the treasures of his empire would not suffice.”

MATTERS OF LAW.

Decent Decisions Of the Indiana Supreme Court. (1) Linder section 5,119, R. <B. Ifißl, a contract entered into by a married woman ai surety is void as to her. (2) Where a married woman, as security for her husband, joins with! him in the execution of a mortgage upon her real estate and after wards dies, leaving children to whom a part of the mortgaged land descends, they stand in her shoes, and in a suit to foreclose the mortgage they may set up their mother’s coverture and suretyship as a defense. But in such case the husband is"estopped to make such defense. f Where a judgment creditor has purchased real estate at a Sheriff’s Bale undor his judgment, and after obtaining a Sheriff’s deed, sues for partition against one who claims the whole of the land nnder the foreclosure of a mortgage given by the judgment debtor" subsequent to the renderation of the judgment, tht defendant may defeat the sale to the plaintiff by showing the gross inadequacy of price, coupled with a failure to exhaust the personal property of the judgment debtor and a failure to offer the land in parcels instead of solido. A railroad company which has constructed its road along a public highway and negligently failed to restore it to its former condition, thus making its use unsafe and dangerous, iB liable to one who, who while lawfully upon t|ie highway, is injured without fault on his part. The failure to restore the highway is a violation of the statute (Section 3,903, R. S., 1888.) In this case the rail, road company dug an excavation in the highway six feet deep and fifteen long feet and threw up embankments nine ieet nigh, leaving no way for persons on the highway except upon the embankment. It was necessary for the plaintiff £o travel upon the highway in order to reach her home; She was riding a horse on her way home when a hand-car came along, the horse became frightened; the hand car was not stopped; the plaintiff was thrown from the horse and injured. Held: (1) That the company is liable. (2) A man who has managed or assisted in managing them, may express an opinion as to the rate of speed a handcar was moving on a specified occasion. The act of 1885, acts of 1885, p. 203, relating to the repair of public bridges, does not relieve a county from liability for damages caused by a defective bridge where the bridge could have been repaired for $75. Counties are liable for damages resulting from a negligent failure on their part to keep bridges on the public highway in good repair, without regard to the cost of the repairs. Although a duty is imposed by the act of 1885 upon townships to make repairs where the same can be done for $75, yet the County Commissioners must nevertheless see to it that all the bridgea upon public highways are kept in good repair. (1) In a complaint to enforce a ditch lien, it is sufficient, in making any one a party defendant, to allege that he has or claims to have some interest in the propety described in the complaint. It then devolves upon a person thus made a party, to assert whatever title he may have or claim. (2) A proceeding under the ditch law of 1879 (Acts 1879, page 234) is a proceeding in rem, and it ia not essential to the vilidity of an assessment thereunder.; that notice should have been given to the owners of the lands assessed, any further than they were known to the petitioner or shown by the transfer boox in the Auditor’s (1) Action by the administrator, ot a bona fide assignee of certificates issued by the Trustee of the School Township for school supplies. Section 6006 R. S. 1881, providing that without an order from the County Commissioners, a Township Trustee cannot incur a debt, the aggregate amount of which shall be in excess of the “fund on hand to which the debt is chargable, and of the fund to be derived from the tax assessed against this township for the year in which debt is to be incurred.” Held That the word “year” means? calendar year, that, as applicable to the case at bar, the phrase “fund on hand” means the amount of the special school revenue in the hands of the Trustee; and that the to be derived from the tax against the township for the year in which the debt iB to be incurred” means the special school revenue tax to be collected durnig that year. (2) Under the act of 1883, acts 1883, p. 114, the debt involved in this case, although unauthorized by sectifin 6006, having been contracted in 1882, ia legalized.

A Drawn Battle. Time. Poldoody: Did you hear about my fight with the editor of the Budget? Fudge: Nol Who whipped? " “It was a drawn battle.” “Neither whipped?” “Neither of ns was there. I hired * - man to do the whipping, the editor hired a man to receive him, and they nearly killed each other,” -p Felthan: Comparison, more than reality, makes men happy, and can make the wretched.