Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1890 — Page 7

MRS. PICKETT’S VENDUE.

BY J. L. HARBOUR.

“I never reckoned I'd live to see the day when my things would be sold at a vandoo!” sobbed poor old Mrs. Pickett, as she sat in her big green rocking chair, holding a corner of her checked gingham apron to her streaming eyes. “I reckon the very cheer I’m a settin’ in’ll have to go, an’ I’ll jbe turned out with nothin’ but the clothes on my back.” f A tall slender girl about sixteen i years old, who had been, kneeling by her grandmother’s chair vainly trying to comfort the old lady, rose and said: •“Oh, no, grandmother, I don’t think 'it will be as bad as that. I will see to it that your old chair and grandpa’s are not sold. You can save out such things as you care for most, but you know that we shall not need -half of the things in the two little rooms that we’re going to live in at the vil'lnge.” “Two little rooms in the village!” cried the old lady, throwing- up both hands with a fresh burst of tears. “And I’ve got to come down to two little' rooms, when I’ve been used all my life to pleDty of room, with my big closets and but’ry and good dry cellar and nice garden and all that. O, Doty, what could your grandpa Pickett have been thin kin’of to be so keerless? Dear me! dear me!” “He didn’t know, grandmother. None of us could know that he’d be taken away as he’ was,” replied the girl, her own eyes filling with tears. Grandfather Pickett had been killed instantly by a fall from his haymow two months before. He had been a kind and good man, but unwisely eccentric in some respects, since he had always made it a rule to tell no one, jnot even his wife, of his business afairs. • *Women haint no head for business; their capacity lays in other sp’eres, ” had been one of Grandfather Pickett’s sayings. So his wife had never been taken into his confidence, and at the time of his death she knew almost nothing about his private affairs. Some truths she soon discovered, to her sorrow. One of them came home to her with stunning and cruel force five days aftor the funeral, when Mr. Hiram Parks, a money-lender living in the village, came to tell her, in his cold, business-like way, that the mortgage ho had hold for ten years on the Pickett farm had never been paid, and that a settlement must now be made. He had besides a note of five hundred dollars, given him by Grandfather Pickett at the time the latter had built his now barn and added the last twenty acres to his farm. On this note nothing but the interest had been paid. Poor, dumbfounded Mrs. Pickett had not even known of the existence of the notes.

“And my husband never paid you anything on the note nor the mortgage?” she asked Parks. “No. ma’am, nothing but the interest. That was paid regular enough. He often said he could pay some on them both if he’d a mind to, but he’d rather wait and pay it all off in a lump. I supposed from that that he'd money in the bank, or loaned out so it was bringing in more interest than he was paying me.” But a careful search among Mr. Pickett’s papers did not give evidence that any one owed him a dollar, and a visit to the bank at the village proved that he had no money there. “He never would put money in the bank,” said Mrs. Pickett. “That was one of his odd idoes, and he’d never pay for anything in payments. He always wanted to pay it all in a lump. But I always thought that that mortgage must be ’bout all paid off, and it cant be that we’ve lived up all we vo got out of the farm in all these years, with us sellin’ three and four hundred dollars wuth of stock at a time. If Ira had only told mo more ’bout his affairs! Now I’ve got to meddle with business, whether I’ve any head for it or not. Dear me! dear me!” AH her lamentations ended with that pathetic “Dear me!” and a sorrowful shake of her gray head. Mrs. Pickett and her granddaughter Dorothy, were left alone. Dorothy was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Pickett’s only child, who, with his wife, had died when Dorothy was but five years old, and since that time she had been the light and joy of the fine old farmhouse.

• Aqd I’ve taken such comfort in thinkin’ that your gran’pa an’ me would leave you so nicely provided for and in a home of your own when we were gone. Dear me! dear me!” “It dont matter about me, grandma,” Dorothy said. “I am sorry only on your accounts I can teach, or sew, or work in a 6tore or do something else, and we can be very cosey and comfortable in our two snug little rooms. There will be somo money left for you after the note and the mortgage are paid.” It was decided that there should be a public sale, or vendue, of the effects no* needed for the new home to which they were to go. A “vandoo” was usually attended by everybody in the neighborhood, and the occasion was a semi-holiday. So there was general interest when the posters appeared announcing that Mahala J. Pickett, executrix of the estate of Ira YV. Pickett, would, bn October tenth, offer for sale such and such carefully described articles. Mrs. Pickett had a sorrowful duty in indicating the things Bhe consented to sell. “They sha’nt have my mahog’ny chist or drawers, nor my hair-cloth sofy. nor my flowered carpet, nor my two biff rockin’*cheers that my father and mooaot begun housekeeping with! And they sha’n’t have—oh dear, dear, there’s nothing I do want ’em to have!” Poor old lady! She found that even the simplest and most ordinary of her

belongings were dear to her. “There’s that green cupboard with the glass door, Dotty,” she said. “I s’pose it’ll have to go. We’ve got the red one, and I s’pose weßha’n’t want two. And there’s that qld oak chist up in the attic; it might as well go, and I reckon Rachel Day’ll bid it in. She, wanted to buy it of me once, thirty years ago. I can’t bear to think of her havin’ any of my things, and I’ll warrant she’ll come And bid in the very ones I hate to part with most.” * ‘Perhaps she won’t come to the sale at all, grandma,” said Dorothy. “Yes, she will!” replied Mrs. Pickett, positively. know Rachel Day. She’ll be here to glory over my trouble. It’ll be twenty years this fall since she and I spoke, and she never come to your grandpa’s funeral, and I know from that that we shall nevqr speak again. I’d an idea she’d come then. Such good friends as we used to be! Girls together, and so intimate that we had our dresses and bonnets just alike. And for twenty years we haint spoke, though we’ve met hundreds of times. Dear me! dear me!” Sweet of face and gentle of manner as Mrs. Pickett was. she was a woman of strong‘prejudices and firmness. She never sought a quarrel, and never continued one long if forced into it; she simply and for all time dismissed her enemies from her friends ship and affection. “When I’m done with anybody,” she said, “I’m done with ’em!” Acting on this unkindly and un» christianlike principle, she had “dropped” a friend of her girlhood and early womanhood twenty years before the death of her husband. Her son had quarreled with the only eon of her dearest friend, Mrs. Rachel Day. The mothers had unwisely taken up the matter, and not even the common sorrow that came upon them in the death of the sons in after years had served to bring them together. Each had waited for the other to speak, and both had kept silence. Mrs. Day came to the vendue, as Mrs. Pickett had predicted. Mrs. Pickett sat in the big rocking chair on the littie porch, and watched the progress of the sale through a mist of tears.

Other friends came and spoke words of cheer and sympathy, but Rachel Day, prosperous and happy, kept aloof. Occasionally she glanced toward her old friend, as she sat on the porch, a pathetic figure in her widow’s weeds, her gray head bowed, and her handkerchief often at her eyes; but if Mrs. Day felt sorry for Mrs. Pickett, she did not say so. “Going, going, going, gentlemen and ladles! Four and a half has been offered for this solid oak chest, as good as it was the day it was made! Four and a half, I’m offered. Who’ll make it five! Five, five, five—who says it? Are you all done, ladies and gentlemen? Third and last call, and—sold for tour and a half to the lady with the brown silk dress and black lace shawl!” The lady with the brown silk dress and black lace shawl was Rachel Day. Mrs. Pickett fancied she saw a gleam of triumph in the eyes of the new owner of the chest. Mrs. Day bought several of the things offered, and Mrs. Pickett added to her sorrow a sting of resentment and injured pride with each purchase Rachel made. “She does it only to aggrevate me,” Mrs. Pickett thought; “but let her go on.if it does her any good. 1 kin hold spite as long as anybody, but I wouldnot show it in such a way as this, if I was Rachel Day.” The vendue came to a close early in the afternoon, and the people departed,’ taking their new possessions with them. Mrs, Day was the last to go, and when she drove out "of the farmyard her wagon was well laden with the things she had purchased. Mrs. Pickett broke down entirely when she and Dorothy were left alone in Ihe almost empty house. Mr. Parks had given them until the next week to complete their arrangements for leaving. Then he proposed to take possession of the house and farm. Dorothy found much to do during the rest of the day. The one cqw her grandmother had kept had strayed away, and when milking time came Dorothy went in search of her. It was nearly dark when she r*» turned, driving the cow through the grass of the meadow lot. She had left her grandmother alono, and was surprised to hear voices in the kitchen when she returned to the house with her milking pail.

Looking in at an open window, she was still more surprised to see in the gathering gloom a woman kneeling hy her grandmother’s chair, while Mrs. Pickett was shaking her head in a dazed kind of way, and saying: “I don’t understand it. Rachel. It seems to me I must be dreaming, and that I’ll wake up pretty soon and find it ain’t so!” , . • “But you ain’t dreaming, Mahala,” Dorothy heard Mrs. Day say, with an hysterical and cheerful little laugh. “It’s all true us gospel. Here I am kneelin’ right by you. and there’s the money right in your lap.” “And you found it In that old oak chist that I thought had been empty for twenty years?” “Yes, in that secret place In the lid. Don’t you remember it?” “I do, now that you speak of it, Rachel; but I’d forgotten all about It before. It’s been so many years since that chist was ÜBed.” I' 1 Well, I remembered it as soon as I saw the chest,” replied Mrs. Day, “and when I got home with the things I bought to-day, and they had been curried into the house, and I found time to look them over, I put my fin* ger right on the spot where the spring was in the chest lid. The little door dropped, apd a roll of bills came tumbling down into thd chest. “I was so upset at first, Mahala, that I could hardly believe my senses; but when I’d shook and pinched my-

iseif to prove that I was awake, I found, ! it was true, and that the cavity in the lid was f ull of bills—more than enough to pay off the mortgage, and almost enough to pay off the note. ” ‘•And you brought it right over to me. Oh, Rachel!” „ “Course I did, Mahala! Whatever my other failings are. hateful and holding spite for years and all that, I’m honest, Mahala, and I wouldn’t touch a pin I’d no right to. ” “I know you wouldn’t, Rachel, and I didn’t mean to hint that you would. But I’m so glad you brought the money yourself.” “I did think of sending it,” said Mrs. Day; “but as I set thinking it aLI over, and how glad you’d be to get it in the middle of your trouble, I begun to feel sorry for you, Mahala, and the sorrier I got the moke ashamed I was of myself; and the chest and everything together called back old times until I just laid my head on the chest and had a good long cry. I got up feeling kinder and tenderer toward you than I’ve felt for twenty years, though there’s been times when I’ve wanted to make up bad enough, but I was afraid you wouldn’t.” “I’d been so glad to, Rachel!” For a long time the old ladies sat, forgetting and forgiving the past, and renewing a friendship not to be broken in the future. With the money Grandfather Pickett had secreted so carefully in the old Ghest, and the proceeds of the sale Mrs. Pickett easily made up enough to, pay off her husband’s indebtedness. Mrs. Day returned the articles she had bought at the sale, and Mrs. Pickett gradually regained possession of her most cherished household treasures. * I never could bear the thought of having a vandoo made of my things,” said Mrs. Pickett afterward, during one of her weekly visits to her friend Rachel, “but if I hadn’t made a vandoo of ’em, it aint likely that money’d ever been found, in my day, and you and I never would have made up. .So there are ‘gains for all our losses and balms for all our pain,’ as the poetry book says.” “That’s so, Mahala,” said Mrs. Day.'

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES.

Kew York city lias a crazo for white buildings. Of every million people in the world eight hundred are blind. In St. Louis there are no basements used as stores, restaurants or saloons. A now daily paper has been started at Cloverdale, Ky., called the Dairy Girl. A sixteen-year-old canary bird in Ellington, Conn., sings as sweetly as ever. A,polite term for spinsters in northern Germany is "standing alone ladies.” A blueberry factory at Cherryfield, Mo., has canned 7,0(i3 bushels of berries this season. The twentieth anniversary of a wedding is never celebrated. It is considered very unlucky to do so. It is as impossible for some people to mind their own business as it is for them to have any business of their own to mind. If any one wants to king it a little while the King of Portugal would probably turn his job over to him at a moderate price. A young man walked in his sleep one night at Slaterville, Ga., and when he awoke he found himself at a grind-stone sharpening his knife. Some take their wrath up in their arms and nurse it and coddle it, until it £rows to be so strong and lusty a thing that they can no longer hold it or control it. ‘•Yes, sir, we must agitate!” remarked the walking delegate. "We must agitato or perish*” Then he agitated it gently with a spoon, and pretty soon it perished—all but the sugar. A woman seventy years old has patented a sewing-machine needle which does not require threading, it seems very simple, and all who have seen it wonder why nobody thought it before. Experts say that the buried city of Pompeii has not yet yielded up a third of its artistic treasure; that at the present rate of progress sevonty years will elapse before it is thoroughly unearthed. A i&or washerwoman at Fayetteville, Ark., Vho a few days ago was notified that she had been granted a pension and would receive 15,000 back pay, wa3 so overcome with joy that she died. John Arbuclde, whoJhaß been called "the king of the coffee pot,” has a fortune that is variously estimated at from fifteen to twenty million dollars. He began to grind coffee in a small way in Pittsburg fifteen years ago. There is a young man in Belfast, Me., but thirty-five years of ago, who is the father of three daughters, all by a different mother, from .legitmate marriago. One is seven years of age, another three years and the last three months old.

The eyes of insects are immovable and many of them seem cut into a multitude of facets like the facets of a diamond. Each of these facets is supposed to possess the powers of a true eye. Loeuwenhook counted 3,181 of them in the cornea of a beetle, and over 8,000 in that of a common horsefly. There is but two excuses for an American to travel incog, in Europe —either hie is avoiding his bills or is avoi'Sng somebody who wants help liquidating his own. William Waldorf Astor pleads the latter as the rearm for traveling under the name of W. H. Class. That is, ho is doing his legitimate best to dodge foreign beg- > 4..., ■-i

SECRETARY RUSK’S REPORT.

Operations of the Agricultural Depart* ment— Improved Condition of Farm era. The Secretary of Agriculture has pro. sented his annual report to the PresidentBy comparing prices at Chicago for Oct. 16, 1890, and Oct. 16, ISB9, he shows a marked increase in the values of agricultural products, especially of cereals. A abular statement of agricultural imports of the last fiscal year, including live an is mals, hay, potatoes, hops, cheeset eggs, flax, wool, tobacco, wines," etc., the old and new tariff rates being given for each, indicates a material increase in the import duties on these articles, and shows ■ each to have been imported in considers able quantities. The Secretary asserts ( ,that without ignoring the effects of natural causes in enhancing values it is evident that the economic legislation of the last session of Congress has directly benefited the farmers, the improved value of cereals, as he believes, being largely due to the silver legislation, which, moreover, has lessened the influence of Russia and India* our wheat competitors in British markets. Our increased export trade in cattle and animal products, another cause of congrat ulation, he traces to the energetic and efs fective measures adopted for the eradication of pleuro-pneumonia, and to the growing appreciation at home and abroad of the department's ability to suppress or effectually control contagious animal diseases. He declares that not a single case of contagious pleuro-pneumonia has been alleged to exist among American cS'ttle shipped to British ports sinco March last. In the line of further precaution, the de . partment is now prepared to carry out the inspection of export cattle before shipment, provided for by the act of Aug. 30. Similar energy has been directed to our pork interests, the department having already undertaken the inspection called for by the same act. The Secretary strongly recommends an inspection law still more comprehensive, of all animals slaughtered for interstate or foreign trade. The present immunity of northern cattle from Texas fever he believes to be due to a general compliance with the regulations of the de. partment issued last spring, assurances to this effect having been received from large dealers in cattle, who report a conse. quent facilitation of this business, and a saving effected by reduced insurance rates* which, for the season, will aggregate over a million dollars.

Tho outlook for a home sugar industry is considered favorable. A good article of sugar is shown to have been produced protltabfy from sorghum, varieties of which, with large sugar contents, have been developed through the efforts of the Department of Agriculture. Analysis by the department chemist of beets grown in various States, seed distributed last spring, indicate a high per cent, of sugar, and affordswhat is regarded a 3 conclusive proof that large sections of country are adapted to the successful culture of the sugar beet. Practical results obtained in Nebraska and Kansas, he says, demonstrates the feasibility of home-grown sugar being cheaply manufactured. The Secretary announces the establishment of three national sugar experiment stations, devoted one each to cane, sorghum aud beet sugar. In the Bureau of Animal Industry arrangements have been perfected for a dairy division, the establishment of which has been delayed somewhat by the lack of necessary legislation. ...Co-operation with the experiment stations has been undertaken on important lines, including experiments with grasses iu the arid regions and the trial of new economic plants; the collection of agricultural statistics, of reports ©f tho growing crops and of the probable supply of staple products in the markets of the world. The production of raw silk as an indi* genous industry is referred to in not very encouraging terms, though its importance is emphasized by reference to the imports for raw silk, which have largely increased during the year and are valued for the year at upwards of $14,000,000, but the ne~ iCessity for favorable legislation, as well as for improvements in machiuery,is insisted upon. ■ ■ ■_ ._ j .; ■ Encouraging words are spoken with reference to flax culture. Secretary Rusk believes that the recent changes in the tariff on linens will serve to encourage manufacturers to provide a market for home grown liax. The possibility of serving the corngrowers throughout the country by extending the market for Indian corn in fors eign countries has engaged the Secretary's attention, with the result that he has ap* pointed a special agent abroad, having special qualifications for thi% duty, to in' vestigate and report upon the possibilities of promoting the consumption of Indian corn in European countries. In concluding his report he says: "A careful review of the events of the past year, and a general survey of the agricultural field to-day betoken marked improvement in the condition of our agriculturists and promise well for their future well being.” He ends by declaring that he looks forward with confidence to the "time when, in the high quality of its work as well as in the magnitude of its enterprise, tho agriculture of the United States shall not only lead other industries in this country, but shall be the leader ih this great industry of all other countries. ’•

Gustave Cartright, wife and child lived in a cabin six miles from Rockford, Sj. D., where he : worked a placer claim. * The family had recently got a Newfoundland dog, of which they thought a great deal. While the husband was working the claim the wife had occasion to punish the dog for something, and immediately thereafter went down to tho spring, which was about one hundred feet in tho rear of the house. She left the baby and dog in front of the house. On her return she discovered that the dog had attacked tho child and had literally eaten off its head. The mother gave one piercing slmek and fell senseless to the ground. Tho cry was heard by the trdaband, who hastened to the cabin, and seizing an ax killed the dog on the spot. The mother Is reported to obe a raving maniac.

WASHINGTON.

Secretary Noble has .written to Mayor Great, of New York, refusing the request for a census recount of that city. The President op the Bth issued the annual Thanksgiving Proclamation, fixing Thursday November 27th as the day. "Postmaster General Wanamaker on the 6th, in, reply to an inquiry, said that there was no probability of an extra session of Congress. While, he said, only the President could speak authoritatively upon the subject, he, Mr. Wannamaker, did not bes lieve that the President had any thought of calling Congress together before the regular session. Two other members of the Cabinet, who were unwilling to be quoted by name, said, in response to similar inquiries: “There will be no extra session.” A statement having appeared recently to the effect that the Mexican government had placed an import duty on cattle from the United States, the Secretary of Agri culture immediately called the attention of the Department of State to this mat to *, with a r&juest that the real facts be ascertained, He is now in receipt of a communication from the Department of State, inclosing a telegram from the United States Consul General at Nuevo Laredo, in reply to one from the State Department, instructing him to make inquiries on the subject, in which that official states that no such duty has, to his knowledge, been imposed by the Mexican government, but that Jhat government is now preparing a tariff bill none of the details of which have been so far made public.

CONGRESS.

The following Congressional tabls is based on latest dispatches. Both figures and close estimates have been used: State. Dem. Kep. State.— Dem. Bep, Alabama....... 7 1 Mississippi... 7 ... Arkansas...... 3 2 Missouri 13 1 California 6 Montana. C010rad0,,..... 1 Nebraska 2 1 'Connecticut. 2 2Nevada 1 N. Dakota - IN. Ham’sh’re 2 ... S. Dakota 2 New Jersey... 6 2 Delaware 1 ... New 10rk.... 21 IS Florida ..... 2 ... N. Carolina.. 8 Ge0rgia........ 10 .. Ohio 14 7 Idaho ... Oregon Illinois ...«.*. 12 8 Pen’sylvania 10 [lB Indiana 11 2 Bh’de Islaud 1 1 lowa 5 *Kangas. 1 1 Tennessee..... S 1 Kentucky.... 10 1 Texas It Louisiana.... 6 ... Vermont 2 Maine ... 4 Virginia. ... 10 Maryland 6 ... Washington . ..: 1 Massach’setts 7 BW. Vi-glnia.. 3 ,1 Michigan 7 4 Wisco-sin .... 7 i Minnesota. 3

Atllance, l io. Kep., 1. Recapitulation—Democrats. 224; Republicinß, 103; Independent Republican, 1; Farmers .Alliance, 6. Territorial delegates not iucludea.

Cranks on Teeth.

Half the people who have occasion for the services of a dentist have hobbies about their teeth, or queer notion; about dentistry. N early every one wb< leaves an order for false teeth instruct* the dentist to furnish them with small ones that are a clear white and withoul a tinge of color. This, dental experts say, is a wrong idea. The size of ths teeth should be regulated by the natural ones, and the color by the coniplexionof the person. People with a dark complexion should have teeth with a bluish cast Dr. Ross Bryte, in a talk with a Pittsburg Commercial Gazette reporter, told of some peculiar people he had met in his professional capacity. A certain society belle had a beautiful set of teeth which nature had given her, but they were a trifle large to suit her shapely mouth, she thought. She went to her dentist and ordered him to extract them all. He at first refused to do so, as he thought it a great wrong to destroy handsome incisors. She insisted, and the destisl decided to humor her. After she had had her teeth all drawn she ordered a set of small ones, which were entirely unsuitable for her. Di mond setting in teeth, Dr. Bryte says, is the height of folly. Diamonds, to show their brilliance, must have light, and when they are set in teetl: thly are as dull as a piece of glass.

A Pleasing Senss

Of health sad strength renewed and of east and comfort follows the use ot Syrup of Figs. mit acts In harmony with nature to offeotually cleanse the aystom when costive or bilious. For sale la Gto and $1 bottles by all leading dra«:*H»

M[?]cairago.

“Why, my dear Mrs. de Jones, 1 haven’t seen you fora year. How have you been? And how is your dear daughter Emily?” “Emily is very well.” “And is she still married to Mr. Henderson?”

THE MARKETS.

Indianapolis, November 11, 1890. GRAIN. Wheat | Cora. Oats. | Kj,e Indianapolis,. |2 r|d w\i wsJ-iwfl Chicago 2f6 101 53k *«%.- - Cincinnati 2 r’d »% *» Bt. L0ui5......... 2 r'd 100 51 45 New Y0rk.....; 2 r'dloß% 90% 49% * Baltimore 100 88% 44 Philadelphia. 2 r'd 101 #2 52%jClover Seed Toledo 101 55 4C 4 30 Detroit IwHS 56 4«%| Minneapolis: 100 Louisville - <L.. ■ 1 .ii,... 1 . ■ ■ I .'11... 1.. ■■ I ~ LIVH STOCK. Cattlh Export grades..,,, fL30<54.t!0 Good to choice shippers j.. 4.00(84.-.a Common to medium shippers.... 3.2,.yjtt.00 Btockers, 600t0850 B> .... 2.03(88.0) Good to choice heifers 2.50(43.00 Common to medium heifers li-wtsc Good to choice cows 2.205)2.6 1 Fair to medium cows L 7 452.10 Hogs—Heavy 4.iG(B».'jti Light J’.«5(«53.9) Mixed : .'.s® .9 1 Heavy roughs 3.00® '.so Shrub -Good to 0h0i0e.......... 4.3 <44.5 < Fair to medium. 3.75®4.i 1 MISCHLLANBUtrs. Eggs 1 c. Butter, Creamery >v ($24; Dairy : lb, Good Country i)c. Feather*, “Vt. KeeaI wax, 18(820; Wool SOy'K, Un washed 2.1; I Poultry, Hens .c. xurkayv-a toms 6c Clover seal 4 53(84.75

WHAT THE RAIN COSTS.

Every Wee Week in Sew York Means a Loss or $1,000,000. - i Hew York World. “ —lt has been estimated that every - ' rainy day in New York costs more than $1,000,000. The largest losers are, of course, the great setail dry-goods stores in Fourteenth and Twenty-third streets and along Broadway and Sixth avenue, and the loss is a-real one; not merely an apparent one. Every woman knows that on rainy days the big shops, with their hundreds of clerks, bookkeepers, saleswomen, horses and drivers, do very little business. It is sometimes said that the fine day will more than make up for the deficit. This, however, # is not the case, as all of the great merchants testify. On the first sunshiny day after a storm trade is just about the same as on any other brightr day, when clerks stood about drawing their wages and earning nothing, marks a heavy-loss. The horses eat just as •much in their stalls, all the thousand and qne expenses of a great establishment keep right on, and it costs just jas much to conduct the business when 'nothing is doing as when trade is brisk, j The great blizzard of March 12, two years ago. proved that conclusively. It fell upon the town on Monday, and all of that week the stores did very little. The next week was bright, but the shops never made up their losses, and comparisons with the years before ;and the years following show that the • deficit caused: by that great snows - istorm was never wholly made up. j A majority of things bought by shoppers are not absolute necessities- They are very much needed, but people oan dispense with them at a pinch. , | This is true isl even so apparently essential commodities as the butcher ’and grocer sells. But the retail butcher and grocer and baker lose by, -tee «da-lust-aa the dry goods meo lose. Instead of chops and steak for breakfast and a bit of fruit, the average housewife makes an excuse of the rain and her husband and children are content with eggs and what odds and ends the pantry affords. Dinner is also a less elaborate affair, for the good market woman always gives a smaller order when the grocer sends his boy for it than when she goes out herself and sees what she is purchase ing. Anybody can see that this loss is never made up. for the family certainly doesn’t eat twice as much breakfast or dinner the next sunshiny day. So it is with other goods. i So far as the mere proportion of loss goes, the small retail confectioner probably comes in for the largest share. Few transients are loitering about the streets on rainy days ready to drop in for a glass of soda or a plate of ice c-eam, and all that rainy day the boxes of candy remain unsold. Saloons suffer in the same way, for the casual drinker does not leave his office to plod through the rain for his nip. The saloonkeeper, however, makes up for the smaller number of customers by the difference in the drinks they buy. More whiskies and brandy are sold on rainy days compared to the whole number of drinks, and the man who usually calls for beer takes something stronger ard more expensive to keep out the wet. 4 Cigar dealers lose heavily by the rain. Few men care to smoke on the streets with an umbrella in one hand, and the smoker goes without rather than get soaked splashing out after a cigar. So with the restaurants. The apple woman comes around about 2- v o’clock, and the sandwich man supplies a luncheon, and the restaurant chairs remain empty. This loss is never made up. Even the postoffice sells fewer stamps on rainy days than on bright ones. Suburban travel is far lighter and all the railways running into New York carry fewer passengers when the clouds are emptying their buckets up*, on the defenseless earth than when the sun shines. Intending visitors postpone their journeys and shoppers wait for a brighter day. Transients in town for a day or two intending to take home a few things from New York shops decline to stir from comfortable rooms and content themselves with either doing without or gotting the articles at home. So all through the list of retail dealers the loss goes. Theaters and peaces of public amusement suffer from the rain, and their loss alone means a small fortune. The street venders who sell shoestrings, suspenders and small articles of that Bort actually go out of business when it rains. Taken all in all it is not an exaggeration to say that a week of rain in New York city means a total loss to trade of $1,000,000.

The Eiffel Tower.

The stockholders in the Eiffel tower enterprise are feeling blue just now in consequence of the steady diminuation of their receipts. In the season now closing 675,000 francs were taken in. The cost of keeping the tower open was 350,000 francs, and 300,000 more were spent for repairs. Next season the small profit of this year will be wiped out, it is expected- and a considerable deficit will appear in the place of it. In view of this probability 168,000 francs were reserved foi future use from the profits of tho e» hibition year.

Penalty of a Bad Habit.

Seattle Press. A Judge of the 6upreme Court (ie a semitone to a newly-empaneled jury) —Y\ r ho «pit tobacco juice on the floor? No answer. ~ TI that tobadbfr j“uice will answer at once.” Juror (hesitatingly)—lf yo please, your honor, I did It, but IJdidn’t think. Judge—Think nothing. Lend me a chew of tobacco,”