Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1891 — Page 7

EVIL LITERATURE.

THE THIRD GREAT CURSECFOUR GREAT CITIES. A Plague of th- Land of Egypt With Us To 1). y—How it Cam be Driven BackDr. Talmage’a Sermon, v Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn and New York, Sunday and Sunday night, the third of the series on the “Plagues of the Great Cities.” Text, Exodus viii., 6-7. He referred at some length to the plague of frogs in Egypt, and then said: Now that plague of frogs has come back upon the earth. It is abroad today. It is smiting this Nation. It comes in the shape of corrupt literature. These frogs hop into the store, the shop, the office, the banking house, the factory, intp the home, into the cellar, into the garret, on the drawing room table, on the shelf of thelibrary. While the lad is reading the bad book the teacher’s face is turned the other way. One of these frogs hops upon the page. While the young woman is reading the forbidden novelette after retiring at night, reading by gaslight, one of these frogs leaps upon the page. Indeed, they have hopped upon the news stands of the country, and the mails at the postoffice shake out into letter trough hundreds of them. The plague has taken at different times possession of the country. It is one of the most loathesome, one of the most frightful, one of the most ghastly of the ten plagues .of our modern cities. There is a vast number of hooks and newspapers printed and published which ought never to see the light. They are filled with a pestilence that makes the land swelter with a moral epidemic. The greatest blessing that ever came to this Nation is that of an elevated literature, and the greatest scourge has been that of unclean literature . This last has its victims in all occupations and departments. It has helped to fill insane asylums and penitentiaries and alms houses and dens of shame. The bodies of this infection lie in the hospitals and in the graves, while their souls are being tossed over Into a lost eternity, an avalanche of horror and despair. The London plague was nothing to it. That counted its victims by thousands, but this moral pest has already shoveled its millions into the charnel house of the morally dead. The longest rail train that ever ran over the Erie or Hudson tracks was not long enough nor large enough to carry the beastliness and the putrefaction which have been gathered up in bad books and newspapers of this land in the last twenty years. The literature of a nation decides the fate qf a nation. Good books, good morals. Bad books, bad morals. I bogin with the lowest of all the literature, that which does not even pretend to be respectable—from cover to co' Ur-bloteh of leprosy. There ftre i. ». * v hose'entire businass it is to di =1 • of that kind of literature, r: They display it before' the school hoy on his way homo. They get the catalogues of schools and colleges, take the names and postoffice addresses, and tend their advertisements and their circulars and their pamphlets and their books to every one of them. In the possession of these dealers in bad literature were found 900,000 names and postoffice addresses to whom It was thought it might he profitable to lend these corrupt things. In the year ! 873 there were 165 establishments engaged in printing cheap, corrupt liter* ature. From one publishing house there went out twenty different styles of corrupt books. Although over 30 tons of vile literature have been destroyed by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, still there is enough of it lejt in this country to bring down upotT Us the thunderbolts of an incensed God.

- Ia the year 1868 the evil had becOBA so great in this country that the Congress of the United States passed a law forbidding the transmission of bad literature through the United States mails; but there were large loops in thac law through which criminals might crawl out and the law was a dead failure—that law of 1868. But in 1876 another law was passed by the Congress of the United States against the transmission of corrupt literature through the mails—a grand law, a potent law, a Christian law—and under that law multitudes of these scoundrels have been arrested, their property confiscated, and they themselves thrown into the penitentiaries, where they belonged. Now, my friends, how are we to war against this corrupt literature,and how are the frogs of this Egyptian plague to be slain 3 First of all by the prompt and inexorable execution of the law. Let all good postpiasters and United States District Attorneys and detectives and reformers concert in their action to stop this plague. When Sir Rowland Hill spent his life in trying to secure cheap postage, not only for England but for all the world, and to open the blessing of the post-office to all honest business,and to all messages of charity and kindness and affection, for all healthful intercommunication; he did not intend to make vice easy or to fill the ihail bags of the United States with the scabs of such a leprosy. It ought not to be in the power of every bad man who can raise '& one cent stamp for a circular or a two cent stamp for a letter to blast a man or destroy a home. Tb.e postal service of this country must be kept clean, and we must all understand that ttye swift retributions of the United States government hover over every violation of the letter box. '1 here are thousands of men and women in this country, some for personal gain, some through innate depravity, some through a spirit of revenge, who wish to use this great qvenue of convenience ned intelligence for purposes revengeful, salacious and diabolic.

Wake up the law. Wake up hll its t penalties. Let every court room on ; this subject be a Sinai thunderous and aflame. Let the convicted oTenders be sent for the full term to Sing Sing or Harrisburg. I am not talking about what cannot be done. lam talking about what is being done. A great many of the printing presses that gave themselves entirely to the publication of vile literature have been stopped or have gone into business less obnoxious. What has thf'own off, what has kept off the rail trains of this country for some time back nearly all the leprous periodicals? Those of us who have been on the railroads have noticed a great change in the last few months and the last year or two. Why have nearly all those vile periodicals been kept off the rail trains for sometime back? Who effected it? These societies for the purification of railroad literature gave warning to the publishers and warning to railroad companies, and warning to conductors and waraipg to newsboys, to keep the infernal stuff off the trains. How have so many of the newsstands of our great cities been purified? How has so much of this iniquity been balked? By moral suasion? Oh, no. You might as well go into a jungle of the East Indies and put a cobra on the neck, and with profound argument try to persuade it that it is morally wrong to bite and to sting and to poison any thing. The only answer to your argument would be an uplifted head and a his 9 and a sharp,reeking tooth struck into your arteries. The only argument for a cobra is a shotgun, and the only argument for these dealers in impure literature is the clutch of the police and bean soup in a penitentiary. The law! The law! I invoke to consummate the work so grandly begun! Another way in which we are to drive back this plague of Egyptian frogs is by filling the minds of our young people with a healthful literature. Ido not mean to say that all the books and newspapers in our families ought to be religious books and newspapers, or that every song ought to be aung to the tune of “Old Hundred. 1 ' I have no sympaty with the attempt to make the young old. I would rather join in a crusade toJceep the young young. Boyhood and girls hood must not be abbreviated. But there are good books, good histories, good biographies, good works of fiction, good books of all styles, with which we are to fill the minds of the young, so that there will bo no more room for the useless and the vicious than there is room for chaff in a bushel measure which is already filled with Michigan wheat.

Why are 60 per cent, of the criminals in the Jails and Penitentiaries of the United States to-day under 21 years of age? Many of them under 17, under 16, under 15, under 14, under 13. Walk along the corridors of the Tombs prison in New York and look for yourselves. Bad books, bad newspapers, bewitched them as soon as they got-out of the cradle. Beware of all those stories which end wrtmg. Beware of books which make the road that ends in perdition seem to end in paradise. Do not glorify the dirk and the pistol. Do not call the desperado brave or the libertine gallant. Teach our young people that if they go down into the swamps and marshes to watch the jack-o’-lanters dance on the decay and rottenness, they will catch malaria and death. •‘Oh!” sayß some one, ‘lama busi* ness man and I have no time to exam' ine what my children read. I have nO time to inspect the books that come in to ray household. ” If your children were threatened with typhoid fever, would you have time to go for the doctor? Would you have time :-to -watch the progress of the disease? Would you have time for the funeral? In the presence of my God I warn you of the fact that your children are threatened with moral and spiritual typhoid, and that unless the thing be stopped, it will be to them funeral of body, funeral of mind, funeral of soul. Three funerals in one day. My word is to this vast multitude of young people: Do not touch, do not borrow, do not buy a corrupt book or a corrupt picture. A book will decide a man's destiny for good or for evil. The book you read yesterday may have decided you for tinj.6 and for eternity, or it may be a book that may come into your possess sion to-morrow.

Another way in which we shall fight back this corrupt literature and kill the frogs of Egypt is by rolling over them the Christian printing press, which shall give plenty of healthful reading to all adults. All these men and women are reading to all adults. All these men and women are reading men and women. What are you reading? Abstain from all those books which, ~while they had some good things about them, have also an admixture of evil. You have read books that had two elements in them, the good and the bad, which struck to you The bad! The heart of most people is lik a sieve, which lets the small particles of gold fall through, but keeps the great cinders. Once in awhile there is a mind like a loadstone, which plunged amid steel and brass filings, gathors up the steel and repels the brass. But it is generally jus¥ the opposite. If you. attempt to plunge through a fence of burrs to get one blackberry, you will get more burrs than blackberries. You can not afford to read a bad book bowevor good you are. You say: "The influence is insignificant.” I tell you that the scratch of a pin has somotimes produced the lock-jaw. Alas, if through curiosity, as many do, you pry into an evil book, your cariosity is as dangerous ns that of tho man who would take a torch into a gunpowder mill, merely to seo. whether it would really blow up or not. In a

menagrle, a man put his arm through the bars of the black leopard’s cageThe animal’s hide looked so sleek, and bright and beautiful. He just stroked it once. The monster seized him, and he drew forth a hand torn, and mangled, and bleeding. O, touch not evil even with tbe| faitest stroke! Though it may be glossy and beautiful, touch it not, less you pull forth your soul torn and bleeding under thji clut’h of the black serpent. “But,” you say, •‘how can I find out whether a book i good or bad without reading it?” There Is always something suspicious about a had book. I never knew an exception—something suspicious in the index or style of illustration. Thi ; venomous reptile almost carries a warning rattle. This clock strikes midnight. A fair form bends over a romance. Eyes flash fire. The breath quick and irregular Occasionally the color dashes to the cheek, and then dies out. The hand* tremble as though a guardian spirit were trying to shake the deadly book out of the grasp. Hot tears fall. Sue laughs, with a shrill voice that drops dead at it 9 own sound. The sweat on her brow is the spray dashed up from the river of death. The clock striks four, and the rosy dawirsoorr gins to look through the latitude upon the pale form that lootes like a detained specter of the night. Soon in a mad house she will mistake her ring lets for curling serpents, and thrust her white hand through the bars of the prison and smite her head, rub bing it back as though to push the scalp from the skull, shrieking: “My brain! my brain!” Oh, stand off from that! Why will you go sounding your way amid the reefs and warning buoys,when there is such a vast ocean in. which youmay voyage all sail set? We see so many books we do not understand what a book is. Stand it on end. Measure it, the height of it, the depth of it. the length of it, the breadth of it. You can not do it. Examine the paper and estimate the progress made from the time of the impression on clay, and then onto barks of trees to papyrus, and from the papyrus to the hide of wild beasts, and from the hide of wild beasts on down until the miracles of our modern paper manufactories, and then see the paper white and pure as an infant’s soul waiting for God’s inscription. A book! Examine the type’ Examine the printing of it, and see the progress from the time when Solon’s laws were written on oak planks and Hesiod’s poems were written on tables of lead and the Siniatic commands were written on tables of stones, on down to Hoe’s perfecting printing-press. A book! It took all the universities of the past, all the martyr fires, all the civilizations, all

the battles, all the victories, all the defeats, all the glooms, all the brightness, all the centuries to make it possible. A book! It is the chorous of the ages—it is the drawing-room in which Kings and Queens, and orators and poets and historians and philosophers come out to greet you. If I worshiped anything I would worship that. If I burned incense to an idol, I would build an altar to that. Thank God for good books, healthful books, inspiring books, Christian book, books of men, books of women, books of God. It is with these good books that we are to overcome corrupt literature. Upon the frogs swoop with these eagles I depend much for the overthrow of iniquitous literature the mortality of books. Even good books have a hard struggle to live. Polybius wrote forty books: only five of them left. Thirty books of Tacitus have perished. Livy wrote 140 books: only thirty-five remain. iEschylus wrote -100 dramas: only ninteen remain. Varro wfotetbe biographies of over 700 great Romans: all that wealth of biography has perished. If good and valuable books have such a struggle to live, what must be the fate of that are deceased and cor rupt and blasted at the very start? They will die as the frogs when the Lprd turned back the plague. The work of Christianization will go on until there will be nothing left but good books, and they will take the supremacy of the world. May you and I see the illustrious day. - *» Lady Hester Stanhope was the daughter of the third Earl of Stanhope, and after her nearest friends had died she went to the far East, took possession of a deserted convent, threw up fortresses amid the mountains of Lebanon, opened the castle to the poor and the wretched and the 6ick who would come in. She made her castle

a home for the unfortunate. She was a devout Christian woman. She was waiting for the coming of the Lord. She expected that the Lord would descend in person, and she thought upon it until it was too much for her reason. In the magnificent stables of her palace she had two horses groomed and bridled and saddled and caparisoned, and all ready for the day in which her Lord should descend and He on one of them and she on the other should start for Jerusalem, the city of the Great King, It was a fanaticism and a delusion, but there was romance and there was splendor, and there was thrilling expectation in the dream! □ Ah. my friends, we need no earthly palfreys groomed and saddled and bridled and caparisoned for our Lord when He shall come. The horse is ready in the equerry of heaven, and the imperial rider is ready to mount. ••And I saw, and behold a white horse, and He that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto Him; and He went forth conquering and to conquer. And the armies which were in heaven followed Him on white horses and on His vesture and on Hiß thigh were written. ‘King of kings. j»nd Lord of lords.’ ” Horsemen of heaven, mount! Cavalrymen of God, rid on! Charge! Oharge! until they shall be hurled back on their haunches, the black horse of famine, and the red horse of carnage and the pale horse of deuth. Jesu? forever!

NEW LAWS.

A Complete f.ljt of I'llls Passed by the Recent Lf(i HOUSE BIIjSS. The following have an emergency clause. To amend the act of March 7,1879, regs ulating the. indebted ness of counties having a voting population of over 20,C0X Concerning the obstruction of ditches and providing penalties therefor. "I Concerning liens of mechanics, laborers and material men. To amend an act fixing the number of trustees for Purdve University, manner of appointment, etc. To amend Sec. 65 of an act providing for the settlement and distribution of decedents’ estate. To authorize boards of school commissioners in all cities of 30,000 or more in* habitants in which enoh boards exists, to levy tax for the support of the schools in such city, inoluding such taxes as maybe required for paying teachers in ads ditiontothe taxes now authorized to be levied by the General Assembly Of the State of Indiana not to exceed in any one year the sum of 25 cents on the (100 of taxable property; also to levy a tax each year not exceeding 4 cents on the SIOO of taxable property in the city for the support of free libraries. To provide penalties for the cutting of hedges or other live fences along highways. To authorize boards of county commissioners to appoint justices of the peace in certain cases. .. - .I.^ To create the office of State Superintendent of Oil Inspection and providing for his appointment by the State Geologist.

To authorize boards of county commissioners, where the construction of court houses has been begun and the proceeds of the sale of bonds of 1 per cent on assessed valuation of taxable property of county is insufficient to complete the buildings, to issue and sell county bonds to an amount sufficient, not exceeding 1 per cent, on assessed valuation of taxable property of such counties in addition to any bonds which may have hitherto been issued and sold. To appropriate money for the claim of the Warren-Scharf Asphalt Paving Company, on account of paving the-roadway of Mississippi street, west of the State House grounds; amount appropriated, $8,082.31. Legalizing the incorporation of the towns of Greenville,Knightstown,Clifford, Fowler, Carpentersville,Scottsburg, Troy, Hammond and Michigantown. Fixing terms of court in’ Fourth and Fifty-second judicial districts. SENATE BILLS. The following have an emergency clause attached: Legalizing the incorporation of the towns of West Point, Pine Village, Osv good; also that of the Lafayette Union Railway Company. To create an appellate court, to consist of five judges and have exclusive jurisdiction of all appeals from the Circuit, Superior and Criminal courts in eases of misdemeanor; in cases from justices’ courts where the amount in controversy exceeds S3O, xclusive of costs; in all cases for the recovery of money where the amount does not exceed SI,OOO, etc., and in all such cases the decision of the appellate court shall be final, provided, however, that if the validity of a statute of this State or the United States is involved said court shall so certify, and thereupon the papers and transcript in such cause shall be transmitted to the Supreme Court, and all proceedings conducted thereafter shall be as if said cause had been originally appealed to the Supreme Court. To establish a State Board of Health, provide a system of registration and report of vital and sanitary statistics, prescribe duties of officers, provide for town, city and country boards of health, provide penalties, and fixing an appropriation for the expenses of the same. To legalize acts of notaries public whose commissions have expired or who have been ineligible to office. Fixing terms of holding courts in the Third, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Judicial I districts.

To repeal section 6 of an act entitled “an act to amend section 10 of an act regulat - ing insanity inquests.” (Approved Apri* 14j 1881) and the act approved March 11. 1889. To establish city courts in cities having a population of over 6,000. To reimburse the medical superintendent and others on account of advances of money and supplies to the Northern Hospital for the Insane in 1889; amount sll,* :00. To make it unlawful to burn natural gas in what are known as flambeau lights, maks hip it a misdemeanor for violation thereof, and prescribing penalties therefor. An inclosed street light in a burner consum* ing no more than what is known as th e •‘Jumbo" burner is allowed, the same not to be lighted between the hours of Ba. mand 5 p. m. For violation of ket first offense shall be fined not to exceed $25; second offense may be lined In any sum not exceed" ing *2OO. Concerning street railroads, and the use 0 f electricity as a motive power thereon. The act provides that nothing in the ac t shall be soconstrued as to take away from the common comic 1. o f Incorporated cities tfc-ovHnalva rights now exercised over tho streets, alleys and bridges within their corporate limits. Tonrovide for the payment of money-i for construction of building for the India, na School for Feeble Minded Youth. This is to pav sl,lll and interest to William Moelleriug, contractor. To provide for incorporation of boards for the relief of disabled ministers of th e gospel, missionaries or their ependeuts, orphans and others and enabling such boards to hold and convey real and pergonal property not exceeding'sloo,ooo in value. ' , , 1 To regulate tho mode of procuring and using natural gas. It is enacted that any person, firm, company or corporation engaged in drilling for, piping, transporting. usingor selling natural gas. may transport it through sound wrought or cast iron castings and pipes, tested to at least four hundred pouuds pressure to the square inch; provided it be not transported

through pipes at a pressure “seceding three hundred pounds to the squ»r~ *-ch nor otherwise than by the natural pressure of the gas flowing from the Wells. Viola' lions, of the provisions of this act shall be fined in any sum not less than nor more than $:0,000, and may be "enjoined from conveying and transporting natural gas through pipes otherwise than in this act provided.

For the relief of James Anderson, former treasurer of Warren county, who lost of the county funds by failure of the bank of Williamsport. For the relief of the same official for the further loss in the same bank of $1,419.37. Applying the provisions of the metropolitan police law to the city of Terre Haute. Abolishing the State Boar i of Agriculture and creating the State Agricultural and Industrial Board. Fixing the salaries of the superintendent, principal and matron of the school for the feeble minded at not to exceed $1,503 $750 and S6OO, respectively; providing that no child over sixteen years of age shall be received as a ward. Requiring railroad companies to erect suitable waiting rooms in towns 0f250 and upward, and to have the same open an hour in advance of the arrival to trains. Providing that in cities of ten thousand inhabitants and over legal notices may be published in daily instead of in weekly newspapers. Providing for the apportionment of decendents’ estates. To encourage the breeding of trotting and pacing horses; providing penalties for false enteries of horses at races. Providing fer the listing for taxation by guardians of the personal property of wards in the townships where said wards reside. Abolishing the office of State Mine Inspector and creating the office of State Inspector of Mines, to be appointed by the State Geologist. Providing that constables may pursue, arrest and hold horse-thieves until such time as a warrant can be procured. Authorizing incorporated cities and towns to lay out public parks. Amendingthe law providingfortheelection of wardens And vestrymen. Requiring corporations to pay their employes once every two weeks and prohibiting the use of script, - . : Providing for the omission of taxes ass sessed against two sections of Indian lands in Alien county. Senate bills having no emergency clause passed were: To abolish the office and board of trustees of water-works in cities and incorporated towns of less than 5,000 population. * Respecting private corporations or companies created and existing before Nov. 1, 1850. •

To authorize the boards of county oom* missioners or other proper officers of counties of this State adjoining other States to Join with like officers of such other States in the construction and repair of ditches, drains, water courses, etc. To amend “an act to provide for the organization of savings banks, and the safe and proper management of the [Approved March 6,1878.] To amend certain sections of “an act to provide for the organization of savings banks and the safe and proper management of their affairs. To fix the salaries of the wardens and deputy wardens of the State prisons north and south. The salary of the warden is fixed at $2,500 each, of the deputy ward en at $1,200 each, and neither shall receive in any way whatever, by way of perquisites or otherwise, any compensation other than by this act

To require the Secretary of State to charge and collect for the benefit of the State certain fees from associations and corporations desiring certain benefits under the laws of Indiana, and requiring all associations and corporations desiring such benefits to pay such fees. Where the capital stock is SIO,OOO or under, the fee is $10; where in excess of that amount one-tenth of 1 per cent. on amount of capital stock; mutual insurance, benefit and protective associations, not strictly benevolent or charitable, and having no capital stock, $95; religions, benevolent, literary and express, railroad, telegraph, or mes chanics’ or other association or employes, fee $5: building and loan associations, capital $50,000 or under, $10: in excess es that amount, one twenty-fifth of 1 per cent; certificate of reduction of capital, $5; increase same as original articles. This is all in addition to the present fee of $9. To complete, equip and furnish the Southern Indiana Hospital for the Insane and for payment to persons who have done work and furnished material; appropriation $45,525.92. To authorize deputy county surveyors to act as county surveyors. To prevent any person from unlawfully wearing the badge of the Grand Army of the Republic. Union Veterans, Sons of Veterans oriMilitary Order of the Loyal Legion of the State of Indiana. To legalize the incorporation of the town of Patoka, in Gibson county. To legalize a sale of land by the commiss aioners of the county of Fayette. To appropriate $105,000 to defray expenses of the regular session of the Fiftyseventh General Assembly of the State of Indiana. Exempting honorably discharged Union soldiers from working on public highways. Appropriating $6,000 for a laundry at the Plainfield Reformatory—s3,ooo for building and $3,000 for machinery. Re-enacting the law authorizing boards of county commissioners to appropriate $5,000 to build county orphan asylums, and amending it by increasing the amount to SIO,OOO. Making the State Geologist the custodian of the battle flags of Indiana. _____ Appropriating $2,387 to reimburse Perry county for advertising the sale of State lands. Apportioning the State into legislative districts. Appropriating $457.35 to pay for cases in which to keep the battle flags of the State. Appropriating SI,OOO to advertise forbids for furnishing certain text books for use in the common schools, provided for by law but not hitherto printed. Other provisions of the bill enable county superintendents to pay cash for what books they buy, if there is no indebtedness to meet the money for the sale of the books to be turned into the fund as fast as it comes in. The price of histories is fixed at 05 rents, that of the two grades of physiolocies at 30and 60 cents, while the price of all other bonks remain the same as under the law of 1889. __Directing the Superintendent of Public Instruction to sem-annually place to the credit of tho State Normal School $15,000 to be taken from the school revenue. Concerning the incorporation and government of cities having more than 106,000

population (the Indian spoils city chart** •bill.) Concerning the incorporation of high schools. t The following are to become laws on publication: r To regulate weighing of coal; provide for safety of employes; protect persons and propfrty ; provide for proper ventila* tion of mines; to prohibit boys and females i from working in mines. To provide for filling vacancies in the office of Mayor, clerk or councilman ip incorporated cities by appointment. The appointing poweris placed in the Common Council of such city. To provide reliel for John W. Whit*, late treasurer of Clay county, for the loss of $4,300 of county funds by tha failure of the Commercial Bank of Brazil. To enable the Madison County Joint Stock Agricultural Society, of Mid I son oounty, to sell and convey all her corporate property, distribute the proceeds and end her corporate existence. To appropriate money for erecting a laundry building at the Indiana Reform School for Boy&at Plainfield, and to fully equip the same. To authorize the Auditor of State to sell and convey certain lands located in Rush county, purchased for the Fairview Academy under “an act to Incorporate Fairv’ew Adademy, in Rush oounty.” Approved Feb. 16, 1848. Te amend “an act entitled an act author izlng the sale and conveyance of certain lands of the State of Indiana,” etc. To exempt all honorably discharge Union soldier from work on the public high ws.*.

IN PURSUIT OF SNAKES.

& Collector's Hunt Alter a Rattier Vgly Looking Reptile. There is a popular prejudice against even the most harmless snakes, and few people would carry the collector’s rage so far as to attempt the capture of an ugly-looking reptile with the bare hands. Bat the born naturalist, like the bom sportsman, does not mind any slight risk when his blood is up. In Sherman F. Denton’s “Incidents of a Collector’s Rambles” is the following aeeount of an incident belonging to his stay in Australia: Snakes were rather numerous, and one day, while walking in the thick scrub, I came across a large, light brown one, coiled upon the ground. He was by far the largest specimen I had ever seen at large, and was probably ten or twelve met long, and as thick as a man’s leg at the knee. I thought at first I would shoot him in the head with a light charge of shot, and carry home his sain. Then I considered that, if taken alive, he would be worth five times as much. Feeling about in ml pocket and game bag, I at last found a leather strap with a buckle. I drew the strap through the buckle, making a noose, and thus armed, started cautiously toward his snakeship, intending to put the noose over his head. 4 As soon as I came near, he partly uncoiled, opened his mouth very wide, thereby disclosing his sharp teeth, and, hissing spitefully, struck at me. I dodged behind a small tree, and, leaning out as far as I dared, tried several times to noose him. He was very savage, and looked powerful enough to crush me in his folds. At this juncture my courage was at rather * iow •bb.

After I had teased him for some time, he suddenly decided to leave mr company, and started off at full speed. I caught up my run and went after him, and, By hard running through the scrub, managed to head him off. He stopped, coifed up again, and again I tried the noose. He was equal to the occasion, putting his head under his coils in a very sulky manuer; but a» soon as I reached out, and caught him by the tail he pulled away with great force and started off once more. This time he took refuge under a fallen tree;and before I could head him off, he was gliding down the hole of some wild beast, which was partly concealed by the dead branches. I reached the spot just as the last two or three feet were going down, and seizing his tail with both hands, I hung on desperately. With my feet braced against a limb of a tree, I pulled till the tail cracked and snapped, as if it would break asunder. Sometimes he pulled me within a few inches of tho hole, and then I would brace up on the limb, and drag him half way out. At last I grew so tired that I had to let go my hold,and, with many regrets, I saw the last few inches of the tail disappear beneath tne ground.

Prof. Pierre Francois Spaink, an, emineui, pathologist and microacopist of Baarn, Holland, has been awarded the prtve for the best essay on the care of drunkards and the cure of drunken« ness, offered by the Inebriates’ Home at Fort Hamilton, New York. The competitors have had a year in which to prepare their papers, lhe Dueth professor made many, delicate microscopic experiments with rabbits as sub* jects. The result of these experiments will overjoy pathologists who have held that drunkenness is a disease, Prof. Spaink finds that alcoholis m is a disease that has Its origin in the habitual use of alcohol or other strong drink. It is a disease peculiar to itself and calling for peculiar treatment.

Pretty Rare to Tell Which.

Professor Brooks, of Johns Hopkint University, argues that man is descended from the fish and not from th« ‘•ape,’' remarked a swell society ttat to a K street girl. ‘-What do yov think of it?" “Well,” she replied frankly, “whes I think of the dudes I know I am in ollned to give the ape the preference, but when I think of the suckers oni meets at every turn I am forced, to be lieve that man in his original condition was a fish—Washington State.

The Senate of Delaware consists of five Democrats ant four Republicans and the House of fourteen Democrats and seven Republicans. A woman’s constancy is the moat lrrelevant thing in nature.