Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1891 — Page 3

TO THIS END WAS I BORN.

(Are We Preaching When We | Ought to Be Plowing? 1. ■' V, You Should Ask God About Your Worldly Business—Do the Right Thing and at the Right Time* Rev. Dr. Talmage preached to 7,000 people at Brooklyn last Sunday. Text: JohnMfcviii, 37. *He said: By the time a child reaches ten years of age the parents begin to discover that child’s destiny, but by the time he or she reaches fifteen years of age the question is on the child’s lips, “What am Ito be? What am I going to do? What was I made for?’ r It is a sensible and righteous question, and the youth ought to keep on .asking it until it is so fully answered ’that the young man or young woman :can _ say with as much truth as jts author, though on a less expansive scale: “To this end was I born.” ; There is too much divine skill ’shown thephysical. mental and moral constitution of the ordinary hpman being to suppose 110 was constructed without any divine purpose. First, I discharge you from all responsibility for most of your environments. You are* not responsible ‘for yoiir parentage, or grandparentage. You are not responsible for any of the cranks that may have lived in your ancestral line, and who n hundred years before you were born may have lived a style of life that more or less affects you to-day. You are not responsible for the fact that your temperament is sanguine, or nfelancholic, or billious or. lymphatic, or nervous. Neither are you responsible for theqjlace of your nativity, whether the granite hills of New England or the cotton plantations of Louisiana, or on the banks of the Clyde, or the Dniepar. or the Shannon, or the Seine. Neither are you responsible for the* religion taught i n yburTatlier’s TTotise. or the mbout what you can not help, or about circumstances that yon did not decree. Take things as they are and decide the question so that you shall be able to safely say: “To this end I was born.” How will you decide it? By direct application to the only being in the universe who is competent to tell you—the Lord Almighty. Do you know the reason why He is the only one who can tell? Because He «'an see everything between your cradle and your grave, though the grave be eighty years .off. besides that. He is the •>ply being who can see what has been happening for the last five hundred years in your ancestral line.and for thousands of years clear back to Adam, and there is not one person |u all that ancestral line of six thousand years but has somehow affected »our character, and even old Adam himself will sometimes turn up in JOur disposition. The only being who can take all things that pertain Io you into consideration is God, and He ope you can ask. Life is to short we have no time to experiment with pccupations and professions. The reason we have sq many ’lead failures is that parents decide lor the children what they shall do, or..children themselves, wrought on by some whim or fancy, decide for themselves without any impioration of divine guidance. So we have now (n pulpits men making sermons who bught to be in blacksmith shops makingjjlowshares, and we have in the law those who, instead of ruining the cases of their clients ought to be pounding shoe lasts. And doctors -whe avert he worst ft I lidranee to their patients’ convalenscence, and artists f rying to paint landscapes who ought io be whitewashing board fences. While there are others making bricks who ought to be remodeling " constitutions, or shoving planes who ought Io be transforming literatures. AskGod about what worldly business you shall undertake until you are so positive you can in earnest smite your hand on your plow handle, br your tarpenter’s bench, or your Blackstone’s “Commentaries,” or your medical dictionary, or your Dr. Dick’s “Didactic Theology,” saying, “for this end I was boyn.’ L . There are children who early develop national affinities for certain styles of work. When the father of the astronomer Forbes was going to London, he asked his children what present he should bring each one of them. The boy who was to be an astronomer cried out, “Bring me a telescope!” And there are children whom you find all by themselves drawing on their slates, or on paper, ships or houses or birds, and you know they are to be draughtsmen or artists of some kind. And you find others ciphering out difficult problems with rare interest and success, and you know they are to be mathematicians. And others making wheels and strange contrivances, and you know they are going to be machinists. And others are found experimenting with hoe and plow and sickle, and you know they will be farmers. And others are always swapping jack-knives or balls or bats apd making something by the bargain, and they arc going to be merchants. When Abbe de Rance had so advanced in studying Greek that he could translate Anacreon at twelve years of age there .was no doubt left that he was intended for a scholor. But in almost every lad there comes a time when he does notknow what he was made :tor, and his parents do not know, 'and it is a crisis that God only can (decide. Then there are those born ’for some especial work, and their ’fitness does not develop until ouite ‘•late. When Philip Dodbridge, whose (sermons and books have harvested" uncounted eouls for glory, began

to study the ministry, Dr. Calamy, one of the wisest and best men, advised him to turn his thoughts to some other work. ~ Isaac Barrow the eminent clergyman and Christian scientist —his books standard now though he has been dead over 200 years—was the disheartenment of his father, who used to say that if it pleased God to take any of his children away he hoped it might be his son Isaac. So some of those who have been? characterized for their stupidity in their boyhood or girlhood have turned out the mightiest benefactors or benefactresses of the human race. These things being so, am I not right in saying that in many cases God only knows what is the most appropriate thing for you to do, and He is the one to ask. And let all parents, and all schools, and all universities, and all colleges recognize this and a large number of those who spent their best years in stumbling about among businesses and occupations, now trying this and now trying that and failing in all, would be able to go ahead with a definite, decided and tremendous purpose, saying, “to this end was I born.- —7

But my subject now mounts into the momentous. Let me say that you are made for usefulness and for heaven. I judge this from the way you are built. You go into a shop where there is only one wheel turning and that by a workman’s foot on a treadle, and you say to yourself: “Here is something good being done, yet on a small scale;” but if you go into a factory covering’" many acres and find thousands of bands pulling on thousands of wheels and shuttles Hying, and the whole scene bewildering with activities, driven by water or steam or electric power, you conclude that the factory was put up to do great work and on a vast scale Now, I look at you, and if I should find that you only had one faculty of the body, only one muscle, only one nerve, if you could see but not hear, or coukl hcar but not see, if you had the use of only one foot or one hand, "and asto’your higher nature, if you had only one mental faculty, and you had memory but no judgment, or judgment but no will, and if you had a soul with only one capacity, I would say not much is expected of you. But stand up, oh, man, and let me look you squarely in the face. Eyes capable of seeing everything. Ears capable of hearing everything. Hands capable of grasping everything. Mind with more wheels than any factory ever turned, more power than ever CoSiss engine ever moved. A soul that will outlive all the universe except heaven, and would outlive heaven if the life of other immortals were a moment short of the eternal. Now, what has the world a right to expect of you? What has God a right to expect of you? What has God a right to demand of you? God is the greatest of economists in the universe, and He makes nothing uselessly, or for what purpose did He build your body, mind and soul as they are built? There are only two beings in the universe who can answer that question. The angels do not know. The schools do not know. Your kindred can not certainly know. God knows, and you ought to know. A factory running at an expense of $500,000 a year; and turning out goods worth seventy cents a year would not be such an incongruity as you, oh man, with such semi-infinite equipment doing nothing, or next to nothing, in the way of usefulness. “What shall I do?” you ask. My brethren, my sisters, do not ask me. Ask God. There’s some path of Christian usefulness open. — It may be arough path, or it may be a smooth path, a long path, or a short path. It may be on a mount of conspicuity, or in a vallev unobserved, but it is a path on which you can start with such faith and such satisfaction and such certaiiity that you' ean cry out in the face of earth and hell and heaven: “to this end was I born?’ Do not wait for extraordinary qualifications. Philip, the Conqueror, gained his greatest victories seated on a mulb, and if you wait for some comparisoned Bucephalus to ride into the conflict, you will never get into the world wide fight at all. Samson slew the Lord’s enemies with the jawbone of the stupidest beast created. Shamgar slew 600 of the Lord’s enemies with an ox goad. Under God, spittle cured the blind man’s eyes in the New Testament story. Take all the faculty you have and say: “O Lord, here is what I have, show me the field and back me up by omninitent power. Anywhere any how, any time for God.” And now I come to the climacteric consideration. As near as I can tell you were built for a happy eternity, all the disasters which have happened to your nature to be overcome by the blood of the Lamb if you will heartily accept that Christiy arrangement. We are all rejoiced at the increase in human longevity. People live, as near as I can observe about ten years longer than they used to. The modern doctors do not bleed their patients on all occasions as did the former doctors. In those times if a man had fever, they bled him, if he had consumption they bled him, if he had the rheumatism they bled him, and if they could not make out exactly what was the matter they bled him. Olden time phlebotomy was death’s coadjudor. All this has changed. From the way I see peoFle skipping about at 80 years of age conclude that life insurance companies will have to change their table of ssks and charge a man no more premium at 70 than they used to do at 60, and no more premium at 50 than when he was 40. By the advancement of medical science and the wider

acquaintance with the laws of health and the fact that people know better how to take care of themselves human life is prolonged. But do you realize what, after all, is the brevity of our earthly state? In times when people jived seven and eight hundred vears the patriarch Jacob said that his years were few. Looking at the Life of the youngest person in this assembly and supposing he lived to be a nonagenarian how short the time and soon gone, while banked up in front of us is an eternity so vast tba? arithmetic has not figures enough to express its length, or breadth, or depth or height. For a happy eternity you were bopn unless yourun yourself against the Divine intentions. If standing in your presence my eye should fall upon the feeblest soul here as that soul will appear when the world lets it up and heaven.entrances it I suprose I would be so overpowered that should drop down as one dead. In the seventeenth century all Europe was threatened with a wave of Asiatic barbarism, and Vienna was especially besieged. The King and his Court had fled, and nothing could save the city from being overwhelmed unless the King of Poland. John Sobieski, to whom they had sent for help, should-wi’h his army come down for their relief, and from every roof and tower the inhabitants of Vienna waited and watched and hoped, until on the morning of September 11 the rising sun threw an. unusual and unparalleled brilliancy. It was the reflection on the swords and shields and helmets of John Sobieski and his army coming down over the hills to the rescue, and that day not only Vienna, but Europe, was saved. And see . you not, oh, ye souls besieged with sin and sorrow, that light breaks in, the swords and the shields and the helmets of divine rescue bathed in the rising sun of heavenly deliverance? Let everything else go rather than let heaven go. What a strange thing it must be to feel one’s self born to an earthly crown, Kut born for a throne on which you may reign after the last monarch of all the earth shall have gone to dust. I invite you to start now for your own coronation, to come in and take the title deeds to your everlasting inheritance. Through an impassioned prayer take heaven and all of its raptures. What a poor farthing is all that this world can offer you compared with a pardon here and life immortal beyond the stars, unless this side, of them there beaplacc large enough and beautiful enough and grand enough for all the ransomed. Wherever it be, in what world, whether near by or far away, in this or some other constellation, hail home of light and love and bless edness! Through the atoning mercy of Christ, may we all get here!

Where Dogs Are Street Cleaners.

Philadelphia Ledger. Next to St. Sophia, we had heard most about the dogs of Constantinople. When we counted 280 dogs in an hour’s drive in Damascus we thought we could see nothing that would surprise us in canine numerals. But Damascus did not begin with-this city, especially in the old part, as in Stamboul. At times they lined the street, making it yellow and furry for two or three rods.. Again, dogs lay stretched, singly, in the middle of the street, asleep, and carriages and foot passengers went out of their way to pass them for hours, rather than trouble to move them. Puppies ran about.ad libitum, and dear little things they were, too. These dogs are not a fine breed. Their hair is coarse and rough, and their bodies thick and heavy. But they have good, mild faces, gentle eyes, and, as for attacking any one, it seems never to enter their minds. Cats, too, are plenty; and often is seen a happy family of dogs, cats and chickens, sharing the street w-ith perfect good nature. The dogs are the street cleaners. At night, when refuse is thrown out from the houses, they have high (eastings, and by morning nothing but what can be easily carried away in baskets or on donkey back is left. They belong to nobody, and would live a happy and care-free life, clid they not somehow get many injuries. The howl of a dog sounds every few minutes even in Pera, and it is not rare to see torn ears, bleeding eyes and scratched and hairless skin.

The Difference in Prayers.

Texas Sittings. “Uncle Samson,” asked Parscn Surplus Eel, did you ever experience any difference in the way your prayers have been answered?” “Weil, sah,.some pra’rs is ansud an’ some isn’t —’pend on w’at you axes fo'. Just arte? the hard winter, ’fore the whitewashin’ season begin, when it was mighty hard scratchin’ fo’ de cullud breddern. I observed dat w’enebber I prays fo’ de Lo’d to send one o’ Judge Payton’s fat ducks fo’ de ole man dar was ho notice took of de partition; but w’qn I pray dat he send the ole man fo’ de duck de matter was ’tended to befo’ sun-up next mawnin’<ded sartin.”

A Maiden’s Dairy

New York Herald. i—3 July 27—Met Baronßluff to-night. A heal Baron! Maybe I will be a Baroness; who knows. July 28—Have lost my diamond brooch. Papa is wild. August 29—Went i to the police court to identify the Baron. Got my brooch again. Theßaron got five years.

Equal to a Proposal.

Texin Siftings. Miss Johnsing Doan squeeze me, Mose; mauiniy is lookin’. Mr. Yallerby Weil, ooan‘ dat show dat I mean business?

DEATH OF BOULANGER

He Committed Suicide on the , Grave of His Mistress. Inglorious End of An Interesting LifeBrief Sketch of His Career, General Ronlanger committed snfeidt on the BOth on the tomb of Madame De Bonnemain, who died recently in Brussels. Madame De Bonnemain has been known as the mistress of the dead general. She accompanied him to England after his flight from France, and early in July last she was dangerously ill in Brussels suffering from consumption. To such an extent did General Boulanger carry his infatuation for Madame Bonnemain that when the French government determined to arrest him ho could not be persuaded to pose as a martyr before the French people by going to jail, preferring to fly with his mistress from France to England, and eventually to Brussels, where they have both met their death. General Boulanger committed suicide about noon. He stood alone by the grave of his mistress for some time, appearing to be deeply affected by sorrowful recollections. An attendant of the General, who had respect fully remained at some distance from Madame De Bonnemain’s tomb, suddenly heard a sharp report in that direction. Running to the spot the attendant found Geneial Boulanger lying dead ujon the ground with a revolver clasped in his right hand. A hasty examination of the body showed that the dead man had placed the weapon to his righ ear and fired the fatal shot The suicide of General Boulanger created an enormous sensation in Paris, Noth!ng clse is talked-of-along the boulevards, in the hotels and cases, in tho clubs and everywhere. The members the Patriotic League are talking of a public funeral for the General and they propose to inter his remains in France. It is believed that such action upon, the part of the league will lead to serious disturbances. Gen. Boulanger was born at Remes in erenter edmflitarv school and at 201 left it with .all his military ambition fully aroused. Ho distinguished himself in the war in Italy a year later, and was not only shot through the body, but was thrice knighted. Two years later he assisted in the conquest of Cochin-China. He was again seriously wounded, this time, with a lance thrust. He was advanced to the rank of Captain, and was placed in charge of a military school. He entered the war of 1870 as a Major, and in four, months was promoted successively to thei ranks of Lieut. Colonel. Colonel j and finally Commander of thej Legion of Honor. Following, this war ho was made a general. It was then that ho threw off all constraint and) gave full and free scope to his aspirations.! Ho unmasked tho politician ready to doi anything to carry out his purpose, and lit a few months let the leaders know that; there had come among them another man whom It would be .necessary to reckon in the future.

As a politician Boulanger was atonco active. His first step was to grasp thq portfolio of war. His rule, arbitrary and[ Iron-clad, broke everything that opposed; him. His former pupils, whom he had studied so assiduously, were made to work; big will,-and he filled every position Df linportance with men whom he knew better, than they did themselves. The mobilization of the armv, his pet sch< me, was suctessfully accomplished, and he held the whole great organization in tho hollow of his hand. If the ministry had not been jverthrown it is hard to say where his imbition would not have led him. The overthrow was made necessary by Boulanger’s own zeal. The Comto de Paris, now head of the Legitimists, invited the ambassadors to the marriage of iifs TtalghteTTpTEe" Duke of Braganza. The Government declared that this was an Insult to the Republic, and that the Comte de Paris, the Due de Chartres, his brotherand thd Due d’Aumale, his uncle, must all leave France. General Boulanger carried out, the order. The ambitious general thus made necessary his own relegation. Two years ago the Deputies, alarmed at the growth of Bolangerism overturned his government, and M. Rouvier formed a cabinet, with Gen. Ferron Minister of War. Several outbreaks of the General's faction follow ed until the government was thoroughly frightened. It exiled Boulanger to tho small provincial town of Clermont Ferrand. Crowds went to the station to see him off. All Paris began to shout "‘Vive Boulanger.” And, in his retreat, the General became almost as Important as Napoleon at Elbe. There were elections in 1887 all over France. In each of them Boulanger’s name began to appear There were 36,000 votes cast for him. He went disguised tq Paris. The ministry deprived 4Win of commission and removed him from thq army. By way of compensation, the department du Nord elected him by 02,00) votes. April 10,1888, he took his seat as a deputy. He fought a duel with Floqueb who wounded him in the neck. He rerigned his seat and contested three departments simultaneously. He was again elected In triumph. The gravity of the situation becoming Intensified, the government voted the expulsion from tho country of the glittering geneial in 1880. He went to England to thosummer of that year. For a'thneh< was on the Isle of Jersey, and kept himself in the public view by an occasions] pronunci amen to. Gradually, however, he faded away until his name was no longer one to conjure with In France.

A Wicked National Waste.

The prairie chicken will follow th< jbuffalo and the Indian and dis ippeai iorever from the face of the earth. The eager sportsman has decreed it, anc the game laws aro of no aya'J. W< have got to be content with beof ami canned oysters.—N. Y. World. TBe toper’s race Is sometimes a gin phiz, and sometimes tie bps a beer muc. At al times ho bus a l 'smiling” aspect.—Munsay’i Weekly.

OTHER NEWS ITEMS.

Warsaw police are raiding the gambling dens. Mr. Carlisle will make three speeches hi Ohio. A scheme is afoot to buy up all the rice mills of the South. A woman named Trndin has been arrested at Pittsburg, charged with burning her baby. Three people, two women and a child* were burned to death in a New York tenement house tire on the sth. A young man of Ft. Wayne claims to have invented a typewriter by which records can be copied in a book. Mrs. Julia R. Suaver, a respectable and well to do English widow, committed snl • cide in Jefferson Park,Chicago,on the4th Frank Hill, a salesman for Caylor & Goidy of Washington, upon being charged with embezzlement, disgorged 1315 and was released. Mark Swafford, of Fayette township, Vigo county, has a silver half-dollar, coined in 1818, which he has carried as a pocket piece for thirty-five years. ~ Charles H. Ritter, the defaulting teller of the First National Bank of Evansville, was sentenced on the sth in the United States Court by Judge Wood, to six years imprisonment. He was taken to Michigan City on the 7th. . The flouring mill at Washington, owned and operated by Messrs. Signor & Co., was destroyed by fire, with all its contents, and Signor's residence also burned. Less 135,000; Insurance $5,500. Incendiaries tried to destroy the property three weeks ago. Luther R. March, the New York lawyer has announced that he renounces the prac ticeof law and will devote the remainder of his life to lecturing in defense of spiritualism. His first engagement was 1» Boston Monday, when he gave his services. Next month he will make a Western tom. The warden of the prison south refi sed to receive Stokes Brown, colored, of Malison, convicted of murder, on oeeount of his blindness, claiming that convicts sent tothat institution must be confined athard labor, and Brown could not be made to work because of his physical condltio> , Until the point can be legally passed upon Brown will remain in the Jeffersonville jail. Several thousand people attended the closing exhibition of the harvest home festival, at Crothersville, which owed its life to the public spirit of President Rider, Allah Swope, Henry Williams, and other wealthy persons. There was a fine exhib-

It of farm products, live stock, and handiwork of all kinds, and ladies vied with the men in seeing that every form of industry was represented. Lucy McClellan, a notorious woman moonshiner, has been captured near Lincoln Court House, W. Va. Miss McClellan is twenty-four years old and an Amazon in strength and courage. She has peddled illicit whisky to thousands of workmen engaged in the construction of 'jhe Norfolk & Western railroad for two years. The Buda Pesth Pesther Lloyd on the sth published a smsational article declaring that the Russian government is making an enormous confcentration of troops on the banks of the Pruth. According to this story a lar;o and formerly deserted tract of land near Pruth is now swarming with Russian soldiers, for whose accommodation capacious huts have been erected. A special dispatch from Cincinnati, O. says: Eighteen steamboats loaded with freight and carrying passengers ar3 aground between Cincinnati and Poinv Pleasant, W. Va., where there is but eighteen inches of water. Teams are crossing tie Ohio at dozens of points. is estimated that the low water is causing a daily loss of SIO,OOO, and farmers with grain to sell are put to serious loss by inability to ship.

The little iQur-vear-oldeonof Robert Kirk, who lives seven miles south, of Vincennes, was almost literally eaten up by hogs on the sth. The mother chanced to hear the screams of her child and rushed to Audit in the hog lot and down on the ground, surrounded by vicious hogs tearingoutlts llfe. She droveoff the fprinne beasts, snatched her boy to her breastand carried him to the house. The child was horribly torn and bruised. Its scilp was torn completely loose, its cheeks were eaten away and it was lacerated and gashed all over its little body from the tusks of the swine. It is in a terrible condi t ion and may not recover, A special from Anderson on the sth says: Judge Ellison a week ago held that the Indiana natural gas pipe line was constitutional in a suit brought against the IndianapolisCqnsume/s Gas Trust Company by Matilda Hanns and oth re. A: - pt;aisers were appointed by the court to assess damages for crossing the lands o' the plaintiffs with a pipeline as provided by law. The appraisers lixed tho amount at $lO a rod, The company refused to pay the. amount and undertook to cross the lands «ith its pipe line contrary to law, Twenty-five men were arrested and fined $25 each for trespassing. While the men were attending court farmers hitched horses to the pipe and pulled it from the trenches, breaking it in several places. Another party of farmers in another section of the county, bledt ont a pipe line through which gas was flowing, with a charge ofdynamite.

John H. Parson, an American, who has for the past two years been engaged In the mining business near Metztillan, inAhe State of Hidalgo, Mexico, arrived at San Antonio, Texas on the.sth. He brings Information of- a bloody Indian outbreak which has for some time been in progress in tho district of Tularnengo, that Statu The trouble is the outgrowth of a dispute between several colonies at Spaniards and Germans and the Indians, the new sett'ers attempting to settle on the land of the natives. The Indians resisted their attempt to evictlhein and much bloodshed has resulted. Mr. Parsons says that a few days before his departure a settlement of whites was was attacked by the Indians and nearly two hundred people massacred. The colonists have appealed to the government for protection and several battalions of troops are on the way to the scene bl the trouble.

SOMEWHAT CURIOUS.

There is only one sodden death among women to every eight among men. There are twice as many large game animals in Maine now as there were ten years ago. A velocity as high as 2,887 feet per second has been attained by a projectile from a rapid-fire gun. Cheapside street, London, is traversed by 13,000 ancLMansion House street by about 26,000 vehicles daily. Harvard College is 225 years old and has graduated 17,000 students. A little more than half of them are living. The cannonading at the battle of Waterloo was heard at the town of Oriel, in the north of France, about 115 miles from the field. The other day General Custer’S father, who is now eighty-four years old and resides in Michigan, went to Detroit and spent the day looking at a panorama of the Little Big Horn. Officer Rollings, of Philadelphia, is said to be the largest policeman In the United Sfates. He is six feet eight inches in height and weighs 340 pounds, A philological statistician calculates that in the year 2000 there will be 1,700,000,000 people who speak English, and that the other European languages will be spoken by only 500,000,0lX) people.

The United States leads the world in the number and extent of its libraries. The public libraries of all Europe put together contain about 21,000,000 volumes; those of this country contain about 50,000,000. There are more women it British India (124,000,000) than there are men, women and children in Great Britain, France and Germany put together, with the population of several minor European States cast in as well. A gold chain was found in a lump of coal that Mrs. S. W. Culp, of Morrisonville, 111., was about to put on a grate fire. The chain weighed eighi pennyweights, and was only hall imbedded in the coal, one end hanging loose. It is known that wasps’ nests often take fire, supposed to be caused by the chemical action of the wax upon the paper material of the nest itself. This may account for many mysterious fires in barns and out houses. A vast banyan tree covering between six and seven acres has been discovered on the tiny Lord Howe island, three hundred miles from Port Macquarie, in Australia. It is surpassed in size only by the greatest of those in India. The Japanese language is said to contain 60,000 words, every one of which requires a different symbol. It is quite impossible for one man to learn the entire language, and a well educated Japanese is familiar with only about 10,000 words. , . , Blankets are loaned to the poor during the winter months, free of cost, by a kind hearted citizen in Brunswick, Germany. They are stamped to prevent them from being sold or pawned, and they are returned at the close of the cold weather. The wealthiest insane asylum in America is said to be the Sheppard asylum in Baltimore. It was endowed in 1857 with $500,000. Since that time the trustees, using its interest alone, have expended SBBO,OOO in buildings and land and still have a capital of $600,000. According to the superintendent of the San Francisco House of Correction the opium habit has been the chief agent in breaking up the lawless gangs of Sah Francisco hoodlums. It so stupefies and enfeebles them that there is no longer any fight in them.

Of the entire human race 500,000,000 are well clothed —that is, they w’ear garments of some kind; 250,000,000 habitually go naked, and 700,000,000 cover only parts of the x>dy; 500,000.000 livein bouses, -700,--000,000 in huts and caves, and 250,000,000 virtually have no shelter. The youngest and favorite daughter of the late Hugh Hastings, the editor, is the wife of an English country gentleman. In her yoqnger days she was engaged to Antonio Nevarro, now the husband of Mary Anderson. Singularly enough, her own husband was at one time supposed to be “Our Mary’s” betrothed. The statistics of the average size of the .families of the various countries of Europe are as follows: In France, 3.03 members; Denmark, 3.61; Hungary, 3.70; Switzerland, 3.94; Austria and Belgium, England, 4.08; Germany, 4.10; Sweden, 4.12; Holland, 4.22; Scotland, 4.46; Italy, 4.56: Spain, 4.65; Russia, 4.83; Ireland. 5!20.

Benjamin F. Johnson on Skates. * i' Owned a pair ’o skates ono'tl—traded For’em—Stropped’em on. andwaded " | Up and down the crick, awaitin’, Tel she’d freeze up tt fer skatin’. Mildest winter irememberl— More like spring than winter weather!— Didn't frost tel ’bout December— Glt up airly, keth a feather Of it, maybe, ’erost the winder— Sunsb'ne swings it like a cinder! Well! I waited! And kep’waitin'l Couldn't sec my money's woth in Them-air skates, and was no skating. Nor no hint o' ice net nothin’! So, one doy—along in airly Spring—l swopped 'em off—and barely Closed the dicker, 'fore the weather Natchurly Jest slipped the racket!— And—crick—tail-race—all- together— Froze so lightest couldn’t eeratoh it? —James Whitcomb Riley in Indlanapo Journal