Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1892 — Page 2

A LITTLE MASQUERADE.

•Übert Parker In the Speaker. “Oh, nothing said, with a sQft r 4Th>aicat smile, as she - toaswl abit of sugar to the cockatoo. “Quite so,” was his replj-, and he carefully gathered in a loose leaf of his cigar.-There after a pause: “And why so? It's a very pretty world, one way and another." “Yes. it’s a pretty world at times. ” At that moment they were both 4he world knowu as the Nindobar Plains, and it was handsome to the eye. As far as could be seen was a carpet of Cowers under a soft sunset. The homestead by which they sat was in a wilderness of blossoms. To the left was a high, rose colored hill, solemn and mysterious; to the right —far off—a forest of gum trees, pink and purple against the horizon. At their feet, beyond the veranda, was a garden joyously brilliant, and and forth. The two looked out for a iong time, then, as if by a mutual impulse, suddenly tinned their eyes on each other. They smiled, and somehow that smile was not delightful to see. The girl said presently: “It is all on the surface.” ' —•=== —= —= — “You mean that the beautiful birds have dreadful voices; that the flowers are sceutlcss; that the leaves no shade, that where that beautiful carpet of blossoms is there was a blazing quartz plain six months agg/ and that there’s likely to be the same again—that; in brief, it’s pretty, but hollow.” He madeu slight, fantastic gesture, as though mocking himself for so long a speech, and added: “finally. I didn’t prepare this little ■oration. ” zrrr'--——"-- • She nodded, and then said: “Oh. it's not so hollow—you wouldn't call it that exactly—but unsatisfactory.” “You have lost your illusions, Miss Asb forth.” i “And before that occurred you had lost yours. Mr. Tom Sherman.” “Do I betray it, then?” He laughed not at all bitterly, yet not with singular cheerfulness; “Aud do 3’ou think, then, that you are possessed of such acuteness. aud. that paused, elevated her eyebrows a little coldly, and let the cockato bite her finger. “I did not mean to be egotistical, believe me. The fact is I live my life alone, aud I never hear any remarks , upon myself. I was interested for ' the moment in knowing something i of how I appeared to others. You I and I have been tolerably candid I with each other since we met, for the , firot time, three day § ago; I know . you would not hesitate to say what was in your iniud, and I ask" out of i honest curiosity. One fancies one] hides one’s self, and yet—you see!” “You are forgiven, of course. Do you find it pleasant, then, to be can . did and free with some one?” I ... “Why with me?” She looked Elm: frankly'iu the eyes. I “Well, to be more candid. You n«d I know the world very well, I ; l>» ey. You were educated in Europe, • traveled, enjoyed and suffered’ (The girl did not even blink, but went on looking at him steadily.) “We have both had our hour with the world: have learned many sides •of the game. We haven't come out ■of it without sears of one kind or an- ; other. Knowledge of the kind is e.x- I pensive." “You wanted so sav alt ttrat to metlieffirst evening we met, did'nt ybn?”~ There was a smile of gentle amusement on her face. “I did. From the moment I saw r you I knew that we could sav many things to each other ‘without preliminaries.’ And to be able to do that is a great deal.” '“And it is a relief to say things, isn't it?” “It is better than writing them, though that is pleasant, after its kind.” “1 have never tried writing—as we talk. There's a good deal of vanity at the bottom ot it, though, I believe; " “Of course. But vanity is a kind of virtue, too.” He leaned over toward her, dropping his arms on his knees ant]! holding her look. “I am very glad that I met you. I intended bnlv staving here over night, but-”" “But I interested you in a way—you see. l am Vain enough to think that,. Well, yAu a'so interested me, and I urged m v aunt to press you to ata3'. You did It has been very pleasant, and when you go it will be very humdrum again; our conversation mustering, rounding up, oultoelcs and rabbits. Which is inter -esting in a wa3', but not for long at a time.” He did not stir, but went on looking at her. “Yes, I believe it has been pleasant for you, else it had not been so pleasant for me. Honestly, I don’t believe I shall ever get you out of my mind,” “That is either slightly rude or badly expressed,” she said. “Do you •wish, then, to get me out of vour .mind?” "No, no—you are very keen. I wish to remember you always. Bui what l felt at the moment was this. - There are memories which are always passive and delightful. We have no wish to live the scenes bf which they ■are over again; the reflection is enough. There are others which ■causo us to wish the scenes back again, with a kind of hunger, and yet they can’t or won t come back. I wondered o| what class this memory would be," The girl flushed ever so slightly, And her fingers clasped a little uerv■oudly, but she was calm. Her voice ■wsmK ybfld, Jittle wSdJfullfaariag,” “to Inb: . • • -

say that tome. To a school girl it might mean so much; to me-!" She shook her head at him as if ctompassiouatelv. He was not In the least piqued. “I was absolutely honest in that. I said nothing but what I felt—l would give very much to feel confident one wa3 r or the other—forgive me for what seems incredible egotism. If I were five years younger I should have said instantly that the memory would have been one—” “ r which would disturb you. make you restless, cause you to neglect your work, fill you with regret; and yet all too late—isn't that it?” “You read me accurately. But wh\' touch your tones with satire?” “I believe I read 3’ou better ,than you read me. 1 didn’t mean to be 'satirical.' Don’t you know that what often seems irony directed towards j others is in reality dealt out to ourselves. Such 4rony as was in my voice was for myself.” “And why for yourself?’.’ he asked qniet!y T -Ins"eves full of interest. He was cutting the end of a fresh cigar, “Was jt” (he was about to strike a match, but paused suddenly) “because you had thought the same thing?” . She looked for a moment as though she would read him through and through; as though, in spite oTatt their candor, there was some linger - ing uncertainty as to his perfect straight or wardness; then, as if satisfied! she said at last, “Yes, but with a difference. I have no doubt which memory it will be. You will not wish tto be again on the p ains of Nindobar.” “And you,” he said musingly, ‘ c 3’ou will not wish me here?” There was' no vanity in the question. He .was wandering how little we shall feel to-movro.v from what we feel to-day. Besides, lie knew that a wise woman is wiser than a wise matt. “I really don’t think I shall care particularly." Probably, if we met again here, there would be some jar to our comradeship—l may call it that. I suppose?” “Which is equivalent to saying that good-lye in most cases, and always iu cases such as ours, is a little tragical, because we can never meet quite the same again.” She bowed her head, but did not reply. Presently she glanced up at him kindly: “What would 3 r ongive to have the past back before you were disillusionized? Before you had trouble?” “I do not want it back. lam not really disillusionized. I think that we should not take our own personal experience and make it a law unto the world. I believe in the world in spite—of trouble. You might have said trouble with a woman —I should not have minded.” He' was smoking now, and the clouds twisted about his face so that only his eyes looked through earnestly. “A woman always makes laws from her personal experience—She has not the faculty of generalization I fancy that’s the word to use.” Tins was her reply. She rose now with a little shaking | motion, one hand at her belt, and j rested a shoulder against a pillar of j the verandah. He rose also at once, I and said, touching her hand respectfully with his finger tips; “We may be sorry one day that we did not believe in ourselves more.” “Oh, no,” she said, turning and j smiling at him,., “I think not. ! You will be in England j “hard at hard'-nl. lMlfgri our interests will lie far apart. I am certain about it all. We might have been what my cousin calls ‘trusty pals’—no more, “I wish to God I felt sure of that, Nellie Ashforth.” She held out her hand to him. “I believe you aYe honest in this. I expect both of us have played hide-and-seek with sentiment in our time: but

it would be useless for us to masquerade with each other; we are of the world, very worldly.” “Quite useless—here comes your cousiu! Now for the actor's game. I hope I don’t look as disturbed as 1 feel.” “You look perfectly cool, and I know I do. What an art this living is! That cousiu of mine comes about the boar hunt to-morrow. lean see it in his eye.” “Shall you join us?" “Of course. I can handle a ride as well as any of you. Besides, it is your last day here." “Who can tell what to-morrow may bring forth?” he said. She smiled strangely, and then greeted her cousin. The next day the boar-hunt occurred. They rode severat miles to a little lake and a scrub of brigolow, and dismounting, soon had exciting sport. Miss Ashforth was a capital shot, and was, without loss of any womanliness, a thorough sportsmau. To day, however, there was something on her mind, and she was not as alert and successful as usual I Sherman kept with her as much us possible—the more so because he saw that her cousins, believing she was quite well able to take care of her- ; self, allowed her to go her own resources, Presently, however, following an animal, he left her a short distance behind. On the edge of a little billabong she camo upon a truculent looking boar. It turned on her, but she fired and’it fell. Seeing another ahead she pushed on quickly to secure it, too. As shfi went she half cocked her rifle. Had her mind been absolutely intent on the sport, slid, had full-cocked it. All at once she heard the thud of feet her, She turned swiftly and saw the boar she had shot bearing ilptm her. its long yellow tusks standing up like daggers. A sweep iog thrust from oue of them loaves titUe chenap, of lifer— • - -*<?— - \ She dropped upon a knee, swung

her rifle lo her shoulder and nulled the trigger. The rifle would not go off. For an instant she did not Understand what was the trouble. But = with singuiarpresenec of mind, she never lowered her rifle or took her eve from the beast, but remained unmovable. It was all the matter of seconds. Evidently cowed, the animal, when within a few feet of her, swerved to the right, then made as though to come down on her again. But meanwhile she had discovered her mistake and cocked her rifle. She swiftly trained it on the i>oar and fired. It was hit but, did not fall; and came on. Then another shot rang out from behind her, and the boar fell so near her that its tusk caught her dress. Tom Sherman had saved her. She was ver3 r white when she faced him. She could not speak. That 'night she spoke, very greatfully and tenderly. To something that he said gently to her then about a memory, she replied: “Tell trie now as candidly as if to your own soul, did you feel at the critical moment that life would be horrible and empty without me?” “I thought only of saving you,” he said. “Then I was quite right; you will never have any regret," she said. ‘ T wonder,” Tie added sorrowfully. But the girl was sure. The regret was hers: though he never knew that. It Is a lonely life on the dry plains of Nindobar.

A Nation of Tea-Drinkers.

Julian Ralph, in Harper's Weekly. What an English home would be without tea I cannot imagine. What England itself would be Without that beverage it is difficult to conceive. It is no exaggeration to say that one might as well try to fancy New York city without a bar-room. They drink enough liduor in England, heaven knows —enough to float our navy. But the liquor drinking is incidental, while tea drinking is apparently essential to the natioual life. Where we see advertisements of patent medicines in America, they see advertisements of tea. “O & O Tea,” “Tiptop Tea," “Wonderful Tea,” “Ceylon Tea”—these words stare at the British from every dead-wall, o® every ’bus, in every newspaper. And no foreigner can escape the actual substance dr fluid any more than the native can avoid the advertisements. You have tea for breakfast, tea for luncheon, tea at late supper. You only miss it at dinner, but meanwhile you have had it at 5 o’clock. If you call on your banker in his office, on your friend in his home, on your fellow-lodger in your hotel, he rings a bell and tea is brought in with thin slices of buttered bread, or, if ladies are present, with tarts. Why, the editor of one of the principal newspapers in England told rue that every man jack in, his establish-ment-clerks, reporters, publishers aud editors —has tea at 5 o’clock every day as sure as that hour arrives. “And it is a most excellent practice,” said he, sipping from his own cup in his delightful home, “for it brings all the people together as nothing else could do, and we find out from one another just what each one has been doing or is going to do during the day'.” Tea! tea! tea! Was ever a Nation so enslaved? TVhatever they do, wherever they go, they have their tea. There is no commodity or habit in Amertca to liken to that in EnI gland Tke.y„canuQL.ga t t.„..wit.liQ.ti,t.iV. visit without it, assemble at home without it, picnic without; it. or attend to business without it. And such tea! They say we Amercans do not know what tea is. If they know we certainly do not. for never have I tasted such bitter, strong, nerve murdering, sleep dispelling, drug like tea. I had to weaken it at least one-h.ilf, and then T-feund it aromatic and pleasant — i that is to say', as nearly pleasant as | that sick room decoction ever can be ; to a masculine, coffee drinking American.

VENTIAN LIFE.

I The Poetical City Described as the Most Beautiful of Tombs. Venetian life, in the large o’d sense, has long since come to an end, and the esential present character of the most melancholy of cities resides simply in its being the most beautiful of tornbs, writes Henry James in Scribner. Nowhere else has the past been laid to rest with such tenderness, such a sadness of resignation and remembrance. Nowhere else is the present so alien, so discontinuous, so like a crowd in a cemetery without garlands for the graves. It has no flowers in Us hands, but as a compensation, perhaps—and the thing is doubtless more to the point—it has money aud little red books. The everlasting shuffle in the piazza of these irresponsible visitors is contemporary Venetian life. Everything elso is only a reverberation of that. DThe vast mausoleum has a turnstile a,t the door, and a functionary in a shabby uniform lets you in, as per tariff, to see how dead it is. Erom this constation, this cold curiosity, proceed all the industry, the prosperity, the vitality of the place. The shopkeepers and gondoliers, the beggars and the models, depend upon it for a living; they are thecustodiuns and the ushers of the great museum—they aro even themselves to a certain extent the objects of exhibition. The present tortune of Venice, the lamentable difference, is most eas'd} measured there, end that is wfyy, in the effort to resist our pessimism, wc must turn away both from the purchasers and from the venders of ricordi.

EATS LEAVE THE SHIP.

The Sailor’s SnpemiMoa Strangely , Veritted. Some years ago I formed one of the crew of a ship called the Wooljammer, says a writer in the London Globe, fftie was- fcn iron clipper, owued by a well known London firm. We were lying in Port Lyttelton, New alongside the breakwater, having just completed taking in a cargo of wool, and were goiug to sail ou the following morning for home. I was on anchor watch from 10 to 11. It was a beautiful, bright, moonlight night, and I was sitting ou the hencoop at the break of the poop, buried in thought, when I was rous ed ’from my reverie by hearing the clocks in the town striking the hour. I went forward to call the man who was to relieve me, but before I reached the forecastle I determined to do his watch for him, as I was not a bit sleepy and felt loath to turn into a stuffy berth. So I made uprriy mind to do him a good turn and enjoy another hour of quiet contemplation. The harbor looked charming in the moonlight, and the long range of hills that divides Lyttelton from Christ Church stood out in somber magnificence against the starlit sky. Across the bay I could hear the faint clankiugof the windlass pants of some little coasting craft that was getting -under way*—l returned to my seat on the heucoop and began once more to build airy castles. As I gazed along the deck of our magnificent ship, now lying so peacefully at her moorings,l thought how, probably, in a month’s time this huge monster would be tossed about as a mere plaything in the mighty sea off Cape Horn. One of tlio stevedores to!d us that she was carrying eTeven more bales of wool this passage than on her first voyage live years before; he also said that he believed that, if they had tried to screw another bale in, it would have burst her sides out. It was not altogether pleasant to think that a ship which was loaded to such an extent would have to battle with a Cape Horn sea ras any heavy gale might cause her to strain and start a bolt. THEY JlAffiK FOR THE SIIORE. Just then I heard the short, sharp squeak of a rat, and looking down I saw several running along the main deck. They were coming out of the boid by the after hatch, which was off. To ray surprise I saw that they were going ashore, using the breast hawser as a gangway between the ship and the quay, and in a few moments I found they were not coming in twos and threes, but by cozens; They crowded in a thick line from the hatchway, and all followed the original leaders to the shore till it seemed evident that not one would be left beliiud. I was not particularly superstitious, but I bad the dread that all sailors have of the ship the rats leave, and I felt it to be a bad omen. 1 called a couple of hands to come and see the sight. For a good half hour we watched these creatures diseinbarkiug, then one of the men remarked as he looked at the swarming jetty: “Pickle mo pink if I’m going to sail in this hooker now, an' them rats have gone ashore.” We weut forward and woke the rest of the men up in order that they , might see for themselves. “Now,” saidaseaman namcdJDick... •“-who-s- goi aAhoee-aau...»wil'o' , ”ai n't,? Otis, here’s off,” at the same time has til}' making up a bund’.o of his clothes. “Here’s another,” said I, at the sare time packing a few necessaries. The rest of the men did not seem lo like the idea of having to leave their clothes behind and determined to remain by her and chance their luck. “Well, so lon’, chaps; if you will be drowned, why you must,” and Dick and I departed for the shore. On getting in town we had to take great care to avoid the police, as our bundles would have attracted attention at that time of night, and had we been run in we would have been sent aboard the first thing in the morning. By avoiding the principal streets we were enabled to get ip to the range of hills, where wo found a cozv little hollow, in which we secreted ourselves. When daylight came we found we had a good view of the harbor, and at an early hour wc saw a tug come alongside our ship, and by 10 o’clock she was towing down toward the heads. As soon as she was well out to sea we returned to Lyttelton, and as there was a dearth of seamen we had no diflieulty in getting another ship. Two days alter we were towed jut, homeward bound. A SHIP IN DISTRESS. We made a very good passage until we approached the latitude of the Horn, when the breezes began to get stronger and heavy swells showed that gales were about. It was very cold, and we spent most of our time in making sword mats for ehafing gear. This is tho usual work given to sailors when rounding the Horn, ns it helps to keep up the circulation. We expected if the breeze held good to be off tho Horn on the following night, but during the afternoon the glass began to fall and it came on to blow from the southwest. It blew strong all that night and by daylight we were running before a heavy gale under close reefed top sails. I was thankful that I was not aboard my old ship in this gale, as I felt convinced that with all the extra bales of wool which had been jammed into her she could not stand much of a dressing. About 2 o’clock on that afternoon a sail was reported on our weather bow. We overhauled her band ever list. We could sec her rise on the top ot a huge billow apd diva into the hollow, writhing li|o> a live

t ' ~ ■ creature in agony, the water pouring from her scuppers and ports gach time a sea. I The captain aud mate were looking lo,” said the° skipper, “she’s in disAress. She’s got her ensign upside down. I aon’t see how we can help her With this sea running. There, she’s going to signal. Up goes her number.” With some difficulty we made it out, and I was horrified to find that it was my old vessel-the Wool jammer. She signalled to us: “Am leaking; can you stand by?” We made an attempt to bring our vessal up into the wind, but in so doing nearly got swamped. We made several attempts to get near, but it was utterly impossible to launch a boat, and at last we reluctantly' had to abandon her to her fate. As the gathering gloom of night came on she faded from our view, aud with a sick feeling at my heart I knew that all my old ship - rfiates were doomed before morniug to a watery grave. We arrived home in due time and reported having passed the Wooljammer flying signals of distress. It is now more than fifteen 3 r ears ago and no tidings of her uavo ever come to hand. So she has, no doubt, gone to join that vast fleet of vessels which founder every ' year owing to the greed and avarice of their owners. My shipmate, Dick, and I, have ever since been thankful that we were not above taking the unspoken advice of the rats who gave us notice to quit. THE HABITS OF BIRDS. Parasites Sometimes Have Neighbor* □ ing Farms on the Same Bird. The onithological section met iu the city of Indianapolis at the NewDenison. The meeting was rather informal, no papers-having been prepared, and consisted in telling stories, and discussing their truth and veracity. Prof. Herbert Gsborneof Ames, la . gave an interesting talk on “Bird Parasites.” The ma,oriety of them do not feed on the blood of the bird, but on feathers and loose scales. They seem to be very close friends, and love and Fie among the feathers of the bird. Sometimes three or four species are found, each species inhabiting a different place having farmed out the bird, as it were. Prof. J. B. Steere of Ann Arbor, Mich., then gave an interest description of the uregapodius and hornbill, two birds inhabiting tho Philipine islands. The uregapodius or “big-foot” makes a nest by scraping together a pile of sticks, leaves and sand, until it has made a heap oi material three feet high and -twelve to fourteen feet in diameter. It then burrows into the bean from the side, lays a single egg and fills up the hole. The bird then returns to the interior of the forest. The egg hatches by the heat of the decaying vegetation and the young bird wiggles itself to the surface. It is an orphan for it never knows a mother, aud ha,s to ‘hump’for itself, to get a living. Nature has provided for the loss of the parent by giving it a strong pair of wings. It can Hy before it is a day old and in a week is fully able to care for itself. —The ran tore bird is about the size and shapo of a guiuea, but has exceptionally large feet; Jlenee the name. Tho natives go to the nests for eggs, which they prize very highly. The birds lay one egg every two weeks tho year round, and sev-„Gual--bi.vd&—often— nests. The nests exist for years, and hence the first native to stake the claim has a valuable find. The hornbill is another interesting bird. It is about three feet in length and weighs about ten pounds. There are two smaller species than the one described. The tail feathers are buff colored and tho rest of the body is brown. Their peculiarity is their enormous bill, which is six to eight inches in length. The natives say the bird has no brains, they having dug into the horny part of tho head and missed the occipital region, which is further back. They nest in the hollow of a tree and lav very few eggs. When the period of incubation begins the male bird carries mud and fills up the opening in the tree except a place large enough for the prisoner to protrude her bill and receive the food which her mate carries to her. While in confinement the feathers all come out and are renewed about the time the young begin to hatch. When the young are ready to fly the male bird removes the mud from the opening and liberates the prisoners. Knew It Was a Big Tooth. Leutsto.i Evening Journal. A man prominent in these two cities has a bisto; y. Some years ago he suffered with the toothache, lie suffered so much that at last he determined to havo the tooth pulled, and he did. But the pain of it was so great that it caused him to resolve that never again would he have a tooth pulled. He kept this resolve for four years. Tho ither day he had the toothache, and suffered so much that some of his friends got him to have the tooth pulled. He went to a dentist whom he well knew, who had joked him some about his resolvo to stay dear of dentists. He took gas and woke up with tooth gone. lie hod paid tho deutist and got on his wraps, and was going through tho door, when he happened to think of the tooth. “Say, I’d like to look at that tooth," he said. “Well, now, I’d been thinking of that, and I washed tho blood off it. Hero it is.” Tho dentist had preserved for years'an ancient horse’s tboth as a curiosity, and it was this <that he took from a drawer and showed the Lewiston mail. “1 knqw that it was at large as that” said the sufferer with a satisfied look. The tooth was an inch across ou top and very long.

POSTAL SERVICE.

Pastmaster-GeseralWaaaamak= er's Report. ~ Operation* of the Department and What li Needed to Bring It Cp to j—- ; > HU Ideal, -/ -t— ■ ■■-■■"■ The Postmaster-GeneTal’s annual report to the President was made public on the sth. At the beginning Mr. Wannamaker mcantions the chief devclopemeuta of the year as follows: Five million dollars added to the gross revenue, the Solicit reduepd nearly 11,000,000; money order offices increased twothirds, or from 10,070 to 16,689; eighty-two cities supplied with free delivery; 2,700 new offices established, 263 offices advanced to Presidential grade; 16,760,000 miles of additional service; 1,598 new mail routes of new mail service established, embracing 8, 0) miles of new service; Ocean mail servico exiended, and six pneumatic tuba, services introduced. It appears that in theJast four years 5,( 51 new mail routes have been established, traversing 29,660 miles that tho number of postodices has grown by over 8,6t.0; the number of money order offices over 8,200, aud the number of free delivery oltices has almost doubled The report discussed at length the foreign mail servico, tho CO per cent., increase iu money order offices, tho 50 per cent, increase in free delivery offices and various other advances that have been made. Oil theffree delivery tho Postmaster-General says; "Theexperiments have related to villages, but it lias been a daily service and it has cleared a pro lit. It is easy enough, therefore, to say that the free delivery should bo extended further and further; and it ought to be done whether it pays a profit to the department or not. Pboffeve fully that great advances could — ho made in tho direction of country free delivery by an evolution of the star-route service, and wo would see free delivery to” persons living along the highways traversed bjvho star-route contractors with litth) if any increased cost to the department in a very few years.” J In tho matter of the collection of mail from letterboxes at house doors, Mr. W unnaiuaker says; "In Washington City, where the test of one of thoso boxos was made fora mouth, an hour or more per day was saved to tho carrier, and in st. Louis, where tho test of another one of theso boxes was purposoly made as hard as possible, it was found that there was actually no loss of timo. and the postmastersof St. Louis and Washington promptly and unqualifiedly declared that the collection of mail from houses could he undertaken by tho present carrier forces. The work of introducing the house letter box The report closes with the following: "My ideal for the , nnrieati postal service is a system modoled upon a district plan, with fewer offices.and those grouped around central offices and under thorough supervision. B.y this moans at. least twenty thousand officos can bo abandoned that produce nothing to the department. In thojilaceof every abolished non-inonoy-order and non-registor office might bu put an automatic stamp selling much'no and a letter box to receive mail. With tho money saved should be instituted a system of colleetffin and delivery by mounted carriers, bicycles and star route and messenger contractors, and gradually spread the free delivery all over the country. Tho classes of postago should be reduced to Three, and the sale of postage to the world over to one cent Tor each half ounce, for ThfT "average weight of a loiter is now three-o ght.hs of an ounce. I would indemnify to the extent of $lO for every lost registered letter. “The organization of the department should bn permanent,, except In the cases of tho Postmaster General and the fourth assistant, and I would add three new offices-—a Deputy Postmaster General to lie stationed at New York 7 a deputy Postmaster General to lie stationed at, San Francisco, and a controller to be stationed at tho department in Washington. All postmasters, presidential and onrth class, and all employes in all branches of tho department should have a specific term of four vears, on good behavior, and thoir reappointment, should bo subject, to the controller of the department,, whoso.judgment, should he based on records. I would unify the work, hold It up by a strong controlling hand, reduce tho hours of almost all eunalize and advance the pay. ina+ie tho fifomofions in every branch for merit alone, and retire old or disahlod . jileKks^,oai'.liaps* provided bv an annual payment of onehalf of I per cent, out of each month’s -alary.— ' , "Postal telegraph and telephono service. postal savingsdeposilories..phmunatic tubes or some electrical dovico betwoon .■itv substations and main offices, ferrios. raili'oad stations and central offices in all large cities should he employed without delav. The erection of immense costly huildings for postoffices ought' t,o be stopped, and tho department, ought to he allowed to expend a flxel stun of from sl,<!oo,<X)o to $5,000 039 each year in the erection of buildings upon a lixed plan, such as Postmaster-General Vilas recommended. I would grant largor discretion to the head of the department to experiment witli postal inventions and tlx stated periods in the order of business of tho House and Senate postolfieo committees to call upon tho PoJtmastor-Goneral for Information and censuro alike, at which time too, he could have an opportunity. within right, limitation, to prosent postal snblects. It would modify the system of tines and deductions upon railroads, and establish a system of compensation based upon speed—twenty, thirty forty, fifty, sixty mile nit hour rates. By ♦ Ids means railroad compensation would pot, cost any more, and we should soon be running mall trains between New York* and Chicago In fifteen or sixteen hours, and hot ween New York and Boston In four hours. Mall trains may movo faster than anv other trains. The question or pay is all that is to bo considoroi.”

A DECEMBER TORNADO.

One I.lfe I, nut and Several Fcrionx lfalolly Injured by > Storm In Texet. Reports of a destructive tornado have been received from Nacogdoches county, Toxas, Tuesday afternoon, about 3 o'clock a terriblo wind swept around Egg Nogg valley, which Is two miles from Nacogdoches. The wind blew with terrible velocity, sweeping everything bgforo It. Huge trees were blown about as so many matches. Houses, barns and fences were prostrated or blown coiuplotoly away. So far as hoard from only one life has been lost, that of Frank Purlin. It Is feared that moro fatalities and casualties will bo reported. A relief party has formed at Nacogdoches to visit the stricken section. A dispatch from Atlanta says thatabont 4 o’clock In the afternoon a disastrous storm occurred east of there, sweeping away farm houses and out buildings, and leaving death and general destruction to Its path. The residence of Samuel McAdams was destroyed and he and three children fatally hurt Ono child wot found tbroo hundred yards away, in a dying condition. Charles Lesev’S gin house, with all its contents, was destroyed. The bouse of Wes Dawson. colored, was demo* Ished, and several children fatally la* Jared. ' T"