Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1879 — Page 1

Tlx© Stsurxd.sixdbeuably mepublicav. —Published Every Saturday,— —BTMERVIN O. Cl SB EL. ■T £ Zt 3uC s : One copy, one Year ** ** three month*— " Ornc*:—ln| Leopold’* Stone Building, up stair*, rear room. .

THE QIRL GRADUATES. The following poem by Elisabeth Btuart pltelpe was reed to the graduating claae at Abbot Academy, In Andover, Immediately after the preeentation of diploma*:! ■ a i,» glad girls' face*, linabed and fair! How ‘ shall lain* for yet . ' K<»r the grave picture of a sphinx U all that 1 can see. Vuin is the driving of the sand, and vain ilie rears **trive with her, but she holds the lion In her heart, H i filed or lostered, patient still, the pnrpoae clings; , Flying or folded, strong as stone, she wears the eagle's wings. } K'lstwanl she looks; against the sky the eternal morning lie*; Hi lent or pleading, veiled or, free, she lifts the woman’s eyes. . , , Oh! grave girls'face*, listening kind. Glad will l *lng for ye, j ... While the proud figure of the sphinx is an that 1 cap see. *

IN A LEATHER BAG.

“4 will not wait auotlier day,” said Miss Norfolk-Btanley—a stout, middlelii'isl lady, with a rubicund countenance, a juvenile straw hat perched on the bridge of her nose, and many onyx Is'dds wound ai»out her throat. responded her little dog Bijou. V [ Dick, presumptive heir of the la3yv~h«4 failed to meet her at Turin, as agreed7*HiJ she had been forced to wait twenty-four hours without result. ‘ Bbe was deeply incensed, as I*fame a British spinster with a neat |Mi»perty in Derbyshire, and funds in Turkish and Indian loans?" The bag was produced by the maid. FI was a large bag of black leather. Bijou eyed it apprehensively, yet with resignation. The tiny terrier, with eyes like shining beads, an inquisitive nose, and black body, with a patch of soft velvet brown on breast and paws, jumped into the outside pocket of this traveling mansion, «*d submitted to having the strap carefully adjusted over his prison,in such a manner as allowed a breathing space. Biiou was smuggled on board trains: the maid was not trusted with her bag in her third class seat, and it was a point of economy with his mistress not to i>ay for a dog’s ticket in her own first-class carriage. Miss Norfolk-Stanley took the bag herself, thus exciting the interest of keen-eyed birds of prey hovering about.in scent of jewel cases and bags carried by the English lady traytk r. At frontiers the pet was popped under his mistress’ mantle, while the maid took the bag to the Custom House nlliuer for inspection, then the inmate was successfully restored. Bijou remained as silent as a mouse in the jacket for hours, and resisted the most tempting inducements to bark at startling noises. He knew full well that when the enemy had deserted the field his mistress would take him out of the db mal captivity. Bijou’s fur stood on end, at the approach of a, guard, by inti net. j « Miss Norfolk-Btanley and her maid appeared on the platform of the Turin depot at 9 o’clock in the morning. Nephew Dick would find the birds down when he saw lit to grace the Piedmontese capital with his presence. Bijou was invisible to the most penetrating eye, curled up in the bag. "Give me a ladies’carriage,and alone if possible,’’ said Miss Norfolk-Stanley to a smiling official, with a Jiersuasive exchange of francs from palni to palm. The smiling official bowed, and soon the lady was installed in a vacant carriage. - “Yop shall come out, |**t, if we are left alone,” she whispered, unfastening the strap over the picket of the bag as it rested on her knee. Bijou thrust out his little black head, reconnuitered the premises, and discreetly withdrew from sight again. 'Hie Turin depot is one of the most amusing fields of observation in Europe. How- Charles Lamb, the gentle philosopher, fond of a London crowd, would have enjoyed it! The British lion monopolizes the field, as a rule, ami presents here his most eccentric national aspect. He comes from Nice and Mentone, via Genoa, stiff in gait, with dyed whiskers and haughty mein, followed by wife and troops of daughters. He conies from India, via Brindisi, tall and lean as a cane, in Oriental cap and belted tunic, like a very large school-boy, accompanied by a sickly and querulous helpmate, whose aspect suggests loss of health and chidren on the borders of the jungle. Everywhere is clamor, confusion, panic or baste; piles of wraps, still odorous of long sea-voyages, trip the unwary liedestrian. A negress with a blue silk capon the back of her head, and large earrings, drops a pile of cushions, and pauses to replace them in a scarlet rug, with good-humored laughter. An anxious mother escorts her darling boy, who is collapsed over the shoulder of a ’ panting facchino, and demands widely her coupe, engaged for Paris. An Embassador of Morocco, in a crimson gown and white turban,, passes with dignified repose of manner, surrounded by ids suite, enveloped in showy burnouses, each wearing yellow slippers. A group of young soldiers lean on their muskets, and criticise the throng; porters skurry along, and guards gesticulate: but the quick, mocking Italian eye has ample leisure to scan the laughing negress with her gorgeous w rape, the tali old gentlemen, the toddling old ladies round as balls, the Embassador in his turban.

Miss Norfolk-v Stanley gazed out ou he hurrying throng with that selfish c<»mplaceney peculiar to the traveler who has already secured a good seat in a (,’ontiuental railway carriage. She held an old-fashioned* theory that, deprived of the escort of nephew Dick, a ladies’ carriage was the safest place for herself. That she was alone in this opinion was speedily revealed by the act of every other woman in tlic crowd bestowing her person in the ijoiiveyances adjacent, rather than submit to the awful possibility of a troop of children for hours. Bijou’s mistress was an old traveler; Expert - rience had made her timid and suspicions. She read all the robberies in English and. foreign newspapers, and looked dubiously at mankind of the tourist species. Who were these men? Why dia they observe tier? A ladies’ . i-aniage for her, if you please, and not one where each man in the corner may prove an assassin and a thief if a favorable opportunity offers. 6he had learned the words ‘‘Help!” and “Thieves!” In six languages for emergencies. Two ladies paused at the door of her carriage. The smiling official, in remembrance of Mias Norfolk-Stanley’s bribe, resisted their efforts to enter,

THE RENSSELAER STANDARD.

VOL I-

and led them elsewhere. They were both women of medium height, in long water-proof cloaks, their head enveloped in. blue veils, e° n ' cealed their feces. Miss Norfolk-Btan-ley saw a long, yellow hand, with thin fingers peculiarly talon-like, stretched forth to turn the handleof her carriage door. The hand belonged to the first woman, and she experienced a strange sense of relief when it was again withdrawn, and the owner passed on. Why? Because Bijou could caper about at liberty if she retained the carriage ulone. Bhe assured herself this was the sole reason for dreading the yellow hand, and the shiver which crept over her at the sight of it. Tills danger surmounted, there remained one more to be overcome before Bijou and his mistress could breathe freely. The surly guard jumped oh the steps, demanding tickets, lhe surly gua rd gate. And received noquarter. His expression of countenance was saturnine, his gray mustache curled upward in a truly savage manner, and his cap was pressed down over a deeply-wrinkled forehead. He was always in a hurry and his life was rendered bunion some by the questions of nervous traveleis. fte eyed Miss Nor-folk-Stanley sharply—sole occupant of the ladies’ carriage, sitting with a leather bag carefully held upright on her knee. “You have no dog?” demanded the surly guard, peering about on the floor suspiciously. “Certainly not,”, said Miss NorfoikStanley, blushing at the fib which she uttered in alarm for her pet. Then the surly guard banged the door, departed, and the train actually started at last. Bijou skipped out of his prison, executed a wild but barkless dance over the seats, stood on his hind legs with great apparent enjoyment, ate a biscuit, and was refreshed with water from the cup of his own tiny traveling flask. I - * - The train wended its way toward the Alps; one by one snow peaks detached themselves from the mountain rampart dividing France and Italy, and stood o,ut boldly against the blue sky; the atmosphere grew keen. Down in the valley weather-beatefa little hamlets were huddled together iu a cluster of st9-:p roofs; the river foamed in silvery ripples,, the peasants worked in the blooming fields. Within the railway carriage Miss Norfolk-Stanley indulged in her own meditations, and Bijou capered about at pleasure. The lady made-her plans with slightly compressed lips. She would go to Paris, and thence direct to London. Nephew' Dick might well look to kimseilf! The train paused. Hi, Bijou! Miss Norfolk-Stanley had scarcely time to restore her pet to the bag pocket, w hen the opposite door flew open, and the surly guard thrust in his head. Her heart failed her. If the surly guard had seen Bijou, he had the right to carry the dog off in triumph tothe baggage van, »nd impose on herself the ignominv of a fine. Instead, he explained that two ladies must be admitted, as tlie cigar smoke of their carriage made them ill. Again that long, yellow hand groped upward for the handle, and the two women in cloaks invaded Miss Norfolk-Sl an ley’s territory. She resigned herself, with a sigh, to the inevitable. After all, these ladies w'ere only a trifle peculiar and foreign-looking, mere harmless fellowcreatures, and Bijou had already enjoyed two hours of freedom. Miss Nor-folk-Stanley’s first impulse was to throw herself on their mercy to the extent of releasing her dog. In travel she had never yet encountered another woman who did not assist in] smuggling Bijou with the delight in contraband warfare of auv kind peculiar to tlie sex. A second glance at those veiled and muffied figures deterred her.,

The strangers, with a murmured apology in French for the intrusion, sank into their places at the other extremity of the carriage, and remained as silent as statues. They carried no hags or parcels of any kind. The yellow hand produced a smelling-bottle of cdt steel, and a pungent odor diffused itself gradually as the windows werej closed to exclude the smoke. * Now the tunnels were gained’which form the threshold of Mount Cejnis on the Italian side, and which at'e immeasurably more black and oppressive. A rush of steam, a shriek or tble locomotive, and the train was ingulfed in the first of the three long tunnels. The gas burned in a tiny star in the “root of the carriage. Horrible darkness and dense smoke, like an opaqu4 wall against the window-sash! Rijou’s mistress unfastened her collar, and sought her fan. At the other end of the carriage the yellow hand w»m deftly opening the owner’s cloak, While a pair of glittering eyes were turied on the nnconscious Miss Norfolk-Stanley iruin the folds of the veil. The emell•ig tjottle of cut steel had vanished. A rush of steam, a shriek of the loco.native, and the train plunged injto the Mepnd tunnel. Behold the companion «.< the traveler with yellow bauds Suietly unfastening her cloak, and proucing her smelling-bottle, this 'one a slender vial of colorless grass, which she retained between her fingers instead of using. A rush of steam, a shriek of the locomotive, and the train plunged into the third tunnel. Silence reigned jn the ladies’ carriage. . ' J After this there was a pause, and Miss Norfolk-Stanley opened lief window to inhale the pure mountain air. while each link of the train was tested before the trial of the great tiinnel. Then Mouut Ceuis <»|>ened that great mouth, and received the human freight, the feeble atoms of an hour, into its rocky heart. Thirty minutes*' Miss Norfolk opened her watch. Much may happen in thirty minutes. She had turned to the wiudow, which had been closed, when her bead was seined, a nervous hand was pressed over her mouth, she was forced to inhale chloroform, and a heavyfloak enveloped her,

effectuallv stilling the faint crp, scarcely more than a faint sigh, which escaped her. The victim speedily lost consciousness, and the 'leather bag rolled from her lap to the floor. Bijou fell on his head. Astonished at such treatment, he crept out of his pocket —of which the strap had not been refastened when the surly guard brought the other occupants of the carriage so unexpectedly—and hid beneath the folds of his mistress' dress. Mark the wisdom of this little dog, and explain it by any law, short of neason, actual presence of mind, if you can. He was afraid, and concealed himself, trembling in every limb. He : something dreadful had happened. The two women, divested on their

RENSSELAER, INDIANA, SATURDAY, JULY 5, t 879.

cloaks, stood over Miss Norfolk-Stan-ley. Much can be done in thirty minutes of outer darkness, lost in the heart of Mount Cenis. , ‘ “Do not kill her. Discovery would be awkward,” whispered the elder, a keen, yellow face appearing out of the veil which had previously concealed it. Her accomplice removed the bottle from the nostrils of Miss Norfolk-Stan-ley, and lifted the cloak from her face. The latter did not move. Then the yellow claws took the watch and chain, rings, probed every pocket, nimbly sifted the contents of the rack above for valuables, and raised the leather bag, Bijou house, in hopes of its containing a jewel box. “Now open the other window. The carriage must not smell of chloroform when we reach Mondane. I will give her another dose before throwing away the bottle.” •‘lt w«»s such a rare chance! Only if we should be detected at the frontier!” murmured the young woman.

“Attend, ma cbere; I have planned all,” retorted the elder, with an evil smile. “She will recover, be stupid when we arrive at the French Custom House, and wait for her maid. Roll together the cloaks and veils in this canvas cover; our dresses and hats have not been seen on the train. When we descend, I join Adolphe, and lean on his arm; you go with the boys, and speak German. We no longer know each other. You take the Geneva route, and I journey to Macon. There Is plenty of time. Here, pqt back her purse, containing r a little silver.” Daylight at last! Bijou thrust out his nose from the edge of his mistress’ rohe. The light reassured him. Such :i volley of sharp, piercing barks became audible in the ladies’ carriage as could only emanate from the throat of an irate terrier. The two women were confused. At first they supposed the dog was barking in »n adjacent carriage. How could a living creature of any sort be concealed in their own, when every article of Miss NorfolkStanley’s had been searched? Bijou barked with frantic zeal, and sprang toward the open window, redoubling his clamor. Then the older woman saw him, darted forward, and seized him. The terrible yellow hand closed about Bijou’s neck; she lifted and preSared to fling him out of the window. lijou’s silky little body lauded on the edge of the sash just as the surly guard appeared, who was walking along the Outer railing or platform, in response to that shrill volley of barks. What! a dog in tlie ladies’ carriage, after all? Aha! one must see about it! The surly guard caught "Bijou in his hands; heads appeared at neighboring windows. The poor little beast whimpered, licked the guard’s face in a propitiatory manner, and looked at him with the most agonized canine intelligence. A dog in the ladies’ carriage! Moreover, flung out of the window by a vengeful hand! One glance from his point of vantage oil the steps revealed the'jtrutli to the surly guard. Miss Nor-folk-Stanley reposed in her corner iu rigid insensibility, the cloak still about her; bags and cases were scattered, on the floor; a faint scent of chloroform still lingered. A very well arranged plan, hinging on the train’s not pausing again until Mondane was reached, when all traces of disorder would haw been removed, but for frustration by a vigilant little dog, so tiny as to be stowed away in the pocket of a leather liag, . 1 A group of those highly ornamental f;ens d’armes iu cocked hats and briliaiit uniforms who pose so gracefully at French and Italian railway stations were given employment in arresting the thieves. Miss Norfolk-Btanley came to a condition of confused conscientiousness, and was removed to a liotql under guidance of her frightened maid. Tlie surly guard actually kept Bijou in his arms, and caressed the little dog instead of demanding his ticket.

Next evening Nephew Dick appeared at Mondane in response to the maid’s telegram sent back to Turin. He had lieen delayed by reason of a robbery, iu which lie had lost both watch and pocket-book, on a night journey between Rome and Florence. He was disposed to suspect two gentlemen who had staid in the same hotel at Rome. In the years 1877 and 1878 a band of thieves waged war on the continent, their connection extending from Stockholm to Naples. They appeared as ladies and gentlemen at leading hotels, aud pursued everywhere the higher branches of the profession. Doubtless Miss Norfolk-Stanley and Nephew Dick were both victims. The latter was speedily reinstated in his aunt’s favor by his ability displayed during the trial and conviction of the miserable women. Bijou has gone into honorable retirement in the country. His prejudices are respected. If he sees a railway ahd a moving train he howls and runs away, in remembrance of the awful day when a cruel yellow hand seized and hurried him from the window as the ladies’ carriage emerged from the Mount Cenis Tunnel. [Harper’s Weekly. t •

A Horse Cured of Lockjaw.

Dr. A. J. Hopkins, the well kuowh veterinary surgeon, has recently effected a wonderful cure of a valuable horse afflicted wit 1 tetanus, or lockjaw. The horse belonged to the Connecticut river lumber company, and ran a rusty nail into one of his feet, causing the above named disease to ensue. The animal is now perfectly well, and may be seen at work any day. The company, appreciating the service of Dr. Hopkins, have given him an affidavit expressive of the strong satisfaction which its officers feel at the result of his skill. The Dr. makes no secret of his cure for lockjaw, which is hybrocyanic or Prussic acid, administered in minute doses. This is the fourth case of the kind he has cured in this State. —[Hartford Times.

Frederick Harrison: “For myself. I am inclined to think the most useful part of reading is to know what we should not read. * * * Is not the accumulation of fresh books a fresh hindrance to our real knowledge of the old? Does not the multiplicity of volumes become a bar upon our use of any? Jn literature especially does it hold—that we cannot see the wood for the trees.”

Carivle: We are firm believers in the maxim that, for all right judgment of any man or thing, it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his had.

THE HEATHEN CHINEE.

How He Treat* Native Christiaan in Hid Own Country. Another outrage, more serious than any we have yet recorded in these pages, has been perpetrated on the native Christians ana preachers of the English Church Mission in the town of Yikkau. On the 2d day of the present Chinese moon (24th ultimo) the native preachers and several of the Christian residents of the district were induced by the Mandarins to present themselves at the town of Yik-kau for the purpose apparently of holding a friendly consultation with the Mandarins and literati, in order to make some arrangement with reference to the outrage on the Mission Chapel, which we noticed in a recent issue. The literati at once demanded a written engagement from the Christians that they would at the expiry of the present year abandon their chapel at Yik-kau and their right to exercise their religion in that town and its neighborhood. This, of course, the Christians refused to agree to do, but at the same time they expressed their willingness to sign an agreement to the effect that if they were found guilty of doing anything wrong or disgraceful they might at once be expelled from the town. They asked for nothing beyond the restoration to them of tneir chapel and their right to be tolerated as Christians. The Mandarins appear to have approved of these proposals, and to have applauded the Christians for their conciliatory hearing anil conduct. But the gentry and literati would have nothing less than their expulsion from the place. The meeting then broke up, and the Christians retired to a lodging house in the town. Very shortly afterward the Mandarins’ alarm-gong was sounded, the -hundreds of people rushed, at the signal, to the lodging house where the Christians had retired for the night, dragged four of them into the street, beat them most barbarously with all manner of weapons and iuflicted severe wounds on the unfortunate men, leaving them, as was supposed, dead. Two of these poor men were then thrown like dogs into'the river, but managed to scramble to the other bank, and crept away till they were found by the Yamen runners, who placed them in a sedan chair and sent them to the nearest mission station in the district. The other two men were taken as’ dead, and the brutal literati, aided by their hired followers, set fire to their clothing and queues. These two sufferers were ultimately rescued, and also sent in a chair to the nearest mission station. From the station they were sent on by boats to this port, where they arrived On the 20th of March, and were placed in the Mission Hospital, under the care of Dr. Taylor. The unfortunate men were, we are informed, unable to walk or stand when they arrived in Foochow, and one of them is delirious and is still in a very precarious condition. The outrage on the chapel at Yik-kau some few weeks ago was brought by the English Missionaries to the notice of H. B. M.’s Consul, who, we learn, agreed to represent the case to the Chinese authorities. As usual, the native officials promised to examine into tlie : matter. Instead, however, of punishing the offenders, they wrote eomplainingly to H. B. M.’s Consul that the matter was greatly exaggerated and made the usual excuses, but meanwhile did nothing. H. B. M.’s Consul appears to have taken the same view of the case as the Chinese authorities, and, we hear, lias censured the missionaries for having reported (as the Mandarins are pleased to term it) such an insignificant affair!—[Fooshow Herald.

A Real Desperado.

As Canton Vaud, albeit neither Catholic nor Conservative has given a large majority in favor of the revision of article 65 of the Federal constitution forbidding capital punishment throughout the Confederation, it may, perhaps, be inferred therefrom that the electors are convinced, from their experience of the last five years, that the abolition of the death penalty was a mistake, for nowhere has serious crime been more rife than in Vaud, and the cantonal authorities are just now complaining bitterly of the trouble and expense they are beingput to in respect of a prisoner of homicidal propensities of whom they are the involuntary custodians. The name of the prisoner is Christian Wyes, and he appears to have been an evil-doer from his youth upward. Though still under 40, he began his career of crime more than twenty years ago, being sentenced in 1858 to a term of imprisonment for a robbei*y committed at Vevy. In 1863 he was condemned to eight years* solitary confinement for robbery with violence, and a murderous attack on the gendarme by whom he was arrested. During this imprisonment he made a ferocious onslaught on a turnkey with a chisel, of which he had surreptitiously possessed himself, and nearly Killed the man. No sooner was Wyss released from prison than he resumed his evil course. Two years thereafter he was brought before oi criminal court at Pay£rlie on a charge of breaking into the house of the pastor of Ressudens, whom he half strangled and left for dead; and though he recovered for a time, he did actually die not long afterward of the injuries inflicted on him by his assailant. For this offense Wyss was sentenced, in 1873, to thirteen years’ solitary confinement. Before the year was out he attacked another turnkey, this time with a knife, and though the poor man was hurt to death, he survived his wounds a few weeks, a circumstance which, indicating as it

did a possibility of ultimate recovery, induced the magistrate by whom the murderer was tried to take an indulgent view of the case and add only two years to his sentence. Alter this event, and seeing that Wyss who is not only a creature of ferocious temper, but of great strength and almost herculanean proportions, continued to threaten his jailers and made several attempts to escape, the authorities resolved to provide him with a prison of his own, A separate cell of solid masonry Was, therefore, bull t for him. Light was admitted by a single heavily-barred window, and the door was of suchstrength as seemingly to defy the prisoner’s utmost efforts to break out. In this door was arranged a small wicket, through which Wyss was fed like a wild beast, for no one ever entered his cell, where he remained day and night heavily ironed. But one day last week when a guardian of the prison was conveying

to Wyss his matutinal supply of food he perceived that the door had been tampered With. An alarm was forthwith given, and investigation made. It seemed that the prisoner had managed, nobody could tell how, to break a piece of iron from one of the bars of his window. This, by dint ofhard work—using the floor of his cell as a whetstone—he had ingeniously shaped into a sort of chisel, with which he had forced back one of the bolts of his door, and would, doubtless, had he not been found out in time, nave forced them all and regained his freedom. It required almost a regiment of gendarmes to secure Wyss and carry him to another cell, thereto be kept chained to the floor until his own den should be onoe more ready to receive and, as his custodians hope, to retain him. If, before this time ba out, Wyss should commit any more murders, it is very likely, in the present temper of the Voudois people, that he will be hanged. The case of this malefactor has been their strongest argument in favor of the restoration of capital punishment, for in the absence or power to inflict the death penalty, a prisoner sentenced to a long term of imprisonment may commit murder with impunity. On the other hand, there cau be no question that deprivation of life is really a more merciful doom than such a punishment as that which Wyss is now enduring in his solitary cell at the Voudois Penitentiary.

Wise Rats.

It appears that although the Kelly farm at Garbuttsville is nearly all that could be expected of a form —it has one drawback—the grounds are infested by rats to an extent almost as unbearable as Haemlin before the Pied piper paid it-a visit. Mr. Kelly is not the man to sit quietly down and allow rats to walk away with his substance without remonstrance, and he set to work devising means to banish the superfluous rodents. Various banes were tried with good and had results, and although scores of rats were poisoned, scores remained to plague the proprietor. After exhausting considerable patience and expending quite a sum of money in the Surchase of poison for the rats, Mr. [elly began to regard the matter as serious and consulted with his neighbors as to what they knew about that branch of farming relating to weeding out rats. A hundred plans were given him in a week, each of which was guaranteed as infallible. Most of them depended for success on inducing the vermin to eat something' that would result in their dissolution. Mr. Kelly had tried in that direction so long and fruitlessly that he had little confidence in the prescriptions and determined to test a plan based on another theory. One old and sage granger told him to set a fish hook on an elevation in such a way that a rat in jumping at the bait on the hook would catch on it and remain hanging. His squalling in this position would intimidate all the rats in the neighborhood and they would decamp. This plan was tried, but although finely pointed fish hooks were set never a rat impaled himself, but stole the bait and wagged his tail iu derision at the hook. When Mr. Kelly saw that he was defied lie swore that the rats should die and he himself suffer no more from them. He had in reserve a plan that would finish them without mercy. True, it had a feature of cruelty about it, but what of that; had they not forfeited all right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiuess by their insolent demeanor and persistency in wrong doing? This receipt came from an old soldier. He should catch a rat in good condition, put him in a trap, visible to all his fellow rats and allow him to starve to death. It was promised that toward the end o his days he would squeak dreadfully and scare all the rats out of the barn, after wljich, on the fourth day, he would expire himself. A rat was caught and placed in a box trap in the barn. No food was placed near him, and he was watched to observe his decrease. He was comfortable after the first day and no worse off the second. On the third day of his confinement he assumed to be about as happy as a] rat could be and was as sleek and active as ever. On the fourth day, when it was expected that the bones of the prisoner would protrude from the skin and all the other rats would have fled, Mr. Kelly’s hired man visited the bam and saw the trapped rat partaking of a generous meal from scraps of meat stolen from the house dog’s dish by the kindred of the imprisoned rat. Mr. Kelly is still looking for rat-bane.—[Rochester (N. Y.) Union.

Falling Families. The changes in society are indicated by the occasional appearance of names in the police reports or in other disreputable connections. Here, for instance, was the Aspinwail divorce case, which recalled a name once noted among the aristocracy of the drug trade. This class of men made money rapidly and the Aspin walls were among the leading names. Here too, is Carson Brevoort, who, when called to pay a debt pleads usury. Were there any basis for such a defense, it would still be contemptible for any one who claimed true manhood to offer, but in this case it is merely a sham, and only reveals meanness of character. Brevoort evidently has peculiar notions about paying debts. Not long since, a man who had lent him money called to collect the loan, and was so roughly handled that he had Brevoort arrested for assault and battery. On the present occasion the defense is usury. How strange this seems in the son of Henry Brevoort, who once led the fashion of New York! This is the way, however, in which the great families decline, until they “die out.” I well remember the time when Henry Brevoort gave a grand fancy ball, one of whose guests was Washington Irving. It was the first entertainment of the kind which erer had been given in the city, and attracted a rare degree of attention. I was at that time a mere lad,

in the service of a young merchant, whose wife then referred to the glory of the Brevoorts in glowing terms, to which the former coolly replied, “Pshaw! do you think that we ever can go into this society?” Well, the brat illustration of the changing nature of social life is found in the fact that while the Brevoorts have sank out of i notice, the above named merchant has for years been prominent in the Fifth Avenue. He still occupies an eminent social position, being dis tinguished for wealth and social post tion. In this manner the old and effete aristocracy is displaced by the vigor and enterprise of the new ele-

ment which iscontlnu&Uy attracted to the metropolis. At the time the Brevoort fancy ball thrilled the highest walk of society, Wm. H. Vanderbilt was on a form on Staten island. His father then owned the ferty to New York, but also had a tract of land where he could raise his own vegetables and perhaps have some for the market. Contrast this humble condition of the family with William’s present princely state. Look at the reception tendered him oh his return from England by the railway officials who filled a steamboat and made the cabin ring with huzzas. This man can not go to Europe without being escorted to sea by a steamer laden with his retainers, who receive him on his return with equal honots. When he travels, a palace car such as no European prince has ever beheld, is at his service, and his grandeur has reached a degree which the former railway magnates never dreamed. — [New York Letter to Cincinnati Gazette.

How the Indian* Make Their Arrow Heads. A young man in the Smithsonian Institute (writes the Washington correspondent of the Cleveland Leader) had just made public the discovery of the method employing in making the stone and volcanic glass arrow heads, daggers, knives, axes rfhd razors, of the pre-historicraces. Up to this time this has been a great problem to all antiquarian student, hut no theory has ever been advanced showing so practical results as Cushing’s. He started to solve the difficulty by putting himself in the identical position of the Aztecs or Mound Builders—without anything to work with except sticks, various shaped stones such as he could find on the banks of any stream, and his hands. After making some rude implements by chipping one flint with another, he discovered that no amount of chipping would produce surfaces like the best of those which he was trying to imitate. He therefore came to the conclusion that there was another way of doing it, and, by chance, tried pressure with the point of a stick, instead of chipping by blows of a stone; then presto, he found that he could break stone, flint and obsidian in any shape he chose. Soon he had made spear-beads, and daggers that would cut like a razor and as good as any he had before him, which had been picked up from all over the world By a little mere observation, he found that the “flaking,” which he calls his process, on the old arrow-head left grooves that all turned one svay. He produced a like result by turning bis stick the easiest way from right to left. He therefore concludes that the prehistories were right-handed people like ourselves. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that occasionally an arrow-head is found that has flakes running from left to right, showing a left-handed person. The importance of the discovery is, it shows that the early races were able to do this work without the use of iron or bronze —a thing long doubted.

The Strawberry.

The following palate-thrilling encomium of the strawberry is from essays by John Burroughs: “Loeusts and Wild Honey”—“On the threshold of Summer, Nature proffers us this, her vergin fruit; more rich and sumptuous are to follow, but the wild delicacy and fillip of the strawberry are * never repeated—that keen feathered edge greets the tongue in nothing else. Let me not be afraid of overpraising it, but probe and probe for words to hint its surprising virtues. We may well celebrate it with festivals and music. It has that indiscribable quality of all first things—the shy, uncojlng, provoking barbed sweetness. It is eager aud sanguine as youth. It was born of the copious dews, the fragrant nights, the tender skies, the plentiful rains of the early season. The singing of birds is in it, and the health and frolic of lusty Nature. It is the product of liquid May, touched by the June sun. It has the tartness, the briskness, the unruliness of Spring, and the aroma and intensity of Summer. Oh, the strawberry days! how vividly they come back to one! The smell of clover in the fields, of blooming rye on the hills, of the wild grapes beside the woods, and of the sweet honeysuckle and spiraea about the house. The first hot, moist days: The daisies and buttercups, the songs of the birds, their first rockless jollity and love-making over: the fqll, tender foliage of the trees, the bees swarming, ana the air strung with resonant musical chords. The time of the sweetest and most succulent grass, when the cows come home with aching udders. Indeed, the strawberry belongs to the juiciest time of the year.”

Rebuking a Juryman.

I once heard this anecdote about Judge Parsons, said the Rev. James Freeman Clark, the great Massachusetts advocate and lawyer. It is said, that being about ready to try a mercantile case, he ordered a jury to be summoned andamongthenamesthatofMr. Thomas H. Perkins, the leading merchant of Boston, and a personal friend of Judge Parsons. When the officer made his return he laid down a SSO bill before the judge. “What is that for?” said Parsons.

“Mr. Perkins says he is very busy today and prefers to pay his fine.” “Take that back to Mr. Perkins,” said the judge, and tell him to come at once; and if he refuses, bring -him by force.” When Mr. Perkins apj>eared, the judge looked sternly at him, and said: “What do you mean, Sir, by sending money when you are summoned to sit on theiury?” Mr. Perkins replied, “I meant no disrespect to the court; your honor, but was extremely busy fitting out a ship for the East Indies, ana I thought if I paid my fine I might be excused.” “Fitting out a ship for the East Indies, sir?” shouted thejudge: “and how happens it you are able to fit out a ship for the East Indies?”

“Your honor, I do not understand you.” “I repeat, then, my question, how is it that you are able to nt out a ship for the East Indies? If you do not know I will tell you. It is because the laws of your country are properly administered. If they were not you would have no ships. Take your seat, sir, with the Jmy.” Emerson: “Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.”

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NO. 3.

. A sheriff being obliged to arrest his father, was asked where he was going, and replied: “I am going to Bagdad.” The Russian arctic expedition costs only 173,000, and it discovered a new kind of moss and saw a sorrel colored fox. Who says that science doesn’t pay? j. m ; . “One can overcome any bad habit if he chooses,” says an old moral law. We’d like to see any one overcome the bad habit of tobacco chewing if he chews. p Irish drill-sergeant (to a squad of militiamen): “Fr’s’nt’rms?”—(astonishing result). “Hivens! what ali ‘prisint?’ Just srip out here now and leok at yersilves!” A man went to Leadville awhile ago, and advertised to teach the guitar, was notified by the aesthetic residents that if he didnt’ leaveqnetty quick he would guitar and. feathers. He left. Adam had the advantage of all his sons in one thing, at least. He could embrace our common mother, without being scratched to death by the pins i that now hedge about a woman. The man that goes a fishing and sits in a camp-inviting posture on a narrow thwart from early mom till dewy eve and calls it fun is the same chap that never goes to church because the pews aren’t comfortable. , A lady stepped into a store in this place yesterday and asked the new clerk if he had any “rock candy?” “No madam,” he replied: “I haven’t any rock handy, but here is a brick you are welcome to, if it will answer your purpose.” “Doctor, my daughter seems to h going blind, and she’s just getting ready for her wedding, too! Oh, dear me, what is to be done?” Let her go right on with the wedding, madam, by all means. If anything can open her eyes, marriage will.” Mrs. Brown had often heard Mrs. Johnson speak of Mr. Nostrunij the apothecary, as a man of fine physique, &c. After that she would send nowhere else for her medicines; for, said she, “I want the best, if there is any best to the nasty stuff”

“John, I’ll give you a good slapping if I ever see you do that again,” said his mother. “The easiest way you - could make a slapped Jack,” and Johnnie kept right along in his course, but he missed liLs, slapping. His mother thought too sweet already. A young man with a flamboyant necktie went into dinner at a botelin Delaware, Ohio, and winked at the daughter of the landlord. The young man is still winking. The daughter of the landlord seized a handful of red pepper aud rubbed it into his eyes. “But you know, pa,” said the farmer’s daughter, when he spoke to her about the addresses of his neighbor’s son, “you know, pa, that ma wants me to marry a man of culture.” “So do I, my dear, so do I; and there is no better culture in the country than agriculture.” If it be true that a word, once uttered forevermore reverberates through space the rumblings of sophomorie eloquence already thundering Upon .the circumambient air, should cause unnumbered collisions of eloquence in the realm of matter, and knock everything clean out of kilter.

Three girls of the Methodist persansion having met together, concluded to pray for the welfare of their lovers; but the first one liad not got very far along iu her petition when it was discovered that they were all engaged to the same man. The religious exercises were at once terihinated. A Cleveland lady who has lately passed a few weeks in Paris always refers to her kitchen girl as her “fllle de cuisine.!’ Her son. will insist on referring to the worthy domestic as our “pot-rassler,” much to his mother’s horror—but he hasn’t had the benefit of a fortnight iu “Paree.” Mrs. A.—“ Somebody's in the next room. I wonder what they’re doing.” (Looking wistfully at the keyhole.) “I’m a good mind to peek.” Mrs. B.— ' Oh, I wouldn’t; ’t isn’t right.” Mrs. A.—“l don’t care; I’m just dying to know.” (Puts eye to keyhole, but immediately takes it away disconcerted.) “H’m! the key is in.” Mrs. B. —“Yes, so I found before you came in.” “Man alive,” exclaimed the judge, in a heated discussion of a tangled theological point with his friend, “I tell you, you are a free agent. You do not have to obey any one.” “Yes,” said Mr. Goodman, meekly, “but I do. though.” “Wno?” shouted the judge, “who?” “My wife, her two sisters and the baby,” howeled the good man, meekly triumphant. Red lights and slow curtain.

The report that Senator Carpenter is killing himself with nicotine, bysmoking twenty cigars a day, is a reminder that others are suffering from the same sort of excess. Most of the smokers in Congress smoke too much. Some of them carry a cigar in their mouths all the time. There are Senators and members who never walk down the avenue without the stump of a cigar between their fingers. One prominent man in Congress is rapidly killing himself with opium, and one of the doorkeepers of the House is at the point of death from the same cause. The public man I refer to is a popular ana respected man, whose strange ways have long been a wonder to those who do not know his secret habit. He is a kind and genial gentleman, but he is liable to pass his test friend with a blank stare half an hour after he has met him pleasantly in conversation. His fits of abstraction and depression amount almost to craziness. At times he is so odd and queer that his associates are puzzled. " Opium is eating up his life and he will not last * long. It is a pity, tor he is one of this best intellects in Congress, and he might render much useful public service if he would.—[Washington Letter Boston Herald.

Richard Coeur de Lion was the most stylish man in England in his time. When he put pn his tin helmet and cast iron ulster, and a pair of laminated steel boots, and picked up a club with au iron knob and a steel spike in the end, and set forth on a crusade, the fashionable society of that day considered him just “dressed to kill.” And so he was. And one time when he was dressed up that Way a fellow killed him- i,

CONDIMENTS.

Habits of Public Mem.