Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1874 — Page 8

The “Probabilities” of Rivers.

The utility of adapting the meteorological reports to switch and warn of the approach of floods in risers earU suggested itself to Gen Myer, as with the growth of the reports he was enabled to determine the route by which the witer in any section would seek the sea; and on New Year’s Day, 1873, observers stationed along the rivers which drain the country from the Rocky Mountains to the Alleghenies were instructed teiaelude in their reports a daily history of the river at. each point. At the present moment “ River Reports” are received from forty-seven stations along the hanks of the Monongahela, Youghiogheny, Allegheny. Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Red and Mississippi Rivers. Freshets are not caused by rain alone, but ofteh by the thawing of heavy snows. When thaws are accompanied by rain-fall the rise is rapid, and if the rivers are frozen the freshet becomes ■ ' a dangerous character by breaking and sweeping down the ice.' Such fresh - are usually accompanied by greater d. iiger than when the rise continues at-j great height from long-continu d rain-fall alone. As the results of i gorges along our Western rivers i reader will readily recall the yearly st< of steamers and barges crushed ana su. bridges carried away, and river bar. flooded or destroyed. At each river station careful reco have been made—as far as could be tained—of all former freshets, and a i tory of these has been compiled to ascertain the seasons when freshets may be expected, and to determine what may be called the danger lend along each river t. e., that height of water at which ex pe rience has proved that a river becomes liable to endanger not only commercial interests and property at cities and towns, but also to devastate the country between these by overflowing the river hanks and levees. To make these histories complete inspections have been made along each river by officers of the Signal Service, to ascertain not only the channel depth at which danger appears at different points, but when and where it will increase or expand itself, or where the river bed is going, and how fast. With the more extended information which the constant growth and enlarged experience of the weather report system must bring, the central office in coining time may not only predict heavy andcou■'“fihuous seasons OT rain-fall, nut when such is the case be able to warn the pboSie of river towns of the extent and uration of the resulting rise. This study has intimate and close relations to meteorology, for rivers are the best and most certain rain-gauges possible, and the study in effect resolves itself into measuring the amount of rain falling within the separate water sheds of the separate rivers, the rate of speed with which and the route by which the rain will seek its way to tlie sea. Thus, in a map representing the watersheds of the Western rivers—or the surface of country drained by each —it will be seen that if the central office receives information that heavy rain is falliug in Nebraska, Kansas and Western Missouri his knowledge of the number and capacity of the water-courses throughout that region enables the assistant in charge of river ports to decide when a freshet wave, great or small in extent,, will move down the .Missouri to the Mississippi; and if the rainfall has extended or promises to extend into lowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin to determine whether the wave from St. Paul to Keokuk will pass before or after that from the Missouri reaches its mouth, or whether they will meet, At each station the Observer Sergeant is required to prepare a “ bench-mark,” or gauge, set in the river bank, and marked in feet and inches above and below the point from which measurements are taken From April 1 to July 81, and from Oct. 1 to Nov. 80, in each year, observations must be made at three p. m, each day, and at such intermediate times as Gen. Myer may deem necessary for any sudden or unexpected change in the condition of a river, such as would result -from any portion of the country, or rapid melting of ice or deep snow. Besides these ordinary daily reports, during the seasons named, or when specially ordered, if the rise or fall in a river is sudden or unusual in its character, reports are required every three hours until The river resumes its normal condition. Most of these reports are made by telegraph, and a separate system of cipher writing is used, similar in character to the key used for the meteorological report*.. In the office study-room there is a large slab of slate with a profile of each of the rivers named engraved thereon. The assistant in charge receiving the various reports has on his desk a blank form, ruled, on which is printed a list of the rivers and the stations on each, and on this he writes the information received; turning to the slate he marks at each place on a scale, at each point on the profile, the height of water; then drawing a line on the slate which will connect these marks he has a profile map Ilf the position and extent of any Iresiiet wave which may then exist, and from this determines how he shall make the appropriate entries in the last four columns 'of his report sheet This sheet, thus filled, is then used to determine the “probabilities” in the! special river reports; and the general instructions require that, “ whenever the changes are greater than five inches, he must state, in the synopsis, ‘ the rivers have fallen [or risen] at [giving names- of stations], or decidedly fallen [or risen] ;’ or give the number of feet, when the change is remarkable;” and. following this, to state the probable condition based upon the facts given in the synopsis. This being the province of the officer in charge of the river report, the reader will see the use of the river profiles, and why a freshet following the course of a river has been called a “ wave.” In the profiles on the slate the grade of the river, or line of elevation above the sealevel, determines to a considerable extent the speed with which a freshet seeks its outlet. Let the reader, for example, take a profile of the Ohio River vnd mark the figures given below upon aertical scales; The reports upon a certain day gave the depth of water at various points as follows: Pittsburgh, 19 feet; Wheeling, 37.; Cincinnati, 17; Louisville, 7, and Cairo, 17; the latter being governed to some extent by the stage of water in the ] Mississippi. Now draw a line Which will connect these marks, and it i will be seen Oat the freshet resembles a j - huge wave, having its crest at Wheeling, j Three days later the depth of water was: Pittsburgh, 10 feet; Wheeling, 23; Cin- j cinnati, 30; Louisville, 8, and Cairo, 9; and another line drawn as before showg the crest of the wave to beat Cincinnati,

or, probably, a little above that city. Last Spring Gen. Myer discovered that large bodies of water were' gathering in the upper rivers, to such an «xtent that great, destruction of property would result along the river from Cairo to New Orleans, and telegraphed to Memphis, Natchez, and other places, giving warning that the rise would sweep away goods and vessels along the banks. The warning fairly astounded the “ river men,” and the editorial column of a local paper reviled and scoffed at the impudent assumption of a man sitting in his office at Washington who presumed to know more of tlieir river than they did. “ Why, the river was falling—fell ten inches yesterday, and fourteen the day before!" Within a few days, however, and within the time specified by the “probabilities of | rivers,’,’ the same journal contained colI umn after column telling the story of inundation and loss of life and property.— Scribner's Monthly.

Phantom Inheritances.

The thousands who have been duped into long and exhaustive hunts for phantom fortunes seem to have had little influence in deterring others from similar useless experiments. There is still some one in every village and city who is ready to start on the shortest notice in pursuit of a pot of gold which is said to lie buried at one end of the rainbow’s arch and who firmly believes that it has been placed there by some supernatural power for his or her especial benefit. Everywhere one finds the credulous wight who is ready to sacrifice all his present resources in striving to discover some legendary title to a fabled estate, or in digging about the genealogical tree in the hope of finding some family record which shall prove a passport to wealth and luxury. The fool-killer has not yet arrived in the world. Here is a little story which may serve as an illustration: The other day a police constable in a small English town saw a German begging and arrested him. The man seemed respectable and well educated; so, when he was brought before the magistrate, a member of the “ Charity Organization Society” appeared for his defense. The court was considerably astonished to find that the beggar was in search of an inheritance amounting to nine or ten million dollars; that he svtts perfectly saue and that his act of beggary was caused by the miserable circumstances to which he had been Teduced by his mad hunt after the problematic fortune. The German, who evidently had begun somewhat to despair of laying hands on the millions which he consi3ered rightfully his, explained himself as follows: His name was Anton Halffniann, and he was born in the province of Cleves, in Germany. When a child he had heard a hope expressed by liis parents that a large inheritance would soon conic to the family. A dead-and-gone relative who had accumulated marvelous possessions in Surinam, who had owned a castle, and fields where cocoa andjmffee grew, had visited London and 'Amsterdam* shortly before, his death; and after he was dead it was announced that lie had committed a will to his “ confidential friend,” bestowing all liis money save burial expenses and alms for tlie poor upon his lawful relatives, Halftmann’s parents. Subsequently a document was found among the dead man’s papers announcing that the sum of forty-five million francs had been deposited in London, and for this the poor German had been endeavoring for years tofind senne trace. He besieged the Queen of England with letters concerning the mysterious fortyfive millions, but Her Majesty’s Secretary merely advised him in reply “to employ a respectable solicitor.” He spent the greater part of his little fortune in making careful researches in Holland and in Belgium, where from time to time this fleeing fortune was heard of under some new guise. He besieged the Dutch Colonial Ministers for intelligence of his mythical dead uncle’s Surinam estates. He starved in garrets while Ire employed lawyers to investigate the case, lie undertook long journeys, gave up all other business, and became totally absorbed in the futile search. But he never heard from the “confidential friend” to whom ! the will had been given. The Government authorities in Holland assured him that no such will as the mysterious uncle was supposed to have made could be found: and that the Surinam estates had long ago been divided among persons whose title to them was undisputed. The news reached poor Halffman just as ! he had got to the bottom of his purse in t London. So lie began a paifijul journey i on foot to the sea coast, hoping there Jo ; find a chance to work his passage back j to Germany to hide the ruin wrought by 1 his illusions. Hunger finally drove hiiii j to beggary and carried him before the magistrate, who was kind enough, however, to give him some money and send him on his way with a little wholesome I advice as to tlie foolishness of- chasing i i will-o’-the-wisps in general and supposed j [ fortunes in particular. Many clever but unscrupulous men in | Germany, England and America 1 make i ! handsome livings by tilling the ears of | I the easily duped with such stories as I !■ that which tße Halflinann seems | so firmly to hp.ve believed. A myste-i I riously worded advertisement in* the corner of tlie country paper; an inter- ; i view with half a dozen witnesses, each j i of whom has been instructed to tell the j I wonderful tale; a little appeal to family J 'pride: these are the baits ordinarily j ! used, and the victims are speedily j ■ hooked. Golden dreams make them happy while they are spending the i money which they'have hopes of .receiv-; ing but which they will never get. Agents make jolly foreign tours at their i j expense, but usually ccme home with ; nothing more tangible than fresh evi- ! denee. by means of which money is ‘ draw from the expectant “ heirs.” Strangely enough, the misguided peoi pie who once have been persuaded that 1 they are to gaiiu a fortune which has so j j long awaited them by some swift add ! strange process rarelv discover they have been deceived. They but take it ! j very much to heart that their counsel j has failed to make good their claims, or | ; that ffie machinations of some unknown j | villains have prevailed against them.— j I 2Teu York Time*. ' l*_ . ■

—A patent has been recently taken out in England for a substitute for leather, which is produced in perfect imitation of diflerent kinds of -leather. The sheets of fibrous pulp from which the material is made are pressed into real skins of leather, the grain of the skin to be imitated being thus accurately reproduced. The article is called leatherette, costs one-eighth as much as leather and is stronger and of more uniform quality. The British { Trade-Journal . whieh describes It, does not give any description of the process of manufacture.

The Question of Dress-Reform.

Among the many letters which come to me on dres6-reform is one from a lady in this county, who says : 1 cannot refrain from telling you of the good yon have done me in yonr little book, “Letter* to 1 had it given me when I was eight or nine yean* old and wat* very much imprenred with the chanter on tight-lacing; I have never from that timrto this worn anything tight around my body. Of course 1 have always had a fight with dre**maker*, for they declared they never saw such a figure In their live*, etc., etc. llut I have alway* had vigorous health and have often walked eight and ten miles—once thirteen. And here a little result: lam now twenty-aix, married and have two children, and have had none ol the ail* of motherhood which women generally have. My nurse* have said I was more like a Dutch woman than an American, for which 1 have yon to think—at least for some oi it. What a vulgar ‘creature! says Mrs. Backache, as she lolls amid her cushions, wondering if tlie doctor never will give her anything to cure these terrible attacks of headache, and dyspepsia, and liver-complaint, and neuralgia, and nervousness, and sleeplessness and general debility, and all other ailments, while her Euny infant is in the arms of a nurse, ept at a cost of half her husband’s income, and draws its meager “ granum” gruel through a foul india-rubber tube! It is so horrid, you know, to be healthy! —so vulgar for a woman to be able to take care of her own child after the manner of God’s law! It, is so coarse not to keep one’s bed when one is not scraping streets with india-rubber scrapers and one’s body for a handle! Dear me! Why, it’s Dutch! and “ Dutch” is the crowning opprobrium, simply because it is the synonym of “ health.” In these latter days to be Dutch is to be dreadful! “German” is quite genteel; for we have German ladies who arealmost, if not quite, as useless and expensive as the American article. Do we with our hollow pretenses of Protestant civilization and civil liberty, bought with the blood of martyrs, forget that the Dutch held Holland through thirtwyears of the fiercest war in history; thatnt was the sturdy burghers of that most honored land who first taught the world that the common people, united on a point of conscience, with God for King and Coiii-mander-in-Chief, are more than a match for the proudest sovereigns, backed by the most ancient hereditary rights and the most unlimited command of treasure. It was the Dutch who first met Despotism face to face, and made a successful stand. __ As a descendant of the old Scotch Coys enanters, the Dutch are the only people to whom I can do mental obeisance, notwithstanding it is fashionable, since Germany has given us so large a voting population, and flogged France, for America to- be polite to the Germans. They are a very good class of folks, and have done the world some service. Without tlie German brain there would be a very large air-channel in the world’s cranium; and if German women only had the back-bone to retain in this country the beautiful and healthy costume of their native land they would be to us a Godsend indeed; but they have generally become about as much the bond-slaves of Mrs. Grundy, the supple tools of dressmakers and nurses, as the daughters of the once proud Pilgrim Fathers, who do not hesitate to confess themselves servants of servants, ruled out of their own kitchens by Biddy, fed on whatever she may please to give them, at a cost of whatever she may please to make it; ruled out of their own wardrobes by dressmakers, totally ignorant of the natural outlines of the bodies they dress, and whose principal qualification for their business is impudence; ruled out -of tlieir own nurseries by ignorant nurses, who live by the helplessness and disease they load with fulsome flatteries! Statesmen and statisticians tell us that foreigners are to take this country, because of the physical degeneracy of American women, and the small number of children reared by them; but they have not taken the dressmaker and nurse into their calculations. So long as these subjugate German and Irish women at the rate they are now doing, so long as none but “ the Dutch” - dSre to obey the most'imperative laws of life, for fear the dressmaker, nurse and Mrs. Grundy will curl their lips in scorn —so long there is little danger that o'Ur Irish, German, French. Scandinavian and Italian emigrants of to-day will long hold any supremacy over the descendants of those who came over two hundred years ago..’ Tlie American dressmaker and nurse have au iron bedstead, on which they promptly regulate all differences*of stature among the various people that compose our nation; and, by its rule, the maximum birth-rate of' the foreigner soon reaches the minimum of tlie nativeborn. —' ‘ The cook, the dressmaker and the nurse are the trinity which rules the eehsus of this country; for our ladies have generally been too lately lifted! from humble stations to have learned the art of governing households. The habit j of command only comes through genera- j tious of culture; and our aristocracy of ; wealth found yesterday live in a state of j chronic war with the servants wlic : hope to displace them to-morrow. So your American lady, weighed to the earth by the silks, velvets, laces and jewels' necessary to advertise her husband’s success in business, becomes the easy prey of Biddy, not yet broken on the wheel of line' ladyhood, and mistakes her dressmaker ‘ for the autocrat of destiny in dress and the nurse in general deportment! As these arbiters of fate are generally persons of narrow intellects and well-sharpened wits, and it is to their immediate interest to cultivate the dependence on which, they depend, our domestic history teems with repetitions of the old story of Queen Ann and Lady Churchill; of mistresses held in most degrading bondage by their own servants. As in that case, so in these, physical vigor Vas*the plus which overbalanced legitimate authority, wealth and social position in the sum'total of the problem. So long as servants can rule her through her physical disability, and increase this at will, so long she is their tool, instead of mistress or emplover.

The dressmaker who sneers at the feminine form as God made it, and as the greatest artists and poets the world has ever seen have delineated it, in marble, on canvas, and in immortal song, is sim j ply an impertinent ignoramus, and 1 should be treated as such. The nurse t who seeks to cultivate helplessness by making vigorous health a something of which the possessor should be ashamed is akin to the witches who plotted the destruction of Macbeth. They are deliberate impostors or self-deceived deceivers, of whom sensible women should beware. >' * There is nothing in which women more I need the aid of man than in seeking emancipation from the tyranny of dress- j makers and nurses—those subjugators t who make them the easy prey of cooks ! and chambermaids. Even I* have been unable to cope, single-handed, with the 1 dressmaker. True. I have never,, cm- i

ployed one for myself, and I would as soqn think of hiring an undertaker to make a coffin, and getting into it, as a dressmaker to make a dress, and then wearing it; but I found it hard to educate a daughter to contentment with the form God gaye and once yielded to her entreaties to employ a dressmaker, one of those raras ares one hears about, but. never sees, who will make a dress according to order. When it came home I was almost in despair on witnessing the delight inspired by its deformity but bided mjr time, and was no little relieved when her music-teacher came unhidden to my aid. When she 6at down to her next lesson he soon asked what the matter was, and, noticing the dress, exclaimed: “Oh, it is your dress! why, I thought your mother had some sense!” That dress underwent a thorough revision, and there never since has been a fashionably-made-up dress in our family. If male teachers would use this common sense, notewhen the life is being crushed out of their pupils—aye, and of their female assistants—and protest, they could do much. If every man would insist that the woman he loves —those on whom he depends for home and happiness, and those who depend on him — should never wear anything tight around any part of their body—should dress so as to have their muscles as free as his own —American homes would soon be the abodes of much health and happiness that are strangers to them now, and it would be an honor to be “ Dutch,” because that would be the fashion. —Jane 6. Swisshelm, in Chicago Tribune.

The Folly of Fashionable Balls.

Mrs. GnuNDT has decreed that Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Smith, who have nothing whatever in common beyond the fact of belonging to the same social set, and who naturally either dislike each other exceedingly or are entirely indifferent to each other, shall exchange formal calls ad infinitum. Accordingly Mrs. Jones, with loudly-expressed regret at the necessity of foing, and hope that Mrs. Smith will be out, arrays herself elaborately and pulls the Smith door-bell. If Mrs. Smith is not at home, actually or figuratively, Mrs. Jones breathes a sigh of relief and hurries away. If she is, Mrs. Joues is ushered into a lugubrious parlor, where she wastes half an hour in idle gossip about the weather, and the last engagement, and the next party, and the wondrous achiastments of various common-place children. Each woman listens and talks languidly. Each is wishing the bore were over. When the necessary minutes have been consumed Mrs. Jones departs. When the necessary weeks have passed Mrs. Smith plays her part in this most tedious society drama, and the curtain falls to rise again a month or two later on Mrs. Jones. Both these women would stop this farcical exchange of visits if they dared. But they do not dare. It is the fashion and they follow it. As a result they are obliged to waste hours on hours, week after week, in a round of bowing and gossiping and smiling, from which they get no possi ble good; They either have to give up one whole day every week to receiving calls or they must hold themselves in readiness at almost every hour of every day to do so. It does not seem to occur to these people that where such system prevails nothing else systematic can. There can be no fixed hours for anything. Friends cannot exchange calls at will because acquaintances left in the lurch would be hurt. Sometimes a woman grows sufficiently independent to announce that she will not make ealls:Then the rest of her sex, every one of whom would be glad to imitate her, affect a proper horror,, and condemn as impolite, shocking, etc., her brave disregard of one of the most senseless observances of society. Five years afterward, the woman who dared usuallly knows something,'while her old associates are still displaying their old stock of information. Would it not be well for women reformers to remember that calling and dressing are two great grounds for reform'? They are alike in this, that women can, if they will, effect the reform in both by their single efforts. Masculine co-operation is hot needed. If a few prominent ladies would but say, “We will call only on the persons whom we really wish to see,” and would make their saying true, we should soon witness a decided change for the better.—t/**cago Tribune.

Butter Without Cows.

The Paris correspondent of the Loudon Stondar'd refers as follows to a new article of food in the French capital: “I must briefly allude to the new butter, called Margarine Mouries. If eve—theworld in general, that is—rightly understand the process by which this substance is made—approv ed by analysis, adopted by tlie Council of Hygiene, authorized by the Government for army use, and taxed at one rate M’ith the genuine article —the end of all things must be at hand. This butter is composed of cream which never dwelt in cow. As I understand. it is neither lard, nor oil, nor grease of any sort, whether animal, vegetable or mineral. It is made of ‘things' in a chemist’s shop. Studying the process by which green grass is transformed to milk, M. Mouries-Mege has pursued the feask of simplification until he can.dispense witlr the ccrtfs unscientific processes. Was it not Lord Brougham who looked forward to the time when chemists would be our only butchers, when, with the help of a few powders, a furnace,; a spectroscope, and elementary education, one would turn a truss of hay into a beefsteak in the back parlor? That is what M. Mege professes to have done, or something like it, foY butter, and his brother savants *all declare the result perfection. Though the process is but a year old, it employs 400 men in seven manufactories. The butter —to which that name is not given by the inventor, but by the octroi officials—is sold at about half the price’ of the real substance in which the cow is not avowedly ignored.”

A Clerk’s Joke.— One of the clerks in a Woodward avenue store yesterday raised a third-story window and balanced a stf-aw man on the sill in such a position that people across the way were certain that some one was hanging to the casing for dear life. In one hour fifty people entered the store to say that some one was about to fall from the window, and most of them passed out of the side door looking down-hearted in taking their leave. —Detroit Free Press. —Awsingular. accident befell Capt Drdty! , agent Jof the James River line of steamers, at (Zity Point. Ya. While, the ; Captaih.was sitting in his chair in, a state j of profound sleep "some rascal stole out j of his mouth a fine set of artificial teeth.

Frightened Tooth-Puller.

Jpe Balcom is one of those clever, in genious, accommodating fellows who pretends to know everything and to be able to do anything that anybody else can do. He gets his bread and butter by carpentering, although he assumes to be greatly above the business. In truth he is Jack-at-all-trades and good at none. One day he learned that Dr. Rich, the dentist, was talking about building an extension to his office, and he went down to see if -he couldn’t get the job. The servant admitted him, and informed him that the doctor was out, but was expected back before long. So he took a seat and began to look around him. “ A very cosy'place, by jingoes!” sajfl he. “ And Rich must be making lots of money here. Making it easy, too. Wish I had taken to tooth-jerking. It’s nothing! anyone that’s got nerve can do it. Confound carpentering! I believe I’ll set up for a dentist.” He pondered on the subject for some time as he sat there alone, and concluded that it was just about easy and remunerative enough for him. He only wished he had a chance to learn a few of the slights of the business. „ A chap who boarded with the dentist, and who knew of Joe, resolved to have a bit of fun with him while he was waiting for the dentist to return. So he tied a handkerchief around his face, and, pulling his hair down over his eyes to make himself look like one troubled with a raging tooth, he rushed into the wait-ing-room where Joe sat. “ Where’s the dentist?” he demanded, savagely. “Not in,” replied Joe. “Not in! Confound these dentists for a lot of indifferent rascals. What do they care how much a man suffers?” and holding his jaw in his hands the “customer” strode backward like a caged lion. Joe’s heart was melted, and an' idea flashed through his head. “I’ll just try my baud om this fellow, and if I succeed I’ll bid farewell to handsaw and jackplane forever,” mused he. “Well, if you are really suffering perhaps I can attend to you. What is it?” he asked. “ A tooth! A raging, terrible tooth!” - “I’ll pull it out for you,” said Joe, with a full display of well-known presumption. “All right! Hurry up.” “ Take a seat.” “ “Yes, yes. Fly around,” said the man, taking a seat in the operating chair. Joe looked among the instruments, and selecting a pair of forceps approached the aching cavity, bent on giving relief and a display of his cleverness at the same time. The offending tooth was pointed out and Joe clapped the tool on it firmly. It was an upper molar, and he 'was cautioned to give a straight, steady pull, “ All right,” said Joe, “ I understand,” and he humped himself for a long pull, a strong pull, and the first tooth-pulling he had ever done in his life. “Steady,” grunted the patient. Joe gave a “ steady” pull and without exerting half the strength he had calculated to bestow, when lo! but came a whole set of—false teeth! With a yell of rage the subject of his experiment leaped from the operating chair, and Joe, believing that he had pullpd the man’s whole jaw out, made a dart for the front door and started for home, where he remained concealed for a week. The joke got noised about, however, and Joe had to leave town, so badly did his friends plague him about it. —Fireside Companion.

How to Limit the Spread of Scarlatina.

At the present time, says the London Lancet , there is a considerable amount of zymotic disease prevalent, and we have been visited with a severe epidemic of scarlatina, which, however, is sensibly abating. There is no more infectious malady than this, and very few, if any, more dangerous or more likely to cripple a young life by its immediate and remote eflects on the health. The poison is, as every one knows, of a very subtle and infectious —character; —and~ there is no reason —at least no valid reason—for supposing that scarlatina arises spontaneously, although its occasional development and recurrence as an epidemic Tire vastly influenced by certain conditions over which we can exercise no control, and about which our knowledge is relatively inexact. Of one thing, however, we are well assured, namely, that our etlbrts must he directed to limiting the spreudof the infection by a rigid system of inspection, isolation, and disinfection. A youth returns to a school with the disease on him in a slight and unsuspected form, or ready to manifest itself, or when apparently quite recovered from an attack. Once scarlatina is introduced in this way, unless it be speedily detected and the proper measures at once adopted, the results are very disastrous. The authorities at most of our large schools are so well aware of the fact that great care is taken to guard against these occurrences, or to detect and meet them as soon as possible. It is to be feared, however; now that education is compulsory, that much unsuspected evil arises from this source in the large schools of our towns and cities. It has been observed, and not without a good deal of cogency, that while we take every precaution for the educational inspection of schools, and for securing a due amount of cubic space and ventilation for the pupils, we take none for their medical inspection, for the detection and immediate separation of cases of infectious fevers. In large day shools’ it would probably be impracticable to secure a thoroughly efficient system of medical inspection, in consequence of the frequency of inspection ana the number of inspectors that would be requiredr But we could wish that all classes of the community were better acquainted than they are with the power they possess of stamping out a disease like scarlatina by a uniform and systematic method of procedure. The suf serer should be isolated at once, his clothes disinfected by dry heat in an oven, or by being boiled, or disinfected by chemicals and afterward washed and freely exposed to the air. The measures advocated by Dr. William Budd have the merit of being founded on a definite knowledge of-the object in view and of a practical way of attaining it. The oiling of the patient’s whole body, the provision of receptacles containing disinfectants in the sick-room for even-tiling which comes from the patient, or which he has used, the employment of disinfectants by the attendants for washing their hands; the use, in short, of the most scrupulous cleanliness —the confinement of the patieht „to bed until the process of desquamation has been completed and t£e use of warm baths during and subsequent to that process are all such definite and common-sense measures that no one should f*it to pursue them. All

books supplied to patients during their illness should be of a cheap kind in paper covers, so that they may, together with any toys used by them, be afterward burned. We think the plan suggested by the Health Officer at Liverpool a very good one for adoption, viz.: That any medical man in attendance on a case of scarlatina should report the circumstance, when the clothes and room would be disinfected by proper officers at the public expense.

Stock Feeding.

A correspondent from Summit County* this State, writes that he has but ( twenty tons of liay 6n hand, against thirty tons last year, with about the same amount of stock to feed. He nas the usual amount of straw stacked in the yard, to which he usually allows his cattle free access through the day. He has no more stock than the farm should maintain, and he desires to v know how lie can make his twenty tons of hay last through the winter. As many farmers who will read this may find themselves placed in similar circumstances, we will be excused for answering this query at some length. The importance of economy in feeding stock is underestimated. It is so hard to get out of the old routine of doing things. We become accustomed to a certain modus operandi, and we adhere to it, although convinced that there is a better way, until circumstances compel us to do otherwise. A few facts ought to convince us that this subject is important enough to dejnaud serious attention. A great part of the severe labors of the farmer through six months of the year are devoted garnering food to' maintain his stock through the remaining six months, and then nearly all hia labors during these' latter six months are devoted to taking care of them. It requires more food to keep the domestic animals of the United States than it does to maintain its whole population of human bipeds.- The value of the total hay crop of this country is, annually, about $400,000,000. This is all fed to the stock of the country, most of it through the few months of winte Now if, by a more economical method of feeding, one-fourth of this vast amount of hay could be saved, it would amount to $100,000,000, which, distributed among the farmers of the United States, would be no insignificant increment to their annual income. The profits of the farmer should arise from the stock he keeps, and these profits will be greater or less in proportion to his economy in feeding. When a farmer has plenty of feed he does not feel the necessity of economy, and a most wasteful method is the consequence. We know many good stock farms that produce abundantly, but are, notwithstanding, much less profitable to their owners than other farms far less productive, just from this cause alone. The usual method of most farmers is to feed nothing but dry hay or' fodder to. cattle; sheep tlie same, with, perhaps, the addition of a little grain. Horses are the only stock that get grain regularly. Now'dry feed is unnatural—one of the necessities, in this climate, of domestication. In the* natural state animals seek and obtain green, succulent food, and reason would therefore teach us that the nearer we can approach this the better every way. One of the essential differences in dry and green food lies in the difficulty of masticating the former. For much of the energies of the animal must be devoted to it, the process is more or less imperfect, and loss of substance must follow. This can be overcome by pulverizing the food by artificial means, cutting, grinding or pulping. The demand for machinery to do this work has created a supply, and cheap machines can now be obtained that will do the work well, either by hand or horse power. Out of the many experiments made to determine the relative value of different kinds of food, fed in various ways, we gather the following facts, an application of which will help our correspondent out of his dilemma: A bushel of cut straw, fed with two quarts of middlings, or steamed bran, is fully equal to the same weight of good timothy hay. One quart of corn meal, mixed with cut straw, is equivalent to the same. Certain elements of food produce flesh, other elements heat, fat, etc., and a certain portion of all dry food is woody fiber, of no value at all. Analysis of wheat straw shows that it contains 35 per cent, of heatproducing elements, and is notably deficient in flesh-forming principles alone. If this is supplied by bran or middlings, as before described,, the straw is converted, at small expense, into that much hay. In this market middlings are worth about the same as hay. "if our correspondent will sell five tons of his hay and buy five tons of middlings, and feed it with cut straw, he will bring his stock through the winder in better condition than he could with the hay alone, and at less expense, counting in the cost of a machine for cutting. His straw is turned into hay, instead of being tram, pled down into the manure pile, the food is more easily masticated and digested, and the manure made thus is of more value, if properly taken care of. Corn fodder can be treated same as strawwith better results, as it contains more flesli-forming substance, and hence requires less middlings to mix with it. Its value is greatly increased by pulping or crushing. The difference in the consumption of food when stock are housed in warm and comfortable quarters and when they are constantly exposed to the cold is immense. The average cow, for instance, requires about two and a half pounds of flesh-forming elements per day, and if warmly sheltered not more than fifteen pounds of the elements of respiration, or heat-producing elements, such as are supplied by the straw, corn fodder, efc7 But when exposed to cold she will require twenty or twenty-five pounds, or one-third more. Young, growing animals require more alouminoids or flesh-form-ing food than those that are matured, as both waste and growth must be supplied. Other circumstances materially affect the question of stock food, but a discussion of these must be deferred till another time.— Ohio Farmer A New Bedford clergyman amazed his congregation the other Sunday by suddenly leaving his pulpit, trotting down the aisle, and striding off toward home. The choir sang, and then there was an awkward, fidgety waiting. Soon the pastor shot into the church again, sopping perspiration from his forehead •with his handkerchief, and read his sermon without explanation. He had for gotten his manuscript—that was all. t——The Carlists are accused of having tried to introduce coal oil into Inin by means of snells. They excuse their inhumanity by declaring that the article Used was the non-esplosive kind.