Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1875 — Page 1

SOBACE E. JAMES & JOSHUA HEALEY, Proprietors.

VOL. VII.

„ CHINA-WEDDING” HYMN. SI Dear friends, we meet you here Upon the twentieth year Of wedded life. Those years now past and gone Have not with grief been strewn, But joys have with them grown For man and wife. To you our gifts we bring, As friendship's offering, You may rely! Not for their value small, „ ; Nor yet for show, withal, __ ; But for good will, by all Expressed thereby. And, in the coming years, With more of joy than tears, May you be blest. And that in health ypu may To'“ Silver Wedding’' 1 day, And “ Golden,” too, we pray, Arrive at last. And when life’s scenes are o’er, When care and grief nO more Disturb your rest, Then, on that “ shining shore,” - f When all life’s Ills are o’er, _____ With friends, forever more. May yon be blest. UNFINISHED STILL. A baby’s boot, and a skein of wool, Faded, and soiled, and soft; Odd thing, you say, and no doubt you’re right, Bound a seaman’s neck, this frosty night, Up in the yards aloft. Most like it’s folly, but, mates, look here: When first I went to sea, A woman stood on the far-off strand, With a wedding ring on the small, soft hand —— Which clung so close to me. My wife, God bless I The day before. She sat beside my foot, And the sunlight kissed her yellow hair, * And the dainty fingers, deft and fair, Knitted a baby’s boot. The voyage was over; I came ashore, What, think you, find I there? A grave the daisies' had sprinkled white, A cottage empty, and dark as night, And this beside the chair. The little boot, ’twas unfinished still; The tangled skein lay near; But the knitter had gone away to rest. With the babe asleep on her quiet breast, Down in the churchyard drear. —Cassell's Magazine.

MY NIGHT IN A STAGE COACH.

A TRUE STOfiY. The year was 1856 —the month Decern ber —the place Tamaqua. I was a young man then, and a strong one. I did a good deal of traveling through the State of Pennsylvania, going from county town to co.unty town from the beginning of the year to the close. It was pleasant business enough, for there was less railroading to be done then than now, and more staging, and not infrequently long rides bn canal-boats in the summer time. I was not often hurried on my trips and took my own timb. My exact business at the county seats consisted of hunting up titles to obscure, wild lands, paying taxes upon them and getting them in good condition for immediate sale. In consequence of the nature of this business I knew a good deal about the topography of Pennsylvania and a good deal that, at the time, was worth knowing about its roads and its inns. All of the latter were bad, but some were better than others. One of the worst of them was at Tamaqua, and possibly it is there yet, though when I last slept under its roof it was in altogether such a lamentable condition of decay, and its roof was such a very leaky root indeed, that I doubt not it long ago disappeared out of the sight of men, and possibly out of their memories also —Tamaqua having achieved a railroad since, and, of course, grown as only railroad towns do grow. I arrived there in that December of 1856, on a Monday afternoon, which was quite as cold and disagreeable a Monday afternoon as I remember to have known, though, when compared with the Tuesday that followed, it might be considered rather warm than otherwise. ,1 was halffrozen when ! got there, and' I was not quite thawed out when I left, for I had yielded to a burning curiosity to visit a coal-mine, and I fancy that Tamaqua is nothing but a coal- mine, with a thousand mouths that every morning swallow as many thousand miners and disgorge them every night. It was then, and I think it is now, a very black and sooty place, with a canal-in front of it, a hill behind it, and the huge mine I have spoken of under it. It was not only black and sooty itself, but its people were similarly black and sooty; and so were its horses, or rather its mules, for it seemed to have few of the former and a great many of the latter. Even its dogs and cats partook of the general sootiness, and were evidently greatly depressed by it. I was very cold when I went down into the mine—which had its shaft just behind the hotel—and I was colder still when I came out of it. I went to bed cold, and got up cold, so cold indeed that I thought I would never be warm any more. "When I went down into the frozen breakfastroom, I looked out of the window and saw that the ground was covered deep with snow, and that it was still snowing as if it meant to exhaust the whole winter’s supply in five minutes or so, being very greatly pressed to do it immediate ly. I drank my cold, black coffee and ate my cold, tough beefsteak in gloomy silence, thinking more than I had done for a long time before, of home, of its Eleasant cheer and warmth, and of the >ving boys and girls in it who were even then, no doubt, expecting my speedy coming, for this was already the morning of Tuesday, and Thursday would be Christmas Day. In that home I was St. Nicholas himself, for it was I that brought home in the night the brave tree, with its spreading green branches; it was I that planted it firmly in the middle of the wide parlor; it was I that found the infinite variety of toys, cakes, bon-bons and glittering baubles which covered it; it was I that placed the ever--beautiful image of the Christ-Child on the topmost bough; I that lighted the many-colored tapers, and I that, at tfie auspicious moment, suddenly threw open the folding-doors and let in the children to behold the glory of that wondrous Christmas miracle. In my irequent journeyings through the State, I had seen many places which I wanted to get away from quickly, but I never saw another that I wanted to

THE RENSSELAER UNION.

RENSSELAER, JASPER COUNTY, INDIANA, JANUARY 28, 1875.

turn my back upon so much as Tamaqua. It was not m any manner a pleasant place, and beside, if these nephews and nieces of .mine were to have a Christmas tree at all in this year, 1856, I thought I must go home as fast as I could travel. I had come to Tamaqua in a stage, and I must go away from it in a stage—not to Philadelphia, exactly, but to the next railroad town, and that was distant, I knew not how far. I arose, shivering, from the dreary breakfast, and hunted up the landlord of the inn. He was easily found, and was no better or warmer-looking a man than his accommodations promised him to be. I paid his extravagant charges, and then tnfoTTrreiTMm thavl wished to reach as quickly as possible the nearest railroad station, and to take the first train for the east. * “ The nearest station is at Ilium; Ilium is twenty two miles distant; you cannot g6t there before night, if at ail. _I think you won’t get there at all.” All this was spoken reflectively, and with deliberation. “If I can get there by ten o’clock to>night can I make Ithe eastern express?” “ You can, but 1 doubt if you can get there at all.” “ Why?” I asked. He was not a man to waste words. He only saidi—“The stage won’t go—on account of the storm." “Are you sure of that?” I ventured to ask. “ Quite sure,” and he closed his lips with a snap, as if he knew all about it. “Whoowns the stage?” “ I do,” he replied. “ And I won’t let it go, because the road lies over that mountain yonder; it runs close to the edges of precipices several hundred feet high, it is rough and slippery, the snow is deep now, and getting deeper every minute, and I don’t believe any horse could pull through it.” I thought of the little children waiting for me yonder; of their bitter disappoint ment if I did not come. Then I said: “I am very anxious to go, and I am willing to pay.well for being taken.” The landlord leaning over the bar asked: “How much?” I told him what I was willing to ,pay. “ I’ll go get the stage ready,” he said. After all, it was only the higher price he had been waiting for. In five minutes the stage was at the door. It was an ordinary box wagon on good strong springs, having a cotton cover open in front. The horse was a half-starved, jaded-looking beast. I took all this in as I stood on the porch waiting for the driver. Getting impatient at last ! asked: “ Where is the driver?” The landlord, without speaking, pointed to an ill-clad boy standing at the horse’s head. I looked closely at him. He might be, I thought, fifteen years old, or he might not be more than ten. His eyes were clear blue, and he, hearing my question, turned them full upon mine, a frank, boyish smile rebuking the distrust my words implied, and lighting up every feature of his delicate face. His complexion was like that of a girl, his mouth small and tender, his hair yellow, his figure slight and sinuous. I looked at him. standing there shivering with the cold, out through the driving storm, along the snow-covered mountain road we were to travel together, and asked: “ Are you not afraid to go?” ...... The landlord interrupted: “It don’t matter if he is afraid. He belongs to me. He shall go.” “No,” I said, “he shall not go if he if not quite willing.” “ 1 am not at all afraid,” the boy replied, “ and lam quite willing to go. I have gone, often and often,.-through worse storms than this.” There was an earnest, manly grace even in the way he shook the gathered flakes from his tattered cap, and in his voice there was such a hearty, cheery ring that from that moment I trusted and loved the boy. I jumped into the stage, took the back seat, drew my great frieze coat close to my legs, and we drove off from among the gaping, sooty crowd of miners into the lonely mountain road; into the cruelest storm of wind and snow that I ever saw. The boy sat on the front seat, waiting to be spoken to, looking straight aheod. When we were quite clear of the straggling huts of the miners on the outermost limits of the town I asked him his name. “They call me Lewis Shively,” he said. “How old are you, Lewis?” was my next question. “ Fourteen next April, sir.” “ Do you live at home with your father and mother?” “ That man yonder is all the father or mother I have, and his stable loft is the only home I have had since he took me from the poor-house. That was better than the stable, though, for they taugnt me something there.” There were no complaining chords in the tones in which these bitter words were said, and while he was speaking he was drawing the whip gently across the horse’s back, brushing off the snow that had fallen on it. “ Have yon been driving on this road long?” I inquired. “Going on three years. It will .be three years in March.” “Is it cold out there? Colder than in here, I mean?” “ I think it is,” he replied; “ the wind and snow cut so, but I don’t mind, sir! We get used to rough weather up in these hills.” i “ I wish you would come in here; my coat will cover us both.”— “ No, I can’t,”Jhe said. “ I must watch the road now. We have to go pretty close to the precipices sometimes.” “ How close?" I asked. “ Within a few inches. I can’t see now five yards ahead, the snow falls so heavily.” “ Do you think it safe, then, to go oh?” “Quite safe,'sir! and I don’t mind the cold.” But his teeth chattered as he said it and the ruddy glow was all gone from his cheeks. •' I did not talk more then. There were, I discovered, wide cracks in the bottom

of the stage, through which the wind poured mercilessly. I was chilled through to the heart in less than an hour after starting. I do not know how far we had gone, or how long we had been upon the road, when I heard the boy’s voice, cheery and bright, asking: “How are you now, sir? Feeling pretty comfortable, sir?” I nodded my head, and crept closer into the corner. Bpt he was wiser than I, and would not let me have the sleep I coveted. - ! “ You are in a hurry to get home,” he said, for want of something better to say with which to rouse me. _. “ Yes,”__l ippliefl- AIL want to. be at.. home on Cbrisimas-Xve.’! “The best days I ever knew were Christmases—a good while ago.” He said it as if he were ever and ever so old, and, what was saddest of all, as if he ■tfere done with Christmas forever. I told him of the tree 1 was to get, and how Christmas Day was kept in the great cities. He was most interested in the tree, making mte tell him again and again about it. But after awhile, as if he were tired of it, he said: “ I never saw a tree like that. I know about Christmas, though. About the star and the shepherds and the Christchild you spoke of—that they laid in a manger.” “ Then you know all that anyone in the world need ever care to know,” I said. It may have been an hour, or two hours, but it seemed but a minute, after this that the boy shook me roughly by the shoulder. “ We are to get out here,” he said. I was very stiff in my joints, but I could get up and climb out of the stage, and no more. If I was cold I did not know it; my limbs were numb,yet otherwise I was comfortable enough. I crawled out and followed the boy into a miserable-looking shanty by the roadside, in front of which we had stopped. There was a rough bar running across the room, there was a thick, black-haired, brawny-looking man behind it, and there were two or three kegs of liquor behind him. There was an iron stove in the middle of the room, a bench along the wall, and that was all. The boy asked for some brandy, drank a glass of it after handing one to me, which I drank, and felt so much better for drinking that I called for another and got it; but the boy refused to take the glass I offered him. “ I have had enough,” he said. We were going out when the landlord opened the door before us. Looking out into the stcrm, he asked incredulously: “ Are you going on?” “ Yes!” said the boy, “I was told to drive this gentleman to Ilium to-night, and I’m going to do it.” “ If you get there at all it will be night sure enough,” the landlord said. “ I will get there all the same,” was the boy’s reply. “ Let us stop here to-night,” I said; “ we can go on in the morning.” “I would rather take you on, sir!, There’s no danger. I can't put my horse up here, and my master would kill me if anything happened to him.” That "decided me to go on. Besides, I did not care to talk. I was beginning to feel cold again, standing in the wind, so we got into the stage. It was not snowing any faster than before, simply because it could not. But the roads were heavier, and when we tried to start the jaded horse balked and struggled through the drift, for the stage had frozen fast where it stopped. It was three o’clock now, the light in the west growing dimmer and dimmer — the gloom of the mountains and the bare woods coming nearer to us, making their meaning felt in our souls, filling mine with an awful dread of the snow-covered road beyond. Ten miles to go yet, the night coming quickly on, the cold growing more intense, the road rougher, more precipitous, the horse evidently giving out! But the boy took up the lines, the bright, frank smile upon his face, the cheery word upon his tongue. “ Goodby,” he said, to the man in the doorway. The man Stood for an instant in the dopr-waylooking aftei us. “Good-by,” he said. We went on along the road that from the beginning of time it was ordained we were to go. I crept back into my corner. “Do not go to sleep,” the pleasant voice warned me from the front. “ Thank yo.u,” I replied, cheered and warmed by its hearty glow. “ I will not go to sleep.” Then followed a long silence, in which I had views of the falling snow, the white hills above us, the white hills still below us, in which I heard sounds from creaking, crooning branches, from the wind sweeping savagely past us. Then unconquerable drowsiness, fast-coming darkness—then night. I felt a hand on my face, then on my shoulder shaking me roughly: a sweet, cheering voice in my ears calling me back to life. . «• “If you go to sleep now you won’t wake up again,” it said. ' - I woke with a sudden start, for an instant, to a full consciousness of time and place. I was not cold, only sleepy. “I am quite awake,” I replied. “ Have we far to go?” “ Five miles,” and the voice was still the same cheery voice that I had heard from the first. He Spoke to me often after that; then I saw him, as in a dream, fixing a blanket that he had taken from the horse’s back to the hickory bows overhead to keep the snow from driving in upon me, for I was covered with it to my knees. As God is my judge I did not then know what he was doing, or I would have stopped him. I did not then feel cold, though I knew afterward that I was then freezing, and I did not think he was cold. I did not think at all. I was far past that. I bad begun a longer journey than I had started upon In that longer journey I dreamed of home, of the wondrous Christmas miracle, the lighted tree: of the glad faces of children, whose voices I heard. I heard one of them repeat two or three times, with startling distinctness, “We are lost.” I was conscious that the child who said it had thrown herself into my arms

and was lying there • dull, heavy weight. But aside from the cry it was all bright And pleasant—this real, terrible journey through the snow, over the rough, dangerous mountain road in that far-off December. The dream lasted a long while, through all that night and the day following, and the night following that.* When I awoke from it 1 was in a large room, which I had never seen before. There were piles of the softest blankets upon me, there was a great wood fire blazing on the hearth, and I had never felt so warm and comfortable in all my life. There were two strangers in the room, a man and a woman, whose faces were kipdly ones, but sorely troubled- JWhen I stirred,” and' they saw I recognized them, they came ana stood by my bed.— “ Where am I?” 1 asked of them. “ At Hium, in the house of the Methodist minister.” “ How long have I been here?” “ Since night before last. You came in the stage, and the horse stopped before our door,” the man said. “ What day is this?" “It is Christmas Day,” the woman replied, taking my hand in hers. “ I have been ill, then?” “Yes!” “ There was a boy brought me here. Where is he?” “He is here, too.” The voice that said it was husky with tears, and the hand that held mine shook. “ Has he been ill, too?” “Yes.” __ “ Is he better now?” “He was never so well. He will never be ill again.” I looked into the f% e of the woman who said this, and I saw that her eyes were red with weeping. I disengaged the hand she held and turned my face to the wall. The woman laid her hand upon my arm. “You must not feel like that. It is better so. He had only one friend, and he is with Him this beautiful Christmas morning. He had no home here. It is Christmas Day, and he is at home there.” I took in mine that comforting hand that lay upon my arm. “ I would like to see him,” I said. “He gave his life for me." They took me down afterward to what had been the family siting-room. There were warm, red curtains at the windows; a bright, glowing carpet on the floer; there Were bunches of holly and lauref scattered here and there, and over all was the atmosphere of home. They left me at the door. I went in and stood by the side of the couch on which they had laid him. The eyes of tender blue were closed forever, the yellow hair was parted over the boyish brows, and still about the brave, sweet mouth the bright smile played as it did at the first mopaent of our meeting, when my implied doubt of him called it there. He lay before me dead, in all the glow and promise of his youth. But the smile, which triumphed above death’s ruin, rebuked me, and as I stooped to kiss the lips of the beautiful boy I knew, as well as man could know, that he was not dead; that He who had given more life to the dead girl and the widow’s son had given it also to him; and that he had only gone farther upon his journey than I —into a sweeter, fuller, more gracious life than he had ever known. And I also knew that I should see him again if I but made my own life as brave, unselfish, and true as his had been.— L. Clarke Davis, in Scribner's Monthly.

Robinson Crusoe.

I never sit down and ponder on Robinson Crusoe’s case without feeling sad and sympathetic. He wasn’t any relative of mine, of course; he didn’t even belong to my lodge, nor vote my ticket, but it must be awful for a young and healthy man to be cast away on an uninhabited Island for years and years and be deprived of the society of everybody except a dog and seventeen goats. I don’t wonder that there were times when Mr. Crusoe sat down and wished that he were dead. Mrs. Crusoe, a dashing young woman, would have good reason to believe him dead, and he knew •he’d be «utring around to strawberry festivals and have her eyes on the watch for a second husband. If Rob was ever rescued he’d go home and find a strange man in the house, and strange red-head-ed children galloping up and down. Then he’d have to go away and die of a broken heart, as poor Enoch Arden did. No, he wouldn’t, either —he’d go for that strange man and those red-headed children like a Chinaman for a mouse, and he’d tell Mrs. Crusoe just what he thought of her conduct. And there were hundreds of other things to worry him and make him feel out of sorts. He hadn’t a shirt which buttoned behind, his shoe-blacking was a bogus article, his stock of cuffs and collars soon ran out, and he might put on a diamond pin as big as his fist and there was no one around to remark the style he carried. He was a good ways from any grocer’s, the mails were always behind time, and there hasn’t even one street-car or omnibus line on the island. If he wanted to go anywhere he had to walk, or paddle his way in his old dugout. Owing to the high price of gas he couldn’t use it in his house, and the street lamps weren’t lighted half the time. At home Mr. Crusoe had been used to going to ward caucuses, spelling schools, husking bees and dog fights, and he suddenly found himself deprived of all these pleasures. For a period of fifteen years and four months he never had a chance to cast his vote, or take something to drink at a candidate’s expense, ana at last he became so reckless that he didn’t, care whether Andrew Jackson or Busan B. Anthony was President of the United States of America. In addition to being deprived of good society Mr. Crusoe labored under many annoyances. If he found a button oft his shirt he might get up and rave and howl, but there was no one these to hear, and his howling didn’t do any good. He had to get up and build his own fires, make his own bed, wash his own clothes In the coffee-pot, and if he lost his hat

around the house it didn’t do any good to yell out: “Sarah Jane Crusoe, where in blazes is my hat!” for Sarah Jane was far, far off. I can imagine how a man must feel to be deprived of the sight of his mother-in-law for nearly twenty years, and how lonely life must be without plenty of perfumed hair-oil, calf-skin boots and now and then a horse-race or a State election to bet on. Many and many a time I have dropped the book and brushed the tears away as I realized that Mr. Crusoe might have died fifty times and no one would have had interest enough to start a subscription for a monument to him.— M, Quad. in Our Fireside jPriend.

Another Anecdote of the Rail.

Some years ago there were engaged upon the Boston & Providence Railroad two men, as engineers, who are now eminent as master mechanics of railroads. They were both skillful men. As they ran regular trains, they each had a locomotive which they ran daily, and they became as much attached to their machines as any gentleman will be to a fine horse. They could perform any task with them, and obtain such speed out of them as no other engineer could. One of them, whom we will call Green, used to say that he could stop his engine within an inch of a mark to be put up on the trqck. In fact, he used to do it at the Roxbury stop frequently (when the “ old man,” meaning the master mechanic, was not aboard) to his admiring associates. The other man—Brown—was equally proud of his machine. You would think he had a circus trick-horse to hear him talk. These men of course had a little rivalry between them, which was always encouraged by the other boys on the road. Green stated one day that he would hang up his gold watch on the back of Brown’s tender, and would run fifteen hundred feet at full speed, and stop- with his draw-bar within one inch of the watch. He was dared to do it. He accepted the challenge and accomplished what he said he could. Brown was astonished at the daring of his associate and concluded that if he did not take the wind out of his sails his (Browpls) .fame would be under a cloud. So he said that it was luck on Green’s part;; hat he could not do it again; would bet $5. The bet was accepted and Green sailed back to the starting point, and in due time came back at full speed and went at Brown’s tender with ap, awful whack. The watch was somewhat enlarged superficially; it was quite thin, and the crystal was in more than one piece. As a time-keeper its avocation had ceased entirely. The reason of the smash-up was, BroWn had quietly moved his machine several inches by leaking steam into cylinders. This he had managed to do unperceived by the bystanders, who were very intently watching Green’s movements. The latter was wonder-struck at the failure of his feat, but he never for a moment supposed that Brown had played him false. He never tried the thing again. In after years Brown presented him with a valuable watch, with due explanations, which was to the receiver an astonishing revelation. r . A »

Infant Precocity—Its Dangers.

We just now assume to be fond of science, and talk wisely concerning nature’s laws, especially such as are at a convenient distance and don’t infringe upon ourselves; but we fight shy of many a physiological truth of nature, among which is that embodied in the old aphorism: “ Boon ripe, soon rotten.” Far be it from me to growl at the little ones, the bright little ones. I have no cynical dislike of them—l even sympathize in a parent’s pride; but in the interest of these infants I say to parental pride, and fain would say it forcibly: “Forbear! you are ruining, destroying the object on which you build such high hopes.” Humanity is not a legitimate subject for hot-house forcing; it arrives at its best strength and most desirable development only in its natural element and by natural stages of a rather slow growth. It much more frequently happens that a somewhat dull child, or one that has shown merely a kind of quiet common sense, comes by and by to the front on the great stage of human affairs, than otherwise. The vivacious, sparkling, meteoric style qf infancy seems usually to burn itself out; and its ashes fill either an early grave, the drooping form of an'invalid, or that of some fitfullyflashing, but on the whole incompetent, sample of mediocrity. There are exceptions to all rules, but this is the rule with regard to the growth of intellect, not to say genius, and both these are more likely to be developed by the exigencies and hard knocks of actual lite, as nature prepares the way, than by the pampering and forcing of early stimulation. Just observe a little one whose parents glory in its precocity, how the lights and shades of color and expression chase each other ever the mobile features; how the eyes glow and the nervous system of the excitable, miniature candidate for public applause is upon the strain when or wherever it feels itself to be on exhibition. Almost superhuman must such a child be if its self-consciousness do not soon make it an object of censure, if not of dislike, to everybody except its doting friends, some who would win favor with these, or perchance a passing stranger attracted for a moment. But this is not the worst of it: that eagerness for notice, for admiration, is a fever hurrying on the life currents with an unwholesome, an exhausting impulse. In past times people used to push and ply their promising infants with -book-lore; this is not now the fashion; it is not schoolbooks nor schoolmasters that nowadays sap the life of the little Dombeys; it is excitement, not work, that, especially among us, does the mischief Science of Health. —, Dr. Loring says that nature never made a scholar and an acrobat in one piece; therefore the gymnasiums which are killing off the students of the land are evils. * : A-

SUBSCRIPTION; 99.00 a Year, tai Advance.

For some years the London human hair trade has derived its chief and most highly-esteemed supplies from the open gutters of the smaller Italian towns,: specially and those of the rural districts generally; and there is a scheme at pres* ent under consideration in the Italian Chambers for raising money to defray the cost of extensive drainage works to be carried to the smaller towns after the larger cities have been drained in accordance with our own most approved modern systems. Here, then, we have at once an answer to the inquiry where our hair comes from, and the indication of an impending crisis by which the very existence of the Italiano-British human hair trade is threatened; for as soon as rural Italy is subjected to the control of local boards of health there will be an end *o all further supplies from that quarter. To make this intelligible we will briefly explain the initiatory steps of the process by which Italian hair is converted into English “ capillaments.” The Italian women, like their sisters in other parts of the world, have the practice of twisting into a coil all the hairs which become detached from their heads in the operation of combing orbrushing. These coils, in the total absence of house-drains, are thrown with other refuse into the open gutters, which seldom fail to supply an Italian household with a near and ready means of disposing of the oftcastings of their habitations. This ts the first step in the proceeding. The next is effected when the scavenger appears on the scene with his springless cart, and like another Neptune, trident in hand, wades through the gutter and hooks up every floating tangle of hairs. These he carefqlly consigns to a separate receptacle and keeps by him—for he well knows their value—till the hair peddler, technically known in the trade as “the cutter,” makes his next round and gathers in the season’s harvest, which is forthwith conveyed to Genoa and other seaport towns, where the coils are disentangled and separated by children, who are employed in the business, into “heads” and “ tails,” the former being composed of short but even lengths, arranged according to color, and the latter of the longer lengths of hair. It is said that of late years many hundred-weights of these heads and tails, grimly characterized as “ dead hair," annually cross the Alps, or round the Rock at Gibralter, on their way to our more northern centers of civilization, where existing systems of drainage present insuperable obstacles to the retention and utilization . of refuse hair. It is obvious, therefore, that when rural Italy is drained London society will find that one of its most conspicuous and apparently most highly-prized means of adornment has become scarce and costly of an extent utterly incompatible with the continuance of the present lavish use the air. The fate of the “ capillaments” is evidently trembling in the balance. It may be said that there are other sources of hair supply than Italian gutters—and that is true —but these sources are not certain or profuse in more than one or two directions. German peasant heads have, indeed, long yielded good supplies of “ yellow flaxens;” but the peasant women of the Empire are beginning to discard their hereditary costume and to vie with the classes above them in displaying redundant heads of hair, and so they no longer part as readily as of yore with their tawny locks. Great hopes were entertained that Japan would be found willing to include hair in her exports; but, even if she were, the tresses of the daughters of the Flowery Land have a wire-like rigidity in their texture which unfits them for juxtaposition with English heads of hair. It is much (the same with other sources of human hair supply; when put to the test of practical applicability they are found wanting, and if science had not come to the aid of nature —with signal success in the case of those apricot-hued golden reds and ruddy yellows which have long been the delight of painters and poets of the preRaphael order—we could scarcely predict anything short of annihilation for the trade. These special shades of yel-low-red hair are, however, manufactured • with a perfection which shows what may be done by a skillful adaptation of ordi nary means in producing very charming results; and we are indebted to the newspaper reports of a case heard before Sir R. Malins about five years ago for a clear exposition of the methods employed. It came out on the trial referred to that the Slaintiffs, who were at the head of a lanchester frizette and hair firm, sued a rival manufacturer for infringing a patent obtained by them in 1867 for converting coarse Russian wool, known as “ tops,” into soft, lustrous, golden hair. They declared that they had, under the advice of eminent chemists, adopted a successful method of removing all oily matters from these tops by steeping them in sulphate of copper, and that at the cost of much time, money and thought they had learned how to give to these tops the requisite color by means of catechu, logwood, sulphate of iron and other ingredients—gelatine being used to impart a curled or crisped appearance to the hair. It was made apparent in the course of the trial that by the plaintiff’s process hair of any length could be manufactured—in fact, any number of Lady Godivas might have been provided by the Manchester patentees with, the requisite profusion of hair, not to mention the wholesale manner in which they were able to supply, among many other curious hair products, luxuriant dishev tied manes intended as sortiss de bain for ladies at watering-places. The Vice Chancellor remained obdurate to the plea of the plaintiffs for a monopoly in the use of “ Russian Tops," and dismissed the bill with costa, stigmatizing the plaintiffs’ conduct as “ unjustifiable, since, if their patent was sustained, it would be impossible for anyone to use wool without their consent for the various purposes it had been used long before our grandfathers werebOrn.” —London Examiner. ' *».■ At Monte Vista, Cal., the apple trees are now “fragrant with their white and pink bloom.” &

NO. 19.

Human Hair Supplies.