Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1875 — Page 6

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

—To destroy insects that work on the roots of house-plants, put a few of carbolic acid in a pint of water and pour around the roots. ■ * —4 correspondent of the Baltimore American writes that he prevented his horses from having the epizootic by an expectorant treatment, and friends used the same means with success. He dissolved one teaspoonful of crystal chlorate of potash in a bucket of water, this amount making a morning dose for four horses. Another dose was given at night. —Chicken Pie. —Cut up a chicken, boil it until tender, take out the meat, simmer down the gravy to a pint, add three pints of milk and one-half pound of butter, two tablesptxinfuls of flour, a ’little salt; bring the gravy to a boil; line a tin pan with a crust made by taking one-fourth as much butter as sour milk, and a little soda and flour, to make a nice paste; line the tin pan, putin the meat, i>our over it the gravy, put on a top crust, leave a vent, and bake two liours and a half. •—Alter the fall of the leaf is a good time to notice any irregularities of growth of orchard trees, and this may then be rectified in a short time, always bearing in mind that in the case of large limbs being removed the wound should',>be covered with some preparation to keep out the weather. Gum-shellac dissolved in alcohol, or even cow-dung bound- on the parts exposed, answers the purpose. A handsomely-formed tree is not alone valued for its appearance to the eye, but it is in reality more useful, as the crop of fruit is then usually more evenly distributed over the tree.'— N. Y. Tribune. —A wash might be invented suitable to be put on the stems of trees that would prevent the attacks of mice in winter. But there is always more or less danger of in- , juring the trees by direct application of offensive materials. The more general and belter practice is to wrap the stems with paper, cloth, or bark, and apply coaltar or some other substance of a similar nature to the outside. Old coffee sacks, bass mats, or even a strong kind of paper, will answer for this purpose. The soil should be banked up over the lower edge ol' the wrapping, to prevent the mice from crawling under, and the stems of the trees covered one or two feet in height. Coaltar is probably the cheapest and most effectual material for this purpose* as mice will not trouble it. —Prairie Farmer. —ftrurcehiltig Ae rare- of tfae feetthe Scientific American very truly says: Many are careless in the keeping of the feet. If they wash them once a week they think they are doing well. They do not consider that the largest pores are located in the bottom of the foot, and that the-most offensive matter is discharged through the pores. They wear stockings lrorn tire beginning to the end of the week without change, which become perfectly saturated with offensive matter. 11l health is generated by such treatment of the feet. The pores are not repellants, but absorbents, and this fetid matter, to a greater or less extent, is taken back into the system. The feet should be washed every day with pure water only, as well as the armpits, from which an offensive odor is also emitted unless daily ablution is practicedStockings should not be worn more than a day or two at a time. They maybe worn one day, and then aired and sunned and worn another day if necessary."

Thick or Thin Seeding of Grain.

Of late years the practice of sowing or drilling wheat and other grains more sparingly has much increased. The change is partly due, we hope, to better cultivation, better preparation of the soil, and especially to the use of the drill, which secures a perfect covering of the seed at uniform depth. In sowing oh the fiirrow, especially on new land among stumps and stones, not more than half the grain would grow, and often less thap that. If the drill distributes evenly the quantity of grain really needed for a good seeding is very small—much less than any farmer thrnksof sowing:- Some curious calculations on this subject show that a bushel of wheat contains al>out 600,000 grains, enough to give, if distributed evenly and all grew, a' plant to every three square inches of One peek per acre would leave the plants only six inches apart, which is really closer than need be for a good crop. An English tanner by handplanting wheat, the grains nine inches apart, has secured a crop of sixty bushels per acre. It is commonly urged by farmers that thick seeding protects wheat from the severity of the winter by insuring a large growth of tops. But as each individual plant is crowded and stunted it is less fitted ,to endure the severity of winter. Often on fields which looked promising in fall we have seen the ground entirely bare in spring. There is, of course, a slight advantage in the decaying stems and root* erf the plants which die, as manure, but it is the dearest fertilizer that any fanner can use. If wheat is to be used as a fertilizer let the portion not absolutely needed for seed be malted, so that it will not grow, and distribute with the rest. Of course no farmer would do that, but it is more sensible than sowing more seed than is needed with the idea of benefiting the crop. There is shrewd sense in the English proverb: The worst weed for the wheat plant is another wheat plant. Other weeds might take something not needed for wheat, bnt the surplus wheat plants rob the soil of what la most needed to be retained tor the crop. We have noted some experiments in thick and thin sowing of spring grain. In most cases the results were apparently favorable to the thin seeding, especially where” the ground was rich. Unfortunately, the experiments were not accurately made, and only the general result can be stated. Thick seeding apparently did best on soil not rich enough to allow the grain to spread from the root. As a rule, Uie richer the land the leas seed required or allowable.

A farther conclusion on this subject seems lb be that thin seeding gives larger and heavier grain than where the plants are crowded closely together. By mistake last spring on the home farm a few bouts of barley were drilled in at the rate of little more than a bushel per acre. The barley for several weeks appeared quite thin, but before harvest became nearly as thick as the other, and we fancied was a heavier head and berry than the remainder ot the field sown at the rate of two and one-half bushels per acre. On the headlands, where the drill overlapped, sowing five bushels per acre, the barley was almost a failure, small straw, smaller heads and very small grains. This view in favor of light seeding is confirmed by Mr. Mechi, the celebrated English farmer, who says in • the English Agricultural Gazette that he has reduced the seeding of barley from three bushels to six pecks per acre, and that where three bushels is now sown the crop is too light in grain for malting, and is fit onjv tor grinding. We think mat on all rich land six pecks of

barley and the same of oats are 1 tetter than heavier seeding. For wheat one bushel, or five pecks at most, ought to be sufficient wherever wheat should be sown. —Rural New Yorker.

Making Full Use of Capital.

A good business man wishes to keep all his capital employed—we use the word capital in its general sense. If he has money to. loan he prefers to take a less rate of interest if thereby he secures the certainly of having the money loaned for a long time. If he l>c a day-laborer, with nothing but his muscle, he will do well to accept steady employment rather than depend on the chance of odd jobs even at higher rates. So the farmer should endeavor so to arrange bis plans that his land, his teams, his live-stock and himself, and hired laborers shall be, engaged in producing something during the greater part of each year. As has often been pointed out, it is one of the great disadvantages of a system of farming which relies on growing the small grains that it does not keep the farmer anti his teams employed during tile whole year. On the other hand live-stock raising, and especially dairying, has the advantage of allowing labor to be profitably employed nearly every day of the year. The difference in the two systems is very marked; more so than is otten realized. In one other most important matter very many farmers are not careful to keep their full capital employed—and that is in making full use of their land. The fact that land could be obtained at very low prices and that the rKe in prices formed an important part, if not the chief part, of the profit to farming has in some respects been a disadvantage to our farming. When one could buy land at $1.25 pet. acre, and in ten or twenty years sell it at $lO, S2O, SOO or SSO per acre, lie would have done well if his farming paid the interest, taxes, and his current expenses. Something of this kind happened so'often that a large number of farmers, more or less unconsciously, are holding their lands with a view of profit from the general increase in value rather than from their direct farming operations.

As a country grows older and more thickly' settled the time approaches when this source of profit cannot be - relied on; when farmers must expect profit, if at all, from their yearly crops. This makes betters arming necessary,. __ Taxes are high, and land which is nonproductive is taxed as well as that which is bringing good crops each year. Fences are costly, and as much so around unproductive as productive land. If tlie land is not paid for the interest is the same whether the land is being “madeto pay” or is doing nothing. Yet while all this is true, there are very many farms on which five, ten or twenty acres can be found almost any year which are practically producing nothing. A pasture or meadow which iias “run out” is still kept up; a field is left fallow, to grow up in weeds; timber land, from which all that is valuable has been cut, is left year ;ifte,r year. The disposition to have a large farm often leads to the purchase of so much land that very little money is left for stocking it, or so much that means cannot he had to properly conduct it. Certainly it is the part of wisdom to make the best possible use of all the land. - It may not be advisable, in tlie West, to practice what we call high farming, but there can be no doubt that it is advisable to secure crops from all the land owned. Western Farmer.

How to Keep the Boys on the Farm.

Too little care is taken to encourage the boys on the farm and to make them feel that they have an interest in its success. Agriculture is sustaining constant loss of ability and tlie failures in life are being needlessly increased through the inexcusable neglect of fathers to make farm life attractive to their children. It is never profitable to make a simple machine out of a human being. Slavery, for this reason, was never in any sense profitable, and never will be. Men and children have minds which are restless and aspiring, and constant work without compensation or the hope of reward is as unencouraging as an attempt to batter down a mountain with a bottle of Colognewater, and is but the work of a soulless machine; The boy will think of something; his thoughts cannot be fettered. If nothing of interest connected with the farm is furnished him for contemplation his mind will center its energies upon something else, and where the mind goes and lingers the heart will soon go also. His hands may hold the plow, but his thoughts will be far away from the field, shaping castles in other and untried spheres; and soon he will leave the farm for greater excitement and embrace, apparently, more favorable opportunities. The city is largely indebted to this cause for its constantly-increasing country immigration. The city is always noisy, and the bustle of its industry and the sound of its gayety is easily heard amidst the quiet of farm life. If the mind of the boy is unoccupied by something which interests it, it is readily captivated by the noise of the city ana agriculture soon loses him from its ranks. Well, how can he be interested in the farm ? As has been frequently remarked in these columns, everything which tends to make farm-life cheerful will have a tendency in that direction. Flowers, music, books, newspapers, in fact all that a city home possesses of comfort and the means of culture, besides those features which belong to the country exclusively, should be studiously provided and fostered. But still more can be done. The boy can have his interest excited by a system of remuneration for his labor, which system would be more certainly productive of good results if it provided that such remuneration be in stock. His time and thoughts would thus be occupied in the care of his cattle, sheep or hogs, and it would take more glitter than the city generally produces to attract that boy’s attention.

A subscriber to the Western Rural informs us that this is his system with his twelve-year-old boy, and that no stockraiser in the country is more interested in his herd than this boy is in the animals which he has earned and which he knows are absolutely his own. He is confident that his boy will never be allured from the farm, anti in all probability he is correct. The pi &n is at least an easy and reasonable experiment, and is worthythe consideration fathers who believe their sons will be happier and safer on the farm than in the city.— Western Rural. -i The embezzlement of Paxton, the gay and festive teller of the Mechanics’ Bank of Montreal, is swelling its fair proportions. As far as now ascertained, the amount is over |IOQ,OOO, with some back counties still to bear lrom.

Our Young Folks. ORE AT EXPECTATIONS. Ev’ry little grape, dear, that clings unto a vine - , Expects some day to ripen its little drop of wine. Ev’ry little girl, I think, expects ia time to be Exactly like her oWfr mamma—as grand and sweet and free! Ev’ry little boy who has a pocket of his own Expects to tie the biggest man the world has ever known. Ev’ry little piggy-wig that makes its little wail . Expects to be a great, big pig with a verycurly tail. Ev’ry little lamkin, too, that frisks upon the green Expects to be the finest sheep that ever yet was seen. Ev’ry little baby-colt expects to be a horse; Ev’ry little pup expects to be a dog, of course. Ev’ry little kitten pet, so tender and so nice, Expects to be a grown-up eat and live on rats and mice? Ev’ry little fluffy chick, in downy yellowy drest Expects some day to crow and strut, or cackle at its best. Ev’ry little baby-bird that peeps from out its nest Expects some day to' cross the sky from glowing east to west. Now ev’ry hope I’ve mentioned here will bring its sure event, Provided nothing happens, dear, to hinder or prevent. —Joel Stacy, in St. Nicholas.

A NARROW ESCAPE A TRUE STORY.

BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.

So lupg ago as it takes for little boys to grow great men it was not so easy to live -in Nebraska as it ia now, when the great Land Commissioner of the great railroads bangs a buffalo’s head in every depot in Boston to show the world how- much more delightful is the society of buffaloes than the society of Bostonians. When John, and Susan, and Titus, and Tam o’ Slianter, and Betty, and the''new baby came from England to Nebraska that plucky young State was, for the most part, an ugly, howling wilderness. In the thick of the wilderness Mr. and Mrs. John Jacobs dug out for themselves a home. Literally, they dug it out with their own hands. Susan was a tough little woman, with stout hands and a stout heart, and she dug too. I think, if the truth must l»c told, she rattier enjoyed leaving Titus and Tam with the other babies—there’s no guessing how much care one baby will take of another till you’ve tried—and taking an ax to help her husband fell trees and cut underbrush, or taking a hoe to lioe her row in the darling little garden, out of which they meant to make a living, if they died for it. It was only because they meant to so very hard, I fancy, that they made the living without dying for it. It was almost worse, at first, than coachman’s wages in Mother England. There was the newness, and there was the homesickness, and there was the distance from the market, and there was the bitter cold, and there was the blighting heat, and always there wefe the babies, and, besides, there were the Indians. : Yes, an Indian story. “Truly, honestly,” as my little friend Trotty would sav, a live Indian story ; and though it isn’t a very long one it is every word a true one. Most true things are not yery long in this world unless you except the moral law or the multiplication table or a few such things as that. John and Susan and Tam and Titus and Betty and the new baby and the newest new baby (when it came) got along pretty well with everything else; but it wasn’t pleasant to see an Indian walking by with a tomahawk just as you were quietly sitting down to supper; and they got a little tired of sleeping with one ear open, listening for the awful, echoing sound of the cruel Indian war-cry; and whatever may be urged against life as a coachman in England, at least it was a life in which one’s attention wasn’t called so frequently to the top of one’s head. “ Mine is lairly sore,’’ laughed Susan, “with thinking how it will feel 1 to be scalped." But Susan was such a brave little woman! And if there is anything very much needed in this world it ia brave women. “I’ll have a gun,” she said. So she had a gun. .“I’ll be a good shot,” she said. And quickly she became as good a shot as John. And when John was at work in the woods or the garden Susan gathered the brood about her in the house, and, lynx-eyed as a sentry and fine-eared as a mother, mounted guard. Now there came a time when nobody had seen any Indians for so long a while that even the wise heart of the mother forgot to feel keenly about anything in this world. If we do not see it—an absent duty or an absent friend or an absent terror —all alike, they grow a trifle dim or dull. And one day, when Titus and Tam said : “Just one gallop on the prairie, mother, with old Jerusalem,” their mother said: “ Well, I don’t know,” and their father said: “I guess I’d let ’em,” and the lynxeyes, and the keen ears, and the wise head of the mother said her not nay—and so it happened. Old Jerusalem was the big white horse; the faithful, ugly, grand old horse, that took steps almost as long as a kangaroo’s, and was more afraid of an Indian than Titus and Tam.

So Susan kissed Titus good-by tenderly —for he was the good boy of those remarkable twins—and that was why they called him Titus; and kissed Tam a little more tenderly still, because he wasn’t so good as Titus, and so had got called Tam, and she said; “ Hold on tight! ” and John came out and said: “ Come home pretty sppn;” and Tam got on first, and Titus got on behind him, and Jerusalem gave one great bound, and away they shot, clinging with shining, bare feet to Jerusalem’s white, bare back—for they were magnificent little riders, seven years old now, and brave as cubs. * Susan stood watching them after John had gone back to his work—stood watching long after they had swept away into the great, green, beautiful sea of the treacherous prairie grass. Uneasy? Not. exactly. Sony-she had let them go? Hardly "that. She was a sensible little woman, and, haring done what she thought was right, had no idea of being troubled by it till the time came. But still she stood watching, her hand above her eyes—this way—and she did not go into the house till the newest new baby had cried at least five minutes at the top of its flew little lungs, Titus and Tam and J erusalem gbt pretty far out on the beautiful, terrible prairie. How beautiful it was! It did not seem as if it ever could be terrible if it tried. The green waves of the soft grass rolled madly. The wind was high. The sun was so bright they could not look at it. The strong horse bounded with mighty leaps. The boys could feel the muscles quivering

and drawn tense in his soft, warm body, as they clung. It was like being a horse yourself. They d(d not know which, was horse and which was boy. They laughed because they could not help it and shouted because they did not know it. Hi! Hi! Oh, the sun, and the mad grass, and the wild wind! Hi! Hi! Yi-i-i! Wliocould l»e two boys on such a prairie, on such a day, on such a horse, and not jjrell like little wild-cats? “It’s pretty,” said little Titus, softly, when they had got tired of yelling. “You bet!’’ said Tam, loudly. “Hi! Hi! Hi! YY-i-ee-ee!” “I guess we ought to go back,” said Titus, pretty soon; Titus "was so- much more likely to remember to be good. “ Oh, no,” said Tam, who was generally a little bad when there was-a chance. “ Father said to come home pretty soon,” said Titus. “But,” urged Tam with a bright air, “ mother said to hold on tight. Hi! Yi! Yi!” Ah! what was that? What was it? Could Jerusalem answer? Can the wild winds talk? Will the mad prairie speak? The sunshine is tongue-tied and the great sky is dumb. But something answered Tam O'Shanter’s shout. Kill, there! O Titus! Quick, quick, quick! Turn him round, Tam! Turn Jerusalem round! Injuns! Injuns! Oh, I wish we hadn’t come! What shall we do, what shall -we do ? Oh, Tam, what shall we do ? Oh, Tam, they’ve all got horses, and they’re coming straight! Get up! Get up! Oh, Jerusalem, do hurry! Old fellow, do get us hornet Good boy! Good old fellow! O Tain! they’ve got arrows, and they’re going—to—shoot! Pretty little Mrs. Jacobs had got the newest baby to sleep, and got the baby that wasn’t quite so new to sleep, and given . Betty her patchwork, and sent her husband out lijs beer, and swept the kitchen, and built the fire, and started supper on the way, and I don’t know what else besides, when that fine mother’s ears of hers detected, through the sound of the wind upon the prairie, a sharp, uneven, and, to her notion, rather ugly sound. Betty was sitting in the door, but she heard nothing. The sleeping babies did not stir from their baby dreams. John was in the garden, but John heard never a sound.

Only the mother heard it. Only the mother grew lynx-eyed in an instant, and in an instant was out with hand upraised —just so, again—bareheaded, stern - moutlied, anxious- hearted, watching as those watch who have lived much face to face with death—without -a word. She did not even call her husband. The time had not come to speak. It might have been three minutes; it might have been less or more; who could tell? when John Jacobs, digging heavily over an obstinate potato, felt a hand laid lightly upon his shoulder. His wife stood beside him. She was aspale as one many hours dead; hut she-stood quite still. “ John,” she said, in alow voice, “come into the house a minute.” He obeyed her in wonder and in silence. He just dropped his hoe and went. “ Now, shut,(he door,” said Susan. He shut it. “ Shut the windows.” —What’s the matter, Susan ? Anything wrong? Ain’t tlie boys in? What? You —don’t —mean ” “Hush-sh! Before the clftldren! Don’t, John! I’ll tell you in a minute. Bolt the front door!” He bolted it. “ Lock everything. Draw the shutters. Fasten them with case-knives besides the buttons. Is the cellar-door tight? Is everything tight? Betty, take care t)f the babies a minute for mother. John, come here!” She led him to the little attic, and from the narrow, three-cornered window pointed to (lie prairie, still without a word. And still, how beautiful it was! How the wind played like one gone crazy for joy with the tender tops of the unbruken, unbounded grass. And soft, as if the world had gone Jo sleep for very safety, fell the magnificent western sun. Beautiful, terrible, treacherous thing ! Cutting through thp soft horizon jjhe,~ sharp as the knife through shrinking flesh, six dark figures loomed against the sky. Wildly before them, with the gigantic strides of a long-stepped roadster, fled a big, gaunt, homely, grand old horse. And clinging with little, bright, bare feet to his white sides, and clinging with little despairing arms to one another “My God! They are our boys!” John Jacobs threw up his arms and ran.

Quick as woman’s thought ran his wife was before him and had bolted the attic door. ■ “ Where are you going, John ?” She spoke, he thought, in her natural tones, though she trembled horribly. Where was he going? Why, tc meet them, save them —get his gun—blow these devils’ brains out—what did she mean? Wiry did she keep him? Quick, quick! Open the door! “Mv husband,” said Susan, still in those strangely-quiet tones, “we cannot save our boys. Look for yourself and see. They will be shot before they reach the house. We have three children left. You must save them, and for their sakes yourself, John. Keep the door locked. Keep the windows barfed. Keep the shutters drawn. Give me the old pistol and my gun. Take your own and guards the door. There’s a chance that they’ll live to get here and be let in. But not one step outside that door, John Jacobs, as you’re the father of three living children! O John, John, John! My poor little boys!” He thought she would have broken down at that. He thought he could never get her from the attic floor, where she lay trembling in that horrid way, with her chin on the window-sill and her eyes set upon the six dark figures, and the grand, old, ugly horse upon which the slipping, reeling, hopeless, precious burden dung. But all he could hear her say was “Mother’s poor little boys!” Mother’s poor little boys indeed and indeed ! Leap your mighty leaps, Jerusalem; they’re none too large; your great legs that Tam and Titus h%ie so often made lun of are none too long for their business now. How the splendid muscles throbbed beneath the terrified bare feet! No wondering which was horse and which was boy this time. It was all horse now. There was no will, no muscle, no nerve, no soul, but the brave 1 soul of old Jerusalem. Will he get us home? Can he ever, ever keep ahead so long? Oh, how the arrows fly by! We shall be hit, we shall be, hit! O mother, mother, mother! “ Tam, why don’t father come to meet us ? Why don’t they do something for us, Tam ? Has mother forgotten us?” That, I think, must have been the crudest minute in all the cruel story. And yet, perhaps, not so cruel as the minute when the mother, at the attic window, gave one long, low, echoing cry, and came, staggering from her post, downstairs to say—‘still in that strange voice that mothers such as she will have at such

a minute: “ John, they are hit; the arrqw‘ struck them both. Leftne to the kitchenwindow. You stay at the door. There’s just a moment now.” There was but a moment, and like a wild dream the whole dreadful sight came sweeping up over the garden into the yard/ Now John could not see anything but the mighty form of the horse Jerusalem. To this day he says that the saddle, Jo his eyes, as the magnificent creature leaped by, was empty as air. He only saw the horse—and the horse made straight for the barn. But why did the savages pursue a riderless horse ? And whooping and shouting cruelly after it, into the barn they plunged. “ The boys are on the horse,” in a hoarse whisper said the mother; “I saw them both. They are bleeding and falling. The arrow has pinned them together, John, but they’ve kept their seat.” “My boys are pretty good riders,” said John, turning his whole face round with a grim, father’s pride, even then; “but even my boys can’t, keep a horse after they’re shot through the body. Fright has turned your brain, Susan.”

I tell the story just as it was told to me; and the way of that was this: How Jerusalem leaped into the barn with the boys, or so the mother thought, bleeding upon his back; how the savages scoured the barn, the yard, the garden, plundered a little here and there, and fitfully attacked at intervals the barricaded' house; how John, brave and white at one door, and Susan, white and brave at the other, abundance of powder and unflinching hearts, and the love of three helpless babes drove them, by and by, sullenly away; how,“when they had been a safe hour gone, the parents, shivering and sad, crept out with white lips, little by little, as they dared to hunt for the bodies of their murdered boys. “They ain’t in the barn,” said the father, bringing his hand heavily across his eyes. “ I’ll go to the woods. I suppose they scalped the little fellows, and left them there.” But tlie mother, when he was gone, went around and around_, stealthily as a cat, about the barn. All, blessings lorever on the mother’s ear, and blessings on the mother’s eye!, . From a pile orfresli earth thrown up in the barnyard a little stream of blood came trickling down—and she saw it. Deep from the middle of tlie mound a little cry came, faint, terror-stricken, smothered—but she lieai’d it. To be sureT When Jerusalem—bless him!—went leaping through the barn door, just an arrow’s length ahead of his pursuers, off tumbled Tam and Titus, and out into the barnyard, and down into the pile of mud ana gravely deep and safe. And about and about, and here and there, the Indians had searched and scoured and grumbled—and gone; and there they were. Pinned together with the arrow V Truly, yes. Just under the shoulder (and Titus had the worst hurt, as will sometimes happen with the good boys); and how they ever did it ana lived, I don’t .know. I’m sure they never would have, buffer their brave, black-eyed little mother, who picked them up and washed them off, and carried them in (but she pulled out the arrow first), and put them to bed, and bandaged, and contrived, anct cared, and kissed, and cried, and prayed—and they got well. Probably if she had lived in the city of Boston, where there are two medical schools, or in Philadelphia, where there are three more, or in New York, where there are five, to say nothing of nobody knows how many full-fledged doctors, the boys would have died. But as she lived in a howling wilderness, and they had nothing but clean water, and sofl bandages, and mother’s eyes and hands and love to get well upon, they lived. They lived to be six feet high, and, as they are living now, I presume they measure six feet still. It is a pretty long story, I know, hut it is a true one, for I’ve seen the arrow. John gave the arrow to a gentleman; and the gentleman gave it to his daughter—no, she wouldn’t give it to me; but I held it for five minutes in the very hand with which I write these few words. And if that doesn’t prove the story is true, what could? And Jerusalem? Oh, Jerusalem lived to a good old age and was buried in the barnyard with great honors. And Tam and Titus cried, and John and Susan cried, and Betty, and the new, and the newest, and the very newest, and the very, very newest, and all the babies cried, and it would have been very sad if it hadn’t been a little funny. But, I think, take it altogether, it was an Arrow Escape.— Wide-Awake Magazine.

Cholera and Its Prevention.

In acchrdapce with the terms of a joint resolution adopted by the Forty-third Congress in March, 1874, setting forth that “ epidemic cholera had prevailed during the year 1873 in various parts of the United States, especially in the valley of the Mississippi, causing a deplorable mortality,” it was ordered that a medical officer of the army, in connection with the Supervising Surgeon of the Marine Hospital Service, should ascertain the facts and make a detailed report on dr before the Ist of January, 1875. Dr. McClellan’s report is now published, and has been supplemented by a pamphlet written by Dr. John M. Wordsworth, Supervising Surgeon Merchant Marine Hospital Service, upon “ The Introduction of Epidemic Cholera into the United States Through the Agency of the Mercantile Marine.” If it be true, says the doctor, that cholera has always been brought to America by ships* the task of preventing future outbreaks within our border would seem to be comparatively easy. Malig-

n&nt cholera is caused by" the access of a specific organic poison to the alimentary canal. This poison is developed simultaneously only in certain parts of India (Ilindoostan). So far as the world outside of Hindoostan is concerned, it is contained primarily in the ejections of a person already aflected. To set up anew the action of the poison, a certain period of incubation, generally one of three days, with the presence Pf alkaline moisture, is required. Favorable conditions for the growth of the poison are found in ordinary potable water, in decomposing animal and vegetable matter, and in the alkaline contents of the intestinal portion of the alimentary canal. The period of morbific activity of the poison is characterized by the presence of bacteria] when bacteria is not present there is no danger. The dried particles, of cholera poison may be carried in clothing, bedding, etc., to any distance, and when liberated may find their way direct tb the alimentary canal through the medium of the air—by entering the mouth and nose and being swallowed with saliva, or through the medium of water or food in which they have lodged. Cholera poison is destroyed naturally either by the process of growth or by contact with acids contained in: water or soil, in the atmosphere or in the ! stomach.

A consideration of the means by which the disease is mmaei itoai infected tion to our shores, is, therefore, oi primary importance. It kaftj.Ueen very clewty demonstrated by the experience of <ltrarantine officers,. consuls, and medical men generally that the dkftger of InfeHiUn through marine transportation lies i*u f. in merchandise but in human beings and personal effect*. Under existing iqgula tions for the emigration service of most countries some sort of insjtectioh dTMseetage passengers is made, but unfortunately this inspection does hot extdn'd to cabin passengers or crew. Sailors are among the most active and widespread propagators of disease, and cabin passengers are not by any means exempt from the possibility of becoming pofson-carHers. In 1873 three distinct outbreaks of thedisea.se occurred at widely remote poinds iti the United States from poison packed anj, transported in the effects of emigrants from Holland. Sweden and Russia. Within twentyfour hours after the, poison particles were liberated the first cases of the disease' appeared. It being admitted that the very best quarantine administration, in the world may be deceived, the doctor suggests, in addition to the precautions pfter-' ward given, prompt ana authoritative information to threatened ports of the shipment of passengers cr goods from a chol-era-infected district. A medical officer, selected for his good judgment and attainments in sanitary science, should collect, digest and transmit’to. threatened ports the note of warning. Xlip 4 illusion of general sanitary knowledge must also be spread by the Government among the people themselves. The treatment of an infected or stispected vessel on arrival >at quarantine is now sufficiently. well understood. No arbitrary rules, says Dr. Vanderpool, can be laid down which shall be applicable to all vessels, but itis very certain that these rulfes cannot possibly either be too strict or searching. The appearance of the disease should be the signal for the most scrutinizing investigation and purification possible. We now come to consider the antidotes against this most formidable and deadly of all the enemies of life. In acids, according to the most practical sanitaristsof this country, lies the only assured safety against the cholera poison. When cholera occurs at sea, the patient should be brought on deck and laid upon a thick sailcloth, which should be thoroughly ini pregnated with sulphate of iron. Everything voided by the patient, witn his clothes, should fie thrown overboard. Both passengers and crew must be -put upon a mineral-acid regimen, with the view of establishing an acid diathesis of the system. Sulphuric acicliumonadc should "be served out regularly without fan; During the cholera visitation of 1866 Dr. Curtin made use of sulphuric acid in the Philadelphia Hospital with wonderful e fleet. The drink was made in this way: About twenty drops of the dilute sulphuric acid were mixed with four ounces of water, and sweetened with white sugar. Some oil of lemon and a few cut lemons greatly assisted in the disguise. The effects of sulphuric acid upon the system are tonic, astringent, refrigerant and diuretic. The accumulative -evidence of the experience of- the last-six-ty years, says the doctor, warrants the ground here taken, and there can be little doubt that we possess in the mineral acids a certain means of prophylaxis against cholera. These facts are of sufficient importance to command the attention of all sanitarians and the medical faculty, anil to be stored up in the memory .of people generally for use in case of need.—Chicago Inter-Ocean. A mouse in the wainscoting of the Western Union Telegraph office at Cincinnati recently wrought mischief, as mice generally do. The wires, insulated by a coating of cotton, soaked in paraffine, ran close together inside the wainscoting, and said mouse gnawed the insulation and so brought the wires together and connected some of the larger batteries. The wires became thereby heated and set fire to the insulating composition. Happily the smoke of the incipient fire was seen, the wainscoting torn away, and a serious conflagration averted.

Common-Sense vs. Prejudice.

By R. V. Pierck. M. D., of the World's Itispensaiy. Buffalo, N. Y„ Author of “ The People’s Common-Sense Medical Adviser,” ete., etc. lam aware that there is a popular and not altogether unfounded prejudice against “patent medicines,” owing to the small amount of merit which many of them possess. The appellation “Patent Medicine 1 ’ does not apply to my remedies, as no patent has ever been asked for or obtained upon them, nor have they been urged upon the public as “ cure-alls.” They are simply some favorite prescriptions which, in a very extensive practice, have proved their superior remedial virtues in the cure of the diseases for which they are recommended. Every practicing physician has his favorite remedies, which he oftenest recommends or uses, because he has the greatest confidence in their virtues. The patient does not know their composition. Even prescriptions are usually written in a language unintelligible to any but the druggist. As much secrecy is employed as in the preparation of proprietary medicines. Does the fact that an article is prepared by a process known only to the manufacturer render that article less valuable? How many physicians know the elementary composition of the remedies which they employ, some of which have never been analyzed? Few practitioners knowhow Morpliittfe, Quinine, Podophyllin, Leptandrin, Pepsin or. Chloroform are made, or how nauseous drugs arc transformed into palatable elixirs; yet they do not hesitate to employ them. Is it not inconsistent to use a prescription the composition of rfhich is unknown to us, and discard another preparation simply because it is accompanied by a printed statement of its properties with directions for its use? Some persons; while admitting that my medicines are good pharmaceutical compounds, object to them on the ground that they are too often used with insufficient judgment. I propose to obviate this difficulty by enlightening the people as to the structure and functions of tneir bodies, the causes, character and symptoms of disease, ami by indicating the proper and judicious employment of my medicines, together with such auxiliary treatment as may be neeesr sary. Such Is one of the designs of the People’s Medical Adviser, forty thousands copies of which have already been published, and are sold at the exceedingly low price of $1,50, and sent (post-paid) to any address within the United States and Canada. t> If you would patronize medicines scientifically prepared, use my Family Medicines. Golden Medical Discovery is tonic, alterative or blood-cleansing, and ah unequaled cough remedy; Pleasant Purgative Pellets, scarcely larger than mustard-seed, constitute an agreeable and reliable phasic; Favorite Prescription, a remedy for debilitated fe-, males; my CbmpoundLExtract of SmartWeed, a magical remedy for pain, bowel complaints, and an unequaled Liniment for both human and horse llesh; while Dr., Sage’s Catarrh Remedy js known the world over as the greatest specific for Catarrh and “ Cold in the Head” ever given to the public. These standard remedies have been before tfie public for many years—a peribd lodg enough to fully test their merits, and the best argument that can be advanced in their favor is the fact that their sale was never so great as during the past six months. ,