Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1875 — Page 8

An Interbating Article on Twins.

Mr. Francis Gallon has in the November number of Prater a very interesting article entitled the “ History of Twins, as a Criterion of the Relative Powers of Nature and Nurture.” The materials on which the article were based were obtained by sending circulars containing thirteen groups of questions to twins or persons intimately acquainted with twins. Mr. Gallon distinguishes three classes, those strongly alike, moderately alike, and extremely dissimilar, adding that when the twins are of different sexes they are never closely alike. In eighty reported cases of close similarity, thirty-five entering very fully into detail, there were a few where not a single point of difference could be specified; in the remainder the hair and eyes were almost always identical, amt the height, weight and strength generally very nearly no. The manner and address are usually very similar; the intonation, when speaking commonly, the same, though it frequently happens that the twins' sing in different keys. Similarity is very rarqjn the handwritinc. Mr. Galton cites many mistakes made by near relatives. Notwithstanding the tying of distinguishing ribbons to them, one is often fed, physicked or whipped by mistake ior the other. In one case a doubt remains whether the children were not changed in their bath; in another an artist engaged to paint the portrait of twins had to lay aside his work, and, when he resumed, could not say to which child the respective likenesses belonged. In many instances tutors could not distinguish between their pupils; a twin sister would take two music lessons on the same day to give the other a holiday. Two twins were fond of playing tricks and complaints were frequently made; but the boys would never own which was the guilty one, and the complainants were never certain which of the two he was. One head master used to say he would never flog the innocent for the guilty and another used to flog both. One twin brother visited another at college, and the porter refused to let him out* because he did not know which was entitled to depart. Other ( brothers constantly changed partners at balls without discovery. Children are usually qW'k in distinguishing between their parent and his or .her twin; but Mr. Galton found two cases to the contrary 7 . He knows four or five instances of doubt during an engagement of marriage. Thus: “A. married first, but both twins met the lady together for the first time and fell in love with her there and then. A managed to see her home and to gain her affection, though B went sometimes courting in his place and neither the lady nor her parents could tell which was which.” One lady remarks that kissing her twin sister was like kissing a part of herself, as her hand, and not like kissing another person. The author suggests an experiment —to try how far dogs could distinguish between twins by scent. Of strange mistakes between twins in middle life two cases are cited—one where an officer returned from India after four years’ absence was addressed by his father: “I thought you were in London;” another, where an aged mother had nervously expected the return of her son from India, his ship being overdue, and when he entered said to him, mistaking him tor another brother who lived with her; “No, no, it's a bad Joke; you know how anxious I am.” As a curious feature Mr. Galton notes the apparent interchangealileness both of expression and character. In seven of the thirty-five cases of close similarity both twins suffered from some special a'llment or had some exceptional peculiarity. Two sisters had the defect of not being able to come down-stairs quickly, which was not born with came jon at the age of twenty, Another pair of twins have a slight’ congenital flexure of one of the joints of the little finger; it was inherited from a grandmother, but neither parents, brothers nor sisters show the least trace of it. In another case one was born ruptured and the other became so at six months old. Two twins at the age of twenty-three were attacked by toothache and the same tooth had to be extracted in each case. There are curious and close Correspondence mentioned in tMb falling off of the hair. Two cases are mentioned\bf death from the same disease ;Jin one a brother died of Bright's disease, and the survivor died of the same complaint seven months afterward. In nine out of the thirty-five cases it appears that both twins are apt to sicken at the same time. There are also cited the recorded instance of pathological resemblance in twin brothers afflicted”with asthma and rheumatic ophthalmia (Trousseau’s “Clinique Medicate,” quoted in Darwin’s “Variation Under Domestication”), and in two insane brothers (Dr. Moreau's “ Psychologie Morbide”). In the latter case both brothers considered themselves subject to persecution by the same enemies, who adopted the same means, and even when confined in separate asylums they, would, at irregular intervals of tidie, bp/usually on the same day, rouse themselves from their prostration, making the same complaint of detention, and desire liberation. Mr. Galton sent the facts in this case to the prominent physicians to the insane in England, asking’if they had ever witnessed anything similar, and received in reply three noteworthy instances, though none as exact in their parallelism. Another curious French case of insanity in twins is described by Baume in the “Annates. Medico-Psvchologiques,” fourth series, Vol. 1863, p. 312. In eleven out of thirty-five instances similarity in the association of ideas is noted. They make the same remarks on the same occasion, begin singing the same song at the same moment, anil so on; or one will commence a sentence and the other fimsli it. In one case one twin, who happened to be at a town in Scotland, bought a set of champagne glasses which caught his attention, as a surprise for his brother, while at the same time that brother, being in England, similar set, of precisely the same pattern, as a surprise for him. In sixteen of thirty-five cases the tastes and dispositions are described as closely similar; in the remaining nineteen they were much alike, but subject to certain named differences, which were always those of intensity and energy. From all these facts Mr. Galton deduces the conclusion that the resemblance between twins is not superficial, but extremely intimate. The twins were, in the cases summarized,..,, reared exactly alike up to their early manhood and womanhood. Then the conditions of their lives changed. What oblige of conditions has produced the most'variation’ The replies showed that the parents ascribed what dissimilarity there was wholly or almost wholly to some form of illness. In only a very few cases is there some allusion to the dissimilarity being partly due to the combined action of many small influences, and in no case is it largely, much less wholly, ascribed to that cause. In not a single instance is there

a word about the growing dissimilarity being due to the action of the firm, free will of one or both of the twins, which had triumphed over natural tendencies. Mr. Galton last examines twenty cases where there was’ a great, dissimilarity at first, to ascertain how far an identity of nurture in childhood and youth tended to assimilate them. All these cases are absolutely accordant. Their evidence is to the effect that nature prevails enormously over nurture when the differences of nurture, do not exceed what is commonly, to be found amongajjrsons of the same rank Of society the same country, for where in twins astropg dissimilarity in tastes and habits has-been noted in early childhood it has never been lessened or removed by identity of association, influence or education.

Making Excuses.

It has been said that a person who is good at making excuses is good for nothing else. Nature never accepts an excuse, the law seldom does, and yet in ordinary affairs of life excuses play a large and pernicious part. There are some people half their time in inventing excuses for what they do in the other half of the time. What a pity this inventive power could not be directed into a useful channel, and made to benefit instead of injuring their fellow-men! The habit of making excuses grows on what it feeds upon. ■ If excuses were never accepted they would be seldom offered; but, on the contrary, our whole primary school system is built on a plan that fosters the fabrication of excuses, many of w hich are little better than lies. There is a story of a school-master who called up one of his favorite scholars and asked him why he was late. “Oh,” said the little excusemaker, “ I dreamt I was going to California, and when I heard the school bell I thought it was the steamboat bell.” Glad to avoid punishing his favorite, this absurd excuse was accepted amfy the delinquent pardoned. We fear there are too many parents and teachers so w illing to accept excuses that they greatly encourage excuse making, and indirectly encourage lying. As these pupils grow older and begin to feel a personal .responsibility for their actions, they naturally fall into the habit of making excuses to their own consciences and of deceiving themselves. How quieklyran ingenious excuse heals the prick of conscience! We do not mean to assert that, frail and imperfect mortals as we are, we should require perfection of our fellows, nor, like Shylock, demand that the letter of the bond be fulfilled. Justice must be tempered with mercy, but sometimes we must be cruel in order to be kind. Nature’s law’s are inflexible; there is no escape from the severities of her just penalties. If we breathe infected air through ignorance, we suffer as much as it we had entered it with full knowledge; ignorance of the law does not relieve us from its Our statute and other laws distin^ii^l between murder committed with premeditation and malice from that committed without forethought. The insane escape punishment for their crimes, however heinous. The man who shoots his sister by accident is at once acquitted. But does the bullet discharged by accident, or by a lunatic, or by anyone in the heat of passion, prove less fatal than it would had murder been intended? 'The severed artery, the pierced lung, the congested brain listen to no excuse. To him that is murdered it is all one whether it w r as premeditated or not. The infraction of any and all of nature’s laws brings as certain punishment as. does Recorder Hackett's court, nay, more certain, if less speedy. The tight shoe, whether of satin or cow’hide, worn voluntarily or involuntarily, by a city belle or a rustic clown, is sure to produce the well-known corn. Undue exposure leads to consumption ; over-study and excitement produce brain diseases as frequently in the pulpit as in Wall street. How often are people engaged in Charitable w T ork stricken down by diseases incurred ip the fulfillment of a holy mission! Most undeserving of such a fate, we are inclined to exclaim; but nature ac.cepts no excuses. Violate her laws, and ye die! But what is the great harm in excuses? we thi'nk our reader begins to inquire. First, it encourages story-telling, untruth, prevarication and white lies. Second, it makes people careless. Railway trains are our best examples of punctuality; if you reach the depot but fifteen seconds too late, you are left and must wait perhaps for hours. It is of no avail to tell the doorkeeper that your delay was unavoidable, that the omnibus broke down, or the street was blockaded, er the car ran off the track. People know that the rule is as inflexible as the law of the Medes; they do not flatter themselves, as does pie tardy school-boy, that their excuse is a good one, and thus loiter along at a convenient gait. One of the blessings of railway travel is that it makes people more prompt and more diligent. The banks are another class of institutions that will not accept excuses; if your note is not paid by three o’clock it goes to protest. It matters not that the money promised you fails to come to hand in time, the train bringing your draft was delayed by snow-arifts, or the telegraphic remittance was stopped by a broken w ire, or the messenger on his way to the bank fell into an open coal hole and is maimed for life —the bank asks none of these questions, it listens to none of these excuses; the law is carried out. -

The poorest of all excuses is forgetfulness, and the best method of cultivating the memory is to resolve never to accept this excuse from yourself nor make it to others. “I forgot” and "1 didn't think” have caused untold misery, and should be stricken front the vocabulary of even - ambitious youth. Conductors and switchmen sometimes,forget that a certain train is due, and the next morning we read in heavy head-lines: “Fearful Railroad Accident! Dreadful Loss of Life'” The innocent (?) conductor is acquitted of the murder because he renders an acceptable excuse, and history on repeating itself. In some Eastern countries, it is said, when a house burns down, the owner, instead of getting paid for it, loses his head. Fires are not of frequent occurrence there. The old saw that where there is a will there is a way is true more frequently than is generally * supposed. Let a man know that no excuse will avail for the omission of duty, and nine times out of ten he will contrive to accomplish what he had supposed to be impossible.— Scientific American. . A member of. the German Parliament, who recently made a journey through Turkey, writes: “Our so-called Christian brothers are for the most part canaille, sheep-stealers and cut-throats; and the respectable people one meets in the Orient are generally Turks.” The Postmaster of Mulgrave, Can., will never abscond with the funds of his office. The gross revenue last year was, $9.01, while he was allowed $lO for salary.

Only In Fun.

Four young gentlemen, to whom the names of Smith, Brown, Jones and Robinson will apply for as well aa if they belonged toffhem, occupy a suite of rooms together in a handsome block on a prominent street not a thousand miles above the public square,. It, was Saturday night. Smith ana Brown were spending the earlier half of that happiest time m the week in the orthodox manner —with their Dulcineas in the front parlors of two Prospect street mansions. The old folks were kinder than old folks usually are, snoring away serenely while the young folks enjoyed themselves after the good old fashion with which all who have ever sat up with her, o’ Saturday night are so familiar. It was “awfully jolly,” as the girls would say and as Smith and Brown undoubtedly thought, for, in blissful unconsciousness of the rascally scheme that their “ chums” were at that very hour hatching up, they went on producing those startling little explosions which always come in at that stage of thegame when eyes look love to eyes that speak again. Jones and Rooinsbn, meanwhile, were waiting for their more fortunate friends in the bachelors’ hall above referred to. Their hearts’ idolswere far away, being in fact confined in one of those odious institutions,- a boardingschool, and poor Jones and Robinson, with no one to love, none to caress, were left to console themselves as best they might with the aid of bottled-lager and a few cigars. With their feet on the mantelpiece, and a couple of the aforesaid cigars between their faultless teeth, they had been commenting enviously upon the happier fate of Smith and Brown, interlarding their conversation with lugubriously appropriate quotations from Byron, •and finally ending by cursing their luck in melancholy chorus. When the last beer-bottle had been drained, the last cigar smoked, and the last Byronic quotation spouted, the forlorn couple began to get impatient for the arrival of the blissful couple, and it was while Jones was audibly wondering if they had run off with the girls that Robinson was struck with an idea. As soon as he had recovered from an attack so unusual he exclaimed: “ I tell ydm Jones, my boy, we’ll fix those fellows for keeping us waiting this way. We’ll arrange it so that when they do come they’ll get the nonsense knocked out of them.”

“You can’t do that,” responded Jones. “They are |po far gone now. Smith hasn’t eaten a square meal for a month, and Brown asks her father every night in his sleep. But what do you propose to do?” , " w “Scare’em half to death,” was the response. “We’ll rig things up so that they’ll think there’s been a murder here while they were having it so nice and never thinking nor caring what became of us. You shall be the murdered man and I’ll hide in the closet and see how they take it. I think I see ’em now, with their eyes staring out of their sockets and their hearts in their mouth with very fear. Come, we’ll try it on.” > Jones, after demurring tlilt he had rather stay in the closet and see how they took it while Robinson played the part of the murdered man; finally consented and the ingenious Robinsbn proceeded to direct the arrangements by which the unconscious Smith and Brown were to be overcome with horror. Taking a piece of chalk from his pocket (he plays billiards) he plentifully bedaubed the face of the unresisting Jones therewith until it was as white and ghastly as could have been desired. A dead coal from the hearth drawn a couple of times across his forehead and the artful application of a bottle of carmine ink finished the deadly work, and Jones, with his clothing disordered and his hair mussed up, was in three minutes after, as tire- delighted-Robinson declared, the worst-looking corpse he ever saw.’ After placing the “body” on the floor where the flftul light of the fire-place would strike it occasionally, and turning over the chairs and the coal-scuttle, the wily Robinson betook him to the closet, the door of which he left conveniently ajar. Then they waited—Jones on his back in the middle of the floor and Robinson shivering in the closet. Somehow it wasn’t nearly so f&nny as they had anticipated. Ugly thoughts came flitting across the brains of both the conspirators. All the murders and ghost stories and dime-novel horrors of which they had ever heard or read recurred to them, and as the firelight rose and fell, while mysterious shadows seem to flit about the room, both longed for the arrival of Smith and Brown, and had not each been ashamed to confide his fears to the other the scheme would doubtless have been abandoned. At last, just as the clock in a neighboring steeple began to strike the midnight hour, there was a footstep on the stair, and shortly after Smith, who had been first to tear himself away, entered the room. One look at the disordered apartment, the ghastly, upturned face, and he was on his knees beside the “body” of his “murdered” friend; conjuring him with the coherence usual to such occasions to wake up and tell him by whom he had been thus foully, cruelly murdered. He wits begging this little favor of the “body” when Brown, steeped in the delights of the front parlor of his particular Prospect street mansion, entered the room. Then there was a scene. “My God, amurder!” was Brown’s exclamation, and then, having a doughty heart in his bosom, he rushed for the poker and glared wildly around, anxious to wreak vengeance upon the head of the villain who had slain his friend. At this the “corpse,” who was choking with suppressed laughter and could hold in no longer, let something between a gurgle and a groan escape him. “Thank heaven!” exclaimed Smith; “ quick, Brown, the water.” ' Brown sprang for thq water-pitcher and with that in one hand and the poker in the other was rushing across the roopi when he heard a queer noise in the closet. This so startled him as to cause him to drop the pitcher, which, falling in close proximity to the “ corpse;” was dashed in pieces, its contents completely submerging the prostrate form of the unhappy Jones, and a good-sized fragment coming in painful contact with his right optic. Never stopping to note the effect of the ‘accident, the heroic Brown brought down his poker upon an unlucky head which at that moment protruded from the closet, and Robinson “never smiled again.” It is proper to say at this juncture that we drop the curtain upon the scene that ensued," but the writer will change the formula and simply close the door, leaving the reader to imagine what followed, and barely stating th§ fact that Smith and Brown [went to church on last evening and afterward enjoyed a second edition of their blissful Saturday night in the front parlors of the two Prospect street mansions aforesaid, while as for Jones and Robinson they were not seen in the sanctuary at all on yesterday, and it is hinted that they have “gone into the country to recuperate.” * ’ ? The writer will also remark by way of

postscript that he has “ the papers" for the thrilling tale above related, and that several responsible persons are ready to< take their “ Alfred Davys” to its positive truth in every- particular. Cleveland Leader.

How a Pennsylvania Man Taught the West Financiering.

Not long since two York men visited Kansas. They stopped at a hotel one forenoon, and after dinner one of them walked down to the barber’s shop to get shaved. The shop was shut, the barber having gone off to take his after-dinner nap. Then the York man walked back to his landlord and said: “With your magnificent country, which is the garden of the world, you ought to be the most prosperous people on earth. That you are not is due to the fact that you don’t attend to business. You don’t look out for cop■pers. Here’s your barber now shut up 'and gone when he might have earned ten cents by shaving me. Now he don’t get it, for I’m going to shave myself, and save my ten cents. I have a razor in my valise, and if you will show me a mirror I will shave myself.” The landlord said the barber was a, shiftless cuss, who, like most Western men,, couldn’t compare with PennsylVanians for attention to business, and patience in scooping in the dimes; but he hoped they would all improve in time, and then he showed our friend into a room where he found a goodsized mirror, and shaved himself. Soon after he joined his companion and congratulated himself on the success he had had in saving ten cents and teaching Western men financiering. After tea the pair paid their bills and went to the depot to take the train. On their way the man who hadn’t shaved said: “Pretty reasonable house that; only one dollar for dinner and supper.” “ Only a dollar!” said the other; “ why, I paid a dollar and a half!” and a little further explanation showed that he had been charged 50 per cent, more than his companion. So back he went, and demanded of the landlord an explanation, and got it in these words : “ The fifty cents extra is for the use ot a room. You don’t suppose we can have our room's turned into barber-shops for nothing, do you?” And the man who shaved himself went to the depot a wiser if not a better man. He don’t brag much of his adventure since his return to York, and it will be some time before he attempts to give another Western man a lesson in financiering.— York (Pa.) Democrat.

Educated to Death.

Cora Lee was that unfortunate kind of a being yclept a child-prodigy. She was the first-born daughter of a wfell-to-do planter, nursed, fondled, petted and incl ulged from babyhood; always kept indoors in winter, clad in the warmest of garments, never allowed to put her bare feet on the ground, or to undergo the least exposure, for fear she would “ take cold.” Her sleeping apartment was, too, air-tight and her food of the daintiest, according to the ideas of people who never hear of hygiene and consider fermented bread, butter and strong tea the simplest of diet. By the time she could talk plainly her little sayings were reported to visitors and quoted by the servants as evidences of her title to paragonship. She developed a fondness for reading when very young and, being encouraged in it, spent the greater part of the time that should have been given to outdoor .sports and invigorating exercises in sitting at her mother’s feet, absorbed in fairy tales. At the age of eleven she was sent away to boardingschool, where she entered upon a regular., college.course. As one great object of her ambition was to graduate young, it being considered a mark of extraordinary talent to do so, she eagerly undertook tq dq the” w’ork of eight years in four. Her uncommon aptness and familiarity with history caused her to be put into a class of girls considerably older than herself; and it at once became the darjing object of her already too largely developed approbativeness, not only to keep up with but to outstrip these. Herein lies one very common error in the education of children —their vanity or love of praise (approbativeness, technically speaking) is constantly brought into play at the expense and to the neglect of such faculties as self-esteem and conscientiousness, w’hich organs as truly require exercise for their development as the hand or arm, which, unused, shrinks away to utter incapacity. Cora was small for her age, delicate at that—one of those precocious, sensitive mental temperaments back upon whjch. the popular forcing process of education rebounds with greatest injury, dwarfing their stature and consuming their small stock of vitality; yet they are the very ones w’ho can best afford to spend the first fourteen years of life in strengthening the constitution, developing the powers of chest, lungs, circulation and respiration. The rules of this boardingschool w’ere like those of most others in the South; eight hours for study and recitation, one for exercise and one for meals and rest. At daylight the “rising-bell” rang—then prayers (a very lifeless form with the student), breakfast, study hours, intermission from twelve till two, study and recitation till four, a walk in the campus (not a good romp to lubricate the muscles and send the nervous fluid bound-

' ing healthfully through every part of the system, but an orderly, lady-like walk of a few hundred yards), a mean excuse for exercise, as unlike it as froth is to cream. Here is another mistaken idea among parents and educators, that noisy play should be repressed instead of being encouraged, as the God-ordained means of healthy growth; for it is certain that the free use of the voice doubles the benefit of muscular exercise, and is such a tonic to the lungs as is involved in large, free inspirations of air. Unfortunately for poor little Cora her parents and teachers knew very little of .>the true science of life, though having the name of well-educated people. The fare of the boarding-school was scant and not of the best, notwithstanding the palpable physiological, law that at the growing period of lite the system requires the most nutritious food. Biscuits, into which soda and lard had entered largely, formed part of every meal, the basis in fact; cheese was ptoyided instead of butter, and coffee in place of milk. Cora entered upon this repressive regimen with a determination to win the first honor or die. She was anxious to be accomplished afcwell as learned, so in addition to the eight regular studies of her class she took four of the ornamental branches. This quite filled her time. In summer when other less ambitious girls were sitting out under the green trees, enjoying the sweet, smiling landscapes, vocal with bird songs and insect hum, idly turning flower-wreaths and resting ’after dinner, Cora Wa§ wearily practicing slier music in a close room, or bending over her desk taking a drawing lesson. Her intense and undeyiating application had its natural result: she soon achieved a high position in her classes, and seemed in a fair way of distancingall competitors, while such a thing as buoyant health be-

came foreign to her overtasked system. She had several rivals; one a girl five years older than herself, of far greater physical stamina as well as maturer mind; another who took no extras, boarded at home, and had a big brother to aid her in her lessons. The race for first honor was clearly going to be a close one; and the partisans of each sought to make capital by flattering their favorites into using their powers to cover their own carelessness. Poor Cora’s overweening love of praise added this final burden to her heavy tasks, every moment not employed on her own lessons being devoted to helping her own classmates and girls in lower classes with theirs. Cora thought she took “quantities of exercise;” she was “so tired” when she went to bed she couldn’t sleep, poorchild; yet the “ exercise,” being only a mechanical walk while she studied, and the “tired” feeling utter mental exhaustion, did not produce the effect either ot wholesome fatigue or vigorous muscular exertion. During her senior term she taxed her mind and body to the uttermost. She had thirteen studies; made it a rule to go over all her lessons with a. little room-mate, belonging to the initial class, and -worked all the sums and algebra problems for the entire junior class. She was indeed immersed, mind, soul and body, in mental exercises; hastily swallowed her food without thinking of it, took the rule-en-forced walks with her Analogy in her hand, and dreamed all night of theorisms in mensuration. Yet her only perceptible decline was in her, slightly-increased emaciation, a worrying little cough, and regular dull headache. It was rare for her to miss a recitation from the stereotyped excuse of so many of her classmates —unwell; and while her healthier mates contracted the epidemics, mumps and measles, which prevailed in the school, Cora escaped both. Her theme at Commencement, “The Jewish Nation,” gave ample scope for the display of her remarkable knowledge of history and her peculiar gift of appropriateness of language. She handled her theme with a felicity and power that left no room for criticism. The coveted first honor was hers, and she returned home with her delighted parents for a long vacation, after which she was to go to a finishing school. A long one indeed it proved, for the following week saw her prostrated with a low, lingering species of “typhoid malarial fever,” a disease common to miasmatic Southern latitudes, assuming in its course generally lung or liver complications. It does its work slowly, but with always fatal results when the mind of the patient is irritable, restless and preoccupied with worrying thoughts. In Cora’s case mental repose was impossible; her mind, accustomed to ■work in a certain groove, continued its laborious treadmill of thought—her faculties going through the mental operations to w’hich they had been accustomed without any conscious effort on her part. Death at length set his seal upon the overtasked, overstrained, worn-out brain. “ Educated to Death” would have been the fitting epitaph on the tall, white monument reared by her doting parents. “ Taken from us by an inscrutable Providence” was engraven upon it, for at this door do many lay the palpable effects of their own violations of the most obvious physiological laws.—Ffrywiia Durant Covington, in N. Y. Graphic.

Intemperance in Eating.

“I shall eat what my appetite craves.” So said a lady with whom I was speaking on the subject of the preservation of health by the use] of healthful food She may think that she is a real temperance reformer; but if she will eat unwholesome food, regardless of consequences, because her appetite craves it, how can she consistently object to one who says he will drink w’hat his appetite craves, let the consequences be what they may? The logic is the same in both cases; yet the latter might be thought a most unreasonable declaration, while the first is not out of the way. But eating improper food cuts short human life, as well as drinking poisons. The one may do it sooner than the other; but either is sure to bring the result. Is it not the moral duty, then, of every person to select the most healthful diet ? Besides this, it is a fact that the use of stimulating, highly-seasoned food creates an appetite for stimulants, and thus naturally leads to the use of stimulating drinks. But few seem to know that the way to drunkenness and death begins at the table. Yet this is undoubtedly the case. Let the table be spread with the most wholesome food, cooked in the simplest manner, and eaten without condiments; let such be the diet of the young, and no laws will be needed for the suppression of drunkenness. They will have no desire for stimulants till it has been created by their use. But if parents bring up their children on tea and coffee, spices and other condiments, and flesh meats and what are called rich gravies, they need not wonder if appetites shall crave something more stimulating, even the inebriating cup. We form our own appetites. The appetite craves such- foods and drinks as we are in the habit of using. Un perverted appetite will be satisfied with the plainest food and water to drink. Those who have perverted their appetites have cravings for that which is an injury to them. Should such appetites be indulged and life be cut short as the consequence ? If so, then let the drunkard drink on and find in haste an untimely grave. But rather let the appetite be educated to relish that which is the most healthful. And when a natural appetite has been attained we may eat and drink just such things as our appetite craves; for it will be satisfied with the plainest and most wholesome food. I speak from experience when I say that I know this to be the case. I have no craving for stimulating drinks or condiments of any kind $ but am perfectly satisfied with the plainest and the best. So I may truly say: “I shall eat what my appetite craves.” — R. D. Cottrell, in Health Reforms.

1 Commodore Shufeldt has ordered the proper authorities of the Boston navyyard to make several seven-inch steel-wire hawsers. These will probably be the largest wire ropes ever made. The Navy Department has use for immense hawsers to tow monitors and vessels in distress. They are put on board the men-of-war for use when required. The usual appliance is a twelve-inch hemp rope, but it swells when wet and gets very heavy by absorption of water. The steel-wire hawsers will be seven inches less in diameter, much lighter, non-absorbent, more pliable and durable, and in every respect better. This is a curious, and, in fact, wonderful, advance in the application of steel and irtm to commercial uses. A hemp hawser twelve inches thick 4 is -a wonderful thing in itself, but a steel-wire hawser seven inches in thickness, better the same purpose, is somethi|ng fruitful of thotight to the student of shipbuilding and rigging.— N. F. Bulletin.

The Mosel Murder.

The rhymester who wrote that “ horrors pile on horrors’ head” was referring, we believe, to an unpleasant legend concerning the nature of hell, but if he had beep prophesying about the recent news from Bremen be could not have better hit the nail upon the head. Such a fiendish scheme as that revealed by the investigation into the dynamite explosion on the wharf at Bremer Haven has scarcely ever been heard of before. One of the crimes which damns Nero’s name to everlasting infamy is his attempt to have a ship containing a dozen people sunk in deep water, but Thomas, to whom Nero was nobody, deliberately planned an explosion on midocean, which would have sent the steamer Mosel, with every soul on board, reeling down to sure destruction. The idea that a man of this century should be capable of planning such a frightful scheme is simply terrible. The story of’ the crime is still, in some respects, incomplete, but all the main points are known. William King Thomas', the wholesale murderer, was a native of Brooklyn, N. Y. He married at New Orleans and lived in Virginia during the war, when he made a fortune by blockade-running. Upon the collapse of the Confederacy he fled to Germany, where he has since lived under the assumed name of Thomassen. Having lost his ill-gotten gains by speculation, he laid the plan which has cost the world nearly 100 lives already and which may lead other miscreants to similar blood-curdling crimes hereafter. He had an explosive machine made. It consisted of a barrel divided into two parts, one filled with dynamite, the other occupied by clockwork so arranged that at the end of eight or ten days the deadly dynamite would be exploded by a sudden blow. He intended to hav£ this shipped at Bremen upon the Deutschland, which he was to leave himself at Southampton. At the latter port a number of cases of rubbish, insured as very costly goods, were to be placed on board. Then the Deutschland was to steam westward on the broad Atlantic, crowded with passengers, laden with hopes. The conspirators—for Thomas has confessed that he had accomplices in New York—expected that when the vessel was out of sight of land, out of reach of all help, there would be a shock like that of a whirlwind, a column of flame like that of a volcanic eruption. The steamer would be blown into infinitesimal fragments. Passengers and crew would be hurled instantly into eternity. Days and weeks would wear wearily on without news of the missing vessel, and, while hundreds of families were settling down into the dull agony of hopeless grief, the parties to this hellish plot would collect the fictitious insurance, the bloodmoney of their guilt, and so repair their shattered fortunes. The infernal machine was not ready when the Deutschland sailed, and the latter therefore escaped this Charybdis to strike upon the Scylla of the “Kentish Knock.” The Mosel was file next steamer of the same line. By some piece of good fortune —comparatively good, positively bad, since it cost 100 lives —the dynamite exploded on 7 the wharf at Bremer Haven instead of in midocean. Thomas, who was already on the Mosel, was driven by a guilty conscience to attempt to commit suicide. He was promptly arrested and his wounds* bandaged. He tore off the bandages only to have thepi replaced, but at last succeeded in killing himself as effectually as he had the murdered hundred. He died Thursday. He is beyond the reach of human but perhaps his accomplices may be discovered. If so, the Scriptural law’ ot an eye for an eye, etc., would be satisfied by tying them into a small schooner above a case of dynamite, with a clockwork attachment, towing the vessel out to sea, setting the machinery for an explosion in twenty-four hours, and then leaving the wretches to their own thoughts meantime. The plot may have been suggested by an attempt said to have been made in 1856 to destroy the steamer Oriel, sailing from the same port of Bremer Haven. Two cases heavily insured and purporting to contain silk, but really packed with combustibles and with a clock-work apparatus for striking sparks, were shipped upon her. She was stopped by a telegram from the last light-house on the coast. The mechanic employed by the conspirators had confessed the crime at the last moment. The cases were taken back to Bremen, where they served as mute witnesses against the two persons, father and son, who were arrested. The former committed suicide; the latter is now in prison at Bremen under a life sentence; the mechanic is said to live on Staten Island. Another hypothesis is that some novel—for instance, Reade’s “ Foul Play”—suggested the foul scheme. Stories of shrewd crime not unfrequently have this effect, A still more horrible idea is that this plan has been successfully tried before. May it not explain the mysterious disappearance of some of the missing steamers of the last few years? The dispatches say that Thomas had ordered twenty infernal machines from the mechanic w’ho made the one designed to destroy the Mosel. Would he have done this if the plan had not been found to be a success? The theory is a startling onej but not untenable. In any event, the world is well rid of this dynamite devil.—OAtcayo Tribune, Dec. 18.

The first spelling-bee in England was held recently at Islington, “under the American rules,” Webster’s dictionary being the standard. Thirty-two gentlemen and eighteen ladies essayed their skill before a crowded audience. In the end the sexes divided the prizes equally, though the first prize fell to a gentleman. The words that proved too much for the powers of all except the prize-takers were not very difficult. “Rhododendron,” “apocryphal,” “philippic,” “hebdomadally,” and “ camelopard” put a large number hopelessly out of the contest, and at last “ sesquipedalian” was onlyspelt correctly by Mr. Jameson, the winner. Prizes, to the amount of £8 rewarded the six successful spellers out of the fifty who entered. A workingmen’s excursion from England to America, next year is proposed, leaving Liverpool early in June, visiting New York, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Niagara Falls and the chief cities of Canada, and embarking at Quebec for Europe about the middle of August. < i f One of the teachers at a publie school in Taunton, Mass., w ishing to impress his pupils, inquired, the other day: “Do you think my head is stuffed with cotton ?” “Yes, sir,” said a very prompt, but slightly deaf, girl who had misunderstood the question. 3 Yov can go to the Black Hills and loat around in that dcfiglitlul region all winter, if you want to. There is nothing to hinder’so romantic a trip now—the troops stationed about that country being Withdrawn into cold-weather quarters at Fort Laramie. ,