Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1876 — Page 3

The Rensselaer Union. RENSSELAER, - - INDIANA.

“ WHBN A MAN COMBS BOMB." When a man cornea home Don't begin to wrangle; Hotter far to deep In the hungry deep, *Neath white aht-eto of foam. And of eeaweed tangle. Peace, peace, peace; C’eaee, oeaee, cease. When a man comes home. Don't begin to wrangle. When a man comeii home Let him enter smiling; Take tne children sweet. Playing round his feet; Throw ors grief and gloom. And the world's beguiling. Peace, peace, peace; > Cease, cease, cease. When a man comes home. Let him And all smiling. When a man comes home, Ue should still remember ’Tie not always May, Either work or play— Sure as June will come , _ There will come December. Peace, peace, peace; Cease, cease, cease. Evenings bring all heme, And teunahlne in December. —Mn. Muloc/i-Craik, in Harper't Magagine.

A PARABLE FOR THE YOUNG.

Once there was born a man with a great genius for painting and sculpture. It was not in this world that he was born,*but in a world very much like thia in some respects, and very different in others. The world in which this great genius was bom was governed by a beneficent and wise ruler, who had such wisdom and such power that he decided before each being was born for what purpose he would be best fitted in life; he then put him in the place best suited to the work he was to do; and he gave into his hands a set of instruments to do the work with. There was one peculiarity about these instruments; they could never be replaced. On this point this great and wise ruler was inexorable. He said to every being who was bom into his realm: “ Here is your set of instruments to work with. If you take good care of them they will last a life-time. If you let them Set rusty or broken, you can perhaps have lem brightened up a little or mended, but they will never be as good as new, and you can never have another set. Now you see how important it is that you keep them always in good order.” This man of whom I speak had a complete set of all the tools necessary for a sculptor’s work, and also a complete set of painter’s brushes and colors. He was a wonderful man, for he could make very beautiful statues, and he could also paint very beautiful pictures. He became famous while he was very young, and everybody wanted something that he had carved or painted. Now, Ido not know whether it was that he did not believe what the good ruler told him about his set of instruments, or whether he did not care to keep on working any longer, but this is what happened: He grew very careless about his brushes, and let his tools lie out overnight w'hen it was damp. He left some of his brushes full of paint for weeks, and the paint dried in, so that when at last he tried to wash it out, out came the bristles by dozens, and the brushes were entirely ruined. The dampness of the night air rusted the edges of some of his verv finest tools, and the things which he had to use to clean off the rust were so powerful that they ate into the fine metal of the tools, ana left the edges so uneven that they would no longer make fine strokes. However, he kept on paihting and making statues, and doing the best he could with the few and imperfect tools he had left. But people began to say: “What is the matter with this man’s pictures? and what is the matter with his statues? He does not do half as good work as he used to.” Then he was very angry, and said the people were Oily envious and malicious; that he was the same he always had been, and his pictures and statues Were as good as ever. But he could not make anybody else think so. They all knew better. One day the ruler sent for him and said to him: “ Now you have reached the prime of your life. It is time you should do some really great work. I want a grand statue made for the gateway of one of my cities. Here is the design; take it homo and study it, and see if you can undertake to execute it.”

As soon as the poor sculptor studied the design, his heart sank within him. There were several parts of it which required the finest workmanship of one of his most delicate instruments. That instrument was entirely ruined by rust. The edge was all eaten away into notches. In vain he tried all possible devices to bring it again to a tine sharp edge. Nothing could be done with it. The most experienced workmen shook their heads as soon as they saw it, and said: “ No, no, sir; it is too late. If you ha~ brought it to us at first, we might possibly have made it sharp enough for you to use a little while with great care; but it is past help now.” Then he ran frantically around the country, trying to borrow a similar instrument from some one. But one of the most rein ark able peculiarities about these sets of instruments given by the ruler of this world I am speaking of, was that they were of no use at all in the hands of anybody except the one to whom the ruler had given them. Several of the sculptor’s friends were so sorry for him that they offered him their instruments in place of his own; but he tried in vain to use them. They were not fitted to his hand; he could not make the kind of stroke he wanted to make with them. So he went sadly back to the ruler, and said: “ Oh, Sire, lam most unhappy. I cannot execute this beautiful design for your statue.” “ But why cannot you execute it!” said the ruler. “Alas, Sire I" replied the unfortunate man, ‘‘by some sad accident one of my finest tools was so rusted that it cannot be restored. Without tbat tool, it is impossible tomake this statue.”' ’ • ‘ V' Then the ruler looked very severely at him, and said: “Oh, sculptor, accidents veiy seldom happen to the wise and careful. But you are alsb a painter. I believe Perhaps you can paint the picture I wish to have painted immediately, for my new palace. Here is the drawing of it. Go home and study this. ' This also will be an opportunity wortny of your genius. ” The poor fellow was not much comforted by this, for he remembered that he had not even looked at his brushes for a long time. However, he took the sketch, thanked the ruler, and withdrew. It proved to be the same with the sketch for the picture as it hau been with the design for the statue. It required the finest

workmanship la. parts of it; and the brushes which were needed for this had been long ago destroyed. Only their handles regained. How did the painter regret his folly as he picked up the old defaced handles from the floor, and looked at them hopelessly I Again he went to the ruler, and with still greater embarrassment than before, acknowledged that he was unable to paint the picture because he had not the proper brushes. . . This time the ruler looked at him with terrible severity, and spoke in a voice of the sternest displeasure: “ What, then, do you expect to do, sir, for the rest of your life, if your instruments are in such a condition ?" “Alas! hire, I do not know,” replied the pour man, covered with confusion. “You deserve to starve,” said the ruler; and ordered the servants to show him out of the palace. After this, matters went from bad to worse with the painter. Every few days some one of his instruments broke under his hand. They had been so poorly taken care of that they did not last half as long as they were meant to. His work grew poorer and poorer, until he fell so low that he was forced to eke out a miserable living by painting the walls of the commonest houses, and making the coarsest kind of water-jars out of clay. Finally his last instrument failed him. He had nothing left to work with; and as he had for many years done only very coarse and cheap work, and had not been able to lay up any money, he was driven to beg his food from door to door, and finally died rs hunger.

This is the end of the parable. Next comes the moral. Now, please, don’t skip all the rest because it is called moral. It will not be very long. I wish I had called my story a conundrum instead of a Earable, and then the moral would have een the miswer. How that would have puzzled y" i all—a conundrum so many pages long! And I wonder how many of you would have guessed the true answer. How many of you would have thought enough about your own bodies to have seen that they were only sets of instruments given to you to work with ? The parable is a truer one than you think at first: but the longer you think the more you will see how true it is. Are we not each of us born into the world provided with one body, and only one, which must last us as long as we live in this world ? Is it not by means of this body that we all learn and' accomplish everything ? Is it not a most wonderful and beautiful set of instruments? Can we ever replace any one of them ? Can we ever have any one of them made as good as new after it has once been seriously out of order ? In one respect the parable is not a true one; for the parable tells the story of a man whose set of instruments was adapted to only two uses —to sculpture and to painting. But it would not be easy to count up all the things which human beings can do by help of the wonderful bodies in which they live. Think for a moment of all the things you do in any one day; all the breathing, eating, drinking ana running; of all the thinking, speaking, feeling, learning you do in any one day. Now, if any one of the instruments is seriously out of order you cannot do one of these things so well as you know how to do it. When any one of the instruments is very seriously out of order, there is always pain. If the pain is severe you can’t think of anything else while it lasts. All your other instruments are of no use to you, just because of the pain in that one which is out of order. If the pain and the disordered condition last a great while, the instrument is so injured that it is never again so strong as it was in the beginning. All the doctors in the world cannut make it so. Then you begin to be what people call an invalid; that is, a person who does not have the full use of any one part of his body; who is never exactly comfortable himself, and who is likely to make everybody about him more or less uncomfortable. I do not know anything in this world half so strange as the way in which people neglect their bodies; that is, their set of instruments, their one set of instruments, which they can never replace, and can do very little toward mending. When it is too late, when the instruments are hopelessly out of order, then they do not neglect'them any-longer; then they run about frantically as the poor sculptor did, trying to find some one to help him; and this is one of the saddest sights in the world; a man or a woman running from one climate to another climate, and from one doctor to another doctor, trying to cure or patch up a body that is out of order.

Now, perhaps, you will say this is a dismal ana unnecessary sermon to preach to young people; they have their fathers and mothers to take care of them; they don’t take care of themselves. Very true; but fathers and mothers cannot be always with their children; fathers and mothers cannot always make their children remember and obey their directions; more than all, it is very hard to make children realize that it is of any great importance that they should keep all the laws of health. I know when I was a littje girl, when people said to me, “ You must not do thus and thus, for if you do you will take cold,” I used to think, “ Who cares for a little cold, supposing I do catch one?” And when I was shut up in the house for several days with a bad sore throat, and suffered horrible pain, I never reproached myself. I thought that sore throats must come now and then, whether or no, and that I must take my turn. But now I have learned that-if no law of health were ever broken, we need never have a day’s illness, might grow old in entire freedom from suffering, and gradually fall asleep atJast, instead of dying terrible deaths from disease; and I am all the -while wishing that I had known it when I was young. If I had known it, I’ll tell you what I should have done. I would have just tried the experiment at any rate, of never doing a single tiling which could by any possibility get any one of the instruments of my body out of order. I wish I could see some boy or girl try it yet; never to sit up late at night; never to have a close, bad air in the room; never to sit with »wet feet; never to wet them if it. were possible to help it; never to go out in cold weather without being properly wrapped up; never tc go out of a hot room into a cold, out-door air without throwing some extra wrap on; never to eator drink an unwholesome thing; never to touch tea,or coffee, or candy, or pie-crust; never to let a day pass without at least two good hours of exercise in the open air; never to read a word by twilight nor in the cars; never to let the sun be shut out of rooms. This is a pretty' long list of “nevers,” but “never” is the only word that conquers. “ Once in a while” Is the very watch-word of temptation and defeat. I do believe that the “ once-in-a-while” things have ruined more bodies, and more souls, too, than all the other things put together. Moreover, the “ never” way is easy, and the “once-in-a whije” wa is bard' After you have once made u 3 your mind “never” to do a certain thing,

thaUs the end of it, if you are • sensible Craon. But if you only say, “ This la a d habit,” or, “This Is a dangerous indulgence; I will be on my guard and not do It too often,” you have pul yourself in the most uncomfortable of all positions; the temptation will knock at vow door twenty times a day, and you will have to be flgliting,the same old battle over and over again as long as you live. This is especially true in regard to the matter of which I have been speaking to you, the care of the body. When yon have once laid down to yourself the laws you mean to keep, the things you will always do, and the things you will “ neoer" do, then your life arranges itself in a system at once, and you are not interrupted and hindered, as the undecided people are, by wondering what is best, or safe,' or wholesome, or too unwholesome at different times. Don’t think it would beasort of slavery to give up so much for sake of keeping your body in order. ‘lt is the only real freedom, though at first it does not look so much like freedom as the other way. It is the sort of freedom of which some poet sang once. I never knew who he was. I heard the lines only once, and have forgotten all except the last three, but I think of those every day. He was speaking of the true freedom which there is in keeping the laws of nature, and he said it was like the freedom of the true poet, who “ Alwayc sings In strictest bonds of rhyme and rale. And finds In them not b inds, bat wings.” I think the difference between a person Who has kept all the laws of health, and thereby has a good, strong, sound body that can carry him wherever he wants to go, and do whatever he wants to do, and a person who has let his body get all out of order so that he has to lie in bed half his time And suffer, is quite as great a difference as there is between a creature with wings and a creature, without wings. Don’t you? And this is the end of the moral.— St. Nicholas for November.

INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS.

—A Solano County (Cal.) man beat his wife so unmercifully that she died within a week. When the funeral passed through Knoxville, the husband was in a saloon shaking dice, and took off his hat and hurrahed. Early the next morning the brute was discovered lying in Knoxville Creek, nearly dead, with bowlders piled on top of him. A good Samaritan released the wretch, but it is thought the people will make it very warm for him if he remains in that neighborhood. —The Hartford (Conn.) Timet relates • “ A well-dressed, apparently respectable lady, on the shady side of forty, to day entered the storejof one of our fruiterers, who keeps a well-appointed bar in a rear room, and inquired the price, per pint, of “ very nice whisky.” /rhe price was namea,' when she requested some in a glass for trial. A glass and decanter were set before her and she poured out a good nip—rather more than a gentleman-tippler would take at a single dose—and, after swallowing it with evident gusto, moved toward the door. She was reminded that she had not paid, and replied that she was merely sampling the liquor. The proprietor insisted that that sort of sampling always cost ten cents. The lady (?) oftered five, and not until the threat of calling in a policeman was made did she produce the dime, which she took from a pocket-book evidently well filled.” —The Scranton (Pa.) Republican says; “ A shocking scene occurred at a funeral which took place in one of the suburbs of this city a few days ago. There was a large attendance, and the immediate relatives of the deceased were so overcome with sorrow that the burial was left to the care of some friends who volunteered their services in paying the last sad tribute to the dead. Numbers gathered around the grave to see the coffin lowered, but the men having charge were so intoxicated that it was clumsily done. Before the first spadeful of earth was thrown on the coffin one of the party fell into the grave and could not extricate himself. A companion, no better off than he, attempted to rescue him, but he also fell into the grave, and there both struggled in vain until some of the sober attendants, who were shocked and justly indignant at the occurrence, lifted the drunken pair out, and pushing them aside, kept them away.”

—A shocking affair occurred the other day at Nuelle & Ganahl’s planing-mill, comer of Emmet and Kosciusko streets, in St. Louis. Hermann Schermann, a dairyman about fifty-nine years of age, called there to get some shavings, and his attention being attracted by a large planing machine, where some knives revolved over a roller, ho foolishly placed his finger on the roller, and held it there an instant. It was carried up, and before he realized his danger one of the knives caught his finger and drew it forward with resistless power. Another knife struck the hand and continued to draw it forward. A third struck the wrist, and so on until his arm was drawn between the roller and the knives as far as his elbow, and the flesh was chopped down to the bone at regular intervals. The operator of the machine took in the situation, and succeeded in stopping it just as the knives struck the elbow, otherwise his arm would have been torn out and cut to pieces. —Two weeks ago Mr. Robert Hamsley, a wagon-maker, while at work in his shop on Pirtle street, between Fourteenth and Fifteenth, cut off a part of his left forefinger with an ax. He picked up the piece and went with it as quick as possible to a physician to have it bound again to its severed member. The doctor told him it was useles to perform such an operation; that the finger would never heal. But Hamsiey insisted that it should be done, and the physician complied with, the request, placing the dismembered piece carefully in its proper position, and then binding the finger firmly with a, bandage. The process of healing at once liegan, and contrary to the theory of the doctor, the dismembered parts grew rapidly together. But on Saturday last, a week, the finger suddenly became very painful, and Mr. Hamsley was seized with lockjaw. For nine days he has been prostrate and suffering die most excruciating tortures, relieved oily by occasional spasms, in which he is unconscious. Last night be was in a .very critical condition, and his death was expected at any moment. — Louisville Courier-Journal. —A shocking tragedy is reported from Higganum, a small village in the town of Haddam, Middlesex County , Oonn. Hiram 8. Bailey has for some time occupied a small house about a mile from the center of the village, where he has lived alone. He was a man of dissolute habits, and was regarded as a sort of a herm||. On Baturday he visited Middletown and purchased a boule oi liquor, which he took home, It is known that he invited several acquaintances to a carousal, but it is not known who accepted the invitation. At about two o’clock on Sunday morning tyro men

who had been eeling saw a bright light In the house They approached to investigate, and found the house on Are inside. They made loud outcries to awaken its occupant, whom they supposed to be sleeping within. Not raising any one, they burst open the door. On a table in the lower room were three empty glasses and the remains of a bottle of liquor also a revolver with one barrel empty. In the cellar, lying under the front door, was the charred trunk of a man, too much burned for recognition. The arms and head were gone, and the whole presented a sickening spectacle. The men then extinguished the flames, and notified the proper authorities.— Telegram, es Oct. 24th.

Honest Honey.

Monet, in the proper sense of the term, Is’that commodity which in,a given community is, by usage or law, or by both, employed to express the relative values of all other commodities, and also to facilitate the process of exchanging them for each other. The first of these functions it performs by its own value as the product of labor; and the second functioedependson its universal exchangeableness for all other things that are in the market to be bought and sold. The two functions, though not identical, are, nevertheless, intimately allied with each other, and practically inseparable. Money is the medium of exchange, because it is the measure of value; and, being such a measure, it naturally becomes such a medium. The first feature, then, of honest money is that it should be the product of labor, and that for this reason it should have an exchange value equal to that of any other product costing the same amount of labor. An ounce of gold has not the bulk in space or the weight of the wheat or corn that it will buy; but, for an average, it is the equivalent of the wheat or com in its labor-cost, and, hence, when estimated by the lapor standard, it has the same value. Either will exchange for the other. He who has the gold in his possession has a guaranty that with it he can procure its equivalent in wheat or corn, or in any other commodify having the same labor cost. The final principle is that of equivalency, as determined by the expenditure of labor. Real money is simply a concentrated form of labor, and, like all other other things to which value is attached, has the basis of its value in the labor which, for an average, is necessary to produce it. It is not" a cheat or a delusion, but a positive substance, that represents labor and has value for this reason. A second feature of honest money consists in the uniformity of its value. Absolute and unvarying uniformity of value is possessed by no productof labor; yet some of these products possess it in a much higher degree than others. All other things being equal, that commodity is best for monetary use which has this quality in the highest degree and which, hence, fluctuates least in its value at different times, and especially which is least subject to sudden fluctuations of value. The importance of stability in the value of money arises from the fact that it. is used as the measure of other values. If the same amount of money, considered relatively to these other values, means one tiling to-day and another tiling to-morrow, then he who receives it to-day will tomorrow be either a gainer or a loser by reason of this difference. If the money paid to him to-day be wages, and be spent to-morrow, and if as thus spent it will buy less than it would have bought to-day, and if this reduction of purchasing power be due not to the state of the market, but to the character of the money, then the laborer is practically cheated out of a portion of his wages by the money in use. It is not honest money. The use of it, whichever way it fluctuates, involves loss to somebody. The difficulty lies in the instability of its value

a third feature of honest money consists in identity as to the meaning of. its terms. Contracts tire usually made in the terms of money. A given party, for example, agrees to pay to another at a specified date so many dollars. Here the term dollars designates what is to lie paid. When the contract is made a dollar means a given quantity of coined gold, having a certain degree of fineness. The law thus defines it. Now, suppose that, after the contract is made, the law changes the import of this term, by the substitution of something else for gold—a piece of paper, for example—or by changing the quantity of gold indicated by the word dollar. This being done, it is manifest at a glance that die law has intervened between these parties and changed their contract, to the damage of one or the other. It retains the term dollar, but assigns to it a new meaning. Either it consists of something else than gold or it does not consist in the same quantity of gold; and in either case the dollar stipulated to be paid is not the dollar which the law authorizes to be paid. One or the other of the parties to the contract is cheated by a change in the meaning of the term dollar? The money of payment, not being the money of the contract, though having the same name, is not honest money. It is the instrument of a practical fraud. The application of these criteria of honest money to irredeemable paper money as a substitute for the money of actual value discloses the dishonesty and fraud perpetrated upon a community by forcing upon it such paper money. It is not really money at all, though dhe people are compelled by law to accept it as such in the settlement of contracts; and this is a fraud. Its labor-cost is no standard of its legal value. Having no basis of value in the material of which it is composed, it is subject to great fluctuations in its market value, according to the quantity issued—which is quite sure to be excessive—and according to the credit of the Government issuing it. When employed for the settlement of contracts made prior to the issue, it is simply a cheat by all the difference between its value and that of the money contemplated in those contracts. The great financial question before the people at the present time is whether they will continue the use of dishonest money, or, by resuming specie payment, return to the currency of actual value, which is the only kind of money that is really honest. —N. Y. Independent.

—A Burlington naturalist has been investigating the theory that a bumble-bee is put together in sliding joints, like a spy-glass, and comes to the conclusion that it is true, but that the joints are not retroactive, and while you can draw a bumble-bee out to the leneth of some twenty-eight inches, you can’t shut him up again by exerting a pressure of 140 pounds to the square inch, with the end of the thumb.-- Burlington UawkSye. —Trials never come singly. Tt was only last week that we learned that the coal supply would be exhausted in a little over 0,000,000 years, and now news comes that the planet Vulcan is lost. We can hardly think any one would be mean enough to steal Vulcan, but the nights have been dark lately, and there are good many tramps about.— Norwich Bulletin.

New York Fashions.

In dresses proper there has been but little change, the great difference between costumes being attributable more to the modes of trimming and the combination of different modes than to any radical change. And even the most popular modes of trimming partake but sparingly of novelty. Side-pleatings still hold the general fancy, but box-pleating, as far more showy, divides the honors. All overdresses and polonaises being made remarkably long, skirts require not so much ornamentation that extends high on the skirt as some arrangement that may produce the best effect in a small space. A dress skirt illustrating this to a high degree has a six-inch straight flounce made mto flue knife-pleating, above which is a bias ruffle twice the width of the former. This is divided, into sections, which are box-pleated, rounded at the lower edge, while at the upper, each side Is finished by a revers which is united by a cord and tassel tied at the top. An old style, long obseUte,. has again, been revived, and meets with favor. It consists in placing upon the skirt seven, nine or eleven flounces about five inches wide, so arranged that they overlap. The lower edge of these flounces is bandyked, piped or corded. A most popular mode of ornamenting cashmere or silk dresses is by means of embroidered bands and ruffles to correspond. Handsome bands, machinewrought, are procurable at moderate rates and often successfully challenge detection as not being done by hand. Those, of course, that are embroidered by the latter process are trebly expensive, but are very beautiful and rich. In working them upon velvet, chenille is often employed, with charming effect, to replace gloss. All species of flat trimmings are extremely popular, galloons, wide braids and passementeries particularly so. Fringes remain in unabated demand, and are handsomer eveiy day. The most elegant ones show headings as deep as the pendant portions, and many have double-netted ones, with small tassels placed at intervals, while in the fringe itself the tassels are as close together as is practicable. Many handsome garments exhibit two or even three varieties of trimming, an elegant and not unusual combination being feathers and fur. Some exquisite bands prepared for this purpose have the fur three inches wide, while at spaces of two or three inches are placed cluf.ters of feathers in the form of a leaf. For cloth wraps and heavy dolmans, sacoues, etc., woolen fringes are largely worn; but a handsomer and more novel variety of trimming is seen in the beautiful silk gimps. Many rows of these placed close together give an appearance of a rich embroidery, so elaborate are some of these designs 'seen in the crimp. A novelty are the canvas braids embroidered in wool. Sometimes, for more expensive toilettes, the canvas itself is wool and silk, and the embroidery is done with bright floss silk. This garniture is used on very elegant dresses. A few superb imported costumes have magnificent applique designs done in velvet They are generally palm-leaves of velvet, combined with other leaf varieties cut from silk of most brilliant colors. The charms of millinery are exhaustless, and every day reveals new productions that are exceedihgly beautiful. Among evening hats a lovely one is of white French felt with tolling brim. The crown trimming consists of loops of white twilled ribbon, and a paroquet of green with scarlet top-knots. A handsome garniture tor outside and the face trimming is a profusion of minute scarlet moss-rose buds. Long black velvet streamers at the back tend to subdue the general brightness. A handsome bonnet, but one rather bizarre in its ornamentation, is of the cottage shape, the crown covered with myrtle green velvet. A loosely folded band of white plush encircles it, and at Bie back is a cluster of solfatara and white roses imbedded in a knot of white serge ribbon, and loops of myrtle green chenille cord. White ostrich tips ana a bunch of the two roses trim the side. The face garniture consists of a twist of velvet, and the roses fastened by a steel buckle. Loose, puffed crowns, caught irregularly down by unseen stitches, are quite popular, and are certainly very stylish. For children and young misses a style fast gaining groan/ is that of the Scotch cap seen with boys’ Scotch suits. They may be quite simple or profusely garnished. A handsome one has the top of rich purple velvet banded by golden peacock eyes, and long streamers tied in a bow behind are of purple ribbon, satin and gross-grain faced. These caps, which are very piquant and generally becoming, will undoubtedly have a protracted ana successful “run." — N. Y. Cor. Chicago Tribune.

An Oriental Dinner - Vegetables and Fruit in Japan.

Accepting the invitation of a Japanese friend who resided some years in America, we were conducted to a hotel or restaurant, pleasantly situated on the banks of the river Sumida, which flows through the eastern part of the city of Tokio (Yeddo). Removing our shoes, we were shown into a clean, airy upper room looking out upon the river. We were then, asked if we would have a bath, which we deelined, and our friend then explained to us that the Japanese in hot weather generally take a bath before dining, and afterward don a loose robe of thin, gauzy material, which is furnished by the proSrietor of the hotel, and which they wear bring the meal. We seated ourselves crosss-legged upon the floor, which yvas covered with matting, the only furniture in the room. While waiting for the mear to be prepared, a small bronze brazier or vessel, containing burning charcoal, was brought in, together with tiny Japanese pipes and mila Japanese tobacco, in which our friend indulged. The first course consisted of sweetmeats called quashi, and was served upon small lacquered wooden plates, placed upon trays or tables about three inches high, composed of the same material. It is hard to describe the character of these sweetmeats, but one of them was a small square or brick of some kind of jelly of a golden color; another was a small scarlet ball of a substance that tasted not unlike our marsh-mallow confections, and the third was of a greenish color and of somewhat similar taste. We understood that the ingredients of which these were composed were principally rice flour and sugar. With this course tea was served in delicate (porcelain cups, upon each of which was a fragment of a poem. On ene of these was translated literally as follows: How many times, my host, do yon augh in the month? . ,f------Whenever we meet we onjht to have a jolly time. Yoa seethe beauties of spring vanish as rnnning W&tCF. and the flower that scatters to the wind to-day opened but yesterday. I.< ,7, The second courae-was “ Chawan-Mori,’’ a sort of soup with eggs, somewhat similar to soup ala Colbert. It Wits served in a bowl, but no spoons weropiovided, it

the bowl the liquid portion. This soup was by no means unpalatable, and, with a spoon, would have been quite tolerable anywhere. The third course was composed of a variety of flab, with the collective name ot “Kuchi-Tori-Bakaaa.” The and with these, served as a relish , was flavor. The fourth course consfeted of a sweetened preparation of boiled beans served with green ginger-root, and another variety of fish, called “tai,” Med. The fifth course, called “,Bachi-Mi,” consisted of raw fish, served upon a delicate lattice-work of glass, and accompanied by two kinds of sauce, one dark in color, salt in flavor r and tasting as if composed of soy and anchovies. The other was a preparation of horse-radish. The sixth course was called “ Miza-Cai,” and consisted of kor,” a kind of fish, boiled, and served with pears and a variety of shell-fish, very much resembling our America scallops, and cut in squares. The seventh course was composed of rice, “ meshi,” servedperfectly plain in small porcelain cups. The eight and last course, called “ Bkemono,” was a sort of salad composed of eggplants and small cucumbers. With each course after the first was served sahi, a fermented liquor manufactured from rice, and in character something between ale and wine. Some writers have fallen into the error of describing talci as a distilled liquor, but we were assured that this is not correct, and that it is made by a process somewhat similar to brewing. It,ls not disagreeable In flavor, but has a somewhat larger percentage at alcohol than our malt liquors, and exhilarates more quickly. Indeed, In this respect, it is somewhat similar to champagne. It is served hot from small porcelain vases, and it may be said to be the national drink of the Japanese. When near the end of the dinner we were surprised by the appearance of some singing girls, who proceeded to favor us with some music. They sang in a nasal, falsetto tone, and accompanied themselves upon an instrumeat somewhat resembling a guitar, called “ Chami-sen.” It has three strings, which are struck or thumbed with a piece of ivory resembling a paper-cut-ter. One of these girls also accompanied the music with a sort of dance, composed principally of pantomime, in which she kept time with the music in a series of graceful motions. It may be summed up that, as an entertainment, it was pleasing from its novelty, but the menu would hardly be called satisfactory to a European palate. , Fish and rice are the staple articles of Japanese diet, and without either of these the Nation would find it hard to exist. The soil is fertile, and apparently vegetables grow well here. Sweet potatoes, ordinary potatoes, turnips, carrots, squashes or pumpkins, egg-plants and peas are grown, but do not enter largely into the people’s diet. Beans are an important article, and from these is manufactured tofee or —literally bean cheese—an article largely used by the poorer classes. Radishes are also grown to some extent,, and some varieties are very large and not unlike beets. They are rather coarse in grain and texture, but not so much so as their size would indicate. The young bamboo is also eaten to some extent, and a variety of mushrooms are used in making sauces and relishes. A species of maize is raised- But it is very inferior to the American Indian corn, and is not used at any great extent. Tomatoes have been introduced from the United States within the last few years, and are received with considerable favor. Cakes and .unleavened bread of various kinds are made from rice flour, and in the seaports bread made from flour imported from California is beginning to be used by some of the natives. Of fruit—oranges, peaches, pears, apricots, plums, persimmons, raspberries, mulberries and currants are indigenous here —but none of them grow in great perfection and most of them are quite inferior in quality. ApSles and strawberries have been introuced to some extent from other countries, but, although they can be grown here, do not seem to take kindly to the soil. The pears are round, mostly of a russet color, coarse in grain, not sweet, and a sort of cross between the apple and the pear. Water and musk melons are largely grown; but these are also inferior to the American productions of the same kind. The climate is not unlike that of our middle States, but there is more moisture, which keeps the vegetation constantly green and beautiful, and coming here in August from California there is a great contrast between her dried-up valleys and hill-sides and the verdure of Japan. The general impression which one gets on coming here, is that Japan is a beautiful country, and that her inhabitants are making great efforts to adopt what is best and most progressive among other nations.— Cor. N. Y. Tima.

Swindling by Railroad Checks.

A practice is growing up among the railroads in this region of refusing to check baggage for anyone till the person has purchased a ticket to the point to which the check is desired. The baggagemaster punches the ticket and then no more checking can be done on that ticket. This rule puts a stop to several little swindles which in the aggregate nave cost the railroads a good deity- ft was ascertained that trunks were checked* atone end of the line, the checks sent by mail to a person who claimed them al the other end, and who then presently sent trunks back in the same way. In this manner a large amount of express business was done free of charge. Another trick was to buy a ticket and then get a trunk or two checked by one train, more for soother train, etc., till perhaps half a dozen or more, loaded with nobody knows what, had been sent free of the extra charge required. The punching of the ticket by tie baggage-man prevents this operation. Another of the ways that are dark is the stealing of pairs of checks from the baggage-room or elsewhere, putting one slyly upon a trunk in place of that the baggage-master has put on, and then claiming it by the duplicate check. A shrewdrogue will, in that way,sometimes get one or two trunks, but the chances are that he will get caught. A while ago a former workman of a certain road, being familiar with the train bag-gage-men, used to ride with them in their* car, and contrived to exchange checks that he had stolen for those on the trunks, and then would appear and claim them. He was detected after he had tried the trick a few times, and a large part of his booty was recovered.— -Hawf'ii —A sister of the late ex-ProMdrnt Polk died a few days ago at Columbia, Tenn. She was the last surviving hu hilkt of her immediate family, which cv.i-isted of nine* brothers tmd sister. Pre- 'but Polk being the eldest. • - iiij; t*7