Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1877 — Page 3

The Rensselaer Union. RENSSELAER, - - INDIANA.

DEAD BELVBB. How many of my mlvea are dead? The ghoeta of many haunt me. Lo! . The baby in the tiny bed With rocken on ia blanketed And sleeping in the long ago; And ao I aak, with shaking bead, How many of my selves are dead? A little face with drowsy eyea And lisping lipa cornea mistily From out the faded past, and tries The prayer* a mother breathed with sighs Of anxious care in teaching me; But face and form and prayers have fled— How many of my selves are dead? The little naked feet that slipped In truant patters, and led the way Through dead'ning pasture-lands, and tripped O’er tangled poison-vines, and dipped In streams forbidden—where are they? In vain I listen for their tread— How many of my selves are dead? The awkward boy the teacher caught Inditing letters filled with love, Who was compelled, for all he fought, To read aleud each tender thought Of “ Sugar Lump” and “ Turtle Dove”—— I wonder where he hides bis head — * How many of my selves are dead? The earnest features of a youth, With manly fringe on lip and chin, With eager tongue to tell the truth, To offer love and life, forsooth, Bo brave was he to woo and win; A prouder man was never wed— How many of my selves are dead? The great, strong bands so all-inclined To welcome toil, or smooth the care From mother brows, or quick to find A leisure scrap of any kind, To toss the baby in the air, I Or clap at babbling things it said— How many of my selves are dead? The watchful eye and scheming brain Conspiring in the plots of wealth, Unconscious, till the lengthened chain, Unwindlassed in the wells of gain, Recoils with dregs of ruined health And pain and poverty instead — How many of my selves are dead? The faltering step, the faded hair, The 'wildered mind—all whispering With foolish fancies that declare That life and love were never there, Nor ever joy in anything, Nor wounded heart that ever bled— How many of my selves are dead? So many of my selves are dead That, bending here above the brink Of my last grave, with dizzy head, I find my spirit comforted For all the idle things I think; I It can but be a peaceful bed, Since all my other selves are dead. —J. IK. liiley, in Indianapolis Journal.

FRIENDSHIP AMONG MEN.

[Extract from a Recent Sermon by Prof. Swing, of Chicago.] Behold the man—a friend of publicans and sinners.— Matt, xi., 19. This text opens to view a proof of Christ’s divineness and the way of His success. To a world which had been overrun with cruelty, He came, offering a wide sympathy. To such an extreme aid He carry this sympathy that He was looked upon as a most reckless dispenser of regards—" He was a friend of publicans and sinners.” * * * * Latterly the world has’discoursed much about love. The platform and the garret have agitated this theme. Indeed, ever since the days of Sappho, and Cleopatra, and King David, and even Rebecca and Ruth.there has been no scarcityof discourse about that more romantic form of sentiment. Of that other affection which should bind man to man, and which should modify and soften society into civilization, little is said from year toyear, and almost from generation to generation. Doubtless, in that quality of personal esteem called friendship, there can be found as much proof of civilization as in any other quality of the soul. A low form of humanity can betray a powerful passion, but it is only a high form of human nature that can reach and maintain a strong and consistent friendship. It must spring from intellectual as well .as emotional companionship; it must come with a most delicate perception of the right of others, and must always be attended by a moderate estimate of self; and hence the grace called by this sacred name awaits the dawn of a high civilization. Borne of those early instincts which pertain to savage life, and which may be grouped under the general head of selfishness, must lie stamped out like a fire, or beaten to death like serpents, before this higher virtue can be grown; Weeds come first in the field, the useful grains after the battle with bramble and wild grass has been fought. So in the soul the lower impulses come easiest, the higher after a long battle has been fought. The love of which some of the modern socialists have written can be found in perfection among the Sioux Indians, but a friendship which sticks closer than a brother and which “grapples with hooks of steel,” appears only when the mind has thrown off its brute shell and has spread divine wings. It is safe to say that it will become a more conspicuous part as society itself shall advance. Cicero says: “Friendship is possible only among the good.” Evidently he means that the souls that would possess it must have risen above selfishness, and have become capable of calmness of action and judgment.. If this be true, then the world’s friendship will follow the world’s virtue, and like a gorgeous and sweetly-perfumed flower, will bloom only in a tropical clime. Of all the virtues, friendship has the widest and the most lasting domain. AU mortals need it, and death will not end it. Charity, and toleration and sympathy will terminate it in the tomb, but friendship will always follow the soul, be its home anywhere and its life ever so long. An apology for such a theme may be found easily in the age around us, for, while, doubtless, this virtue plays a greater part in human affairs than it played in old centuries, yet its progress is still too feeble and too slow, and is more the incident of civilization than the result of any effort or thought on the part of the present gener at ion. Our friendship is more the result of accident than of any comprehension of the dignity of that shape of life. Instead of being the open champions of its cause, many, as far as they are conscious of it, are rather ashamed of it, as though it were something like the tender passion of the novels. Not only do our times need lessons in common honesty, but lessons in friendship; for, while honesty may mover somewhat the heart, friendship will arouse to a real heroism. Honesty will help a man to pay his debts; but a divine friendship for his fellow-man will make the payment of the last dollar a thing infinitely glorious to be done. In this age of suspending firms and suspending banks, each man that suspends generally feels that he will pay back'the

last shilling which he owes to his fellow-men. But *ll i trow perishes in thirty days, not only because he has not the assets, but often because the sentiment of friendship is so weak that It cannot furnish an impulse that can show life beyond a change of the moon. There is a fatal term in modern speech—a term which beneath the livery of a saint conceals the cloven foot of quite another character—and that phrase is “ a business transaction." When a widow or an orphan or a personal friend puts money in a bank and, after a few days or months, the bank closes, this is called “ a business transaction.” There are a hundred forms of it, but in any or all of its forms it is simply a remnant of that trait in the Sioux Indian which makes him creep up at midnight and stampede the horses and cattle of the white settler. All the land groans under these “business transactions," which by a practice of thirty years have become at last as cold-blooded as a Chinese executioner. Friends actually rob friends under the protection of the goddess called Business. As in the old Empires there were temples in which and times when offerings to the goddess of some vice became a virtue, so in our day there is a divinity called Business, by whose altar the common conscience is put aside, and that becomes a part of commerce which at some other place or time would be called robbery. Such a condition of things will continue while man looks upon his fellow as a person to be plundered rather than as a companion to be esteemed. As things now go, it is sometimes difficult to gather together a club-meeting or a weddingparty, or a church sociable, without bring, ing race to face parties who have lust dragged each other through this valley and shadow of a “ business transaction,” and are cherishing such memories of it as no music can efface. . . . Almost all the great writers who have lived have offered their tribute to this jewel (friendship) of the spirit. Blair calls friendship the “cement of society.” Richter says: “ The elevated and pure soul cannot hear the word spoken without attaching to it all the grandeur of which the heart is susceptible." Cicero wrote a long treatise upon it, and among his beautiful sentences has this one: “I can only urge you to prefer friendship to all human possessions, for there is nothing so suited to our nature, so well adapted to prosperity or adversity.” The same writer quotes as monstrous the speech of an actor in a play that, “ men should always act as though they were about to become enemies.” The motto of this high and calm attachment should be “ forevef.” In the same essay the writer says: “This is a virtue regarding whose merit all mankind agree.” Thus all the deep students of society in the Ipng past have paused and, as it were, have uncovered their heads when thev have passed by the shrine where Friendship sat looking down in perpetual benignity. As love became the basis of charity in one age, so in an age of more virtue and thought this devotion of man to man might easily become an ecjual but purer inspiration. We admire it when we see it, but we all forget to live its life. When we see a man imperiling his life for a friend, our admiration becomes unbounded, and for an hour we feel how unworthy is the ambition of Kings or Generals compared with this devotion of heart to heart. When the Spottiswood Hotel was burning at Richmond on a Christmas Day, a few years ago, an incident occurred which reminds us that there is in the soul a sentiment capable of achieving greater things than man has yet drawn from its resources. The incident is related in the address of a public man, and thus was rescued from the perishable newspaper. A Mr. Hines busied himself in seeking through the smoke and heat of the room and corridors for any lost or suffocated one. Learning that a special friend was missing, he plunged once more into the rolling black and hot cloudy and after an absence of seconds, which seem like hours, he appeared at an upper window, half carrying, half dragging the unconscious man. A shout of joy went up from the street. But he had reached the window a minute too late. The center of the building fell and dragged inward into the crater of the volcano the window and wall which were presenting to the throng such a picture of human devotion. Death perhaps' cam to carry them both to where friendship is pure and imperishable. At the burning of another hotel not long since there was a similar instance of self-sacrifice, and this display of love for a man burst forth from a heart not specially trained according to church rules or the rules of high society. Evidently there is in mankind some unmined riches, some hi idea ore, diamonds yet unseen, whose riches and light will spring up in other days. Often have you seen rude, playful sketches of that kind of boy called “The Neglected Genius.” He is roughly and poorly clad. His hair is not looked after by any mother or sister. He is barefooted. He is sitting on the humblest bench in the log school-house, and in all ways' looks as though no one in the world knew him or cared for him, and as though any fencecorner or hay-stack might be his home. But mark this: On his slate he has drawn the teacher’s face, and he smiles, and the better-dressed boys around smile at the sly portrait of the master. In this embodiment of neglect slumbers a mind which years not far away will call “Cole," or “ Powers," or “ Angelo.” Just thus in the midst of civilization, even of Christianity, there is sitting a form unseen almost, quite uncared for, ragged, homeless. It is barefooted and hungry. But look at this humble being closely and see what is in the heart or hear what words it is repeating to Itself, what a hymn it is chanting to its own bosom. The words are: “A brother is born for adversity,” and “There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” “ 1 have not called you servants, but I have called you friends.” The soliloquy runs over the centuries, and from all the mighty souls that have lived, inspired and uninspired, picks out such golden words. This humble being who has to chant alone because the world is too cold or busy to join in the song, is called Friendship, the “ Neglected Genius” of Christianity. Beyond doubt years are coming which will crowd back many a doctripe which has puzzled the intellect or chilled the soul of mankind, and will make this least to be greatest, and this last to be first. This beautiful Cinderella, sitting in the ashes to-day while her vain sisters, which one may name Philosophy and Metaphysics, are decorating themselves for the dazzling feast, will on the morrow be found to be the real beautiful body and soul of the group, and will be led up into the palacelife of a higher civilization. What richness there is in the human heart will at last become manifest. Gold which was trampled over for thousands of years by brute and savage, at last shines forth in the coins and jewels of enlightened man; and so the virtues covered up in the soul will rise up in majesty before God will permit the drama of earth to close. He would not have planted the seeds had he

not contemplated a harvest. The seeds have long been lying in the mind. Even when old Cyrus was King, and had taken captive on the battle-flelu the Prince of Armenia, to Cyrus, who asked the Prince what sum he would give if he spared his life, he said, “All my property I” “ What will you give if I will spare your family ?” “My life!" The reply so struck the conqueror that he released at once the captive. Bt. John saw this half-concealed virtue when he said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends;” and Paul dreamed of it when be said that “ peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.” Thus the seeds of this flower have long lain In the soil of earth, and doubtless before us somewhere will come a blossoming that will fill the air with perfume and the world’s autumn with fruit. And no dying for friends will be demanded. No such sacrifice follows friendship more than one day in a thousand; but tliis quality will find in the houses of business, in the streets, in the social circle, in the church, in the relations of Christians, in the sermons of the pulpit, in the columns of the religious press, in the breadth of Christian creeds, in the equality of the churches, ample field for its evolutions. It will come to mitigate the per cents, of the Shylocks, to do away with an ethics of business that shall differ from the ethics of a brotherhood; it will come to make a business transaction as pleasant as an exchange ot greetings on the street; it will come to soften criticism of each other, and to crowd into oblivion the religions of large persecutions for small distinctions; it will come to help a true idea of Christ to penetrate the inmost spirit of humanity.

FACTS AND FIGURES.

Over half a million scholars in the schools of Illinois. The total number of railroad employes in Great Britain is about 285,000. A phenomenon is reported from Naples, Italy. It is that for three whole days in one week there were no births out of a population of 500,000 souls. Careless and indiscriminate fishing is gradually reducing the supply of shellfish on the coast of England, which draws from Norway about 600,000 lobsters a year, and from France about 200,000. Russia has more horses than all the remainder of Europe put together. She has 16,160,000 or 227.05 for every 1,000 of population. It would seem that she should never be at a loss for cavalry. The Bureau of Statistics furnishes the following table showing the exports of bacon, ham and cheese from the ports ot New York, Boston, Baltimore and Pniladelphia during April: Bacon and ham, from New York, 20,649,990 pounds; from Boston, 4,659,356; from Baltimore, 919,962; from Philadelphia,4,37B,o37. Cheese, from New York, 1,209,301 pounds; Boston, 5,262; Baltimore, 7,671; Philadelphia, 1 009. According to a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, the French regular army numbers 455,000 men, most of whom have already seen four years’ service, while the reserve of the active army amounts to about 920,000 men. Then there is a ter* ritorial army, which is set down at 500,000 men, rather more than half of whom are old soldiers of the active army. The total force is placed at 1,800,000, of which 750,000 are really educated soldiers, and about 300,000 have had six months’ drilling. In a recent lecture in Edinburgh on “The Stars," Prof. Grant said that a railway train, traveling day and night fifty miles per hour, would reach the moon in six months, the sun in 200 years, and Alpha Centauris, the nearest of the fixed stars, in 42,000,000 years; a cannon ball traveling 900 miles per hour, in 2,700,000 years; and light, traveling 185,000 miles per second, in three years. Light from some of the telescopic stars takes 5,760 years to reach the earth; from others 500,000 years. These stars, therefore, may have become extinct thousands of years ago, though their light comes to our eyes. Alpha Lyra is 100,000,000,000 of miles from us, and its magnitude and splendor are as twenty to one compared with our sun. The sun is neither greater nor smaller than most of the.stars.

London, England, covers an area of 78,080 acres, or 122 square miles. When the census was taken last year, there were 1,500 miles of streets, 2,000 miles of sewers, 417,767 inhabited houses, and a population of 3,489,428. The inclusion of fifteen miles around makes the population 4,286,607. There are over 100,000 professional men,211,000 of the commercial class, 505,000 mechanics, 65,000 laborers, and 35,000 whose occupation is undefined. There are 1,683,221 males, and 1,866,207 females. Of the women, 892,180 are married, and 226,006 are domestic servants. There are 15,000 tailoresses, 58,000 milliners and dressmakers, 27,000 seamstresses and shirtmakers, and 44,000 laundresses. Twenty-nine thousand are returned as gentlewomen. The number of children reported as attending school is 314,000. London, though much larger in population than New York, is not as. densely packed as the latter. New York, in 1870, with a population of 942,292, had only 64,044 dwelling-houses, and the average number of persons to a dwelling was 14.72. In London, the average last year was 8.38, and this was smaller than the average, according to the census of 1870, in either Brooklyn, Boston, Cincinnati or Jersey City.

A Funny Burglar Scrape.

On a recent Sunday night, two Alleghany (Pa.) gentlemen attempted to play policemen, and succeeded (?) admirably. A lady named Mrs. Smith, who resides near the toll-gate at the head of Federal street, thought she heard burglars in the upper story of her house. She was very much frightened, as her husband was not at home, and she ran to the door and screamed for help. Two gentlemen, named Owens and Spang, heard her cries and went to her assistance. She told them what was the matter, and. they agreed to surround the house; that is, one of them was tc enter the front door and thcother the. rear door, and thus prevent the escape of the burglar. The plan was carried out. Mr. Spang entered at the front door, with a piece of iron gas-pipe in his hand, and Mr. Owens entered at the rear door. The hail-way was very dark, and Mr. Spang had gone but a short distance when he detected the burglar, whom he at once made at and struck on the head with the gas-nipt. The other man quickly grasped Mr, Spang around the body, carried him to the porch in the rear, and attempted to throw him to the ground beneath. While the two were struggling they discovered their ludicrous mistime, and hastily departed to bind up their wounds, while Mrs. Smith’s burglar proved to be a figment of the feminine imagination anyway.

“Never an Encouraging Word.”

“ He never speaks an encouraging word to us," said a servant of Mr. Towne. “Is that so?" “ You may try your life out to please him, and he never speaks an encouraging word. It is life under the harrow there, and I’ve left.” His children cannot leave home. He has two boys. They are sometimes at work in the garden, pulling up weeds, cutting the grass, making martin-houses and windmills. They put no heart in their work; it is dull and spiritless. They are forever haunted with a furtive fear. Try as they may, and try they do, their father never encourages them. Notning but a dismal drizzle of fault-finding ever falls from his lips. A sound scolding, a genuine cuffing when they deserve it—and children know they deserve it sometimes—like a thunderstorm, purify the air and make eveiything the better and brighter. Then the clouds clear away, and the gladdest sunshine follows. That is not Mr. Towne’s way. He is never thunder, and lightning and over it, not he; but perpetual drizzle, damp, dark, murky. Nothing pleases, nothing suits him. Putting his eye on his boy is a mark of illfavor. Every child dreads his gaze, shuns it, is ill at ease, awkward, squirming, until it wriggles out of the way and is gone. There are no glad voices in his presence; no outspoken, frank, honest utterance; only hesitation, inconsequence, self-contradiction. For fear always beclouds the brightest mind and the simplest heart. “There is no use telling it before father,” the boys say, in bringing home a bit of news or a tale of adventure. But, worst of all, “ There is no use in trying,” as they often say. And the disheartenment will presently merge into indifference, possibly something more active. They will run away. Evil “speaks pleasantly,” at least, and many a young person has turned from home and sought other companions for no other reason. Tho heart, with all its warm impulses, and with them its sense of shortcoming and incompleteness, needs enlargement—must have it in order to grow strong. “ Not one encouraging word from father!” Poor boys I Bridget can leave, they can’t. Nor can his wife leave. Poor woman 1 She is a brave woman, too. What a hopeful smile she often wears. It is because she will bear up; and smile she must, an answering smile to the love of friends, the courtesy of society, the beauty of flower and grass, and the slant sunshine through the trees. But there is no joy within. Home Is a joyless spot; for her most careful housewifery there is never an encouraging word; for the taste and grace witn which she tries to make home attractive there is never an encouraging word. The glance of her husband’s eye only takes in what happens to offend; the word of his mouth only expresses what be finds, and these are faults, spots, something forgotten or overlobked. Bhe dreads him, she fears him, she shrinks frem him. There is no freedom or sunshine in his presence. Perhaps in her yearning woman’s heart she has longed for his return, forgetting in his absence the small tyranny of his exacting spint; but the thrill of "his coming is soon deadened—“No encouraging words;” and she silently slips out of his sight to swallow her disappointment and heart-break-ing alone. There is a sense of misery in the house which no stranger can detect; perhaps this is too positively expressed; it is rather an absence of jov, everything spontaneous and cheerful and glad held in check. A minor tone runs through the family life, depressing to every one. Tho prints of an iron hand arc on every heart. “Never a word to encourage!” slipped unawares from her lips one day. It does not seem much; but who that has felt it does not know that it is the secret of many a jovless childhood, many a broken spirit.— Family Friend.

The Black Hills—The Situation of Affairs at Deadwood.

The Chicago Tribune, of a recent date, publishes the following extract from a private letter, dated Deadwood, May 14, to a gentleman in Chicago: I arrived in this city on the 11th inst.; was on the road twenty-one days out of Cheyenne. I came in by the new road (mud up to your neck). I paid six cents per pound for my weight and baggage, with the understanding that I was to ride all the way; but, alas! I soon discovered my mistake; I had to walk all the way—--360 miles. Board is fifteen dollars per week, and hard to get at that; day-board alone is ten dollars per week. The town is crowded with men out of work and out of money. The truth of the matter is, too many are coming here for the Hills to support. Wages”range from four to seven dollars per "day for those that are able to get work. Tobacco, chewing, is one dollar per pound; smoking, about one dollar and a quarter per pound; cigars, common, fifteen cents; ordinary, twenty-five cents apiece. Flour, twenty-eight dollars per hundred, or fifty-six dollars per barrel. How is that for high ? Potatoes', fifteen cents per pound. Everything is sold by the pound here. One man has got up a corner on flour, and has run it up from eighteen to twenty-eight dollars per hundred in the last three days. Whisky is twenty-five cents pef drink, and very poor stuff at that. This is one of the most lively towns that that the country has ever had; that is what the miners here all say. Hardly’ 1 a night passes but what there are half a dozen fights right in the main street of the town. My "advice to people in the States who intend to come here to mine, is to stay where they are, for there are.five men for every position here. They will have to put up with a great deal of hardships and privation in their overland trip from Cheyenne to Deadwood —860 miles. I speak from experience, and, therefore, ought to know. You can make the trip by stage from Cheyenne to Deadwoood iu about six days; fare, fifty dollars; meals on the way, eighteen dollars, making about seventy dollars for the through trip. I came in a train of covered wagons for about thirty dollars; but it took metwen-tv-one days to get here. Freight from Cheyenne here is three cents per pound. A dime or a nickel is never Used in this country; almost everything is twenty-five cents. The money in circulation is golddust and silver coin. Taere are two daily papers here—the Pioneer and the Times; in size they are about twice as large as an ordinary theater programme. There are seven breweries, two cuarcoal-pite, three brick yards and several saw-mills, that I know of; also two theaters. —When a man goes round the house sighing and wishing himself dead, you needn’t trouble to put the bottle of opium away. He wculdn’t touch it for worlds. If he should be suddenly attacked by colic you would hear him screaming out for a doctor at the top of his voice.

Our Young Readers. MI LT I ADEB 18 OUILTY OF DISOBEDIENCE. Litter Miltuutai Peterkin Paul, Must have had, I am mum, what we oftentimes call A “ very «woet tooth”—at leant, certain lam He was fond of his grandmother’s Raspberry Jam. Why, he often would climb to the top pantryshelf, And eat all there was in the Jar by himaelf, Till the good lady vowed, in hex positive way, He should have.no more Jam, fora month and a day. But one winter night, when the family all (Including Miltiades Peterkin Paul) In the old-fashioned kitchen were gathered together, While the fire burned brightly—'twas blustering weather — With many a sly glance where grandma waa aitting Half-asleep in the rocking-chair over her knitting, Our hero crept softly away in the gloom, And presently disappeared out of the room. Very stealthily making hie way through the hall, In a moment Miltiadea Peterkin Paul Found himaelf in the pantry; and mounting a chair He carefully felt all along the shelf where He knew that hia grandmother kept the beat jar— Till at length he cried Joyfully, “Ho! here you are?’ Then he climbed slowly down; and proceeded to cram His dear little mouth full of Raspberry. Jam. But when little Miltiadea Peterkin Paul Found, alas! all too soon, he had eaten it all. He mournfully sighed, sitting there on the floor, And smacked his lips softly and wished there was more. Then again fell to scraping the jar with a spoon (For he couldn't believe it waa all gone so soon). “There must be more of it inside,” he said. “Ah! If I only could get my head into this jar!" This idea was no sooner conceived than he tried it. But I don’t think hia head would have gone quite inside it (It was such a tight fit) had not just then his ear . Caught the sound of a footstep; and, starting with fear, Taking hold with both , hands he gave one mighty tug. And then his head was in the stone jar right snug,. And poor little Miltiadea Peterkin Paul Found that, pull as he might, ’twouldn’t come out at all! Well, at length young Miltiades Peterkin Paul, Quite alarmed and bewildered, rushed out through the hall, Bursting into the room where the folks were all sitting; And grandma awoke with a shriek at her knitting; And father arose from his seat and began Reassuring his wife, while Abiathar Ann, And Benjamin Franklin, and John Henry Jack, They all of them laughed till their faces were black. And he certainly looked very funny indeed, Dashing madly about at the top of his speed; Till, at length, he encountered hia grandmother’s chair, When the jar broke in pieces, and aU at once there Stood poor little Miltiades, meek asa lamb, With his face all besmeared with the Raspberry Jam. “O, dear me!” cried Miltiades Peterkin Paul, “1 have had quite enough Jam for one day, that's aH!” —John Brownjohn, in Wide-Awake.

ANNETTA PLUMMER’S DIART.

My mother told me that it would be a good way for me to make believe that I am telling Miss Annetta Fourteen what happens every day. I asked my mother: “ Will she be I? Will Miss Annetta Fourteen be the same I then that I am now when I am seven ?” She said, “ She will be the same I, and she will not be the same I.” Then I asked my mother to tell me how I could be the same I, and not be the same I. She said, “ You are the same you that you were when you were a baby, and you are not the same you.” She said that if I were the very same you—no, the very same I—that I was when I was a baby, 1 should want a rattle to shake, and to be trotted, and to pat cakes! That made me laugh out loud. Then my mother asked me if I should not like to read a little cunning diaiy, where Annetta Baby put down when she learned how to pat-a-cake, and when she jumped first time in a baby-jumper, and when she fell out of bed. And I said I should. 1 shall tell something now in my diary about poor little Banty White. She died this morning. She had the pip. Stye was a little beauty. Oh, she was just as white as snow all over, and every one in the family loved her very much. She would come when we called her, and she knew her name. She had four chickens once, and once she had seven. They are sold. I cried when my Banty died. She wasvery cunning and very nice. My mother does not think it is foolish to cry for something like that. She thinks it is foolish to cry when you can’t have things- that you want, ana when you cannot go to the places- that you want to. My mother talks to me a great deal about Banty White. The Plaguer talks some. The Plaguer is my Cousin Hiram. He is fifteen. He is very tall. He likes to plagueus when we do not wish him to do so. He says “ boo!" in our ears when we do not know he is there. They counted four good things about Banty. Kind —that was one of the good things. My cat had three kittens, and two died. My cat had fits. They were running fits. * And once she ran away. That was the last one she had, for she did not live much longer, and her little kitty was left without any mother. Banty White let the kitty come under her wings, and did not push it out. Bhe was kind to it a great many days. When she called her chickies to eat something, she wanted that kitty to come too, and she wanted the kitty to run under her wings when the chickies came under; and when the kitty did not come duick, she kept saying “ Cluck t cluck! cluck!” till somebody put it under there. Then she kept still. Not quarrelsome. This makes two good things. When any other Banty ran to get the same crumble that she was going after, she did not fly at that other one. Not pick out the best. This makes three good things. When anybody threw down corn, or crumbs, or bugs—my father picked off squash-bugs to give to the hens —she did not try to pick for the biggest one, and she did not either try to keep the best place for henelf. The best hen-place is close to the back door. Banty White was tied to a stake there, but she was will-, ing the other ones should have that good place, too. Not proud. Four good things. The Plaguer told me of thia one. He said some hens are so proud when they lay eggs that they go around cackling very loud, just as much as to say, “ Bee what I’ve done! I’ve Gone!” He said Banty White never made a very loud cackling.

My mother said that she heard the bovs * * cackle," one day, when they had brought in seme large slicks of wood. That made us laugh. Then she said she heard a little girl “ cackle,” one day, when she had picked more huckleberries than the others did. I know what little girl she meant. Me. One day, my father and my mother and myself went to see my aunt, and we stayed there all night, and Hiram put toy Banty under a Darrel to make her hot want to sit, and he forgot she was under there, and she starved almost to death, because she bad no food to eat. One day, when our great Shanghai hen wanted to sit, the Jimmyjohns went ’way into a corner of the hen-house and tried to get hold of her legs to pull her off, and she pecked them. 'Most everybody knows about the Jimmies now, I think, for they are onfy our two littletwin boys who loos just alike. One of the Jimmies held out a stick for her to bite, and so she did • little while; but she stopped biting that stick when he began to put out his other hand to take hold of her legs with, and pecked that hand. Then he threw sand in her face, so she could not see his hand, but she could. Then he threw some pinneedles that were on the ground in the hen-house; but they did not stop her from pecking that hand he was taking hold of her legs with. Then he put his straw hat on her head, so that she had to knock her head on the inside of it, and then they both took hold of her legs and pulled her off. This is » very funny story. They could not get out. They let her go back again. The button on the door of the hen-house turns itself around, and they had to stay shut up in there almost two hours. They hollered just as lond as they could, and then they cried, and then they pounded, and then they kicked the 'door, and then, they did all these same things ever again. VFhen Hiram put the cow in the barn, he heard them pounding, and heard Snip barking. Snip was lying down outside, and sometimes he got up and barked. One day, the Jimmyjohns went off' in a boat, aud it waa bad weather, and they almost got drowned. This almost makes me cry—for then we could never, never see our little Jimmies any more! Oh! what should we do without our dear little Jimmies T—AMy Morton Diaz, in Bt. Nicholas for June.

“Falling Stars.”

“A little boy waa dreaming, Upon his-nnne's lap, That the pins fell out of aH the stem, And the stars fell into his cap. So, when hia dream waa over, What could that little boy do? Why, he went and looked inside hia cap— And found it wasn’t true.” If that little boy had been wide awake, and out of doors, with a cap on his head, instead of dreaming in hjs nurse’s lap, don’t you think he might really have seen a star fall out of the skyt Haven’t you all seen one many a time ? But you would never dream that those blazing suns, the stars, are pinned into the sky, and that they might tumble into your cap if the pins fell out. You know better than that; but do you know what does happen when a star falls ? We say, “A star falls,” because what we see falling look to us like a star; but it really is no more like a starthan a lump of coal. If we should see a piece of blazing coal falling through the air, we might be foolish enough to tbink that, too, was a star. And what we call a shooting-star is, perhaps, more like a lump of coal on fire than like anything else you know of. Sometimes these shooting stars fall to to the ground, and are picked up and found to be rocks. How do you suppose they take fire? It is by'striking against the air which is around our earth. They come from nobody knows where, and are no more on fire than any rock - is, . until they fall into our air; and that sets them blazing, just as a match lights when you rub it against something. These meteors, as they are called, do not often fall to theground; only the very large ones last until they reach the earth'; most of them burn-up on their way down. I think that is lucky, because they might at any time fall into some little boy’s cap and spoil it, and might even fall on his head, if they were in the habit erf falling anywhere. That little boy who thought the stars were only pinned in their pl aces must have felt very uneasy. I don’t wonder that he dreamed about them. Once in a great while, a shower of meteors rains down upon, the earth; and sometimes many of them can be seen falling from the sky, and horning up in the air. The fall of the-year is tfte best time for meteors; but you will be pretty sure to see one any evening you choose to look for it, and, perhaps, on the Fourth of July one of them will celebrate the day by bunting like a rocket, as they sometimes do.— Nursery.

Effect of Metals upen Anaesthesia.

Some twenty-five years ago a certaintM. Burq, a doctor in France, announced a discovery at which science looked with little favor. He declared that the application of certain metals to the human body relieved the malady of anaesthesia, and restored the faculty of sensation. Some patients could be helped by the touch of gold, copper agreed better with others, and zinc suited the constitution of a third set. Very lately some memoers of the Societe de Biologic have given M. Burq’s practice a trial, with results which seem satisfactory enough. For example, a patient of the Salpetriere, a girl of about sixteen, subject to hallucinations, and unable to feel on the right side of her body, was treated with a gold bracelet. It is said that before the application of the bracelet she allowed herself to be pinched and pricked with needles with perfect indifference. Fifteen minutes after the ornament was clasped round her wrist the skin became of a more healthy color, and the slightest touch of the needle drew blood and provoked ejaculations from the sufferer. Her right eye, which had been blind during her illness, now distinguished colors, and her right ear detected sounds. On other patients gold had no effect, but zinc or copper restored, for the time, the lost senses. It is to be noticed that in a few hours the deadness to feeling returned in these hysterical subjects, ana it is also said that what the right side of the body gained, the left side lost. So, on the whole, the discovery seems rather curious than profitable.— London Daily New». —As a dandy was wending his way through a narrow passage at the top of Charlotte street, Glasgow, he met a pretty girl, and said to her: “Pray, iny dear, what do you call this passage?” “Balaam’s passage,” she -replied. “Ah, then,” said he, “I’m like Balaamstopped by an angel,” “And I,” rejoined the girl, as she pushed past him, “am like an angel—stopped byanaas.”