Semi-weekly Express, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 22 October 1897 — Page 3

THEY TOOK A PINCH.

DAYS WHEN SNUFF TAKING WAS JUST THE THING.

*&i<

Ceremonies Observed by Devotees of the Habit—The foppery of Bean Brnmmel and Lord Petersham—Ladies and Men of High Degree Took Their "Powders."

There is no habit afflicting mankind i^vhich has evoked more varied opinions 4 than that of sntiff faking. Pope Urban's fulminatidAs against it, says the London ^^tanrfard, failed utterly. The Grand .- r'Monarque had an unconquerable aversion

!fto

lf

it, yet it flourished in his court under jfche patroniago of fiis queen, and bis name 'is still adbcoiatediWitb some of the most artistic of snuffboxes. John Wesley declared it a silly, nasty custom. Swift and

Pope made it the subject of their gibes and sneers yet it flourished, and the habit

still permeates all classes of society. It has not only had its devotees and its defenders, but also its poets and its epicures, if the 1*- word can be used in that sense.

Southey described it as the "moat innoJ'i""cent of sensualities," and many old writera dwell in a fastidious manner on its delights. The snuff itself should be "soft and silky to the touch." The boxes iu which it should be kept should be made "with all the art the greatest artist could •bestow with a joint so fine it "shuns the sharpest sight graced with radiant gems, and even within the lid "the painter plays his part, and with hi^ pencil proves his matchless art." Then there were different schools of snuff taking. In old numbers of The Tatlor will bo found advertisementsoffering to teach "the ceremonies of the snuffbox." These were very elaborate.

There were special rules for offering snuff to the stranger, the friend or to a mistress, according to the degree of familiarity ofr distance, with explanations proffered as to the careless, the scornful, thepolitio or the surly pinch, and the gestures proper to each of them.

Beau Brummel and other exquisites prided themselves on the graceful way in which they opened their snuffboxes with the left hand only, but the whole history of snuff taking furnishos no more extravagant instance of the foppery of snuff taking than that of Lord Petersham, who is credited with having kept a special snuffbox for every day in the year and to have had a stock of varied snuffs to the value of £3,000. Some of his boxes, "for sum­

mer

wear and winter use," as the historian quaintly puts it, are in the possession of Lord Salisbury, who has a very fine collection of historio boxes.

Next to Lord Petersham ranks Edward Wortley Montague, who kept in use boxes enough for a hundred nosed Chinese idol." The ladies, too, in the days of patches and powder, took snuff privately and publicly. "By snuff assisted, ladies killed the day and breathed their scandal freely o'er their tea." Even in church the thoroughbred woman of fashion, we read, "pulled out her box in the midst of the sermon, and, with well bred audacity, offered it to her neighbors." The snuffbox was as recognized an adjunct of the toilet table as the fan. It was Catherine de Medicis who brought snuff taking into fashion among ladies in France, from whence it spread to England, and it was /or a long time known as l'herbe de la *ine. What did more than anything else to kill the habit among the fair sex was the fact that, in the case of the dauphiness of France, she was poisoned by means of a deadly compound mixed with her favorite Spanish snuff, oontained in an elegant box given to her by the Duo de Noailles. After that even men were for a long time shy of taking a pinch of snuff from a stranger, as it was believed that the Jesuits adopted this means of disposing of their enemies.

Mention has been made of the oeremony of the snuffbox, and this forms one of the most curious chapters in the history of snuff taking. A man expressed bis homage in his way of tendering his box or his hostility in the way in which he took the proffered pinch. At one time to refuse a pinch of snuff was an unpardonable breach of good manners. It was quite a ceremonious business, and no bargain was ever struck without an interchange of boxes. One judged of a fltan's breeding by the way in which he took his snuff, but it was not always a sure test.

One of the worst offenders in this way was Dr. Johnson, who "took his powder by the palmful," diving for it under the flaps of his capacious waistcoat pockets and creating quite a shower of snuff all around him. Napoleon also took his snuff in haudfuls and kept it, as Dr. Johnson did, in his waistcoat pocket. Gibbon, the historian,- was a profuse snuff taker, and 1 Frederick the Great was so fond of it that he had big pockets made on purpose, so that he could with as little trouble as pos sible get for immediate use the largest quhntity he could wish. These are instances of the vulgarities of snuff taking, rather than the aesthetics, but they terve to throw the latter into higher relief.

The courtliness of snuff taking was in deed cultivated to so high a point that he who received the pinch must be as punctilious as he who offered it. Nothing offended the

Aesthetic

sense of the cultured

snuff taker more than to disturb the contents of the box with one's finger. In a mixed gathering, when boxes wero sent round the table, such a one watched with trepidation the circulation of his box:, lest it should be polluted by a profane touch. A moment of excruciating agony came onco to Beau Bruuimel. It was at Port man square, when, on the removal of the oloth, the snuffboxes made their appearance. Brummel's was particularly admired as it was handed roynd. At last it leached a gentleman, who, finding it.^iffioult to open, applied a dossert knife to the lid. Brummel had been On itborns, and nt last, unable to oontrol himself loBjs&etr-ad-dressed his host witliioharaoteristic qiiaint ness, saying, "Will you be good enough to tell your friend that my snuffbox is not an oyster?" Some people carried this relined feeling so far that they would never accept snuff that had been touched by any fingers but their owfa. Frenerick the Great was one of those. He would not take snuff from any one else's box, and, one day, catching a page stealing a pinch from his box, he said to him: "Put that box in your pocket. It is not big enough for two." George II had the same whim, and once at a masquerade threw riway his box because a visitor dipped into it.

A FRANCHISE ASKER.

vonfronted at Each Door by a Woman Who Owned Three Houses. "What business are you in now?" asked #ne man of another yesterday on Sixth •venue. "Oh, I am still a franchise asker." "What is that? Asking for things free?" "That is just it. Whenever a street car Goropany wishes to go through a certain atreet the consent of the property owners has to be obtained. I go from door to door and with a hypnotic smile and suave manner I endeavor to get the consent of owners. I have my notebook in band and have tbem write their consent at once." "Do you ever get the 'cold face?' "Ah, if the frigid look were all I would aot mind it, but I have hot words hurled •t me from indignant people. I never lost my suave aplomb but once, and then, t-o osa a slang phrase, I was queered completely. I was trying to obtain 'consents' along Sixteenth street some years ago, when I found more than my match. Hinging a doorbell I waited a few minutes and It was opened by a handsome woman. 'Is the owner in?' 4' 'Yes lam tbe owner.' "This was my. chance to show my«J0W •ad diutoaaoy, -i "oald

•wax, but her beautiful face oonoealed a

for the road to come through the street 'No, most emphatically, no?' came her answer. It dashed me somewhat, but I went up the next door steps a&gayly as possible. Imagine my surprise to see standing before me a handsome woman, the exact counterpart of the one next door.

AN ODD ARGUMENT.

Why Steamboat Band Gave Up the Sw For the River. "Tb»»re are excuses and excuses and explanations and explanations," remarked the man who had been on a prospecting tour in the west and had got back home with more experience thon anything elfe, "but the oddest one I think I ever happened upon was furnished to ine by a deckhand on an Ohio river steamboat morning from Cincinnati to Pittsburg—that is, she ran in that trade when there was water enongh in the river so she wouldn't have to climb up the bank and walk abound the sand bars, as the olerk picturesquely explained to me. I was on one of these boats, and she was on a sand bar not far from Marietta, in the state of Ohio, and while we were waiting for it to rain, or something else, I strolled down on the boiler deck and incidentally fell into conversation with the deckhand aforesaid. 'This is fine traveling,' I paid, with some degree of sarcasm.

''There's

nothing-like gittin used to

it,' be replied easily. 'How long does it usually take?' 'Depends on tbe nater of the brnto,' he smiled. 'Have you always worked at this business?' I asked. 'No. I used to be a Bailor.' 'A sea sailor?' I inquired in some stirprise. 'Yes. I used to sail out of Baltimore.' 'Then you know about navigating where there is water?' "'I had ten years of it.' 'Well, how in thunder did you ever happen to give up the deep, deep seas for this sort of thing?' ''Conscience, mister.'

What the mischief had conscience to do with it?' I asked. 'Had you thrown somebody overboard?' 'Oh, no, 'twan't nothing of that kind,' he said, with an honest grin. 'You see, I was a Baptis' in tbem days, and there couldn't be too muoh water to suit my taste, but one time, when I was ashore in Baltimore, I got mixed up with the Methodists somehow or another, and after that sprinklin seemed about my size, and so I left the ocean and struck out for the Onio river. Barrin a flood now and then, I ain't got any objections to offer.' "-—Washington Star.

THOUGHT HE HAD TWINS.

A Physician's Absentmindedness Led to Humorous Complications* He is the last of the old school of doctors, very bland and polite, but also very absentminded, except where his medical practice is concerned, and he was called one morning to a Prairie avenue home where there is already one small son in the family to introduce another. Going to the house telephone, he oalled up the head of the house at his place of business. "Hello! Hello! Is this Mr. Dream?" "Yes. What is wanted?" "This is Dr. Blank. I wish to inform you that you have another fine son. Congratulations!"

Then he rung off the telephone without waiting to hear what Mr. Dream had to say and busied himself in professional duties until ten minutes later, when he again stood before the telephone trying to remember who he wanted and what he had to communicate. Then he rung up Mr. Dream again. "Hello! Hello! Is this Mr. Dream?" "Yes. Is this you, Dr. Blank?" "It is, and I wish to say that you have another fine son." This time the doctor was not in such a hurry, and he waited to hear what Mr. Dream had to say. After a long silence there came from the other end of the telephone wire a feeble wail. "Another? Good heavens, doctor, don't call me up again! I—I -will come home and face the music like a man."

And great was his relief when he found that the doctor had merely complicated matters by repeating his first message.— Chicago Times-Herald.

-Explosives In Mines.

The regulations governing the storage of explosives in coal mines are in most European countries very strict. Austria allows the storage of 100 kilograms not nearer than 100 meters from any shaft or gallery. Saxony allows but 75 kilograms, 50 meters from shafts and 10 from galleries England and colonies, France and Belgium allow only one day's supply to be taken in, but concessions have been made in France after tests of an automatic buffer, designed in

case

of,explosion to seal the

drift and confine the deadly gases. A stopper* fitting tlgl^ly like a piston in the connecting drift between the magazine and the main gallery, is thrown by an explosion against an amular shoulder, thereby sealing the drift. Where this device is used in French mines large quantities of. explosives, black powder excepted, may be stored on shelves, but never superposed, in chambers lighted by eafety or electric lamps. Clips must not be stored in tbe same chamber, the ventilation must be thorough, and tho arrangement of the entrances, position of magazine and gal leries, construction of buffer and many other details aro so elaborately and minutely prescribed that few besides very large operators will care to adopt them.— New York Journal.

Souvenir Cards For Mailing. For some years there have been in use In Germany souvenir cards, something like postal cards in Bize and shape, upon the backs of which are printed piotures of scenery, or buildings, or designs commemorative of some event, as a fair or exposition. These cards are made in great vari ety, the pictures being prettily colored. There is room on the picture side for some writing. On the address side a place is indicated for tbe stamp, letter postage being required.

These cards, with written message? thereon, are sent to friends at home oi abroad for the sake of tbe pictorial infor mation which they contain, or, it may lie as pleasant reminders of scenes which they I have visited. Beturning travelers note that such cards with American scenes car now be bought in this country.—-New

York Sun.

A Swre Sl(B^

"When a woman," said the corn philosopher,

WOMEN WHO SMOKE,

marble heart aDd ber bead a brain that was clear. After my polite preface she hardly waited for me to ask her consent .SOME INDULGE FOR THE LOVE OF! IT#

I

began my patter and tried to conceal the fact that I believed I bad seen her before. 'No, a thousand times, noj' came her answer. "I bowed and walked out. When the next door was opened, my surprise merged' into astonishment, for there, the third time, 6tood the handsome but calm woman. I stammered and said, "I beg your pardon, madam, but. do you own this block?" 'I own these three bouses, and the answer ia no for the third time.' "I took three drinks in succession to calm my nerves. These three houses communicated by meansof doors, and she bad anticipated me in 'every one. Well, the road has not been built on Sixteenth street yet."—New York Commercial.,

SOME FOR SOCIABILITY.

A. Third Class Do So In Order to Be ••Sporty"—A Woman Who Loves the Weed Talks Like an Kxpert About Tobaccos, Pipes and Cigarette Holders.

A young woman, the owner of a oozy., little smoking room, who makes no secret of her enjoyment of an after dinner

pipo:

was questioned the other day as to why women use tobacoo. She was seated itf the cozy lit-tlp room and with a special friend was en'ioying a pull. "Well," said she, "American women, who smoke can be oatalogued in thre$ classes—namely, those who do it for the love of the weed Itself, those who do it to be sociable, and those who wish to appear sporty. I belong to the first class, my friend over there to the second olass, while the third class—oh, well, they are the girls one sees and reads about as smoking in' cafes, on tbe street cars and other publio. places, though I muse

Bay

women who

smoke in public places do not always do it to attract attention. "I remember last spring on shipboard^ when returning from a winter in Florida, quite a pretty girl was discovered smoking on deck. She had seleoted a part of the deck away from the other passengers and was quietly enjoying a cigarette when a party of men saw her. 'I bet you $50 I can speak to that girl and at the end of ten minutes be on the friendliest terms with her,' said one of a group of good looking young fellows to hie frignds. "The bet was not made, but after walking around and seeing the girl's face at closer range another young man of the group said he would fail if he attempted it. The first mentioned young man strolled to the girl's end of tbe deck, loitered around in her neighborhood, and then, taking out a cigar, said to her with his most killing smile and bow: 'I have leftmy match safe in my stateroom. Won't you be good enough to give me a light?' "She silently handed him her lighted cigarette. After lighting his cigar he returned her cigarette with expressions of his gratitude. She took the cigarette, tossed it overboard, left her seat and went to her stateroom without opening her lips to him. Of course his friends had the laugh on him, and all the women around who had witnessed the performance were obarmed with the girl. I afterward learned that she was fond of tobacco, but made deathly sick by the odor of stale smoke, and so for that reason she did not smoke in the privacy of her own room. 'For myself I always smoke afte.r dinner, and when I'm at home a pipe. Of course during the day, when inclined, I smoke just about as men do, sometimes one pipeful, sometimes several. I can. think better when smoking, and also it rests me. Now, my friends, as a rule, smoke merely to be sociable. Tbey take a' cigar or cigarette at a dinner or luncheon where they are handed around after the coffee or when paying a sooial call. Somehow, we all imagine we talk more easily while smoking. But none of these girls miss ber smoke when she is prevented from taking it, nor does she ever smoke when alone. Not so with the women who love the weed itself. They become irritable and as cross as bears when forced to do without it. As I have a smoking room,

I try always to keep it supplied with the latest goods. My pipe—that is, my favorite pipe, for I really have pipes by tbe dozen—was given me by my eldest brother and has his face cut into the bowl. You see how beautifully it is colored, and I have only been smoking it a few months. Theibest meersohaum has a clouded, dirty appearanoe. It ap-. pears to have pores in itj and is creamy in cclor. The white kind, that which looks like chalk, is very objectionable. That was the kind I first picked out, and I can remember my brothers laughed at me. "Cigarette holders are to be had all the way from these cheap but dainty looking little affairs of papier mache, with quill mouthpieces, to the most expensive ones of gold or silver mounted amber. The latest are of silver

filagree

fed

says that she really believes

she is getting hit and her husband retorts that it is because she eats too muoh and doesn't do enough work, it is safe to fiipime that the honeymoon bft&oeased to be."—Savannah Bnlkitrtp.

with amber mouth­

pieces. You see they are very like- cigar holders, only muoh smaller. As I have some friends who object to touching their cigarotteH and cigars with their fingers I bought a lot of these little holders. They are the latest out and are made so that the littlo gold or silver rin# may be slipi*d on the finger and by simpiy pressing a spring the nippers will open and close around the cigurette. They are very convenient little affairs, especially when one is playing cards. "Of course, you know that very few women now like to smoke ready filled cigarettes, and as some of them objeot to touchin§ the tobaoco I bought a little imported machine which fills them very rapidly. All you have to do is to put the tobacco in this little box, slip in the oigarette paper tubes, turn the handle and your, oigarette comes out perfectly filled. "Many women who fill their own cigarettes have their papers stamped with their monogram in silver or gold. Some of them have the ends tipped. Almost any of the shops that make a specialty of keeping women's smoking ma'terials have this stamping done at a very slight extra cost on the thousand slips. Some of my friends prefer white rice paper, while others prefer tho corn paper, which is a delicate shade of yellow. Some girls oontend that fancy paper has nothing to do with the flavor of a oigarette and insist on using the margin of newspapers or any soft paper that comes to hand. Of course, beautiful cigarettes may be bought already filled with any and all brands of tobacco, but they are not nearly so good as those we mil. Some girls touch the edge of the paper with their tongues to make them adhere, while others simply bend up the ends. "The majority of women—I'm sure all my friends do—prefer mild Turkish tobacco. Soim*»»re fond of the long out, others of the short out. Por my own use I like both, the short cut for my pipe, the long cut for my cigarettes, and I don't allow any one to handle it either. I don't care to have the ajireds disturbed. One good point about the mild. Turkish tobacco is that it has less nicotine than any other kind. 1 have been told that it contained opium, and maybe it does, for it is certainly soothing, dod I would forgive my worst enemy after my second pipe. But, as I said before, I belong to the class who Anoke for the love of it. Those who smoke only to be sociable do not as a rule experience any such effects. They do_ it siiflply because others around tbem do. As to the" third class, the girls who wish to appear sporty, they use it only as a means to attract attention, and I doubt very much whether they ever give the flavor of their cigarettes a second thought." —New York Sun.

A BOGUS DRAMA AL FRESCO.

How Two Frisky Cow Punchers Halted a Kailway Train. The sensational Wild, West show given by some southern Utah cow punchers for the edification of eastern tourists calls to mind a little trick tbat was perpetrated on some other guileless travelers by a couple of Salt Lakers a summer, or two ago. Mortimer Allen and Albert Allen—no re lation—were on a hunting trip in the wilds of Wyoming. Their wickiup was In a picturesque little spot near Black's Fork, where deer and antelope grazed and where no white man save an old trapper bad come tw mar the natural beauty or distnrb tbe dumb inhafepRnte.

A boaS_fiBwi «L1?0Sfe somut mfia-xoda

over to Piedmont, tb8 nearest railroad station, for crackers and cheese and mall and anything else that was bandy.

One afternoon they bad reached a crossing oh the track where the train slows up on account of the curve. They heard it coming in the distance and quickly formed a plan. Biding away froiu the track, they awaited the coming of the train, and as soon as it was in sight they began gesticulating wildly, cursing and shaking their fists at one another. Their garb was very Characteristic, though common on the ranges—blue flannel shirt, a worn sombrero, overalls, schapps, etc., while A1 Alien wore a brace of pistols. Their faces were tanned and carried a spattered week's growth of t^iskering, and, all in all, they looked as tough as campers do. Of oourse they attracted attention, and window room bn that 6ide of the car seemed to be at a premium.

Finally Mort lifted his arm and brought a quirt down across Al's back, assuming as he did so a terrible expression. Bang, bang! went a oouple of shots. Mort dropped to the road, the "murderer" put spurs to his horse and was soon lost in a cloud of dust A hundred cries of "Help!" "Boad agent!" "Murder!" came from the oar windows, while the engineer stopped the train.

Most Of the men jumped off, and, headed by the oonductor, ran toward the prostrate man. Mort lay on his side and w?tched tbem until they were within 20 yards of him, then jumped in the saddle, and, waving his hat, rode swiftly away towardthe, setting sun.—Salt Lake Tribune.

BARRY THE ST. BERNARD.'

The Most Noted Dos That Lived and Died In the Service of the The hospitality and urtirii* iiumanity of the monks of the convent of at. Bernard have long been famous, ana ine fidelity and sagacity of thoir well known breed of dogs, kept by them to aesist them in their labors, hav^ long been equally celebrated.

Tbe most noted of all tbe dogs that have lived and striven and died in the service of the monks was nanud Barry. This faithful oreature served too hospice for the period of J2 years, and during tbat time he saved the lives of no less than 40 persons. His zeal was unconquerable. It was his custom after a heavy fall of snow to set out by himself in searoh of lost travelers. He would run along, barking at the top of bis lungb, until he was entirely out of breath, wben he would often fall over in the snow from sheer exhaustion.

No place was too perilous for him to venture into, and when he found, as he sometimes did, that his own strength was insufficient to draw from the snow a trav'eler benumbed by the cold, he would immediately hurry off to the hospice to fetch themonks.

One day Barry found a child frozen apparently to death between the bridge of Dronnz and the icehouse of Balsora. He began at once to lick him, and having succeeded by this means in restoring animation he induced the child to tie himself to his body. In this way he managed to oarry the poor little wretch to the hospice.

When he became too old to get about, the prior of tbe convent, by way of reward, pensioned him at Berney, and after his death his skin was stuffed and placed in the museum of that town, where it is still preserved.

The little flask in whioh he carried brandy for tbe relief of travelers whom he found exhausted in the snow on the mountains is still suspended from his neck.-— Harper's Bound Table.

IiOrd Alvanley's Wit.

He followed Sheridan and Brummel as a sayer of good things, but those most generally quoted have a touch of sarcastic malice, for cynical talk was a fashion of the time. When Brummel made his midnight flitting to Boulogne at the suit of the Jews, he remarked complacently.: "Brummel has done quite right to be off. It was Solomon's judgment." He was a kind hearted man and gave many proofs 6f generosity to acquaintances in distress. One of those he had assisted was the well known Jaok Talbot, a reckless prodigal who had repeatedly borrowed of him. When Talbot was beggared and lying on bis deathbed, Alvanley met his doctor and inquired about the invalid. The answer was: "My lord, I fear he is in a bad way. Ibad to us£ the lancet." "You should hirve tapped, him, dootor," said Alvanley coqljy. "I fear he has more claret than blood in his veins."

Aluch more excusable, considering the man and the circumstances, was Alvanley's aggrieved expostulation when he had been, persuaded to dine with the eocentric millionaire Neeld in his new mansion in Qrqsvenor square. The host, with the vulgarity of a nouveau riche, was expatiating on the sumptuous decorations of the apartment, and, in the words of Miltojj, "letting dinner cool." "I don't care what your gilding cost," said Alvanley bluntly, "but I am most anxious to make a trial of your carving, for I am famished."—Corn hill Magazine.

Verdi's Mysterious Box.

Verdi is reported to have given his friebd Boito a small box, locked and sealed, with the strict injunction that it was not to be opened until after the composer's death. There are all sorts of guesses about its contents in the Italian papers. The general belief is that the box contains the completed score of Verdi's long promised "Shakespearean opera," but tllfre is a difference of opinion as to the play which Verdi has chosen. Will this posthumous work turn out to be the "King Lear" whioh Verdi once bad in contemplation, or will it be the "Tem­

pest,"

which he has also planned to convert into an opera? possibly it may be no opera at all.—Westminster Gazette.

Proof Money.

Proof money passes through an astonishing number of hands. When at the bureau of engraving and printing it is received as paper, it is handled by five different divisions, with 81 hands. By them it is counted 20 times, and before the treasury deparifnent gets it, one month later, just 101 persons have done some work on the note.

HEEE AND THESE.

Field rats are considered good eating in Cuba. The yield of wheat in Great Britain this season will be 50,000,000 bushels against 68,000,000 bushels last year.

In the river Llano of Texas litrte islands of floating sand are sometimes seen.

The famous grapevine at Hampton Court, England, contains this year 1,300 bunches.

Two new asteroids have been discovered between Mars and Jupiter by M. Chariots of Nice, bringing the number discovered by him up to 86.

According to the registrar general's latest blue book, Scotland still contains many more women than men.

ANew York watchmaker recently accomplished the foat of drilling a hole through a common pin from end to end.

Eileen Bowena Victoria Diamond Jubliee Vagg and Queenie Victoria Williams are tho names to which two littic Eugnaa girls are condemned till marriage on account of the reoeat celebration England. 9

A German paper calls attention to the extraordinary fact that at Aachen alone $00 tons of steel wire are used up annually bi the manufacture of needles—4,500,000, 000 in mtnbv, valued »t $1,500,000.

SAILORS' LOST ART.

NO LONGER DO THE MAN-O'-WAR'S MEN EMBROIDER TIDIES.

And They Dant Make Their Clothes Any More—When Wooden Ships Went Out, Some Queer Old Customs of the Service

Disappeared With Them.

Fancy work in the navy is a lost art. It went out with the building of the new fleet. Over on the receiving ship Vermont at tbe Brooklyn navy yard, on tfce glorious old Conctijsution at Portsmouth, N. H.,and scattered on board ships which appear in The Naval Begister as "receiving ships" or as "unserviceable" you can find gnarled and knotted old sailors who, .with huge bowed spectacles and bands of cur) ous shape, knit tidies, turn out fancy embroidered mats and will^ spin you interminable yarns of tbe time they made a tablecloth for the captain's table so many fathoms long and so many fathoms wide. He insists on making his own clothes also, as all good sailors used to do. He has a poor idea of a sailor who cannot do a pieoe of embroidery as neatly as my lady in her chamber.

1

He mourbs ovSt* the degeneracy of tbe service, and will tell you, "In my dBy, sir, the cat-o'-nlne tails lay alongside the Bible on the capstan every Sunday morning, and tbe crew were piped to prayers as regularly as to grog." He has little use for the modern Bailor, and believes in the.old fashioned, swearing, fighting, drinking, knock down and drag out kind, who was handy with his knife, his fists, his grog and tobaoco and his needle—a curious combination, and yet one which carried the fiag of the United States victorious over every sea.

Of all the accomplishments of the old time sailor that of doing fancy work was the last to be given up and to disappear forever. It went out with the boarding pike drill, which was clung to in the navy of the United States long'after the navy of overy other civilized nation had abandoned it as obsolete. It was ten years ogo that the art of embroidery and knitting, the making of fanoy mats and tho art of tailoring, carried to its apotheosis, began to ba dropped in the navy of the United States. New ships, with a different sort of routine work, new regulations as to clothing and shorter cruises were the causes of it.

The old sailor was "sui generis so is the new, but he is of different type. A navy sailor is, has been and always must be of a race apart. The sailor is born of the exigencies of the sea service, and as those exigencies change so does he. Yet in all the ages the true sailor must be a different sort of oreature from a landsman.

The change from one sort of a sailor to another sort was sudden in the United States navy because the building of the new navy was a thing conceived and carried out in so short a time. In the old navy a sailor used constantly to handle the complicated mazes of the rigging of the wooden ships. His eye was trained in looking at a network of ropes to see just what function eaoh one bad in tbe whole Boheme, and the threads stretched over a frame for making a piece of fanoy work were never more complicated than the masa ot ropes aloft on a full rigged man-of-war. It was a part of his trade to knot and splice (as it is to some extent now, but nothing to what it used to be), .tnd in his leisure moments it became easy for him to make the most delicate and beautiful pieces of fancy work. Yet to a landsman it was the most Incongruous thing imaginable.

The writer remembers once seeing an old sailor, hardened and seamed and bearded, the survivor of many a well fought battle of the civil war, for nearly half a century tossed about by every sea that rolls and his face furrowed by the "hard glad weather" of every clime, come into the stateroom of an officer on a man-of-war and say, in a voice thafcrumbled somewhere underneath the ship's keel, "Here's a pair o' tidies I made ye, sir," at the same time putting down two beautiful pieces of fanoy work that would have delighted the heart of the instructors of needlework in a young ladies' boarding school. It did not seem possible that tbat old "Tarpaulin Jaok" bad made these things, but he bad.

What a real sailor used most to glorify himself in was his embroidei-y. Sailors used to make their own clothes and embellish them with tbe most elaborate and beautiful needlework. Around the wide collar, at the openings of the little pookets in the breast, in the corners of the collars and on the upper part of the perfectly fitting trousers there was embroidery, fine, beautiful, ingenious in design and requiring much time, patienoe and skill to produce. Then the sailor made his cap, and in the center of its top he embroidered again with great beauty and profuseness. In the old days a ship would be at sea for months at a time upon oooaeions, and every cruise was a long one. Wken the routine of the ship's work was over, the sailor had plenty of time for fancy work, for spinning yarns and for Biaging songs of "Truxton's Victory" and "The Guerriere a Frigate Bold." Now it is a few days from port to port, and it is coal ship and clean up after it, and scour bright work all tho time, when it is not drill with the guns, or torpedoes, or with some other newfangled notion about the great floating machine shop.

The modern sailor does not make his own clothes. They are supplied to him from the navy yard or by the tailor aboard ship. There can be no more fancy embroidering on his shirt, his trousers or his cap. The regulations forbid it. All must be uniform in fact as well as in nanle. Apprentice boys are still taught to sew at the training school, but that is all that is left to remind us of the sailor's lost art. which once flourished and blossomed on men-of-war. As they can no longer wear fanoy embroidery, they have stopped doing It. As their olotbes are made for them, they have lost the art of making them themselves. As they no longer have long hours of leisure for the fabrication of tablecloths, tidies and fancy mats, they no longer exercise their ingenuity and skill in those ways. The coxswain of the captain's gig may make a pretty mat out of junk for the captain to step on as he gets into the boat, but tbat is about all. An old officer said with a sigh the other day, "I doubt if there is a single sailor working with colored silk in the whole north Atiantio fleet today."—New York Press.

ON A RUSSIAN CONVICT SHIP.

|*errors of the Voyage From Odessa to the Island of Sakhalin. Tho sailing of a Bussian convict ship from Odessa for the island of Saghalln, in the Japan sea, is always an impressive tight. The motley crowd, indigenous to all countries, iaof course present, but there are in addition many government official!, full of importance in their emblazoned uniforms, and more numerous members of tho clergy attending to perform the ceremony of sprinkling the ship with holy water and to give tbe Inmates a parting blessing and a godspeed. Nothing is done In Bnssia without the help of priests, and a Bussian is bathed in holy water from tho cradle to tbe grave.

The religions oeremony over, it is with a cargo of heavy hearts that the convict ship—usually built at Glasgow, by the

wa

weighs anchor and departs, for even a hardened convict would prefer serving his seiitenoe on bis native soil to dragging out his existence in a (©reign IftBfl. But, however that may be, the nooamraodation for the thousand or more convicts on board is ample and tbe arrangements for their well being complete. The food provided is good and wholesome, and It is not an Infrequent tfrlgflCtoRpqflglg to tfai .sploon

—the convict ship carries ordinary passengers as well as *ftate prisoners—to ask for convict soup and rye bread.

All the convicts are in fetters, wrist and ankle bracelets, with a connecting chain. These and their half shaved heads present a most hideouc appearance. The dally routine on board is unvarying therefore to change the monotony the prisoners resort to all kinds of devices to make the time pass away as pleasantly as the circumstances will allow.

Most lower olass Bussians are born card players, so tho convicts collect all the odd scraps of paper they can lay their hands on. Clubs and spades are roughly scribbled on tbese slips with the ink supplied for letter writing purposes, while to provide hearts and diamonds of the requisite color ono or more of the company consents to have a vein opened. This delicate operation is performed with the aid of the tin spout of a ten can, ground to a sharp edge on tbe iron deok. This improvised lancet also does duty as a razor, serving to remove the remaining hair from the bead of some devout follower of Islam. The stakes of tbe card players are knobs of sugar saved by rigorous economy at the rca table. When these fail, bones and odds and ends are substituted.

On the fifteenth day at sea tbe fetters are removed. This is indeed a day of re- ... joicing, and the most hardened criminal gives vent to a sigh of relief at being released from these hateful emblems of bondage.

The ooveted freedom is not, however, of long duration. A poor, inoffensive Cri- Vr mean Tartar accidentally qu the foot of a regular cutthroat bo 'j seized immediately by the throat. The cry is instantly raised tbat the Mohammedans are killing tbe Christians. A general melee ensues, in which racial hatred is given full play. The guard is oalled out, and, turning on the hot water hose pipes, which are kept ready for any emergency, soon cows tbe combatants. The ringleadev is placed in irons and put on dry bread and water for 14 days. The Tartar is carried, more dead than alive, to the hospital, and the rest, guilty and innocent alike, are kept in chains and shackles for the rest of the voyage.—London MaiL

THE NEW STEP.

A

Pretty Clog Dancer Who Was Aft*!4 She Might Iose It. There WCTO several good and sufficient reasons why people should stop and look at hor. She was young and pretty, was at r.S trim as a whip from top to toes, the ons being covered with a soft brown hat, having an alpino plume of feathers stuck jauntily at the ride, and the others being covered with snugly fitting shoes, wiib "11 low, flat heels. Yet pretty as the top wa( —and it was decidedly pretty, with itl loose light hair, blue eyes and fresh cheek* —it was the toes that attracted most at v. tention. She did not seem able to keef them still.

It would be wrong, therefore, to say that she was standing on Seventeenth street, near LTnion square, waiting for a cspss town car, but it is no offense aga'ns( the pure spirit of journalistic veraoity say that that is where she was 6een.

Soon the bootblacks lounging on th sidewalk saw her and her tripping feel and sat down on their little boxes to watch her or them. But the girl never noticed ber visitors, and with her eyes intently fixed on her feet moved them briskly this way and that, two little flips to the left, two Jittle slides to the right, her lips meanwhile moving as though she were count-" .' ing. Her hands hung straight at her sides, »nd her whole expression was one of seriousness .and utter oblivion to her surroundings.

It was not long before the bootblaoks were joined by sotue mvn. Then one or two women halted a moment, and soon &j|>g there was quite a crowd on the eidewvlk— -^'1 a decent, orderly crowd. Still the girl se- -A riousiy footed it on the crossing. Then a :J: Broadway policeman saw the crowd and moved ponderously over to find out what the matter was. A few shoves and pushes broke up the audience, and then the policeman stepped up to the girl and touched her with Lexowesque gentleness on the shoulder. "What are ye afther attractln attention in the strates, miss?" he inquired.

Tbe girl stopped footing it and looked

up with astonishment into the officer's face. "Was I attracting attention?" she inquired. "Indeed I'm very sorry, Mr. Offloer but, you see, I'm studying to be a clog danoer, and I've just learned a new step, and I wa§ so afraid I'd forget it before I got home that I guess I must have been practioing it while I was waiting for tho car. And here is the car, and excuse me.''

With that she got into the car, and as it progressed archaically along one could see the girl's head bend down to watch her feet and knew that she was still practicing the new step.—New York Sun.

Stephen Glrard.

Stephen Glrard (died Dec. 26, 1881) b*rgan his remarkable trading career with one object, whioh be steadily kept in view all his long life—the making of money for the power it conferred. He praotioed tho most rigid personal economy be resisted all the allurements of pleasure he exacted the last farthing that was due him, and ho paid the last farthing that he owed he took every advantage which tho law allowed him in resisting a claim he rse-l men just so far as they would acccmpJlsh his purpose he paid his servants no more than the market price he had no sense of hospitality, no friend to share his houso or his table.

He was devoted to the improvement of his adopted city and country he was a\ determined follower of ostentatious charity. No man ever applied to him for a large public grant in vain,while the starving beggar was invariably sent from his gate. He steadily rose every morning before the lark, and unceasing labor was tae daily worship of bis life he l^ft his monument in the Girard college—that. marble roofed palace for tbe education andprotection of the orphan children of the poor which stands, the most perfect model' of architecture in the new world, high above the buildings of Philadelphia.— Household Words, 1858.

A Danb of Paint.

The blood of Bizzio, Mary Stuart's fa vorite, cannot be seen on the floor whrrr he was murdered by Darnley and the otliei conspirators. What is soen there is A dauc of red paint, annually renewed for the: benefit of gapinp tourists.

Inside

As wefl as

Outside'

What is tbe use of fine clothes and food manners if the brain is stnpiA. tbe tody feverish, the eyes doll and yellow.tha tomrae csated, tbe breath snort, tbe stomach soar aadtb whole being poisoned with imparities which a torpid liver fails to remove? All sach cases may De «aickly and permanently caret »J the use of

Dr. Greene's Uxur« Cathartic PHIS the cathartic that does net debilitate. Price, 35 cents. Made by tbe discoverer of Sr. Greene's Isrvmra.

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