Bloomington Courier, Volume 2, Bloomington, Monroe County, 14 May 1895 — Page 3

CAMP FIRE STOKIES.

SHORT SKETCHES AND ETCHINGS FOR OLD SOLDIERS.

Home, for the Woman's Relief Corps In Missouri The Man on the Cask Anecdotes of a Great General Some Tricks of Soldiers,

I El

E CLIP THE FOL-

lowlne concerning

the good work of

the ladies of the

W. R. C. from the

Western Veteran "Mrs. Hollen E,

Day, president of

the W. R. C. Sol

dlers' Home of Missouri, is working hard to accomplish

the purpose of the

organization. A number of desirable

bids have been received from localities

wanting the home, all of which will be considered at the annual meeting at Macon. She urges that memberships be

renewed at once so that there may be

a large representation a: that meeting. The dues are 1 a year and must be paid to entitle one to a vote. A payment of 425 makes one a member for life. Mrs. Day criticises a certain post in the department for giving a supper and entertainment for the benefit of the Confederate home at Higetnsville, while it

has done nothing in that direction for

its own comrades. Mrs. C. A. Day, 1815 Penn street, and Mi's. Alice L. Glenn, Fourteenth and Jefferson, Kansas City, Mo., are authorized to receive subscriptions for the home."

Watch for the Drop. One of the soldiers of the Seventh cavalry at Fort Sheridan strolled into the canteen one day and found a number of soldiers trying games of one kind and another. Some were tricks in athletics and some were amateur sleight-of-hand performances. The young cavalryman waited till things eased up a little, and then climbed on a table and stuck the open blade of his pocketknife into the plain pine ceiling. Then he got down and announced that he would set a beer bottle so squarely ander that knife that when it felt it would drop straight into the neck of the bottle. Nobody believed he could do it, and before the knife fell he had a number of bets against his ability. Just then the knife loosened. Straight as a dart it fell and dropped into the neck of the bottle, touching not so much as a hint of the sides, and knocking out the bottom in its heavy fall. There was a murmur of amazement and the declaration that he could not do it again. The cavalryman said nothing, collected his debts and went back to his quarters. After a day or two, in which the fame of his prowess had been circulated, he went to the canteen again and some one tackled him to try the trick again. He said it wasn't any trick; it was simply his ability to gauge correctly. They had never noticed any particular mechanical marvels about him, and they were willing to bet that he could not repeat the success. Again he took their bets, again he climbed upon a table and stuck his knife in the ceiling, again he put a beer bottle under it, and again the knife went home, as if it knew the way. Time and again he did them. And then one day an infantryman from Niobrara watched him. As the cavalryman got down from the table, the "doughboy" noticed a tiny drop of water fall from the handle of the knife and mark a spot on the floor. When the bottle was set it covered that spot. Of course the knife when it fell must fall where the water did. But the infantryman didn't give , it away, says the Chicago Herald. He struck the horseman for a third of the proceeds of the bets, and kept its solution for his own use when he gets to his fort on the frontier.

A Hint from Henry Clay. A well known southern politician who died just before the civil war not infrequently spoke of an incident that took place in his first term in congress, in which he received a lesson in statecraft from the great whig leader, Henry Clay. "I was a young man and an enthusiastic whig," he said, "and I entered congress, quivering with eagerness to serve my party and to distinguish myself. I was on my feet shouting "Mr. Speaker1 a dozen times a day. I opposed even petty motions made by the opposite party, and bitterly, denounced every bill, however trivial, for which they voted. Before the session was half over I had contrived to make myself personally obnoxious to every democrat that I met. "Ope- day after an ill-tempered outbreak on a' question of no moment, I turned and saw Mr. Clay watching me with a twinkle in his eye. "C ,' he said, you go fishing sometimes? " 'Yes.' " 'Don't you find that the best rod is the one that gives a little at each joint? It does not snap and break at every touch, but bends, and shows its strength only when a heavy weight is put on it.' "I caught his meaning. I had seen him chatting familiarly with the very men whom I was berating. Tet I knew when great interests clashed he was the one man whom they feared. "I set myself then to learn patience and coolness. It is the strong, flexible rod which does not break under the big fish." A personal friend of General Grant says': "During the whole course of the war I never knew him to indulge in the acrid personalities which were too common among many of the northern combatants when condemning the leaders of the rebellion. But he sat down with his troops before Richmond with inexorable patience, until he had won the victory." To come down from national to domestic life, it will always be found that the fretful, quarrelsome member of the family is of little use in a crisis. It is the men and women of coolness, reserve and good humor, who control the emergencies in the household as men and women of this type have Always done in all human history.

Statues for Brooklyn, Three more statues will soon ornament Brooklyn. The city has in the past been rather slow in the matter of statues and monuments, but the sentiment in their favor is growing. The Union League club is at work raising funds -for the equestrian statue of General Grant, as designed by Partridge. This work of art will be placed on a huge pedestal on the plaza In front of the club house, at Bedford avenue and Dean

street, says the New York Press. The admirers of General Henry W. Slocum also have inaugurated a movement whose object is the raising of a statue to that famous union soldier, and Grand Army men, some time ago, started a fund for a statue to General G. K. Warren. . ' Henry Ward Beecher's statue is still In front of the city hall, but it is believed that it will, in the course of time, be transferred to Prospect park. That great resort Is lacking in statuary and monumental attractions, the only statue it possesses being that of J. S. T. Stranahan. Brooklyn's best known citizen. The venerable merchant and politician is probably the only llvkig American-honored by a public statue. There is a fine statue of Abraham Lincoln on the plaza leading to Prospect park, but it is in a place that is not calculated to secure for it the greatest amount of respect and care, and the Grand Army men wish the authorities to have the statue placed in a suitable place inside of the park. It may be removed in time for a Decoration day celebration. These three, with an excellent one of Alexander Hamilton, in front of the Hamilton cltfh house at Clinton and Remsen stveets, are all the public statues which the ffreat city of Brooklyn can boast.

On An Engilh Line. Some singular things are recorded as having happened yesterday between a soldier, a footwarmer, a locomotive and other rolling stock on the Great Western line in the parts of Berkshire and Newberry. The soldier and the footwarmer were traveling in the same compartment. There, was, of course, nothing stronger than water inside the footwarmer; there may have been inside the soldier. Whether the footwarmer did anything to him boiled his boots or froze him does not appear. But what the soldier did to the footwarmer was first to cast it forth into space. The space into which he cast it happened, at that particular moment, to be occupied by the locomotive of another train. Irritated, but illogical, the footwarmer seems to have struck the locomotive for all it was worth. The locomotive retaliated. Thereupon the footwarmer went back to its own train for the soldier. In its eagerness to get at him it broke the handle off the carriage door, and the wrong carriage door at that. Failing the door, it tried the window, and the nerves of the lady who occupied the compartment. She screamed. The footwarmer recoiled, made a last desperate effort, broke another window and fell exhausted on the six foot way. There it was picked up, weltering in some congealed fluid or other, and battered almost out of recognition. What light the soldier may be able to throw upon this strange drama remains to be seen.

Endurance of the Chinese. "Remarkable though the statement is In the Sun's Chinese correspondence concerning the endurance of Chinese soldiers, I can quite understand it," said an ex-police surgeon of San Francisco, who is visiting New York. "The correspondent says that, though the men

In questtion were shot through the chest

and the head, they walked , great distances; and. in one case, if I remember

aright, it was a hundred miles.

"During four years of service as po

lice surgeon in San Francisco, I saw

some ' pretty severe cases of wounded

Chinamen yes, and China women, too and I declare their insensitlveness to Rain seemed to be almost absolute. Part

of it, I have no doubt, is due to racial,

inherent stoicism; but I am also inclined to the opinion that the Chinese do not feel the pain as we do. Now, I remember the case of a woman who was brought down to the city prison ward from Chinatown with her head literally split open in five places by one of the highbinders' hatchet men. From the very first to the last I think she died she gave no indication of pain, and did not even refer to her injuries. The Chinese dislike our surgical appliances, our knives and saws, not, however, because of the pain they produce, but because that sort of treatment is foreign to their ideas. Let one of their doctors

put a pitch plaster over an injury, no

matter if it be a broken leg, a lost nose, or a hole through the lungs, and the man will be perfectly satisfied, and will accept whatever may come without a word of suffering or complaint. They're certainly a queer people."

Some Anecdotes of Napoleon. In his busiest hours Napoleon Bonaparte was kind to children. At the battle of Austerlltz a little girl asked him

for his autograph.

"Certainly, my child," said he. Then turning to one of his aides, he cried: "Stop the battle for ten minutes. I wish

to write my name for this child."

"It will take ten minute's, will it?" asked the child. ' "Yes, quite," returned Na'poleon.

."I've a much bigger name than I used

to have."

At the battle of Waterloo, when the day was over, an aide riding hastily to

the emperor's side, cried out, breathless

ly:

"Sire, the battle is lost." "Good," returned the emperor. "Let

it stay lost. I don't want it any more."

Listening to a discussion among his officers as to the value of a name,

Bonaparte once said: "It has much. Do you suppose that I could ever have be-

,come emperor of France if my name

had been SkaggsY no, no. The French

will stand a great deal, but Emperor Skaggs would have aroused their deep

est -animosity." Harper's Bazar.

The Man on the Cask. In St. Paul an army officer was entertaining a party of friends to dinner, and among them was a civilian who was an entertaining story teller, but very improbable in his statements. On this occasion he told of being off the Cape of Good Hope in an Indianman, when a floating object was discovered, which proved to be a cask whereon a man was seated clinging to a small staff in the bunghole. Of course he was invited to come aboard, but he refused, and said: "I'm very comfortable here. I'm bound for the Cape. Can I take letters there for you?" Amid the silence which followed this incredible yarn a gray-haired colonel arose and said gravely: "For years I have been trying to find someone belonging to that ship to return thanks for the kindness shown me on that occasion. At last I am enabled to do so. Sir, I was the man on that cask."

Buckwheat Statistics. In 1893 12,132,311 bushels of buckwheat were raised, ground into meal and made into cakes, to be duly served with butter.

HEARTY AT EIGHTY.

SOME GRAND OLD MEN AND WOMEN.

BIsmarrk Joining the Band Many Still Powerful or Mind, Though Past This Hrly-Reached Milestone of Ufa.

ISMARCK finds himself in excellent and brainy company on the other side of his 80th birthday anniversary. He will find the schoolyard full of gay old boys and and girls. He will find Pope Leo at 85, writing Latin sonnets, just as in the

olden days, when as a lad he surprised

the Pecci family by his precociousness. He will find the English statesman, William E. Gladstone, discussing Greek prose and writing critical essays on religion and philosophy. He will be surprised to find Verdi, at 80. planning a new opera for the great singer Maurel, seeking his inspiration from no less a pleasant theme than Shakespeare's "Tempest." Here is Professor Dana, at 82, fresh from Hawaii, giving to the world a mass of new facts in geology. Bessemer is still bright in his panoply of inventive thought, and Sir Henry Parkes is just entering the realm of octogenarians, with a new educational project for New South Wales, Couldock comes gayly into the ranks of rare old men, still treading the boards and giving the world delightful touches of mimicry. Few have fathomed life as deeply as he. Few know how to interpret it better. But the list of famous old men and women is a long one, and darkened only here and there by the touch of mental blight or great physical weakness. As a rule, these old men and women are still extremely active. Bessemer, who enriched the world, as has no man living or dead, in the past, stood biting his lips with rajs

atorial contemporary, Senator Morrill of Vermont, has by no means retired from active work, yet he, like ex-Senator Payne, is nearing his 85th birthday. Harriet Beecher Stowe lives quietly with her son in Hartford, Conn. She will be 84 on June 14, and the closing days of her life are marked by extreme mental weakness. Bishop Clark of Rhode Island was still active at 82, although now growing somewhat weaker. Curtins, the polished Greek scholar, is living at 80. Verdi is nearing fcl, and has just achieved a marvelous success with "Falstaff." Baroness BurdettCoutts begins her eighty-first year in 1895, and her life runs on as smoothly as ever in its philanthropic channels.

CASSIUS M. CLAY. It seems an age since she succeeded to the Coutts millions. Still since that time, 1837, she has endowed many bishoprics, has established homes for the fallen, homes for children and in a thousand different ways given the world object lessons in real charity. Her romantic marriage with young Ashmead Bartlett is still fresh in the minds of readers. But there is a long list of ellgibles. The next few years will witness mary additions to the ranks of octogrenarlans should those now In line remain alive. Justice Field. ex-Senator Dawes,

at the sarcasm and ridicule heaped

upon him for declaring that he had discovered a cheap process for quickly changing pig-iron into steel. When en

gineers finally appreciated his discov

ery they found him disheartened, discouraged and ready to turn against the world. Then came honors thick

and fast. He was knighted. Sover

elgns vied In doing him honor. Great

societies elected him to honorary of

flees. Medals were voted to him, and he is to-day among the happiest of the

"Old Masters" of England. So is William E. Gladstone. So is Sir James Bacon, who at the age of 97

lives a happy life of retired ease. Until

1886 this great English jurist sat upon the bench, and the clearest decision ever rendered by him was that in a case tried two months before he retired from the vice-chancellorship of England. None of this century's living famous old men have yet reached the age at which the philanthropist, Monteflore, died, a decade or so ago. Yet William Salmon, to-day the oldest member of the Royal College of Surgeons, comes near it. He is 105 this month, and began to practice his profession when Napoleon was In the height of his glory in 1809. He has also the honor of being the oldest Freemason in the world. Gen. George S. Greene, U. S. A., the oldest living West Point graduate, is 93. Neal Dow is Maine's grand old man, and although very weak at 91, still talks entertainingly of the days of 1851, when as mayor of Portland he drafted the famous Maine liquor law. Among the famous nonogenarians are Rev. Dr. William H. Furness of England, now 92, and Field Marshal Sl'r Patrick Grant of England, 90. Those who enter the ranks of nonogenarians of 1895 are Francis William Newman, brother of the great cardinal; James Martlneau, philosopher; Bar-thelemy-Sainte-Hilaire and George Mueller, the orphanage founder. Dr. Newman only recently completed a memoir of the early days of his great brother's life, and is now deep in the study of Gaetulian. His knowledge of ancient languages is marvelously rich, and he has given the world some valuable philological treatises. He is not alone an abstainer from liquor and tobacco, but never touches meat, and attributes his longevity to this method of living. Gladstone will be 86 this year. So will Cassius M. Clay of Kentucky, erratic and erotic though he be, and so will exSecretary of the Treasury Hugh Mcculloch, ex-Secretary of the Navy Richard W. Thompson of Indiana, has just celebrated his 86th birthday. Ex-Senator Payne of Ohio is no longer very active at 84, although his sen- j

Leon Say, Parke Goodwin, and Russell Sage will be 80 in 1896. In 1897 King Christopher of Denmark, Prof. Mommser, Sir John Gilbert, and Senator John M. Palmer will reach the octogenarian stage. In 1898 ex-Senator Evarts, Bishop Coxe, and Mrs. John Drew become 80. In 1899 Queen Victoria. JuHa Ward Howe, Crispl, Longs treet, Ruskln, W. W. Story, and Bishop Huntington will make up the list of young octogenarians. In 1900 the list will comprise Herbert Spencer, Florence Nightingale, Mrs. G. W. Gilbert, Jean Ingelow, Gen. Rosecranz, and Susan B. Anthony. As for the famous people between 70 and 74, their name is legion. Democratic Mr. Bland. Congressman Bland lives on a small farm a few miles from Lebanon, Mo. In the intervals of congress he gives more attention to his Ben Davis apples, of which he has 5,000 trees, that to sll-

R. P. BLAND. ver; and as they sell for 40 cents a bushel, each tree yielding an average of five bushels, there seems to be as much profit in them. Mr, Bland is very democratic when away from Washington, and he looks and acts like a well-to-do farmer.

A Rat's Teeth. The teeth of rats are kept sharp by a very peculiar provision of nature. The outer edge of the incisors is covered with a layer of enamel as hard as flint, while the under side is much soft

er. The layers of enamel on the under side, therefore, wear away much fast

er than those on the upper surface, and

a keen cutting edge is always pre seated.

V

ELLS OF ANIMALS.

THEY HAVE PHYSICIANS WHEN THEY ARE SICIr".

Cats, Bogs and the Noble Horse How They Act When Under the Doctor's Care Some Instruments That Are Used -Giving Medicine.

ATS," said an expert on the diseases of animals, "are very hard to treat, for the reason that they become homesick and droop more from that cause than, actual illness. Colds and

indigestion constitute four-fifths of feline troubles; and if a cat is given chloroform it never rallies. Rabbits take cold very easily, and have little stamina to resist disease. Pigeons are brought to me sometimes for sore feet, from treading on sharp or pointed substances; or, ,like chickens, they sometimes get the pip, which is but another form of indigestion. You treat them by puttingg the medicine in their food. If the roosts are kept comparatively free from vermin there will be less disease among the feathered pets." "How do you diagnose cases?" I asked. "Much the same as in human beings; listen to the breathing. If a dog or a horse has pneumonia, which is as prevalent among them as with us, it will have all the symptoms of a human being; labored breathing, coughing, and the various signs by which we know exactly where the trouble lies." "Do they make irritable patients?" I queried. "Not as a rule," he replied. "They realize that you are trying to help them, and if you go to them, and speak kindly and pat them a few times, you gain their confidence and can readily manage them. A dog does-not get as homesick as a cat, for he will play with other dogs as soon as he begins to improve. This is one of the most useful of our instruments," he continued, taking from the case a pair of blunt scissors, curved at the end very like the nail scissors used by manicures. "That is to take a bone from the throat. You hold the dog's mouth well open, and the instrument reaches down into the larynx; then you can easily loosen

it and remove it. We have many cases where a dog is brought almost choking

to death, and a very few moments suf

fice to relieve him." "Do dogs really suffer with tooth ache?" I asked.

"Very frequently. For that reason we always examine the mouth first. A dog will submit very patiently to

having a tooth diawn; it is the only

remedy." Continuing, he called a silky

little Skye terrier, and, opening its mouth, he showed me, on the outer gum

on the right side, a kind of little sack,

or perhaps it might be called a fold of flesh; but it looked like a little pocket

in the gum. Into this the medicine is put, and the mouth held tightly closed until Mr. Doggie has to swallow the

noxious dose.

"These poor creatures have rheuma

tism, and all the diseases of the eye and ear even that humanity is heir to, and the purer the breed and the more delicately they are reared the wider becomes the range of these troubles. At times they become the victims of chorea, which corresponds with our fashionable nervous prostration. There are dogs that become absolutely dyspeptic wrecks, with colic, cramps, and all the varieties of indigestion. "Now, tell nse about horses," I said. "Can you set their broken bones?" "Very rarely," he answered. "If a

horse meets with an accident of that kind it is more humane to kill him at once; and many people, if they love a dog or a horse, prefer to have us kill it with anaesthetics. If a horse could be suspended long enough for the bones to knit together, recovery might be successfully accomplished; but a horse has very little vitality in proportion to its size, and would not live under the heroic treatment necessary. If he did it would leave a lump or blemish that would detract materially from its value. With a horse, as with a dog, we first examine the mouth. When an animal refuses its food it brings on indigestion and attendant ills. A horse's teeth often become very sharp and cut the tongue when masticating. He then swallows his food whole, which, as we

say, of course, does not digest. When we find this to be the trouble we file the teeth." He took from the case an

instrument about eighteen inches long, having on one end a file about an inch wide and about three inches long, which, he said, was used for that operation. Then he explained another instrument, with a handle like a corkscrew, only instead of the spinal screw it had a round, open knife about three-fourths of an inch in diameter. "This," he explained, "is used when a horse has had a fall, and a portion of the bone leading from the eye to the nose is indented. We take this, and by a quick blow cut a hole through the lower section of the bone. Into this orifice we insert a probe, and gently raise the injured part into position; then the piece first cut out is reinserted. Iu a week or ten days it is reknit and the horse is as good as ever." "How do you give them medicine?" "We fix it into what we call a bolus. It is cone shaped, about three inches long and round in proportion. We open the horse's mouth and put the bolus deep into the throat. You must be sure that he swallows it, for if he gets the chance he will eject it," Washington Star.

FREAK OF NATURE.

How the Popular Navel Orange First Came to This Country. There have been more naval oranges in the market this winter than ever before. The fruit is doubtless gaining in popularity, the flavor being exceptionally fine, though the skin is much thicker than that of the Indian River orange. Inasmuch as all sorts of theories are in circulation as to -the origin of the variety, a few words of accurate information on the subject may not be amiss. To begin with, the first navel orange was doubtless a freak, or "sport," as horticulturists say. To make such a fruit by artifice would be impossible, according to the Washington Star. It is abnormal, even in the bud. The navel shows in the bud as early as the latter can be examined under the microscope. It may even be traced back to the flower, which is double though that word does not express the idea very well, each blossom having a secondary blossom within it. In the developed fruit the navel is itself a secondary orange, in some specimens having a distinct skin surrounding it. This two-story orange is no novelty. A book on horticulture, published in 1642, gives a picture of a navel orange and calls it "pomum Adami foetum." This is the earliest reference known. The blossoms rarely have any pollen, and the fruit is usually, though not always, seedless. The variety is reproduced by budding. Where it originated is not known with certainty, but it was probably in southern Asia. Thence it was brought to the region of the Mediterranean and eventually diffused over the world. A lady who had traveled in Brazil told Mr. Saunders, chief gardener of the department of agriculture, about the orange, which she had seen in that country. Acting on this information, Mr. Saunders told a Star reporter that he sent to Bahia and secured a dozen young budded trees. These reached the United States in 1870, being the first navel orange trees known here. From these trees others were propagated. One of the first batch thus obtained is now in the orange-house of the department of agriculture. In 1S73 two of the trees were sent to Mrs. L. C. Tibbetts, of Riverside, Cal. At the same time others were sent to Florida. But those planted in California fruited more quickly and were the first to attract attention. It soon became evident that the climate of that state was better suited to the cultivation of this variety. In Florida it is not sufficiently productive i. e., does not bear freely enough to be profitable. Nevertheless, the finest navel oranges come from Florida, though they are not so handseme as those from California.

r 1&

FASHION IN FIJI.

It Gives as Much Concern to the Ladies. There as Elsewhere. Fijian women have a most affectionate disposition, although, like all semi-civilized people, they are extremely sensitive and ready to take offense at the veriest trifles. Their skins are usually of a bright dark brown, smooth and glossy as polished- marble, and many, while young, possess handsome features and most symmetrical forms; but, unfortunately, their natural 'grace speedily disappears after marriage at least among the common people, who have no attendants to relieve them in the heavier duties of the household. While unmarried, their hair, picturesquely adorned with hibiscus and other flowers, is permitted to fall in thin plaits down the back of the neck. This is regarded as a sign of maidenhood. After marriage the plaits' are cut off, and not allowed to be worn again. In Suva and Levuka the women generally wear a blouse-shaped pinafore of thin white cotton, but in their homes or in the interior districts they are content with the sulu, a kind of loin cloth made from the bark of the native mulberry tree, and wrapped two or three times round the body. The manufacture of this cloth, called tappa, is one of the leading industries in Fiji, the bark being beaten with wooden mallets into thin sheets, which are joined together as required. When taking part in the mekemeke, or native dance, the girl wears a short thick petticoat of dried grass, adorned with yellow tappa streamers, the bodies remaining bare from the waist upward. The hair Is decorated with flowers and frequently frizzed and plaited in a fashion somewhat resembling that dc

picted ia Assyrian sculptures.

Much Ado About Nothing.

Mr. Le Fanu tells an amusing story

of a man who was knocked down by the buffer of an engine that was shunting some wagons near the station of

Bray, in Ireland. It was found that the man was the worse for drink, but", in spite of his folly, he was only very slightly hurt, being stunned for & few minutes. Some porters ran to his help, and one of them cried, "Bring him to the station at once." In his dazed state the man thought they meant the police station, and asked why they wanted to take him there. "You know who I am," he said, "and if I've done any harm to your machine, sure I'm able to pay for it."

Can die-Power. The candle-power of a light may be approximately calculated by comparing the shadow cast by a rod in the light of a standard candle, with the shadow cast by the light to be tested. By moving the latter toward or away from the rod, a point will be reached at which the shadow cast by both lights will be of the same intensity. The intensities of the two lights are directly proportional to the squares of their distances from the shadows; for example, suppose the light to be tested is three times the distance of the candle its illuminating power is nine time as great.