Bloomington Telephone, Volume 15, Bloomington, Monroe County, 3 November 1893 — Page 2

THE TELEPHONE

By Waitkk Bradfute.

BLOOMINGTON

INDIANA

THEY EAT INSECTS.

FIowot Thai Catch, Devour and Digest

Insects Daily.

Different 8peciM fikctch of the

Growth of tho Pitcher Plant ia the Korth M South aad How Its Tic tuna Are

Trapped.

Hlteen years nzo scion tists first

learned with certainty that pitcher

plants, araoug other varieties, were

carnivorous i, e. that thoy caugrht and diireled insects. Professor Wil

son ha discovered that this power can be iost by a kind of retrogression; and he has found a species which though

it still catches insects, has no longer a

stomach iu which to digest tuem. No investigation of these curious plants by mechanical analysis had yet taken piaoe ami it was oxuy fifteen years :o thai turec German botanists detected u poplonc-fpruiing ferment in certain piauts. Ir. Vi;ou has confined most of his attention lt the genua &u racenica, which has eight different varieties of insect-catching pkitrt. One of these is fount- iu Massachusetts, the rest in the southern state. DuriBjfthe'tJOurso of his investigations the professor spent a summer in the cranberry marshes of Massachusetts vhere the northern vnricty is inosl rtientiful, a summer in North Carolina and a winter and snrin on Lao Gulf coast of Florida. The sarracenica plant has leaves shaped like hollow cones. The top or mouth of each cone has over it an oval ftsip. Along the outside of each leaf are glands which exude a sweet liquid. Feeding from this the insects follow the glands upwards till they rech the opening at the top. The edgo of the interior and the inner walls are as smooth as glass, so that once having slipped over the edge there is nothing to stop the victim's fall to the very bottom of the cone. Further down there are on the inside coarse hairs pointing downward which botanists say utterly prevent insects from crawling up again. Near the bottom of the cone, inside, are glands wnich exude another liquid po freely as" to till sometimes, in a short time, from an inch and a half to two inches of its iuterior cavity. When this liquid covers the snared victims it automatically acidulates, a ferment takes place and everything but the hard shells and bones of the insects is absorbed. In the southern plant the leafy flap above the cone bonds over to cover the aperture so as to keep out rain and water. Noticing while in the cranberry region of Massachusetts that the flap of the plant there stood straight up so as to admit thrain water, Dr. Wilson .determined to investigate the matter. Accordingly he .procured bell jars ana covered a nitmbor of pitcher plants with these so as to keep out the rain. Upon turning them over he found each cone partially full of the curious liquid which the inner glands exude. Taking samples of this fluid from a number of leaves he found that it was not acid. Arguing, however, that the acidulation might not have taken place, the professor added an acid and then placed in the preparation several pieces of nitrogenous substances. After soaking in the liquid some time he examined them, but the microscope showed no eating away of the edges which would mark the digestive process. Chemical analysis showed only the faintest trace of -pepsin, the digesting principle of tho animal stomach. Impelled by curiosity to continue his investigations. Dr. Wilson found that the Massachusetts plant bad no complete honey glands on the outside of its leaves, but only the rudiments of them. It still caught some insects, but their bodies, -unaffected chemically, simply remained in tho internal cavity covered by a mixture of water and the plant's exudation until they rotted away, when, doubtless, some of their parts were absorbed by the leaves. Here, then, was a variety of the pitcher plant which had retrograded from some unknown cause and had lost the use of some of its organs. In general shape this northern plant closely resembles its southern sister. Its hood only is thrown back, while that of the other variety is inclined forward over the aperture of the cone. The early seed leaves of both varieties are identical, a proof, Dr. Wilson thinks, of their both having been originally of the same plate. This curious loss of organic power in the Northern pitcher plant the professor only attempts to explain suggestively. It has been noticed that the Southern pitcher plant, the Sarracenia variotaria, as it is called, maintains in its stomach, while digesting, about the same temperature as that of the animal stomach, i. e., ninety-eight degrees. Dr. Wilson suggests that the pitcher plant, when carried north to Massachusetts, found there a climate 60 cold that its organ could not raise the temperature of its stomach to the necessary heat Thus, gradually, it has lost the use of its glands through non-use. The Pinguieulla plant, another Insecttivorous plant, has been used by Scandinavian farmers and peasants to curdle milk.

Seme Satilate4 tyuriftUevt. It has been pointed out many times that misquoting is mainly due to pickup acquaintance with thoughts on the street, anywhere, except from the pages of the author. Milton's famous line on pride, "that last inlirmitv of noble mind, " is spoiled by making Uie word "minds." So is Tope's line thought "welcome the coming, speed the going guest' spoiled hy the substitution of purting'1 for "going." We hear "westward the &lar of empire takes its wrv" quoted every d iy. liishop Berkeley wrote course." not "star,"

ABOUT LIFE BOATS. With Incidental Remarks Theosophy and Other Subjects.

The Only Ark of Safety la the Gospel Ship Dr. Tftlmage's Sermon. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. He chose for his subject 4 'Unsafe Life Boats," the text being Acts xxvii, 32. "Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall off.11 While your faces are yet somewhat bronzed by attendance on the international boat contest between the Vigilant and the Valkyrie I address you Good things when there ia no betting or dissipation, those outdoor sports. We want more fresh air and breeziness in our temperaments and our religion. A stale and slow and lugubrious religion may have done for other times, yet wilj, not do for these. But my text calls our attention to a boat of a different sort, and instead of the Atlantic it is the Mediterranean, and instead of not wind enough, as the crews of the Vigilant and Valkyrie the other day complained, there "is too much wind and the swoop of a Euroclydon. I am not calling your attention so much to the famous ship on which Paul was the distinguished passenger, but to the lifeboat of that ship which no one beems to notice. For a fortnight the main vessel had been tossed and driven. For that two weeks, the account says, the passengers had 'continued fasting." I suppose the salt water, dashing over, had spoiled the sea biscuit and the passengers were seasick anyhow. The sailors said, "It is no use; this ship must go down," and they proposed among themselves to lower the lifeboat and get into it and take the chances for reaching shore, although they pretended they were going to get over the sides of the big ship and down into the lifeboat only to do sailor's duty. That was not sailorlike, for the sailors that I have known were all intrepid fellows and would

rather go down with the ship than do such a mean thing as those Jack Tars of my text attempted. My subject is "Unsafe Lifeboats."

We can not exaggerate the impor

tance of the lifeboat. All honor to the memory of Lionel Lukin, the

coach builder of Long Acre, London,

who invented the first lifeboat, and I do not blame him for ordering put

upon his tombstone in Kent, the in

scription that -you may still read there:

"This Lionel Lukin, was the first

who built a lifeboat, and was the

original inventor of that principle of

safety by which many lives and much property have been preserved from shipwreck, and he obtained for it the king's patent in the year 1785."

But do we feel the importance of

a lifeboat in the matter of the souTs

rescue? There are times when we

all feel that we are out at sea, and as many disturbing and anxious questions strike us as waves struck

that vessel against the sides of which the lifeboat of my text dangled,

Questions about the church. Ques

tions about the world. Questions

about God. Questions about our eternal destiny. Every thinking

man and woman has these questions,

and in proportion as they are think

ing people do these questions arise.

There is no wrong in thinking. If Rod had not intended us to think, and keep on thinking, he would not have built uuder this wheelbouse of

the skull this thinking machine,

which halts not in its revolution

from cradle to grave. Even the mid

night does not stop the thinking machine, for when we are in dreams we

are thinking, although we do not

think as well.

There is a splendid new lifeboat

called Theosophy. It has only a little while been launched, although

some of the planks are really several

thousand years old and from a worm-

eaten ship, but they are painted

over and look new. They are really

fatalism and pantheism of olden time. But we must forget that and

call them Theosophy. The Grace

Darling of this lifeboat was an oarswoman bv the name of Mine. Blav-

atsky: but the oarswoman now is

Anna Besant. So many are getting

aboard the boat it is worthy of examination, both because of the safe

ty of those who have entered it and

because we ourselves are invited to get in.

Its theory is that everything is

God. Horse and star and tree and man are parts of God. We have three souls an animal soul, a human soul, a spiritual soul. The ani

mal soul becomes after a while a

wandering thing, trying to express itself through mediums. It enters beasts or enters a human being, and

when you nnd an effeminate man it is because a woman's soul has got into tl e n an, and when vou find a

mascu ine woman it is because a

man's so il has taken possession of a

woman s i ody.

If you find a woman has become a

platform speaker and likes politics

she is possessed by a dead politician,

who forty years ago made the plat

form quake. The soul keeps wan

dering on and on, and may have

titty or innumerable different forms.

and finally is absorbed in God. It

was God at the start and will be God at the last. But who gives the authority for the truth of such a religion? Some beings livinsr in a

cave in central Asia. They are in-

visioie 10 ine nauea eye, but they

cross continents and seas in a flash.

My Baptist brother, Dr. Haldeman, nays that a theosophist in New York was visited by one of these

mysterious beings from central Asia. The gentleman knew it from the fact that the mysterious being left his pocket handkerchief, embroidered with his name and Asiatic residence. The most wonderful achievement of the theosophists is that they keep out. of the insane asylum. They prove the truth of the statement that no reiigion ever announced was so absurd but it gained disciples. Instead of heeding the revelation of a bible, you can have these spirits from a cave in central Asia to tell you all you ought to know, and after you leave this life you may become a prima donna, or a robin, or a gazelle, or a sot, or a prize fighter, or a Herod, or a Jezebel, and so be enabled to have agreat variety of experience, rotating through the universe, now rising, now falling, now shot out in a straight line and now describing a parabola, and on and on and up and up, and down and down, and round and round. Don't you see? Now, that theosophic lifeboat has been launched. It proposes to take you off the rough sea of doubt into everlasting quietude. How do you like that lifeboat? My opinion is you had better imitate the mariners of my text and cut off the ropes of that boat and let her fall off. Another lifeboat tempting us to enter is made up of many planks of good works. It is really a beautiful boat almsgiving, practical sympathies for human suffering, righteous words and righteous deeds. I must admit I like the looks of the prow, and of the rowlocks, and of the paddles, and of the steering gear, and of many who are thinking to trust themselves to her benches. But the trouble about the lifeboat is it leaks. I never knew a man yet good enough to earn heaven by his virtues or generosities. If there be one person

here present on this blessed Sabbath all of whose thoughts have been al

ways right, and all of whose words

have always been right, let him stand up; or if already standing let him lift his hand, and I will know

that he lies. Another lifeboat is Christian' in

consistencies. The planks of this

boat are composed of the split planks

of shipwrecks. That prow is made out of hypocrisy from the life of a man who professed one thing and

really was another. One oar of this

lifeboat was the falsehood of a church

member and the other oar was the wickedness of some minister of the gospel whose iniquities were not for a long while found out. Not one plank from the oak of God's eternal truth in all that lifeboat. All the planks, by universal admission, are decayed and crumbling and fallen apart and rotten and ready to sink. "Well, well!" you say. "No one will want to get into that lifeboat." Oh, my friend, .you are mistaken. That is the most popular lifeboat ever constructed. That is the most popular lifeboat ever launched. Millions of people want to get in it. They jostle each other to get the best seat in the boat. "Well," says someone, ''this sub ject is very discouraging, for we must have a lifeboat if we are ever to get ashore, and you have already condemned three ' Ah, it is because I want to persuade you to take the only safe lifeboat. I will not allow you to be deceived and get on to the wild waves and then capsize or sink. Thank God, there is a lifeboat thai will take you ashore in safety, as sure as God is God and heaven is heaven. The keel and ribs of this boat are made out of a tree that was

set up on a bluff back of Jerusalem a j

good many years ago. Both of the oars are made out of the same tree. The rowlocks are made out of the same tree. The steering gear is made out of the same tree. The planks of it were hammered together by the hammers of executioners who thought they were only killing a Christ, but were really pounding together an escape for ail imperiled souls of all ages. But while in my text we stand watching the marines with their cutlasses, preparing to sever the ropes of the lifeboat and let her fall off, notice the poor equipment. Only one lifeboat. Two hundred and seventy-six passengers, as Paul counted them, and only one lifeboat. My text uses the singular and not the plural. "Cut off the ropes of the boat," I do not suppose it would have held more than thirty people, though loaded to the water's edge. I think by marine law all our modern vessels have enough lifeboats to hold all the crew and all the passengers in case of emergency, but the marines of my text were standing by the only boat, and that a small boat, and yet 276 passengers. But what thrills me through and through is the fact that though we are wrecked by sin and trouble, and there is only one lifeboat, that boat is large enough to hold all who are willing to get into it. And be my remaining days on earth many or few I am going to spend my time in recommending the lifeboat which fetched me here, a poor sinner saved by grace, and in swinging the cutlasses to sever the ropes of my unsafe lifeboat and let her fall off. My hearer, without asking any questions, get into the gospel lifeboat. Room! and yet there is room! The biggest boat on earth is the gospel lifeboat. You must remember the proportion of things, and that the shipwrecked craft is the whole earth, and the life boat must be in proportion. You talk about your Cornpaniars, and your Lucanias, and your Majesties, and your City of New Yorks, but all of them put together are smaller than an Indian's canoe of Schroon lake compared with this gospel lifeboat, that is large enough to take

in all nations. Room for one and room for all. Get in 1 "How? How?" you ask. Well, I know how you feel, for summer before last, on the sea of Finland, I had the same experience. The ship in which we sailed could not venture nearer than a mile from shore, where stood the Russian palace of Peterhof, and we had to get into a small boat and be rowed ashore. The water was rough, and as we went down the ladder at the side of the ship we held firmly on to the railing, but in order to get into the boat we had at last to let go. How did I know that the boat was good and that the oarsmen were sufficient? How did I know that the Finland sea would not swallow us with one opening of its crystal jaws? We had to trust, and we did trust, and our trust was well rewarded. In the same way get into this gospel lifeboat. Let go! As long as you hold on to any other hope you are imperiled, and ypu get no advantage from the lifeboat. Let go! Does some one here say, "I truess I will hold on a little to my good works, or to a pious parentage, or to something I can do in the way of achieving my own salvation. No, no; let go! Trust the Captain, who would not put you into a rickety or uncertain craft. For the sake of your present and everlasting welfare, with all the urgency of an immortal, addressing immortals, I cry from the depths of my soui and at the top of my voice, "Let go!" Last summer the life saving crew at East Hampton invited me to come up to the life station and see the crew practice, for twice a week they are drilled in the important work assigned them by the United States government, and they go through all the routine of saving the shipwrecked. But that would give little idea of what they would have to do if some midnight next winter, the wind driving beachward, a vessel sliould get in tho grasp of a hurricane. See the lights flare from the ship in the breakers, and then responding lights flaring from the beach, and hear the rockets buzz as they rise, and the lifeboat rumbles out, and the gun booms, and the lifeline rises and falls across the splintered decks, and the hawser tightens and the life car goes to and fro, carrying the exhausted mariners, and the ocean, as if angered by the snatching of the human prey from the white teeth of its surf and the stroke of its billowing paw. rises with increased fury to assail the land. So now I am engaged in no light drill, practicing for what may come over some of vour souls. It is with some of you wintry midnights, and your hopes for his world and the next are wrecked. But see! See! The lights kindled on the beach. I throw out the life line. Haul in, hand over hand! Ah, there is a lifeboat in the surf which all the wrath of earth and hell can not swamp, and its captain, with 3carred hand puts the trumpet to

to his lips and cries, Oh, Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thv help." But what is the use of all this if you decline to get into it. You might as well have been a sailor on board that foundering ship of the Mediterranean when the mariners cut the ropes of the boat and let her fall off. He Happened to Knew Her. Detrr.it Free Press "Well, by George!" he said to a fellow-passenger on the rear platform of a Baker street car, "but of all the outlandish hats I ever saw on a woman that takes the cake! I mean that woman near the front door to the right." "Yes, she looks like a fool!" replied tne other. "The idea of a woman forty years old getting such a hat as that must make all her relatives tired." "Yes, it probably does." "I wonder if she has any idea how homely she is?" continued the first,

who seemed greatly put out "Not a bit of it. She ii

she's real pretty and stylish. That sort always does." ' Tret ty ! Stylish ! Why, you might travel for a month and not find another such homely woman, and as for her style she looks as if she had come out of the woods 1" "Yes, you are right." "If my wife was such a chromo as that I'd leave her. Even the children grin as they look at her." "Her husband has threatened to leave her, but it did no good," quietly replied No. 2. "Oh! then you know him?" "Yes." Here occurred a painful pause, lasting a full minute, during which the two men avoided looking at each other. Finally No. 1 made a great effort, and said: "May be you are the husband himself?" "Yes, I am the one," answered No. 2, "and if it won't make no great difference to you we'll change the subject and talk about the weather. Do you think we've had rain enough for corn and potatoes?' But "No. 1 saw a man on the corner who owed him $2 or something or other, and hurriedly jumped off to collect it and get down the side street. The Jury's Sympathies. New York Weekiy. Stranger You still have lynchings here, do you? Westerner Only in the case of bad characters. When a fairly good citizen gets arrested for anything we always lot the law take its course, "That's encouraging." "Yes, you see an average jury can always be relied upon to hang a good citizen if it gets a chance."

imagines

MT. ARIE OBSERVATORY".

Mt; A rie Observatory, a cut of which we present above, was recently erected by Mr. Ed. Buerk, of Boston, Mass., one mile from West Badea Springs, Orange Co., Ind. The Observatory stands on a point of land the second highest in the State, and is over five hundred feet higher than the surrounding country. A beautiful view can be had from the top of the tower, which is easily re.ae.hed by stairways.

WHY HANK WASS'l HANGED.

His Seemly Regard for Appearauees Impressed the Camp.

Anaconda Standard. When Hank Taylor was put on trial at Strawberry Hill for killing

Steve Brown he pleaded guilty, and j that you were too darned particklar

about ine ouea snirt, ana oi oiners

that you were right about wantin to

was always saying mean things and provoking quarrels and wasn't much account. After discussing the pros and cons, it was decided to overlook the offence und let up on Hank, but after telling him our decision, the Judge said: "But don't do it again, Hank. It

are the opinyun of some of the boys

in a speech to the crowd he said:

"In course vou'll hang me, I ex

pect it, and shall be disappointed if

make a decent appearance on the

you don't. But I want it understood ! other shore, and so we decided to call right now that I hev rights." 1 it squar. Next time, however, we'll

hang you with a mule rope and in

"What be them rights, prisoner?' queried Bill Totten, who was acting as judge. Waal, I want to be hung with a new rope. I was brought up respectably and I want to die that way, Then I want to wear a biled shirt. I was brung up to wear biled shirts, aud I don't want to disgrace the family. I want to be shaved, to have my hair combed and parted in tho middle, and I insist on Zeke Cooper lend in' me his new butes. That's my rights and I shall insist on 'em." "Prisoner, hain't you just a little too partik'lar?" inquired the Judge. "Hain't it puttin this ere camp to a Ood deal of extra trouble for no real benefit? Whar are we goin1 to get a biled shirt, for instance?" "I dunno. but we hev got to hev one. Do you s'pose I'm goin1 to bring up in the other world with this red shirt oa? They wouldn't let me stake a claim or set up a shanty." "How you goin' to be shaved, when we hain't got no razors in camp? We kin furnish you some grease and a comb, but thar kin be no shavinV "Got to be," replied Hank. "I hain't goin1 over the divide look-in' like a wolf with his winter fur on. And as fur grease I want reglar bar's ile. I am bound to look just as purty as I kin." "Zeke, will you lend ine your butes?" asked the judge. "Naw I I could never feel easy in 'em V1 "Then I don't hang !" retorted the prisoner. "Mind you, boys, I hain't denyin that I killed Steve, whom everybody knows was a provoking cantankerous cuss and orter been killed long ago, and I hain't kickin' as to what will follow, I'm just stickin1 out fur my rights. S'posin' any one o' you was going to arrive in the other world as a tenderfoot, wouldn't you want to look fairly decent?" "That's so, that's so," mused the Judge. "In course, it'll be known that you cum from Stawberry Hill, and. in course, we'll hev a pride in fittin' you out in decent shape. The prisoner will be removed while we hev a talk." We had a talk. We couldn't get a white shirt, a new rope, and a razor anywhere within 100 miles. And, as Hank had observed, Steve Brown

yer old duds and let ye run all the chances." "Wall, boys, fix it to suit yourselves and it'll suit ine," carelessly replied the prisoner, and court adjourned and we returned to work. A Pretty Experiment. Here is an experiment by which you may make some use of a bottle whose neck is broken. Pour oil into a bottle until it reaches the point at which you wish it to be cut clean through. Then place it horizontally upon a table and plunge suddenly into the oil a red-hot poker. You will

hear a snap, and then perceive that your bottle is cut regularly through, level with the liquid which it contains. You will thus transform a broken bottle into a presentable vessel, A notched glass may thus be transformed into a new one. By removing each time a part of the oil and by cutting the bottle every time iu the manner shown, you will get a series of glass rings curious to behold.

Around tbc Horn.

Life.

Correcting a Wrong Impression. Chicago Tribune. Dyspeptic Guest (in restaurant) Do you live on these victuals yourselves? Proprietor We do, sir. "I should think it would be mighty bad for your health." ".My friend, we are not in this business for our health."

ON THE TIPPECANOE.

Bird's eye view of Monticello (from the opposite bluff.)