Terre Haute Weekly Gazette, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 4 November 1886 — Page 10

NOTES ABOUT HOLLAND.

HOW NAPOLEON BONAPARTE LEFT, HIS MARK UPON EUROPE.

Curiosities of Dutch Cities*—The Pile Foundations of Amsterdam and ltotterj, 4tin Street Mirrors A JLook at th«

Houses—The Hague aud Scheveningen.

£Speeial correspondence.]

THE HAGUE, Oct. 8.—Holland and the Dutch are among the greatest wonders of the world. With a territory so much below the •level of the sea that in many parts of it tho bottoms of the ocean steamers float higher than tho chimneys of the houses, it has fought back tho sea by almost superhuman voi le, and for many hundred years has been one of the most prosperous nations of Europe, It is only one-third as large as Ohio, but it has about 500,000 more of a population. Its cities are among the commercial centers of I the globe. Amsterdam, with its 850,000 inhabitants, sends its merchant vessels to every port, and Rotterdam, which is nearly as large as Washington, hps a forest of masts within its harbors. ITie Hague, where I am now writing, has over

100,000

inhabitants. Leyden

has 40,000 Utrecht has 00,000 Haarlem has 36,000 Arnkeim, 40,000, and there are numbers of Dutch towns of 10,000 people and upward.

NORTH HOLLAND FARMHOUSE. The army of this little country Is over twice the size of that of ours. It contains 63,000 men, and you see the soldiers everywhere. Holland has a navy which I venture is greater than that of the United States, and its government is that of a king with the powers of a president. The king lives here at The Hague, though he has a great palace in tho center of Amsterdam. Here sits also the congress of Holland, and here is the great social and intellectual center of iae country.

The Hague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. With only 103,000 inhabitants, like all Dutch cities it is cut up by canals, and great vat-like ponds of water meet your eye at every street. The sidewalks are lined with trees, and the town has several large and beautiful parks. Its houses Are large, and it has many fine squares and public places. In its picture galleries are some of the finest paintings of the old masters and Paul Potter's famous "Bull" is among these. When Napoleon Bonaparte took Holland he confiscated this picture and carried it to Paris, where it ranked as fourth in value .among all the pictures of the Louvre. Tho

Duttfli offered to give $34,000 for its return, though they had bought it less than 100 years ^before for only about one-tenth this sum. It •was, however, restored by the French. It is tho picture of a young bull standing in a field under a tree, with a cow and sheep, a lamb a ram as companions. Back of the tree stands a shepherd looking at the group, and the whole looks as though they might step out of the canvas at any moment. No one over forgets Paul Potter's "Bull," and people come here especially to see it.

Speaking of Napoleon, his footmarks are still to be seen everywhere in Europe. The guides have his name forever upon their tongues, and in every country I have traveled through I have had his achievements or his defeats flung in my face. In England, Scotland and Ireland I was continually reminded of him by the statues of Wellington, which burst out upon me in every public placo and in every large city. In France the great Bonaparte is revered as a god, and its palaces and monuments arc full of his great deeds and eccentricities. At Versailles, in one of the grandest palaces of the world filled with miles of famous paintings, there are several great frames left vacant. These were filled with paintings which Napoleon stole from the Germans, and which the Germans recaptured in their late war with Louis Napoleon.

SEEN ONLY OUTSIDE OF CITIES. At Brussels you have Waterloo to remind you of the great battle which, had it turned out otherwise, might have given Bonaparte the sacking of London, and in the palace of Holland at Amsterdam, there is a magnificent reception room, the ceiling of which is 100 feet high on the walls of this are groups in marble, and one of these groups contained a skeleton. When Napoleon Bonaparte took the palace he covered this skeleton with a sheet of stucco, and so it remains to-day. Napoleon had a curious excuse for the capturing of Holland. He said France owned the Rhine and other rivers which flow into the north sea that Holland was made from the alluvial deposits of these rivers, and that in capturing it he was merely taking back the ground that belonged to France originally.

These Dutch cities are wonderful works of human industry. Rotterdam and Amsterdam are cut up by canals, as New York and Philadelphia are by streets. These canals are walled with stone and their banks carefully paved. Good bridges cross them, and in many places the queerly shaped, high Dutch houses rise straight up from the water like those of Venice. The Dutch cities are more picturesque than Venice, and their construction is fully as wonderful. They are built upon piles, and this building is even now going on. I saw much pile driving in Amsterdam. Great trees IS and 20 feet long cvere stood on end, and by a driving machine were forced inch by inch into the mud until they reached the level of the ground. The bridges are all built in this way, and the palace of the king at Amsterdam rests on a foundation of nearly 14,000 piles. There are 90 islands and 300 bridges in Amsterdam, and the city seems to have us firm a foundation ns that of New York. The piles hold up buildiucs as bie as those of Broadway. The

7 '«r r.

extent of this 9ort of building in Holland can hardly be appreciated, and the cost of building the foundation of a great house is often as great as the putting up of the houso itself. These Dutch cities spend thousands of dollars daily in watching and taking can.* of their tpildings and public work* tVoou*

eat into the piles, and a slight break might cause tln loss of much property. Eternal vigilance is the price which the Dutch have to pay for Holland. Their great dykes cost them over $3,000,000 a year to keep in order, and the sea is watched night and day. Throughout the country and the city the same constant watchfulness is kept up. Everything is kept clean and well cared for. Nothing, as far as I can see, is wanted, and dirt seems to be the whole nation's ei '-atest enemy.

Saturday is scrubbing day in the Dutch cities, and on this day the towns go mad over soap and water. Carjwts are shaken in the streets by women so that the noiso sounds like that of so many fourth of July cannon, tho doorsteps «are scoured and the windows washed until they shine like crystal. I note especially the cleanliness of the gas street lamp here, and that of the windows of the various houses. Not a spot is to be seen upon them, and were it not for a sort of a movable screen which is put inside of the window to keep out the eyes of the passerby, one might see all that was going on inside as Easily as if there were no windows whatever.

Speaking of windows, these Dutch like to see, though they do not sometimes care about being seen. They like to watch unobserved the people who go along the streets upon which they live, and see who knocks at their front doors before oy decide to let the person in or not. For this purpose they have little mirrors, some not larger than a cabinet photograph and others about eight by ten inches in size fastened to the wall outside of the windows at such an angle as to reflect all that is going on in the street. One of these mirrors is fixed at each side of the window at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and the lady in the room can easily see whether her caller standing at the front door is her dressmaker with a bill or her dear friend Miss Van Derhoof, who is coming to tell her the latest bit of scandal.

The Dutch houses are tall and narrow. The material used in making them is usually red brick and white cement. Their roofs are of red tiles, and they have the quaint finish at the front seen in the old Dutch paintings. Even the farm houses are picturesque, and many of them reminded me of the Queen Anne bastard architecture which is now so much employed in the building of small Amer ican houses. Some of the roofs of the farm house are very tall and Sharp, and now and then you find an octagonal house among them. They have tho stables close to the houses, and a clump of trees generally surround them. A windmill forms apart of the farm machinery in many eases, and the great arms of these, tossing about, make the vast green plains of Holland, inhabited by ton of thousands of fat speckled white and black cows, appear to be guarded over by these windmill giants, who are waving their arms in continual warning.

A BATH HOUSE KEEPER.

Within two and a half miles from The Hague is Scheveningen, one of the greatest and most fashionable of continental watering places. The drive to it is through a great forest, where the trees are planted so close to the side of the street car line that their branches meet overhead and form an arbor of two miles and a half of living green. They are old forest trees, and the street car has seats on its top, so that your head almost touches the leaves as you ride through. At the sides of the car tracks there are roadways for carriages, lined by other trees, which also bend and meet overhead, and over further, to the sides, are walks Along a canal for foot passengers, with many seats and romantic resting places. There are few finer drives in Europe than the one from Tho Hague to Scheveningen, and the gay equipages of the court circles of Holland, tho quaint costumes of the Scheveningen fish wives and the queer dress of the peasant boys, girls and men, in their clogs, forms a scene which I shall remember well when I have forgotten the throng of Hyde Park, Rotten Row, or of the drives in the Bois de Boulogne, at Paris. Scheveningen proper is a Dutch fishing village of about 12,000 people. Its inhabitants dress in quaint costumes, the little girls all wearing white caps fastened close to the head, and the feet of most of them clad in wooden clogs.

These lish wives carry great baskets of fish upon their heads to market. They wear great straw hats, under which their wrinkled, bronzed faces look out of white caps fastened close to the head and ornamented at the corners next to the eyes by great gold or brass gilt pins. These pins have heads like horns, and they are of different shapes. The peasant women all over Holland wear them, and when they are seen attached to the foreheads of young girls they form an ornament not unbecoming. The Dutch girls of the lower classes are rather pretty, and the curious costames add to their beauty. Their faces lack, however, the vivacity of the French and English and they appear rather stolid than bright* Going through Holland of a Sunday

te like traveling tnrougn a continuous masquerade. Every village* has different costumes and the stolidity of the features ara lost sight of amid the blaze of gold and color.

Scheveningen has, however, afar different class outside of its peasants. The sea shore is lined with great hotels, equal in size to those of Long Branch and habited by a throng fully as gay and well dressed. At night thousands of people from the Hague come to the shore and listen to the music in tbo concert halls and on the verandas of their hotels, and the promenade along the sea is lined with people. The beach at Scheveningen is much like that of Cape May. It consists of several miles of gently sloping white sand, and it is very wide. Along .its outer edge buk from tho sea is a fine paved promenade uion which are seats at intervals of a very few feet and below this is a grand driveway filled during the day with liveried coachmen driving flno carriages. The beach of a continental watering place presents a far different sight than that of an American one. The men and the women do not as a rule bathe together and their bath houses are not at all like ours. The American sea bath bouse is a stationary cabin on the shore, and at our large resorts there are hundreds of

HARD WORKING HOLLAND DOGS. them built together. Here the bath houses are all on wheels, and each bather has a house to himself. The bathing cabs each consist of a little, oblong, box-like room with a set of steps leading up into it. This room is about four feet wide by six high. It has a seat, a looking-glass and some towels inside of it, and it rests upon two "wheels. When one wants to take a bath he pays the keeper from twenty to thirty cents, climbs in and shuts the door, a horse is then attached to it and it is dragged out into the shallow water at the edge of the beach. The bather undresses at his leisure, and putting on his bathing dress walks down the steps into the water, or if he wishes, dives off into it. At Scheveningen the women's cabs were stationed at the north end of the beach, and those of the men perhaps 600 feet away, at the south end. In some cases they bathed together. There is not, however, the lying about in the sand in bathing clothing as in America, and there seemed to me rather more of a spirit of propriety about the crowd than about that of an American seaside resort.

Instead of sitting and lying on the sand as we do, these people have great basket chairs, which are carried to the beach and rented. There were, perhaps, 1,000 of these sitting facing tho sea while I was at Scheveningen one afternoon, and a curious sight they made. Each chair is about four feet high, and two or three wide. The wicker of which they are made is closely woven, and they look, when on the beach, like so many giant bonnets. There are seats inside of them, and the occupants are shielded from the wind at the sides and from the sun overhead. They face them toward the sea, and the Sitter can loll back and enjoy his ease more comfortably than by our method. These chairs were scattered over the sands in all sorts of positions. Here two were close together, their faces looking almost into one another, and when I walked by them I found them inhabited by a pair of apparent lovers, who were flirting here, as they do at all watering places the world over. At another place there would bo a half dozen of these chairs in a group, and a half dozen men and women, a social party, would be gossiping in them. In another there would bo an old man, and in a third a mother or a nurse, with her little Dutch children playing in the sand about her, digging wells with their little spades, and covering each other up, as they do at Newport, Atlantic City and Asbury Park. The crowd here, however, was by no means all Dutch. It was made up of nearly every nation of Europe, and I heard the chatter of a dozen different languages as I walked along the beach.

Back of these stairs, just under the roadway, there was a lino of little square tents, which were also inhabited, and away up on the hill were hundreds of villas and many fine hotels. I took dinner at one of the best of them, and found it cheaper than that of our American watering places. My dinner, with wine, cost me only about $1.25, and it was a table d'hote, at which some of tho nobles of Em-ope were dining. Rooms cost from $1 a day and upward, and the total cost of living ought not to be here more than $4 per day.

There must be a great deal of wealth in Holland All of the cities have many fine residences, and although the wooden clogged element is undoubtedly very poor, the middle and upper classes spend a great deal of money. They dress as do, indeed, the same classes all over Europe, just as we do. Their homes are elegantly furnished, and tl&ir stores are full of fine goods and jewels, which, to afford to buy, one must be very well off. There are plenty of fine equipages with good horses upon the roadways, and the parks are full of well dressed promenaders. At Scheveningen 20,000 visitors spend the summer by the seaside. And at a public concert in the forest park of The Hague I saw an audience of several thousand as intelligent, well dressed and well behaved people as you will find at a high priced opera in New York city. The Hollanders seem to lead a more home like life than the French. They are as a rule well educated, and they seem to appreciate the good things of this life as well as any people I have seen. FRANK GEORGE CARPENTER.

"Wine and Cakos Legacy. A clergyman writes to The Boston Advertiser that he recently preached in one of the oldest churches in the "old" city of London. As he entered the porch ho was met by a rotund and dignified beadle, who led him to the vestry room, and, pointing to two decanters, said: "Will you take sherry or port, sir?" The parson smiled at, not with, the beadle, who then explained that about three hundred years ago a good woman of the parish, dying, left a certain sum for the purchase "of wine and sweetcakes for the clergy," and since that time wine and cakes have beeo jjjegulaHy supplied at each service.—New

A naturalist has satisfied himself beyond a doubt that the averagecat travels a distance of eighty miles every night. Then it must be* the other cat that sits on the back fence several hours every night, loudly complaining of the high taxes or something.—Norristown Herald.

THE GAZETTE, TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4,1886.

LOADED FOR BEAR. *4

Farmer StcCne Shoots Thirty-seven Buckshot at Once from his Trusty Gun. WALTON, Oct. 23.—Joseph McCuo of Sullivan county is al little set in his opinions, but owns up like a man when he finds that he is wrong. The other day he was working in his turnip patch, which is right across the road from his house. There are not many neighbors in the part of Sullivan county where Mr. McCue's farm is, which is the Beaverkill country, near the Ulster county line. Mr. McCue had heard a quail whistling in his turnip patch, and had taken his shotgun with him, thinking that maybe he might get the quail for his supper. As the farmer worked he was finally brought with his face toward the road, and he caught a glimpse of something passing along. Farmer McCue raised himself up. As he looked toward the road his eyes opened very wide. As they opened Mr. McQue exclaimed: "Byjeel"

What the farmer saw was a bear, and it was slouching deliberately along in the road, past the house. There was nothing but bird shot in Farmer McCue's gun, but he felt that he must get that bear. He Beized the gun and fired both barrels at bruin. The bear stopped, looked in a deprecatory manner at the farmer, and then passed on. The farmer watched it until it disappeared In a bend of the road. Then he examined the hammers of his gun and blew into tho barrels. Satisfied that the gun had gone off, he exclaimed: "Missed him, by jee I"

Farmer McCue finished his" work' in the turnip field and went to the house. "If I had gone out loaded for bear," said he to his wife, "I couldn't have seen my way, the quails would have been so thick. But there I was laying for quail, and what do I flush but a bear as big as a yearling colt! If that bear bothers me to-morrow, though, I'll bo sorry for him, and Til load the old gun now. Mother, count me out thirty-seven buckshot for each mrrel!" "You mean nine, Joseph," said Mrs. McCue. Rn "Thirty-seven, mother, for each barrel."

"Nine buckshot, Joseph, is a big load for any gun, and will kill an elephant!" "Nine buckshot won't hurt a coon, mother, and I'm after bear. Thirty-seven is what I want, but it isn't enough. I've a notion to put in forty-seven, to make sure. No, 111 take thirty-seven but thirty-seven aint enough."

So Farmer McCue put in a double charge of powder and thirty-seven buckshot in each barrel. Mr. McCue is a good farmer, but his early education as a hunter was sadly neglected. "Now let that bear'trespa^ on file again, by jee I" said Farmer McCue.

The next day he went to work again in his turnip field. His gun, loaded for bear, was with him. He had no Idea of seeing the bear, so that when in making a turn in the field he came almost face to face with it, evidently enjoying itself among the turnips, from the way it was pulling them up and munching them, the farmer was obliged to open his eyes VHde again and exclaim,with more vigor than before: "By jeel"

Farmer McCue was bound to get the bear, however, and, backing off a few feet to where his gun lay, he picked it up, took good aim at the bear, and fired.

And fired.

Mrs. McCue heard the report at the house. It made the windows rattle, and reverberated among the hills like a Fourth of July salute. The farmer's wife ran to the door and looked over into the turnip field. There was a thick cloud of smoke over by the stone wall, where she had last seen her husband at work. "Joseph must havo lulled tho bear," she said.

But there was no bear and no Joseph-to be seen. Mrs. McCue ran down into the field. She had not gone far before she saw the body of the bear stretched out among the turnips. Looking further, she saw Farmer McCue also stretched out among the ^urnips, as stiff as the bear. Just then Farmer Rose and his son, neighbors, happened to be driving by. Mrs, McCue hailed them. They carried Mr. McCue into the house. One side of his face was as black as his hat, and swollen three times its natural size. His right shoulder was dislocated,,and his arm was black and blue from the shoulder to the elbow. It was a good while before ho could be brought to. Then he opened his left eye, and, looking at his wife, said, firmly, but feebly: "Mother, thirty-seven's enough!"

There was a hole through the bear, amidships, big enough to run a stovepipe in. Farmer McCue, a little set in his opinion as he is, but willing to own up like a j&an when he finds he is wrong, is doing as well as could be expected.—New York Sun.

Renominated for Governor of Wisconsin. J. M. Rusk, tho Republican candidate for governor of Wisconsin, is the present incumbent of that office, having served two terms. He would not possibly have been nominated for a third term had he not been violently attacked by the socialistic element for his course during the Anarchist riots in Milwaukee last spring. He is now most vindictively opposed by the labor element in Wisconsin, who have placed a *tate ticket in th« field in the hope of drawing sufficient votes from hit party to secure hi* defeat. The contest has attracted considerable attention throughout th* country. Governor

Rusk's plurality was 11,957 in 1881.

GOV. 3. M. RUSK. while in 1884 it wae 19,289. It will be interesting to note what tfas •hange will be at this election.

Our Yankee friends could not oaptnre Charleston daring the war, bat they have done it now. It is a city that had to be shaken before taken.—Macon Telegraph.

A BrtLL ROOM PANORAMA,

With Portraits of the Maidens On* is Apt to Jostle There. fhere aro maidens fond of flirting—

You will find them charming sweet And, their power great exerting,

They will bring you to their foet. But you'll find, though they're diverting, 'A It is well to be discreet For your vanity they'll flatter,

And, perchance, some inay bo hissed. They in soft lovo tones will shatter— HHOn attentions 33! they'll insist

But you'll wonder what's the mafcter,

When you find that you're

But beware the maid of learning— When you see her, pass her by, A For she's ever light-talk spurning,

And you'll find if you draw nigh She'll discourse in accents burning On tho Whichness of the Why Indeed you'll be in consternation,

And you'll be both cold and hot, On the-verge of desperation When she asks, as like as not,

(Jnder guidiance parental, You will see at any ball, Maidens grave and sentimental

Who fond suitors**^' would enthrall, And in manner Iranscendeatal

They will sigh with one and all They will talk to you'' for hours

4

On thr beauties of a star, Lisping praises of the flowers,

On the moon we see afar. And of sylvan dells and bowers,

Till you wonder where you are. There's the rich old merchant's daughter— '4,

l,il

&

If you'll giro a dissertation On the Whenness of the What.

She's too wealthy to be sold— ft* But, though many men have sought her. Still her hand she does withhold, t. For she must, her mother's taught herv

Buy a title with her gold. Ghe may smile when you address her, If of lords there is a dearth,

1

But lis useless to impress her With your honesty and worth. For she'll think you an af-ressor jf If you're not ot •i noble birth.

Then there's she who's sweet and pretty,

Who is stately, fair and tall, Who is clover, who is witty,

Who is belle of all the ball But she's poor, and that's the pity.

For 'tis wealth doei her enthrall. Of her charmB you'll never tire, ft"1 you'd best be

1 in

to°

bold,

For she has a poor old sire

Who intends sho shall be sold, And some wealthy man will buy her, Who'd decrepit, mean and old. —Chicago Herald.

THE POET'S WAIL.

O, the autumn days are coming, When the baes havo stopped their humming. And the partridge lone is drumming

In the copse upon the hill

When the leaves are slowly falling, And the sable crow is calling To his mate to stop her squalling

With a wild and mournful trill

Autumn winds the boughs are rustling, And the towns again aro bustling, While the countryman is hustling

With his apples and his corn

t)ays of Johnny-cake and bacon, When the woods are all forsaken,, And the meadow-larks have taken

Flight across tho fields forlorn.

'Tis the season melancholy, Days when Nature is not jolly '•-A Soon the welcome Christmas holly

Will be hung o'er banquet hall Snows of winter will be o'er us, And the season soon will bore us When in manner quite decorous

We must seek the evening ball

For the summer days are over, Withered are the fields of clover, And each merry woodland rover

On his haunts no more docs dote And the question now, my dearie, That doth make me feel so weary, the old one, dark and dreary.. "»n I wear last winter's coat? —Henry Tholens in Tkl Blta.

A Powerful Plaster.

"Have you a sister?' asked the settling clerk an the board of trade. "No? Then you don't know how dangerous it is to incur her displeasure. I promised to take my sister and a friend of hers to the theatre one evening and then forgot all about it. Well, sho and her friend put up a job on me to get even. They made a great strong mustard plaster and put it in tho pocket of my night robe. I remember I had a terrible dream that night I dreamed I was dead. Then I woke up and $ was sure I was dead. I could feel the fire burning my heart right out, and every now and then I would get a whiff of that mustard and it made a first class substitute for brimstone and sftlphur. I tell yon I suffered agonies." "Well, it must have been a strong plaster," I said. "Strongi" he ejaculated. "Look here! Now, 1 don't expect you to believe me but, without exaggeration, that plaster was so strong that it drew my spiiial column right plumb up against my breast bone, and when the plaster was removed the spine flew back into position with a snap that jarred the whole house."

I give this story to the reader for what it is worth. I will not give it as a whole my unqualified indorsement, for there are portions of it that, find extremely difficult to believe. —The Rambler.

The Louisville Courier-Journal believes that whole cities "might be warmed bj piping the base of an active volcano."

Cassias 1. Clay.

An element of the daring and ths ronoaBfch played about the name of Cassias Marcsjptt Clay during the war and the years immediately preceding. He was a relative of the great Kentucky or at or and statesman, and he was a good deal of a man himself. He was born in Kentucky in 1810 and graduated at Yale college in 1833. It may have been his northern education, or it may have been something else, that made an Abolitionist of him. But an Abolitionist he became, in the days when to be that meant to take one's life in his hand.

Mr. Clay made anti-slavery speeches in the very heart of Kentucky. He was over (5 feet high, with piercing black eyes, a giant of physical strength and as brave if not as bullyish as he was big.

At first in making his stump speeches he went about the country unarmed. Then, after his life had been repeatedly in danger, he got a Bowie knife. With it he let the life out of a man named Turner, who attacked him at one of his meetings.

He was a born fighter and this tendency came uppermost in many brawls, duels and fisticuffs. Ho was ready to fight at a wink and was not particular as to the manner of it In 1861 he cast his weight, and there was considerable of itc physically and intellectually, yvith the north. He was a Democrat, but he was .an Abolitionist and a war Democrat. ,,

He n&ve'/entered the army, however, but preferred to do his fighting in a private capacity. Soon after the war he was minister to Russia, under a Republican administration. He is now a Democrat again and wishes to re-enter political life.

He has lately published some of his reminiscences in a volume of 600 pages, to be followed by another like one. Up to his 69th year he went about armed always, but in these piping times of peace he probably finds nothing worth fighting about.

Mlmiter to Colombia.

Dabney H. Maury, whose appointment failed of confirmation by the senate, has been reappointed minister to the United States of Qolombia, has fought two duels.

The first was with Col. de Rivicr, of the French army, who was at the time vi it in in is country. The French officer was in love with a young lady in Alabama to whom Maury had been paying attention. The lady manifested a decided preference for the French colonel,

DABNEY H. MAURY. whereupon Maury challenged him. The duel was fought in the gray of an April morning on a sandbar in Mobile bay. Maury was arrested and de Rivier married the lady, taking her with him to France a few days after the affair. This was in 1861. His second duel, somt years later, was with a Virginia neighbor, but before eit&er was harmed a reconciliation was brought aMfcfc.

Gen. Willcox.

The latest promotion from colonel to brigadier general is that of Glen. Orlando B. Willcox At the time of his advancement he commanded the Twelfth infantry. Now that he is a brigadier general he goes to Fort Leavenworth, to take command of the department of the Missouri.

There is often more luck than merit in promotions, apparently, otherwise Gen. Willcox would have been a brigadier general long ago. Like Othello, he has passed many dangers. He is a native of the strong young state of Michigan. Born at Detroit in 1833, he was graduated at West Point in '47. Being, by

a

virtue of gradua-| tion, a second lieu-| tenant, he went, im-' mediately on leaving West Point, to BRIG. CJEW. WILLCOX. Mexico, andfsaw the last little end of the war there.

He had after that ten years of military life, partly in garrisons and partly among the Indians. He was one of the military called out in the Anthony Burns riot at Boston in 1854, and he took part in the Billy Bowlegs Florida war.

After that he resigned from the army and intended to settle peaceably to the practice of law in Detroit. But the civil war broke out and he offered his services once more to the government. His life was one round of fighting and hardship. He was imprisoned in the south for thirteen months following the battle of Bull Run, at which he was seriously wounded and captured. He rose afterward to be a brigadier general of volunteers. He distinguished himself till the close of the war, and was one of the first to enter Petersburg.

QUERIES

For Gro^rn People to Answer if They Can. (Special Correspondence.]

NEW YORK, Oct. 25.— Who invented oia age? Was man really made for old age, and stiff joints? Or does his ignorance make it for him? How old do you suppose Methusaleh looked in his 800th year? Do you suppose he got presents oil TOO birthdays? Was Mrs. Methnsaleh as old as Mr. Methusaleh? Dare Mrs. Methusaleh say she was 500 hundred years old?

What makes most men when turned 36 get so sober, so dignified and so stiff in the joints? Why can't a man climb an apple tree as well as a boy? Is it weight of dignity or lack of muscle? Why do we stick so much on our chairs and become as setting hens at 45? Why does life get so serious and sober as we grow older and wiser? Why should a boy enjoy himself more on ten cents than a man on $10, while grown up folks'work and fret and worry, buy all the grub and pay all the house rent? Would you like to buy a boy's mind for twenty-four hours and have an afternoon's fun in the frog pond with a raft or two of boards and a lath to push it? How busy it does keep one, though, to have a curious, inquisitive, inquiring, prying mind. Hasnt a man as good aright to the worth of his money as a boy? Are bare legged urchins playing in mud puddles'to havo all the fun in this world? EBBOK OLIVER.