?fc ?imfs quit $msateyear.,.$1 50 Six months. 75 ADVERTISING BATES. First insertion, per square.'..%l va> Subsequent insertion.;. 50 Notices of meetings, obituaries and trib utes of respect, same rates per square as or dinary advertisements. Special contracts made with large adver -tisers, -with liberal deductions on abnvo rates. Special notices in local column, fifteen cents per line. THE TIMES. What are they ? They're the mirror of out days. TV embodied spirit of ? nation's life, A hundred million beings' manners, ways Of loving, hating, governing; of strife, Of hoping, fearing, sorrow, pleasure, pain. The daily round of things that come again, They change: and quickly, too, and still wc nay Those-of to-dp.y are not of yesterday. The old prefer the ones they knew when young. Women were fairer. Sweeter songs were sung. The young are satisfied with what they know, And think those "goodold" ones were very slow. So thought and action ever onward range; ^And, like oar - answer, yield to law3 of change. CLOCK-WORK "MvJLfliU^stfcfMrs. Poysettjaugh ing qfrfiie very idea; "weain't afraid to ^TOyin the house one night 'thout men folks. Be we. Lindy?" " I guess not," said black-eyed Linda, cheerily, washing her hands as a pre liminary to putting the bread in the pans. 44 Frank Kays, when John wrote him f;o come and stay over a day in Boston, 'You'll be afraid, mother, with all Lindy's presents in the house.' And he was real put out at first because I wouldn't have some of the neighbors come in to sleep." " Well, I don't blame you, e? you feels ef you could sleep?on'y tw^ ?women folks," said the caller, sharp er featured Miss Haine3, with prominent elbows and emphatically clean calico. "It 'ud on'y amount to makin' up a bed for nuthin'." "Yes," Mrs. Poysett went on, ac companying the slicing of apples for pies with the regular swing of her rocking-chair, while she-now and then placed a particularly thin and inviting piece of the fruit in her mouth, "that's what I thought. Tea?'leven?Lindy, when you go into the other room I ?wish you'd strike that clock round. It strikes one too many." " Yes'm," said brisk Linda.and then, trying to extricate the recipe for com position cake from inevitable dreams about her wedding day, she forgot the clock and made an incident for this story.' 5 Your presents are handsome, Lin dy, there's no mistake about that," said the visitor, turning the conversation skillfully to the quarter toward which the town Interest was just then tend ing. "Yes," answered Linda, blushing a little. She had grown used to blush ing of late. M People have been very kind to ma" "No more'n you deserve," said Miss Haines,oracularly, and with an empha sis that left no jees-- for denial. J r^jOToaav tofjflfJohn "W)??y's Deen I pretty stiday WT^rotrt"vrestan(^m^fi^F, aiiome, *n* then come back 'n' marry the girl he's been with ever since they was child'n.* But I say to 'em, ? No credit to him. No more'n he'd orter done. Lindy's pure gold, and he's got the sense to see it.'" And she finished her eulogy on the doorstep, perhaps to avoid having the matter disputed, while Linda -went back to her cooking table laughing, and still gratefully rosy over the 8?nse that everybody in general was far too good to her. It was a case of the smooth running of deep waters. She and JohnWilley had been pro saically faithful to each other for years before he asked her promise to marry him. Eighteen months ago he had gone West to set up in business as a carriage-builder, and now, having "-prospered, was coming East for his wife. Within two days' journey of home he had written to ask Frank, Linda's brother, to meet him in Boston _Jtor_avday's sight-seeing and an evening at the theatre: " I don't know what I shall do with out you, Lindy," s?id the mother, put ting down the knife to wipe away a furtive tear "with her apron. "I'm sure I don't know." Linda was E.t her side in an instant, with a tear of her own, and the two women kissed, laughed and went on with their work, as they had done a hundred times within the last fort night. For Mrs. Poysett had the equable temperament that sometimes accompanies rotundity of form and a double chin, and Linda, besides being sensible, could not keep miserable very long at a time. Meanwhile, everybody in the town ship was not rotund and possessed of double chins, not all the houses were keepers of new and shining wedding gifts, and, strange to say, not every body was happy. Pete Haydon, who lived down in Tan Lane, was poor and Bavag' ly discouraged. Ke made shoes ordin-irily. but that winter there were no shoes to be had. Iiis was a fine and practiced hand; lie could do all sorts of jobs, fromcleaniEg a watch to building a chimney, but nobody saw fit to have making or mending done. There had been only four or five pieces of work since fall for Tinker Pete, for none of which could he, in conscience, nsk more than fifteen cents His wife fell sick, the children's clothes were too shabby for school, and just then some one tapped him on the arm and tempted him. One morning a stranger strolled into town and stopped at Pete's little shop to ask his way. He was traveling to Southfield, so he said. " Where had he been ?" "Oh, anywhere,'* airily and jauntily; "traveling about the country. Might take up with work somewhere, if I found any worth doing." "Hard times," said Pete, looking moodily at the little red stove. "What's your trade?" " I've been a sailor," said the man, filling his pipe?a process Pete watched greedily, for his own tobacco box was empty. "Twenty years before the mast. I should have been a captain before this t ime?but there's jealousies. So I got sick of it. I call myself ? landsman now." "You don't have the look of a sailor," said Pete, his eyes traveling from the shabby fur cap and the dark face with rather narrow, bold, black eyes down over the shabby suit of brown. The man gave a slight start and glanced at him keenly: "You don't think so? Well, I've te:n on land some time now. Salt water's ea?y to shake oft. Wbat might your name be ?" ?? Vjjaydon?Pete Haydon/^. "And mina's Job Whettles. Qileet name, ain't it? Don't believe there's another like it in the country. Good day, mate. If I'm round this way . again I'll look in on you." And he did. One day, as Pete was soldering a milk-nail for Mrs. B?rge, , this time yaistlins: a little, haYinjr work to VOL. XII. whistle over the man came in without warning of rap or voice. "Thought you's twenty-five mile away afore this," said Pete, plying his iron. ' Takj a seat." "Things don't ple.ise me much over that way," said the fellow, pompously, again beginning to cut his tobacco, ? perhaps as a cover to his furtive ! glances. "I may stay round here a spell. Perhaps I'll do a bit of work on somebody's farm." 1 "Can't get i,t," said Peta, briefly, viewing his completed job with ap ' proval. " Ain't no farm-work to be had just now." ! " Well, tloing chores, I mean?light work. I'm not particular how little I do for my board," with a coarse laugh. , "Folks do their own.work round here," said Pete. "Some of 'em have got money enough to pay,' but they're able-bodied, as it happens, and don't want a hired man round in the winter. "Seems a pity ?don't it??that things can't be equally divided, so that you and I could have" our share," said i the stranger, pulling industriously at . his pipe, but not forgetting to watch the tinker. "I should like to help my self to Somebody's pile; now, shouldn't you? Honestly enough, of course, man. You needn't jump. I inean, sup pose the yeung fellow that owns the big farm over there?Poysett ??should say, 'Whettles, take half my bank stock. I don't need it all?' do you think I should say'no'?" Of course the tinker laughed at the fanciful notion. He was a sunny-tem pered fellow; it hardly needed a very bright thing to provoke his mirth. Where Whettles stayed at night was a mystery. Sometimes Pete suspected he might have slept in a barn, he turned up so tousled in the morning; often he guessed that Toppan, the saloonkeeper, had given him a lodging, from the fumes that lingered about his shabby person. He had money at times, for again and again he treated Pete to a glass of whisky. Pete was not used to frequenting the saloon; he did not in the least approve of it; but it happened that about this time this evil bird of prey sought his company more persistently than did any more respectable person. And Whettles wa3 a sociable fellow; he could tell more stories in half an hour than any six of the honest' people Pete knew taken together. He was, so Pete con cluded, nobody's enemy but his own. It would take more time than- you are willing to give, and a deeper knowl edge of mental intricacies than I pos sess, to detail the process through which Pete was brought to the point of promising to creep into the Poysett farmhouse and rifle the old desk that stood between the sitting-room windows. The grocer's bill was grow ing longer, his wife wa3 paler, and she worried him by entreaties to let Whettles alone and forsake Toppan's; ! the aggregate of such straws, i* not (small/ " x v. ^ '.Che opportunity" ?cSftj,1 fitting ? the mood as exactly as if the mood hai made it. Frank Poysett was going to Boston to meet John Willey; the " women folks" would be alone. " You take Poysett's," said Whet tles, " you know the lay of the land there, and the same night I'll try Tur ner's, over on. the hilL "We'll meet somewhere about 1, down there under the big elm, and divide. After that I'll make tracks across lots and take a train somewhere; nobody'll think of you." " But s'pose my courage gives out," Tinker Pete said, uncertainly. "I don't know's I can do it after ali. It's easy enough to get in, but what if somebody should see me ? It might end in what's worse." "Man alive!" said Whettles, impa tiently. " Afraid at your time of life ? Well, here's what I'll do. They go to bed early; you can have it over by Dtidnight. Now, I'll come back that way, and if you're there ami afraid t_i atir, I'll gc ir. aad-tlontTDjrSelt. But mind, I don't expect you to back out. And if I ain't there by 12 you'll know somethin's happm ticked with appalling loudness. His knees smote together, but it required as much courage now to flee as to remain. Perhaps for ten minutes?perhaps hours, judging by his own exaggerated reckoning?he stood in fear; and then. a> the dock ticked on ste.ulily as if it had no refer ence to him, his heart-beats grew fainter and his courage crawled back He crept toward the sitting-room door on his hands and knees. There stood the old desk, with its high spindle legs, half of it exaggerated shadow and half thrown into light by a shaft from I the moon. Probably the key was in j the lock. He had seen it there him ! self a dozen times?had seen Frank i bring in a fat roll of bills after selliug ! his oxen, toss them in there and put I J down the cover without turning the key. There had been no rob beries in Belburn, and so people trusted more in human nature and less in steel and wood. But the sitting-room was so light! He should never dare go in there; the very! thought of having Iiis shadow thrown on the wall, distorted like those of the table? and chairs, gave him another sickening spasm of fear. "What if there were only women in the house? Suppose one appeared? where should) he hide himself? He was not a thief by nature or training. lie would crouch down in a corner and wait for j Whettles. He had been there ages, when the clock gave warning; ages longer, and with an alarming prelim inary whir it struck twelve. He started up with an after-impulse of gratitude that he had not shrieked, i j When had the hour before struck ? It | j seemed incredible that ho could have ! slept, but ;t must have been so, or, ; ! what was more probable, he had been , j too absorbed to heir it. It was time ! ! for Whettles. He crept back to the | I kitchen window and waited in the cold i J draught of air. Minutes passed, each J deeming ten. He began to grow. angry. Did the fellow mean to play I him false and not come at all? As! anger rose his courage, to do the deed ebbed. I do not believe conscience | asserted itself very strongly. Life was 1 harder thai it bad been even one day before, and there was no flour in the house now. He was still bitterly at odds with life, but the after effects of the whisky Whettles had given him were nervousness and irresolution. The clock gave warning for another hour. False, friendly old qlock, if he could have soen your faca he would have known it lacked ten minutes of midnight then; instead, he believed it would strike one. Too late for Whettle3. Perhaps he was now at the old elm ; he would hurry there and bring him back to do his share of the work. He closed the win dow behind him and hurried off to the rendezvous. There was no one there. At that moment the relief of having been prevented from sin overbalanced every other feeling. Something must have happened to Whettles; perhaps he had been caught; perhaps he would say that his accomplice was waiting for him under the elm ! He started on a swift run for home, to find his wife watching for him in the moon light. She was too thankful at finding him sober to worry at the lateness of Ids coming. Being a woman of tact she did not question, but went to sleep, while Pete lay till daybread in a cold bath of fear, expecting a rap and sum mons to jail at every tapping of bough or snapping of frost-bitten nail. Whettles had lingered about Turner's, a great house over the hill, in the hope that the guests?for there was a party that night?w/n?d take their leave. But no; the house was lighted from chambers to parlor, and sleighs came instead of going away. He walked up and down the orchard, cursing himself to keep warm. Later I and later, and the singing and dancing shadows on the curtains did not cease. He would hurry over to the Poysett's and see if the catspaw had done his work there. He stole up to the desig nated window, as Pete had done. No one was there. He listened and whistled softly; The clock struck one. He had no idea it was so late. Pete must be waiting for him at the elm. And so he, too, hurried away. But there was only a mammoth lace work of shadow under the elm. Where was Pete? The master-villain, him self puzzled, reflected a moment. Per haps the fellow had the money and was hiding it at home. Lucky thought 1 He would go to the . house and call him up, in spite of disturbing wife and children. Then see if he would refuse to share! He took the road, and, passing Top pan's saloon, noticed a dim light in the barroom. It was rather unusual that it should be there so late, but he had known it to happen before. He had just about money enough for a dram. He tapped, and then tried the door; it was unfastened, and he went in lightly. A man in a great-coat rose from his seat by the stove and swiftly, dexter ously pinionea\him. Toppan himself, always on the winning side, was there to help, {?ad Whettles was arrested for his last crime-,?; Mra. Poysett and Linda were afoot early the next morning, putting the house in holiday trim. " I declare if 'tain't an hour earlier 'n I thought," said Mrs. Poysett as she came down into the sitting room, where the little air-tight was already doing ardent best. " Lindy, you didn't strike that clock round yesterday, after all." " No, mother; I forgot it," laughed Lindy. "I should forget my head, nowadays, if 'twasn't fastened on." ?Til tell you what it is," said the mother, beginning to spread the breakfast table, "I'm just out o' pa tience with that clock, strikin' t-ne. hours away afore they get here. It seems real malicious, tryin' to hurry you off. Now, perhaps it's only half a day's job or so; let's 'send for Tinker Pete and have him com e up and fix it." So the chore boy was dispatched for Pete. He came like a culprit, uncer tain whether the message was feigned -to cover suspicion of him or not. But no one could-iook into Mrs. Poysett's clear eyes for a moment or hear Lin da's clear laugh, with even a linger ing fear that either had anything to conceal. When they described the clock's malady, 1 am inclined to think Pete was as near being faint with sur prise as ever man was in his life, and I think he touched the worn old cleck case reverently, thanking it for keeping his deeds honest, however he had sinned in thought. He stayed to dinner, and Mrs. Poy sett put up a pail of goodies for the children. On his way home lie heard the news: Whettles had been arrested and taken away on an early train. Again he walked in fear and trembling; his hair grew used to stand ing on end in those days. He expected an interview with Nemesis concerning his intended crime, but, whether justly or unjustly, Nemesis stayed away. The wedding? It was a very quiet one. and the happy pair went away next morning, followed by blessings and old shoes. Frank had such an ex travagantly good time in Boston that he felt that he could only counter b?ance it by plunging into work deeper I ban ever. So he began cutting limber in the old wood-lot, and hired Tinker Pete to chop there every day till spring.?Lippincott. A Short-Sighted Nation. Mr. 1). Forest, who says he has much experience of the Egyptian fellahin. writes an extraordinary letter to the Times. He declares that it is useless to try to make Egyptians sharp-shooters, for the people are uni versally short-sighted. They cannot see the bull's eve in a target at 100 yards, or the target itself at 300. This is the explanation of their bad practice in action. That Egyptians are liable to ophthalmia is certain, but this is the first time we have heard of a shortsighted nation. The statement strikes us as prima facie absurd, and yet it is quite possible that eyesight, in the dim light of the north and the bright light of the south, should be come different. The strain to see clearly would, in the former case, be perpetual and hereditary. The diffi culty is to believe that sunlight would not affect all eyes in all places, and certainly natives of India, living in a light as keen as that of Egypt, show no inclination to short sight. Their huntsmen can see like red Indians. There may, however, be a -difference which has escaped notice and is worth inquiry, the unusual keenness of sight possessed by Scandinavians being a long-noticed fact. Any difference in length of sight, if universal or very usual, would account for very great difference in plastic art and in the use of color. -London Spectator. An exchange says the railroad of the future will be run by electricity. Then there'll bo no more boiler ex plosions, but "shocking" accidents will be more liable to occur than ever. ?Philadslphia Herald. ORANGEB?RG, HUMOROUS SKETCHES. Snubbed Him. Young Pease was "sweet" on Clara, but he didn't have the courage to tell his love man fashion, so he went to work in a roundabout way. " Do you know, Miss Pink," he said, " that Charley Green is terribly in love with you ?" '"How do you know that, Mr. Pease?" demanded Clara. " Oh," replied Pease, " I judge him by myself." " You judge him by yourself, do you?" said Clara; "well, then, please judge him only when you are by your self." Didn't Seem Possible. A citizen of Detroit who had been to Lansing on business was returning the other day when an old farmer; going East with his wife, took the next seat back and opened a conversa tion which lasted almost into the city. Then he happened to mention some thing about Europe which, the'farmer doubted, and the citizen protested: "But I have been there and know." ? What! You bin to Yurup ?" " Yes." "Bin in England and France?" "I have." " Bin to Rome and seen the ruins ?" ? yes." " Bin right in Paris?" "I was there two months." " By cracky, Maria!'"' said the old man, as lie turned to his wife, #i here's a feller who's bin all .over Yurup and rides with us a hull half day before he lets on a word! Why, the Bixbys didn't go no further than Boston, and the fust night they got home they kept the hull town up till 2 o'clock in the morning to tell about pavements and pictur' halls and op?ra houses and street cars and door bells which would ring by pressing on a button ! Wall, wall! Bin to Yurup and not bragging over it!"?Free Press. IA Lost Skull. Giveadam Jones then arose to make a few inquiries in the Watson ca;e. Some eight weeks ago Brother Watpon was left in charge of th) museum for a brief half hour wh le the regular official went out to work off a fifty cent p'ece with a hole in it. During this interval a person representing himself as the president of a new medical college called and asked for the loan of om of Plato's skulls to ex hibit before his Class. The Lime-Kiln has-been at great pains and expense to secure three of the genuine skulls of this great philosopher, and had the regular.keeper of the museum been in his place a bribe of $5,000 would not have tempted him to let one of the sacred relics cot of his * sight. But Brother Watson allowed the stran ger to take one of the skulls away without a thought of deceit, and no fcnv>e -of -it- -has- inees- - been -Yougd.'1 Brother Watson was lined $7,000 and a reward of $500 was offered for the skull, and now Brother Jones arose to suggest a compromise. There were only four copies of Benjamin Frank lin's favorite spelling book in existence, and he had one of them. He would turn it in to take the place of the miss-1 ing skull, and in case brother Watson's fine was canceled he would do his best { to secure for the museum the first cor set ever worn in America, After some argument the compromise was I effect e 1. and such a burden was lifted from the derelict brother'^ shoulders that he cried for joy.?Lime-Kiln Club. Mark Twain in BlacU and White. New York Life gives a brilliant pen portrait of Mark Twain. His many acquaintances will recognize the faith fulness of the picture in all its details: Mark Twain, the renowned archaeol ogist, poet and astronomer, is a lineal descendant of the celebrated Twain who were made one flesh. He was born on Plymouth Rock, April 1, 1728, on a remarkably cold morning, and the administratrix of the camphor an? red flannel department afterward stated that he was the most remarkable baby she had ever seen. At the early age of seven, Mark?for so he was cruelly christened?was already ad dicted to science, and his discovery, made one year later, that a spring clothespin artistically applied to the continuation of a cat would create in that somnolent animal a desire for vigorous foreign travel, is still used by the aborigines of Connecticut and Mas sachusetts. Wiien lie was nineteen Mark went through college. He en tered the front door, turpentined the rector's favorite cat, and graduated the same evoning over the fence. He then started for California, Milwaukee and other remote confines of the earth, and began those remarkable series of truthful anecdotes for which he is now so justly famed. A Wooden liCjt I7nd?r Fir .?. A fashionably-dressed matron sat in the rear cabin of a Fulton ferryboat. She \va? accompanied by a thin-legged, restless-eyed little girl of lour or thereabouts. A few seats nway was a man with a wooden leg. With un erring instinct the child's eye had lighted upon this man. That eye at once became fixed, dilating with con o.'.nt rated interest. The child crawled ckiwn from her seat, upon which she had been kne 'ling, in order to afford that eye better facilities for observa tion. The object of scrunity squirmed uneasily in his seat. Turning to the mother the child exclaimed in a por tentous whisper : " Oh, ma! Look at that man." "Hush, my dear. You must not be rude." "But ma" (in a very audible whis per), " do look at his leg." "Be quiet, Ethel, I tell you,"franti cally urged tha matron in agitated tone^. "The poor man has lost his leg. It's very rude to notice it." " What's that one made of?" " Hush! of wood, my dear. Look at that pretty little boy over there. See how good he is." " Did you ever have a leg like that, mar" " No, my dear. Look over there at that?" "Will pa or Uncle John or I ever have one, ma?" "No, dear." "Could he kickabnll with that leg?" "Hush, do!'' " But, ma?" At this juncture the man with the wooden leg sought, in turn, to create a diversion. He drew from his pocket a pretty little bonbon box and offered the child some sweetmeats. The child ac cepted them with some hesitation and mistrust. An instant later the boat reached the slip. The mother rose, and smiling graciously, said: "Thank the gentleman, Ethel, and say good-bye.". Ethel advanced, lur eyes still firmly fixed upon the object of interest. She S. -Oii TBTJESDAl held out the tips Qf i\er little fingers. "Good-bye," she;said, in a voice full of emotion; '"good-bye, you poor, poor man." ^pT' The mother seized the child by the hand and, hurrying"through the boat, gained the bridge.?:?ew York Herald. Market Day in a Holland lownu The very air seeVifed teeming with cheeses. They lookeulike great golden apples, or rather between a very large apple and a small pumpkin. They are very elastic and slippery, too, when new, and these wereUfU very new, and evidently suffering.run.. . We saw a small and ..-heedless boy manage to run fidf ^Mtfsagainst a pair of these carriers, and every golden sphere of boundi^ cheese went flying to the four -winds^ ;.The unhappy ur chin was not cuffed nor even vilified, nor did they speak'unkindly of his parents; the cx&d simply paused in mad car^jj^gjj ^to work to pursue no f lag . . before they helped to pile them back on the barrow. The unlucky boy seemed to be rather sympathized with, and even a mild sort of martyr. I was surprised that nobody kissed him. We noticed that children are invariably 41 made much of" in the way of kindly and indulgent treatment all over Hol land. When we found the cheese carnival rather pall upon us, we sought other scenes, but it was difficult to get en tirely away from it; something would turn up to show how deep and wide its interests were in Alkmaar. Along the quays were numbers of vessels loading with all sorts of it, to ?all parts of the globe, wherever the least scrap of digestion remains intact. The quaint old warehouses along the docks had nearly all stone tablets, showing that for two hundred years or so they had identified themselves with this one industry. From the upper stories of these cheeseries vterc long wooden gutters leading to the ships in dock, and along these troughs trickled a never-ceasing rill of the ripened and matured article, now a brilliant crim son?the final tint it comes to when ready for the far-off dyspeptic.?Har per. Curious Processes, Mr. Christopher Dresser writes: The whole of the manufacturing pro cesses of Japan are conducted with out the aid of any mechanical con trivances whatever; and with the simplest of tools. I do not think that the country boasts a saw of sufficient length to cut through a large log of wood. The saw has the form of a butcher's chopper, and when it ha* cut well into the angle at the end of a log, the log is turned, and work begun on the opposite side. By repeated turnings a plank is cut. The plane cuts pulling toward the workman, and so does the saw. I never saw a lathe with a continuous rotary motion, save in the royal arsenal, which is nothing more than a European workshop ; and I never but once saw a labor-saving contrivance of any kind in the coun try. Bice is husked by being placed in a sort of mortar into which a pestle falls. The pestle is attached to a horizontal piece of wood supported by a fulcrum in the center. On the end opposite to the pestle a man stands, thus the pestle is raised ; but by his jumping off the pestle falls. By this repeatel stepping on the end and jumping off the process of husking the rice is accomplished. In a corner of a field I once saw one of these mills with a kind of bucket placed on the end of the beam where the man would stand. A small waterspout coming from the hillside filled this bucket with water, when it raised the pestle; but the act of raising upset the water, and thus let the pestle fall. A Boy With an Alligator Skin. Dr. Hamilton has discovered the greatest living curicsity of the a^e. Those who have examined testify that it beats anything they ever saw. The curiosity is in shape a natural human being, a colored boy, eighteen years of age, who was born of slave parents near Grenada, on the Mississippi river, in the State of Mississippi. -d*"rom his shoulders down his skin is just like that of an alligator,-is th'ckly covered with black .scales/and the whole is ; s pliable, though thick and tough, as the l?de on one of these animals. In the summer time these scales drop off, leaving an indenture in the skin, where new ones form and grow on again. His name is Moses Eskridge, and "ne came here durinl the exodus times with his father aid stepmother.?To pelca {Kansas) sf^te Journal. The bridge by which the Harrisburg and Western railroad Vill enter Har risburg will be nearl^ two miles in length and will cost fSV r, APKIL 26, 1883. TMEtY TOPICS. There are, according to French statistics, 48,487 sailing vessels in the world, with a tonnage of nearly 14, 000,000. England heads the list, and then come in their order America, Norway, Germany, Italy, Russia and France. Great Britain has 4,317 steamers, carrying 5,500,000 tons. Next comes America, with 504; then France, with 414. The coal industries of the United : States "now represent an annual pro .' duction of about 80,000,000 tons, i About three-fifths of this is anthra cite and live-elgnths bituminous. A . very small .quantity of anthracite ', comes from Rhode Island; otherwise , it is found exclusively in Pennsylva nia. Pennsylvania also produces enough of the bituminous product to , entitle her to the reputation of fur ] nishing three-fifths of all the coal used in this country. Ohio roilows next, , with 9,000,000 tons or so. Illinois ranks third and Maryland fourth. "When the southern and eastern parts of Ohio are honeycombad with rail roads, a state of things which is fast being brought about, the showing of the Buckeye State will be even better. Women are rigidly excluded from St. Malo, a place fifty miles from New Orleans, inhabited by about half a hun dred Malays. They have lived there forty years, having originally deserted from French ships, while little more than boys. They arc described as low, ignorant and ferocious, with mixed Chinese and Japanese features. They live by fishing, and gambling among themselves is about their only diver sion. Their first leader had a wife, and the story goes that in consequence of the jealousies which her presence aroused she was deliberately put out of the way, and a vow taken never to permit another of her sex in the colony. William P. Ross, the present chief ; of the Cherokee Indians, is a graduate ; of an Eastern college, remarkable for i intelligence and culture, and a fine , orator. The tribs occupies a reserva tion of 4,000,000 acres, bounded on i the north and east by Kansas, Mis souri and Arkansas. The Cherokees of pure and mixed blood number 20, i 336, about one-half of whom speak . the English language, which is the . '?.nly' one taught in the schools. In the entire male population there are but sixteen whose ? occupation is given in 1 he last census as hunters, and five nshermen.the great ; majority being farmers. There are 107 ! schools supported by the nation, a male and female seminary for ad \ vanced pupils, and an orphan asylum. There is a regularly constituted gov i eminent and an adequate administra , tion of. justice. In short, the Cherokee ! nation is oot to be distinguished from __a_frontier o.u,e. except in the charac , i:-,)!,.-> ? dints, their relations tiT i the g- av- v government and thtih-sys > tem of holding the land in common, ; which affords an interesting example ? of practical communism. According to the accounts of ex plorers, Siberia is not a very pleasant country to travel in, and the marvel ous tales related' are generally of a nature to discourage any one from going there to prove or question their accuracy. W. II. Gilder, the New York Herald correspondent who went with the Rodgers expedition in search of those of the Jeannette's crew who were in Lieutenant Chipp's boat, says that on his trip across the country the natives had a very exasperating habit of routing him out before ihe first gray of dawn to start on the day's journey, but always managed to call a halt and turn in soon after noon. The drivers of the sledge teams had to be watched all the time lest they should abandon him, the lone passenger, in any desolate place where he was not ready to go at their convenience. Along the coast the weather was so cold that some of the natives were frost-bitten. Many nights had to be passed in the snow, and in various bleak stretches the wind was so vio lent as to blow men, sledges and dogs from the road into deep gullie;. Some times the dogs refused to face the wind and had to be dragged by the men. In places the road wai so blind that natives could not follow it within a couple of miles of tl eir own homes. On more than one occasion, Mr. Gilder says, he removed from his face masks of frozen snow half an inch thick. In the light of these statements it is not at .all probable that Siberia will ever be a popular wint t resort, and the reason of men's continued efforts to penetrate such regions becomes more a matter of wonder than ever. The attention lately devote! to carrier or homing pigeons in this coun try, observes the New York Situ, may seem to many a trivial pursuit, having no good end in view beyond that of tin personal amusement of the fancier. In reality, however, a wide Ii-11 of use fulness is opened to thes2 birds on th < frontiers a< couriers. They might be nf groat value in Indian warfare fur communicating between an expedition and the fort from which it has bein st-nf. out. In a country where there j are detached hills, and which is suili I ciently far south to have few or no j snowstorms to change the appc trance ! of landmarks, these little messengers ' would be specially efficient, since they ! would never be deceived in the land I scape. Where the telegraph is pros trated by storms, or is cut by an en-my, pigeons can swiftly carry back intelli gence to the permanent camp. They are limited, of course, to travel by day light, and unless the weather is clear they may lose their way. Hence it is unwise to rely wholly or chiefly upon them; but as an adjunct in smiling messages back fron) a command in the field to a military post, or from on" mili tary post to another, they may be of great importance. When men cannot be immediately spared, or when streams and roads are flooded, and or dinary travel greatly delayed, these little voyagers iu the air may carry in a day a message which would other wise require ten. The experiments tried with them at frontier posts dur ing the. past four years have been fav orable, and the time devoted to their training by the soldiers having them in charge could hardly be better s.ient. Should a timely cry for help, in Indian hostilities ever be brought by a pig eon, when no other messenger could have proved adequate, the flight of the little courier would be immortal ized in poesy, like the famous rides of history. ______________ Life is made up not of great sacri fices, or duties, but of little things, of which smiles and kindness and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart 33J nute THE HOT BLOO? OF YOUTH. As Browed in German Unlvernltle* Tt Loads to QnarrclHi anJ a: Las: -o T..cu.>-ono Duds iua Day. The Vienna correspondent of the London News writes under recent date: The University of Jena, and indeed the whole city,,have passed through a week of intense alarm and anxiety. On one day twenty-one serious duels took place among the students, and the anus ined not being properly cleaned, all those"" who were wounded had their blood poisoned. About forty young men are lying in the hospital in a serious condition. One great favorite, the only son of wealthy parents, had his mind upset by an intense attack of fever, and com mitted suicide by taking strychnine. He died after a terrible agony that lasted many hours. Two more have died already, and there is little hope of saving more than one-half of those who are still in a pitiable condition. This dreadful calamity will no doubt serve to make university dueling very unpopular in Germany; if not with the young men themselves, certainly with their relations. It is difficult for an Englishman to believe on what pretenses a duel will sometimes take place. At Heidelberg an English friend once dined at the table d'hote, and being seated right opposite to a young man who wore the badge of a "corps" across his breast, he could not help noticing the extraordinary man ner in which this young man took his meal. At lirst he admired him for the skillful manner in which he managed his knife, which incessantly passed from hi i plate to his mouth, heavily laden as ic was with green peas. But when the student, having finished his meal, took up his gravy with the knife the Englishman began to feel his blood boil. Pudding with apple sauce fol lowed, and the student operated with his dessert-knifo just as he had done with the larger knife. But the Eng lishman could control himself no longer. In a hoarse whisper he addressed his vis-a-vis, saying: " You will cut your mouth open if you don't leave off eat ing gravy with your knite." The stu dent looked up and answered: " What is that to _you? lean cut my mouth open to my ears for all you have a right to interfere." "Oh, nonsense," said the Englishman, coolly; "you can't ex pect a decent person to let you butcher yourself at dinner I" "Oh, but I can though, and you shall see I Dummer Junge !" With that the student rose and left the room. Dummer Junge! (Stupid fellow I) signifies as much as a challenge. When the student's seconds came to arrange details with the Englishman he was terribly surprised, at the seri ous consequences of what he had deemed a most natural remark He offered to apologize, and begged them to remember that he believed himself in the right. But the seconds de clared their friend would* accept no apology, and they even hinted that the T y\v\ "iwitti"^ il pinVft'dy tren.Hrf that his opponent was a first-class fencer, the pride of Heidelberg. Of course, when matters took this turn, the Englishman spoke in a very differ ent tone, and everythirg was arranged for a duel with pistols, he being no fencer. He spent a dreadful night, because he was told that the young student was in such a foaming rage that his only desire was to see his op ponent lie dead on the ground. The Englishman did all in his power to have the matter arranged, but he did not succeed, and on his way to the trysting-place he said to his seconds: "It is a dreadful shame that I should have kill this young man because he does not know the proper use of his knife and fork. Still, it would be just as unfair to let him kill me." The Englishman intended firing in the air if he had the second shot, but chance was averse to him. lie had the right to shoot first?the aim was deadly, the young Teuton fell with out a groan. Next day the Englishman traveled to the town where his victim's wid owed mother li ved, and at the end of a two hours' conversation he convinced her of his sincere regret and his wish to serve her. She admitted that her son had not died through his fault, but hrough the mistaken notions of honor current among the youth of Germany. The Evil Eye. The belief in the malign influence of the mal-oco.hio, or evil eye, is, says Dr. Felix L. Oswald, in the Popular Science Monthly, not confined to the Latin races, but prevails in Persia and China, as well as among the South China Malays and their East Indian neighbors. In Southern Italy the ? upcrstition is almost universal. Ac cording to the popular theory, the pos sessor of an evil eye can stare his victims into all sorts of alllictions, palsy, rickets, goitre, etc. Nay, his power for evil has hardly any limits whatever, for by Hie same optical proc \ss he can produce death and epidemics?cholera infantum, for in stance. And, moreover, such persons are generally conscious of their dread ful talent, and can forbear its ex ercise, for tiny manage to connive at their favorites. Evil eye wizards can ba known by their peculiar way of squinting, or by their bushy eyebrows, that conceal the piercing steadiness Of their ga/.e, and ?orthodox < rones lament the decadence of the good old times when such of fenders could be brought to justice, according to the myth of the Pura nas, the god Siva can blight a whole town with his withering look ; and the Indian gods, who often visit earth in tin.' guise of mortals, are sometimes recognized by the rigidness of their gaze; they never wink ; to their sleep less eyes spa-e and time are units. Hecate and Medusa had such optics, and the basis of the superstition may possibly be tin' primitive man's dread of mental superiority, the power of mind over matter, ascribed to the eye, as the mirror of the soul. Captain Burton noticed that the negroes of Soodan are almost unable to meet a white man's ga/.e, though they quail still more before the lire-eyes of their Semitic neighbors. The Veddahs of Ceylon, too, seem to dread a Siva in every foreigner. A Theory Upset The theory that photographs cannot bo taken at night was upset the other day when a thief was marched up to the bar in a justice's court. Judge?" What is the charge?" Officer?" Stealing." Judge?" Stealing what?" Officer?" Stealing photographs." Judge?" When did he steal them?" Officer?"Lastnight, yer honor." Judge?" I will discharge the pris oner, for I know that thousands of dol lars nave been wasted in the attempt to discover a process whereby pictures could be'taken at night The prisoner may go."?Carl Pretzel's Weekly, NO. 9. WARM WATER, Its Virtues as a Medicine?Said to be a Care for Consumption, Dyspepsia and Other Disorders of thn Stomach. A young man who was compelled to resign his position in one of the public schools of this city because he was breaking down with consumption, and who has since been battling for life, although with little apparent prospect of recovery, was encountered several days ago in a Broadway restaurant. " I see," he said, " that you seem surprised at my improved appearance. No doubt you wonder what could have caused such a change. Well, it was a very simple remedy?nothing but hot water." " Hot water?" -" That's all. You remember my telling you that I had tried all the usual remedies. I consulted some of the leading specialists in affections of the lungs in this city, and paid them large fees. They went through the usual course of experimentation with me under all sorts of medicines. I went to the Adirondack's in the sum mer, and to Florida in the winter; but none of these things did me any sub stantial good. I lost ground steadily, grew to be almost a skeleton, and had all the worst symptoms of a consump tive whose end is near at hand. At 'this juncture a friend told me that he had heard-of cures being effected by drinking hot water. " I consulted a physician who had paid special attention to this hot-water cure, and was using it with many 'pa tients. He said: 'There is nothing, you know, that is more difficult than to introduce a new remedy into medi cal practice, particularly if it is a very simple one, and strikes at the roots of erroneous views and prejudices that have long been entertained. The old school practitioners have tried for years to cure consumption, but they are as far from doing it as ever. Now, the only rational explana tion of consumption, is that it results from defective nutrition. It is always accompanied by mal-assimilation of focd. In nearly every case the stomach is the scat of a fermentation that necessarily prevents proper digestion. The first thing to do is to remove that fermentation, and put the stomach into a condition to receive food and dispose of it properly. This is effected by taking water into the stomach, as hot as it can be borne, an hour before each meal. This leaves the stomach clean and pure, like a boiler that has been washed out. Then put into the stomach food that is in the highest de gree nutritious'iind the least disposed to fermentation. No food answers this description better than tender beef. A little stale bread may be eaten with it. Drink nothing bur, pure water, and a3 little of that at meals a> possible. Vegetables, pastry, sweet?, tea, coffee and alcoholic liquor should be avoided. Put tendei beef alone into a clean and pure stomach three times a day, and the system will be fortified and built 'HI iriwbVliwnliimiitiir-1 fW ''" ftl" chief feature of consumption, ceases, and recuperation sets in.' ? "This reasoning impressed me. I began by taking one cup of hot water an hour before each meal, and grad ually increased the dose to three cups. At first it was unpleasant to take, but now I drink it with a relish that I never experienced in drinking the choicest wincr I began to pick up im mediately after the new treatment, and gained fourteen pounds within two months. I have gained ground steadily in the trying climate of New York; and I tell you, sir, I feel on a sure way to recovery." Here an old gentleman who had been standing mar, and evidently listening to the conversation, turned to the teacher and said : " This remedy of hot-water drinking has attracted my attention for some time. It has been of immense service in relieving me of a terrible dyspepsia that tormented me for many years. I tried numerous able physicians, and there is probably no medicine that is prescribed for such an ailment which was not given to me; but none of them gave me any per manent benefit. But the simple remedy of drinking hot water, accom panied by a rational -regulation of my diet, has entirely cured me, advanced though I am in life. It was not the dieting alone that did it; I had tried that before. It was the use of hot water that cured me, for that made it possible to derive benefit from a judicious diet. 1 have also found this treatment of great benefit in kidney diseases, which are largelv owing to malassimilatioii of food."' The teacher listened very attentively to the old gentleman's remarks. "I am glad to learn that your expe rience," he said, "agrees so fully with mine. I have become acquainted with various cases in which this simpld method of treatment has effected per manent cures after all the efforts of the physicians had failed. I am con vinced, simply from what I have seen, that almost any dist ice of the hu man system that res .is from disor ders of the stomach can be alleviated, and, in some instances, eure.l in the same way. The very simplicity of the I thing may cause some to hesitate about i attaching much importance to it; but, like the proper ventilation of your dwellings, it may prevent disease and effect cures where all the drugs of the pharmacopoeia may fail." The Southern ">Uator.? Six thousaud baby alligators are sold in Florida every year, and the amount of ivory ,number of skins, and quan tity of oil obtained from the older j members of the Saurian family are i sullieient to entitle them to a* high place among the products of the State. The hunters sell young " 'gators" at twenty-live dollars per hundred, and j the dealer from seventy-live cents to i one dollar. Live alligators two years : old represent to the captor fifty cents each, and to the dealer from two to five dollars, as the season of travel is at its height or far advanced. A ten foot alligator is worth ten dollars, and onafourteen feet long twenty-live dol lars to the hunter, while the dealer charges twice or three times that price. The eggs are worth to the hunter fifty cents per dozen, and to the dealer twenty-live cents each. The dead aligator is quite as valu able as the live one, for a specimen nine feet long and reasonably fat will npt both branches of the trade as fol lows : THE BUHTKB. Oil.:.$ 5 50 Skin. 1 00 Head. 10 00 $16 60 THK DEALZ3. Oil.$ 7 50 Skin. 4 03 Head. 25 00 $86 r.Q The value of the head is ascertained by the number and size of the teeth. Dealers mount especially fine speci mens of the skult but the greater number have no other*value than that of the ivory they contain.?-The Conti nent. SPECIAL. REQUESTS^ ? - * 1. All changes in advertisements ?each us on Friday. 2. "In writing to this office on bnsi: ilways give your name and postoffice Iress. 3. Articles fof publication should be ? ien in a clear, legible hand, and on only or side of the page. , -V _ 4. Ba?iinesfl ietters and communicationi to be published should be ?written on separate F -heete, and the object of each clearly-fafy ?licatod by necessary note when required. JOB PJaiiXTIPCCS DONE WITH NEATNESS AND DISP ATOH TEEMS CASH. TO-MORROW. _ ? 'f wo Le glad or sad, or grave or gay, 'f sobs or laughter fUl our throate to-day,. What will it matter whaa light fadej to gra7 To-morrow? - [f wo have now or love or bitter bate*, f 8 orn or pity on our pleadings wait, The world will be ihe same whate'er our fate To-mori ow. Fret we ti-day with hearts hot to the core iVUh kecust anguish for what comes no more fdla i.B dest the trifle we daplore I . To-morrow. The daises no! alovexjur head; Insensate sleop we in our churchyard bed, Iw ill nothing count how wo to-day have bled To-moriox. ?S. M. Gray. I. HUMOROUS. "Woman's dough-main?The kitchen The Oil City Blizzard supposes that MacJuff was a hen, because ho was ;old to lay on. Hood's "Song of the Shir." was . )riginally played by the wrist band.? Veiv York News, in spite of the electric 'boom ga3 ?ontinues to be no light matter when ihe bill eome3 in. A woman can make no mistake in marrying an editor. She is sure of getting the write man. Oscar Wilde says that he feeds on Himself. He must be fond of wind-,.; pudding.?Troy Times. We frequently hear the expression "bee in a bonnet." "Who ever saw bonnet without a B in it??Boston Star. The czar keeps his crown on a shelf in the pantry. Thus he lays up some thing for a r^igny day.?New York Ad vertiser. The census proves that the number of persons in a family in the United 8tate3 is a small fraction over five. In some families the husband is the 3 mall fraction over. It takes but thirteen minutes to lead an elephant on a train, while it takes twenty for any sort of a woman to kiss her friend good-bye and lose the check for her trunk.?Rome Sentinel. " Yes," said the mother of a daugh ter, " I shall stop Mr. Tommy's.jcalUng without any trouble or* unpleasaut nes3. I shall merely ask him to stop to dinner and then invite him to.-; carve."?Boston Post. A prominent merchant says when he is tired and wants a rest he don't go off on a tour and spend money, but v he just takes his ad. out of the paper. ?;> rt has the-same effect a red" flag hung ? ? ; in front of hts^ila^e^'ildj?ffn^ Five million baseball bats were used in this country last year. Had eaj-J*-?^* been converted into a hoe hahdle; & ~if hoe attached, and the same^v.sc-'i nslj energetically as were the" ball clubSLaB potatoes might have been cheaper now. ?Oil City Blizzard. r --._ Lady (to deaf butcher): "Weih ~Ti ihHTUnil1 'T" .'mil Tin" yuifr? self to-da^^ Sniallbones: ?' Well, I'm pretty wefTused upj murnr~ETery^-g rib's gone; they've almost tore me to pieces for my shoulders,, and I never had such a run on my legs." Philosophers have observed that when one member of a family gets into trouble other members are aimost*3j sur to meet with misfortune before. long. That's the opinion of the small^^H boy, who put powder into his father's pip?, and subsequently got a blowing up, with a shingle accompainmenf^ '. New York Commercial. A Parisian lady called on her milli ner the other day regarding the chi" acter of a servant. The respectable 7 appearance of the latter was beyond questioning. "But is she honest?" asked the lady. " I am not so certain about that," replied the milliner. " I have sent her to you with my bill dozen times, and she has ne} me the money." A bachelor and a spinster,' been schoolmates in youth anTT were about the same age, met in after years, and the lady chancing to remark that "men live a great deal faster than women," the bachelor replied: " Yes, *v Maria; the last time wo met we were each twenty-four years old-? now I'm . over forty, and I hear you haven't reached thirty yet." They never met again. Clarence Fitz-Herbert sends us a beautiful poem beginning, "I will wait for my love at heavven's gate." We think you are about right, Clar ence. People who write that kind of poetry seldom get any further than the gate. You'll probably'continue to wait thero long after the rest of. us - have passed on inside unless you re form and quit writing'poetry and learn to spell heaven with one v.? Burlington Hawkeye. While eating Blue Point oysters on the half-shell in one of the Main street restaurants the other night, a young man?a stranger in the city?felt some hard substance in one of the bi valves. Xot dreaming of such good fortune, he carelessly removed the intruder from his month, and was about to lay it down by the side of his plate, when he discovered that it was a pearl of unusual size?a pearl shirt button. It had dropped .from the cook's cuff as he was serving the oysters.?Bradford Mail. Woir Baits. One use of the whalebone to which the Esquimaux put it, and one case of which came under my personal ob servation, I must not allow to pass unnoticed. Whenever wolves have b;jen unusually predatory, have do-"""--;, stroyed a favorite dog or so, or dug up a cache of reindeer meat just ^vhen it was needed, or in any way have aroused the ire of the Innuit hunter, he takes a ttrip of whalebone about the size of those used in corsets, wraps it up into a compact helical mass like a watch sprirg, having previously sharpened both em Is, then ties it to gether witli reindeer sinew, and phis- . " : ters it with a compound of blood and grease, which is allowed to freeze and forms a binding cement sufficiently strong to hold the sinew string at every second or third turn. This, with a lot of similar-looking baits/i:4 meat and blubber, is scattered/^over" the snow or ground, and the^h?hgry . wolf devours it along with^he others, and when it :'is thawed /out by the warmth of his stomach; it elongates and has the well-known effect of whale bone on'the system, but iiaving the military advantage of interior lines its effects are more^rapld, killing the poor wolf, witli the most~1rfHQi|te agonies, in a eouple of days.?Zieu^& tenant Schwaiba. Great Britain is reducing her national debt each year about as much as the United States reduces it pc month. It is still about twice in amount that of \ the United States.