Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Ml miaa n n i ii wi Hottr ttnee Bali* are Made. “Base balls are like bumau beings— yon never know what’s in them until yon fltt them open,” “There? What do you think of that? A great deal of hard work is required in the manufacture of bftiu, For instance the ball is patented. In the centre there >s a round piece of the bast Pare gmn.Then there is the best stocking yarn. This is stretched first by machinery to its utmost tension. Then it is wound by baud so tight that, as you see, it resembles one solid piece of material. The winding is done by single strands at a time. This makes it more compact. A round of white yarn is now put in, and the whole covered wiih a rubber elastic cement. When this becomes hard it preserves the spherical shape of the ball, and prevents the inside from shifting when the ball is struck. WelL with this cement cov ering that is impossible. Then comes more yarn and finally the cover. The covering for all good balls is made of horse-hide. Long experience has shown this to be the best. Cow or goat-skin will become wrinkled and wear loose. Why, there is so much change in the making of base balls in the last ten years as there is in the game itself. The sewing on the cover is done by hand, and the thread is catgut. Mo one makes a ball complete. One parson becomes proficient in the first winding.then some one else takes it; another man will fit the cover, but there are very few of the workmen who become proficient in the art of sewing the cover. A dozen men in the course of a day will turn out about twenty-five dozen firjtclass balls, and as a rule they make good wages. Sometimes unanafaghirers put carpe 4 list in the balls, but can be easily de tected when the batting beings, because the ball looses its shape. Of coarse, for the cheap ball, such as the boys be gin with, not so much care is exercised in the manufacture. They are made in cups, which revolve by fast moving machinery. The insides are made of scraps of leathei and rubber, and then carpet listing is wound around the ball. It takes a man about ten minutes to turn one out complete. The profes sional ball weighs 5 to 51 ounces, and is 91 inches in curcumference. It is calculated that about 5,000,000 base balls are made each year, and these arc not extravagant figures when it is con sidered that upon every vacant lot in the large cities and upon every village green in the country there are crowds of men and bojs playing away at the ball whenever the weather permits, And yet people say the national game is dyeing out. Strause Story About Santa Anna. Judge Major, of Kentucky, relates the following story of Santa Anna, the Mexican Dictator: “Did yon ever hear,” he said, “that he was a Kentucian?” I confessed that I never had. “Well that is believed by many old**people about Frankfort; I have heard it from boy hood. It is said that Santa Anna, af terward president of the Mexican repub lic, was an illegitimate son of the Nat Sanders, of this country. While a youth, he went to New Orleaus on a fiat boat, and was never afterward heard from. When captured at Sun Jacinto, in 1836, he wa& brought through this place on his way to Washington, and was recog nized by the Sanders, who recog nized him as their illegitimate and long- lost relative. He did not deny it. He spoke English like a Kentuckian, and with Kentucky accent. One of the San ders had determined to kill him on ac count of the death of a relative in the massacre of the Alamo, but abandoned his purpose when he was convinced that they were blood relations. The mother of Evan E. Settle, of Owenton, was a Sanders, and he bears a marked resemblance to the pictures of Santa Anna. Larkin E. Sanders, representa tive from Garroll county to the present general assembly, belongs to the family, as also did the noted George Sanders, who figured so prominently in politics during the administration of Fierce and Bnchanan.” ypollng thw Synteg. Immerse the foretinger of one hand in water at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and then plunge the whole of the other hand into the water with a temperature of 102 degrees Fahrenheit The latter, although two degrees cooler, will be judged to be the warmer of the two, from which it appears that the intensity of the sensation of temperature depends not only upon the relative degree of heal to wh'ch the parts are exposed, but also upon the extent of surface over which it is applied. From this canse a bath which is not uncomfortably warm, when a few fingers are dipped in it, appears scalding hot when the whole body is immersed. The sense of tem perature is likewise, entirely at fault when required to determine which is the wanner of two substances, say a piece of iron and a piece of wood, for if they both have the same temperature, the iron will feel the hotter of the two, because of its being a so much better conductor. A slight diflereuce of tem perature, however, between two sub stances of like nature is easi'y discerned, and we may here describe a simple bnt highly-entertaining trick which is found ed on the fact. The performer, having placed his hat behind him, requests the people present to place in it three or four pen nies. He shakes it np behind him, and then asks some person to take out a penny and closely examine it. He has then to pass it to the others for examination, the lost one pitching it back into the hat again. The pennies are then shaken np, and the pei former now, placing one hand behind him, picks out the penny which has been examined, although throughout the whole operation he has never seen it. When the experiment has been done some two or three times successfully, all sorts of unlikely suggestions are made as to the way in which the feat has been performed, but very seldom tbe right one, which was exceedingly simple. The people, in handling the p 'uny which was selected from the others, make it warm. It is, therefore, easy to pick it out from the others when it has been pitched into the hat again. This sufficiently demonstrates tbe fact that at ordinary temperatures the sense of temperature as localized in the fin gers is sufficiently sensitive to descrimi- nats between several pieces of metal so as to say whioh is the warmest. Bnt for the extremes of hot and cold, touch is thoroughly deceived, a piece of frozen mercury giving a burning sensa tion like a red-hot bar of metal. The touch whioh attains to such perfection in persons afflicted with blindness is readily deceived. This is shown forci bly by the experiment of Aristotle. Cross the index and middla fingers and run them over a marble placed on the on the table with the eyes shut. Under such circumstances one has difficulty in avoiding tbe belief that he is dealing with two marbles imtead of one. The idea of roundness which has been ob tained by a complex judgment, founded on the coalescence of several sensations, is here appealed to, but the nsual con ditions being reversed, we draw a wrong conclusion. The sense of taste may be likewise confounded by altering the conditions, under which the gustatory operation is always carried on. Thus, il the nostrils be held firmly, it is im possible to distinguish between ap plying an onion or an apple to tbe tongue. A flood in Europe. DOMESTIC. Three Iluuared i.o*t Dog*. A few weeks ago, while X. Be er was at Junction, which is on the North ern Pacific Bead, about a mile and a half west of the Big Horn tunnel, a lot of X.’s people, the Crow Indians, took it into their heads that they would like to have a railroad excursion to visit some of their relatives down near Mandan, So X. and two or three other near friends of the Crows went to work and by a liberal use of the telegraph soon effected arrangements for railroad transportation of the Indians and two box cars were pnt at their disposal. Into these oars abont thirty famlies were crowded, and the excursion moved off. Each family had an average of ten dogs, and as no means were provi ded for the transportation of the cani nes those faithful servants of tbe Crow tribe (about 300 of them) were com pelled to walk. They managed to keep up with the procession until Big Hom tunnel was reached, and when the “Fire Wagon” darted into the tunnel the cani nes struck over the hill with the pur pose of heading the train off on the other side. When they reached the opposite end of the tunnel, however, the Indian excursion had already passed and gone out of sight like an odoriferons dream. But the dogs, sap- posing their masters were still in the big hole, remained there for several days, patiently peering into the tunnel opening. Whxh a hundred acre farm keeps a hundred cows the ensilage and soiling tyttems will have to be practiced and no doubt about it A xjttub borax in the water cleanses jvoiy and celluloid hair-brushes. The Dt camber floods in Germany and Austria nave been of far greater violence and extent than meager cable dispatches would indicate. The snow upon the Alps began melting last soon after Christmas, a heavy rain storm set in, and news came that the head waters of the Main, the Danube, the Rhine, the Inn, the Vistula and Oder, the Elbe, Theiss and Weser were rising danger ously. Soon the land bordering upon these rivers was under water for miles; in Bohemia and Upper and Lower Austria the torrents devastated the country; great avalaches blocked the railroads in Styna; and the Danube, fed by its several tributaries, crashed through the dikes and swept away the bridges, inundatmg hundreds of vil lages upon its banks. The immensity of the Danube flood can easily be real ized when it is known that the river rose 500 centimeters above its normal level at Vienna. 668 at Festh and 678 at Fresburg. Near Linz and Festh 75,- 000 acres of cultivated land are still under water, and in many places herds of wild deer, roebuck and smaller game have been driven to the towns like cat tle beiore a prairie fire. In the Rhine provinces of Germany the devastation has been even more frightful. The great plain between Worms and Mann heim is buried under 10 feet of water, in the Reid district near the former town 12 villages are destroyed and 10,000 per.ons destitute. Mainz is threatened, the railroads at Heidelberg are destroyed, and in many other places the dums have been swept away and the fields and villages laid waste. Cologne and the adjacent region is suffering fearfully, houses have fallen by the score at Friesenheim and the people everywhere are suffering for food and shelter. How many persons have been killed is not yet known, but the nomber is doubtless large. . The Pillow Sham. Of course, a pillow sham starched so stiff it will stand alone, is not a very nice thing for a man to jam hia head against when he crawls into bed. Bat there is no question but what a woman can find a thousand and one reasons why the pillow sham should be perpet uated as a thing of beauty. The beau tiful, clean, snowy white pillow shams, looming np at the head of the bed, and standing alone, look very pretty, and the lady of the honse is greatly pleased with them. The men folks also fled them very handy to keep the hair eil off the pillows, so their wives will not complain abont their pillows being all greased oyer with ml. Men can escape all hard feelings liable to be engendered, by neglecting to take off the shams when retiring, and decking out the love ly linen and line lace, used in manufact uring the shams, with choice and frag rant hair oil. And when he gets tired of having his ears sawed off, by coming in contact with the stiff linen, and his cheek worn raw by the starch and lace, he can gently slide the shams to the foot of the bed and jam his feet against them to keep them from getting np in the night and walking all over him, Even the most energetic pillow sham will lose its energy and vital force after being stamped and onunpled at the foot of the bed tinder a man’s feet. The pillow sham is not in any one’s way, to to any great extent; the men can get along with them and the women can’t get along without them, so the pillow sham wfUnot be obliged to go. To Wash Flannel Dbesseh —Boil a quarter of a pound of yellow bar soap in threee quarts of water, slicing the soap into thin shavings, and letting it boil until it is all dissolved. Take a tub of lukewarm water, and add enough of the hot soapaads to make a good lather. Dip the dress in and rub it well, bnt do not rub soap upon it, foi it will leave a white mark. Wring it out with the hands, not with t wringer, because it creases it badly. Wish in another water with a little more soap- ends, if it is much soiled. Then wring it again, and dip into lukewarm water to rinse it, and make it very blue with the indigo bag. Shake it ontthorongh- ly after wringing it, and dry in the shade until damp enough to iron on the wrong side. It must not be dried en tirely before it is ironed. Colored wool en or cotton stockings can be washed in the same way, and rhued in strong salt and water to keep the colors from running, instead of blued water. To Relieve Boils.—Boils and whit lows are relieved or dissipated in their earlier stages by using the tincture of camphor. Dip a finger in the camphor and rub it over the boil; do this eight or ten times and repeat every hour dur ing daylight. For whitlow, dip the fin ger into the camphor and let it remain ten minutes; this often gives immediate relict Repeat every three hours dur ing the day until cored, eating nothing, meanwhile, bnt coarse bread and butter and fruits. Prepare the camphor thus: Put an ounce or more in a vial, fill with alcohol shake it well; some of the cam phor should always bu seen at the bot tom; this ensures a saturated tincture, which is the strongest. Hew to Pbetabe Yeast.—Taka three good sized potatoes, pore them and place them in cool water. Take a small pinch of hops and one quart of boiling water, and boil in a porcelain or enam eled sauce pan and not in tin. Mix a quarter of a cup of sugar with a quarter of a cap of flour, and two tablespoons of salt. Into this mixture grate the pota toes this keeps them from turning dark, and then poor on the boiling hop water and stir steadily. If the potato does not thicken like a thm paste, put it all in a double boiler and cook a trifle till it doc* thicken. Strain the whole, and when lake warm add one onp of old, yet good, yeast. Let it rise until it is toamy and bottle with care. Baked Apple Pudding.—Five moder ate-sized apples, two tablespoonfnls of finely chopped suet, three eggs, three tablespoonfuls of flour, one pint of milk, a little grated nutmeg. Mix the flour to a smooth batter with the milk, add the eggs, which should be well whisked, and put the latter into a well-buttered pie-dish. Wipe the apples, but do not pare thefn; cut them in halves and take out the cores; lay them in the batter, rind uppermost; shake the suet on the top, over which also grate the little nut meg; bake in a moderate oven for an hour, and cover, when served, with sif ted loaf sugar, This padding is also very good with apples pared, sliced, and mixed with the batter. Native Bmad.—Two quarts of sifted flour; mix one tabiespoonful of sugar and one teaspoonful of salt; pnt in one tablespoonful of beef drippings or lard; mix one half of a cupful of home made yeast with one pint of water; if oom- pressed yeast is used, dissolve a quarter of a cake in half cup of water; mix with the pint of water; stir water and yeast mto the floor and when well mixed* torn on the bread board and knead until smooth and tine grained; let rise in a warm place until it is light and spongy; cut it down with a knife and knead it again. Form into loaves and bake in rather a hot oven for forty or fifty min utes. Rxe drops fried are nice for breakfast. One cup of soar milk or buttermilk, three tablespoonfnls of sngar; if butter milk is not used, put one tabiespoonful of melted butter in with the sour milk, one well-beaten egg, one teaspoonful of soda—not a heaping spoonfal, either— and one of cinnamon. Make a stiff bat ter by the addition of rye flonr. This is to be properly dropped by large spoonfuls into boiling lard. If the spoon is first dipped in the hot fat the batter will not “string” from the spoon, but will drop all at once, and make the cakes the wished-for shape. They should be served while worm. A pbetit scent sachet is of satin, eight inches square; the top is of white satin, with the initial of the owner work ed in bine; the bottom is of bine satin, on which a small bunch of daisies is em broidered. There needs to be one thick ness of cotton between the top and bot tom, on which the perfume powder is scattered. The edge is trimmed with laoe two inches wide, very full at the comers, and the lace has for a heading bine satin ribbon plaited in shells. Poet wine jelly for the sick is made by melting one ounce of gelatine in a very little warm water; stir it when en tirely dissolved in one pint of port wine, adding two ounces of sngar, a lump of gum arable the size of a walnut, and a little grated nutmeg. Mix these well, then let them boil for abont ten minutes, the strain in bowls or jelly tumblers, and when cold the jelly will be found and delicious. AGRICULTURE, Caution to BaiFHKUDb.—A not ui com mon emit ioto winch many shepherds are led, is the effort to economize in the item of cured feed during the later fall season: The present unusuall favorable weather offers a more than average temptation to confine the flock to past ire grazing, to the exclusion of tbe grain allowance that under less favorable conditions would be recog nized as indispensable. The fact that sheep will “get along” on grass, so long as it is not covered with snow or all nutri ment frozen out of it, should not be mis taken as conclusive of the economy of re stricting them to such diet. In those lo calities where the rigors of winter compel the oftner to feed hia flock through several months, experience has taught the more observant that at no period ot the 'ceding season does a liberal ration “count” for so much as during the time when It laps over the full pasturage of such seasons as the present. By such a policy immunity is secured from inconveniences, and some times senous damage, that result by tbe sudden change from pasture to barnyard feeding, that is made necessary by tbe ad vent of some unexpected storm. Few perplexities overtake tbe shepherd more annoying than the experiences with a flock suddenly dnven from the pasture, while accustomed to food and habits of winter life. The shyer members stand aloof, while others gorge to their detriment, thus adding the care for sick animals to a round ot labor already replete with annoy ances. The shepherd first exposed to such an experience is to be commisera ted. Tbe one who is the second time a victim, has learned too Utile from expert ence to encourage a hope for success in any undertaking to which ho may devote himself. “Other Worlds than Oors, ,: The Moose When Alone. Canned pineapple can lie greatly im proved by cutting the slices in small pieces, adding mga* to it till it is as sweet as preserves, and letting it boil until the pineapple is clear and almost transparent. It is mnch lees awkward to serve and to eat if cat in email pieces, and il prepared in the way recommen ded no one will suspect yon of serving any but pineapple of your own preserv ing. An excellent recipe for muffins is here given: Four quarts of sifted floor, one oue teacnpfnl of sngar, one teacupful of batter, one cap of yeast, four eggs, a little salt, and two quarts of sweet milk; let this me all night, after mixing thor oughly. Of course the quantity he w mentioned can be reduced, keeping the same proportions. Bake in moffin-riuga in a quick oven, A handsome ornament for the parlor wall consists of a small cabinet in carved wood, the doors of whioh open downward and by means of movable supports form a writing desk. Frequent ly the panels are either painted or pie ces of embroidery are mounted upon them. Some of the most beautiful carving by ladies is carried ont in cedar wood. They are specially adapted for glove boxes and other small articleo. Tables of every shape are to be had for decoration at home, and are covered with jute plush embroidered in raised figures or simply finished off by a deep fringe. How tc Feed Cornstalks.—The rear ing and feeding of animals are receiving, as they shonld, from farmers and herds men in all parts of the country greater at tention every year; and especially is this true of dairymen, whose only hope of gam rests in their obtaining paying yields from their cows. Cornstalks eater large'/ into the fail teed of dairy cows, and how to feed them is tbe important question. Tne common practice is to feed them m the bundle, as but few farmers feel able or willing to use a cutting machine. This feeding m a bundle without any prepara tion, 1 am fully satisfied, is very waste ful, as not only are the hunts lefr, but fre quently near the whole stalk. I have learned from experience that a little brine sprinkled upon stalks once eve ry day before feeding is of material ad vantage in many respects. The weak will cause the cows to consume nearly all, even when fed whole, the flow of milk in creases, the condition of the cows improve and tney show greater contentment Es pecially is this last remark true on cold, windy and rainy days. I find it much better, as a general mle, when it can be done, to feed salt on food instead of feed ing it alone. In no case should more than one day be permitied to pass without brin ing the morning's feed. The brine should not be strong, only enough to turnuh suffi cient salt to the cows. Of course the cows should have access to plenty of water; this brine food will cause them to drink more and thus increase the flow of milk. Let my brothers try this and they will hereafter piace a greater value on cornstalks. T he horticultural editor of the Country Qenthman says that it is well known that wiring or girdling grapevinss, while it Injures the vines, causes the grapes to grow larger,ripen sooner and become poor er in quality. Home experiments were made at the Massachuse is Agricultural College in girdling surplus branches,which were to be afterward cut away. A revol ving knife enta rapidly s ring of the bark a fourth of an Inch wide, just below the bunch of fruit, about midsummer. This treatment was performed on twelve rows of grapes, The enlarged and early fruit sold tor $38 more than the tame amount ot the common or main crop, the labor be ing less ib&n half this sum. No injury has been apparent to the vines so treated, ibe girdled canes being cut away when done with, if, however, many surplus canes were girdled on a vine, an obvious injury would doubtless be the result.There would be no barm in trying the experi ment on vines intended to be dug up. The recent observations made on the planet Venus during her transit across the sun appear to confirm the impression de rived from the last transit, in 1874, that she has an atmosphere not less dense than our own, and aqueous vapor and cloud within that atmosphere. This conclusion would have grieved the late Professor Whewell, who, in his ingenious essay to disprove the plurality of inhabited worlds, took for granted that we “discern no traces of & gaseous or watery atmosphere sur rounding ber (Venus),” and built on this m gative evidence ons of his arguments to prove that in the whole universe the earth is not improbably the only habitable globe. Professor Whewell .did his best to show that tbe earth held a very singular place in wbat might be a very unique solar sys tem ; tbat it occupied wbat he called “the temperate zone” of its own sun’s system, and tbat there is no particular reason to suppose that any other sun has planetary attendants at all. In order to make out the singular position of the earth in its own sun’s system. Professor Whewell was compelled to make the most of the intensi ty of the light and heat in Mercury and ecus, and the most again, of the compar ative cold of Mars. In point of fact, how ever, it is probable that a very slight mod ification of our human organization—even if any structural modification at all of that organization were necessary—would enable creatures of the sane general structure and habits as man to live with ease in either of the planets nearest to the earth, in either Mars, which should, caetcrU paribus, be colder and darker, or in Venus, which snouid cacteris paribus, be lighter and hotter than the earth. We know, to some extent, the configuration of the continents in Mars, and our astronom ers have at times watched the area of the polar snows of that planet increasing with tbe approach ot winter and dwindling with the approach of summer. Of Venus we know much less, the intense brightness of her reflected light being a very unfavor able condition for minute observation. But tbe apparently clear evidence for an atmosphere of a good deal ot density, and for tbe preence of cloud and aqueous vapev 1 in that atmosphere, disposes completely of the late Professor Whewell’s assump'ion that no creature resembling man now has, or could ever have, his abode there. There now seems no reason to doubt that m Venus the conditions of physical exis ence are sucu that either there now may be there, or may have been, or may be in future, a being whose physical existence might, like that of a man and the animal natures nearest to man, exist under some thing closely approaching to those of ter restrial life. The length of the day in Venus is nearly the same, the weight of auy given mass is nearly the same, tbe at mospheric conditions are probably not very different from our own; the. only material differences being probably the length of the year, which is not very much above the half of ours—or, say about seven months instead of twelve— and the amount of light and heat, which unless mitigated by special atmospheric conditions, as they easily might be, would probably be twice as intense as terrestrial light and heat We insist on this analogy, however, only for the sake of those who like the late Dr. Whewell, made the argument from analogy so all-important, though in relation to a question on which, as it ap pears to us, the argument from analogy has really a very slight bearing indeed. There is no reason in the world why spir itual beings, much more like to us in their thoughts than it is at all probable that birds and tortoises are like to us in then- thoughts, should not exist everywhere— in the pure ether, in the hottest flames of the sun, in the dimness of the darkest re cesses of space, in the heat of the volcano, or in the depth of the ocean. Ignore the reasoning from analogy and we can hardly have a less secure basis lor reasoning, where observation is limited as it is in this case, in one minute corner of the nni - verse, and we shall find no more reason why we should confine the Creator’s power to working within conditions closely re sembling our own than there is why we should assume that He will work at all in regions where we have no evidence of that work. Lambar gttttrtlcs. A New Mxteod fob Feksekving Qbaei. A new method for preserving grain, re cently discovered in France, it is claimed, nas proven satisfactory. The cost of pre servation is leas than storage in s granary, and the wheat is safe from fermentation, miects and ciyptogamic vegetation. The U. B. Miller in describing this method, says tbat a sheet iron cistern, which occu pies little space, and holas nearly 800 bushels, and is worked by an air pump witn a pressure guage to indicate the de gree of vacuum, comprises the whole her metic preservation. One important effect which results from the numerous and con tinuous experiments made is, according to the journal in question, that the vacuum not only kills the parasitic inseat and pre vents vegetation, but dries the grain at the same time. After a detention of seven months wheat and flour inclosed in the apparatus during the experiments at Vin cennes, it is reported, were withdrawn in a perfect state of preservation. The Langshaws are black in plumage, with a beautllul beetle green lustre. Thev greatly resemble black Cochins, but are more active, and mature earlier. They seem to fill an intermediate place between the setters and non-setters, as they are rather constant layers and easily broken when desiring to set. In size, they are nearly, if not quite, as large as the Brah mas, and the pullets often begin to lay when six months old. Tbe chicks grow fast, leather from the start, and are very bardy. Aa a ’ reed they compare favora bly with any of '*e others. Milk yielding is in romc occult way con nected intimately with the cow’s nervous organization. If she is happy, contented and comfortable she will do ber best,while the least eiock to ber nervous system up sets tbe whole business. 1 he crack of a whip, the falling of a board,or other shock to the nerves, will reduce tbe yield of milk in a herd very materially, bo tbe removal of tbe calf, or its rough treatment in the dam’s preseace; will sometimes perempto rily stop the flow of milk. Tikis is often attributed to the ill-will of the cow in “bolding up” ber milk, but doctors tell us of simitar results with tbe human race. Potatoxb, when dug m an unripe state, may be at times watery and not fit to ea', but if spread aa thinly as possible in a dry, airy piace, they will in time become as mea ly aa if left to ripen on the ground. Select the finest tubera when harvesting the crop and put them aside for next spnng'a planting. Following this rule for a lew seasons will produce a great improve ment in the quality of your potatoes. When the house is alone by itself, inex perienced persons may believe that it be haves just exactly as it does when there are people in it; but that is a delusion, as y u u will discover if you are left alone in it at midnight, sitting up for the rest of the family. At this hour it is true disposition will reveal itself. To catch it at its best, pretend to retire, put out the gas or lamp, and go up stairs. Afterwards come down softly, light no more than one lamp, go into the empty parlor, and seat yourself at a table, with something to read. No sooner have you done so than ycu will hear chirp, chirp, chirp, along the top of the room—a small Bound, but persistent. It ta evidently the wall paper comiug off; and you decide, after some tribulation,tbat it it does come off you can’t help it, and go on with your reading. Aa you s'.t with your book in your band you begin to he quite sure that some one is coming down stairs. Squak—aquak— squak! What folly! There is nobody up there to come do’vn; but there—nol it ia on the kitchen stairs. Somebody is com ing up. Squak—-snap! Well, if it is a robber, you might as well face him You get the poker, and stand with your back against the wall. Nobody comes up. Fin ally you decide that you are a goose, put the poker down, get a magazine and try to read. There, that’s the door. You heard the lock turn. They are coming home. You run to the door, unlock and unbolt it,peep out. Nobody there! But as jnu linger, the door lock gives a click that make* > ou jump. By daylight neither lock nor stairs make any of those noises unless they are touched or trodden on. You go back to the parlor in a hurry, with a feeling that the next thing you know something may catch you by the back-hair, and you try to remember where you left off. Now, it is tbe table that snaps and cracks as if all the spiritualistic knocks were hidden in its mahogany. You do not lean on it heavily without this result; but it fidgets you, aud you take a easy chair chair and put the book on your knee. Your eyes wander up and dowu the page, and you grow dreamy, when, apparently,the book cases fires off a pistol; at least, a lend, fierce crack comes from the heart of that piece of furniture—so loud, so fierce, tbat you jump to your feet, trembling. You cannot stand the parlor any more. You go up stairs. No sooner do you get there than it seems to you somebody is walking on the roof. If the house is a detached one, and the thing is impossible, that makes it all the more mysterious. Nothing ever ma r ned m the chimney be fore, but something moans now. There is a ghostly step m the bath-room. You and out afterwards that it is the tap drip ping, but you do not dare to look at that time. And it is evident tbat there is some thing up the chimney—you would not like to ask what. If you have gas, it bobs up and down La a phantom dance. If you have a lamp, it goes out in blue explosion. If you have a candle, a shroud plainly en wraps the wick and falls towards you. The blinds shake as If a hand clutched them; and, finally a doleful cat begins to moan in the ceilar. Yon do not keep a cat, and this finishes you. You pretend to read no longer, and, sit ting with a towel over your head and face, and hearing aomething'below go “Shew ! shew! shew! shew!’' like a saw, you be lieve in the old ghost stones. Ten minutes afterwards the bell rings; the belated ones comes home; the lights are lit; perhaps something must be got out to eat Feopie talk and tell where they have been, and ask if you are lonesome. A&d not a stair creaks. No step is heard on the roof. No click at the front door. No bookcase nor table cracks. The house has on its com pany manners—only yi u have found out how it behaves when it is alone. What Tripe la. Occasionally you see a man order tripe at a hotel, but be always looks bard, as though he bated himself and everybody else. He tries to lo:k as though be enjoyed it, but he does not. Tripe is indigestible, and looks like an indiarubber apron for a child to ait on. When it is pickled it looks like dirty clothes put to soak, and when it is cooking H looks as though the cook was boiling a dish-cloth. On the table it looks like glue, and tastes like a piece of oil silk umbrella cover. A stom ach that is not lioed with corrugated iron would be .turned wrong side out by the smell of tripe. A man eating tripe at a hotel table looks like an Arctic explorer dining on his boots or chewing pieces of frozen raw dog. Yon cannot look at a man eating tripe, but be will blush and look aa though he wanted to apologize and con vince you be is taking it to tone up hia system. A woman never eats tnpe. There is not money enough in the world to hire & woman to take a corner of a sheet of tripe in her teeth and try to pull off a piece. Those who eat tripe are men who have had their stomachs play mean tncks tricks on them, and they eat tripe to get even with their stomachs, and then they go and take a Turkish bath to sweat it out of the eyttem. Tripe has a superstition handed down from a former generation of butchers, who sold all the meat and kept tripe for themselves and the dogs; but doga of the present day will not eat tripe. You throw a piece of tripe down in front of a dog, and aee if he does not put hia tail between his legs and go off and hate you. Tripe may have a value, but it is not aa food. It may be good to fill mto a burglar proof sate, with tbe cement and chilled steel, or it might answer to use as a breast-plate in time of war, or it would be good to use aa bumpers between cars, or it would make a good face for the weight of a pile-driver, but when you come to smuggle it ioto the stomath you do wrong. Tripe 1 Ban! A piece of Turkish towel cooked in ax'.e-grease would be pie compared with tnpe. One by one, the more precious metals are found deposited in this country, and in some cases, aa in nickle, the unsuspec ted supplies ptove greater in volume than the previous yield of all other countries combined. The latest of these discoveries is that of Vinadiuin, which bis been takm from an Arizona mine in larger paying quantities than ever before known. Mt it animals eat iu proportion to their weight, under average conditions r* age, temperature and fatness. At a hotel*in the Aduondacks, where the Edison eltc ric light is used, the boil er for the dynamos is fired exclusively with wood, which costa twenty five cents » cord. The company aieerta the first night the lamps were lighter*, one hundred and twenty-five lamps were run six hours with only ouc-quarter cord of wood, at g cost of six and one fourth cents for fuel. Do yon never look at yourself when you abuse another person. Farm Insurance. The buildings and personal property of farmers are much less liable to be destroyed by fire than simtiar property in cities and villages. Occasionally fires spread through the country as was the case in Michigan a year or two ago; but such inssances are too rare to be taken into the account of com men farm risks. The calamity in Michi gan was not, in fact, a fire spreading from one farm to another, but a forest fire, which incidentally took such farm build ings, crops and other destructible proper ty as lay in its path. Such cases as this hardly constitute a good argument for farm iuturance, since in so widespread a conflagration the company insuring, unless largely supported elsewhere, may go down, while the supposed insurance becomes worthless when it is most needed. There can be no doubt that farmers are and have been land much tooheavi'y for insurance in proportions to their risks. The experi ence of the Grange insurance companies proves this. From the reports of their secretaries we learn tbat while the rate is only fifty cents per hundred dollars for five years as compared with sixty to sev enty-five cents per hundred for firee years charged by stock oon panics, yet the Grange compsniog are coislantly accumu lating a surplus. To be sure these Grange companies lake ouly the best risks; tbat is, none except members of the order can be insured; but tbe fact tnat at tne low rates charged they are adding to their reserves shows that in times past, farmers have been taxed far too high in this respect. In one one town it is reported that an insur ance agent in twenty years collected $12,- 000 in premiums from farmers, and In all that time less than $200 had been returned for property destroyed, while this sum was much less than the local agents' comm is- sion for collecting premiums and making disbursements. southern uotton Kills. During the year of 1882 tho Inml manufacturers of Williamsport enjoj a season of great prosperity. They I gan the present year with every prom of increased business. Excellent prii prevailed last year and as tbe floods the river came at the right time a were of the right height all the availal stock of logs in the woods was succe fully floated down to the boom and mi factored into boards daring the snmm The shipping books of the railroad oo: ponies show that 202,881,000 feet lumber were sent to market from liainsport during the year. The tral of the entire West Branch Valley fo< up a total of 332,963,000 feet. To cai the Williamsport lumber to market 2 780 cars and boats were required, a the entire traffic of the valley called ii service 26,168 cars and boats. At the opening c* 1882 a careful i count of stock showed 157,537,838 f< of pine and 27,831,437 feet of hemlo on hand in the lumber yards of the W Hamsporl nianufaolurers. The stock hand at present has not yet been take but the best informed lumbermen l lieve that it will not varyjmuoh from th of the previous year. The stock that w be cat in the woods this winter ai floated to the boom in the spring w run from 270,000,000 to 800.000,000 feet. The highest carried over by tbe ma ufauturers at any time in twelve yea was in 1874, when it was 220,962,922 fe and the smallest amount was in 187 when it reached only 50,550,603. In 1882 the boom company raft< out ant! delivered to their owners l,36t 463 logs, which measured 220,126,9! feet. As the season was favorable wai entirely cleared of stock. Whi the boom and the mills are inseparabli constant war is going on between then When first established years ago, tl loom company was allowed $1.25 p< thousand feet toll on pine and $1 o hemlock. • This was considered too tug by the manufacturers, and, after mac lord work, the Legislature was indue3 to reduce the tolls tc $1 all around < which figure they now stand. Th twenty-fiye saw-mills of Williamspoi employ an average of about one handra men each, at an annual cost of abor one million of dollars. The season last eight months in the year and tbe avei age pay per day is $1.75. The mill cut an average of 250,000,000 feet pe annum and the largest has a capacity o 3(5,000,000 annually. The entire pro duct of the season is worth $18 per thou sand on an average, which give a tota of $4,500,000 for the raw lumber maun factured. Fatherly Advice. One of the veterans on Wall street was the other day giving some fatherly advice to one of his clerks, about to b< married, and in closing his sermon h< said: “Directly after the ceremony there will be a banquet, of course. Whet you? wife tarns her plate she will find i check for $50,000 under it.” “Do yot really think so?” “Oh, I know it; that'i the prevailing style now-a-days. The check will be passed around and finally given to you to pocketa” “And next day I will draw the money on it.” “Oh, no, you won’t.” “Why not?” “Be cause there won’t be any. Don’t make a dolt of yourself by rushing to the bank.” “But I thought—" “No matter what yon thought. Save the cheek to frame and hang np. When 1 was mar ried thirty years ago, my wife found one under her plate. I’ve got it yet I thought too much of her father to mor tify his feelings, and I know be has al ways respected me for it That’s all, my son. H run you short on*your bridal tour, telegraph me.” A Temple Of Solla Rook. Statistics just publisked show that South Carolina now has 27 flourishing rotton mills, with 4,120 looms and 180,721 spindles, and that tbe business yields an average net profit of twelve per cent In 1880 there were in the State 18 mills, with 1,933 koma and 65,938 spindles. These figures show an extraordinary progress in this important industry, and the fact that nine new mills were chartered at the recent session of the Legislature in dicates a striking growth of tbe business in the tuture. In undertaking to manu facture its great staple instead of sending it to English and New England nniis the South has entered a field of industrisl ac tivity which promises to prove a most im portant source of prosperity. Nearness of its mills to its cotton fields is an advantage which in time must tell strongly in favor of the 8 iuth in the competition with its distant competitors. Silk Growing,- Hungary is becoming quite a silk growing country. From statistics pub lished a short time ago, it appears that in 1861 there were 2976 producers, who turned out 41,537 kilogrammes of co coons, which realized not less than 41,- 816 florina. On the profits there has been established, with State aid, a model school, which promises to give a well-directed impetus to the silk grow ing industry. The temple of Dambula, Ceylon, is carved entirely out of stoue, and there are seven eaves hollowed ont of the rock, stairs roughly hewn up the side of it. These cav.s are grotesquely painted witb the chief incidents of the history of Ceylon. In the first one there is a sta tue of Budilah, reposing full length, which is sixty feet long, and all carved out of one block of stone. Before it on the table are placed offerings of flowers, candles, camphor, incense, etc. In the other caves there are immense figures of ancient kings; they are larger than life size and are painted in the most varied shades of yellow, slashed with red and green. Their faces have much the same features as are represented on wooden Dntoh dolls, and have about as mnoh ex pression. The walls and ceilings are decorated with ,rough paintings repre senting battles, tournaments, elephant hunts «ud religious processions. The door of the temple is locked with a mas sive silver key, which must weigh at least two pounds. A recent correspondent of Nature is very much worried about the earth’s at mosphere, which me says baa become so polluted by the burning of coal that in the year 1900 all animal life upon the globe will cease, killed by carbonic dioxide. An other correspondent, joining this prophet of evil, shows that, while most of the gas is washed out of the air by ram, some pro ducts of combustion (or rather incomplete combustionjas hydrogen.and the hydrocar bons, remain. Ot these unburned gases 100,000,000 tons have escaped into the air within thirty years. Wbat will be the resulta of th s accumuhtnon? According to Frofessor Tyndall, hydrogen, marsh gaa and ethylene have the property in a very high degree of absorbing and radiating beat. From this we may conclude, says the correspondent, that tbe increasing pol lution of the atmosphere will have a mark ed influence on the climate ol tbe world. The mountainous regions will be colder, the arctic regions will be colder, the trop ica will be warmer, and throughout the world the days will be warmer and the nights colder- In the temperate zone the winter will be colder, and winds, s'Grms and rainfall greater. In his selar researches Prof. Langley finds tbat the absolute color of the photo sphere is bine, and that the maximum energy in tbe visible spectrum is in the region of the orange.