Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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i ' -. "-Of '/ STRIVE ON. "What though an undertaking Reach but a fruitless end, Wouldst thou, thy toil forsakiug, To disappointment bend? Droop not beneath disaster, More sternly face the gale! Then yet mayst prove a master, And o'er calm waters sail. ?Melville Milne. A LINE FENCE. "If there ain't them hens again,1' said Elias Long, setting down the milk-pail on the kitchen porch with a jerk. The stout, pleasant-faced woman to whom he spoke paused in the doorway with her fcare arras twisted into her calico apron, and regarded the offenders mildly. They were straggling through one of the numerous gaps in the broken-down fence which separated Mr. Long's garden from that of his neighbor, Alvin Talcott ?a procession of nine, clucking in a crooning way and stepping high. They came on with composed deliberation, pausing among the cucumbers with a contemplative air. skirting the radishes after a dissatisfied survey, and settling down at last among the tomatoes with a choms of victorious chicks. Tt ain't going to do,"'said Mr. Long, wiping a disturbed face with his old red silk handkerchief. "I ain't going to stand it." "It ain't likely he's thought of it," said his wife, tranquilly. 4iHe can't think of nothing but that pesky croquet business," rejoined Mr. Long, jerking his head toward his neighbor's yard, from which the sound of voices and the click of mallets proceeded. 4'I ain't going to stand still and get ate out of house and home by nobody's hens, if you be." "un, laws, filias: 3irs. Long began, in easy remonstrance; but lier husband had seized an old tin dipper from the porch-shelf, and was making for the tomato-patch as fast as his sixty years would permit. There was a wild cackling and scattering as he threw his dipper into the mi.lst of the scratching flock, pursued : them unrelentingly to the furthest possible ! point, and leaned exhaustedly against I the sunken gate of the dilapidated fence. j It was sunken with the weight of the j many friendly chats held across it since the long-ago period of its erection; chats held at all times of day and upon all sub- J jects?politics, mowing-machines, fer- ; tilizers, sewing societies, crochet patterns, ; raised cake recipes, etc. 31r. Talcott's croquet-ground was be-! fore him. Mr. Talcott himself stood near, . leaning the weight of his small and wiry ! person on his mallet; his hat over one ear, ; his cheerful, round face shining with I m eagerness, his whole attitude expressive w of watchful and profound absorption. I His eyes were fixed upon the long fig- i r ure of Bart Collieut, the champion i I croquet - player of the town. ! f,' who stood at the other end of the ground in the act of striking. ! Old Dr. Blair, upon whose ball he was preparing to operate, regarded him seriously from his retirement on the well- , stone; little Mr. McQuirk, who had step- 1 ped across from his grocery to take a fourth hand, and who was keeping an eye on that edificc, fidgeted about iu nervous apprehension and dangerous prox- j imity to the upraised mallet. Mr. Long surveyed the scene with dis- j pleasure. He had, originally, strongly i disapproved of Mr. Talcott's croquet- 1 ground. He had not been sure that cro- ; quet was not on a level with "keerds" and gambling; and that a deacon of the | church and a member of the town council should countenance and encourage such iniquity was a subject for grave reflection. From this?after frequent glimpses and occasional considerations of the game, , over the fence?he had softened to the 1 opinion that it was a waste of time and a pack of foolishness; falling gradually into the habit, despite his convictions, of i observing it regularly?graduating from the fence to Mr. Talcott's doorstep, and thus acquiring a tolerable knowledge of its baleful methods. He had even been known to manifest an interest in the I to tender advice in a crisis, to give inion upon a disputed point, to n applause of a good stroke. I e had always considered that his i ce was something ol a reproof and j nt. Just now, as he stood frown-! wn the long bewicketed ground, j s; could have convinced him that i r ever retreated in the least from jimal attitude of rigorous disapleclare for it!"' said Mr. Talcott, Lgly, as the doctor's ball came h into the corner; "we're getting] long! Come in," he went on affably, I 1T? T L kTi. 1 1_^ ^ i.\ nmw lu lur. jjung. n iooksus muugu HHnHK "em this time, eh?" HHH^^ViOng shifted his position. jHBBHou'U have to keep them hens of mBHHnn to home,'' said. "They're spoiling SEK^ garden jest about as fast as they can ^Hroanage it." Mr. Talcott's smiling face hardened. It ' was not the first time his neighbor had mentioned the hens; though never hitherto with so much decision. "I don't really know as it's any of my concern," he said; 4'you can't jest expect for me to be chasing hens everlastingly." '*! don't know but what you better be chasing hens than wasting time over this here," responded his neighbor, surveying the croquet-ground with sternness in his long-featured face. jVIr.Talcott'ssmall, bright eyes snapped. i 'You h'ain't no call, as I know of, to give no opinion whatsoever," he retorted Mr. Long turned his eyes upon his irate countenance. He was slower to anger than his neighbor. "About them hens," he said; ''I rutlier guess this line fence better be fixed uj>; needs it. They couldn't get in then unless they should go round bv the orchard, and that ain't likely." "I h'aint been calculating to lay out anything on fences jest at present," said Mr. Talcott, bracing himself on his short legs defiantly. uThe laws allows," rejoined his neighbor "that a man's obliged to pay j half toward fixing up a fence that's been complained of." "I hadn't been calculating to lay out do money on fences," Mr.Taleott repeated, his voice rising to a sharp pitch. Mr Long's thin face grew grim. "I don't know as I ever heard that the law makes exceptions of people that are a little clus," he observed. Mr. Talcott gasped. His hard, round cheeks were red with resentment; his sharp eyes blazed. ''Your strike, Talcott," said Mr. McQuirk, shortly; he had spent several moments in aiming for the middle wicket, and had failed to go through. "You better jest think over about this fence," said Mr. Long, as he turned stiffly away. Mrs. Talcott had come out of the house with a little bowi in her hands; a thin woman, with pleasing remains of sandyhaired prettiness. \ * , v - ;. ^ "I want you to take in some of my rising to Hannah," she said. They had known each other by their first names for some fifty years. When Mrs Long opened the kitchen door at 6 o'clock the next morning, and stood looking out at the early August day in the moment before the fried pork had sizzled itself quite brown, and the coffee come to aboil?her faculties cencentrated themselves upon an unexpected circumstance just beneath her eyes. ' Elias," she .said, "he's tearing down the line fence. He's got .Tob Dwyer helping him." She was devoid of suspicions concerning the fact; her voice ' was merely inquiring. j Mr. Long came to the door rather slowI lv. He stood there rubbing his chin | doubtfully; and then went down the : steps, and toward his neighbor's yard. Mr. Talcott was working energetically. : A pile of worm-eaten posts, pulled up by j the roots, and broken pickets, lay before I him. A little further down Job Dwyer i was amassing a similar heap. { Mr. Talcott appeared unaware of his j neighbor's presence. He snapped oil anI other picket without speaking. He wore j a forbidding look which set strangely on ; his ordinarily good-humored face. : "I thought likely you'd think better of ; it," Mr. Long observed, with his eyes j fixed warily on the other. "This fence ' has been wanting fixing for quite a spell, j I don't know as it's worth while tearing ' it down: 1 thought, mebbe, a little fixi ing up'd do it. But I'm willing to do ' my share, if you be calculating to build ! a new one.1' After an unresponsive pause: ! "you're calculating to build a new one, I I s'posc!'' j "Yes, I be.'' Mr. Talcott rejoined, with i acrimonious promptness. "Jest fetch up ! that crowbar, Job. This post seems to a; took root." i Something in his voice shook his | neighbor's composure. But he carried 1 off his discomfiture creditably. | "Well," he said, "it'll be a good thing. I s'pose it ought to have been done bei fore." He pulled a grass and chewed it , undauntedly for two or three minutes be fore he went into the house. ''Well?1'said his wife, as she set the dish of pork ou the table. 'He'sset out to build a new line fence," said Mr. Long, taking his seat and shoving his knife up kand dosvn between the tines of his fork. His wife turned to look at him. Her sharp intuition rooted out the dark side of the statement. ''You hain't had words with him Elias?" she said, a quick alarm in her pleasant face. "Now you didn't have no trouble with him yesterday about them hens?" "I told him," said Mr Long, reaching for the coffee pot, "his hens had been making tollable free in ray garden, and the fence better be fixed up. If he's a a mind to fiare up like a fool, I don't know as it's any of my concern." He took a swallow from his cup. His wife watched him wistfully. She looked dazed. "You h'ain't ever had no trouble with him before," she said. She did not eat any breakfast. Mr. Talcott and Job Dwver worked fast. By night the old fence had been demolished and carted into the woodliouse, and new boards stood leaning against the well stone. By noon the next day the posts and scantlings were np and a yard of the fence done. Mrs. Long got up from the dinner table to look at it. and tnrned a blank face upon her husband. "Ellas." she said, ''he's got it more'n two yards liigh.?' Mr. Long stared at her. Then he recovered himself. "It don't make no sort of difference to me how high he's got it," he snapped. "I don't know what to make of it," she said, coming back to the table, anxiously. "I don't know why a little low picket like the old one wouldn't done jest, as well. You could look right through it jest as though there wasn't nothing there; and it was handy to hand things across." She went about the house that day ! -with an uneasy apprehension in her face. "I don't know what to make of it," she kept thinking, in a troubled way. She knew by the next night. The new line fence was done. It was seven feet high. There was nothing to be seen across it except the upper half of Mr. Talcott's house, the tops of the trees and the barn-roof. It rose tall and stern and forbidding. And there was no gate. It was a hostile, uncompromising barrier. It was an effective mbnument to Mr. Talcott's wrath and resentment. The summer passed on into the fall, and the fall became raw and windy, and eventually snowy. | Mr. Talcott and Mr. Long did not , speak to each other when they met in the street or the postoffice or the black I smith shop; they passed each other grimi lv. "When Mr. Talcott was appointed to ' the school board, of which Mr. Long was I already a member, he sent in a resignation. When Mr. Long was put on a I church committee of which Mr. Talcott ' was one. he refused to act. 'it became rapidly known that the two i-old neighbors were "not on speaking j terms;" and the causes and circumstances of the rupture were not a mystery. Peo' pie came on varying pretexts to look at the fence, from one side or the another, j and hear the story in detail. Often they i went thence over to the other side, and ! listened with interest to the complemental , version. The whole affair, perhaps, was j welcomed as a break in the monotony of . the general amicableness. ! It was known, too, that Mrs. Long ! and Mrs. Talcott were not active particij pants in the quarrel. Their old pleasant companionship seemed virtually ended; j their backyard intercourse was necessarily cut off. and they had ceased to run in of an evening, isut tnis was oecause I neither felt "free to enter her neighbors i house, as matters stood; and because, in : their timid womanly sufcmissiveness, j they obeyed the unspoken commands of | their husbands rather than face the dis| pleasure which would have followed a defiance of them. j They smiled when they met each other; they lingered in the church vestibule to j exchange good-morning. Once Mrs. Long j sent in a dish of fresh fried cakes by a neighbor's boy. He told her that Mrs. Talcott had burst out crying. She had emptied the dish, and sent it back full | of apple sauce. The autumn days tilled the air with : the dim blue vapor and not unpleasant i odor of bonfire smoke. Mr. Talcott was late with his. He had put it off till his fall clearing was done?the garden freed of the dried and empty bean vines, and raked off; the weeds pulled up which had flourished powerless for harm during the last month or two, and which now stood black and frozen; a few dead bushes cut down, and the fruit-trees trimmed here and there. It was late in November when the pile lay ready, low down in the garden in a corner of the plundered potatopatch. In some of its rough hollows lay the remains of a thin snow. Mr. Talcott lighted it directly after / supper. Now and then he replenished it; at 8 o'clock it was still burning. He sat down on an old stump to look at it as it leaped and flickered itself out, lighting up a broad space around it and shining on the high fence. His wife had come out with a shawl over ! her head and watched it a few minutes, 1 and gone in. I A spark from the subsiding fire snap; ped into a little pile of dried stalks half j a rod distant, and they flamed up. A twig took fire from them and burned to its end, and a loose splinter blazed in its turn. He watched the curious little line of light as it ate its flickering way along. There was a small deposit of dead leaves drifted up against the tall fence; they took the alarm, and glowed and crackled smartly. And then the flames mounted up, and grew broader and redder?the fence had caught fire. Mr. Talcott got up and walked over to it. Then he turned, with scarcely the haste which might have been looked for. and started for the pump. He seemed rather to linger on the way; when ho reached it. he stood for a moment without doing anything in particular before j he filled a wooden pail, which lay near, and went back with it. The fence was flaming brightly; but he stooped to pick out a chip which had got stuck into the sole of his boot, and tied the old woolen muffler he wore around his neck with hands which were not quite steady. Then he peered all about him, in an oddly guilty way, emptied his pail of water on the ground, and went and sat down on the stump again. He looked cold and cross and uneasy, and anything but heroic; but there was anew-found warmth within him. There was quite a crowd about the nlarn hnlf an hour Inter, looking at the blackened remains of the line fence? several men, attracted hy the flames, and a few women hastily wrapped up. Mr. Talcott had a good deal to say j about the way it had happened. He I said a bonfire was a plagued thing?you never knew what it was going to do; you couldn't feel safe with one if you didn't watch it every minute. He dwelt on the inefficacy of water when once a fire had got started, and pointed to the empty pail, where it lay on the ground, in conclusive proof of the point. Mr. Long had come out and watched the conflagration from a discreet distance. But he had drawn gradually closer, till he finally stood poking over the warm cinders with one foot. Mr. Talcott stood near by. They did not look at each other for a moment. Then the latter spoke, in a voice made high and sharp by the greatness of the effort. "Went down jest like paper," he said. "I guess there couldn't anybody a-stopped it. I couldn't do anything against it?nothing at all!" He felt that he regained by this some of the dignity he had lost in his own conception; he looked relieved. His neighbor did not reply directly. The darkness hid his softened perturbed expression, and he was not the perI son to make it manifest. His tone, when i ' * ^ -l 1 I- I ne spoKe, was composed ana even con- i descending. "According to law," he said, "I s'pose I'm called on to put up the next one. I s'pose I might do it any time; I ain't so terrible busy jest as present." "Well," said Mr. Talcott, looking down the garden, "I ruther guess you better build a picket. I guess a picket 'd do full as well. You h'ain't heard how old Lem Pearson is, have you?"? Emma A. Opper. The Peasant in France. Judgingfrom the outward aspect of the well-to-do peasant proprietor, and from his mode of life, no casual observer would ciedit him with possessing surplus pence, and cortainly would never dream of his keeping a banking account. His daily fare is of the most meagre description. For breakfast he and his family usually partake of bread, with the magnette, a preparation of small salt fish, such as anchovies, etc., sometimes varied "with a species of bnked batter, I made of oil and flour, called la castagnace. For dinner he often has stockfish (a staple article of food) or vegetablesoup and salad; and for supper a preparation of lentils, beans, or other vegetables, which later, in summer, are frequently eaten raw. During the hot months dry bread and some raw tomatatoes often form the entire meal of many a family. Macaroni and other Italian paste,though much appreciated, is seldom partaken of except as a treat. But onions and garlic supply all deficiencies in the peasant's menu, and he and his dwelling literally reek with the powerful odor of the last named esculent. Coffee is too expensive to be used except most sparingly. The good wife roasts as well as grinds the coffee beans herself, and the steaming cup is not unfrequently made perfect for his palate by the insertion of a clove of garlic. His drink, when it is not water, is an excessively thin, sour wine; but it must not be supposed that such a luxury is indulged in every day. When he comes down into the town he will permit himself to be convivial with a friend to the extent of a glass of wine costing one sou. Rabbits are most extensively kept, and during the summer (a period of comparative leisure for the farmer in this part of the world) visits are exchanged among the peasantry on their champaignes, as their holidays are termed. Then are inaugurated the fetes au lapin. At these dinner parties one rabbit is slaughtered by the host and serves to flavor the macaroni and vegetable stew with which the company is regaled. These entertainments are usually paid f 1 *1. ~ minifo fvnm tAWTl fir iur uy U1U l iUUCl guwio null! >u f. U| if not, there is sure to be a formal return. Meat, such as beef and mutton, is rarely eaten, and it may be doubted whether it be tasted, upon an average, once a month by each member of the community. Pigs are kept, but not commonly. Bacon and pork, which is of an inferior quality and not well cured, is not eaten to any appreciable extent. The average expenditure of the peasant freeholder upon his food has been accurately computed. It amounts to the astonishingly small sum of only four sous (twopence) per diem. This sum must be understood to refer to a family, say, of four or five, and where the children are under ' the age of seventeen or eighteen years.? 1 National Ueoieip. A Nevada Borax Field. Teel's marsh, in Nevada, is the most productive borax field on the Pacific coast. Its deposits cover ten square miles of surface, and it is said to include chemically pure common salt, borax in three forms, sulphate of soda and carbonate of soda. The basin of Nevada, in which it is situated, is covered in many parts with dry, effervescent salts, washed in course of ages from the soda feldspar of the volcanic rocks and ridges of yellow lava which cover the country for miles. The waters of the lakes are heavy, appear like thin oil,smell like soap, possess great detersive qualities, are caustic as potash, j and easily saponify.? Winnemuca Silver I State. . '.a." ;- ' \ V". , ' - - . " "chased by dogs. HOW ESCAPED CONVICTS ARE PURSUED IX THE SOUTH. Remarkable Keenness of Sccnt?Distinguishing One Man Among a Hundred?Taught to Bay But Not to Attack. "While at Oldtown I saw a race between a convict and the bounds. A gaunt convict,, long of leg and flank, was selected for the run. He was told to put off quickly, circle in the woods, take a swift run over fields, roads and thj-ough every squad of convicts he could find in his way. This he did. The hounds were then loafing about the stockade yard, as listless a lot of dogs as ever were seen. ''I'm tempted," said Mr. Williams, "to let the convict ride a horse for a mile or two after he has run awhile. I have had dogs trail a eonvict on horseback four miles, and then take the track where he j jumped from the horse." By this time; the flying convict was a small speck on i the broad fields, and in a moment more | 4-Via r\r>ivrvn onrl wnc 11UU LLlCltUU 11U U liiu liVl u?VM UUV4. T?U4 j gone, as if, indeed, he had found that: liberty for which his soul panted," and had gone as the strong winged birds go when they vanish in the blue ether. r In an hour we mounted our horses. The hounds were still loafing about in the sunshine. Suddenly Mr. Williams, squaring himself in his saddle, blew j three quick, short blasts on the cow's j horn that hung at its side. As if by j magic, the hounds awoke and charged j at his saddle?eiiger, baying, frantic. " Nigger !" he said scntentiously. Like the wind they were off, nose to the ground, tails up, circling like beagles. Larger the circles grow, the hounds silent as specters, eyes and nose eating the earth for its secret. "They will pass over the tracks of convict squads, but will open on the first single track they find. If it is the wrong track, we will simply sit still. They will run it a hundred yards or so, and. noting our silence, will throw it off again. When they get i the right track, we will halloo and start after the hound that has it. The others will join him and the race is opened." At last a red hound, careering like mad across the field, halts suddenly, tumbles j over himself, faces about, noses the I ground eagerly, lifts his head, j "Aaooow u" aqd is off like an arrow from a bowstring. "That's the j track," shouts Williams, and after the howling hound we go. The other dogs ! join in pell mell at first, then each hound | true to the track, in full cry and at a rat- j tling gait. Away off to the left Captain j .Tflmpq palls nttpntion to a movincr sneck against the sky. ' 'That is the convict! circling hack to camp," he said. On the dogs went, keen as the wind, inexorable j as fate, following the track of the con-; vict as true as his own shadow. Across ! the tracks of hundreds of others along high roads, ovar fields, through herds of cattle, by other convicts that smiled; grimly as they passed, the hounds went, j holding the track of the flying convict j where it had been laid as light as thistle i on the firm earth, but where it left the ! tell tale scent all the same. Nothing i could shake them off?nothing check their j furious rush. Over other tracks made by j convicts wearing shoes from the same j last and same box they went without | hindrance, led by some intangible mira- j cle of the air, straight on a single trail. "Now we'll see them wind his scent ' fifty yards away," said Williams, as he ; neared a patch of forest. Close to this was a squad of convicts. These we had sent through the woods an hour before, i We had made "trustees," walking singly, j touch every bush and tree. Then the con-! vict we were trailing was run through, j making a half circle, with at least fifty j yards' radius. The hounds entered the , forest at a hustling pace, a small red dog i leading. Suddenly the leader faltered for an instant, with nose in air, then burst with fierce crv to the left, ran ob liquely for full fifty yards, with head up, j when he took up again the track of the j convict, and lowered his head to the I ground. He had simply made a short j cut across the semicircle, having caught scent of the convict on the bushes more than 100 feet away. I am aware that this | is incredible to those who have never' seen it. I cannot explain what it is that | the flying man, clad and shod as a hundred others, fed on the same food,chained ! daily to the same chain, and sleeping iu the same bunks at night, imparts to a : yielding twig touched by his clothes so j that it attracts a hound fifty yards away, j But it certainly does just that. The last test was now coming. We were moving toward a squad of convicts at work in a cotton field. We had sent! the fugitive convict through this squad. ! We had then made them walk in a double circle around him. They then crossed and recrossed his tracks, many of ' them wearing exactly such shoes as he j wore. One hour later the hounds struck this point. There was not an instant's j pause. There was no deviation, no let I up in the pace. Through the labyrinth j of tracks the hounds went, as swallows i through the air, hurrying inexorably on : the one track they had chosen. The end was now near. The convict, having run his race, was seen leaning j against a tree and watching the hounds j plunging toward him. "Won't he climb [ the tree?" I asked. "No, the hounds | are trained to simply bay the convicts j when they come up with them. Other-: wise the convicts would kill them, i By this time the hounds had sighted i him. They halted about twenty yards i away from the tree against which he j stood and bayed him furiously. Pretty ! music they made and not deeper than I j heard often and again under a 'possum tree. Mr. Williams called them off and j the convict came forward. "Dem pup- I pies isdoin' mighty well.Cap'n," he said, j grinning, and as he lazily swung by on ; his way to the stockade. These dogs are not bloodhounds. I i doubt if there is a bloodhound in Geor- i gia, though two arc reported near Car- i tersvillc, descended from a pair owned by Colonel Jeff Johnson in the days of slavery. The Oldtown dogs are fox hounds of the Redbone breed,trained for several generations to hunt men. They are never tempted with- other game. They arc neither tierce nor powerful, and !irr? rcliml on snlflv tn trail till' convict I and load his pusuers to his lair.?Atlanta Constitution. A Sad-Eyed Man's Effusion. A sad-eyed young man handed this one in over the back fence the other morning: As life Is full of woes and woes And death is not much letter, I'd marry a girl with a million, straight? If her dad would only lot her. ?Merchant- Tra veler. Nothing is more silly than the pleasure some people lake in "speaking their minds." A man of this make will say a rude thing J' >:* the mere pleasure of saying it, when an opposite behavior, full as innoeeut, might have preserved his friend or made his fortune. ' "I r V;. V-. ' ' : "V-: (- . r !-&S' ' > *": ' ' ' ' . V ? ' ? ! FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS. The farming slaves among the Romans worked with fetters on the feet. Georgia has a new wonder, a piece of marble, the veins of which form the perfect outline of a woman's figure. An old man of New York makes a living by selling, on Broadway, at three to five cents each, peach stones which he has carved into various fantastic shapes. Two races of men are dying out. the Laplanders, who number 30,000, and the Maoris of New Zealand, reduced from 100,000 to 45,000 since the days of Captain Cook, and likely to be extinct by the year 2000. The childish sport now called blind man's buff was known by various names in old times, such as hood-wink, blindhob, etc. It was termed hoodman blind, because the players were once blinded with their hoods. "He is a poor cook who cannot lick his own fingers." Under a variety of forms this proverb is found in different countries. The Italians say: "He who manages other people's wealth does not go supperless to bed." The Dutch, too, sav: "All officers are greasy," that is, something sticks to them. The market place, the agora, was in ancient Greek cities commonly of an irregular form; when possible it was surrounded by colonnades. In more recent settlements care was taken to provide a rectangular space for the purpose, in which double porticos of considerable extent were built for shelter in bad weather. The art of sculpture in wood seems to have been native among the early Greeks, carved idols soon appearing as substitutes for those stones and trunks of J- ?1-5 -1- J2 i. i ? trees which were m rust woisuipuu us divine symbols. These were frequently so old that no account could be given of their origin, and they were consequently said to have fallen from the skies. At Americus, Ga., a large red-tailed hawk suddenly pounced on the farmhouse cat, which was enjoying a nap on the sunny side of the barn. The hawk stuck his talons deep and ascended with his prey. When they came to earth again, both were dead. The entrails of the cat were torn out, and the hawk's head was bitten through. The hawk measured fodr feet nine inches from tip to tip of wings. In the library connected with the State department at Washington is the original copy of the constitution of the United States. Another unique paper is the oath of allegiance taken at Valley Forge. It is signed by George Washington, Benedict Arnold, DeKalb, Steuben, Lafayette and every soldier in the army. There, too, is the pathetic letter from Andre to Washington, begging that he might be allowed" to die the death of a soldier, not a spy. The fashion of introducing a bowl of wine into church at a wedding, to be drunk by the bride and bridegroom and those present immediately after the marriage ceremony, is very ancient. It is mentioned in the ordinances of the house- ! -r tt l-tt -f t7?? ? 1 ,1 noiu OI IlUIiry V ll. Ui iauu, auu *?uo | practiced at the magnificent marriage of Mary of England, and Philip of Spain, in Winchester cathedral, and also at the marriage of the Elector Palatine to the daughter of the first English king of the Stuart family. Criminals and Their Homes. "Every once in a while people read in the papers how some men who has just done a job has skipped, leaving no trace behind him,'' said a Central Office detective to a Herald reporter yesterday. "The first thing they do is to blame the detective. Then, a year or two perhaps afterward, they hear that the man has been caught. Then they praise the detectives for skill and perseverance as much as they blamed them before. They were wrong to blame the detectives in the first place, and I'm not sure that they were right in praising them so highly afterward. In ordinary circumstances any criminal is sure to be caught. i "You say there are many crimes never unraveled. That's so. But in most of them the police get to know who did the job as well as they know who stole Broadway, but they can't get the evidence, and so they lie low and wait. In a few exceptional cases it's best not to punish anybody. "If a man runs away the police can Vii'vn ninn fiin^c nut nf ten TUSt bv XX11XX UlUV W.v w* J ? ^ watching his home. Shakespeare never said a truer thing than when he said, There's no place like home.' It was Shakespeare, wasn't it? Well, every man, no matter how bad he is, has a home of some kind that he is going to visit, although he knows that the visit may land him in State prison for twenty years, and as soon as he thinks the coast is clear he's going to that home. All the police have to do is to iind out that home, watch it and nab their man when he shows up. "There's that man who shot the negro janitor. He got west and was doing well and nobody knew where he was. But he had to come back to New York to see his friends. There's Jimmy Riley. He broke seven of the strongest jails in the country?Sing Sing was the last of them. What did he do when he got out of Sing Sing? He went straight to Tenth avenue, where everybody knew him. Now he's back to Sing Sing. Talk to Captain Washburn about Hell's Kitchen and other places at the foot of West Thirty-ninth and Fortieth streets in his precinct. He'll tell you that whenever he wants one of the crooks who hang out there he has only to go there to j?et him. They never try to hide in any other part , of the city. Do you remember that burglar who killed a policeman way back in the sixties, when he was caught breaking into an arms store in Broadway; vvea, he thought it safe to come back to NewYork after nearly twenty years, and the first thing lie knew he was on trial for his life. He would have come back sooner, too, if he hadn't been prevented by being locked up in different prisons out West.?New York Herald. The Man Caught the Dog. I have great respect for the Georgia bloodhound; eveu though he is not a bloodhound. I saw lately some examples of his skill in trailing men that were marvelous. But the Georgia bloodhound received a black eye in the matter of Tobie Jackson. This alleged dynamiter was tracked through about thirty miles of mountain and ravine by a two-thousand-dollar bloodhound. The sluggish but persistent beast hung on the vanishing track through storm and darkness, relentless as death itself. This was very heroic. But mark the sequel. One afternoon when the chase had flagged the pursuers of the redoubtable Jackson saw, silhouetted against the siunmit on an inaccessible mountain peak, a haughty man with a rope on his arm followed by a very meek dog with a rope around his neck, stalking across the red sky to a quiet retreat. The man was Jackson?the dog was the two-thousand-dollar bloodhound. ?Atlanta Constitution. __________i I SMELT FISHING. CATCHING SMELTS FROM SHANTIES BUILT ON THE ICE. Old and New Style of Fishing for the Piscatorial Tidbits ? Fishing with Bag-Nets the Most Profitable. .J These delicious little fish?the smaller the better?come principally from Maine, although opposite Burlington, Vermont, in Lake Champlain, they are taken in sufficient numbers to constitute a trade. The St. Lawrence river is also a famous ground for winter fishermen, who make good catches of smelts and "tomcods." No longer does the half-frozen angler stand on one leg by his hole in the ice, and change his line from hand to hand a dozen times a minute, and spend an hour in baiting his hook. He sits now in a comfortable shanty heated by a stove, with often several partners to keep him company, and fishes through a long and narrow opening in the floor, which is over a corresponding hole cut in the ice. Then, when the fish do not bite, the opening is covered over with planks, and cots are made up for the men. As soon as the ice forms at the beginning of winter, the shanties are pulled out from the shore and placed on the edge of | the channels, and as near to the open 1 water down-stream as possible. The holes in the ice are cut, and if the position ! is good and fish bite rapidly, they are kept^open as the ice thickens. If, howevzr, the place selected is found to be a poor one, then the shanty is snirtea aDoux until the right spot is found. Often without apparent reason the fish stop biting; then the houses are moved about a good deal, looking for new grounds, and sometimes at Damariscotta, Maine, almost the whole little village of one hundred huts can be seen moving about over the bay in various directions, presenting a curious and novel scene. Many of the 1 'smelt houses" are small ! enough to haul on a boy's hand sled, those used at Damariscotta being about four by five feet in size. They are frame structures, walled with cotton drilling, and, to prevent their blowing away, are made fast to the ice by grappling-irons. Usually there is but one man to each house, single houses being thought the best, as a gang of fishermen is supposed to make too much noise. It is said that, the smelt bite best on cold, stormy days, and some fishermen assert that there are two varieties, known as the "school smelt" and the "permanent smelt" the former, which is constantly moving about, are supposed to bite most readily. This smelt is distinguished i by a light-colored back, while that of I the other is dark. Many smelt'fisherI men work only at night, burning strong I UrWife Koci/lo tVio Violpa tr> nf.fcrnrt thfl fiah. "5"--' When this is done, sturgeons and other big fishes are also often attracted by the light, and drive the smelt away. In tide-waters the ebb or out-going tide is i supposed to be the best time to fish, but is not to be relied upon with any certainty. In some localities only one hook and line is used to a house, but it is more common for each man to "thumb" two or more lines, with several hooks attached to each line. In the large wooden shanties the hand end of the lines are fastened to an overhead rack. Each fisherman is provided with two or more lines, which are rigged with leaden sinkers and wire spreaders, from the prongs of which dangle hooks of about No. 8 or 9, sproat, in size. Every smelt fishery has its local prejudices and notions as to bait. Often whatever can be most easily obtained is ! used. In some places the favorite bait is the marSh minnow, which the fishermen collect in quantities in the autumn,: and preserve alive in springs, or in their cellars in tanks of water. In other places they use clam-worms?long, red' 1 worms found in tnc mua wnere tne long clam abounds. Clams themselves are used, also chubs, smelts, raw beef, and ho^'s liver chopped fine. The fish are packed frozen in boxes, and their principal market is in New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Smelts are taken not only in the Penobscot, but in many other rivers in Maine, and by various methods. The law permits fishing for them from October 1 to April 1, and in some places by some modes of capture the fishing continues the entire period. It is found that fishing with the bag nets is most profitable. These nets are set at or near the bottom when practicable, and always in a strong current; in some places on ebb tide; in others, on flood. They are commonly thirty to forty feet long, with a mouth spreading twelve to eighteen feet in width and ten feet in height. In certain lacalities, as between the piers of the bridge at Bucksport, they are fitted with long ropes that run through sheaves at the bottom of heavy poles which are set upon the bottom and lashed to the bridge. These ropes are the "down hauls," which pull the net down to its place; two other ropes are the ' up hauls," whose name suggests their use; two more ropes are the "openers," by means of which the mouth of the net is opened after it has been drawn down. The fisherman set these nets when the tide is > favorable, and draw them up just before | the tide turns. In places where the ice ruaKes strong enougn, tne poies lire run down some thirty or forty feet into the water, never touching bottom, and the nets drawn dowu to their ends, the whole affair rising and falling with the tide. In still other places, where the water is too salt for ice, they sink very heavy "moorings"?great rocks?to the bottom, having fastened to them a piece of chain, and a long log or buoy, to the | free end of which is attached a frame of wood on which the mouth of the net is j stretched; this swings with the tide around the "mooring." These openwater nets are operated from boats; when the tide is slack, the buyancy of the log and frame brings them to the surface; when the tide is running strong it forces them to the bottom. A halyard which is attached to the upper part of the frama and also to the surface buoy enable the net to be drawn to the top of the water. All the nets are so rigged that tho first effect of hauling on the halyard is to close the mouth.?Harper x Weekly. Tea and Coffee Drinkers. I sec it stated that while Englishmen drink five times as much tea as coffee, Americans drink eight times as much coffee as tea. This in a great measure is due to the coffee that is sold in the United States being less unadulterated than ours. To a certain extent it may also be accounted for by the fact that Americans are richer than we are, for there arc a good many more cups in a shilling's worth of tea than in a shilling's worth of coffee.?London Truth. It is said that pearl divers are among the healthiest of men, notwithstanding the constant strain upon their respiratory organs. ' ' 1 " * * . i;'''O i?. THE FOUNTAIN OF TEARS. If you travel o'er desert and mountain, Far into the country of sorrow, To-day, and to-night, and to-morrow, And may be for months and for years, You shall come, with a heart that isr bunt* tog, For trouble, and toiling, and thirsting, Tou shall certainly come to the fountain, At length?to the Fountain of Tears. Very peaceful the place is, and solely For piteous lamenting and sighing And those who come, living or dying Alike from their hopes and their fears;. Full of cypress-like shadows the place to, And statues that cover their faces; But out of the gloom springs the holy And beautiful Fountain of Tears. And it flows, and it flows with a motion So gently, and lovely, and listless, And murmurs a tune so resistless, To Him who hath suffered and hears, You shall surely, without a word spoken, Kneel down there and know you're heart* broken. And yield to the long-curbed emotion, That day by the Fountain of Tears. ?Arthur (XShaughnessy. : > \ PUNGENT PARAGRAPHS, ^ It isn't much of a dog that can't mak* a man go mad by biting him. As was predicted, the winter has been -very open and lots of cold weather got in.?Picayune. Advertising^ a good deal like making love to a widow. It can't be overdone. . ?Chicago Ledger. It's the little thinsrs that tell?especial' ly the little brothers and sisters.?Burlington Free Press. The only leading lady that society recognizes is the one who conducts a pug with a string.?Judge. The next worst thing to going to a a dentist is going to a photographer.? Norwich (Conn.) Bulletin. Most men like to see themselves in "print," but women don't. They pre- v > fer silk or satin.-? Texas Figaro. t , "Whenever my wife scolds me," said l<i a hen-pecked toper, "I go right straight V1t and liquor."?Indianapolis Herald. Suns may set, and tides may flow, States may sink from want of sticking', Men may come, and men may go. But a mule is always alive and kicking. ?Judge. Some statesmen are continually putting their ears to the ground to hear what posterity will say of them.?Houston The bangs having gone out of style among young ladies the rolling pin and washboard begin to look more hopefuL? Merchant- Traveler. * r-.ll- 1 1 ~ '? AU uwiuujf uuimjij 111 tin av a wtwuiv where kissing games are played looks as lonesome as a straw liat in a snow-storm. ?New York Journal. Certainly, there is such a thing as the . y.^ poetry of motion. That is the reason y-Mj the kangaroo is popularly regarded as a spring poem.?Puck. K A Michigan boy had his left hand taken off by a buzz-saw, which he thought was not moving. He now calls his right hand , his left hand.?Puck. t The wind blew off his stovepipe hat, It landed in the mud; No sadder sound was heard than that? Ker-wish, ker-whop, ker-thud! ?GoodaLVs Sun. 11 A. student of human nature says any- ! thing can be sharpened." Some things, however, don't need sharpening?so wa have heard experienced married men remark.?Graphic. Newark, New Jersey, has an antitobacco society composed of young ladies. That is a gooa thing. We hope all the young ladies in that town will give up smoking.?Boston Post. One of the most melancholy pictures that we see on our travels through this vale of sorrows is a fat dog trying to run , home against the wind across a pond of slippery, unscratched ice.?Puck. She looked like a funeral hearse, so sad, Of all joy bereft and forsaken; Oh, why was this change in feature, once glad? She was having her photograph taken. ?Gorham Mountaineer. In German army circles a soldier is obliged to write home to his wife once every month. An old bachelor says this explains why so many Germans come to this country to escape military duty.? Hbrriatown Herald. Wife?"What a very polite young man Mr. Dumley is?" Husband?"Yes? < I never discovered it." Wife?"He was very polite to me last evening. Among other compliments he spoke of my singing." Husband?"Did he! That was polite.?Harper's Bazar. SPRING POEM. Oh, where is the thing We call '"Gentle Spring," The season of thaw and of zephyr? She singing a psalm In the land of the palm, Where she kicks up her heels like a heifer. ?New York Journal. v California papers are saying some cutting things about a youth who swallowed an open penknife three and a half inches long. It may afford the boy's parents some consolation to know that he will not cut his fingers with the knife two or three times a day now, nor carve his initials on every piece of furniture in the house. A penknife is less injurious in side of some boys than out.?JS'orristoum Herald. Revenge Was Sweet. Colonel Yerger presented his wife with a sealskin sack. She immediately insisted on walking out with it on. It was very fold, and he said, with a shiver: ' Let us go home; I'm almost frozen to death." "I don't feel cold at all," she replied, with chattering teeth. "but let us go back and walk past the windows of those Petersbys." "But you may <ret pneumonia and die a painful death." "Never mind if I do. I don't feel cold at all as long as I've got this sack on." "But why do you want to go by the Petersby mansion again?" "I want that stuck-up Mrs. Peterby to see my new sack once more anyhow. It will make them gnash their teeth and turn green with envy when they see it and think of their last winter's cloaks that they are wearing."?Siftings. Perils of Lake Navigation. Commander Bartlett, U. S. N., has expressed his belief that at least half the vessels lost last season on the lakes might have been saved by the judicious use of oil on the troubled waters. But oil won't give a ship sea-room or keep a sharp rock from piercing a ship's bottom. The fact is, a good many expedients that can be worked to advantage in navigating the high seas are quite impracticable on the lakes on account of limited sea-room. It is said that there are moro vessels lost on the great lakes annually than on any two oceans.?Bos* ton Commercial Advertise)'.