Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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PARTED. Ah. when the dove shall seek his mate. Yet hear no sound of whirring wings, Bow beats his heart at cruel fate, With plaintive moan how sweet he sings. Bo, when my love no more shall come, Whose eyes to me are as the stars, Mj prisoned heart will burst life's bars, My hopes be dead, my song be dumb! The Squire's Courting. BYE. R. COLLINS. Everybody said the Squire would sever narry. Not because they had any ipeciaI assurance that the Squire would sever assume the hymeueal yoke, but just because it would seem so very tunny if he should. Now, the Squire was no Squire at all. / The word implies a Judge, and the 8quire was not a Judge, at least not in the legal sense. " Squire" was simply a Bickname given in a sportive moment to J. Hillery Crabtree by a joking schoolfellow, and it had tenaciously clung to bim as he had advanced in years and stature. J. Hillery, or the Squire, was, as to omplexion, a brunette, very dark eyes, blue-black hair and moustache, about five feet eight inches in his stockings, and decidedly blunt in his manners, with s generous opinion of himself. In his early youth he was the especial charge f his three aunts and at the same time their torment. He was the source of ?ever-ending contention between the three estimable ladies who could never fgree as to how he should be trained, and to consequence the Squire himself was responsible for most of his early training, as tne multitude of cooks spoiied the broth ?of a boy. And we find him at twentyfour with a kind of contempt for women, young women in particular. He was suspicious of them. He was very particular as to his personal appearance, tec tum and single, yet withal had he been a biting fish, the girls thought he would have been a good catch. Fate was laying a trap for the wary - and self-satisfied squire. One day he tailed to see one of his aunts in New York, and to the squire's disgu-t there chanced to be a young lady calling at th6 same time. Of course an introduction followed. The squire would gladly have lied, but he had important messages to give his aunt. Miss Kurtz was in no apparent hurry. Then, to make matters worse, it began to rain, and of course Miss Kurtz could not go in the win, and the squire'e discomfort W8S greatly augmented when bis aunt took Him to one side aud laid down the law to him that he must see Miss Kurtz safely kome. "Why the squire should have ob jected to seeing a pretty girl home no ne knew, but he did, and it must be said that he was rather gruff as he offered his escort to the young lady. Now, how such a thing could happeu cannot be told; it was very shocking in' deed to the squire, but a fact. The next norning in the dining-room the squire chanced to pull out his handkerchief and what should come out with it but a lady's glove, a nice, sweet-scented delicate a iair. The squire was quite over* -"? 11 i - 1 j come, ne was consiaeraoiy aguaiea, anu when hie Cousia Widdy, a very lively young miss, pounccd upon the tell-tale glove and demanded an explanation, the squire growled out something and turned ery red, deliberately took the glove iromher and walked outof the house. As the squire walked along the street ke felt considerably vexed. Now, of course, he must go to return the glove to Miss Kurtz, but now could he explain its being in his pocket He could not explain. He would send it to her by mail. But, again, he did not know the number of her hou e and he dared not ask for fear the folks would laugh at him, so that very evening he called and returned Ihe glove to its fair owner. He was Ion ed to acknowledge to himself on the jray home that he had spent a very pleasant evening, and was not sure that girls were as frivolous as he had thought them, at least not all girls. Miss Kurtz had riven him an invitation to call again and iedid not know but that he would; she appeared to be a very nice girl,but then, ne must look out for them they are so tricky. It was rather amu-ing t > those who Inew the squire and his antipathies, to aotice how soon it was ntcessary for him to again call on Miss Kurtz, and it was the occasion for no little chilling by Widdy. The squire would look shamed, growl, and hastily get out of her way, and at the same time every one *oticed that the squire wore a puzzled look as though he was thinking deeply ver something. If he made frequent tails on Mhs uurt% he was very careful that none of his family should know of it. You know that it's a very hard thing lor a man to a knowledge frankly that lie is violating his own ;>re.-epts. And It may be said right here that Miss Ktirtz was a very estimable voting lady aud not without a lively appreciation of the humorous. She had heard from his sister that the squire was a sort of womanhater, and all to herself she had determined to subdue the enemy. The squire had an awful fight with himself, but ftnally asked Miss Kurtz to ac onipany him to the theatre. By a series of skillful questioning he managed to find out where each of the household were likely to spend a certain evening, and then took Miss Kurtz as l"ar away from them as he could. Then, imagine his di-gust, i?hen after getting comfortably seated he discovered his sister and her wretch of a husband in the box opposite, coolly surveying him and his companion through their opera glas-es. His first impulse was to get up and leave, but a second thought told him that that would never do. He felt as though Miss Kurtz was laughing at him, and he looked 'round rather sharply once, and was not sure but that he caught the trace of a hastily suppressed smile on the facc of the demure puss at his side. He did not enjoy the performance a bit, and was greatly relieved when the curtain weut down for the last time. He did not walk home with Miss Kurtz, but called a cab and giving cabby the street and number told him to hurry up. He was bound to get away from female eompanionship just as quickly as he could. Miss Kurtz said nothing at the unseemly haste. The sq lire did not go home for a day or two, but stopped at ttie hotel. He could stand most anything, bat he dogged the issue of having to defend his former principles aga:nst his later action*. Finaliy he screwed up courage enough to return home, and to his immense relief no one, not even "Widdy, said a word to him about the theatre, and he hoped it had been forgotten, but he was doom d to other mortifications. One day at dinner he was discussing a business question with his brother-in-law, and to prove nis point drew a letter from his pocket, on unfolding which a photograph of Miss Kurtz dropped out upon the table. There was a general t'tter, which to the poor iquire was worse than unrestrained thunder, and gathering up the letter and photograph he bolted from the room. He determined to call on Miss Kurtz that Yery evening. He must return that ythotagraph. - ' ; . j'?}'''<'*>' Of how it came into his pocket he did not have the least idea. He presumed he had taken it up with some papers he had been showing to Miss Kurtz, and put it in his pocket himself. But at any rate he must return it. She might think he had stolen it. He paled at the bare thought, for he prided himself greatly on his honor. The evening came and found the squire at Miss Kurtz's home, not very talkative, but \ery fidgety; but that young lady was exceedingly pleasant and chatty. After several ineffectual atj tempts to say something, the squire blurted out, nervously: "Miss Kurtz, I have something very odd to say to you this evening." %r Tr ? 11 1 3 J fA I ( 311 S3 ivurtz UlUSUCU nuu auiu fcu uv.sclf: "So soon. It can't be that I ha e | subdued him so quickly," tnen aloud, as ! the squire still hesitated: "If you are pleased to make me your confidant, I shall be glad to hear what you have to say." | "Well, you see, Miss Kurtz, I've been thinking?that is?I was going to say? ' or no- Ihave something to tell you that I don't understand," continued the , squi.e. ' I am sure, Mr. Crabtree, if I can eni lighten you I shall be pleased to do so." "Well, I hardly know what you will ' think of me, and maybe you will think I am acting strange, but 1 assure you that it is something that has worried me a great deal ever since I discovered it." "He is going to propose sure enough," i thought Miss Kurtz, as she replied: "I j certaiuly shall think nothing but good of j ! you, Mr! Crabtree, aud I don't think you I need to have any concern," and she t , blushed and commenced to upbraid her- I self, thinking: "I ought to be ashamed ! : of flirting with him, he is reallj very J i nifp And I do4ike him. and I beliave I | will accept liim." "I haa feared that you would not! uuderstand me?that is, that you would | not accept me?my?" blundered the ' squire, totally oblivious of the construc- | | tion Miss Kurtz was putting on what j j he said, and she, not for a moment think- j , ing that he meant anything other than a j ! formal proposal for her heart and hand, 'and having decided to accept him, j J interrupted his bashful stammering at | ! this critical point as she gently touched i his arm, saying: "I certainly accept your proposal, and return your love, and I know we shall be i happy," as she extended her h&nd and I | laid her pretty little head upon his I shoulder. j The squire was thunderstruck. Had I all the horrible demons of Mythology { faced him he could not have moved or I uttered a sound. He was horrified, paralyzed; his jaw dropped, his face assumed a ghastly look. He hardly | breathed for a few minutes. Miss Kurtz, | taking his horrified silence for the depth j | of a very different emotion, gently raised ! her hand and patting him softly on the | cHeeic, drew nis neau aowa u? ucr ?uu ( | kissed him plump on the lips. That kiss broke the spell. With a j yell that might have shamed a maniac i j the squire tore himself from her clingI ing ai ms and rushed frantically and hati less int-o the street, where he continued ! his wild run, he knew not where, muti tering as he sped along: "Oh, heavens! oh, heavens'." It was now Miss Kurtz's turn to be astonished, as the frantic squire dashed out; her eyes opened wide with wonder. She stood thus for a moment, and then she did what any other woman would have done under the circumstances, threw herself on the lounge and burst j into tears, saying brokenly, as she did 'so: ieL thought he was eccentric, but I didn't know he was a lunatic." Still ] lying there, weeping as though her heart ' was broken, squire's cousin Widdy | found her when she came to make a call i a while later. The squire continued his wild run for i several blocks, and then slackened his speed. "Great heavens!" he thought, ' as he mopped the cold sweat from his brow and felt blindly on his head for his j hat, "she thought I proposed to her and 1 a * At ?L.i. -It T J ~ I | sne accepted me. un, wnat win i uu, i I what will I do to get out of this? No- I I body will believe me, if I say that I did j not, and she and her father will think i I've been trifling with her and want to kill me; oh dear! oh, dear! these women are awful. I wish I were a thousand miles from here." And the poor squire ! groaned in auguish. "At this rate you will soon be a thousand miles from here," said a hearty J voice at the squire's elbow, and at the j same time he received a vigorous slap on the shoulder. The squire turned and saw his brother in-law, John, beside him, but made no reply. "Where's your hat? and?" he continued, as he saw the squire's white face, "what has happened? What's the matter with you, squire, anyway?" "Oh, I'm done for now," was the squire's mournful reply, "I've made a fool of myself, and am in for it." John, seeing his perturbed state, just took his arm and led him along to his home without saying a word. When inside and seated he drew up his chair aud said: "Now, Hillery, we ara here alone, tell me all about it, aad if I can help you I will." Squire demurred at first, but finally told him all about the affair, how he made Miss Kurtz's acquaintance, his finding her glove in his pocket and of his calling on her (on errands for his sisters', how he chanced to take her to the theatre, down to finding her picture in his pocket, his attempt to return it and explain, and how she understood his preliminary to the explanation and the result. John could scarce keep from roaring as the squire told the story, but he saw that the squire was awfully serious about it and was indeed in a very delicate situation. Finally he asked: "Hillery, what do you candidly think of Mi*s Kurtz, anyhow?" "I think she is a very nice young lady," reluctantly acknowledged the squire. "Well, then, why not straighten this mess out, as it is started. Go back to her and give some excuse for your runnincrawnv And anolotrizR and mflrrv lifir She is a fine girl, she evidently loves you or she would not have accepted your supposed proposal. Come now, this is the best way out. Explain to either of your sisters or to Widely, and they can ma';e an excuse for you to Miss Kurt'." It took some little talk to bring the Squire round to acknowledge this to be the best way, but as he really loved Miss Kurtz, and it was only his stubbornness kept him from saying so, he was considerably delighted at the solution, yet ' lie was very much a*, sea for a plausible excuse for his outlandish conduct without giving the true reason. To keep on with their plan o". reconstruction they adjourned to the home of so ui re's other brother-in-law, and there they met Widdy, who had just returned from her call on Miss Kurtz. She was loud in her denunciation of the squire, but when John told her the squire's side of the story she agreed to help out the "loving gec3c," as she called them, and her ready tact straightened things out so* that the squire was the happiest man in town. A year or more after the happy event that made J. Hillery a proud young husband, he and his pretty wife were chatting over past events, when the squire, ' + * ' * in a burst of loving confidence, told her how it was he proposed to her. Her face clouded for an instant only, and then she threw both arm3 about his neck and kissed him. "Do you know how the glove and photograph came to be in your pocket?" she asked, as she hid her blushing face j in his bosom. ''No," he replied, wonderingly. "How?" "I put them there just to tease you, you were so bashful. But you'll forgive me, won't you my own dear Hillery?" ' Certainly, I will, my precious one," he cried, as he gave her a hearty embrace. ? Yankee Blade. The Jungle Tiger at Home. One very curious point is the method m.wmcn a tigress teacnes ner cuds to kiu. This she does by disabling the animal attacked so that it cannot make its escape from the cub3, who then complete the work. Mr. Inverarity witnessed a scene of this kind, or at least came ou the ( spot after it had been enacted, and when I, the marks were so fresh as to admit of the j whole story being read at a glance. An old bull nilgai had been the victim and the tigress had disabled j him by breaking one of his fore- . legs just be'.ow the knees. She never j j touched his throat, the uuial place of | seizing, but allowed the cubs to man- ' i gle the disabled brute. Mr. Inverarity frightened thj three tigers from the car- . cass and secured a photograph of it in its then condition, showing how the thro.it had not been lacerated. lie got a second photograph next day, after the , tigress and her brood had again visited ; the spot and completed their meal. In the end he succeeded in shooting the tigress and one of her cubs. Mr. Inverarity has a number of other , photographs which show the appearanc e of a tiger's prey after its first meal. His experience goes (o snow tnat tne animal , first devours the hind quarters, while, if a tiger aud tigress are together, the one eats at the hindquarters and the other at the forequarters. Again, when the tiger has not devoured the whole carcass, and returns to his kill the next night, he never cats at the same place, but drags off the remains forty or fifty yards before beginning operations. Therefore, sportsmen sitting over a kill tie it by the fore leg to a tree. Otherwise the tiger would creep up and be off with it without stop, ping a second. Mr. Inverarity has timed tigers when at their meals and has found tnat a fullgrown tiger takes two hours' steady eating to finish the fore quarters of a bullock. He dissipates the myth about the "sledgehammer stroke of the forepaw of -the tiger," showing that the tiger simply clutches with his claws exactly like a man might clutch another's arm with his fingers. He also gives a variety of curious information about the immense distances tigers wander during the night; how they keep the jungle roads and footnaths. avoiding the more diticult tangled underpath"on the roads, rolling about in it with evident satisfaction; how they do not like moving about in the heat of the day, as the hot ground burns the pads of their feet and makes i them quite raw, and how they are sometimes discovered sitting in pools of water in the heat of the day.?India Times. The Usefnl Banana Tree. A young SalvadDrian, with tbe dark eyes and inky hair of his country, talked to a New York Moil mil Express reporter a few days ago about the Central American banana tree. The tree is 2? to 3 feet in circumference at its base. Its tapering fibrous body, without a branch, is from 10 to 15 feet in height. The fibres, separated by a thin pitn, are as long as the body of the tree. These fibre? are used in Salvador, just as they are taken from the tree, as shoestrings, and as cords for all purposes. The natives use them largely for bridle reins and lariats. The raw material costs only transportation to the ropewiilks. Each 1 A. 1 iU- i 1 Danaaa irec uuurs iu iuu iwavc uiuumo of its existence only one bunch of fruit, but from two to teu trees spring from the roots of the one that has fallen. In Salvador the bunch of bananas is worth fifteen cents, and the dead tree nothing. A cordage factory or paper mill or coffee sack maker, were not the dead trees numberless, would give for ea:h tree ten time? the value of the fruit it has prodused. Split, dried and packed, the j bodies of the banana trees might be j shipped profitably to the United States; | but there i3 no reason why some enter- , prising American would not take them j in hand and ship to Salvador the proper machinery for their manufacture, as labor is fully two-thirds cheaper there | than in New York. For the accomplishment of this end a j special concession and exemption from customs charge would be easily obtained. In Salvador ropewalks are found in unfrequented streets and suburban roads. Tiie native machinery consists of a crank attached to an uprig'.it board, with which a native boy twists the fibres of the banana and cactus. A man skilled in the mno.mulfor'a orf. Bnlirps thfl fihrAS tl"? ,vr- ? ~j ? gether, adding to the length and thickness of the revolving cord. The stem of each banana leaf consists of the toughest and finest threads, and these leaves, 2 J and 3 feet wide and 10 to 15 feet long, resting on the heads of native women, are umbrellas in the rainy season in roofless market places and streets of Salvador. These are the carpets on which the people sit, and the beds on which they sleep. There is a fine opportunity, said the Salvadorian, for some enterprising American with a small capital to do a thriving trade and make money by introducing Western ideas and machinery to the people of Salvador. The Dandelion. The dandelion i9 a neglected flower. It blows and dies, returning To the vile dust from whence it sprung, Unwept, unhonored and unsung. Yet it comes early, blossoms freely and lifts so bright a color to the sky that it rivals the very sunshine that coaxed it from the cold ground. Not the California poppy, the pride of the Pacific coast, glows with a more brilliant yellow, or shows more delicate gradations of color. The heart of the dandelion is warm aud fervid like the rich gold of a ripe orange, while the tips of each delicate calyx reflect the fainter tints that shine on the tender leaf of a buttercup, an:l so perfect is the shading that we j cannot tell when the orange passes into yellow, and the yellow iuto the palest! amber. What can be prettier than this ! brave blossom set in the vivid green ol the new grass??Des Moines Register. The Indian Smokcpipe. A plant which, on account of its odd- j ity is worth searching for, is the Indian : smokcpipe'. It grows in dark woods on I the roots of trees, and instead of being green, like other plants, it is white, leaves, stalk and flowers, except where the sunlight falls on it, which makes it black, hook for this peculiar plant. It is so different from most ofnera that it pays for the little trouble required in linding it. It is usually found under bccch troos.?Xationil Edwator. "r. .... \ BUDGET OF FUN. HUMOROUS SKETCHES FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. A.t the Gate?A Sympathetic Heart ?At the Picnic?More than He Could Stand? Etc.. Etc. The lights were low, the hour was late, The popping time had come; And, gazing idly at the grate, Her love sat chewing; gum. She asked him if he'd risk?diar girl? With her the final step; He gave his gum a listless whirl And yawued and answered "yep." ?Oil City Blizzard. A Sympathetic Heart. 'Can you give me a little breakfast, ma'am?" plea ted the tramp; "I'm hungry and cold. I slept outdoors last night and the rain came down in sheets." "You should have got in between the aheets, ' said the woman kindly, as she so the gate.?New York Sun. At the Picnic. He (with a bunch of wild flowers in his hands)?"Ah, my dear M:ss Sereandyellow, what kind of posies will you choose? She (in a perfect twitter)?"Oh, te, he; te, he; I will choose pro-posies." Mr. Smith sinks into the earth.? Washington Critic. More Than He Coukl Stand. Grocer?"How is it, Mr. Swartman, that you are so particular to pay cash ?ow-a-days? You used to run a weekly bill." Customer?'-Iknowldid, and you would always give me a cigar when I squared up Saturday night." Grocer?"Yes." Customer?Well, It was smoking that cigar that impelled me to pay cash."? New Turk Sun. Not Easily Embarrassed. "Have you kept track of young Baboony lately? At the rate he is goiug on he'll soon be seriously embarrassed. ' "Embarrassed? Nonsense! you don't know the man. He asked me for the loan of a hundred this morning without the quiver of an eyelid."?L\fe. , A Small Dividend. First Tramp?''Well, how much did ye get out of the felly?" Second Tramp? "Faix, only enough for mesilf." First Tramp?"And is this de way yer stand in wid me, Mickey?" Second Tramp?"Sure, all Oi got was a kick. Ye can take yer share of that, if ye want it."?Life. He Liked Cold Roast Beef. Young Housekeeper (to butcher)? "Have you roast beef?" Butcher?"Yes, ma'am." "Do you keep it on the ice?" "Oh, yes, ma'am." "Then you may send me some. My husband told me only this morning that he is very fond of cold roast beef."? Siftingt. uetting it uown f ine. Johnnie was under a cloud. He had been given six linos to learn before lunch-time, with the proviso, no lines, no lunch. The lunch-bell rang and his mothei called Johnuie, who knew just onethird of his lesson. "Xo lunch for you, my son, to-day!" was the maternal decision. "Please, mamma," pleaded Johnnie, "can't I have two lines' worth?"?Judge. A Generous Offer. They were riding togetherin the moonlight, and he was trying hard to think of something pleasant to say. All of a sudden she gave a slight shiver. "Are you cold, Miss Hattie?" he asked, anxiously. "I will put my out around you if you like." "Well, yes," said she, shyly, with another little shiver; "I am a little cold, I confess; but you needn't put your coat around me. One of your sleeves will do."?SmeroiUe Journal. No Hope for the Future. "It grieve3 me to look back over a wasted life," said a comparatively youn<> doctor to a Chicago girl. "To thinkthat with fame and fortune in my reach I have turned from them in order to pursue a humble career." 'But is not too late to begin anew," she suggested. "Alas; I realize too forcibly that it is." "Can you not make one great, final effort?" "No. I am too old to learn to play baseball." "Yes;" sho said softly. It is very, very sad."?Merchant Traceler. Steep Hills. "What have you been doing lately!" asked a traveling man of a former associate in the same business whom he met in a Pennsylvania village. "I been having pretty hard luck." "In what wayc" "You see my uncle died and left me a farm out here in the mountains and I gave up traveling in order to come out here and run it." 'Don't vou like it?" "No, I can't say I do. lean stand a good deal but I do draw the line at farming where the hills are so dog-goned steep that the cattle have to stand on their hind legs to nibble the grass off them.?Merchant T aveler. Dai gcro is. "I am going to stop bathing," said a friend of mine, of good habits. The statement staggered me, for I knew he did not belong to the "great unwashed," nor was he in any way retrograding toward that bathless class, the tramps. He proceeded to e plain: "You see, my wife's brother is a young physician, and my wife's father is an old physician. 3Iy own father reads medical works and talks a great deal about them. A near neighbor of ours 13 a rising young doc tor, and through him a number ot medical men have visucd us, and we have met the M. D.'s also at his house. Now, in such an atmosphere of wisdom you would think mc safe. But I feel I am not. About everything I do from the time I get up until I retire, in the way of eating, drinking, wa>hiug, riding or bathing is dangerous! I say 'dangerous' because that is the term they, the doctors, use. Iam mostalauned about bathing. My father has foun.d it in the books that it is dangerous to bathe while warm. My wife's father says it is dangerous to bathe while cold or chilly. Jlcr brother asserts that only the strongest persons dare bathe on arising without first taking food. The same wise young doctor says it is dangerous and debilitating to bathe just before retiring. They all agree that it is dangerous to jump into water just after eating heartily. Nothing has been said about getting up in the middle of the night and taking a light lunch and a bath, nor about leaving' usiness in the middle ' ' v fi : of the afternoon and going to a bathhouse for an hour, but as both these times are very inconvenient for me to iadulge in ablutions, I have decided on the only alternative, not to bathe at all."?Chicago Journal. Their First Dinner. They had just returned from their wedding tour and were* to have their first dinner in their own home. "Well, Percy, dear," she said sweetly after breakfast, "what shall we have for dinner?" "Oh, anything you like." "No, dear; anything you like." "But I shall like anything you like,my little ro?ebud." "And I shall like anything you like, my precious old boy." Well, theu, what shall be have, dear?" "Whatever you want, darling." "But I want to please you, lovey." "And/want to please you, precious." "You old darling!" "Vou blessed old precious." "But what shall we have?" "That's for you to say." "No, for you." "But I'm so afraid I'll order something you don't like." "I'll like anything you like, darling." "Truly, Percy?'' "Truly, my darling." "Because I'd feel no badly I'd just cry if I had anything you didn't like. Do you like roast beef:" "Do you?" "I asked you first, dearie." " What if I don't care for it?" "Then we'll necer have a pound of it in the house." ' Vou little darling! " "%But do you like it?" 4' Dc you! " "0, Percy, you naughty old boy! How am I ever to get what you like if you go on like this? And I do want to please you." " Please yourself /ind you'll be sure to please me." "Then we'll have the beef!" " If you say so, lovey." "But I don't say so." . .. , _ __ ? inn- I "IC snail De just as my owu unue, lovey-dovey, lifey-wifey says." 44 What if I say beef?" 44 Then I shall say beef, too." 44 Well, then, we'll have roast beef." 441 love roast beef." 44So do I." 44 Oh, I'm so glad." 44 So am I. ' 44 You old darlinj/" 44 You precious!"?Detroit Frei Presi. Freaks of Birds and Animals. As an instance of the seemingly unnatural actions of animals and birds under peculiar conditions, I wish to report, says a writer in the New York -Star, an incident that came under my observation. While returning home after being nearer to a water spout, or cyclone, than ever before or than I desired, I saw a prairie chicken in the road, a few rods in front of me surrounded by a sharp stream run- ! ning over the road just beyond him and 1 ?^ ~ <?n oonli oi^fl nf fKo rr r o r] O j oj??iucuuvu>,u^u?.u.vt 6 He ran frantically about as I approached, as though looking forsome way to escape, and then, while I was yet five or six rods distance, plunged into the ditch, and? well, I am at a loss to koow what word to use, but will venture to say that he seemed to me to swim to the other side, some ten or twelve feet, I rubbed my eyes, but dismounted, and, after a lively chase, cornered and caught him as, for a last resort, he a^ain took to water. The body was barely submerged where he appeared to swim, and the ditch was , ten or twelve feet wide $nd averaged fifteen inches in depth. The bird was a healthy, vigorous cock and seemed to be perfectly sound, but when I let him go the next morning it was evident that one wing was injured a little in some way, so that he could not rise much above the " ground, although quite competent to take care of himself when dry. It reminds 1 me of another freak that I saw , when a boy, some sixteen or eighteen ! years ago, on the Manchester mill pond, J ' on the outlet of C'anandaigua Lake in the State of New York. While picking dew-berries on the east shore, the banks j at that point being quite high, I saw j ' what appeared to be a muskrat swim- j ming toward me from the other side, but was astonished as it came nearer to see that it wjs a large woodchuck. I j could hardly believe my eyes, but | allowed it to land and chased it five or : i oiv rndfl nn the hill into a hole, where 11 afterward set a trap and caught a wood-1 chuck; though whether the same one or not is, of course, uncertain. In that crse the bath was voluntary. A Japanese Comic Artist. Coming to more modern times a brief glance on the wag of the diBtant land is i in pleasant order. About one hundred and thirty year3 ago the most famous artist Japan has ever known was born. His nam# was Hokusai, and of the weird, i peculiar work of the artists of that ! wonderful country he is said by his coun- J trvmen to have excelled all others. All other artists confined themselves almost ; exclusively to lords and ladies of the ! court, rich dresses and gorgeous silk costumes, with vases and palanquins. But Hokusai made a new departure. He gave himself up to humor. He opened a studio in Yeddo in 1810, and labored steadiiy until 1849. He has left many books of sketches, and the results of numerous trips are left in illustrated albums. His favorite study was the horse. One of his drawings represents a horse with his hind legs wildly waving in the J air, while a young woman stands on the : lariat which had been trailing behind { him as he ran. The scene is supposed to , be laid in Kaidru, a little village on Lake Biwa. The young woman, named Kaneko, is noted for her strength. In stopping the runaway she simply stepped on the lariat and thi horse's further flight was at once checked. Kokusai is dead, but his pictures are still held among his countryman as examples of perfection in art. ? Globe-Democrat. Amiable Side of George Wn9hin<?ton. When "Washington, after the Revolutionary War, was traveling through Connecticut he visited Hartford, staying at the Bull's Tavern there. A boy came into the kitchcn of the taveru and said: "I waut to see General Washington." The functionary on duty did not propose to let any mere boy see General Mr-.vi? i-- ?.for tKp utilcincr nnd I TY ttMJlll^ tun uai uij ? ?07 ? said as much. "But I have a note for him,*' remonstrated the boy. "From whom:" "My father. Chief Justicc Ellsworth." ??0h?well," and the functionary relented. General Washington rend the note and said to the boy: "Your father invites me to dinner, I will do more than that, I will go and bi^fcfast with him." And he did the next morning. And after breakfast he took the twin sous of the Justice, each on a knee and sang them the "Derby Ham," an old English ballad, beginning: "It was on a market day," and setting forth that the Iiam of Derby was so big that the birds built nests in the wool on his back and the butcher who undertook to kill him was drowned in the blood.?2fcio Yoi'k Tribune. " ~\. ."''-V :- SEA MONSTERS^" DENIZENS OP THE DEEP WHO TERRIFY MARINES. Some Strange Creatures Sighted bjr Veracious Seamen ? The Immense Ribbon Fish?In the Grasp of an Octopus. It should be remembered, says the San Francisco AVa/nincr, that there has scarcely been a discovery relative to anything at all wonderful wh ch has not been haw hawed by the foolish. It was so in most striking degree of the cuttle-fish, a sea monster long rejected as Impossible. One writer on natural history, who should have known better, maintained that no cuttle-fish ever existed whose tentacles exceeded twenty feet in length. But now it is known that not only are there cuttle D8e Having leuiacies mure luau invite this length, but there are several varieties in which these enormous dimensions are attained. Let us examine some of the accounts of sea monsters which, despite the mis* chievous influence of press buffoonery, have been reported by sea captains. On September 11th*at 10:30 a. m., the third ofheer of the British steamship Nestor, then in the Malacca Straits, Announced a shoal. Surprised to find a shoal in such a well known track Captain Webster watched the object and found that it was in motion, keeping up the same speed as the ship and retaining about the same distance as when first seen. "The shape of the creature," said the Captain (in an affidavit before Donald Spence, Acting Law Secretary to the Danish Supreme Court at Shanghai, China) "I would compare to that of a gigantic frog. The haad, of a pale, yellowish color, was about twelve feet in length, and six feet of the crown wa9 above water. I tried in vain to make out the mouth," he proceeds, "but the mouth may have been below water. The head was immediately connected with the body without any indication of a neck. The body was about forty-five or fifty feet long and of an oval shape, perfectly smooth, but there may have been a slight ridge along the spine. The back rose some five feet abce the surfa e. An immense tail, fully 150 feet in length, rose a few inches above the water. This I tail I saw distinctly from its junction I with the body to its extremity; it seemed cylindrical, with a very slight taper, and I estimate its diameter at four feet. The body and tail were marked with alternate bands or stripes, black and pale yellow in color. The stripes were distinct to the very extremity of the tail. I cannot say whether the tail terminated in a fin or not. The creature possessed no fins or paddles so far as we could perceive. I cannot say if it had legs. It appeared to progresti by means of an undulatory motion of the tail in vertical I plane." It may be remembered that in 1873 a ; monstrous cuttle-fish was encountered by two fishermen in Conception Bay, Newfoundland. When attacked, tho creature . threw its long arms across the fishermen's boat, which it appeared to regard ! as a veritable object of prey; but one of i the fisherman cut off the tehtacle with an ax, on which the cephalopod withdrew, apparently regarding the man's action as unfair. This tentacle was twenty-five feet in length; and as the fishermen considered that it was cut off j fully ten feet from the body, the entire length of the tentacle must have been i about thirty-five feet. They estimated the body at sixty feet in length and Sve feet in diameter. In 1861 the French war steamer AlecI - . 1 _ A. Ai.1^ ??? tor encountered a monster cume at aca about 120 miles northeast of Teneriffe. The crew got a noose around the body, but unfortunately it slipped to the tail, which it pulled off. The weight of this little bit of the creature was found to be over forty pounds. It was estimated that the body was fifty feet long, and the weight not less than forty thousand pounds. The most remarkable account of a sea monster of this kind was that given by the captain and officers of the Pauline. It was sworn to on oath by George Drevar, the captain; Horatio Thompson, chief mate; John Landells, second mate, and by the steward and a seaman. It runs (somewhat abridged) as follows: On July 8th we observed three large sperm whales, one of which was gripped round the body by two turns of what appeared to be a huge serpent. The head and tail appeared to have a length beyond the coils of about thirty feet, and a girth of eight or nine feet. The creature whirled the whale round and round for about fifteen minutes and then suddenly dragged it to.the bottom head arse. Five days later the same creature, or a similar one, was seen about two hundred yards from the ship, darting along the surface, head and neck being out. of the water. Only Captain Drevar and an ordinary seaman saw this. But a few minutes later the.Captain, first mate and two seamen saw the monster raise its neck and head above the water to a height which they estimated at sixty feet. It is certain that neither Drevor nor Thompson had any reason for inventing such a story as they and the rest swore to on the occasion. Now, it is obvious from this description that the monster belonged to the ray tribe. These creatures attain a great size, though until Captain Webster saW his "shoal" no devil fish two hundred yards in length had ever been heard of. The largest ever captured weighed 1250 pounds. In the British Museum there is a specimen five feet broad and weighing twenty pounds, which tells something of the enormous dimensions whi. h full- | grown devil-fish may attain, since this i young devil-fish was yet unborn, having I been taken from the body of the mother Some ten years ago Commandant Yilleneuve and the officers of the French man-of-war the I.cndre saw a creature corresponding in appearance with the "sea serpent" traveling rapidly along, the head slightly raised above the water, and with a sort of mane streaming backward, while the back of a long body Via iinilnr thfi Wllter. A creature exactly answering to this description was seen by Major James Harding, then an otlicer in the King of Vigis's army, passing within a few raids of Irs canoe, and swimming toward a small island outside Suva Hay, known as the Home of th? I]ig Snake. Captain thu Hon. George H??pe, of the British ship Fly, when in the Gulf of California, tlic sea being unusually calm and and transparent, saw at the bottom a large marine animal with the head and general figure of an alligator, but the neck much longer, and with four large paddles instead of legs. A Saucy Hoy. "What, Gve dollars a week! Why, boy, Where cau your sanses be? Why, when I "first became a clerk, They paid me only three." Holding the door ajar, ho said, (This boy of humble birth), 'But when they paid you three, perhaps 'Twasall that you were worth !v -Tid-Bits. I i I CURIOUS FACTS. There are 38,000 shad eggs in a quart. The Assyrians were noted for their fine beards. Musket balls were legal tender as farthings in Boston in 1635. The Mikado, of Japan, never wears a garment that has been washed. A strawberry is scientifically described as "a pulpy pericarp without valves." The Dunkards have an inflexible rula that no member shall wear a mustache. r 4;God Save the Queen" was written in ' 1637, the words by Mme. de Brlnon and the music by Lull! George Shenberger, of York, Pena., has a German Bible which was printed in the year *1589. The print is quite plain. An English farmer wa3 lately awarded % a prize far a wasp's neat thirty inches ia circumference, containing thousands o? ^ - -r*\, One of Forepsugh's circus elephants had to be covered with mustard the other day to ease his pains,and it took twenty- * two pounds to do it. Excelsior Geyser, in the National Park, Montana, is discharging a column of water sixteen feet in diameter and 300 feet high. The eruptions occur every forty-five minutes ana last from three to five minutes. At a Minnesota sheep shearing, something bright gleamed out of the mouth *>f one panting animal, and upon examination proved to be a handsome gold ',j ring around the tongue and imbedded \ in the fiesh of it. Pearls do not appear in every oyster ! shell, even on the coast of Australia, . but about one in every five yields the valuable jewels. The most perfect ones are found loose in the shell, but they are, of1 course, very rare, as well as the colored ones. Plants most cultivated by working people in the cities are said by a florist to be the geranium, the heliotrope, fuchsia, daisy, gillyflower, primrose, pinl^anioxalis. These will grow where less hardy plants would die and will tnrive m smau quarters. ' One hundred bottles of beer were delivered by mistake at the house of Mrs. Travers, a prominent member of the woman's Christian Temperance Union $, in Detroit recently. Mrs. Travels ^ promptly smashed the bottles in gutter, and a suit at law is the result. A wonderful landscape, on exhibition ^ in Paris has been executed in European and foreign insects. Every desired tone is supplied by 35,009 coleoptera in the . J foreground, and 4000 varieties of the - j insect tribes for the remainder of the ] picture^ The work required four year? .v:; of the artist's time. V. " w;; Frank A. Hardy claims to be the old- rv est fireman in the United States. He' joined a fire company in Hollis, N. H,, on March 17, 1837, and has been a member of some department continuously . . during the succeeding fifty-one years. He is now Secretary of the Fire Depart-' ment of Piqna, Ohio. . The Coopers'Dance is a curious custom, observed in Munich every seventh year for some weeks prior to Lent During the plague of 1517 Munich gate up to abject terror. In order to buoy up the spirits of the citizens some foiU lowers of the art of coopering used to' perform dances in the open spaces and streets of the town. Since that time jps the Coopers1 Dance has been commemorated periodically. , ; The canoes of Alaska are very neatly made, the rib3 being whittled from thin strips of birch, with gunwales of the , same material, to which the bark ia bound with very fine strips of dried roots, which re3emble bamboo split in two, and is very strong. The seams .Y: where the bark is bound on to the ribi ^ are made water-tight with heated pitch -j gathered from trees. When it becomes cold it makes these little craft thoroughly ? water-tight , , 11" . $ National Appetites. "It is curious to study the appetites of different nationalities and the amount of food they annually consume," /Said ft well known New York doctor to a Mail and Exprm reporter. "Englishmen are the biggest eaters, I presume; are they not, doctor?" queried the reporter. "Not according to carefnlly prepared > statistics. The Parisian, although popularly supposed to make up in quality what he doesn't require in quantity, strange to say, reauires more annually than the Londoner. The result is arrived at by a general average, and is about as scientific as any one should desire. The French are by far the largest C consumers of fruit and vegetables, although the English think they " are gradually becoming a race of vegetable eaters. The comparisons are interesting. . The average Parisian is credited with consuming annua lv in quautity 145 pounds of apples against the Londoner's 65 pounds and 6 ounces. In pears the Frenchman is far ahead with a record of 170 poueds and 13 ounces, to John Bull's 39 pounds and 5 ounce?. To carry the comparison still further, I'll simply say that the larger amounts are credited to the Parisian and the smaller to the Londoner, peas, 3 pounds and 8 ounces, 6 pounds and 15 ounces; carrots,. 7 pounds and 3 ounces, 37 pounds; celery, *' ? n ?nd 13 rtnnnea: 11 UULIUCO, ?7 ^UU<lU0 MUV* ? . cherries, 2 pounds and 13 ounces, 20 pounds and 11 ounces; plums and damsons, 17 pounds and 12 ounces, 183 pounds and 4 ounces; and raspberries, 4 ounces, 2 pounds. But there are some foods that the LonHoner consumes twice as much as his neighbor. The Briton eats 173 pounds and 4 ounces ot potatoes, and the Parisian only 49 pounds and 4 ounces. The average consumption of cabbages, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes aid turnips is also greater in London than in Paris. With these exceptions the French are by far the largest consumers of fruit and vegetables. I think the Americans would equal the English possibly, but not th? French. The English eat more beeJ perhaps than any other nation.'Precocious Villains. Precocious villian3 are turning up josl now with alarming frequency, says t European correspondent to the iNew York Hun. The Tribunal of Mortain in France has just sentenced a lad of 14 to six years' imprisonment for the murdei of a boy of 7. The murderer, Jean Le> landais, had been watching a blackbird'! nest with the idea of taking the birdi when they should have reached a rip? age. The younger boy named Cosse, appropriated the nest in the meanwhile, and Lelandais, in his rage, killed Cosse, cutting his throat from ear to ear with a reaping hook. The youthful murderei seenied very proud of the position he had attained, and posed in court as a man not to be moved by auything. He told the Judge he had only one request tq make, and that was that his honor should prevent his being pestered by the prison chaplain, as he hail no religion and na desire to be pardoned.