University of South Carolina Libraries
I Any White Woman Lool on His Return From Generally Proposes to f and Repents S< By LEWIS R While there may be found here and there among the native women of 'Africa one who has some claims to beauty, as beauty is understood by a European, the vast majority are ugly, and even repulsive in appearance. It is not wholly surprising, therefore, though it is amusing, to hear a white man who has seen no other kind of woman but these for a year or two tell how his first meeting with a white woman affects him after his return to civilization. A stewardess on an Elder-Dempster steamer-*? J about the usual run of her class for looks and personality?assured me that she has averaged two proposals every homeward voyage during all the three years of her service, nearly every one of which, as coming from a man f&r above her station, she had religiously made a point of accepting. Out of all these men?I forget how many dozen in all?not one had ever come back for her after he had crossed the gangplank. Several of them had made return trips to Africa with her without so much as vouchsafing her a nod, but one who had made the London voyage frcm Africa for a second time on her steamer had repeated his proposal. No. she never brought a breach of promise suit, but a stewardess on anrv+ViQi. tVio nomnstpr liners had done I so, only to lose her case on a ruling by the judge to the effect that a man j who had not seen a white woman for j two years was not responsible for i what he said to the first one he met j on his return. Usually the stewardess is the only ! white woman jne encounters on a j London bound West African steam-1 -er, but occasionally there are two or I three others and conditions are pro- j portionately aggravated. I always j hear with increasingly keen enjoyment the recital of a California friend cf mine?a well known mining expert?of his experience when thus exposed. He was returning from an eighteen months' trip in the back country of the Guld Coast, and on the steamer, invalided home, was an English nurse, sole survivor of a party of four who had attempted to take charge of a coastal hospital. All "Wooed One Woman. "I thought I had seen a number of "handsome women in one place and another " snH R in telline the story. I "but from the moment I came aboard the Congo and saw her propped up in her deck chair under the after awning trying to hold her white hand 6teady enough to drink a cup of beef tea the stewardess had brought, I told myself that all the others bulked as a clay walled pocket to a true fissure vein in comparison with her. Unluckily about two dozen other chaps ! seemed to feel the same way,and every fifteen minutes of the waking hours of the two weeks' voyage the doctor had to charge down and break up the solid wall of humanity which surrounded her chair to let the trades blow in enough oxygen to keep her from fainting. There was a man to swing every rib of her fan, with enough left over to chase every fly that lighted on her over the rail and into the Atlantic. After breakfast, luncheon and dinner we regularly drove off the negro allah and shouldered each other not any too politely for a chance to pull her punkah. I don't think that I ever really profViat* Knf poT'orol nf the nthftr IJJUOCU IU ucx , wruv oe *wtut v* vuv wuv> chaps did, and one poor devil made a pretty serious feint at jumping over the rail the night that she turned him down. No two of us actually came : to blows over her, but the atmosphere of the smoking room was as frigid as that of an icebox, and the only ones who were really popular with their fellow passengers were a chap who was confined to his stateJ room with fever and was therefore S out of the running, and the lad who j! had proposed and been forced out. "By the time the Congo had been warped alongside Tillbury Docks I was entirely satisfied in my own mind that I wanted to marry what I firmly believed was the most beautiful, tal3 ented and winsome woman I had ever encountered; but determining to do the thing decently and in order, I took the address of the lodging to which she was going, and begged permission to call upon her with my sister. In due time the call was made. Miss P. was out, but at my urgent BIRDS WHICH CAI Valuable Service by H Australia Consul Kenry D. Baker, of Hobart, makes the following report on the utilization of pigeons in Australia for carrying messages. An experiment of using homing pigeons for regular communication and emergency service between Hotart and Maatsuyker Island lighthouse, about seventy-five miles southwest of Hobart. is meeting with sig nal success, and was the n*eans in November of probably saving the life tf an assistant at the lighthouse, who was able, sixteen hours after sending for a doctor by pigeon post, to obtain nerded medical relief. The pigeon-post service with this lighthouse was established by the ma rine board of Hobart on January 21, 1908. The first message, which was dispatched from the lighthouse at 10 a. m., was received in Hobart at 1.30 p. m. Since that time three * * *- r*?ifVi rr?nc_ oiras nave uwu nuciaicu ?n.u sages every three weeks, it being also understood that if accident or serious illness occurred three additional tirds were to be set free. Twelve birds in all are used for the service. "While messages have not always reached their destination safely, generally speaking the service has been thoroughly satisfactory. At tht present time the messages are written on a piece of paper and tied under the bird's wing; but the marine board has in view some celluloid cases which \ (s a Beauty to a Manj Long African Trip. the First One He Meets Don Afterward. . FREEMAN. request sister left a note inviting her j to spend a week with at Maiden- j head, where my brother-in-law had j taken a home for the summer. A 1 couple of days later she wrote us ' saving that she had engagements j covering the next three or four weeks, ! but at the end of that time it was ! possible that she would be able to ! give ua a few days of her company. My hated rivals were getting ahead of me, I thought, and I was a good deal cast down until, at the end ot three or four days, another letter j came to say that she had cancelled j her engagements, and was at liberty j to come down at once. I got sister to : wire her to come the following after- , noon, and spent the interim rehears- J ing a proposal. -| I The Test of Comparison. "She came a couple of trains ear- j lier than we had expected, and I was ; out when she was driven up to the j y,n,,aa whan pnerpr with anticiDa- i UV/UOC. ? ? wvu, O - - ? tion, I came back sister met me with ' a puzzled expression on her face. ; 'John,' she said, 'I'm afraid there has ; been a mistake. Are you sure that the \liss Agnes R. whom we invited j down here is your friend from Af- j rica? You said she was very beau- , tiful. Isn't it possible that the wrong j person got our note?' " 'Absurd!' I scoffed, brushing past ' her in my haste to gain the terrace, j where an entrancing bundle of white ' was silhouetted against the sombre i ivy beyond. 'I'd know her handwriting among a million.' "I bounded up the terrace yards in advance of my sister, to pause aghast | before the apparition of a gaunt, mid- j die aged stranger who was smiling , weakly up at me from a seat by the tea table. I knew her by her coral j brooch?I had bought it for my sis- j ter the day I left Africa?her Mau flti lizard skin handbag?that was i from Captain Broadstairs?and the j mole cn her left cheek. Those were j about the only familiar things I no- j ticed. Yet she probably had not chaneed at all in the week since she | had left the steamer. I had been J, seeing other girls, that was all. "We made a brave effort to make | her visit a pleasant one, but it was no i go. The same thing had probably j happened at the other places she had I ( tackled, and was, no doubt, the rea- ; son for the sudden setting forward j of our date. On the second day she began speaking of pressing invitations she had received, and on the third day she went back tu Ljndon. And it was not until the carriage had rattled out of sight down the drive- 1 way with her that my sister turned j and asked me how it was that I had never mentioned that Miss R. was ! crosseyed. And for the life of me i I can't recollect noticing it until that !' ghastly moment when I found her j waiting in the terrace."?New York [ Tribune. 1 As Requested. At Washington the newspaper cor- ; j respondents are telling the following storv about Representative Brown- i low, of Tennessee. Recently he calltd !, somebody up at the White House. He i had a fierce time. "Central," who ! tried to get the number for him, ap- ! ' peared to be inexperienced or asleep, yr. Brownlow, ordinarily the most i patient of mtn, finally lost his pa- j tience. "Look here!" he shouted; "quit ! this foolishness! Either get me the j White House or at least give me som*; j placs where I may at least talk to my , intellectual equal." Silence for a moment, and then over the wire came a good loud "Hello!" in a man's voice. Mr. Brownlow was very much rj- ' lieved. "What place iz this?" he asked. "The Government Hospital for the i Insane, across the river," came the j answer. i Representative Brownlow is now j endeavoring to ascertain that Cen- j tral's name. He wants to have her 1 promoted. That's what he says t"> j the newspape? men.?Judge. - . ? Railways of India. According to the latest returns 777 j miles of new lines of all gauges were added to the Indian railway systems I in the official year that has just closed. The cpen mileage is now just j under 31,000.?Westminster Gazette. I I HRY DISPATCHES \ I doming Pigeons on the j Ln Coast. i may be adjusted under the bird's < wing and in which a good deal of information might be written upon "flimsies." A piece of paper is forwarded (and filed with the Bureau of Manufactures-) on which was written the message "Medical aid urgent," which was the means of immediately dispatching a doctor from Ho- ] tart to the lighthouse. The birds are j fed on gray peas of good quality. given plenty of grit and fresh water, j and kept thoroughly clean. They arc ; also allowed at their station plenty of opportunity for needful exercise. Maatsuyker Island lighthouse is very isolated. It is situated seventy-five miles in a direct line from Hobart, and by steamer ninety miles. That j this lighthouse was able to secure a doctor from Hobart sixteen hours after one had b^en sr^nt for by pigeon post suggests important possibilities for more general use of pigeons for such service. A newspaper extract with relation to the possible use of pigeons in Australia for military purposes, also forwarded by the consul, states that the minister of defense, at Melbourne, has decided to take the ! first step by placing a sum on the estimates for the purpose of providing trophies for homing conpetitions, so as to encourage owners ?o breed (he very best description of carriers. He states that there are 20,000 of the.se birds in the commonwealth. I V, . . . \ THE ROAD TO FORTUNE. The Gospel of Saving Money Preached to Deat Young Ears. From the Bookkeeper. A >oms man who would have'a competency at the end of ten years must make sacrifices for the first two or three years. Say that you, for instance, aro earning $30 a week. At the present time you may be spending nearly all of this, as thousands of others are doing. Now, during the first year, you must save $1000 "Why," you exclaim, "if I should save $1000 i year that would make $10,000 at th*1 end of ten years, without counting the interest! You're off In your figuring!" But wait. We are supposing now that you are having your share ol prosperity and that at different timet within the next few years you wil" have doctor's bills to pay and may even be without employment at times. These things must be taken into consideration if you would save $10,000 in ten years. So the first year you save 51000. This leaves you a little less than $11 a week upon which to live during chat tim<* Perhaps you will have tn move out of your present home and rent one that is cheaper. For a time It will also be necessary for you tc contract fewer tailoring bills, and iD ill probability you will get your wife to aid you in economizing; but you must save S1000 during that year and you will find that you can do it. In the second year your load will oecome lighter, and then you will see why it was necessary for you to save ?1000 during the first year. The $1000 you can easily placc out at five per cent, interest and at t.he end of the second year it will have earned you $50, So during this second year you have to save only $950. In othiv words, you have $1 a week more to spend on the comforts of life during the second year than the first. In this way your load continues to get lighter and lighter. You begin your third year with $2000 out at interest, and during this year need save only $900, which leaves $2 a week more to spend than during the first year; and so it goes until the end of your fifth year when you are saving only $750 a year, or less than one-half of your $1560 salary. Each year you have more to spend. At the end of your eighth year you are saving just $12.50 a week, while you have $17.50 to spend. At the end of your tenth year you have $10,000, which is earning you $500 a year and which may even bring you $600 or $700 a year if you invacf if wpii Tf vou were only thir ty years of age when you began saving you are still too young to retire an $50 a month; but now you can spend all that you earn, and at the end of another ten years, if you do not gather the "honey" which your 510,000 is making for you, you will be worth a little over $17,000, which at six per cent, will bring you an income of $85 a month for the rest of your life. A modification of the above scheme can be made to worl: to a profit of any tfage.earner, no matter what his weekly earnings may be, granting of course that they are sufficient to live upon comfortably. Fpr instance, if the man wbo earns $15 a week could save $7 a week for fourteen years he would have acquired a little fortune of $5096. This task of saving $7 a ;veck out of $15 a week for 728 weeks seems stupendous at first, but when you figure it out carefully you will aeo that it is not so difficult after all. In the first place, you would have to save $7 a week only for the first year, just as the man who was work ing for $10,000 had to save $iuuu for the. first rear only. At the end of the first year you would have $364. By the end of the second year this would have earned $ 1 S.20 at five per cent., so that this year you would need to save only $3in.30 instead of $364, or $6.65 a week. During the third year you would have S73 8 working for you, which at five per cent, would enrn $3G.40, leaving you $r..30 to save each weolc aher that year. Figuring in this way, in the bpginr.ing of your sixth year you would have to lay asid^ only $5.80 weekly; atthebeginr.ing of tho ninth, $4.20, ar.d at tbe beginning of your twelfth, on^y $3.15. Yet at the end of your fourteenth year you would have saved ov?r $5000, which, properly employed, would mean a great deal to you in the years to come. Story of a Bell. Few person? suspect that in1 the cathedral church of Notre Dame is a bell contemporaneous with Joan of Arc?"the blessed bell" which sounded the tocsin wheu the maid of Lorraine appeared in August, 1429, and Paris was besieged by tbe English. This historic bell, referred to by Victor Hugo in his "Notre Dame de Paris," wos given to the cathedral in 1400 bv Jean de Montaign. It was refounded in 1036, and then rebaptized under the name of Emmanuel Louise Therese, in honor of Louis XIV. and Marie Theresfe of Austria. So if this bell is not the same bell which the heroine of Domremy heard, nevertheless the same metal vibrates to-day at the great religious ceremonies of the metropolitan church. In view of later events it. seems rather more than a coincidence that when all the other bells were destroyed by the Revolutionists Joan'? bell should have been spared.?London Globe. Little Girl's Long Journey. Annie Brown, a five-year-old Irish girl, has just reached Calgary after a journey of more than 5000 miles inaue ausoiuieiy aiuue uum smu n# finish. During tUe trip she was well cared for by passengers on boats and trains who became interested in her artless story of how she was going to Canada to meet her daddy, who preceded her eighteen months. Annie's father, James Brown, is living 011 a homestead five miles south of Calgary and could not spare the time to cross the ocean to act as escort for his little girl. Couscquently he decidcd to have her make the long journey aloue.?Calgary News. Scotland has many houses without windows. I HE ANTEDATED ADA1V I ! French Cave Man Lived Between 20, 000 and 400,000 Years Ago. Thousands of years before Adas | found himself in the Garden of Edei ; there lived a man who made his-hom in the limestone caves of Centra ' France. He had no need of flg leaves I since nature provided him with ; ! tasteful robe of hair. His life wa j. undoubtedly hard, but he was fairl; i equipped for the struggle, havini i teeth like a gorilla and a sinewy am j that could wield a club with deadl; ; effect against hi3 four-legged ene ! mies. He went hunting after thi j lower animals, and enjoyed gettinj ' the strangle hold on a deer or sinkini ! his teeth in the neck of a young cavi 1 bear. He would often beat his pre; i over the head with a rock. When j ever he used stone or club, ho prob 1 ably congratulated himself on hi: I superior methods and felt a mild con tempt for the dulness of his cousins the apes. When he glanced in i stream of water he admired the in tellectual aspect of his forehead and maybe, understood the reason for th< THE MAN OF CHAPELLE-AUX-SAU TOR. RECONSTRUCTED YV AND HI His bones were found in a cave in wh France. Three priests made the discove larger brain cavity in his skull than has unlike the monkey's, was in front. He c upright than any ape.1 'He fought with may oe four hundrea thousand years ago.stupidity of his lower browed rela tives. Not long ago three priests dlscov ered the skull of this progenitor o Adam at Chapelle-aux-Saints. Scl entlsts have made a study of <t, an( declare that this earliest of knowi humans had a right .to think well o himself, although he would hardly fl into a modern drawing room. "Taki him for all and all, he was a man. He made a fair use of his opportuni ties, and did not attack animals tha he could not- subdue. He gave hi children a eood hunting education and perhaps taught them .the rudi ments of art?how to scratch picture ori stoue. Up to the present time seniorit; among human relics belonged ti .those found In Neanderthal, Ger many, in 1856, and in Spy, Belgium thirty years later. When the Nean 1 derthal skull was found Darwinian was in its infancy, and men wer I rather ashamed to acknowledge thei j ancestors. To-day they are eager t trace back the relationship as far a possible. The Neanderthal skull ha a capacity of some 1300 cubic centi metres, and this is about the capacit; of the Chapelle-aux-Saints specimen j Modern man averages 1500, witl I Cuvler's and Lord Byron's expand ing to" 1800, while the Australia! , aborigine drops down to 1400. Th | best brain cavity that the manlik | apes can show is 600 cubic cent! metres. The Chapelle-aux-Saints headpiec was found in one of the numerou limestone caves of the Correze dis trict, amid flint stones and the bone of deer and bison. The geologica ! levol was about the same as that i 1 which the Neanderthal and Spy bone ! were discovered. Together with th i skull,, some vertebral and hip bone 1 were unearthed, which ied M. Mai THE Dll g t< Josiah (to newly wedded neigh and I see no reason, since you have i cannot pull together as steady and h horses." Obediah?"No doubt we could i us."?Judge. Novel Spelling Card. An educational device of real merit designed especially to interest, and in I *&/] ?p I I struct the younger children, is ahowr la the illustration below, the inven lion of a Maryland man. It com prises a number of sections o? cards ? cellin Boule, director of paleontology j in the Paris Museum, to determine i the sex of the earliest known human ! being. Small hip bones showed that the creataure was a. man, and the sutures of the skull that he was ripe a with years when he died. He was a at)out five and one-fourth feet high. 9 The walls of the skull are very thick; 1 the skull box is flattened and slopes l? to .the front and the eye arches are a exceedingly large and prominent. A s wide mouth, a big nose and a massive I y paw were characteristics in life. This ? type of man stands between a Java 1 monkey and the lowest order of huY man being existent to-day. The esti" mate of the age of his bones range 8 (between 20,000 and 400,0-00 years.? 5 New York Tribune. 3 3 Automatic Bottle-Filler. Y A bottle-filling machine has been - recently invented by two Philadelphia - men for which several interesting im3 provements are claimed by the inven tors. In the first place, it is more , thoroughly automatic than any of the i devices now in use for this purpose, - and, further, it seems capable of a , greater range of adjustment. It will j handle material of any character tfTS, OUR EARLIEST KNOWN ANCESITH SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY S SKULL. ., at is now the Department of Carreze, in iry. This .woolly gentleman had a much any of the man-like apes. His knee-pan, . ould not walk perfectly erect, but was more a club or a stone, and died or was killed -L'lllustration. - without regard to its density, weight or consistency. The list includes min eral waters, molasses and tomato catf sup. With very little readjustment - the machine can be made to handle 1 boxes of different sizes and shapes. 1 The bottles are fed under a number f of nozzles, which are adjustable to t the height of the vessels, and when 2 filled the supply of liquid is autoI I v 1 T . ' i : |pr| y ti " macically cut off, the filled ones being a moved along and a row of empty ones e taking their places. This feature is e controlled by the weight of the ma-' terial, so that the bottles are always filled to the same point. The number e of nozzles is also under the control, s so that many or few may be filled as 1_ desired. s '' A new type of electric locomotive, ii of^which the New York Central Rails road will have twenty, is capable of e 4000 horse power at high speed, the s j armatures being mounted on the driv* ing axles. bor)?"I wish you long, happy lives; had experience, why you and Mariab appy and successfully as a team of f there was only one tongue between pivoted at one end. Inscribed on each section is some letter of the al. phabet and an object, the letters and portions of objects being so arranged that when some of the sections have been brought together to spell the name of the object the latter will appear complete upon the reverse side of tho sections thus assembled. The sections are interchangeable, so that they can be manipulated in a great many positions. This novel spelling card should be found especially desirable for use in kindergartens. Gloves For Street Wear. j Light gray gloves for street wear, : but having black stitching, are being ; shown for spring wear. A pocket ! walking stick is one of the new fads. It is made of a ribbed wood resein: bling bamboo, but much heavier and i darker in color, and is joined in sixj inch lengths. There is a variation of the folding cane for the trunk or i suit case. It might tit into the pocket - of a very big ulster. At all events it { - is a nice thing to have for traveling. j ?Fairchild's Magazine. '1 DRUGS THAT ENSLAVE. \ Claim That Physicians Are Mainly Responsible For the Formation of Drug Habits. It has been repeatedly and persistently alleged by those who are fanatically opposed to the sale of household remedies that the' alarming increase in the number of opium addicts and cocaine fiends in this country is due almost wholly to the widespread use of so-called patent medicines. That this charge is untrue, however, is proved by recent investigations of the ( "dope" question, which show that it i is not the patent medicine, but the physician's prescription, that iB mainly responsible for the growth of alcohol and drug addictions. Some years ago Dr. T. D. Crothers, of flartford, Conn., a noted authority on morphinism, in a paper on "Morphinism Among Physicians," read before the New York Medical Association, made the statement that among 3244 physicians whose histories he j had collected, 21 per cent, were found J to be persistent users of either opium j or alcohol, and that in addition to j this number 10 per cent, were secret users of habit-forming drugs. As the I final result of h?i investigations, Dr. j Crothers concludes that "at least 15 to.20 per cent, of the physicians in active practice are victims of mor- > phine and spirit taking." In an arti- j cle in the Medical Summary Dr. C. E. I Patterson says: "i am sorry to say i that of any one class of men who are j addicted to drugs and liquor the med- j ical profession takes the lead. And I j am sorry to say, further, that the phy- j slcian of to-day is altogether too ! ready to pull out that little gun of j his and shoot every patient that has J a pain, thus engendering the formation of a drug habit." Dr. O. L. Peak, of Springfield, Mo., in the Missouri Journal of State Medicine, remarks: "There is no doubt th&t thousands, of persons have been started in the downward course of the drunkard by the direct act, advice or sanction (and I am ashamed to say, too. often by the example) of their family physician." The directors of sanitaria for drug adtticts are united in their belief that the doctor's prescription is almost wholly responsible for the formation of drug habits. One director writes'as follows: "In looking over my loose reports, covering the last eight years, I find that the most common cause of the morphine habit is the medical prescription giv en lor tne reuer 01 Doany pain, ur. L. F. Kebler, chief of the Division of Drugs in the Bureau of Chemistry of the United States Department of Agriculture, has this .to say: "It is common knowledge that there a>e some so-called doctors who make a practice of writing prescriptions for very small fees Cor these life-wrecking drugs." In view of the foregoing statements of physicians who stand high in their profession, it is evident that if the growth of alcohol addlictions is to be checked, the reform movement must not be directed against the comparatively innocent patent medicine, but against the medical profession?the real fcause of the evil. Of this and other reforms in the practice of medicine Dr. Waite sums up the situation in the Medical Record by saying: "The time has come when a reform movement is bound to be inaugurated. If it does not come from within it will come from without. If we A* wnf r?/*f/-kr?TV? nnraolvoG WP Will TlP U.U UUl IGWiUl UU*WV?TVW .. w ..... reformed, nolens, volens. The laity are not all fools. * * * That portion of the laity which has not already gone over to Christian Science, osteopathy and psychotherapy is casting a critical eye upon the medical profession, and if I mistake not the signs of the times will require a speedy accounting." ? From the Brooklyn Times. AN ELEVATED GRASSHOPPER How It Came to Be Placed on thtf Royal Exchange in London. The Royal Exchange in London is still being decorated with paintings by leading ^artists depicting the great' events that have brought about the supremacy of England through the medium of this historic building. Yet the many thousands who visit the Royal Exchange daily have very little idea, says .the Strand, that this pile owes its origin to a curious cause, to nothing else than the chirp- i ing of a grasshopper. The chirp of this insect attracted J the attention of a little boy to a baby | the son of a poor woman?so pool I that she could not support the child, and therefore had left him to perish alone in a large field near her hovel. The little boy took the child home and it was brought up and eventually blossomed into no less a person than j Sir Thomas Gresham, v/ho built the Royal Exchange. The prosperous merchant, to hand j down to posterity the incident which j saved his life, took the grasshopper for his crest, an^l that is the reason I why that insect is placed, as everyone I can see, over the Royal Exchange. i Japanese Girl's College Honors. With ihe degree of bachelor of di- ! vinity a Japanese, Miss Ochima ! Okubo, was graduated from the Pa- | cific Theological Seminary with six j other students when the commence- j ment exercises of the seminary were I held on Tuesday morning at the First Congregational Church. Miss Okubo is also registered in sophomore work at the University of 1 California and lives in Oakland.? San Francisco Chronicle. A Failure. "Has your son had any success as ' a lawyer?" "Well, no. to te-.l the truth, be j nasn l. ni; naa uccu jn ui>nv<iiia .. j for nearly eleven years and he has ! never been elected to the Legislature or been appointed receiver for anything or even become president of any railroad company. It begins to look as though he may have to eke out a j living just practicing law."?Chicago , Record-Herald. Pianos Tuned to Order. Tuner?"I called to tune tho piano." Lady?"But I didn't send for you." Tuner?"No; but the man next door did."?Cornell Widow. / v'*. ' ' ?j ;& " Experiments have shown that th? Chicago air, 300 feet above the street, contains in a year 7038 pounds oi ' dirt an acre, or three times as much as London air. Majoi F. B. Baden-Powell, an English authority on aeronautics, anticipates that flying will be common in four years' time, and he points out ?. that new laws and regulations will have to be adopted. Ho apprehends gr-ive disturbances in customs circles and foresees a complete rearrangement of tariff schedules, with a probable setting aside of all duties on small and easily transported articles. The sensitiveness of growing plants to the influence of light is, says the University Correspondent, "well illustrated by the results of recent research on heliotropism?the bending \ of stems toward light. Cress seedlings showed a.distinct curvature after an exposure of only two seconds 1 to a light of 200 candlepower. The feebler the light the longer is the lime required to produce a reaction, . . but in an hour the seedling will curve toward the feeblest glimmer of light. . . >> _ * ' il Dr. Oerum, of the Finsen Institute at Copenhagen, has -carried out a; V.$ Qumber of experiments on the effect af light on the blood. He has found that darkness reduces the total ' .. r* amount of blood jy three to three and* inree-tentns per cent.., wuue ucvieao(ng at the same time the amount- of blood contained in the heart. Red light has an effect like that of darkness, while blue light is likely to re^ suit in an excess of blood and an increase in the amount contained in the heart. Light baths are likely to increase the amount of blood In the "bourse of a few hours. Darkness will increase, and intensive light will re- v< duce the blood pressure. Animpla : ^ born in the dark or in red light have a greater weight, but only half the amount of blood of those born under <, o normal conditions. A discovery, which may prove of considerable commercial importance, , -has been made in Australia. Million* of tons of an extraordinary fibre of marine origin, .the accumulation of v * centuries, have been discovered in the Spence Gulf, and It possesses remark- ; able qualities. It will spin and weave in union with wool, take dye equally v well, is non-inflammable, and does nnt oh rink. So far. the fibre has been - ' succeaSlully used in the manufacture of cloth and blankets, carpets, mat- ' /;,.& ting, hessian, bagging and woolpacks. v&g The manufactured articles are said to hare been favorably commented upon by experts of the textile industries. DIMINUTIVE FARMS. Those in Portugal Have Been Cut UpInto Very Small Portions. The Portuguese are an extremely . .' && conservative people. Every man follows rigidly the methods employed by his father and forefathers. In very many parts of the country the old wooden plows are still used. When a n^an dies instead of one of : ; i? the heirs taking the whole property and paying .the remaining hsirs for their parts the whole property is divided into as many parts as there are heirs. More than this, each separate part of the property is thus divided. . J Thus if a property consisted of .ten ? nactiiro land olehtV Of vine* *,> '.J ACl CD KJJL 9 yard and ten of grain land, and there kJ .* were ten heirs, each heir would receive one acre each of grain and pasture land and eight acres of vineyard. This process has been going on for a very long time, so that now in the most fertile part of Portugal the- ~ land is divided into incredibly small portions. \;js The immediate result of this, ao- * cording to the United States Consular Reports, is that the product of the / , v land is barely sufficient at best to maintain its owners. South of the River Tagus, on the other hand, there / . are enormous tracts of excellent land lying unused, but it has been found impossible to induce the farmers o\ the north to move into this r?giod and take up large holdings. turquoise n Parisian Fad. The Parisienne is always as keen to follow fashions in jewelry as in frocks, and just now she has given her undivided attention to the tur? quoise. There is a perfect craze for thte pretty stone; so strong is it, indeed, that it is bound soon to pass. The turquoise which has thus saized my. lady's whim is not the simple turquoise with its softly greenly blue sheen; it is the turquoise matrix, to give it its proper term?the turquoise dotted with colored spots. It is set in rings, which are worn for choice on th6 first finger. It is the favorite stone for the little buckles that finish the fine lace jabot. Where the pof.fcet can afford it turquoise buttons are the thing, while for bracelets the stone is used in every way a jeweler can devise.?From M.-A. P. Chance For Beggars. Begging must be profitable In Paris, judging from a recent adver> ? * tisement in a Paris paper: ~r or oam ?Present holder retiring to the country, good situation for one legged man; neighborhood of the Etoile; hours of work, 2 p. m. to 7 p. m.; rpcpjnts. from 8s. Gd. to 12s.; regular passersby, children and strangers; any infirmity would suit."?London Globe. Wanted It at Once. The MacTartan (very much fud? died)?"Twa tuckets for Inverness, mister." Clerk?"Right, sir. Change at Aberdeen, please." The Mac Tartan?"Xa. na! I'll tak' it the noo; we've heard aboot the fouk in Aberdeen."?The Sketch. There are less than 500 miles o{ railway in Colombia, and nearly all traveling must be done ou horse op muleback.