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V lewis m. grist, Proprietor; 1 2U Jnlitjrtntitnt Jamiln $tttospjjtr: ,jfor l|e promotion of tjjt political, Social, '^griniltural anb (Jiramertial Interests' af t{rr jJontjr. jTERMS--$2.50 A TEAR, IN ADVANCE. VOL. 26. YOEKVILLE, S. C., THUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1880. . . 46. Selected fflcttg. WORK TOGETHER. If all men had the self-same mind, And sought the same position, The world would be, as you'll agree, Chaotic in condition. Thus some must sow, and some must reap. And some must plow the mighty deep; And some must wake while others sleepEach has his given mission. And tho' they seek quite different paths, In bright and cloudy weather, And seem to stray, each his own way, They really work together; The oue who weaves, the one who knits, The one who cuts, and he who tits, Bound by a silken tether. Thus the great world thrives and grows, As each man helps his brother,' Tim srreat and small, the short and tall, They all help one another. For s >ine must print and some must fold, Some must carve and some must mold. And some count silver, scrip and gold. Each one pursuit or other. Then banish envy from your hearts, And keep your soul well lighted, The world should be, as vou'll agree, At peace and all united. The watercourse will turn the wheel? Tue mill will grind the corn to tneal? And Hod will reign through woe and weal, And every wrong be righted. ?ltC ?diet. THE MYSTERIOUS NOTE. CHAPTER I. In 1805 I was working on the southern fork of the north affluent of the Yuba, at a point two or three miles below Sierra City. I was at work alone, in a ravine making down into the river. Half a dozen other miners had cabins not far from mine, and were at work in gulches or on bars in the river. All of our cnhins werp nn the south side of the river, and mine was at least half a mile further south than any of the others, which carried it well up toward the main ridge or range of hills walling in the stream. * One day, at noon, I went home to get my dinner, and on opening the door of my cabin, saw in the middle of the floor, a small scrap of white paper folded in the form of a note. I thought this not a little curious, as my door . was secured with a padlock of peculiar construction, and no man could have entered unless through the ucat-holev at the bottom pf the door. As I took up the note I saw that there were two or three spots of blood on it. The note alone was sufficient to startle me, but, when I saw the blood, a chill ran through my veins, and I said: "Here is some villainy afoot! Somebody has been murdered, perhaps 1" My next thought was that some of the boys might i*? nl:iviiirr a. trick on me. Instead of at once oi>eiring the note to read it, I began looking into all the comers of the room; I even stooped and peeped under my bed. Xo one wjis to be seen. My cat, old "Clispa," was the only living thing in the place. He came purring about my legs, as was his habit when I came home; though often he was out on his own hook, hunting and prospecting about, for he was not one of your homestaving, lazy kind of cats. After speaking a kind word or two to old "Clispa" I o{>ened the note, and as I read, l>egan to open my eyes. The little note? merely the folded leaf of an ordinary memorandum book?read as follows : June 9.1K65. This is to inform the person into whose hands it may come, that I am in the old Maldanado shaft. By the breaking of a ladder I fell to the bottom of the shaft tln ee days ago. I am almost starved. For God's sake come to my assistance at once. Jacob Pritciiaki>. "When I had read the note?scrawled with a very dull lead pencil?I hardly knew what to think. My brain was in a whirl, and I made no headway in trying to think. As I turned the paper in my fingers, I observed that the blood came off it and stained my hand; I saw, in fact, that it was quite fresh. This astonished me not a little, ' for,'* thought I, "if he fell into the shaft three days ago and hurt himself, how does it happen that the blood on this note is still fresh, and almost warm ?" My next thought was this: "If he is in the bottom of the Maldanado shaft?more than a hundred feet below the surface?as he says, how could he leave me this note ?" Clearly the thing was improbable, and I could make neither head nor tail of the business. Who Jacob Pritchard was I did not know. I did not remember having ever heard his name." I sat down on a stool and tried to think. "Here," thought I, "is a man in the bottom of a shaft, where he has been for three days, and where he is now supposed to be starving, who leaves a note on my cabin floor, asking me to come and get him out. There is blood?fresh blood?on this note, which makes things still worse !" I sat and thought, and thought, till things got so mixed up in my head that I was no more capable of forming an opinion in regard to the business", than a born idiot. I talked to the cat?to old "Clispa"?al>out it, and the old fellow seemed willing to assist me, and he got upon my knee, and snuffed at the note as though he knew that the cause of my trouble lay in that. He then jumped down and running to the corner of the room, brought me the remains of a little crippled squirrel, which he had lately caught, as I could see, just as if he thought I might be in trouble 011 the grub question, and as much as to say : "Here, old paid, eat and be merry 1" "Clispa, old fellow, you mean well, said I, "but your kind of grub is not to my mind." "Clispa" looked disappointed when he found that I could see nothing in the "wreck" of the little squirrel. He seemed to be of the opinion that this ought to bring all my troubles and doubts to an end. The more I pondered on the matter the more it puzzled me. Being unable to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion in regard to the mysterious affair, I made up my mind to see some of the "boys," on the river, and lay the matter before them. Having got four or five of my neighbors together, I produced the note, told them where I found it, and asked what they thought of the "business." They all said at once that the note was an "infernal lie on its face." Said they: "If the man is in the shaft, how is he able to leave ii note on your floor, telling you so V" This was nothing more than I had myself thought of in the start. After much talk, we all concluded that there was in it a trick of some kind ; however, Ave would see it out. We determined tOAisit the shaft named, the whereabouts of which Avas Avell known to us all, we having seen it scores of times. It was decided that each man should l>e armed with 11 six-shooter, and that Ave should take with m three or four candles and a long rope; also, e canteen of water and some brandy, thougl these last-named articles were mainly intendec for our own comfort and sustenance. Happer what might, we would thoroughly examine the shaft. About three o'clock in the afternoon all was in readiness and we set out?set out on what seemed one of the wildest of wild goose chases. The Maldanado shaft is situated on the sharp ridge of a high and steep hill, nearly a mile ; south of the south fork of the north aflluent of the Vuba ; it was about half a mile above where my cabin stood. The shaft was sunk by Gabriel Maldanado, a man well known to all the early silver miners of the Comstoek lode, but now some years dead. It was sunk after the old Mexican fashion, and was about eight feet by fourteen in size, and in it ladders of notched poles weai used, instead of rope and windlass or other hoisting apparatus, the i miners walking up and down the poles, and ; carrying the ore poised on their heads, in rawI hide sacks. These poles were placed in the ( shaft in such a i>osition that they formed a zigzag line, like a worm fence, from top to boti torn, there being a little platform on which | rested the foot of one ladder, and the top of the next below. Thus, in descending the shaft, ?1 * .vl.%4idoffAvm j UIIC 11 Will 1'iatlVlUi VV |?mnviui, uuu from side to side of the opening, until the bottom was reached. "When the news of the discovery of silver in Washoe reached Maldanado, he abandoned tins mine?which was hardly paying expenses?and all of his Mexican followers left Sierra county, California, and the gold mine there was completely deserted ; the buildings, at and about the shaft, were crushed in by the heavy falls of snow, which occur in that elevated region, and soon all about that place went to ruin. Such was the old Maldanado shaft at the time I found the note on my cabin floor. Nothing was left at the place but a few stakes about the old blacksmith's forge, and a section ! of a stake roof that had fallen across and covered about half the mouth of the shaft. It was a lonesome, dreary old place. CHAPTER II.* Arrived at the top of the hill and at the mouth of the shaft, one of the men said: "Well here we are! Now to make known our presence to the man in the shaft?to Jacob Pritchard!" "Well, call down to him,'' said another, laughing ; for, now that we stood at the mouth of the shaft, we felt quite silly, and half exI>ected to see some one peep out from behind a tree or rock, and "raise the laugh" on us. The man who had first spoken stooped over the-shaft and shouted : "Jacob, are you down there'?" Almost instantly there came up from the shaft a faint cry, that was half moan, half shout. We all heard it, and were thrilled and startled. Most of the faces about the shaft suddenly grew pale. We all stood silent for some seconds, when some one said: "Sure as fate, there is a man down there !" "Who are you V Who is down there V" again called out our men, stooping down close to the dark mouth of the shaft. "Jacob Pritchard !" was the answer that come up the shaft. The name was so distinctly uttered that all heard it, and hearing it, all turned a shade paler than before. "It beats the dickens !" said one of the men. "That was the name signed to the note, and here is the fellow still in the shaft!" "Ask him about the note,"' said one of our party. "Did you?write a note?and send it out^ asking for help ?" cried our spokesman, stooping over the shaft and sending the message down in sections, much as the sailors on rivers call to each other from vessel to vesel. "I did,''was the prompt response from the bottom of the shaft, and again we all gazed at one another in amazement. "It is either the devil himself or the.biggest liar in the mountains ?" said Bill Wallace. "IIow?could you?send out?a letter ?" asked Bill. "(Jet me out. I can't tell now!" came from the dark in a vexed and gasping voice. "lie is right," said Bill; "we ought to l>e ashamed to stand here questioning the poor fellow when there are enough of us to eat him up without either salt or pepper! J^ight a couple of candles and get the rope ready. Two of us will go down and see how he can l.r? Cnmo nf flio lirU-frmi loilrlorv miief UC gut Ulili IJ'MUC V/L lilt/ UVVVW1II U.MUV l>e broken, or he could come out himself?that is, if his legs are both sound. Mike Murphy, you are stout and active, come with me and we'll go and see that fellow. "B?but h?how could he bring up the letter ?" stammered Mike, shaking his head, and looking anything but ready to descend the shaft. "Blow the letter!" said Bill; "he'll tell us all about that when we get him out. Are we to keep the i>oor fellow there all day, while we stand here parleying like cowards ?" "I?I'm not afraid to go down there, av course," said Mike, "but we all know that this here is a quare kind of business, from first to last?that is as far as we've got into it." "Well, then, Mike, you and I will go," said Bill. "Just drop the end of the rope into the shaft, and we'll work it along to the bottom as we coon it down the ladders. Take your candle, Mike V" Mike took the candle into a rather an unsteady hand, and then waiting until Bill was down a few feet, got upon the top of the pole and began descending backwards, as a crawfish travels. As his head was descending below the level of the shaft, he halted and cast a lingering look on all the bright world he was leaving. lie looked like a man whose hours on earth were numbered. His pride carried him where his legs did not want to go. Slowly and steadily the two men descended the shaft, slipping from notch to notch in the long, slender poles. As we stood at the edge of the wide opening and eagerly gazed down into it, we could distinctly see our two companions and mark their slow descent, by the llickering light of their candles. They toilsomely zigzagged their way down, the light ' of their candles growing smaller ancl smaller, till all we saw resembled two little stars. Finally the two twinkling stars went over to the west side of the shaft and stopped side by side. A murmuring, as of the voices of 1 persons in conversation, then came up the shaft. t "Pay out more roi>e V" shouted Bill from ! somewhere far down in the bowels of the earth, i The rope was slowly run out. "All right! That's enough !" cried Bill. l Again a hum Of voices was heard; then > came the older from Bill: "Haul up; haul ' slowly and carefully ! Slowly?slowly?slowly ! Hold ! Hold on now ! That will do 1" There was more buzzing of voices, then s Bill called out: "Hello, up there !" > "Hello !" cried we. i "I am going to?bring him up?the lad? ders," said Bill, sending his message up in seci tions, so that it would not become tangled on i the way. "I shall leave the roi>e around him. I Keep the slack rope hauled up?but don't pull i hard. Do you understand V" (j "All right!" cried I. W? know how it is." They then started up the ladders. They > halted to rest at each platform. ; j Finally, as tliey approached the top, we j were able to catch occasional glimpses (over i 1 Bill's shoulders) of a pale face and a black, ! !! bushy beard. Then, when they reached the last ladder, sloping up "toward us, there was : added to the picture a pair of black and eagerlooking eyes?hungry looking is probably the better expression. ! The man was at last safely landed at the top of the shaft. He was a stranger to us all. I A tall young fellow, apparently about twenty- j six years of .age?stood before us. lie wore ; a black felt hat and ordinary miner's garb, j The man was weak, and tottered jus he oj>en- j ed tlie noose at tlie end of the rope, dropped it to his feet, and stepped out of it. Suddenly he sank upon his knees. We , were about to go to his assistance, thinking j he had fainted, when he raised his hands, and i 7 ' i we saw, by the motion of his lips, that lie was | doing a thing that we did not often see done | i in the mines. I We took off our hats and stood by, in silence. When the young man .attempted to rise i from his knees he fell over 011 his side, and came near rolling into the shaft again, for he had fainted. Some water from the canteen revived him, and a spoonful of brandy soon gave him strength to stand, and even walk I slowly, supported 011 either side by one of our men. We were all (tying of curiosity, and as we moved down the side of the mountain toward my cabin, we could not refrain from asking a few questions, weak and sick as the young man looked. "Your name is Jacob Pritehard ?" asked one of the men. "It is," said the stanger. "Did you write this note ?" said I, exhibiting the scrap of writing I had found. "I did." said the man ; "but there is blood on it! How came that ? I am not hurt!" "T1 ? T ' 1 ..... rtnftr Ytrltoro "ll is as 1 luiuiu ii< uii iuj Hum, you left it," said T. "Where I left it! How could I ?" said the young man, giving me a reproachful look. "Well," said I, "that .is what I want to know?and you all the time in the shaft!" "Was it really brought to your cabin ?" "Of course; how else could I have got it ?" said I. "It is a miracle!" cried the young man. "But how could you have sent the note up out of the shaft ?" asked one of the men. "The story is too long to be told now ; besides, what you most want to know is so simple?I might say so silly?that you will be inclined to laugh at me when I tell you. But when I am rested I will tell you'all." This was grasped out a little at a time, and so feebly that we all saw that the young man was in no condition to tell a long story, such as his promised to l>e. Bill, who felt proud of his part in the business of the rescue, swore that the man should not say a word until he had swallowed something in the shape of food, and till he felt himself able to talk. As the two men assisted the stranger down the steep face of the mountain?much of the time almost carrying him?some of us fell behind to discuss the words he had said. After we had reached my cabin, and after the stranger had partaken of such food as we thought suitable for him in a weak state, we asked him to tell us his story. "I ought to ask you to tell me your story," said he, "as there are things that puzzle me not a little, ana wmcn yon ougnt to ne auie to explain. I think you have said that you found my note here on the floor of your cabin ?" "I have said so," I replied, "and cannot understand how it was left there." "The circumstance cannot astonish you more than it does me," said the young man. "The hand of God is in it! When you shall have heard my story, you will probably be able to tell me how the note was brought to you ; indeed, that is a mystery which it will remain with you to explain ?it is what I do not understand." "Then, it will never be explained," said I. "We don't know that," said the young man. "lint I will tell you all I know about this curious business." "Good ! Let us have it!" said all hands. CHAPTER III. "Well," said the young man, "to begin : I had been mining about Downieville?up the river along Sailor Ravine and off that way? for some months, making littlemorethan grub. I had often heard of the shaft abandoned by Maldanado, at the time of the Washoe silver excitement, and I thought that where so much gold had been found, some must have been left. I managed to get a description of the location of the shaft, from a man who had not the slightest idea of what use I intended making of the information he was giving me. Three days ago I stole out of Downieville and came up here alone, determined to descend the shaft and examine the vein for myself. "I was provided with a candle and matches, and when I found the shaft, after a long search, I unhesitatingly entered it and began to descend, by means of the notched poles. I never once thought it possible that any accident ronld hannen to me. "All went well till T w:is on the hist ladder from the bottom. I was about the middle of the pole or ladder when, without the least warning, it broke in the centre, and I fell a distance of about ten feet, to the bottom of the shaft. I was not at all hurt. The upper part of the ladder fell across my thighs, but did not hurt me. I felt at once that I was completely trapped. The pole had become quite rotten, besides, the middle notch had, by accident, bejm cut a little too deep. "In falling my candle was extinguished, but I had a good supply of matches, and soon lighted it again. Holding the candle aloft, I found, to my dismay, that to the first platform, and to the foot of the nearest ladder, the distance was nearly twenty feet. To this height, on all sides, I was shut in by a smooth and solid wall of rock. "I next looked about the bottom of the shaft. The space was about eight feet in width, by fourteen in length?it having been excavated in this shape in order to give room for planting the ladders at a proper angle. Only half the bottom was dry ground. The east side of the shaft, into which the vein dipped, had been sunk about three feet lower than the west side and contained over two feet of water. "When I had made these observations, I again looked aloft and carefully examined the wa41s on all sides. They afforded not a chink by means of which I could hope to climb to the platform above. I planted two pieces of the broken ladder against the wall, climbed to their top, and again looked for chinks in the , rock, in which I might gain a hold for my fingers and toes. All was solid and smooth. [ "I then placed one piece of the ladder against the wall, and, carrying the other, 1 climbed up and tried to plant it upon the first section. I could not make it stand, and to I * V have attempted to climb it, even though it had stood, would have been folly, as it was quite vertical. I tried planting its base in some of the notches in the first sections, but they were not deep enough, and I could not make it stand. When I stood my first section against the shaft, at a smaller angle, I could plant my second in the notches, but then it would not reach higher than within six or eight feet of the platform I wished to gain. "All this time my candle was stuck in a bit of clay, at the bottom of the shaft. It was fast being consumed, which I could not afford; therefore, I blew it out and sat down in the dark. .My feel nigs*may, perhaps, be imagined, but I cannot describe them. I wanted to think?to do some good, strong thinking?but my thoughts and my brain seemed to spin around in a circle, and all I did was to rejieat over and over the one word: 'Lost! lost! ! lost!!!' Lost was all I could say?all I could get my brain to comprehend. "I.lay down and rocked myself to and fro on the ground, not remaining still for a moment, save when I occasionally paused to gaze if fa*, liffiu animrp nf lirrlit. that marked the top of the shaft. Once, in thus tossing about, I struck my head against the wall of the shaft. This gave me an idea that I stopped for a moment to consider : it was that I might at last dash out my brains against the rock when there seemed to he nothing else left to do. "This did me some good, and I began to think again. It appeared to me that I had seen something floating in the water, in the other part of the shaft, during the time my candle was burning. I tried to rememl>er what it was. There were several objects. They were not bits of wood or bark, but something else?just what I could not recollect. This bothered me so much that I determined to light my candle and see what was in the water. I found two dead rabbits?all bloated and green?three or four small striped squirrels, one tolerably large gray squirrel, of a burrowing kind, and half a dozen mice. "All these were more or less decayed: but I considered that it might yet become necessary for me to eat them ; therefore, I fished them out and placed them in a corner of the dry part of the shaft, where I could find them if my candle was all gone, when the time came that I must eat them. This done I blew out my candle and again lay down to roll and toss, to gaze at the specks of day far above me, and groan "Some one might pass that way and hear me. The moment this thought came into my head I arose, and, leaning against the wall and looking upward, I began shouting. Hours after I did nothing but shout. I shouted till hoarse, and till I could hardly stand. Finally, completely exhausted, I fell asleep. "When I awoke it was all dark above, and I said as it is now dark, no use of shouting. When daylight came again I resumed my shouting, and kept it up until I became very hoarse and weak, when I gave it up as worse than useless. "I studied all manner of combinations to be made with my two pieces of ladder, and two or three times lighted my candle to look at them, but soon blew it out again, as I saw that they couid not be made any longer than they actually were. The bit of daylight above did not reach me, and did me no good except to let me know when it was day, and when it was night. "It is useless to prolong this part of my story. 1 soon suffered the pangs of hunger and thirst. It was not hard to bring myself to crawl to the water and drink of it, foul as it was, but it was hard to undertake to eat of the dead animals. SeveraltimesI attempted it, but gave it up, feeling that the time had not yet arrived. "I found myself taking naps at all times of the day and night. On waking from one of these short naps, I thought I heard something on the bottom of the shaft?there was a slight rattling of the little quartz peb-1 bles or broken fragments of rock. I listened for some time, and finally became satisfied there was something moving about in the T n wofoli oiul lirrliffirl mv liif MIclLL. 1 AtlllUIV <1 Hid11 <m*i ii^uuwi aimj viv | of a candle, when I saw near me a little striped squirrel. I was delighted to find that I had some live thing in the shaft with me. I advanced and took up the little animal, which hardly made an attempt to escape, j As I held it in my hands I could feel its heart beating so rapidly that the pulsations could not be counted. 'Here,' thought I, 'are a few mouthsful of food that may l)e eaten without loathing. As I held the squirrel in my hand, thinking whether to kill and eat it then, or to await a still more dire extremity, I happened to cast my eyes upward toward the ladders, when 'now,' thought I, 'if this were a carrier-pigeon, a sparrow, or a bird of any kind, it might be the means of saving me.' Then it occurred to me that I might make a better use of the squirrel than to eat it1 "Taking out my memorandum book I wrote the note you found on your cabin floor, wrapped it about the body of the squirrel, and tied it there with a bit of thread drawn from my hankerchief, and wound it many times around the little animal. I then tossed it to the platform, which I longed so much to reach. I saw it land on the platform, and then saw it make its way up the first ladder above, after which I saw nothing more of it. I prayed most earnestly that something might come of this silly-looking experiment, then fell asleep, and awoke and prayed again. "All seemed of no use, however, and I was on the point of trying once more to eat one of the digusting dead squirrels in the shaft, when a voice?it seemed from Ileaven?said : 'Jacob, are you there V' and you came and found me." "All is now clear as day," said I. "The squirrel, with your note tied upon his body, wandered down the side of the mountain, was seen by my old cat 'Cliispa'?the greatest hunter in the State?who pounced upon him, and brought him home to show him to me ; fooled with him about the cabin and finally killed him. when the note was dislodged and fell upon the floor, where it was found by me. Yes, and old 'Chispa' even had the sense to bring me the remains of the squirrel when he found me wondering about the note?as much as to say, 'I found it struck upon this fellow.'" "Why, that's the simplest thing in the I world, after all,'' said Jacob Pritchard, and all hands said, "It is 110 mystery, after all." ijjgj," A11 old gentleman who was in the habit of prefixing "I say," to every sentence to which he gave utterance, having heard that his man-servant mimicked him, thus addressed the ill-behaved domestic when he met him : "I say, John, they say that you say that I say lI sayand if I do say 'I say,' I say that is 11.0 reason why you should say I say 'I say,' I say, John." MAKING HOME ATTRACTIVE. It lias latterly been discovered that the reas-1 ! on why men, whether young or old, take to ; j dissipation and drunkenness, is the fact that j home is not made attractive to them. Form-! j erly we were told that intemperance was the I exclusive work of the rum seller, who com-; pelled his fellow men to drink. As a matter I of fact, no one except a professional temper-! ance lecturer has seen the rumseller engaged in his favorite occupation of invading peaceful homes, dragging fathers and sons from ; their beds, and by force of arms compiling , them to come to his place of business and buy j vast quantities of rum. Such, however, must j formerly have been the constant practice, or j else there was some mistake in the assertion that he is alone responsible for intemperance, and that the poor innocent drunkard is his defenceless and pitiable victim. After the public has grown tired of hearing of the infamous exploits of the rumseller, it was discovered that men drank rum and went to objectionable places of amusement because their homes were not made attractive. Such was the defence which Mr. Higginbottom, of West Thirty-eighth street, urged in his own behalf. He admitted that lie was accustomed to drink more than was good for him, and that he frequently ^ent his evenings at low concert saloons, but he insisted that the fault was all his wife's. She did nothing to make home attractive. It Ts true that she furnished him with a comfortable dinner, but after dinner nothing was done to make him happy. He could either put on his slippers and sit down before the grate fire to read, or he could talk with his wife, who was a bright, affectionate, and cheerful little woman, but such occupations as these could not have any possible charm for a man of intellect and taste. Mr. Iliggiubottom deeply bewailed his fondness for rum, and concert saloons, but he appealed to all unprejudiced men to concede that he was really blameless. "If my home was only made attractive to me, gentlemen," he was in the habit of saying to the members of a leading temperance society, who periodically called on him to urge him to reform, "I would gladly spend my evenings at home ; but as it is I am literally driven to seek comfort elsewhere, though I am a man eminently fitted to enjoy the pleasures of home life." So struck were several temperance men witli the force of Mr. Iligginbottom's remarks, that not long ago they called upon his wife and begged her to make an effort to save her unhappy husband by making his home attractive. Mrs. Iligginbottom consented to make the desired effort, and, as a first step, visited her husband's favorite concert saloon, under the protection of a disguise and a detective officer. When she had learned what were the attractions which most powerfully appealed to Mr. Iligginbottom's mind, she proceeded to reproduce them, as far as practicable, in her own house. She had the parlor carpet taken up and the bare floor nicely sprinkled with beer and the stumps of cigars. She removed the pictures from the walls, and hung in their places cheap and gaudy chromos, representing impossible young women in undesirable costumes. Two dirty wooden tables and a supply of wooden chairs from the kitchen, completed the furniture of the room, and it began to assume a really attractive appearance. Before the hour of her husband's return from business, Mrs. Iligginbottom hired a man to play 011 an accordeon and another to torture a violin, besides three professional drunkards of great indecency of appearance and conduct, and a notorious burglar, kindly furnished for the occasion by the police captain of the precinct. There were in the kitchen two Irish girls who were decidedly ugly, but who were clean, decent, and modest girls. These two she instructed in the art of serving beer and spirits, and dressed them in costumes that were extremely vulgar, though they could not i.? i i.~ :?, tt : 11 j uk sum to uk uupiupKi. imving inusarrangeu things, slie met her husband at the door and escorted him to the dining-room, where he ate his dinner, unconscious of the transformation that had been wrought in the front parlors. After dinner, Mr. Iligginbottom lit his cigar and remarked that he must go out for an hour or two to see a friend. His wife, with a sweet smile, told him that he need not go out, for she had finally discovered how to make home attractive to him. So saying, she led him into the parlor and showed him to a seat at one of the dirty tables. The fiddler and the accordeon player immediately struck up; the drunkards, at a sign fromMrs. Iligginbottom, began to swear and wrangle, and the burglar sidled up to Mr. Iligginbottom and invited him to take a drink. The two Irish girls brought beer and spilled it on Mr. Iligginbottom's table ; they called him "Dear," and ask: ed him to "open a bottle of wine," and Mrs. Higginbottom apologized for the fact that they were undeniably decent girls, assured her husband that nevertheless she was confident that she had finally learned how to make home attractive ; that she hoped to spend many jolly evenings with him, and would like a hot whisky without any further delay. Mr. Higginbottom was at first completely dazed, but in a few moments he recovered his reason. He ordered the girls to go into the kitchen and stay there, and he pitched the drunkards out of the front door and ordered the musicians and burglars to follow them. Then he informed his wife that he had been an idiot of the very largest size, and that if she would restore the parlor to its former condition he would stay at home and make no further complaint of its want of attractiveness. Mrs. Iligginbottoni's plan cannot very well be followed by other women, but it was certainly a brilliant success. Mr. Iligginbottom has ceased to spend evenings away from home, and he has informed his temperance friends that the real reason why he formerly frequent ed disreputable places was the fact that he was a fool and a scoundrel. The temperance people are, of course, glad that he reformed, but they still maintain that men become dissolute and drunken solely because their homes are not made attractive. Elkphnts.?The Kev. Mr. Collins, a naturalist, twenty-five years resident in Ceylon, says that elephants there live about 130 years, and "come of age" at 40. There are three sizes of them in the same herds, and when they are young the size which they will attain is pretty nearly known by the number of their toes. Those which grow to the largest size have eighteen toes, five on each of the two fore feet, and four on each of the hind ones. Those which grow to a medium size have seventeen toes, five 011 each of the fore feet, and four on one hind foot and three on the other. The least size of elephant has sixteen toes, five 011 each fore foot and three on each hind foot. No Singhalese elephant has a fewer number than sixteen toes. The mahout, or elephant driver, rules his elephant by means of an iron hook, with which he touches the most sensi tive part behind the ear, which causes the most unruly elephant to become submissive. When Mr. Colons was in Kandy, an elephant which hud killed his keeper, and which had been shot in the head before it could be captured, had to undergo the operation of having the bullet extracted, which was performed by the native doctors, the elephant lying quietly down while the mahout kept his hook on this sensitive part. The elephant drivers are a drunken set of men, and sometimes while drunk will treat their charge unmercifully, and the elephant itself is an animal which bears grudges?the result being that nearly all the elephant keepers are sooner or later killed. Till? * PT ftP 1(TTPPIVC.? A petty but endless trouble of the traveler in Europe for the til'st time is the matter of gratuities. You give a trifle to every one who does you the least service. Even for an apparently friendly word of information on the street you are expected to pay in this way. In England it is a "tip in France, the pour boire; in Italy, buom maim, the good hand ; trinkyeld, drink money. It is not much money in any instance, but foots up pretty well after an active day's work. Tlie practical trouble, however, is to know what to give. The inhabitants and the servants themselves know exactly what they are entitled to, for it is a matter of right, just as any other charge, although the amount is never fixed or published in any written form for the information of strangers. They must learn it by experience. For the gratuity of cab drivers, waiters at restaurants, etc., the recognized European usage is, in England, one penny for every shilling spent in fare or at the table, and in France and Italy two sous for every franc spent. This rule disposes of a large portion of the cases. For porters, two pence in England and two sous 011 the Continent, for every piece of luggage handled, if it is only to cany it across the pavement. An umbrella or a shawl is a piece as well as a trunk. The driver of an omnibus, cab or fiacre, as a point of etiquette and out of professional consideration for the porters, will refuse to touch a piece of luggage himself, even to lift it from three feet, away into his vehicle. Visiting at private house of the upper classes in England, the servants expect their tips in gold coin if your stay is over a day or two. The smallest English gold coin is a ten shilling piece?$2.50. You see the footman, who attends your bedroom; the maid, if you have ladies, who serves your chamber ; the butler, who has charge of the dining room and force. of waiters the keeper, if you hunt; the groom, if you ride, or the head of the stables, if there are several, and generally any servant that you specially use. You will soon learn by intuition how to grade these fees according to the rank of the servants and the length of your visit. On first-class ocean steamers the gratuities are much analogous to those in a gentleman's house. The steward who waits on you at the table and the one who attends your stateroom will each expect a fee in gold?10 shillings, $2.50, at least?from a siugle passenger; a pound, if you have baths brought into your room every morning,- are particular about having your wines warmed or iced, or, in short, use the servants up to their full capacity. When the passage is 860 to 875, or less, these fees are less?about one-half of the figures above. The "boots" also looks to be remembered, about one-half the amount given the steward. The usage degrades, and demoralizes, and unmans him who takes the veil, or gift, or tip, or bounty, or whatever you please to call it; yet a very great portion of the people of Great Britain and Europe do receive their wages in this way, look for it, and feel no humiliation in the transaction. You can hardly insult anybody across the water by offering them anything, no matter what appears to be his or their official position. I have given a shilling in London to uniformed policemen and a franc in Paris to magnificent looking hotel managers. A Philadelphia acquaintance in London had several hundred dollars brought to him from his banking house, one of the largest there, by a clerk of the establishment, and the nattily dressed young gentleman asked for a shilling for his services. Imagine the consequences of offering 10 cents to a conductor of the Pennsylvania railway who had shown you to your seat in the car and given you information as to when to get out, yet this is done all over England every day, and the uniformed and respectable looking guard hangs around stickily till he gets his sixpence.?Philidelphia Press. Tiie North Pole.?Some people have asked : "What good can result from finding the pole ?" The late Professor Henry is on record as saying the magnetism of the earth requires more observations in this direction than have been made; that we cannot complete oui knowledge of the tides of the ocean, or of the winds of the globe, without finding the pole ; besides that the whole field of natural history will be enriched by it, especially botany, geology and mineralogy. The facts about the effects of extreme cold on animal and vegetable life cannot but be interesting. As Professor Henry said, it will lead not only to enlarging the sphere of mental pleasure of man, but will promote the application of science to the arts of life. Professor M. F. Maury puts it in this way: "Within this polar area the tides have their cradle, and whales their nursery. There the wind completes the circuit, and the currents of the sea their sound, in the wonderful system of oceanic circulation; there the aurora is lighted up and the trembling needle brought to rest; and there, too, 111 tne mazes 01 tnat mystic circle, terrestrial forces of occult power, and of vast influence upon the well being of man, are continually at work. It is a circle of mysteries, and the desire to enter it, to explore the untrodden wastes and secret chambers, and to study its physical aspects, have grown to a longing." There is an unknown area of 1,131,000 square miles of the surface of the globe that is now a blank. We cannot tell whether this area is land or water. This question, among others, these explorations will determine. Oiut.in of Familiar Phrases.?The well known saying that the shoe-maker should stick to his last, originated with Appelles, the celebrated Greek painter, who set a picture he had finished in a public place and concealed himself behind it in order to hear the criticisms of passers-by. A shoe-maker observed a defect in the shoe, and the painter forthwith corrected it. The cobbler came again the next day, and, encouraged by the success of his first remark, began to extend his censure to the leg of the figure, when the mad painter thrust out his head from behind the picture and told the shoe-maker to keep to his trade. "Going the whole hog." This phrase originated in Ireland, where a British shilling has been called "a hog" time out 01 mina. m Ireland, if a fellow happened to have a shilling when he met a friend, he would announce that he would stand treat, even if the expense reached the whole amount?in plain words, that he would "go the whole hog" to gratify him. There is a mode of declaring by the words "he has kicked the bucket," that a person is dead. There is a tradition that one Balsover, having hung himself to a beam while standing on the bottom of a pail or bucket, kicked the vessel away in order to pry into the future, and li 11 ?ill. 1. : ? ? Ill was ail up Willi llllll iiUlU Ult?l luuuiwjy. PROPER EDUCATION OF GIRLS. "We frequently hear of the fact that women are not given the same chance to earn a livelihood as men, and that women do not receive for the same work the same compensation that men receive. Hearing we say, these complaints so frequently made, set us to thinking deeply on the subject. We believed there was some reason, and a good one, for this state of affairs, and our solution of the problem we wish briefly to offer for the consideration of our readers. We believe the trouble lies in a great measure in the fact that girls are not taught as boys are, that they must rely upon their own exertions for support, and the comforts of life; and, therefore, they do not prepare themselves properly for a successful competition with men in the different pursuits of business life. The fault lies principally with the parents. You instil into the minds of your girls, both by the manner of their education in the school-room and by your home teachings, the very strongest principles of dependence. On the other hand, you do all in your power to teach your boys self-reliance and a manly independence. You say to them, learn while you are boys to take care of yourselves when you become men. It is neither fair nor right to make this distinction ; give your girls the same chance that you do your boys; teach them, too, self-reliI ance while young. Give them not only a good I but a useful education with a view to sup| porting themselves, even if tl\ey are never j called upon to put it in practice. One would not abolish the carrying ot lire-preservers on our steamers merely from the fact that they are seldom used. Women do not succeed in business so well as men, for the simple reason that they are not, by their early teachings, so well fitted for it. When women fit themselves for and do the same work as men, they will be able to obtain employment as readily as men obtain it, and will receive as high a compensasation for the work done. Let the parent, then, when he gives his boy a business education, do as much in justice to his girl. The ladies' department of our colleges has much increased, of late, in size. We think it is a goOd sign, and hope that parents will reflect on what we have said.?College Journal. , LONG LIFE. A great many people are worrying about this and that as being injurious to health, and living in dread less they should do something to shorten their days. But it may do us all good to remember that longevity is largely a matter of inheritance, and depends very little on what we do or do not do, provided we do not commit suicide. Whether we live long or . briefly on the earth is a matter'that was largely settled before we were born. Our ancestors and yours, reader, had more to do with the solution of that problem than we can have. The truth is, as science teaches, longevity is a family trait.- Sobriety, and a regard for principles of hygiene, will not necessarily insure long life. These may maintain a condition of health and vigor, but length of life is* largely determined by inheritance. Longevity is a talent. It may be improved like any oth. er talent, or it may be wasted, but no amount I of cultivation will create it. In spite' of in temperance and exposure, a man who has this talent for long life may become a centenarian. A saddler, aged 113, whose grandfather died at 112, and his father at 112, was asked by Louis.XIV what he had done to attain to such length of days, and replied : "Sire, since I was 50,1 have acted upon two principles : I have shut my heart and opened my wine cellar." Again, Golombrewski, a Pole, notwithstanding the hardship of eighty years of service as a common soldier, the fatigues of thirty-five campaigns under Napoleon, the sufferings of the terrible Eussian campaign, the effects of five wounds, and the recklessness of a soldier's life, survived, and in 1846 was still living at the age of 102. But, it is to be observed, his father attained the age of 121, and his grandfather 130. A well-known literary character, M. Quersonnieres, was living at five-score in the full possession of all his powers. He said: "My family descends from Methuselah; we must be killed to die; my grandfather was killed by accident at 125 years of age, and I," he added, smiling, "invite you to my burial in the next century." ? ? Sixty Miles . a Minute on a Tin Pan. Arthur Fitzpatrick, who returned from Colorado a short time ago, gives the following glowing: account of an occurrence in the mining districts of which he was an eye-witness: "A miner and some companions were crossing the Continental Divide when it was covered with snow. Three miles below them, down a decline of forty-five degrees, deeply covered with frozen snow, lay the spot they desired to reach, while to go around by trail was fifteen miles. The miner took a tin pan, used for washing gold, spread his blanket over it, got in himself, in a squatting position on his haunches, tucked the blanket around, held his rifle and other traps over his head and got one of his companions to give him a push, lie informed me he went down at the speed of sixty miles a minute, and shot far out into the valley at the foot of the mountain. When he stopped he found the soldering of the pan melted from friction, his blanket on fire, and it was his impression that had he gone much further he would have been burned up, together with all his traps."?Pittsburg Tclegrap/i. The Montenegrins have customs that might teach civilized nations many a lesson. They never :;o to law. Lawsuits, costs, fines, damages, fees, replevins, mortgages, appeals, decisions, etc., are unknown to these simple children of nature. If a Montenegrin has a dispute with a neighbor about a piece of land, do they have surveyors, and then go to court about it ? Not they. They quietly and peaceably take their rifles, and a couple of swords like scythe-blades, and have a friendly discussion about the matter on the edge of a cliff half a mile or so high. One gets cleft down into his boots, and the other, or perhaps both, tumble down the half mile, and "the whole matter is forever settled. Yet so-called civilized people would haggle years and years about the thing in chancery. A clergyman, who was consoling a young widow on the death of her husband, spoke in very serious tones, remarking that he was "one of the few, such a jewel of a Christian? you cannot find his equal, you well know.' To which the sobbing fair one replied, with an almost broken heart: "I'll bet I will!" i