The Aiken recorder. [volume] (Aiken, S.C.) 1881-1910, January 01, 1892, Image 9

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>vrh il 5o, liTlve brought pulque iuto use as a medicine and a tonic. But to return to the Mexican staff of life. An ordinary maguey will yield 250 cubic inches of sap a day. Very vigorous plants will produce 450 cubic inches in 24 hours and not dry up in five months. Maguey under cultivation on good soil can be de pended upon to furnish from a gallon to seven or even nine quarts a day. All the great haciendas in Central Mexico have maguey plantations, which are highly profitable. In a field of 10 acres 1200 plants can be set out from sprouts. When tapped at maturity each plant flows with milk and honey like a vegetable spring,and its produce Is worth between $20 and $30. The maguey produces more alcohol than either sugarcane, potatoes, corn or grapes. Pulque, which is the fer mented juice, is very cheap, being sold everywhere in Mexico at a penny a large mug, and it is the universal beverage of the working classes. Mescal is a gin obtained from the juice extracted from the leaves and roots, fermented with pulque and car ried through a still. Tequilla is an alcoholic whiskey, and there is also a brandy made from pulque. The pulque carrier with his donkey is seen on every country road and city street. He supplies the pulque-shops with liquor from his bags of undressed sheep-skin, looking for all the world like pigs on their heads or backs. The product of the maguey fibre, called ixtle, is worth from 10c to 15c a pound when cleaned, and a full- sized maguey, ufter-yieidiug a return of $20 or $30 in pulque, is good for $3.50 more in textile. The Indian women have the patience required for dressing the fibre, and the work is done in theii*cabins and huts. The hemp which they send to the Aine River market is of excellent quality and there is an increasing demand for it, so that it promises to become an import of the greatest importance. On this account the invention of an improved dressing machine is greatly to be desired. — [St. Louis Republic. Ups and Downs. He—They had a lover’s quarrel, parted, and she married her father’s coachman for spite. She—What became of her lover? He—Oh, he married her sister, and bired the coachman. — [Life. A Silver Question, nsonby—Heigho I every silver r has its cloud. piniay—Yes. You can’t earn ft er dollar without working for it. be Jewelers’ Oircul sstTTis wooiien wans perch in truly triumphant fashion. Part of the walls of old Byzantium are thus crowned with houses, and at Roumeli-Hissar, be neath the windows of the American Robert College, a whole village clings to the scarpments and towers of the frowning “Castle of Oblivion.” I'io odder or more delightful confusion of beetling walls and comical houses could be imagined. The tops of the thick walls form lanes and alley-ways, leading down from level to level by steep inclines or crumbling steps. The crow’s-nest houses stand at every pos sible angle and elevation, overhang ing the abyss on the further side of their lofty foundations, and gay with all the hues of the spectrum. A New Source of Quinine. It is announced as one of the most important discoveries of the present year that Messrs.Grimaux and Arnaud of Paris have succeeded in producing quinine from a Brazilian syrup. The result is quinine, absolutely identical with the substance that has become £0 familiar to us all, and so indij able to medicine.—[New Picayuni A Wonderful Well. The reports from the artesian well at Huron, North Dakota, show that it is the most wonderful well known to exist. The water spouts up to a dis tance of about 100 feet, and the amount that flows from the well is tremendous, being estimated at from 8000 to 10,000 gallons a minute. Even at the lowest figures enough water is ejected to furnish every man, woman and child in the state of North Dakota with at least four gallons of water every four hours. As to the pressure, that has not yet been fully ascertained, but from tests already made, it is known to be considerably more than 200 pounds to the square inch. With a fair test it is likely to reach 228 pounds. The pressure has steadily increased in the last three days, and may exceed the above fig ures.— [Post-Express. A Cocoanut Tree’s Long Journey. A cocoanut tree that weighs six tons is to be transferred from Honolulu to to the public park in San Francisco. In a trench around the tree, which stood in a grove near Honolulu, a massive box was built to enclose the roots. Above the box was a frame that had jackscrews for lifting the en tire mass. After the tree had been raised it was canted and its long leaves were gathered together and tied. The nuts were wrapped in soft sacking. By hydraulic power the mass was raised on a truck that carried it to the beach where it awaits shipment. fiiy at an immortal youth. - Men who resist The truth may become its strongest ad vocates, or wholly lose their power to harm it. They may unwittingly establish the wavering in the precious faith. Unbelievers may receive their first lessons In the truth from its assailants, and, struggling through its quicksands, reach the everlasting rock. As 1 traveled over one of our great railways I saw a sceptic take a Bible from his travel ing-hag and read half through one of the Gospels. 'When he paused, a conversation ensued. “I am reading this hook with reference to a single question, and I am marking every passage that bears upon it.” “May I be permitted to ask what the ques tion is that so engages your attention?” “It is this, sir: Whether there is any way to God except through Christ? I am not an atheist, nor am I a Christian, but the more I read these reputed prophecies and Gospels the more I am persuaded that I shall have to submit myjapison to the Scriptures and go where they point, or keep on in *he dark, where, I confess, I have been for forty years.” It was a slur on the Bible, which came from an unexpected source, that led him to look into this book. Whatever be may have been, he is now to all appearances an honest inquirer after truth. Thus God overrules the evil to his praise.—[The Armory, THE SPIRIT’S SWORD. On one occasion Dr. Malan was traveling by diligence to Paris, his fellow-travelers being a French officer, a member of his own congregation, and another gentleman, a stranger. According to his custom. Dr. Ma lan took out his Bible and read some por tion of it aloud. The stranger remonstrated, avowing infi del opinions and loudlv assailing the Word of God. The French colonel, seeing that the discussion was likely to be a protracted one, and not altogether persuaded of the wisdom of his pastor iu thus introducing the subject of religion in a public vehicle, interrupted it by saying: “You are well aware how greatly I respect you. Dr. Malan. but I think at this time you err somewhat in judgment. You should first convince this gentleman that the book you are reading aloud is the Word of God, since he denies it to be so. You can hardly expect him to submit to an authority that he openly disavows.” “Colonel!” said Dr. Malan, “I ask you, would you—if you were going into the field of battle—endeavor to persuade the enemy that the weapon in your hand was a sword, or should you use it?” “Most undoubtediy I should use it,” said the colonel. “That is just what I do,” said Dr. Malan; “I believe the Word of God to be the Sword of the Spirit, and I use it accordim'ly.” Silence soon followed, and at the end of the day the three travellers pnssed the night at the same hotel, Dr. Malan and the French colonel proposing to continue their journey on the morrow. At breakfast the next morning, as the friends were seated together at the same table, a waiter entered the room and in quired of Dr. Malan “whether or no he was proposing to go on to Paris bv the dili gence?” On receiving a reply (n the affir mative, he explained, “The gentleman that travelled with you yesterday desired me to inquire, as, if v’ou are purposing to go on to-day, he wishes to be your fellow-travel ler.” Before the journey was completed, Dr Malan and the professed skeptic had l>eeom*e cordial in their intercourse. In after years, the latter became a communicant in Dr. Malan’s church and his attached friend in the bonds of the Gospel. JtR. FLORENCE'S ADVICE, Florence, the actor, once gavo some ad vice to a friend in these words: “My Dear : One gallon of whisky costs $3, and contains about sixty-five fif teen cent drinks. Now. if you must drink, buy e gallon and make your wife the bar keeper. When you are dry, give her fifteen cents for a drink, and when the whisky is gone she will have, after paying for it, $'175 left, and every gallon thereafter wHl yield the same profit. The money she should put away, so that when you have become au inebriate, unable to support yourself and sbuned by every respectable man, your wife t>a^h&ve money enough to keep you until ■■femes to fill a drunkard’s grave. ” pies or kills the T word costly machine of thq the labor of men and attention has recent! case of a foreman in iug press works in thij of rare skill and genii ally yielded to drink his employers, and wt position still, holds it i to lose it with anot offense. The most de machinery of all, tha and brain, sutlers m| dulgence.—National SERIOUl We reproduce I dress recently Montgomery befo? Abstinence Society^ “Let me call your of intemperance. Yol spirits are filling the overflowing. This is tlj State, the giant evil, is probably not too mu| single evil is inflicting : physical, intellectual, terests of our State than! bined together. Yes, dread army, under oue ments that ever desolated! and death—blasting, mi| tornodoes, earthquakes, war, conflagrations, sb and murder—the legal lz hI 1 cursed more than all thl bined. This monster has hi his home, “the flesh” for a I for a father. He has no eye He has no ears and cannot hi a coil by which to bind. Hel which he stings. Look at thd that stagger and doze and I and fester, and fall down ur of intempereuce. Of the 80,0 fill a drunkard’s grave; of the dren that are left,worse than c 3,000,000 of women, who have| tied about their necks and ar shame and disgrace; of the 50 yearly sent to the poorhousel 500,000 of convicts annually sed 300,000 annually bequeathed to ity; of the 10W) murders that ear; of the 3000 rapes that areeb the demon.” temperance news and Delirium tremens kills four ] in England. The man who paints thetowrf by making a picture of hiinso < England and Ireland togethi 000,000 gallons more beer than/ year. It is less important to a her lover’s diamonds sboulc than that his drinks should The Cincinnati police ar rest on sight auy boy und« of age seen using tohacco ill The law of Fiji provides I giving drink to au aborigil of any district shall be suh] $350 and imprisonment. The Prohibition canteef) Kansas, has had onl.v ness out of 049 men. army has forty-one iiSp- Out of the mayors seven are total abstainot reformers, and besides the] favorable to alliance or.- Twenty Scotch provosts aVf stainers. The W. C. T. U. has gain) ship 10,309 during the year crease Ohio I urnishei 18/1' egon 1000, Indiana 750, c 360, while in Virginia tho <i doubled, and Japan gained^ The statistics presented Somerset in regard to London are significant, for gin and four cents for its own commentary on the J Whitechapel and other slue Babylon. It is said that eleven cently at lunch in Shat] that all were total absta J E iriences, They had eaq mperature of Nort ty-five to thirty^ “ ^ them had cause.