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Less lliHii thirty thoasaud penou# own more than one-half of the weallH of this Republic, iuhabited by 65,000,- 000 people. Correspondents say that every suc cessive year sees increased appreciation of and prices for the works of Ameri can artists in Paris. Wonderful progress has been made in this country of late years in teach ing the dumb to speak. Last year ar ticulation was taught to 4235 pupils. A German professor, Dr. Sander, ias produced, after a labor of thirty ears, a German dictionary so vol- imiuous that he caunot fiud a pub- isher for it. England marks the values of he* copper coins that don’t amount to a rap and doesn’t put the-value mark on her coins of silver and gold. This sometimes cost the careless stranger cold ducats. The New South Wales DepartrH»u4 of Agriculture is organizing a month ly crop report system, which will in clude colonial and foreign statistics as they affect local commercial farm ing. The system will be modeled upon that of the United States Depart ment of Agriculture. In ancient times Greece possessed omething like 7,500,000 acres of tense forest, and she was compara- ivcly rich in timber until half a cen- tiry ago. Many of the forests have low disappeared, and the result is icen both in the scarcity of the water mpply and in very injurious climatic iflects. It is now said Greece will lave to import large quantities of amber in the near future, so as to neet the demands arising from the re- rival of the building trades. Perhaps he free uie of iron would do uo larm, suggests the New York Sun. tfur Choir. Who soars so hifjh on Music’s wing When wide she opes her mouth to sing, And giggles at the slightest thing? Our S'prano! Who finds the places in the books. Convulses us with funny looks. And never once gets ’’off the hooks?” Our Alto! Who stands in danger day by day Of being carried clean away By pretty girls? Well, I've heard say Our Tenor! Who giveeb forth a ponderous tone— One which can all but stand alone On firm foundation of its own? Our Basso! Who touches lovingly the keys And draws forth sounds which charm and please— Born in a castle o’er the seas? Our ’Comp’nist! It is a quintet to admire. Untouched by jealousy’s fierce fire— To be engaged! Wbp wants to hire Our Choir? —[B.o.ston Times. IN A HOLE. B-V H. C. DODGE. With the winding up of the school ear some interesting statistics are oming in. Colby is a coeducational istitution. Out of the graduating lass of twenty-niue five are women, ’ho cost of educating these young eoplo has been $35,000. On tho other and, the class has earned during that ime $16,000. Reynolds earned $1400 s a newspaper man and in a hotel. Lalloch cleared $1200 as teacher, arpenter, waiter, clerk. Ross made 700 haying, teaching and in a ma- hino shop. Wadsworth stayed out ne year nud langht for money to go n. Wadsworth earned $950 as a life asurance agent and teacher; Hurd, H450 as assistant engineer; Nichols, 1900 in teaching and running a sum- aer hotel; G. A. Andrews, $500 as eacher and waiter. Merrill headed lie list with $1600 as teacher and ireacher. Storer earned $1025 bust ing aroung generally. Sturtevant icttod $800 running a stationary ngino and singing in church. Singer, ,s coal heaver, book agent, teacher ,nd fisherman, and in newspaper vork, earned $1000. Miss Sibley nade $250 as a teacher and by waiting »n a table. Miss Beekman earned 5166 singing and writing, and Miss vnight $100 by teaching. This record if the Colby seniors is set down in ietail by the New York Sun to show vhat some people find an educatiou is vorth. Tho Rev. Dr. George Hodges, an Episcopal clergyman of a Pittsburg mburb, has some practical views ;oucbiug tho puuisement of criminals. i*I am not in favor of capital punish ment,” he says, “uo matter in what manner executions are conducted. I »ui no more in favor of long imprison ment than I am of hanging. A crim inal becomes accustomed to imprison ment after a time, and many of them manage to pass a livable if not a com fortable time. American prisons are filled with men and women, too, who are serving a second and some of them a third, fourth, and fifth term. To the person of easv temperament* or of no ambition, who is content to exist for the mere existence, caring little or nothing for any of the better things in life, a term in prison is not diflicult to bear, and many per sons ofl'end the law simply to return to prison. Hard labor is a sentence that prevents to a certain extent many great crimes, but tho fault I have to find with that is that such a sentence is seldom passed. Pun ishment of criminals should be of a remedial character, and there is noth ing, in my estimation, so effective upon the criminal mind towards the prevention of crimj as the fear of physical suffering. I am in favor of corporal punishment, or, to put it more direct, I am in favor of the whipping post. 1 think a series of whippings administered at various or regular times would have such a ter rorizing effect upon the average crim inal that the number of crimes would be much smaller than it is at present. Abolish the scaffold, abolish barbar ous hanging, punish the criminal by inflicting pain, and you will find crim inal history much shorter than it is at present.” The great cathedral in the City of Mexico is the largest in America aud cost nearly $2 t 0$0,000. I ha 1 been away from the ranch since daybreak on a solitary hunting expedition for small game, and now, with night coming on, I was endeav oring to fiud my way back. Where and how far I was from camp I knew not, but with a general idea of its direction, I plodded over the wild plain, expecting every moment to strike the trail aud get home with out either trouble or danger. The thoughts of the good supper and glad greeting I would have from my jolly “cowboy” companions spurred me on while the setting sun warned me that I had no time to lose. In spite of my woodcraft and scout ing skill and fearlessness in travelling the wilderness alone I began to feel apprehensive that I was lost. At first I only laughed at myself for thinking so, but when mile after mile in the deepening dusk brought uo sign of the anxiously looked for trail I began to realize that the smartest ranchman sometimes can blunder in his reckon ings. Still I wouldn’t admit yet I was wrong and, fighting back the dismal feeling of loncsomeness and peril that oppressed me, I continued to push on as fast as my tired legs would let me. On I went through the prairie grast^ straining my eyes in the dusky gloom striving to find the trail—suddenly down, down I tumbled straight to the bottom of what seemed to be a deep well. Stunned by my fall, luckily broken by the heap of soft rubbish I landed on, I must have lain for a while un conscious. When I recovered my senses all was pitch blackness about me and looking upwards I could see a few stars faint ly glimmering from the sky. After pinching and examining my body and thankfully finding that ail my boucs were intact, I struggled to my feet and groped around to discover if possible what sort of a place I had gotten into. Tho hole seemed circular and ap parently five or six feet in diameter. The sides felt like hard clay, and the bottom was dry and thickly covered with a long accumulation of leaves and grasses. How deep I was down in the earth I could not tell, but I rightly guessed the distance was some twenty feet. How the hole ever got there I couldn’t imagine. Maybe years ago it was dug in tho hope of striking water for the cattle which belonged to the discarded ranch. At any rate the hole was there and I was iu it. The thing that puzzled me the most was how to get out. As nothing could be done in that line till daylight, and perhaps not then, I laid me down and went to sleep. When I awoke after a refreshing slumber the round spot of bright, blue skv above me seemed higher than 1 ever knew it before. As a needful preparation to escape from ray more than likely grave made a little fire with some of the dry stuff and managed to cook one of the three birds I bad shot the day before. Oa that with a few drops from my water flask I breakfasted. Then I started my wits to work out a plan of deliverance. I had with me my gun and plenty of cartridges, pipe and tobacco, a small hatchet, matches, hunting knife, revolver, two birds and a pint of water; also a few yards of rope. In the almost vain hope of being heard I determined to frequently fire my gun and shout, though I knew the sounds would be deadened. After shooting and halooing several times with no answer of course, I ex amined the texture of the sides of my tomb. It was a red clay and firm enough to cut without crumbling. If I bad some strong sticks—which 1 hadn’t, though I searched through the heap of rubbish for them—I might drive pegs in the side of my prison and maybe climb up on them. Perhaps 1 could chop spaces tneie to auswer the same purpose. Taking the hatchet I commenced to do it, and for a while it appeared I might succeed, but after rising a few feet in that way I gave it up. Had the well been narrow so I could brace myself by using my gun against the opposite side I think I should have accomplished the feat. Then I attempted shooting with a light charge of powder a bullet from my pistol to which I attached my watch chain fastened to an end of the rope, thinking it might somehow catch on a bush outside and bear my weight whiie I climbed ou stepping places I should dig. But that plan proved a failure, too. By this time it was high noon, aud the hot sun was shining for a few mo ments straight to the bottom of my awful tomb. Like a caged beast I was becoming furious in my vain efforts to gain liberty and the harder I tried the more difficult grew my task. I kept firing my gun and calling for help, for now it seemed that that was my only chance for life. The afternoon passed slowly away and night appeared again, aud dis- pairiug, but not giving up hope, I ate my last bird, drank nearly my last ^Jrop of loiter, aud managed to fall asleep. It came morning at last. I had my gun raised fire to a signal when I de tected a something alive peering from the ground above me into the hole. Could it be a human being? Even an Indian iu his war paint and certain to scalp me I should have hailed with joy. » The object showed itself again plainly. It was the head cf a wolf. Taking a quick aim I fired aud hit it squarly. With a howl of pain the wounded brute plunged forward and into the hole, lauding on my shoulders. In a moment it recovered from its surprise aud before I could draw my pistol it was crouched to leap upon me. Hatchet in hand I met its on slaught. As it jumped with bleeding, open mouth I ducked my head and be fore it could turn a lucky blow buried the blade in its skull and finished it. Now with its flesh to eat aud its blood to drink I could exist for a week, at least, aud if help came iu the meantime I wouldn’t perish. For three long, weary days and nights I lived on my providential sup ply of wolf meat, firing my gun hourly and yelling till my voice gave out, but all for naught. On the fourth day I completely de spaired of assistance from outside and resolved to make a last struggle to get out of my horrible living tomb. While I franctically chopped with my hatchet at the sides of the hole trying to heap up dirt enough to rise on, even though I undermined and brought the earth to bury me, I re membered a picture of the tower of Babel that I had seeu in the big, family Bible at home. It had a spiral road running around its outside on which the workers as. cended as the tower was growing. Why couldn’t I cut out a similar path on the inside of my under ground, turned-over tower? With a glad shout of joy and won dering why the idea hadn’t come be fore, I commenced at once the cork screw road. Starting as high as I could conveniently work I cut into the hard, clay wall of the well until I had dug out a space big enough to hold me. By shelving the roof of the excavation and curving it to the back part of its eighteen inch wide floor I prevented the earth from caving. I laid out this open, half tunnel to ascend on a rather steep grade so its winding road-bed would be sufficiently supported, and after some hours’ hard and careful work, I finished the first circle and found that my engineering calculations promised to be success ful—providing the earth as it neared the surface would keep from crumb ling. Not daring to continue digging as evening aud darkness came, I lightly crawled back to the bottom of my prison, ate some more wolf meat and went to sleep with hope renewed and comparatively happy. Bright and early in the welcomed morning I began my toil for deliver ance. The higher I dug my way the more hazardous it became. I almost feared to go ahead for I knew that a break now would be fatal to my only chance of escape from a horrible death. When night once more caused me to stop, I was within about six feet of the end of my agony or—alas 1 might be only at its beginning. The awful uncertainly of being so near and yet so far from life and the glorious, beautiful world kept me wakeful. Bv the following noon I should know my fate. At daylight I tremblingly crawled up my circular stairway aud recom menced operations. The earth that had been removed lay in a big pile on the bottom, but of course not high enough to help me in case a cave-in occurred. Carefully I started on tho last cir cuit, and, as I expected, found that the dry earth there was much less firm than below. Still I could make headway, al though once once or twice I thought I was doomed to failure when the ground broke over and under mo. Now 1 reached the place to dig straight up, aud, holding my breath, I attempted it. Slowly I scraped my shaft’s ceiling, little by little, then as the sods above me loosened I tore them away ami—after a week of liv ing death—I once more stood on the earth’s solid surface. I soon found the camp, and my friends, who, after searching in vain, were mourning my supposed death.— [Chicago Sun. Trees. What a strange underground life is that which is led by the organisms we call trees! These great fluttering masses of leaves, stems, boughs, trunks, are not the real trees. They live underground, and what we see are nothing more nor less than their tails. Yes; a tree is an underground creature, with its tail in the air. All its intelligence is in its roots. All the senses it has are in its roots. Think what sagacity it shows in its search after # food and drink. Somehow or other, the rootlets, which are its ten tacles, find out that there is a brook at a moderate distance from the trunk of thd tree, and they make for it with all their might. They find every crack in the rocks where there are a few graindtof the nourishing substance they care for, and insinuate themselves into its deepest recesses. When spring and summer come, they let their tails grow, and delight in whisking them about iu the wind, or letting them be whisked about by it; for these tails arc poor passive things,, with very lit tle will of their own, and bend in whatever direction the wind chooses to make them. The ieaves make a deal of noise whispering. I have sometimes thought I could understand them, as they talk with each other, and that they seem to think they made the wind as they wagged forward and back. Remember what I say. The next time you see a tree waving in the wind, recollect that it is the tail of a great underground, many-armed, polypus-like creature, which is as proud of its caudal appendage, es pecially in summer time, as a peacock of his gorgeous expanse of plumage. Do you think there is anything so very odd about this idea? Once get it well into your heads, and you will find that it renders the landscape wou- derfully interesting. There are as many kinds of tree tails as there are of tails to dogs and other quadrupeds. Study them as Daddy Gilpin studied them in his “Forest Scenery,” but don’t forget that they are only the ap pendage of the underground vegeta ble polypus, the true organism to which they belong. — [Dr. O. W. Holmes. BAMBOO CULTURE. A Useful Plant that Can be Raised in the United States. Successful Bamboo Planta tions in Southern California. The Diameter of a Lightning Bolt. “Did you ever see the diameter of a lightning flash measured?” asked a geologist. “Well, here is the case which once enclokpcd a flash of light ning, fitting it exactly, so that you can just see howwig it was. This is called a ‘fu ! gt»ite,’ or ‘lightning hole,’ and the material it is made of is glass. I well tell you how it was manufact ured, though it took only a fraction of a second to turn it out. “When a bolt of lightning strikes a bed of sand it plunges downward in to the sand for a distance, less or greater, transforming simultaneously into glass the silica in the material through which it passes. Thus, by its great heat, it forms at once a glass tube of precisely the same size. “Now and then such a tube is found and dug up. Fulgurites have been followed into the sand by excavations for nearly thirty feet. They vary in interior diameter from the size of a quill of three inches or more, accord ing to the bore of the flash. 4 ‘But fulgurites are not alone pro duced iu sand; they are found also iu solid rocks, though very naturally of slight depth and frequently existing merely as a thin glassy coating on the surface. Such fulgurites occur in astonishing abundance on the summit of Little Ararat in Armenia. “The rock is soft, and so porous that blocks a foot long can be ob tained, perforated in all directions by little tubes filled with bottle-grceu glass formed from the fused rock.” — [Scientific Magazine. A Oueer Ohl Texan. An eccentric character named Brit Bailey came from Tennessee to Texas iu 1830. While on route in company with several others he requested each man to tell what he was coming to Texas for. When ali were through it came to his turn, and he said: “lam going to Texas to establish a charac ter. I have not got any at home, and I am going to try and establish one iu Texas.” He settled at Bailey’s Prairie, and soon after trouble commenced with the Mexicans, and participated iu the battle of Yelasca. He carried home with him a cannon ball as a relic of this fight. When he came to die he requested to be buried standing up six feet under the earth, which would re quire a grave of more than 12 feet iu depth, as he was 6 feet 2 inches in height. He also requested that there should be buried with him bis rifle, 100 rounds of ammunition, his butcher knife, two plugs of tobacco, one bot tle of whisky, his dog, andthecanuon ball from Velasco. All this was done with the exception of the dog. He died at holme in 1838 ou Bailey’s Prairie, Brazoria County, and was buried on I Oyster Creek. Ho was liked and rdsp^ted by all who knew him.—[Dallas (Texas) News. The Department of Agriculture rec ommends the cultivation of the bam boo for economical purposes iu the United States. A suggestion to the same effect is conveyed iu a recent let ter from Mr. Charles Heath, consul to Sicily. He says that the plant could be grown in this country as far uorth as New York, aud would doubtless prove hardy throughout California and the Southern states. Sicilian far mers consider it their best paying <;rop, and grow it abundantly ou oth erwise worthless wet land, utilizing for the purpose borders of fields, brooks, swamp bolesf etc. The bamboo is a perennial plant, dying to the ground each year aud producing a fresh growth in the spring, fit is propagated from cut tings of the roots. Marketable canes are produced in one year, and a plan tation yields for a dozen years, requir ing no cultivation. A single plant gives five or six canes thirty feet long, the stock becoming stouter each year. The dried canes, being very light, stiff and durable, furnish material for fencing, roofing, fish poles, grape and bean poles. Split, they are utilized for laths and iu the manufacture of woven hampers and baskets. Iu tbe United States the bamboo is cultivated to a small extent, but only for ornamental purposes. There are at least ten species—natives of China, Japan and the Himalayas—which may reasonably be expec ed to thrive in the milder latitudes of this country. Two of these have been found to be hardy even iu New England. A number of successful bamboo plantations have al ready been established in southern California. Oae of them, belonging to Gen. R. W. Kirkham of Oaklaud f is twenty-four years old. The canes grown on it, originally obtained from Chinese stock, made a growth of as much as thirty-five feet in one season. In other parts of the state tho Indian bamboo, which attains a height of fifty feet, is successfully growu aud has been found capable of enduring a temperature of zero. At tho semi- tropical exhibition at Ocala, Fla., a collection of bamboo stems big enough for fence rails was shown by Lee county in that state. The bamboos belong to the true grasses and comprise about twenty genera, with nearly 200 species. In size bamboos range from 10 to 150 feet in height and from one inch to two feet in diameter. Of the sixty species indigenous to the Chinese em pire only six or seven are cultivated for economic purposes. Bamboos are utilized for the mak ing of matks, rafts, water pipes, ship rigging, carts, boxes, mats, cordage and paper. Furniture manufactured from the stems is very much in fash ion just at present. The plants also furnish valuable supplies of food. A few species have a berry-like fruit and tho seeds of other kinds resemble rice, especially when cooked, having about the same market value. The young and tender shoots are cut for fodder, aud such delicate portions of one or two Japan ese species are cooked and eaten like asparagus. These plants are gregarious in habit, their numerous stems rising iu dense and impenetrable masses. As the shoots mature canes are cut down from year to year, new ones con stantly springing up. The rate a twhich some kinds grow is astonishing. An Indian species, called tho “Dendro* calamus giganteus”—meaning “giant pen tree”—sometimes attains a height of forty feet in as many days. A record is given for even two and a half feet in a day, and Gen. Kirkham has a record of eight inches of growth per diem on ids California plantation. The myriad uses found for bamboo in China, Japan and other regions re quire a greater supply than can be de rived from natural propagation. Supplies of bamboo seeds for planting are difficult to obtain, as the plant seeds rarely, sometimes not oftener than every twenty-five or even sixty years, and a few of tho most useful kinds grow in Japan are said never to seed. The seeds, moroever, are ex ceedingly diflicult to germinate, and hence the plants are propagated al most exclusively from root cuttings, eves aud offsets. — [Washington Star. water there, as has been sometimes supposed. It is certainly a singular fact that two constituents which are so abundant here should seem to be entirely wanting in the moon, and it is an interesting subject for specula tion, as to what has happened to the water on the moon if it once existed there. It is generally believed that as our satellite cooled dowu the water penetrated into the interior, and was there seized upon by the minerals which required water in order that they might assume their appropriate crystalline forms. The water on the moon has therefore, according to this view, become transformed into a solid form, incorporated with the bodily texture of the globe. It has even been surmised that a similar destiny awaits the oceans ou our own globe; broad and deep though they seem, they yet may be inadequate to quench the thirst for water possessed by so vast a mass of crystallizing minerals as must exist in the interior of the globe. But whether this be the explanation of the absence of liquid water from the moon or not, tho fact of that absence caunot be questioned. The moon has been subjected to careful scrutiny for centuries, yet no one has ever seen any genuine ocean or sea, no one has ever seen any indi cation of the present existence of water, and we are entitled to assert that water, in a liquid form, is absent from the surface of our satellite.— [Good Words. The Great Mystery. I know not whence or how or why I came. I walk and talk—I laugh and cry— I breathe to live—I live to die— And dying, leave a name to fame, or shame. I know not where or how or when I’ll go. The end will come some day, and then— A sigh—a tear—a prayer—amen! I know not now, but when I go I’ll know. — [H. T. Hollands, iu Detroit Free Press. HUMOROUS. to Gazzam. “ Gazzam, “dead broke, Able to be Around. He was a smart young man. There was no question on that score. If necessary he would have admitted the soft impeachment himself, in strict confidence, course. He and his running mate took seats iu a crowded down-town cafe, aud oh, dear! such a time as they had. Whenever a hungry guest passed their table the bright young man would suddenly glance up and exclaim loudly, “How do you do?” as if accosting the stranger. Then instantly turning to his companion he would complete the sentence by adding, “when you are in New York and want to go over to Brooklyn.” It was great fun. But no one seemed to enjoy it except the two dudes who took an active part iu it. Indeed, those in the immediate vicin ity seemed to be greatly bored. An old farmer who was quietly sipping a cup of coffee at a neighboring table watched this little play with consid erable interest. Finishing his lunch lie arose, picked up the waiter’s check, and started forward to the cashier's desk. He had almost reached the table of the two brilliant young jokers when suddenly one of them exclaimed, “How do you do?” But the speaker never finished the sentence. Before he could utter another word a brawny hand caught him by the collar, lifted him bodily to his feet, shook him un til his teeth rattled like castanets, and then slammed him dowu upon the floor with all the force of a pile driver. “I’m very well, thank ye,” said the fanner softly, as he passed on to the cashier's desk, paid his check, aud went out.— [Clncasro Mail. A little learnHg in a fool, like scanty powder in a large gun, will sometimes mike considerable uoise. “Pa,” said a five-year-old eon, “can a rope walk?” “I think not my son,” answered tho father 4 “but it might if it were taut” “This mummy fell to pieces as wo were unpacking it,” said the director of the museum replied deutly.” Although you grieve when you are poor, It’s always well to learn— You never really know for sure Which way affairs may turn. “Why do you always employ wo men as typewriters?” asked Mrs. Cur" taiu Lecture. 4 -So that I have some thing to dicta'o to,” replied the unhappy man. “His attentions to you have been marked, have they not?” said the young woman’s experienced friend. 4 ‘Oh, yes. Ho has never taken tho price-tag oil any of his presents.” Maiden (listening to Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”) —I don’t see why they have tho clashing of the cymbals. Young Mrs. Benedict—Why, as a symbol of the c’ashings which are to follow, of course. ‘•This business of tracing one of my lost manuscripts makes me think of a dog I once owned,” said Scrib bler. “In what respect?” queried Mawson. “Ho had a habit of chasing his owu tail,” replied Scribbler. >o Water on the Moon. Every kind of life, whether animal or vegetable, requires both the pres ence of air and the presence of water; we do not of course say that in other parts of the universe there may not be types of life for which neither air nor water is essential; nothing is, how ever, more clear than the evidence which we are able to produce with reference to the presence or absence of the substances we have named. First, with regard to water. There are, no doubt, some reasons for think ing that there may have been once water ou the moon, but it U now cer tain that there is no liquid ou its sur face, nor indeed can I find much rea son to believe that there is even frozen Oddities About Rats. Rats are natives of Asia and their raids westward belong to comparative modern times. From tbe fact that it is not mentioned by any of tbe early Europeans, it is surmised that it was unknown west of the Ganges iu an cient times. The black rat first came from Asia to Europe in the sixteenth century—along with the plague—and was first known as the “Graveyard Spectre,” because he preyed on the flesh of those who died during that awful visitation. He was also known as the “Plague cat,” because the com mon house cat had a similar habit of feasting on the dead. This black rat was the common house rat until the brown or gray rat made bis appear ance in 1775. The gray rat came t 0 Europe from India by way of Russia, and is uow popularly known as the Norway rat, from a mistaken tradition that it came from Norway to England and from the latter country to America.— rPhiladelphia Press. The Mississippi Levees. Louisiana has 780 miles of river front, and to protect this from the overflow of the river over 75,000,000 cubic yards of earthworks have been constructed. The complete system of levees now erected has been at the enormous cost of nearly $40,000,000, while annual repairs in ordinary sea sons are estimated at $2,000,000. The new levees, which were con structed iu 1873, are 22 feet high aud 142 feet at the base, with a cross sec tion of 1672 square feet. They are enormous dikes, probably, with but few exceptions, the largest in tho world. But even these have been im proved upon, and larger ones made at certain bends in the river where the danger is great In 1833 tho water rose to such a tremeudous height that it broke down the great levees with apparent ease, and inundated tho country for miles away, flooding portions of St. Louis, New Orleans, Baton Rouge and other cities. Five years later another tre mendous outbreak was effected, and millions of dollars’ worth of damage was caused. When a break is made in a portion of the levee it is almost impossible to stop the flowing waters, and the coun try is so level back of the embank ment that an inexhaustible quantity can flow around. In the present case it is rushing dowu through the coun try, destroying crops and houses, un til its volume can be increased by another stream from a second break in the levee. Tho only places that are saved from the floods at such outbreaks are those which are situated upon high eleva tions, aud it is not an infrequent oc- / currence to find one-half of a city along the river’s bank flooded whiie the other half is above the water.— [New York Times. know Beeswax. Many tons of beeswax are imported to this city 4r° m tropical and sub tropical parts of this continent and from Spain. Much of this comes from Cuba, where a tropical vegeta tion supports and employs au enor mous number of bees. Much of the Cuban wax comes in great masses sloped like the frustrum of a pyramid, and weighing from 65 to 70 pounds each. In spite of the fact that various substitutes for wax have been dis covered, it is still used iu great quantities iu the manufacture of candies, especially for ecclesiastical use. Much of it, too, is used iu the manufacture of wax lay figures, not only for museums and the like, but for milliners and mantua makers. In For Keeps. 4 dlow is that little mining scheme of yours getting along? Any money in it?” “Any money in it? Well, [ should •ay so! All of mine, all of my wife’s. and about $3000 that I got my friends,”—[Yankee Blade. from Mexican Funerals. ‘•The most curious sight American eye in the City of is the funeral procession,” saul Lambert of Boston at the Sotf ‘•There is not a hearse, as we that vehicle in the capital. Instead, the Mexicans use a strangc-looking street car to haul their dead to the cemetery. The car is more like an or dinary flatcar of this country than anything else I can compare it to. In the center of this car is a raised dias in the shape of a coffin, on which tho casket rests, and is bound to the body of the car by ropes and poles, around which are wrapped flowers. The mules drawing the car are whipped into a fast gallop, and go through the crowdfed, stuffy streets at a break neck speed, followed by a long pro cession of other closed cars filled with mourners. Rich and poor are all treated alike when they are carried to the cemetery for burial.”—[St. Louis Globe-Democrat. In the Same Box. “You have been in the army a great many years, but I never heard of your capturing anything,” said an old co quette to a somewhat veueralbe offi cer. “You ought to have a fellow feel ing for me,” wa« the reply. “How 80?” “Because we both know what it U to grow old witbont making any con quest*.”—[Texas Siftings. j