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iH TEMPERANCE TOPICS. NOTES OF INTEREST TO THE ANTI-LIQUOR LEAGUERS. lorn* Krlior. of the Lot* W. C. T. I'. Convrntloii—Scientific Temperance In* •traction by Mary U. Hunt—Temper* ante and Labor. Look Aloft. J N THE tempest of life, when t h ® wave and the gale Are around and above. If thy foot ing should fall. If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart, “Look aloft," and be firm, and be fearles-s of heart. If the friend, who embraced In pros- perlty’s glow, with a smile for each Joy and a tear for each wo, Should betray thee when sorrows like clouds are array’d, "Look aloft" to the friendship which never shall fade. Should I He visions which hope spreads In llRbt to thine eye. Like the tints of the rainbow, but bright en to fly. Then turn, and, through tears of repent ant regret, "Loof aloft" to the sun that Is never to set. Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart, The wife of thy bosom, In sorrow depart, ‘Look aloft” from the darkness and dust of the tomb, To tyiat soil where "affection Is ever In bloom." And, O! when death comes In his terrors to cast Ills fears on the future, his pall on the past. In that moment of darkness, with hope In thy heart. And a smile In thine eye. “look aloft and depart. believe of what they have not heard?** Also the worker* of the foreign de partment are few. We do not despair of baniahing the saloon and prohibit ing the manufacture of alcoholic bev erages, but neither can be accom plished without more and more effec tive work among all classes of labor ers.—The Union Signal. JAPANESE SELF-MURDER HARA-KARI, OR "HAPPY DISPATCH,” IS STILL IN VOGUE. ftcientlflr Temperance Instruction. Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, Massachusetts: It is not too much to say that the yearly report of what is being- done In the public schools and colleges of this country for the scientific temper ance education of its children and youth Is a forecast of the future of our nation. The first temperance educa tion law in the United States was en acted in November. 1882, During the fifteen years which havn since rolled away, a work of like legislation has gone on in our national congress and state legislatures, until our entire country la under more or leas stringent laws requiring scientific temperance instruction for all pupils in all schools under the national or state control ex cept those in four states—Virginia, Georgia, Arkansas and Utah. It is not too much to hope and expect that the opening of the twentieth century will see our temperance education map all white, because legal provision has been made for the temperance educa tion of ail the children of the public schools of this country. The great gain of this year has been the revislbn of the temperance education law of Il linois, the crowning victory of a most memorable battle. Under the shadow of the home and tomb of the great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln; from the pulpits and platforms and through the press and malls of the state, we appealed to the peo ple—the fathers and mothers, for the temperance education of their 1,000,000 children in the Illinois public schools. The appeal was not in vain. There is crying need that this import ant phase of temperance work should cease to be a department and in all the unions, national, state and local,should be made a branch whose needs should be estimated according to their relation to the great object for which we are organized, viz., to secure total abstin ence in the* individual and the legal abolition of the sale of alcoholic drinks.* I repeat what I said last year: Tell me what you are doing for the en forcement of your temperance educa tional law. and I will tell you how long the saloon will be the controlling power in your states. When public sentiment is too Intelligent to drink what the saloon sells the saloon will be abolished. Temperance anil Labor. Mrs. Mary G. Stuckenberg, Massa chusetts: The annual report of the W. C. T. U. work among railway employes, miners, sailors, soldiers and lumber men, are an inspiration, because a no ble work is being done among these classes of workmen. But there arc 369 general classes of employment in the United States, and we have no re ports of special work among, for in stance, the great army of factory oper atives, or other large, or small, gangs of laborers as greatly needing Chris tian temperance effort as those men tioned. It needs no argument to plead the importance of this department of work among our city laborers. Their class is the majority and their increase the most rapid. They are becoming more and more conscious of political Influence. Therefore the attitude of our laborers towards any of our social questions is gradually assuming ever graver Importance. Great numbers cf these laborers are either of foreign birth or parentage, so that neither the Influence of home or church has fav ored total abstinence. "How can they Food for Redaction. A lady of high education and attain- monts sent us the following in a pri vate letter, but it has so much “food for reflection" we share it with our ! reedera: “There is nothing on earth I would ! so gladly see accomplished as the ‘abo- | lition* and demolition of all alcoholic* and opiates as well aa tobacco. 1 wish j the latter could not be grown and the others not made. I wish that the phy sician." could be reached first, to real ize the harm they do in their practice by the use of stimulants and opiates, as well as many other deadly things which ought not to be touched by any man, still less prescribed by physi cians whose profession has won for them the blind confidence and obe- diente of so many thousands of de pendent mortals. I believe tobacco to be quite as powerful to cause disease and to promote crime as more univer sally recognized causes—alcohol and opiates. It is perhaps all the more dangerous because more subtle and hidden in its effects, less immediate, and yet more directly affecting the mind and temper; by that I mean, for bidding the true and natural action of the Spirit in man. It gives a false strn gth, a false poise, a false sense, am! life goes on with those false props as basis of action, and with false mo tives generated by its use. It is quite terrible to see the various effects un der the various circumstances, and to know that it is countenanced princi pally because of the profit in the trade to the government, and partly because of the love of self-indulgence in phys ical ways which these deadly things satisfy only to create others and worse ones." The Tramp. No one hates to see a tramp worse than we do; no one will do more, ac cording to his ability, than we to rid the country of them; but no one can realize more than we d^p that it can not be dono^y dealing blows «t the tramp's themselves. We must remove the cause by giving all men a ehance to earn a living, by restoring to them the God-given right to apply their la- bo.* to nature’s opportunities. But so long as the present conditions exist, let no man turn from his door a hu man being whose only crime, so far as we know, is that he is hung’ry. It won’t hurt you to give him a piece of bread. You may be “entertaining an angel unawares.” Chance it anyway. You will not miss it. When you look at one of these un fortunate brothers (for' brothers they are, however much we may like to disown them), don’t forget that he was born; he once had a mother, just aa you had; he was once a little boy, just as you were; he was possibly the pet of a kind father, just as you were; he fell a victim to circumstances, either of his own making or those over which he had no control. In either case he was unfortunate. He may have a weird, sorrowful tale to tell, ami he may be telling the truth. For ought that you may know he may have a wife and little children of his own; it may be that in some distant state are those whose hearts yearn for him and who, with loving eyes, may be vainly and anxiously awaiting his homo coming. Think of these things before you turn him from your door. If he is an imposter you have only lost a piece of bread at most. We say again, chance It, anyway,—Portland Commoner. The Sealing Conference*. The first sealing conference, that in which representatives of Russia, Jap an and the United States participated, closed its work in Washington the first week in November by an agreement upon a treaty for the suspension of deep-sea sealing in Bering sea and the North Pacific., This arrangement does not affect the relations of Great Brit ain and Canada to the question. These are subjects for consideration by a sec ond conference, which began its ses sions at Washington the second week in November. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Canadian premier, and Sir Louis Dav ies, the Canadian minister of marine and fisheries, attended this conference, together with British, Canadian and American experts. Itutlied Deeply but Came Cp Dry. Members of a class in Cambridge had been rather flippant in regard to some r«m;>ous authority and a fellow was eulogising him. Said he: “You are probably ignorant, young gentlemen, that the venerable person of whom you have been speaking with such levity is one of the profoundest scholars of our age—indeed, it may be doubted whether any man of our age has bathed more deeply In the sacred fountains of antiquity." “Or came up drier, sir,** was the reply of the undergraduate. When doctors disagree it helps to swell the population of one of the oth- \ er two places. It Originated Among the Military Clas* In Japan—A Privilege of the Upper Clats— Often'Made a Function, With Elabor ate Ceremonies—A Famous Instance. Hara-kiri, or "happy dispatch,” as it has been freely translated, is still the mode of saioide among the Japan ese. This was shown by Counselor Katayama’s attempt to kill himself in Yokohama the other day. Katayama is a bright young grad uate from the class in diplomacy in the Foreign Office in Tokio, who had been sent to assist the Japanese Minister, Shimamura, in the recent complica tions with the Hawaiian Government. He was recalled, and, believing tkatit was owing to his failure to accomplish all his government had instructed him to do, he cat himself open and slit his throat. Hara-kiri means, literally, stomach- cutting. The expression, though widely known outside of Japan, is not much used umong the Japanese themselves. They use the word sep puku, which is derived from tho Chin ese, as are so many of their polite terms, much as French words are used by those who affect elegance in, this country. According to Basil Hall Chamber- lain, an Englishman, Professor of Japanese in the Imperial University in Tokio, seppuku is not a custom of the aboriginal Japanese, but came into vogue some time before 1500 among the samurai, or members of the mili tary class, the feudal nobility and the gentry. It was a brave death and ghastly in its conception, as any one familiar with the Japanese theatre can testify. Its carrying out demonstrated beyond doabt that the doer was at least possessed of physical courage, and by the act he who performed it wiped oat whatever stain may have sullied his personal honor. He died like a gentleman. , Seppuku was a privilege of the up per class. The death seuteuco with those above the merchant, farmer and artisan was not carried out by the public executioner. They killed them selves in the presence of officials sent to witness the deed. It was performed like all other acts in old Japan, even to tea drinking, with elaborate cere mony and detaiL Mitford, in his “Tales of Old 'Japan,” describes it vividly. He was detailed as a repre sentative of the English* Government to witness the sentence carried oat on a rebel who had fired on the allied ileet at Skimenoseiki over a quarter of a century ago. In his “Story of the Forty-seven Eonin” in tho same volume he gives an account of the most famous iustauce of seppuku on record. The rouiu were detached samurai, or military retain ers. without a master. Asauo, Lord of Ako, who had been master of the Forty-seven Bouin, was seutenced to commit seppuku for laying his baud upon his sword in oue of tho palaces of the Shogun, or Tycoon, the general issimo* and actual /uler of the country during the centuries which tho Mikado was iu retirement. The ronin, with full knowledge that they would be sentenced to seppuku likewise, broke into the yashiki, or palace, oi Kira, the noble who had evoked the breach of etiquette on the part of their lord, and forced him to commit seppuku. They offered up his head at a neighboring temple and then awaited calmly the sentence, which came in due course aud was carried out. Often seppuku was performed in temples. The priests prepared a ban quet. The relatives of the condemned man, his friends and the Government officials assembled and feasted. The condemned man, robed in white, the color of mourning in Japan, ate and exchanged wine cups with all present. Then seating himself in the centre of the room arranged for the ceremony, ho threw his robes from his shoulders and was naked to the waist. An at tendant placed a low stand before him, on which was a cup of tea aud the ku- sun-go-bn, tho ■shorter of the two swords worn by a^ samurai. Tucking the flowing sleeves of his robe under his kuees, he wrapped a sheet of paper rfbout the blade so ad to leave about an inch of the point ex posed, and drew the blade across his abdomen from left to right, with a lit tle turn upward at the end of the stroke. Then leaning forward h,e reached for the cup, aud his chosen frieml, standing at his post beside him with a drawn sword, severed his head from his body so that it hung by a bit of the skin at the throat as by a hinge. The witnesses stamped their report with their seals and departed. In those days death was the fato of whoever had the business to memor ialize the Government, but this did not deter the patriotic. The petitioner, with his prayer written in the form of ft letter and concealed about his per son, knelt before the gate of some pub lic building, and,having disembowe led himself, would thrust the knife through his neck from ear to ear, and push it forward till it fell into his lap and he expired. The paper would be found and its contents read by the official to it was directed. Katayama’s case is not ex- Native students, fearful of failure in examination, have done what he attempted.—New York Jour nal. LITTLE OLD-TIME AGUE NOW. The Chill* and Fever of Other Days Al ine* t Unheard Of. The Kansas City (Mo.) Star reminds its readers of the “good old days’' when there was no joke in tho ague, when to live was to shake, for nobody was exempt by reason of age, sex, position in society or color. Those were the days when there were three synonyms for ague, besides plain chills and fever. They were Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, and the greatest of these was Missouri. There were’ two divisions of severity in those days: Those who “shook” on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday made up one division, and those who shook on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, aud remitted with the other the next Monday were the other. In those days the invitations to social functions read: “Mr. and Mrs. M. A. Laria present their compliments to Mr. C. A. Fever and beg to inform him that they will not be shaking on Tuesday, and would be pleased to have his presence at their dark green tea.” This would be the answer: “Mr. C. A. Fever acknowledges tho kind invitation of Mr. and Mrs. M. A. Laria, but begs to inform them that Tuesday is his day to shake.” Many an otherwise happy social function was shattered, too, by the inability of the Mr. and Mrs. of the household to get their ague for the season started off on tho same day. Of course, under this circumstance the whole family would be compelled to miss the entire social season or disturb with their rattling or chattering every gathering they attended. To-day the dismissing sign reads: “This is my busy day.” In early Missouri times “This is my day to shake” was the correct form. But all this is changed now. No longer is the congregation at church changed every Sunday, and no longer are two preachers, guaranteed not to shake on the same day, necessary. It was almost a part of tho contract in those days. For the old-time chills are no more, and the ague has almost disappeared. There are a few places in the South where it is still the cus tom, but it very seldom crosses Mason and Dixon’s line now. In some of the parts of Arkansas where typewrit ers and bicycle bloomers have not penetrated, there is yet some ague, but it iieldom gets North of those secluded spots. At present Dr. G. O. Coffin, city physician, is treating two cases of real, old-fashioned fever and ague, but they are the first he has seen in Kan sas City in ten years, he says. Dr. D. B. Porter, who came hero from Ohio thirty years ago, and has been here over since, says he has not seen a case of old-time chills and fever in five years. Dr. Coffin says it is be- cause of the improved sanitary condi tions. Dr. Porter says it is because people drink better water. In the early days, Dr. Porter said to a reporter for the Star, three-fourths of his income came from ague pa tients. Doctors grew rich treating malarial poison. Tho favorite and principal prescription then was, “Ex quinine, twenty grains,” in as many variations as the doctor’s education and medical dictionary conld conjure him, distinguished aud high-sounding terms to substitute for the word qui nine. And when both ran short, or the patients found it out and went to prescribing for themselves, it was an easy matter for the doctor and the druggist to get together behind the prescription case and agree upon something new and cryptogramaticv CRICULTURAL TOPICS. The Male. A long, leggy fowl is usually of coarse bone and contains a greater proportion of offal than one compactly built. There are some breeds that are, naturally tall, but there are also indi viduals among them more compact than the others, and they are the ones that should be selected as breeders, provided they are good in other respects. A vigorous, compact male should always be given the preference, but he should not be too short-legged in proportion to his body. The ob ject should be to secure breadth of backs, deep breasts and heavy bodies according to size. , A Foultry Culture Truism. Never forget this in poultry culture: ThA pullet that commences to lay earliest in life is the one to lay the largest number of eggs through life, as cattle that have the milk-piodncing organs active early make the best cows. Select the fast-growing, early matur ing specimens that present the full typo and size-found iu the breed; and use only these as breeders, and the egg-producing merits will be in creased. Wo have reported the won derful product in single specimens, which can be made true to a flock. But it is care aud attention to the flock that finds and secures these merits in the progeny. Neglect and haphazard breeding never pays. A Convict Buys Diamonds, Isaac Bushmore, who has just been released from the Auburn State Prison, where he had served a term for grand larceny, celebrated his return to tho world in a truly worldly way. He had a carriage waiting for him at the prison gate and was driven at once to a tailor, where he fitted himself oat with expensive clothing, and thence to a jeweler’s where he paid $400 for dia monds and a watch. Then he proceeded to the leading hotel of the city, registered and spent the night in drinking and carousing. Soon after sallying out the next morn ing he fell in the street, besmearing his fine black suit, light-colored top coat, silk hat, patent leathers and gloves with Auburn mud. He was taken to jail, where he was fined $5, which he paid, and started on the nefx train for New York. Bushmore when qnite young +A- ceived a legacy of $15,000, and it he began to spend it lavishly he was re strained from its use. TheiYhe re sorted to stealing in order to gratify his expensive tastes, and reached State prison. It is the remainder of his legacy that he has no«r started is to spend.—New York Jo'*rnal. Weathercocks In England. The earliest weathf/ vanes in IPew England were coeks, trumpeters, sim ple plates, disks acd arrows, and, not to be overlooked, the sacred codfish. In Boston, cooks or broad arrows were 09 all the old churches. On the Proviuct House, where General Gage had his headquarters, there was a statue of an Indian with drawn bow aud arrow, ready to shoot.—Boston Globe. Eusllage For Ho I*. After numerous experiments in feed ing silage to hogs, the Virginia sta tion finds that its nse as an exclusive swine ration is not to bo commended. The hogs did not gain as rapidly as on a corn ration. Bo far as the cost of food is concerned, if thirty-five cents is allowed for a bushel of ear corn (the price it sold for daring the test) and $2 per ton for silage, it may be seen that the latter cost only about two-thirds as much for the seven weeks as the corn, aud this would go a long way toward making np the dif ference in loss of flesh. When fed with corn the resalts were more satis factory. Giving the above values to the feeds, a saving of nearly one-third in cost is effected. The station con cludes that as hog feed silage can be econqmically combined with corn as a maintenance ration, but it is oot de sirable when used alone. In feeding the silage it was found best to throw it directly on the ground, for if placed in troughs much of it was thrown out, as the hogs sought for pieces of corn, and being In a confined place the finer parts were trampled under foot in'* very short time. If spread about over tho soil they were kept busy picking it over.—American Agriculturist. Winter Fattenlnc of Sheep. With grain aud store sheep at pres ent prices, it may seem doubtful whether there will be much profit in feeding sheep or lamos the coming winter. Yet it was the experience of John Johnson that he was quite as sure of making a profit in such years as in times when sheep and feed were cheap and plentiful. In such a year as the present, however, ho always preferred to feed yearling lambs, buy ing some of coarse wool origin if he could, and' both thrifty and hearty eaters. It never pays to fatten a poor sheep. One that shows that it has never had any setbacks is mnch to be preferred. It will eat more heartily, and will often lay on four or five pounds of flesh a week, while the older sheep will do well if it gains two pounds a week. There is a higher price for the yearling lamb after it is fattened, so that this with the gain in flesh and the increased value of its wool makes lamb feeding nearly al ways profitable. An old Sheep feeder who had practiced winter fattening of lambs, once told us that he never but once failed to make a profit money, and even then he got full pay for all the feed given at market rates, and also a pile of very rich manure as the result of his winter’s work.—Boston Cultivator. Fall Frnnlns of Grapevine*. For many reasons the heavy annual pruning which is a necessity for the grapevine had best Ixi given in the fall. So soon as the leaves are off, the catting away of superfluous wool may remain. There can be no bleeding, as the cut will dry up at once. There is some circulation of sap all through the vine daring warm weather in winter. Pruning in the fall concentrates this sap in the buds that are left, and they always push more vigorously than when the vines are left dangling on the trellises all winter. As soon as the pruning .is done, the support of the main vine should be loosened, and it should be thrown on the ground. In most cases snow will be enough protection, but if the vine is where the snow blows away, some straw held down by a slight covering of earth will, be needed. Vines thus treated will winter without injury, however low! the mercury may fall. The vines should be pat np on the trellis in, spring so soon as danger from lata frosts has passed. If the vines are uncovered except by snow, put them np as soon as the snow melts. Lying en the ground and protected from winds, the bads might push too early and be injured. They are not liable to this on the trellis.—American Cul tivator.