Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

v EACH IN HIS OWN NAME. A Are mist and a planet, A crystal and a cell; A jellyfish and a saurian, And cures where the cavemen dwell; Then a sense of law and beauty And a face turned from the clod— Some call it Evolution, And others call it God. A haze on the far horizon. The infinite, tender sky; The ripe rich tints of the cornfields, And the wild geese sailing high; And all over upland and lowland The charm of the golden-rod— Some of us call it Autumn, And others call it God. Like the tides on a crescent sea beach. When the moon is new and thin, Into our hearts high yearnings Come welling and surging in come from the mystic ocean Whose rim no foot has trod— Some of us call it Longing, And others call it God. A picket frozen on duty, A mother starved for her brood, Socrates drinking the hemlock. And Jesus on the rood; The million who, humble and nameless, The straight, hard pathway trod— Some call it Consecration, And others call it God. —W. H. Carruth, in Christian Register. CUPID IN SCHOOL. By STANLEY E. JOHNSON. -r— non placet,” wrote the red- iMi ■ headed girl in the back of the wide, oblong school room. Mr. Har rison Jenkins, the presiding genius of the place, stood scowling behind his desk, strug gling with the class in Latin. These young boys and girls, who looked pityingly up to his dark face, were struggling with the rerb “sum.” i The lesson had been poorly prepared, and the issue of thunderbolts were soon expected to shower from this pedagogical Olympus. Atlast it came. Mr. Jenkins brought his fist down upoi^ the plain deal board with a thump that awoke every languid mind in the room. “Is this what you come to Bchoolfor?” he began, as if addressing a jury. “Is this the way you use one of tfce most, precious gifts that God has given to you? Here you are, a whole class of bright boys and girls, with brains* enough to do anything you de- Bire iu this great world, throwing away the greatest opportunity of your lives. If this was an institution for weak- minded children I would have some compassion for you. But your faces are all bright and your eyes all clear, and yet you will come to me with such a lesson as this!” Mr. Jenkins punct uated every sentence with that echoing thump on the desk which carried con viction and mortification to the minds of each boy and girl before him. It was then that the red-headed girl on the ba*k seat wrote “Jovi non placet” (“It is not pleasing to Jupi ter”}. Geraldine Coffin was Mr. Jenkins’ pride. He'had no favorites; at least, each never appeared in the little com monwealth, which he held in the hol low of his hand. Bat in Geraldine he was intensely interested, and he often found in her his greatest irritation. While Mr. Jenkins held the whole of his fifty odd young spirits in the hol low of his hand, the red-headed girl was the one person he was not quite Bare of. Geraldine had given him the name of “Jupiter,” and it fitted so, wall that it was at once adopted by all his subjects. “When he pounds his desk and that great shaggy head shakes so, and his blue e$s fiash, all you can think of is Jupiter sending thunderbolts to earth”—and in this remark Geraldine had christened him. Many times he had thought he heard the name “Jupiter Jenkins”—but he had never been able to capture one of these err ing mortals. Of course, he knew he was called “Jupiter;” he had been told so by .admiring parents, who knew he would be pleased, and he was. But it is with the red-headed girl that this story is chiefly concerned. She was the only human problem that Jupiter Jenkins could not solve. Geraldine Coffin had been an inmate of the schoolroom only a few days when Mr. Jenkins discovered that she possessed an unusual mind. He laid his plaus to make the most he could of her. He was accustomed to use the parable of the talents in the school room, and to say that of him to whom much was given much would be re quired. The getting of lessons was, an easy matter to Geraldine Coffin. She not only learned them, but the truths and principles were digested, •nd sunk into her mind, clearly un derstood and stored away, until the day which would call them in use. Jupiter Jenkins was accustomed to say that hardly more than one child in twenty really digested knowledge. He had come to complain to Ger aldine’s mother that her daughter Bometimes failed in her lessons, and that it was inexcusable in one who had such a mind. “I have come to tell you this, Mrs. Coffin, when I would not take the trouble to inform another mother, for this reason, and this alone: Geraldine has an unusual mind, and she can make anything she pleases of herself. If she knows yon and I are one in this matter, she will not care to trouble ns by neglecting to get her lessons.” r Geraldine’s mother - was as much flattered as any other woman would be, and, of course, Jupiter Jenkins iras upheld. Thus he dealt with Ger- ildine, conscious of his power. He mdeavored to make her fail, [and whenever she did she was compelled to remain after school and get her les sons. But with a wonderful mind there was a somewhat wayward nature iu the texture of Geraldine Coffin’s per sonality. She was often rough and hoydenish, and she caused no end of trouble. With the deep interest the young master took in her a sense of power developed. When Mr. Jen kins supposed he had her solidly in his control, there would burst forth a fit of “don’t care” in her, which as tonished and alarmed him. Then the thunderbolts flew to punc tuate the master's fluent words of in dignation. “When one has the mighty gift of brains,” he thundered, “and life’s road lies before, to choose what is best and highest, to be lazy and languid, and not to reach the arm to grasp the golden apple of the intel lectual Hesperides, is the greatest wrong.” It was then that Geraldine, her col or slightly brighter and her head a trifle higher, would return to her seat and write “Jovi non placet” (“It is not pleasing to Jupiter”). There were certain rare facts about Geraldine that Jupiter Jenkins, in his teacher’s enthusiasm, had not noticed. One of these was that she was a very pretty girl. But if he had been im pervious to this fact, there were oth ers who had not, and among those were some of the big boys in the school. Geraldine was growing, and she was now tall and lithe of figure, with her big blue eyes clearer and more ex pressive as she looked at people. The true soul of a rather designing maid en was showing forth from them. She was glad to receive attentions, and it smote Jupiter hard when he observed that she walked with one and then with another in the still and balmy spring evenings. Just why it smote him as it did, Mr. [Jenkins never knew until a few years later. But it did, and Geraldine’s face seemed to have framed itself into the centre of his thoughts. She recurred to his conscionsness constantly, and when he thought of these big boys he was truly uncomfortable. He had another conference with Mrs. Coffin, in which he suggested that Geraldine had better be kept in the house and made to give closer at tention to her lessons. When he called her in recitations he was also doing his best to make the girl fail. And when she did fail he did his best to make it uncomfortable for her. She had to remain after school and get the whole lesson. Jupiter made her recite it all “precept upon precept,” so to speak. He had conceived the ambition to make a teacher of the girl. He broached the subject to Mrs. Coffin. “Geraldine,” he began, “is cut out to be a teacher.” Mrs. Coffin started in astonishment. “Yes, she is,” he af firmed, with a thunderbolt, “and she ought to be sent to a normal school. I never went to one, and what I know about teaching has been gained by ex perience. But there is no mistake. The learning of methods means some thing in these days, and I’m sure that if Geraldine is sent to a normal school she will make a first-rate teacher.” Mrs. Coffin thought it over for a few days aud then came to the conclusion that Mr. Jenkins was right That was the usual conclusion about Mr. Jenkins in the little village. The idea was placed befoie Geraldine, and when she heard of Jupiter’s proposal she smiled a smile that made her mother look at her twice. But Geraldine had the key to certain kinds of human na ture which was far beyond her years. She thought she would like to go, and it was a great joy when she came to Jupiter’s throne and in her sweetest and calmest manner thanked him for his kindness and said she would do her best to deserve it. That was the happiest day that Jupiter had ever Ijad in the school. He did not quite un derstand it, but there was a singing heart as homelike as the singing of a Geraldine entered the norrod school, and passed her preliminary xxamina- txon with extraordinary sacetsa. She was one of the three highest put of a large class. The veteran prtcipal of the school knew human nztiure at a glance. Ho wrote to Jupite* a letter which confirmed all that wo thy had said about the baffiing Geraldne. When Geraldine returned a the end of her first year the townsjeople be gan to relent in the hard opiiion they had entertained of her, and saw an other person in the tall and earnest young woman who had app<ared be fore them. Jupiter Jenkins lad ended his work as schoolmaster in the little seaport town. He had been studying law, and was now employmgUie same forensic talents ho had need lefore his schoolroom in a more lucrative if nr,l a higher court. He was “«> in the city,” aud was making a name. When Geraldine finished hnr course in the normal school she k ree*ived the highest commendation, and the old principal happened to find a good place for her in the same c ty where Jupiter was making his way. When Geraldine came intohis office at the end of her first quarter it was the first intimation that ho had re ceived of her presence in the city. She said she had come to make a pay ment, and while she spoke poor Ju piter was turning all sorts «f ruddy colors. “But I hadn’t heard you were here, Geraldine,” he said; “I h»ve been thinking of you, too, wondering if I should hear from you. Of course I knew I should. But somehow I can not get you out of my head, girl;” this was punctuated with one of the old-time thunderbolts. “Fact is, Geraldine, I’ve only just found out why I treated you so hard when in school. And it was simply this—I loved you! I want you always; I want yon to make me happy, to bo my wife!” Geraldine smiled as she raised her face and received the salute from his lips. “I knew that was the matter all the time,” she said.—Chicago Record. SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL tea kettle and as soft as a cat’s purr. Geraldine took new interest in schooL She tried no more of her subtle ways to disturb Jupiter, and the boys found a change in her which at once set their former interest at naught. “She ain’t no more fun,” they all agreed, and they troubled her no more. An elephant is possessed of such a delicate sense of sn^ll, that it can scent a human being at a distance of a thousand yards. In 1000 cases of the morphine habit collected from all parts of the world, the medical profession constitutes forty per cent, of the number. M. Phisalix, the French authority on the venoms of insects and reptiles, has established lhat the poison of the hornet in sufficient quantity renders one immune to that of the viper. It has recently been claimed that iron ships fitted with electric plants sufi'er rapid deterioration of their pipes having direct connection Vith the sea, due to electrolytic action. Cloth is now being successfully made from wood. Strips of fine-grained wood are boiled and crushed between rollers, and the filaments, having been carded into parallel lines, are spun in to threads, from which cloth can be woven in the usnal way. The amount of liquid refreshments taken by a man of seventy years would equal 76,700 pints, and to hold this a pail twelve feet high and more than two thousand five hundred times as large as an ordinary pail would be re quired. The weight of the liquid would be over forty-two tons. In the Diesel gas engine, which is now attracting much attention in Ger many, the mixture of air and gas which moves the piston is not sudden ly exploded, when it takes fire, but burns slowly enough to impart a more gradual impulse to the engine. A1000 horse-power motor of this type is promised for the Paris exposition of 1900. At a recent meeting of the Entomo logical Society of Washington, some specimens of chrysopa, a species of golden-eyed fly, which had been col lected in the White Mountains, were exhibited as curiosities, because each one carried on its back one or more minute cecidomylid flies. The opinion was expressed that this was a true ease of a smaller species of insect using larger species for the purpose of loco motion from place to place. It is supposed that a Centauri, one of the brightest stars of the Southern Hemisphere, ia the nearest of the fixed stars to the earth. The researches on its parallax by Henderson and Maclear gave, for its distance from the earth, in round numbers, twenty billions o: miles. At the inconceivably rapu rate at which light is propagated through space, it would require more thanjfonr years (o reach the earth from this star. Sir William Turner, speaking at the meeting in Toronto of the British As- sociatipn for the Advancement ol Science, said that the average brain weight in man is from forty-nine to fifty ounces. In woman the weight ia from forty-fonr to forty-five ounces. A few men, including the great natural ist, Cuvier, have had brains exceeding sixty ounces in weight, but eqnallj heavy brains have 'occasionally beea obtained from persons who had showa no sign of intellectual eminence. Among infant children the average brain weight is for girls ten and ioi boys 11.67 ounces. SCIENTIFIC SCRAP*. It is stated that vast untouched beds of sheet mica lie within fifty miles of Kiao-Chou bay, China. It is estimated that the nerves, with branches and minute ramifications connecting with the brain, exceed teu million. To hold crayons for blackboard or drawing work a tube is fitted with clamping jaws at one end and a slid ing rod at the other end, to force tlie chalk into position* The British army rifle has eighty- two component parts, in the produc- j tiou of which 952 machines are em- j ployed, as well as various processes | which do not require machinery. In a communication to the Paris Acad emy of Sciences, M. Grehant says that the surface of cast iron kept at u red heat is capable of transforming car bonic acid into carbonic oxide—that is, into a poisonous gas. For a short distance a lion or a tiger can ont'outinn a man and can equal the speed of a fast horse, but the ani mals lose their wind at the end of about half a mile. They have little endurance aud are remarkably weak in lung power. Siberia has for half a century been known to be rich iu graphite, but such have been the difficulties of transpor tation that development has been hampered too greatly to be profitable, although in 1875 no less than 666,000 pounds were explored. The highest observatory in the world is that which has been erected by a number of wealthy men interested in science on Mont Blanc, Switzerland, at a height of 15,780 feet above the level of the sea. Since it was not pos sible to reach solid rock for the foun dations, the house was built iu the frozen snow. • The surface of the sea is estimated at 150,000,000 square miles, taking the whole surface of the globe at 197,- 00,000, and its greatest depth sup posedly equals the height of the high est mountain or four miles. The Pa cific oceau covers 78,000,000 square miles, the Atlantic 25,000,000, the Mediterranean 1,000,000. A yellow light has been obtained with incandescent gas burners by a German inventor at Krefeld. He al ters the "burners so that the gas is supplied at a pressure of three and a half atmospheres. A single jet of ordi nary size then emits a light of more than a thousand candle power, by which fine print may be read at a dis tance of 150 feet from the light. CCTTiNG THE WHEELS READY Lear woman now Is olaaning house. And ti> not strange she should; She thus has time to ride her wheel As soon as roads are good. —Chicago Record, tVhen the bloomer girl ia seen 'Vith ;i gay and reckless mien bwiitly spinning on her model Ninety-eight, C.et your light top-coat from pawn. For you’ll want to put it on V heu you find that spring is here As sure ns fate. —Boston Traveler. th ~t A clatter on the attic stair, A tramping overhead, Sn i <’.ll feet that scamper here and 'Vith swift and noisy trend; I hour a scrambling by and by, Tlie sound of merry squeals, And know that from the attic high They’re taking down the wheels. -—Cleveland Plain Dealer. PITH AND POINT. Longevity Influenced by Water. Solid and dry as th# human body appears, says The Household, water constitutes more thau one-fourth of its bulk, and all the functions of life are really carried on in a water bath, and, although the sense of thirst may be trusted to call for a draught of water when required, the fluid can be im bibed most advantageously for many reasons besides satisfying the thirst. In the latter stage of digestion, when comminution of the mass is in complete, it is much facilitated by a moderate draught of water, which dis integrates and dissolves the contents of the stomach, fitting it for emul- geuce and preparing it for assimila tion. Hence the habit of drinking water in moderate quantities between meals contributes to health, and indicates the fact that those who visit health resorts tor the purpose of imbibing the waters of mineral springs might profit by staying at home and drinking more water and less whiskey. Water is the universal solvent of nature, aud the chief agent in all transformation of matter. WhAn taken into an empty stomach it soon begins to pass out through the tissues into the circulation to liquefy effeta solids, whose excretion from the sys tem is thus facilitated. Very few people think of the nec essity of washing the inside as well as the outside of the body,and he who would be perfectly healthy should be as careful about the cleanliness 6t his stomach as that of his skin. A Thrend From the F.artli to a Star. Sir Robert Ball once made a curious calculation on the distance to the near est of the “fixed stars.” The calcu lation was inspired by a visit to one of the great Lancashire thread factories. The superintendent of one of the fac tories inspected by the astronomer in formed the star-gazer that the com bined output of the various Lanca shire thread factories was 155.000,000 miles of thread per day. Those fig ures were certainly enough to aston ish anyone, unless it should be an as tronomer. Sir Robert Ball has long since passed the point where he expresses surprise at a string of figures which represent even billions of miles. Instead qf falling stunned at the thread man’s feet, he paralyzed the manufacturer of cotton filaments by telling him that if all the factories in Lancashire should work day and night producing 155, 000,000 miles of thread every twelve hoars, it would take them two hun dred years to spin a thread long enough to reach from the earth to the nearest of the fixed stars.—Tit-Bits. Tic—“What is he singing?” She— “Let me like a soldier fall.” Ho—“If 1 only had a gun!”—Pick-Me-Up. “Your sister got married last night, diiln’t she? Were you the best man?” ‘•.Saw—but I was tho worst boy."— Truth. Bill—“I’m the greatest hand for dreaming fish stories.” Jill—“That’s probably what makes you lie awake so much.” Ada—“Jack says ho wouldn’t mar ry the nicest girl living.” Dolly— “Pshaw! As if I’d have him.”—-Phil adelphia North American. It pugnlists had to do their talking over tho long distance telephone they would fight rather than talk at tho pres ent rale of tolls.—New York Herald, They say she is a poem — Quito likely that may he; I Hud unto my sorrow She ig averse to me. —Love and Folly. “I was in an elevator ouce that fell fifteen stories to the basement.” “Dear me; how did it feel?” “I was never so taken dawn in my life.”— Truth. Customer—“Is this what you call a strong cup of coffee?” Waiter— “Sure, Mike. You could hardly break one of deni cups wit’ a ax.”—Indianapolis Journal. Sunday-school Teacher (reading to class)—“And some fell by the way- side." Tommy (becoming suddenly interested)—“I didn’t know they rode hikes iu those days!” “You must bo crazy.” “Must?” “That is the word. If you won’t be insane,” continued the lawyer for the defense, “I see no way of saving yonr neck.”--Indianapolis Journal. “While Miss Fitz was away George took her parrot.” “Anything hap pen?” “I don’t know; she keeps the parrot down cellar, and the engage ment is off.”—Love and Folly. Harry—“Darling, I am unworthy of you.” Mabel—“Oh, Harry, if you and pupa agreed ou every other point as 'veil as you do on that how happy we should be!”—Illustrated Bits. Watts—“I’m a little doubtful about this Logansport man being able to jottle sunshine. ” Potts—‘‘It is mere ly an advance on the indastry of bot tling moonshine. ”—Indianapolis Jour nal. “Papa’s going to take me to Wash ington soon,” said the Allegheny lit tle girl to a friend. “Indeed?” “Yes; and wo shall see the Congregational Library. ”—Pittsburg Chronicle-Tele graph. The Microbe War: “We are going to give up having Johnny get an edu cation.” “For what reason?” “Well, we can’t get him sterilized every morning in time to go to school.”— Puck. In the Asylum: First patient (scornfully)—“Go onl You have wheels in your head.” Second Pa tient (proudly)—“Of course I have! And they’re chainless wheels at that!” —Puck. Summer Visitor—“You must take lots of comfort iu winter from that great fireplace.” Green Mountain— “Wal, yon see we don’t hev much time; I’m busy choppiu* wood for it most of the time, an’ Johnny he’s busy luggiu’ it in, an’ ma she’s busy puttin’ it ou tho fire."—Truth, Only one person in a thousand dies of old age. Cur* for Grief. A 14-year-old boy went into his mother’s presence with one eye black, his lips swollen and a ragged scratch across his cheek, the blood from which he had wiped off with his shirt sleeve. “Nicoflemmi! * cried the parent, as he crawled in, “have yon been fight ing again?” “No,” he sullenly grunted. “Then what on earth ails youv face?” “Jim Green’s ma’s dead,” he re plied. “Well, suppose she is, what’s that to do with yonr disfigmed face?” “I saw Jim just now,” answered the boy, “an’ he looked awfully sad and lonely ” “Well?” “I didn’t know what to do to make him happy again, au’, feeling sorry for him, I just went up to an’ let him hit me five times.” “Did it help him?” asked the mother. “Help him?” echoed the boy, in a surprised tone. “Of course it did. Don’t you think it’d make me feel better to whack a fellow who had licked me every week for a year?”— Pearson’s Weekly. ■MM