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< FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. SOME GOOD STORIES FOR OUR JUNIOR READERS. A Mrnr Flying Dutchman Built Of Mist •sort Oauz*—A I’ecullar Fish — The Drinking Habits of Animals—Smart Mayings of Juveniles. The Mercury’s Plaint. X don’t know why I'm slandered so. If I go high—If I go low, There’s ala-ays some one who will say, •Just see that mercury to-day!” And (whether toward the top I crawl Or down toward zero I may fall. They always fret, and say that I Am Car too low, or far too high. And though I try with all my might X never seem to strike it right. Now 1 admit It seems to me The,v show great Inconsistency. Buy they Imply I am to blame. Of i-ourse that makes my anger flame. Anti In a fiery fit of pique X slay at ninety for a week. Or Sometimes. In a dull despair, I give them Just a frigid stare: And as upon their taunts I think My Spirits down to zero sink. Mine is Indeed a hopeless case— To strive to please the human race! —Carolyn Wells, in Youth’s Companion. A Peculiar Fish. Lying limp and dry on a fishmong er’s slab, the turbot is perhaps the least Interesting of fish. When swimming in an artificial sea, or lying on the sandy bottom, it Is the most attractive of all the denizens of this mock ocean, and, whether at rest or In motion, has an air of vigilance, vivacity and in telligence greater than that of any normally shaped fish. This is in part due to his habits, and In part to the expression of the flat fish’s eye. This, which is sunk and Invisible In the dead flsh. Is raised on a kind of turret in the living turbot, or sole, and set there in a half revolving apparatus, work ing almost as Independently as the *“ball and socket” eyes of the chame leon. There Is this difference, how ever, In the eye of the lizard and of the fish—the iris of the chameleon is a mere pinhole at the top of the eye ball, which is thus absolutely without expression. The turbot’s eyes are black and gold, and Intensely bright, with none of the fixed, staring, stupid appearances of ordinary fishes’ eyes. It lies upon the sand and Jerks its eyes Independently Into position to survey any part of the ground surface and the water above or that on any side at any angle. If it had light rays to project from its eyes instead of to receive, the effect would be precisely that made by the sudden shifting of the jointed ap- imratus which casts the electric light from a warship at any angle on the sea, akw 6r horizon. Abe turbots, though ready, graceful swimmers, moving in wavelike undu lations across the water, or dashing off like a flash when so disposed, usually He perfectly still upon the bottom. They do not, like the flounders, cover themselves with sand, for they mimic the color of the ground with such ab solute fidelity that, except for the shin ing eye, It Is almost impossible to dis tinguish them. It would appear that volition plays some part In this subtle conformity to environment, for one turbot, which Is blind, has changed a tint too light, and not at all In harmony with that of the sand. : not original. He would watch hi* father immerse the candidates and would Bsten attentively to the words, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” which the pastor employed. ThI* formula both ered Bobbie. He asked many ques tions upon the subject, but never seem ed to find the explanation that satis fied him. One of Bobble’s prime favor ites and his constant playfellow was a huge St. Bernard noted for his beauty and intelligence. Early one morning Bobbie and the dog were observed In the garden, the boy busily engaged In digging a hole with the fire shovel he had surreptitiously abstracted from the cook’s quarters. His air was very mys- teriqus and the dog seemed to assume extra vigilance as he oversaw the oper ations. For a long time the child dug away at the soft sod. Finally he seemed to be satisfied with the dimeA- slons, and together he and the dog hur ried to the pump In the rear yard. In a short time they had the hole full of water. Then Bobbie, taking the obe dient old dog by the collar, led him sedately to the hole, and, seizing his head and shoulders as he had seen his father do with the candidates at bap tism, he soused the animal’s head Into the pit. As it came up dripping Bobbie ejaculated with evident triumph: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and—in the hole you go!” bai't t. do hot • norfnb be lUtle bodWf t their . difficult <P ■apply <« a elbly they The Drluklng IUI.it. of AnlmaU. lame rabbits are commonly kept without water; but they may be seen licking the bars of their hutch after a shower and drink eagerly when they bate the chance. Most other rodents, including rats, are thirsty creatures. The only animals living lu very dry places which seem able to do entirely without drink are snakes and reptiles. In the cold desert of shifting said in Kashgar there were no reptiles, and not et en a fly. But the Afghan boun- •dary commission found swarms of liz- nrds and a new and venomous species of adder In astonishing numbers in the awful desert of hot shifting sand at the corner where Persia, Beluchlstan and Afghanistan meet. We must note one exception, the gi raffe, which Mr. Bryden believes exists or three-quarters of the year in North alanari without water. But this can 't be proved until the desert has been dored and the total absence of water firmed. There Is known to be water mth the surface, and if the giraffe live waterless, he must imbibe his 1 nutriment at second hand in the of the leaves of the trees which heir roots in the moisture. Seals apparently drink, neither do cor- - i and penguins: but there can more evaporation from their ban from those of fish, and I Is wet and moist. A more lestlon Is that of the water rctlc animals in winter; pos- >at snow. BaplL Bobbie to & v n prominent- now resident 1 for his otoQsm. ’manner of hi* l pouent pf the Ba were, of rt>u«e, church was ah * gad the ceremony It always excited to a lively degrek. Bobbie was afi « -‘‘•ous youngster Aat Little Tlnkletop I* Smart. “Tlnkletop,” as they called her, was just learning to spell words of more than one syllable and was exceedingly proud of the fact. It afforded her also a keen satisfaction to know that her elders could no longer banish her from their confabs by spelling words it was desired she should not understand. After Insisting on several occasions that she was not “a little pitcher” and that her ears were no longer than other people’s she caught, up her uncle right smartly one night as he was exploiting a choice narrative In "hog Latin” dia lect. “Now I know what you said,” and she told the story In almost as good "Latin” as the original. "Who told you all that?” asked her uncle. "Humph,” she said In fine disgust, “can’t I learn ‘hog Latin’ if I try, uncle?” “Well, we will find a way to dheat your little ears yet.” Tlnkletop thought hard, but said no thing, and she watched her uncle like the proverbial cat. One day he came home with a new story on an eccentric neighbor. Two little ears were perked ready for the tale. “S-p-e-1-1 i-t,” cautiously suggested the mother. But a determined little voice was lifted from a primer In the other end of the room, and it cried: “No, you mustn’t spell it, either.” And he didn’t. Unlit of MUt anil Gauze, The flying Dutchman has been driven from the waters by a more up-to-date spectral vessel. Down among the Caribbean islands <■ e<l the St. Bernard. years old and the son of Twin Cities , clergyman n Chicago, who Is noted ice and the Impressive aptisms. Being an ex- ptist faith the baptisms by immersion. The 'pecially popular one was a frequent event, the child’s Interest veeptlonally preco- ' was nothing if some natives first saw the new ghost ship. It was in broad daylight. The air was so clear that the feathers in a far-off bird’s wing were distinct. Suddenly bearing down upon their rough boat a great steamer .came. Smoke rolled from her funnels! The natives put their little ship about to escape from the track of the oncoming vessel and they saw that It was a gray thing, with masts of gossamer and funnels of gauze. In the bright sun light It was a great, massive ship, carved perfectly from a mountain of mist. There was no throb of engines, no sound of waters cut, although the foam played around the prow. Since then the phantom steamer has been often sighted—at twilight, at noon, on stormy days and clear ones. HU Vow eld. Ethel—"Have you noticed how Lora Slabskles drops his aspirates?” Pen elope—“Oh, but that’s nothing to the way he drops his vowels. Papa says he has got more than a dozen of his I. O. U.’s.”—Pick-Me-Up. Her Way. He—“Am I ever to have my way about anything?” she—"Of course; you can have your way when your way is the same as my way, but when our ways are different, then I’ll have my way.”—Pick-Me-Up. TEMPERANCE TOPICS. NOTES OF INTEREST TO THE ANTI-LIQUOR LEADERS. Saloon Brutality and the • Benoits—A Woman Wrecks a Grog Shop While the People Cheer Her Act—A Form of “Lawlessness’’ In the Solitude of the City. N'JgM; and the sound of voices in the street, Night; and the happy laughter where they meet. The glad boy lover and the trystlng girl. * But Thou—but Thou—I cannot And thee Sweet! Night; and (pr off the lighted pavements roar, Night; and the dark of sorrow keeps my door, I reach my hat’d out trembling In the dark. Thy hand comes not with comfort any more, 0 Silent, Unreaponding! If these fears Lie not, nor other wisdom come with years, No day shall dawn for me without re gret. No night go unaccompanied by my tears. -Charles G. L>. Roberts In the Independ ent. A Great Contrast. Our universities have been regarded is the crown of our advanced civiliza tion. We have looked to their gradu ates to be the leaders of the nation in physical, moral and spiritual advance ment. The late revelations have been a great shock and disappointment to the better portion of the nation. At the close of the revolution, when all were rejoicing over the victory, a man started a suit against the government for some cattle, that he claimed had been taken by the army In one of Its hours of need. At the trial the attor ney for the government closed his ar gument by referring to the wonderful spectacle of a nation rejolcfng, “but in this rejoicing there Is,” he said, "one iiscordant note." And then he pictur ed the plaintiff going up and down the country crying, "Beef, beef.” So now when hosts are marching for the truth, we find some university men, profes sors and students, marching up and down, crying, as for the one great ne cessity of life before truth and righte ousness, "Beer, beer.” In contrast with this debauching of body and soul by the university, we find great social bodies and societies banishing liquor from their assemblies and some so- called soulless corporations enforcing ftrohlbition. This is not only true in our own great country, but in the South American republics, which we some times call half-civilized and to which we are sending missionaries; there wc find leading^men doing with millions what Preslofot Patton declares he can not do with a thousand men. A con cession granted by the Republic of Co lombia of South America for the pur pose of building a railroad that would employ several thousand men in its construction, provides that the party receiving the concession must not sell to the laborers any intoxicating liq- toors. So the government of one of the despised South American nations writes In capital letters on every tie tnd rail and spike of that railroad the word, "Prohibition,” and thus guards its people from the destroyer. But the president of a great university whines of his Inability to enforce pro hibition, and so at banquet, college assembly and In Sabbath address practically defies the church and mocks at her appeal on behalf of her sons. On the one hand, a proud university provides the open door and free access to the saloon, on the other the despised republic of South America defends its people from the deadly foe. The fruits of one, drunken students parading their sin and shame, and of the other, the ignorant laborer toiling upward led on by the hand of “Prohibition.”—Ex. Saloon Brutality. Through the mediumship of the l nion Signal, a Chicago correspondent bus protests against saloons and their brutality: Editors Union Signal: The follow ing account of the brutalities of & sa loon-keeper in this city was clipped from one of our English-speaking daily papers, and is certified to by several of my acquaintances, who from the oiit- lide saw the occurrence. Uniontown is k part of Astoria, inhabited by Rus- tian Finns, who are largely temperance men. and who strongly objected to the licensing of this, the only saloon In their district. But the Astoria city council, in spite of the remonstrance from the citizens of Uniontown, licens ed the saloon. The crowd who sur- tounded and cheered on the woman who wrecked the saloon were largely Russian Finns. “ ‘The Last Chance’ saloon of Union- town, owned and operated by Ole Hen drickson, was wrecked this morning by a woman, and the act was so popular that it would not have been safe for a Miceman to have attempted to arrest her, nor can the proprietor procure a warrant for her arrest. The woman was Mrs. Juana, the wife of Abram Junna, a man who has a milk ranch on the Lewis and Clarke river. His ranch is a good one, and with the as sistance of his wife, who has several small children, he has a comfortable home and a milk route in the city that brings in a considerable Income. Jun- oa has an inordinate passion for whis ky, and nearly every month goes on a spree and spends all the money he can get his hands on. Two years ago, on a complaint sworn out by his v/ife, he was taken before the court and pro nounced an habitual drunkard, and his wife appointed guardian of his property and person. This fact Is known to all the saloons in the city, j as well as by Hendrickson. On the first of the present month Junna start ed on a drunk, and failed to return to his Lewis and Clarke home. This morning Mrs. Junna came over to the city and soon located her husband in the ‘Last Chance’ saloon. She sent word inside for her husband to come out and go home, but no attention was paid to her, so she went inside and was persuading him to come with her when Hendrickson interfered and ordered her out of his place. Upon her de manding her husband, he struck and choked her, and then threw her bodily out Into the street. This aroused the Finnish blood of Mrs. Junna, and pro curing a club, she started to demolish the place; she started in on the front windows, and by the time she had de molished these, out came Hendrick son, and she rapped him over the head a couple of times and drove him back again. She then completed breaking every window in the place, and was about to go inside to treat it likewise when a policeman arrived. The crowd that had collected were cheering the woman on, and they warned the officer not to arrest her, as she was doing right. The officer went Inside, brought the husband out and turned him over to his wife, who took him to their boat and started for home.” The Finnish paper of Astoria, after describing in detail how the saloon-keeper would watch for Junna at the beginning of each month, in order to get him to spend in the saloon all his earnings of the month previous, and the brutal at tack of the saloon-keeper on the woman when she tried to get her husband out of the saloon, asks our city council the following pertinent quo ‘ions which have been translated into English at my request: “1. Will the people be compelled year after year to see and tolerate in their midst a nuisance like this saloon on account of which every woman must fear for their lives. "2. Do you think it right or proper that two hundred or more children of Uniontown must every day see and hear the indecent performance of the besotted Inmates of this dive? “3. Is It right that Junna’s and many other families must suffer and be in want on account of a rascal like Hen drickson, only because he pays the city a license? “The people of Uniontown are arous ed over this affair and the only way to quiet matters is for the city council to revoke Hendrickson’s license and un less this is done, the city authorities do not deserve the name of protectors of the best interest of the people.” These questions might equally well be asked concerning every saloon of the United States. NARCISSA W. KINNEY. SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS. Temperance Notes. Mount Carrroll, 111., has voted no license, the first time In nine years. Charles F. Bough, prohibitionist, has been elected mayor of East Liverpool, 0., by nearly 300 majority. A state branch of the National Amer ican Anti-Saloon league was organized In Salt Lake City recently. The presi dent Is George F. Goodwin, and the sec retary, Richard Wake. It is intended to push the organization over the state as fast as possible. The supreme court of Michigan has decided that in that state a saloon keeper is liable for all damages which result to a wife by reason of the intoxi cation of the husband, and any one “causing or contributing” to the In toxication is liable. A declaration to recover damages need not allege that sales of liquor were made to the per son when he was intoxicated or an habitual drunkard. Senator Ravenscroft has Introduced into the Maryland senate a bill compel ling all signers of petitions for saloons to live in the immediate vicinity of the proposed location. It also provides that no saloon shall be located within 400 feet of schoolhouses and churches. At present the signers may live quite a distance from the proposed location, and the (^stance from churches and schoolhouses is placed at 200 feet. The bill applies to Baltimore city. The Woodstock Sentinel Review states that a Masonic banquet was held In the town of Woodstock, Ontario, and that “the toasts were drunk with cold water and the fact was considered wor thy of comment by one of the speakers as indicating the change that is coming over society and societies.” Com menting on this statement The Cana dian Craftsman says: “In the city of Toronto, and we may say the city of Montreal, also, as well as throughout the greater part of the Dominion, the best and most prosperous lodges have conducted their banquets without liq uors for the past quarter of a century. In Toronto, for Instance, St. Andrew’s Lodge, the mother lodge of the district, banished liquor from Its refreshment table some twenty-five years or more ago, and celebrated its* seventy-fifth birthday a few months ago with a banquet equal to anything gotten up by the craft, without a drop of intoxicat ing drinks.” * An average star of the first magni tude is one hundred times as bright as one of the sixth magnitude. The faintest stars visible to the naked eye are of the sixth magnitude ; the faintest telescopic stars are reck oned of the sixteenth or seventeenth magnitude. Professor Dolbear says that what is called stupidity is simply the indica tion that a certain brain area is not properly nourished or is without com munication with the nerve fibre. The European hornet is shown by Dr. L. O. Howard to have existed near New York city for at least fifty years, yet it has spread 150 miles. In Europe the species usually inhabits outhouses, but in America the nests are almost invariably built in hollow trees. The wings of birds are not only to aid locomotion in the air, but also on the ground and water. One bird even has claws in the “elbows” of its wings to aid it in climbing. The clothing is a modification of the skin, just as hair and nails are, and sometimes it closely resembles hair. The German imperial postoffice au thorities have decided to introduce the international ohm in place of the Siemens unit, and have ordered that hereafter all instruments shall be standardized and adjusted to the ohm, which has now been universally adopted as the standard of resistance. M. Bonnier has been trying the effect of Roentgen rays on the growth of seeds, especially bindweed seed, while preserving the grains from the influence of heat and the electricity. He finds that the growth of the plant is markedly quickened by the rays. His experiments were brought be fore the Academie des Sciences. It has long been held that typhoid fever is disseminated by bad water, or germ-infested milk, and not by direct contagion. Recently typhoid fever among soldiers in a small bar racks has been directly traced to dust from the floor. On examinaton the disease-producing bacteria were found in the sweepings, and the locality of the cots carried out the conviction. , Can Talk Under Water. When Captain Louis Sorche of Bal timore, himself a diver, invented the submarine telephone he brought forth a great boon for his fellow craftsmen. Had it not been for these telephones many a diver who is at work today would have been dead, simply because he would not have had the means to tell of his peril in time to hare been saved. This invention makes it possible for the diver’s tender to hear even * whisper from the man below water, and the attendant can talk with equal facility to the man he has to care for. The telephone’s ends are fastened to the heads of both men, and gives them full use of their hands. By a wire connection made above water by two tenders, a diver can talk to an other who is wording some distance from him. The old system of signal ing wants by the number of tugs at the life line was very unsatisfactory, for often the signals were misunder stood, and many a diver lost his life fdr that reason. Six of these telephones were in use by the divers working on the wreck of the Maine in Havana harbor. They saved the lives of several of the men who had so fallen that they would have been strangled unless their diffi culty was distinctly understood. What a man says can be understood always, but be cannot always signal and be sure of making what he wants to say understood, even though he is sure of the code of signals.—New York Press. Wliero Life la Longeat. More people over 100 years old are found in mild climates * than in the higher latitudes. According to the last census of the German empire, of a population of 55,000,000, only seventy-eight have passed the hun- dreth year. France, with a population of 40,000,000, has 213 centenarians. In England there are 146, in Ireland 578, and in Scotland 56. Sweden has 10 and Norway 23, Belgium 5, Den mark 2, Switzerland none. Spain, with a population of 18,000,000, has 401 persons over 100 years of age. Of the 2,250,000 inhabitants of Servia 575 persons have reached th* century mark. It is said that the oldest per son living whose age has been ascer tained, is Bruno Cotrim, born in Af rica, and now living in Riq de Ja neiro. He is 150 years old. A coach man in Moscow has lived 140 year*. —Philadelphia Press. Compulsory Physical Training. The appointment of a committee of the Harvard board of overseers to consider the subject of compulsory physical training at Harvard probably means its ultimate adoption. This is one of the reforms in college training in which Harvard has lagged behind several of the smaller colleges,though athletic sports are quite as popular at Cambridge as anywhere. The troubl® at Harvard is that physical training is not so general among the students as it should be. Making it compulsory will develop the physique of all the students, instead of only a few. Bos ton Herald. mi'f. mm