The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

tgflffUpijmj.Si fiiWl-mmvitn^ -?5**-;I irff- I I ^10 And tivf it t r ! >•!.â-  •> I I i The Ae Gowden Link. (By John Aberorombie, Bridgeport, Conn.) I'm wao, wae t&o see yo, my buiinie wee boy, The pride o" my heart and yer fond mither h joy ; I'm wearyln' lu' sair yer blythe face tau noeâ€" Ye're the ae gowden huk that binds Lizzie an' me. I miss ye at morn, and 1 miss ye at e'en ; The hooso is no hame withoot Charlie, I ween : In yer woe l>its o' toys scattur'd rouu' I can see Tho ao Kowden link that binds liizzie an' me. The hours are like days, and the days aru like years, Ilk mom brings its hope, and ilk e'euing its fears; Fain . fain wad I clasp tao my heart for a wee The de g(jwden link that binds liizzie an' mo. I can see yer wee face lookin' donn on me noo, But it's only a picture â€" it's no my wee doo ; But my heart fonder grows when I'm parted a wee Frae the ae gowden link that binds Liiizie an' me. May the guid Lord abuuesead ye safe hame ance inair ; I wad tain see my lamb in bis tU^h-backit chair ; Wi' yer wee bii roun' face rinniu' owre wi' its glueâ€" Ye're the ae gowden link that binds Lizzie an' me. A NOVEL. Ernest nodded his head in reply, he could not speak. " By Jove I where is Boger ?" he went on, turning pale as he missed his son for the first time. But at this moment the yoimg gentle- man hove in sight, and, recovering from his throw himself off and drag his horse out by the bridle. He struggled on, and at last came to the dip in which he had seen the waggon-tent. It was a great white stone perobed on a mound of brown ones. By this time he had utterly lost his reckoning. Just then, to make matters fright when hesaw that the great animal ] worse, a thunder-shower came up with a was stone-dead, rushed up with yells of ; bitter wind and drenched him to the skin, exultation, and, climbing on to the upper j The rain passed, but the wind did not. It tusk, began to point out where he had hit , blew like ice and chilled his frame, ener- him. I vated with the tropical heat in which he Meanwhile Mr. Alston had extracted the . had been living, through and through. He story of the adventure from Ernest. wandered on aimlessly, till suddenly his " You young rascal." he said to his son, 1 tired horse put his foot in a hole and fell ' come off that tusk. Do you know that if keavily, throwing him to his head and it had not been for Mr. Kershaw here, who I shoulder. For a few minutes his senses courted almost certain death to save you : left him, but he recovered, and, mounting from the results of your own folly, you his worn-out horse, wandered on again Such an " Alice in Wonderland" sort of performance on the part of a tree could not but excite the curiosity of an intelligent youth. Accordingly, Roger pushed for- ward, and, getting round an intervening tree, this was what he saw. In a little glade about ten paces from him, flapping its cars, stood an enormous elephant with great white tusks, looking as large as a house, and as cool as a encumber. Nobody, to look at the brute, would have believed that he had given them a twenty miles' trot under a burning sun. He was now refresh- ing himself by pulling up mimosa-trees as easily as though they were radishes, and eating the sweet fibrous roots. Roger saw this and his heart burned with ambition to kill that elephant, the mighty great beast about a hundred times as big as himself, who could pull up a large tree and make his dinner off the roots. He was a plucky boy, was Roger, and in his sports- manlike zeal he quite forgot that a repeat- ing carbine is not exactly the weapon one would choose to shoot elephants with. Indeed, without giving tho matter another thought, he lifted the little rifle, aimed it at the great beast's head and fired. He hit it somewhere, that was very clear, for next moment the air resounded with the moat terrific scream of fury that it had ever been his lot to hear. That scream was too much for him ; he turned and fled swiftly. Elephants were evidently difHcult things to kill. Fortunately for Boger, the elephant could not for some seconds make out where his tiny assailant was. Presently, however, he winded him, and came crashing after him, screaming shrilly, with its trunk and tail well up. On hearing the shot and the scream of the elephant, Ernest, who was standing some way out in the open in anticipation of a driving shot at the Guinea-fowl, had run toward the e^rat where Roger had entered the bush, and, I plainly discerned standing with one leg u just as ho got opposite to it, out he camo, I on the crest of a rise about a thonsa; would be as dead as that elephant and as flat as a biscuit ? Come down, sir, and offer up your thanks to Providence and Mr. Kershaw that you have a sound square inch of flesh left on your worthless young body !'J Roger descended accordingly, consider- ably crestfallen. " Never you mind, Hoger, that was a most rattling good shot of yours at his knee," said Ernest, who hnd now got his breath again. " You would not do it again if you fired alitlephants for a week." And so the matter passed off, but after- ward Mr. Alston thanked Ernest with tears in his eyes for saving his son's life. This was the first elephant they killed, and also the largest. It measured ten feet eleven inches at the shoulder, and the tusks weighed, when dried out, about sixty pounds each. They remained in the elephant country for nearly four months when the approach of the unhealthy season forced them to leave it â€" not, how- ever, before they had killed a great quantity of large game of all sorts. It was on the occasion of their return to Pretoria that Ernest made the acquaint- ance of a curious character in a curious way. As soon as they got to the boundaries of the Transvaal Ernest bought a horse from a Boer, on which he used to ride after the herds of buck that swarmed upon tho high veldt. They had none with them, because in the country which they had been shoot- ing no horse would live. One day, as they were travelling slowly along a little before mid-day, a couple of bull vilderbeeste galloped across tho waggon-track about two hundred yards in front of the oxen. The voorloopor stopped the oxen in order to give Ernest, who was sitting on the wageon-box with a rifle by his side, a steMy shot. Ernest fired at the last of the two galloping bulls. The line was good, but he did not make sufficient allowance for the pace at which the bull was travelling, with the result that instead of striking it forward and killing it, the bullet shattered its flank and did not stop its career. Dash it !" said Ernest, when he saw what he had done, " I can't leave the poor beast like that. Bring me my horse ; I will go after him and finish him." The horse, which was tied already saddled behind the waggon, was quickly brought, and Ernest mount- ing told them not to keep the waggons for him, as he would strike across country and meet them at the ontspan place about a mile or so on. Then he started after his wounded bull, which could be ^ scuttling along for his life, with the elephant not more than twenty paces behind him. Then Ernest did a brave thing " Make for the bush ?" he yelled to tho boy, who at once swerved to the right. On thundered the elephant straight toward Ernest. But with Ernest it was evident he considered ho had no quarrel, for presently he tried to swing himself round after Roger. Then Ernest lifted his shot- gun and sent a charge of No. 4 into the brute's face, stinging him sadly. It was, humanly speaking, certain death which he courted, but at that moment his main idea was to save tho boy. Screaming afresh, the elephant abandoned the pursuit of Roger, and made straight for Ernest, who fired the other barrel of small shot in the vain hope of blinding him. By now the boy had pulled up, being some forty yard* off, and seeing Ernest just about to be orumpled up, wildly fired the repeating rifle in their direction. Some good angel must have guided the little bmllet, for it, as it happened, struck the elephant in the region of the knee, and, forcing its way in, slightly injured a tendon, and brouglit the great beast thmidoring to the ground Ernest had only just time to dodge to one side as the h«go mass came ts the earth indeed, as it was, he got a tap from the tip of the elephant's '.>runk which knocked him down, and, though he did not foel it at the time, made him sore for days afterward. In a moment, however, he was up again and away at his best speed, legging it as ho never legged it before in his life, and so was the elephant. People have no idea at what a pace an elephant can go when he is out of temper, until they put it to the proof. Had it not been for tho sliglit injury to the knee, and the twenty yards' star t'.3 got, Ernest would have been repre- sented by little pieces before ho was ten seconds older. As it was, when, a hundred and "fifty yards farther on, elephant and Ernest broke upon tho astonished view of Mr. Alston and Jeremy, who were hurrying up to the scene of aoti'^-, they were almost one flesh, that is, the tip of the elephant's trunk was now up in the air, and now about six inches off tho seat of Ernest's trousers, at which it snapped convulsively. Up went Jeremy's heavy rifle, which luckily he had in his hand. " Behind the shoulder, half-way down the eor," said Mr. Alston, beckoning to a Kafir to bring his rifle, which ho was carry- ing. The probability of .Tcremy's stopping the beast at that distance â€" they were quite sixty yards off â€" was infini- tesimal. There was a second's pause. The snap- ping tip touched the retreating trousers, but did not got hold of them, and the con- tact lent a magnetic thrill up Ernest's back. " Boom â€" thud â€" crash I" and the elephant was down dead as a doornail. Jeremy had made no mistake : tho bullet went straight through the great brute's heart, and b-oko the shoulder on the other side. He was one of those men who not only rarely miss, but always seem to hit their game in tho right place. Ernest sank cxhanilted on the ground and Mr. Alston and Jeremy rushed up rejoicing. " Near go that, Ernest," Mid the former. yards away. But if ever a vilderbeeste was possessed by a fixed determination not to bo finished off, it was that particular vilderbeeste. The pace at which a vilder- beeste can travel on three legs when he is not too fat is perfectly astonishing, and Ernest had traversed a couple of miles of great rolling plain before he even got within a fair galloping distance of him. He bad a good horse, however, and at last he got within fifty yards, and then away tlioy went at a merry pace, Ernest's obiect being to ride alongside and put a bullet through him. Their gallop lasted a good two miles or more. On the level Ernest gained on the vilderbeeste, but whenever they came to a patch of ant-bear holes or a ridge of stones, the vilderbeeste had tho pull and drew away again. At last they came to a dry pan or lake about half a mile broad, crowded with hundreds of buck of all sorts, which scamiiered away as they came tearing along. Here Ernest at length drew up level with his quarry, and, grasp- ing the rifle with his right hand, tried to get it so that ho could put a bullet through the beast and drop him. But it was no easy matter, as any one who hos ever tried it will know, and, while he was still making up his mind, the vilderbeeste slued round and came at him bravely. Had liis horse been unused to the work, he must have had his inside ripped out by the crooked horns, but he was an old hunter and e<iuttl to tiiu occasion. To turn was impossible, tho siieed was too groat, but he managed to slue, with tho result that tho charging animal brushed his head, instead of landii^ himself in his belly. At the same moment Ernest stretched out his rifle and pulled the trigger, and, as it chanced, put tho bidlet right through the vilderbeeste and dropped him dead. Then he pulled up, and dismounting cut off some of the best of the beef with his hunting-knife, stowed it away in a saddle- bag, and sot off on his horse, now pretty well fagged, to find the waggons. But to find a waggon-track on tte great veldt, unless you have in tho first instance taken the most careful bearings, is almost as diflioult as it would be to return from a Aiatance to any given spot on the ocean without a compass. There are no trees or hills to guide one, nothing but a vast wilderness of land resembling a sea potri- fled in a heavy swell. Ernest rode on for throe or feur miles, as lie thought retracing his steps over tho line of country ho had traversed, and at last to his joy struck tho path. There were waggon-tracks on it, but ho thought they did not look quite fresh. However, he fol- lowed them fante de viieux for some five miles. Then he became convinced that they oonld not have been made by his waggons. He must have overshot the mark, and must hark back. So he turned his weary horse's hoad, and made his way back along the road to tho spot where tho sponr struck into it. Tho waggons m""* ''o out- spanned, waiting for him a little fartlicr back. He went on, one mile, two, three - no waggons. A little to the left of the road was an eminence. He rode to it and up and ^oiinriod the horizon. Oh, joy I there, far iiwfiy, five or si.x miles off, was the white cap of a waggon. Ho rode to it straight across-country. Once he got bogged in a vlei or swamp, and had to Luckily be had broken no bones. Had he done so, he would probably have perished miserably in that lonely place. The sun was sinking now, and he was faint for want of food, for he had eaten nothing that day but a biscuit. He had not even a pipe of tobacco with him. Just as the sun vanished ho hit a little path, or what might once have been a path. He followed it till the pitch darkness set in ; then he got off his horse and took crff the saddle, which he put down on the bare, black veldt, for a fire had recently swept off the dry grass, and, wrapping the saddle- cloth round his feet, laid his aching head upon the saddle. The reins of his horse he hitched round his arm, lest the animal should stray away from him to look for food. The wind was bitterly cold, and he was wet through ; the hyenas came and howled round him. He cut off a piece of the raw meat and chewed it, but it tamed his stomach and he spat it out. Then bo shivered and sank into a torpor from which there was a poor chance of his awakaning. How long he lay so he did not knu./, it seemed a few minutes, it was really an hour, when ho was suddenly awakened by feeling somebody shaking him by the shoulder. " What is it?" he said, wearily. " Wat is it ? ach Himmol ! wat is it ? dat is just wat I wants to know. What do you here? You shall die so." The voice was the voice of a German, and Ernest knew German well. " I have lost my way," he said in that language I " I cannot find the waggons." "Ah, you can speak the tongue of tho Vaterland," said his visitor still address- ing him in English. " I will embrace you," and he did so. Ernest sighed. It is a bore to bo embraced in the dark by an unknown male German when you foel that you are not far off dissolution. " You are hungered ?" said tho German. Ernest signified that he was. "And athirsted?" Again he signified assent. "And perhaps you have no 'gui ' (tobacco) ?" No, none." >j}oodI my little wife, my Wilhelmina, shall find you all these things." What the mischief," thought Ernest to himself, " can a German be doing with his little wife in this place?" By this time the stars had oomo out and gave a little light. "Come, rouse yourself, and como and see my little wife. Oh, the pferd !" (horse) â€" " we Hvill tie him t() my wife. Ah, she is beautiful, though her leg shakes. Oh, yes, you will love her." "The duuoo I shall I" ejaculated Ernest ; and then, mindful of the good things the lady in ouostion was to provide him with, he added solemnly, "Lead on, Macduff." " Macduff er I my name is not so; my name is Hans; all ze great South Africa know me very well, and all South Africa love my wife." " Really !" said Ernest. Although he was so miserable, he began to feel that the situation was interesting. A lady to whom his liorso was to be tied, and whom all South Africa was enamored of, could hardly fail to be interesting. Ris- ing ho advanced a stop or livo with his frien<l, who, ho could now see was a large, burly man with white haiiki apparently about GO years of age. Presently they came to something that in the dim light reminded him of the hand hearse in Kesterwick church, only it had two wheels instead of four, and no springs. Behold my beautif'd wife," said the German. " Soon I will show you how her leg shakes; it shakos, oh, horrid." "Is â€" is tho lady inside?" asked Ernest. It occurred to him tl'at Ids friend might be carting about a corpse. " Inside I no, she is nntnido, she is all over," and stepping back the German put his head on one side in a most comical fashion, and, regarding the nnoSicial hearse with the deepest affection, said in a low voice, " Ah, liebe vrouw, ah, Wilhemina, is you tired, my dear ? and how is your poor leg ?" and he caught hold of a groggy wheel and shook it. Had Ernest been a little less wretched, and one degree further off starvation, it is probable that he would have exploded with laughter, for ho had a keen sense of the ludicrous ; but he had not got a laugh left in him, and, besides, he was afraid of offending the German. So ho merely murmured, "Poor, poor log I" sympa- thetically, and then alluded to tho question of eatables. " Ah, yes, of course. Let us see what Wilhemina shall give us," and he trotted round to the back end of the cart, which, in keeping with its hearse-like character, opened by means of two little folding doors, and pulled out, first, two blankets, one of which he gave to Ernest to put round his shoulders ; second, a large piece of biltong, or sun-dried game-flesh, and some biscuits ; and, third, a bottle of peach-brandy. On these viands they fell to, and though they wore not in tlienisolves of an appetizing nature, Ernest never enjoyed anything more in his life. Their meal did not take long, and after it his friend Hans produced some excellent Boer tobacco, and over their I)ipes he told him how ho had lost his way. Hans asked him which road he had been travehng on. , ^ " Tho Rnstonburg road." ;. . " Then, my friend, you are not more than ono thonsaml paces off it. My wife and I we travel along him nil day, tiM just now Wilhemina shethiiik slio would like to come up hero, and so I come, and now you sec the reason why. She know yon lie hero and die in the cold, and slio turn up to save ' the wagons. Clearly he must duriug the latter part of his wanderings have been unknowingly approaching it. His mind, relieved upon this point, was at liberty to satisfy his curiosity about his friend. He soon discovered that he was a harmless lunatic, whose craze it was to wander all over South Africa, dragging his hand-cart after him. He made for no fixed point, nor had he any settled round. The begin- ning of the year might find him near the Zambesi, and tho end near Cape Town, or anywhere else. By the natives he was looked upon as inspired, and invariably treated with respect, and he lived upon what was given to him, or what he shot as he walked along. This mode of life he had pursued for years, and, though ho had many adventures, he never came to harm. " Yon see, my friend," said the simple man, in answer to Ernest's inquiries, " I make my wife down there in Scatterdorp, in the old colony. The houses are a long way off each i thor there, and the church it is in tho middle. And the good volk there, they did die very fast, and did get tired of carrying each other to be buried. And so they come to mo and say, ' Hans, you are a carpenter, you must make a beautiful black cart to put us in when we die.' And so I set to, and I work, and work, and work at my cart till I gets quite â€" what you call him â€" stoopid. And then ono night, just as my cart is finished, I dreams that sheand I are traveling along a wide straight road liks the road on the high veldt, and I knowe that she is my wife, and that we must travel always together till we reach the City of Rest. And far, far away, above the top of a higli mountain like the Drakensberg, I see a great wide tree, rooted on a cloud and covered all over with beautiful snow, that shined in tho sunlight like the diamonds at Kimberley. And I know that under that tree is the gate of the real Rustenburg, the City of Rest, and my wife and I, we must journey on, on, on till wo find it.'' " Where do you oomo from now ?" asked Ernest. " From Utrecht, from out of the east, where the sun rises so red every morning over Zululand, the land of bloodshed. Oh, the land will run with blood there. I know it ; Wilhemina told me as we came along ; but I don't know when. But you are tired. Good ! you shall sleep with Wilhemina ; I will sleep beneath her. No, you shall, or she will be â€" what you call him â€" offended." Ernest crept into the cavity, and at once fell asleep, and dreamed that he had been buried alive. At dawn he emerged, bade his friend farewell, and gaining the road rejoined the wagon in safety. CHAPTER XXXII. CURRENT TOPICS. EBNEST ACCEPTS A C0HMI88I0N. your life. Ah, the good woman !' Ernest was greatly relievrd to hear that ho was so near the road, as, onco njion it, he would have no difficulty in fallingin with A young man of that ardent, impetuous, intelligent mind which mokes him charming and a thing to love, contrasted with tho young man of the sober, cautious, money- making mind (infinitely the most useful article), which makes him a " comfort" to his relatives and a thing to respect, avoid, and marry your daughter to, has two great safeguards standing between him and the ruin which dogs tho heels of tho ardent, the impetous, and tho intelligent. These are, his religion and his belief in women. It is probable that he will start on hifi erratic career with a full store of both. He has never questioned the former ; the latter, so far as hie own class in life is concerned, are to him all sweet and good, and perhaps there is one particular star who only shines for-hini, and is the sweetest and best of them all. But one fine day the sweetest and best of all throws him over, being a younger son and marries his oldest brother, or a paralytic cotton-spinner of enormous wealth and uncertain temper, and then a sudden change comes over tho spirit of the ardent, intelligent, and impetuous one. Not being of a well-balanced mind, he rushes to the other extreme, and believes in his sore heart that all women would throw over such as ho aud marry oldest brothers or super- annuated cotton-spinners. Ho may be right or he may bo wrong. The materials for ascertaining the fact are wanting, for all women engaged to imiwcunious young gentlemen do not get the chance. But, right or wrong, the result upon the sufferer is the same â€" his faith in women is shaken, if not destroyed. Nor does the mischief stop there; his religion often follows his belief in the other sex, for in some mysterious way the two things are interwoven. A young man of the nobler class of mind in love, is gener- ally for the time being a religious man ; his affection lifts him more or less above the things of earth, and floats him on its radiant wings a day's journey nearer Heaven The same thing applies conversely. If a man's religions belief is emasculated, he becomes suspicious of tho " sweetest and best," he grows cynical, ond no longer puts faith in superlatives. From atheism there is but a small step to misogyny, or rather to that disbelief in humanity which embraces a profounder constituent disbelief in its feminine section, and in turn, as alreody said, tho misogynist walks daily along the edge of atheism. Of course there is a way out of those discouraging results. If tho mind that suffers and falls through its suffering be of the truly noble order, it may in timo como to see that this world is a world not of siiperlatives, but of the most orid ix)Bitive8, with here and there a little comparative oasis to break the monotony of its general outline. Its owner may learn that the fault lay with him, for believing too much, for trusting too far, for setting up as an idol a creature exactly like him- self, only several degrees lower beneath proof ; and at last may come to see that though " sweetcsts and bests " are chimerical, there are women in the world who may fairly bo called " sweet and good." ()r, to return to tho converse side of the picture, it may occur to our young gentleman that although Providence starts us in the world with a fiill inherited or indoctrinated belief hi a given religion, that is not what Providence understands by faith. Faith, porfert faith , is only to bo won by struggle, ond in most cultivated minds by tho passage through tho dim, mirago-clad land of disbelief. The true believer is ho who has trodden down dis- belief, not he who has run away from it. When we have descended from tlie height of our childhood, when we have entertained Apollyon, and, having considered what he has to say, given him battle and routed him in the plain, then, and not till then, can wo say with guileless hearts, " Lord, I believe," and feci no nood to add the sadly A WELL at Yakutsk, in Siberia, has been a standing puxzle to scientists for many years. It was begun in 1828, but given up at thiity feet because it was still in frozen earth. Then the Russian Academy of Sciences continued for some months the work of deepening the well, but stopped when it had reached to the extent of some three hundred aud eighty-two feet, when the ground was still frozen as hard as a rock. In 1844 tho Academy had tho tem- perature of the excavation carefully taken at various depths, and from the data thus obtained the ground was estimated to be frozen to a depth of six hundred and twelve foet. As external cold could not freeze the earth to such a depth, even in Siberia, geologists have concluded that the well has penetrated a frozen formation of tho glacial period which has never thawed •at. Tni Queen of Roumania has undertaken to deliver a course of lectures on national literature at the high school for girls in Bucharest. Her Majesty, who is well known as a poetess, under the pseudonym of " Carmen Sylva," has been accustomed for some time past to give lecturea privately in her palace to the young ladies of tho leading families in Roumania. These literary assemblies proved so attrac- tive that the demands for admission to them grew inconvenient, so that the Queen thought of delivering her lectures in the high school to all pupils who cared to attend. Before Her Majesty could do this, however, she had to obtain a regular pro- fessor's diploma from the King and the Minister of Instruction. This required an examination, to which the Queen gaily and graciously submitted, and the diploma having now been won, not granted by favor. Her Majesty began her lectures at the opening of term, after the New Year. Sc.uii.£T fever, which is epidemic in many cities on tho American continent at the present timo, aud prevails to a limited ex- tent in Hamilton, is essentially an in- fectious disease and breaks out from time to time, either sporadically or epidemically, in nearly all latitudes (except, perhaps, some semi-tropical regions). It is an im- ported disease in this country, having been first introduced from Europe into North America in or about the year 1737, and into South America in or about 1829. Re- cently it has established itself in India. Its propagation by means of infeclion is prac- ♦ically verified by the fact that it becomes speedily diffused among the predisposed when no preventive measures are adopted, aud is rapidly stamped out when these have been vigorously enforced. Air tainted with the poison is the usual method of transmission, and may bo carried by cloth- ing, letters, bedding, toys, animals, etc. It may be communicated directly from the cow or through her milk, from polluted water, and by healthy individuals who have recently been in contact with scarlet fever patients. The contagion maybe car- ried by the breath, as long as sore throat remains ; by the perspiration, so long as destjuamation continues, and by the diges- tion, as long as the alimentary mncons liaing continues congested. Probably it is actively infectious for six or seven weeks from the third or fourth day of its incep- tion. In England scarlet feveris responsible for aboi't !;2,000 deaths annually among tho young. Second and even third attacka sometimes occur, but these are always without danger. A NEW system of connecting several thicknesses of leather, either in mailing double or triple thickness leather bolting or in affixing the soles of boots to the upixjrs, described in the Kiujineer, is being introduced in England, where machines are being exhibited as used for attaching the soles of boots. The new systeni par- takes more of tho character of riveting than , of any other known method, tho new rivets being made of metal-covered wax thread. Each fastener is thus a tabular rivet filled with firmly enclosed wax thread. Ono of tho chief objects of this tubular rivet or piece of metal-covered thread is a firm fas- tening, with greater flexibility than has hitherto been obtained with machine work. It would be impossible to explain the con- struction of the machines used without drawings, but wo may say that tho covering process is performed on a machine in which a strip of brass is pulled through dies which inclose the wax thread fed to it. The tube-covered thread from this machine passes to another in which the tube is roughened or corrugated circumferentially by small rotating discs with fine teeth. The corrugation helps to give tho fastener a firm hold, and also to make it more easily flexible than it would be if the metal tube were plain. The edges of the strip are not soldered or brazed so as to make it into on actual tube. The next machine shown in operation is ono in which boot soles are affixed in a few seconds, the machine pierces the leather, cuts off a length of tho metal-covered thread, automaticoUy adjust- ing it according to tho thickness of the leather being fastened. Tho covered wax thread is then driven vertically into tho solo of the boot. It thus presents un end- wearing surface ; the brass covering, as the leather wears, burrs over, forming a head on the ontsido of tlie sole, ond pro- vents its working into the foot, an objec- tion which attaches to other metallic fast- enings. _ â€" â€" _♦ An Old Man'N WiirnlnK. Lieutenantâ€"" I would like very much to have o leave of absence for three days." Colonel â€" "Going on r. picnic?" "Yes, colonel, wo oro going to have a littlo fishing party out in the woods" " Going to bo ladies ' in the party I " " Yes, colonel, quite a number of young ladies will bo in tho party." " You can go, and I hope you will enjoy yourself, but for heaven's sake, young man, be careful. It was on just snch an innocent picnic that I came to be gobbled up by tho old lady in there."â€" FUegende JiltEtter. quaUfying unbelief." QiV 1 , » I words, " holp , (To be oontinaed.) Thou my Abnnt 1^1 pn. I dnn'tthink lips ripen nowodays, and what woflld tho old poets have done if they could not have filled their lines with effusions to ripe lips ? Como to think of it, I don't know what ripe lips mean. I never met with a pair of green ones. Did you ? Tho female lijis of to-doy are horn ripe, it seems to mo. But llioy don't j wither very fast, and that's [lucky, â€",S'an {'â- '"^'<" "''' Fraiuiico Chronicle. \ liir I AAihM Tl \