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mt gWtltnrg flmitdeatfr. J, VAN SLYKE, PUBLISHER. 5CHENRY, ~ ILLINOIS. - , AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. We Three. Ah! the apple blossoms were so posy and white, And BO sweet, oh, so sweet, in the glad June light, . And it seemed that the wide world must be all bright, "When under the boughs of ft quaint apple tree My two darling sisters eat idly with me, While we plucked at the daisies and talked, we Dainty white petals a zephyr let fall, And laden with perfume they tell on us all, Or crept to the foot of the ivy-draped wall. And gaily we guessed what our future would be, What for Kate it would bring, what for Mary and me, And we sat till the twilight came on, we three. Black eyes and blue eyes and hair all astray, And gladsome young voices with so much to say, A star in my life is tnat one vanished day. Twas a summer long gone, but present with me, And strangers sit under the old apple tree, And we meet 'neatk its branches no more, we three. Why our hopes and our plans were thwarted, God knows, "Why I gathered the thorn when seeking the rose, Why the tender young lives were brought to a dose. But I dream o£ a time that surely must be. When under the boughs of a heavenly tree, We meet to be parted no more, we three. --Rochester Democrat. Around the Farm. NKWXJY planted trees should have as careful cultivation as corn or potatoes. AN old New Englander once remarked to us when we advised him to pinch back his blackberry bushes,, to keep them within bounds and make them bear bet­ ter, 48 That's so. I can. remember when I lived down at Dartmouth, that we al­ ways found the most blackberries on tiie bushes that the old oow had browsed -down." SEEING a piece about raising canary seed in Maine, I thought I would tell you what I know about it. I sowed one cupful on the 4th day of June last to try it, and raised three quarts of good nice seed, gathering it the middle of September. I sowed it in one corner of my garden, where the ground was rich.-- Maine Farmer. TEE number of swine in the country has been very much reduced, within a few years, by the ravages of "hog cholera" in the West and Southwest; therefore it behooves farmers to take good care of their breeding sows, give them warm, dry quarters, and save and rear all the pigs possible, for pork can -hardly fail to bring paying prices for a few years to come.--Rural Home.' THE distance between the farmers and the fancy breeders of short-horn cattle is constantly widening. The farmers can't and won't pay the long prices asked for line-bred cattle of fashionable families; besides, and what is perhaps of more consequence, they can and do buy good cattle, thoroughbreds, at very moderate prices. The recent sales in Iowa demonstrate the ever-increasing demand in this direction. A FARMER in Maine sayB: For re­ moving the clusters of eggs of the tent caterpillar from trees, I have found nothing so convenient as a small piece of steel in the shape of a letter Y with the edges filed sharp and the shank driven into the end of a pole of suitable length for reaching the eggs from the ground. To use it, place the scissors like points of the steel under the twig containing the eggs, and by giving the pole a twist in the hand the extremity of the twig is easily broken off and falls to the ground. BONE spavin can be cured in all stages. Primary can be cured by a sim­ ple blister compound of bin-iodide of mercury, two drachms; lard, one ounce. Secondary, by a mild scarification of the enlarged osseous deposit, and then ap- applying the former bitter on the scari­ fied part. Purulent, by severely firing the deposit, and sprinkling the surface with bi-chloride of mercury finely pow­ dered, which forms an intense inflam­ mation, and the said inflammation ab­ sorbs two-thirds of the deposit, and destroys the entire lameness. THE veterinary surgeon of one of the chief railways of Paris has invented, for the use of its working horses, a cheap and simple self irrigating machine for the feet in case of an inflammatory ail­ ment. A box containg four COCKS is placed on the animal's back, by means of a skeleton-sort of saddle ; an india- rubber tube communicates between this box and a vessel placed above the man­ ger, containing a curative solution; from each cock in the box resting on the back of the animal is a tube descend­ ing to each fetlock, terminating in a kind of gaiter, inside of which is a per­ forated plate, so as to allow the solution, or simple cold water, to fall in a continu­ ous fine spray over the sprain, etc. I SENT a yoke of oxen into the woods lumbering, and when they came home I found them alive with those big blue lice. I went to the village and bought a ten-cent bar of soap and seventeen cents worth of carbolic acid in crystals ; cut up the soap fine, and put it on the stove* until all disolved. Then I added just enough water to dissolve the acid, after which I mixed thoroughly with the soap. I removed the soap from the stove, to become hard, and then took a piece, perhaps two inches square, dis­ solved in five or six quarts of warm water, and with a good sponge I washed those cattle from head along the back 1o tail. Two applications effectually cleaned them out.--Cor. Country Gen­ tleman. Aboat the House. DRY bread can be utilized by placing it in the soup in which fresh beef has been boiled, for $>few moments. Then dish up for the table. EGG spoons get tarnished by thtf sul­ phur in the egg's uniting with silver. This tarnish is a sulphuret of silver, and may be removed by rubbing with wet salt or ammonia. SURPRISE CAKE.--One cup sugar, one- half cup of flour, three eggs, three table- spoonfuls melted butter, two tablespoon- fuls sweet milk, one and one-half tea- poonfuls baking powder. Bake quick n patty tins. IN washing glass never use soap; wash off the dirt with clean wa*n water. After the1 glass is dry, rub a little paste of whiting and wmter ̂ ft the center of each glass; with another cloth rinse over the glass, then rub it with a dry cloth till it shines like crystal. HOUSEKEEPERS who do their own work avoid much inconvenience by always keeping one or two kinds of pastry in the house made rich enough to keep some time, so that if unexpected com­ pany finds them with a small stock of food (as it is apt to in warm weather), they will not have to cook everything for a meal. SQUASH PIE.--Season highly some neck-mutton chops and place them in a dish in layers with plenty of sliced apple (sweetened) and chopped onions ; cover with % gnnfl fsnet nrnst And balcA, When done pour all the gravy out at the side, remove the fat and flavor with mushroom catsup. Pour it back in the pie through a hole in the center. CHILDREN'S PUDDING.--Cut up a loaf of stale bread the day before it is re­ quired, put to soak in a pan of cold water; when going to mix squeeze the water through a colander; put the bread in a pan with two ounces of suet chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of flour, some grated ginger and a little mixed spice; beat well up with a folk, mix half a pound of treacle (not golden syrup) with a little warm milk, then stir ell together and boil three hours in cloth, basin or mould. This will make a largc pud ding much liked by children; it is che&p and wholesome. HAVING found by experimenting a valuable recipe for exterminating bed­ bugs, I would like to give other house­ keepers the benefit, of said discovery. Take common mercantile alcohol and add all the gum camphor it will dissolve; then wet the infested places with this liquid. It will not only kill the bugs, but will destroy the vitality of the eggs if they are once thoroughly saturated. This method saves time and vexation, is easy of application and is safe in hand­ ling. I once dropped kerosene on a bedbug and watched the result. After a brief period of insensibility and appar­ ent death, it revived and seemed as live­ ly as ever. Austria and the Eastern Question. There is one phase of the Eastern question, so far as it affects the rela­ tions of Turkey to the great powers, which has not been sufficiently consid­ ered, and which affords a very con­ clusive reason why Austria has taken such a lively interest in the Herzego- vinian insurrection, and why she has succeeded in not involving nerself in the contest. Every step she has taken has been in favor of a compromise be­ tween the Turks and; their Sclavic pro­ vinces, in the interests of peace, and in opposition to any increase of Austrian territory from the Sclavic provinces. The reason for this has not been clearly apparent to the general reader. The Hungarian population is composed of two distinct classes of people, the Sclaves and the Magyars. The Mag­ yars are the aristocracy of Hungary. They are the landowners. They con­ trol the elective franchise. They are represented in the Hungarian Govern­ ment. They are the ruling class, bear­ ing the same relations to the Sclaves as the English ruling class to the Irish. They are not the original peasantry of the country, but a more recent race, which came into Hungary very much as the Turks came into Turkey, and from nearly the same localities in Asia. They number about four and a half millions, and, although numerically inferior to the Sclaves, being in about the propor­ tion of two to three, yet they are the literary, landed, moneyed, and political class, and rule the Sclaves by virtue of this superiority, just as Paris rules the French peasantry. The Magyars, as a matter of course, do not want the Sclavic population increased, since it might prove fatal to their power and influence. If the northern portions of Turkey should be annexed to Austria, the Sclaves would far outnumber the Mag­ yars. Consequently, the latter have resolutely, and thus far successfully, prevented any extension of the Austrian Empire. In this opposition they have had the countenance and encourage­ ment of the Germans in Austria, who have been acting for the very same rea­ son--that th«y do not want to be over­ shadowed by the preponderance of Sclaves. The Sclaves, on the other hand, both in Hungary and the Turk­ ish provinces, have worked desperately to secure the annexation of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Servia to Austria, and it was one of the propo­ sitions which was submitted at the Ber­ lin conference of the Emperors of Rus­ sia, Austria, and Germany and their Chancellors, but without avail. The agreement, however, is fatal to that proposition for the present at least, and the Magyars and German-Ausfcrians have triumphed. The great powers have conceded the reforms asked for by the insurgents and will demand that the Sultan shall enforce them, and this with­ out any extension of the Austrian do­ minions.--Chicago Iribune. Statistics of the Whisky Piosecntions. The following are the results of the first year's prosecution of the whisky ring, the raid having begun the first week in May. The last returns of money for property seized and in proces of condemnation and sale are necessarily slow. The final collection of at least a million more than is now being pro­ ceeded against is assured : Value of property seized $1,500,000 Value of assessments «... 1,400,000 Suits on official bonds 200,000 Total...: $3,180,000 From the above sources, the cash turned into the treasury to May 1, 1876, amounts to $600,000. Criminal indictments were as follows : Distillers and rectifiers, 95 ; supervisors, 2 ; revenue agents, 5 ; collectors, 2; deputy collectors, 8; gaugers, 30; storekeepers, 15; other person, 19; total, 176; convictions and pleas of guilty, 110 ; absconded to foreign coun­ tries, 12 ; tried and acquitted, 17. The total expense to the Treasury department in detecting frauds and pre­ paring cases for the court has not ex­ ceeded $25,000.-- Washington Tele­ gram. A SIX-POUND cannon ball was dug up in Charlestown, Mass., recently. It was probably fired by one of the British frigates at the time of the landing of the British troups to attack the American in- trenchments on Bunker Hill on the morning of vne 17th of June, 1775. PASSIm EVENTS* THE British representative in Zanzi­ bar has negotiated a new treaty witn the Sultan of that country, in which pro­ vision is made for the entire abolition of the slave trade in his dominions. THE Spiritualistic theory is that Piper, the Boston, belfry murderer, was possessed by the spirit of a big, burly negro, a former slave, who was whipped to death for a gross insult upon hi** white mistress, and that his three mur­ ders, of which one is to be discovered, were energized by this demon. _ BEFORE the next Presidential elec­ tions, which will take place on the same vt~~ 17 a«- - " --j, • 1 ui mc uuiriy-seveu States of the Union, seven of the States will hold elections for State officers. In September, Arkansas, Vermont and Maine hold elections. In October, Ohio, Indiana., West Virginia and Geor­ gia, hold elections. Pennsylvania, which formerly held her State election in Octo­ ber, now, like most of the States, holds it in November along with that for Pres­ idential electors. HISTORY does not encourage the thought that the Philadelphia Exposi­ tion will pay. The first World's Fair was held at London in 1851. It was the only international exhibition that has paid expenses. The Vienna Exhibition cost $9,000,00'3 mor e-than the receipts. The Grand Exposition at Paris, in 1867, perhaps, in most respects, the most brilliant and complete Exhibition that has been held, did not pay the expenses, and the French Government provided for the anticipated deficit by appropri- HAH AAA iMniia iltA wnnaA *«>vwwj)vvv Ainuva ivi UUC ^vuj^/vnjv« BOSTON celebrates the centennial year by demolishing the Old South church, one of the few revolutionary edifices left in that city. It was in this church that many of' the greatest meetings of the patriots of '76 were held; and it was used as a barrack by the British troops dur­ ing the occupation of Boston. Unfor­ tunately it. stands, or rather did stand, on a very valuable piece of land which is wanted for business purposes. The religious society whieh owned the property has built a fine new temple; and down goes the old one't WOMAN'S plnok receives a notable il­ lustration in the case of a Holyoke (Mass.) widow. Her husband had been sick two years and died, leaving her with two children and a debt of $400. She went to work in a mill and never lost a .day. Besides doing her week's work she took in washing for two fami­ lies. Her children she placed in school, and has paid their expenses, receiving no help from any one. By honest hard work she paid off the debt of $400, and, besides supporting and educating two children, has put by $400 against a time of need. THE refusal of Great Britain to join the other powers in urging the Porte to accept the propositions of the Berlin conference, and the evident reluctance to accept them at Constantinople, make it very doubtful whether they will form the basis of an adjustment of difficul­ ties. To add to the embarrassment, the in­ surgents decline to agree to an armistice. They want no truce; they assert that Turkey will take advantage of it to move up troops and get in positions disadvan­ tageous to them. The prospects for peace, therefore, can not b<3 said to be encouraging. A PARIS correspondent of the New York Times writes an interesting letter from that city in which he attempts to show where the French people's money goes. It will be a matter of very general surprise in this country that the most of the money goes for the army in time of peace. The total estimate for 1877 is 2,667,000,000 francs. Of this sum the war minister asks for his department alone 536,000,000 francs, and the ma­ rine 186,000,000 more, in all 722,000,000 francs, while all the other departments together have but 473,000,000, the bal­ ance being absorbed by the public debt, interest, dotations and internal revenue service. MR. WILLIAM HENRY HURLBERT, the new editor of the New York World, is the younger brother of Gen. Stephen Augustus Hurl&ul, who was qxrite dis­ tinguished in the 3eminole war, was a brigadier-general in the late civil war, was Minister to the States of Colombia in 1869-'73, and is now a Repiblican member of Congress from the Fourth district of Illinois. While he, as his father did before him, insisted upon the spelling of the name as Hurl&ul, Villiam Henry's finer instincts insist npra the old English name, from which the fami­ ly traces, of Huii6er<. Those who wish to address letters to the new editor are warned accordingly., WHATEVER may be thought of Mr. Eads' plan for deepening the cfaannel of the Mississippi at its mouth, ths fact that the steamship Hudson, of 1,872 tons, one of the largkst ships of the Cromwell line, has sailed througi his jetties and safely crossed the South Pass ' bar settles the question of its practica­ bility. The work is only partially fiom- pleted. It will take several weeks for the water compressed into its narrtwed channel to wash out a deep and excel­ lent passage-way. But the river if al­ ready doing its part of the work, and the passage of the Hudson, which daws fifteen feet of water, naturally raises the expectations of New Orleans to a high pitch. IT is stated from Washington that the Cabinet in directing its attention to some extent to the situation of affair* in the Black Hills country. Assurances have been given that an influential baud of Sioux are willing to relinquish tluir domain there and remove to reserva­ tions in the Indian Territory. All cor­ respondence in that particular has bean referred to the Secretary of the Interior, who will give instructions to the agents of the Interior department regardiig the proper negotiation in that direction Should this portion of the Sioux nation positively signify a willingness to settle in the Indian Territory, the hope is ex­ pressed that that entire formidable part of the hostile Indian race may soon bo domiciled in that Territory. BISHOP THIRLWAIIIJ of England, who recently died, could speak fie English language and read the Latin when he was three years old ; at the age of four he was proficient in Greek; at seven he was a writer of sermons ; at eight he was plunging through the fields of En­ glish literature, and at eleven he com­ posed a large and learned satirical poem.: So we learn from the sketch of his career in the April number of the Edinburgh Mewevh Fortunately for him, nature dealt n ore kindly with him after his eleventh year, as he pursued his way through life. If his intellect and knowl­ edge had kept on growing at the rate th^y^ did from his second year to his twelfth, he would have been such a pro­ digy by the time he was eighteen or twenty, that his soul must have wilted with flie sigh of Alexander the Great for other worlds to conquer. THE hot season has broken over the West Indies, and Cuba remains uncon­ quered by the Spanish troops. The in­ surgents are more aggressive than ever before, and are constantly encroaching upon the securest Spanish positions. Meanwhile the Island Government, under the Spanish Gen. Jovellar, is endeavor­ ing to extricate itself from financial em­ barrassment, but without success, and haying failed to collect an income tax of thirty per cent, has about decided to in­ crease the export duty on sugar and tobacco. This will oppress and de­ moralize the producers still more than heretofore, and not strengthen the loyal sentiment. (Jen. Jovellar is himself tired of the complications, and desires to return to Spain. There is no money in the treasury, and gold is quoted at 227. _ Will the Cuban struggle ever end, and in whose favor ? are questions that seem no nearer an answer to-day than at this time last year. Does this Hit loo? It is possible that some one who reads the title of this article, says the New England Journal of Education, may find hiirself guilty of failing to pro­ nounce the ci and sh in shun. I find that my lady friend, who is very precise in her language, will persist in. accent­ ing "etiquette" on the first instead of the last syllable. My good minister, who has the greatest; aversion to anvthing wrong, was greatly surprised when I mildly suggested to him that " aspirant" should be accented on the penult, while my musical niece mortified me the other day by pronouncing '• finale " in two syllables. I heard my geological friend explaining the " subsidances" of the earth's crust, but he should have ac­ cented the second instead of the first svllable. The same mistake happened the other day to my friend, the presi­ dent of the refonn society, who spoke of the " vagaries" of certain people by accenting the first instead of the second syllable. He also announced that I would deliver an " address " that eve­ ning, but I knew it was not polite to tell him to accent the last syllable. My boy says he left school at "recess," accent­ ing the first syllable, and he was loth to believe that, whatever the meaning of the word, it should be accented on the final syllable. Then my friend, the president of the debating club, who is a great student of •' Cushing's Manual," tells us that a motion to adjourn takes the "precedence," by accenting the first instead of the second syllable. My oth­ er lady friend says that she lives in a house having a " cupelow." She should consult the dictionary *for that word. But I will close by remarking that my legal friend, who is very scholarly, al­ ways accents " coadjutor on the second instead of the third, where it rightly be­ longs. Perpetual Calendar. The "Fragments of Science" con­ tains the following ingeniously arranged calendar: 12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 W 23 24 25 36 27 28 29 30 81 Mar. Nov. W T F 8 IUXT Mar, Feb. AUK. Feb. T W T F 8 sc M Aug. May M T W T F 8 su May Oct. su M T W T F 8 Jan. Oct. April Jan. 8 su M T W T F April July Sept. Deo. F 8 su M T W T Sept.,Dec. June T W T F 8 su M June 1876 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 1900 01 02 03 Follow up the vertical column of the year to its intersection with the horizon­ tal column in which the month is con­ tained, where will be found the day of the week on which the first day of the given month falls in the given year, now use the horizontal column of the days of the week that has this day of the week on the left under the number of the first of the month. For example : At the in­ tersection of the December and 1900 is Sunday, and as Sunday is the first on the left in the fourth column, we use that column and find that Christmas, the 25th, is on Wednesday. Bv continuing the columns ©f the years "backward or for­ ward, being careful to carry every leap- year ahead one column, the day of any date may be found. The January and February on the left should.be used for leap-years only. Trees and Bain. The bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club contains a suggestive paragraph ivi reference to the influence of trees upon rain and atmospheric moisture, as shown by the experience of the island of Santa Cfruz, in the West Indies. This island is said to have been a garden of fresh­ ness, beauty, and fertility twenty years ago; it was covered with woods, trees were everywhere abundant, and rains were profuse and frequent. The recent visit of a gentleman who had known the island in its palmier days revealed a lamentable change, one-fourth of the island having become an utter desert. The forests and trees had been cut away, rain-falls had ceased, and the process of desication, begining at one end of the island, had advanced gradu­ ally and irresistibly upon the land, until for seven miles it had become as dry and barren as the sea-shore. Houses and plantations had been abandoned, and the advance of desolation was watched by the people, wholly unable to prevent it, but knowing almost to a certainty the time when their own habitations, their gardens and fresh fields would be a part of the waste. Indeed, the whold island seemed doomed to become a desert* This sad' result is owing entirely, ac­ cording to the belief of the inhabitants, to the destruction of the trees upon the island some years ago.--Popular Sci­ ence Monthly for June. « THREE years ago Bosita, the thrifty mining town in Southern Colorado, was a "howling wilderness," with not a prospect hole anywhere aronnd. Now it contains 400 houses and 1,500 in habitants UOTlsS ON TEXAS. PonlM, Doves, partridges, Mocktng-Birds •- WWi Black-Birds--The Cnlain®. [From the Courier-Journal.] > Texas is emphatically the latfftflf po- nies and doves. There are more of both than I have ever seen anywhere else. The former are small, ragged, of varie­ gated color, and vicious. They are inexpensive, selling, according to and size and quality, at from $4 to 810, even $25 dollars. The doves abound. They build their nests in the prairies (where the trees are scarce), on the ground, and between the rails of the fences. I saw four nests in one fence comer, and more than twenty in one small post oak. Numerous partridges, still in flocks, whirred across the road especially in the mesquite country. This favorite little bird is said to be found by the hundreds of thousands in the country between San Antonio and the Rio Grande--a flock, a friend told me, under every mesquite bush, and the bushes close together. I saw a few chaparral cocks, splendid-looking follows, tho color of a prairie chicken, somewhat larger, and with a long tail. He is almost as fleet of foot as an os­ trich, flies reluctantly, and but for short distances. His safety against his ene­ mies lies in the density of the cover he keeps, and his speed when found in open ground. His wings don't appear to be of any special use to him, further than to enable him to mount the brush, which he leaves behind him with astonishing oelerity. The mocking bird is abund­ ant, as is also a bird called here the bird of paradise, a beautiful little fellow with an extravagantly long tail, which really seems to impede his flight. Add about six inches of tail feathers to a WHIIH mocking bird, and give him a dull, white breast, and you have this chap. Black-birds by the thousands at times darkened the air, and crowded the heels of the plowman, while the upland plover was to be seen in all the newly-plowed land and throughout the prairies. No one who has not eaten this delicious bird at this season in Texas can have any idea of what a delicacy it is. He is hunted in buggies or open wagons, it being impossible to get sufficiently near him either on foot or on horseback. A word of San Antonio. I took sup­ per in a Mexican eating house. You never ate enchilada did you ? 1 hope you never will. You never ate tamallis, did you ? Well, don't. An enchilada looks not unlike an ordinary flannel cake rolled on itself and covered with mo­ lasses. The ingredients which go to make it up are pepper, lye, hominy, pepper, onions chopped fine, pepper, grated cheese, and pepper. The hom­ iny is first beaten into a paste or dough, and this is flattened to about the thick­ ness of an ordinary batter cake, and then turned several times upon itself, the pepper, onions, pepper, cheese and pep­ per being placed between the folds, and over all is poured a sauce or gravy of pepper. In point of looks, the enchi­ lada is, as I have intimated, not unin­ viting ; in point of taste, it is a cross between bicarbonate of soda and capsi- dum. Tne tcftnallis, when placed on the table, presented the appearance of a lot of huge shuck cigarettes whioh had been soaked in water. They were com­ posed of the same lye-hominy paste, shaped into cylinders a little larger than and about as long as your finger, con­ taining some kind of forced meat. Each cylinder is wrapped and then boiled in a oorn shuck and served in this envelope. A friend who was with me, and who de­ clared he was not particularly fond of the dish, though he often ate it, soon had a pile of wet shucks by his plate six inches high. I think he ate a dozen of the things. I was satisfied with a small part of one. The tamallis tasted to me very much as I suppose boiled macca- roni, thickened with bread soda, would do. My opinion is that no nnn eat enchilada and tamallis long and remain honest. The three staples in Mexican cookery, as I observed it, are pepper, corn and pepper; the corn is sandwiched between the pepper. The corn is first husked by being soaked in lye or lime water, and then briskly rubbed and beaten on a flat stone, a process which produces a paste or dough, or meal, meaner than any lye hominy in Indianapolis. How to Make a Valuable Receipt-Book. Every housekeeper should have her very own receipt-book--a book of her own creation, of gradual growth and proved excellence, and we propose to show our lady readers how to make one. In thd first place buy a blank-book, and write your name and date on the first leaf. Divide the book into as many dif­ ferent departments as you wish, head­ ing each page with the department to which It belongs, as follows : Receipts or cleaning; receipts for soups; re­ ceipts for cooking meats ; receipts for cake, and so on through family cooking. Then comes cooking for the sick, care of the sick, and all the various things that are a part of woman's duty, and for which, unfortunately, there is no school but experience. Number your pages if they are not numbered in the beginning, and make an index, leaving blank spaces in the index to correspond with blank pages between departments which you do not expect to fill immediately. Write down under these different heads every receipt which you have actually tried, or the result of which you have seen in the houses of your friends, and enter the page in the index. The Art of Killing Made Easy. The Paris correspondent of the Lon­ don Standard says : " The art of kill­ ing made easy has made great progress of late years, but nowhere, perhaps, more than in France. The guillotine is already a very different object from what it was when it left the hands of its learned inventor, and it promises in time to become such a complete and at­ tractive piece of mechanicism that con­ demned men may ultimately embrace it, if not with joy, at all events with a kind of curiosity and confidence. The high and mighty personage in France known as I'executeur des hautes ceuvres--in plainer English, the public executioner --has just added another important modification to the fatal French instru­ ment of death, by which it will be en­ tirely self-acting. He has invented a few mysterious grooves which so work that as soon us the sufferer falls or is pushed on to the baseule, his head runs into the lunette, and the knife comes down the next second. Really, French criminals cannot complain of the attention shown to them by the pawtfci that be." * ILLINOIS ITEMS. GEO. MOCREKRY, a yoftng colored MM of Bioomington, was snot in the side and probably mortally wounded, one night last week, by a drunken rowdy who rode past him on horseback. NEAR Lincoln, the other day, a young man fired a rifle bullet into the John­ ston school-house. The ball penetrated the side of the house and lodged in the blackboard, narrowly misginpr an urchin who haa just left the board. The young man claimed that he shot at a ulack- bird, and did not notioe the school- house. MR. J. R. SHKiM's Second wrmnaj sale of short-horn took place at Taylor's driving park, in Freeport, one day last week. Seventy-eight blooded, animals were sold, aggregating tlw handsome sum of $19,175. Of the num­ ber sold sixty-three were eowss bringing $17,625, an average of $279.77; and. fifteen bulls, averaging 8245.83. Prion ranged from $75 to $875, LAST Friday morning Edward Walker* a well-known farmer, living about three miles south of Bioomington, was found in a well, on his place, dead. He left the house about twenty minutes before, in his usual health, to draw some water for his cattle, and it is supposed he must have had a fit of some Mod and fell into the well, which was simply a hogshead sunk in the ground^ The jle- ceased was a first cousin of Judge vid Davis, and leaves a wife and family of children. THE family of Br. Robert AHyn, President of the Normal University at Carbondale, were taken suddenly nek one night last week, and it was feared they had been poisoned. Upon investi­ gation the cause was attributed to tho eating of canned sardines for supper, which had been opened for a few hours previous. Dr. Allyn was the first to feel the effect, two or'three hours after eating. Mrs. Allyn, a daughter, and the hired girl were soon after taken sick. Medical aid was immediately summoned, and all are on a fair way to recovery now. RETURNS from the crop reporters as to the prospects of fruit crops have been received by the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture from about seven­ ty-five counties. These are being tabu­ lated, and will be ready for the public next week. They show that the yield of all fruits will be much larger than it been for several years. This is especial- ly true as to small fruits in the southern half of the Slate. In the same region there will be a good crop of apples, peaches, and pears, except in a lew localities, where the trees were injured by hail-storms. ON Wednesday of last week a freight train on the T., W. and W. R. R. was crossing the Vermillion bridge, coming into that city. On the bridge was a party of three, Mrs. Jennie Bruce, and her daughter Mamie, about four years old, and Robert Drinkard. The train overtook them, struck the woman, crush­ ing her body in the most horrible man­ ner. She was killed instantly. Drink- and was thrown under the train and had his ankle bone badly broken. The girl fell through the bridge, a distance of fifty feet, and will probably die. AT Mackinaw, Tazewell county, on Friday of last week, an orphan boy about sixteen years old, while plowing in a field was killed by a man named Wm. Real. The boy was working for Real's brother. His employer was working on another part of the farm, when he no­ ticed Wm. Real coming toward him, full speed, on one of the horses with which the boy had been plowing. His brother asked nim what was the matter, and he replied, " Nothing." His biother then wont to the place where the boy h?d been plowing, and found him lying there, terribly mutilated and dead. Wm. Real had beaten Mm to death with a heavy club. It is said that nothing but a freak of insanity can account for the rash deed. QUITE a serious affray ooourred "at Quxaey the other night between the police and a gang of negroes that infest that city. A policeman had arrested a noisy negro named Johnson, and was conveying him to the station, when the prisoner began to resist the officer. Dur­ ing the struggle several of Johnson's companionslattemptedj to rescue him, and would have succeeded had not the citizens interfered. The negroes drew knives and pistols, and at one time a serious riot seemed imminent. He negroes at length took flight, pnrBued by several of the citizens. Finding themselves likely to be over­ taken, one of the fugitives turned and fired upon his pursuers, but fortunately without effect An ex-police officer re­ turned the fire, also without effect. Af­ ter a long chase, however, the desperado was captured, together with sef#ra) others of the gang. In his fight with Johnson the police officer was severely, though not seriously, hurt. , fruit In Illinois. The following, the first of the mattm of crop reports compiled from reports to the State Department, of Agriculture, ft-- been issued, and contains much interest­ ing authentic information of fruit pros­ pects. The present report is devoted exclusively to the condition of the vari­ ous kinds of fruit. Apples make a good average showing. Peaches indicate a falling off of nearly fifty per cent. Pears in the aggregate indicate a decrease of nearly twenty per cent. Plums about the same as pears. Cherries promise fairly, showing a falling off of about fourteen per cent from the average. Strawberries are nearly up to the average production, a decrease of only six per cent, from the average be­ ing noted. Raspberries and black­ berries make about the same showing as strawberries. Gooseberries and currants it is estimated will fall off, respectively, fifteen and eleven per cent, from the average yield. The table has been compiled from re­ ports made from seventy oeunti.es. While the average of the counties H*- ported is given as above, some of tjjp counties show as high as fifty per cent, above former years, especially in apples; and the peach prospect in many coun­ ties is remarkably gona»