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. ' V 1 - " K-- »'/ * *' •* v* \&rmj gllaittdeaUi J. VAN 8LYKE, Editor «d PuHlslwr. McHENRY, - - ILLINOIS. «\ .J»N OLD PLAYED-OUT'SONG. ** BY JAKES WHITCCMB HTLKT. the coriousest tiling in creation, £. ••••"~ Whenever I bear that, ell song. s "Do They Misa Me At HomeY" I'm so botlWWL' X '-JMj life seems as short as it's long, ; pbr ev'rything 'pears like adzackly I t 'peared in tha years |ia«t ami gnn\frl3,i,::* t*. Wheal Htnrtod out sparkin' at 1 wiity^.,-;' j> v, ' And hud my first neckerc-her on. S; •>• Ji i®bonKh I'm wrinkelder, older and pravWt " .-B'KJn now than my parents were theS *fe> wP« strike np that song, To They Mis! "M ' And I'm just a youngster again! 'pi " fill a -stanrliu' back tliare in tlie furrias • A-wii-hin' fer evening to come, And a whisperiu' over arid over Them words : Do They Aj iss Me at HotaSf* It ! K&-J W- s£f" <83j .'Sft>u see. Mifthy Ellen ihe sung •' -*( The first time I heard it; ana so, .?• ' A* 6h« v.-as' my verv first sweetheart. It reiniruli mo of her, uon't you know $'.'V How her fac? nst to look in the twilight^ • • As 1 tuck hor to Kpelliu'; and she v *" ' * I&--'afcummta'that song tel t ii«t bet, '• * Pint-blank, ei ehe ever missed me! X Con She! my eyes row; as yon siiif it, ^ And hear her low nnswrrin' words; :i •'CJ A®d then the glad chirp of ihe crickets, As clear as the twitter of l>irds; -Asia the (lust in the rond is like velvet, ; And the vtr'wecd und fennel and gr&83 4 V* as sweet a* the scent of the lilies t \ Of Eden of old as we pass. *Do They Jjiss Me at Home?" fins it lweij-- Awl softer--and sweet us the breeze. | , ^H>at powdered our path with the snowy ?; White bloom of the old locus' trees. " } j f $iit the \v bippervills help you to sing it, • ' , And the echoes \vay over the hill, , i 111' the moon boolges o«t in a chorus ' • Of tiars, and our voicfes is stilL r O! "They's a chord in the music That's missed when her voice is aww!* TEjaotiph I listen from midnight tel morning, • - And dawii tel the dusk of the day ! " . . " Aftd I gorpe through the dark, loakito' up'ards And on through the heivenlv donie. nay lou^in' soul singjn' »ind sol>hin' • The words, "l>o They Mi*»s Me nt •7AN AWFtJ/fEN MINUTES ^fv" It happened one afternoon during the month of November, that I re­ ceived a telegram calling for my presence in London early the next morning on important business. To such a summons there was but one .answer possible; so with just a regret­ ful thought lor a card party I should have to forego, I wired this reply: Hr J. Devon, Anderton Hotel. London: V*I leave Burtown by the twelve to-night. IBid will call on you to-morrow mornin« at About eight. KNIGHTLY." Having dispatched my messaga, 1 finished up the day's work with all speed, and then returned to my lodg­ ings to make the preparation for my Journey. The remainder of the evening was Spent in skimming over the morning paper, wherein 1 found little to inter­ est me. In disgust I flung the thing on the fioor. It alighted at a grace­ ful angle, on whose apex appeared the heading, conspicuous as leaded type could make it; "Schocking wife murder in Burtown--arrest of tho murderer." With a mental apology to the pub­ lishers for the injustice I tyad dotie | mind of the them as caterers to the public craving for horrors, I picked up the paper present escap? and disappearance are most mystersous. A reward of £100 has been offered for his re-apprehen­ sion. Watson is about five feet nine inches in height, str^gly built, and when he escaped was dressed in a gr»> fustian suit, with a red sfearf and soft hat He may further be distinguished by a scar across his chin, and by having an arrow tat­ tooed on the 1 ack of his left hand." This was about the extent of the information contained in the para­ graph, and my readers will agree with me that the news was sufficiently ex­ citing to occupy my thoughts to the complete exclusion of the unpleasant experience I had just passed through. As11 lay back in my seat to muse upon what I had read, liiy thoughts began after a while to wander and my head to nod, according to their wont at midnight, and before long I fell asleep. How long I slept I cannot tell-- probably for a few minutes only--but in those few minutes I underwent a most discomforting dream. I dreamt that Chippy Watson stood over me, mallet in hand, and that my travel­ ing companion was holding his arm to avert the threatened blow. She struggled in vain, and the mallet fqll, yet with a strangely light touch upon my arm. . , With a start I awoke, and then saw the girl of my dream bending to­ ward me with a scrap of paper in her hand. But her face, how terribly was' it changed! Instead of the dainty pink flush I had last seen, there was a ghastly whiteness in her cheeks, and herfcyes seemed starting from her head with terror. Holding up one linger as if to command si­ lence, she passed mo the paper, on which were written,, the following words: VSome one is underneath the seat and has just touched me." Was it the dream which filled me with the thought that this was no idle alarm? I cannot tell: but this much I know, in an instant there flashed across my mind with over­ whelming force the*thought of this escaped wife-murderer. Keturuing my companion's silence signal with a gesture x»f acquiescence, I wrote upon paper: "It is probably only a dog. Shall I look under the seat9" Iler answer was short and to the point: 'VXo; do not look. It was a hand." Here, then, was a sufficient dilemma: but by comparison . with what had passed before between my fellow pas­ sengers and myself, it was a dilemma that I felt almost disposed to wel­ come. The male sex in my person w^s about to resume its rightful posi­ tion of protector to its weaker, if would-be independent companion. Sweet was my revenge, and yet the revenge scarcely promised to be wholly pleasurable. My first action was to remove any suspicion that there might be in the mysterious third occu­ pant of our carriage, through the presumably accidental action of hav- and proceeded to digest the "harrow- j ing touched the lady's dress. Giving ing details." The gist of the news was as follows: An abandoned ruf­ fian, Chippy Watson by name, after the fashion of his class, had beaten in bis wife's skull with a mallet, in f consequence of. some domestic^ dis- Agreement. " 1 v Having committed the deed, the man coolly put on his hat and coat, and was proceeding to depart, when , the neighbors and pplice,* attracted > by the screams of the unfortunate Victim, rushed in and secured him. This was all, or nearly all the para- ffraph contained, except for the usual Information that the prisoner would be brought before the magistrates tshaiged with causing the willful mur­ der of his wife. It was now time for me to start for the station, which was about two miles from ray lodgings. On reach- vent to an audible yawn, although 1 had just awakened from sleep, I re­ marked in a tone of cool imperti­ nence,-- "You really must excuse me for ad­ dressing you again, madam; but will you permit me to smoke to enliven this tedious journey?" As; I sj>oke I accompanied my words with a meaning glance, anil was favored with the reply,-- "Certainly, if you wish it; I cannot prtevent you." Thereupon I produced my pipe and tobacco pouch and proceeded slowly to fill the former as I thought out a plan of action watch I saw that the train would stop in I* ten minutes. Clearly the only thing to do was to wait till we reached Blackeley and there get assistance to find out who our unknown traveling his ugly body; he was black In th$ face when they lifted you off him." "Do you know that he is> an es« capcd wife-murderer?"' I asked. "Yes, we know," replied my honest friend, "the Burtown police tele- graphec) after the train t:> have il s^rched, because a man answering to his description had been seen in the station before it left. The police have him safe, my lad, this time. Why, I saw him hand-cuffed and his arms tied behind him, ufM he lying* half dead the while, after the throt­ tling you gave him." Do my readers want to hear the rest of mv story, now that the catas­ trophe is "told? I will inform them that Watson, on breaking loose from the police, after turning* the corner of Smit"Lane--'where, it will be remem­ bered, he disappeared--contrived it>y an ihuost incredible effort to scale a high wall, and so gain the shelter of a railroad embankment. Along this he crept until he reached the mid- town tunnel, where he had lurked aU day, and late at night hid in the car­ riage of the midnight mail, with the result before mentioned. There is one more incident to be told in relation to that journey; it is tins: there will be a marriage early this spring. The name of the bride­ groom will be Knightly, the name of the bride does not matter. She was never formally introduced to her fu­ ture lord and waster, and therefore it is unnecessary to tell the joame she soon will cease to bear to a passing acquaintance like the reader. Twine of &ood Itoatis. --•-» Bad roads force people to live in cities; good roads tend to take them out into the country. This observa­ tion reveals its force perhaps more Strikingly when read in view of the facts of railroad development, to which the especial attention of the American people has'been given dur­ ing the past forty years., The rail­ roads have centralized the population in the cities and larger towns, and arranged them along their lines of communication. Now what is needed is an equal development of carriage roads to broaden the area of popula­ tion and to relieve this congestion. Railroads need better carriage roads for feeders; farmers need them for access to the railroads and to the cities; manufacturers need them for access to less populous areas and for lower rents and for less cost of port­ age and transportation; merchants need them as an element in the cheapening of their wares; the peo­ ple need them tor the reduction of the expense of satisfying their wants and for the more efficient distribu­ tion of their activities. - All men work and plan, after sup­ plying their own and the immediate needs of their families, to leave a good inheritance to their children. All good citizens take into their plans of public expenditure the leav­ ing of wise investments to the next generation. What wiser, surer and better-inheritance can we leave to our sons and successors than good roads--roads that can be preserved and used at litt.e expense, and that endure both as monuments and as in­ vestments during the years and the centuries to come?--Forum. Anont Copper Vlnei, At Keweenaw Point, a peninsula jutting into. Lake Superior, are some prehistoric mines of great richness. Who the workers were is apparently unknown, but they seemed to have known nothing of the smelting of copper, for there are no traces of molten copper. What they sought were pieces that could be fashioned by cold hammering into useful arti­ cles and ornaments. They under- On reference to my stood the use of fire in softening the i j rocks to enable them to break away The longer I pondered over the problem the more curious for its solu­ tion did 1 become, and then, heedless of the warning I had received, I struck a match and intentionally dropped it. Stooping with a mut- the rock from the masses of copper. They could not drill, but used?the stone-hammer Jreely. More than ten cart loads of stone-hammera were found in the neighborhood of the Minnesota Mine. Whoever the workers mpv Jiave been, many centu­ ries must have passed since their mines weiift abandoned. Their trenches anil' , openings have been filled up, 5 or.' nearly so. Monstrous Ing it I had barely a minute to secure | companion might be. ray ticket and a seat. The only other occupant of the compartment was a young lady, and one of no small ieauty. - Now, I am a shy man as far as the ffeir sex is concerned. Among men I batfe self-possession enough; but in ; tered malediction "to picK it up, I cast j trees have;gr(W^ the presence of ladies I am ever ill at j a searching glance under the opposite j fallen to decay, other generations of ®ase. In the presence of ladies, yes; seat, and my blood ran cold as the j trees springing up. When the mines but here was but one, who would ; faint gleam of the taper revealed the keep me company for a whole hour, j back of the man's hand with vutil we made our first stop. So, as \ mark of the tattooed arrow upon it Chippy Watson, then, was our com­ panion--a desperate man! By a mightv effort I controlled my voice sufficiently to say: "Excuse me reaching across you, fair | madam, but that was my last match, and I could not afford to let it go 1 contemplated the girl opposite me from behind mv paper, a measure of my courage returned, and in the words of My. Gilbert, I said to my- •elf, "I :11 take heart and make a fair Atart; faint heart never won JAdy." 9 were rediscovered decayed,, trunks of the large trees were lying over the works, while a heavy growtty of live timber s t o o d o n ™ t h e g r o u n d . • * * . MtB, 4,1 trust you were not alarmed by I out, any unceremonious entry?1' I re-j The girl, into whose white cheeks marked, with some inward inisgiv- i the color showed no signs of return- j ing, miTrmured some intelligible re- For answer a quiet stare and a slight j ply, and for a few moments we sat in ^contraction of the pretty mout*n; in- j silence. •dicating that A had no right to speak j Again I glanced at my watch. j Ihank Heaven, in five minutes we to any other male, was the : should be in Blakeley, and the awful Thymeilt for a strategic attack upon ! ride would be at an end. Scarcely the fair one's scruples: for me it was i had th^ thought formulated itself the exact opposite--the moment for ! when the girl opposite me sprang up, Sight had flight been possible. 11 trembling like a leaf, and shrieked: buried my face in my newspaper, and i "fc)h. dear! that hand haj touched in a few minutes heard, to my relief, j my foot again!" A corresponding rustle from the oppo-1 1*ne moment the words left her •»Ste side of the carriage as my pretty ! lips I heard a sudden movement un- ; jprude followed suit. The sense of j der the seat, and quicker than defeat and disgrace fairly over- ! thought a figure appeared up- whelmed me for a while; and my"eyes j on this 'floor. In that moment I wandered over the papL»r I held in flung myself upon the ruffian and , niy hand, seeing but undestanding j clutched his throat with the energy t.#ot what they saw. • of despair, knowing that should he A.t length they lighted upon a fa- i once gain his feet it was all over with miliar name "Chippy Watson," and line, the lighter and weaker man. their owner recovered his sense and | Can I ever forget the horror of that Almost forgot his grief as he read the ; five minutes' ride? The whole com- following lines: "The Burtown mur- partment seemed to be falling upon Escape of the Prisoner."' After! me. Teeth, nails, feet, all were at- Retailing the incidents of the hear­ ting before the magistrates and the U pPemand of the prisoner, pending the ' inquest, the paragraph went on as follows: "On leaving the court, Watson was . tmiducted between four filacers to the tacking me at once; but through all I j kept my grip upon the murderer's ] throat, and though I almost lost con- I sciousness I still held on, while the | girl's screams rang dimly through my I ears. Suddenly the t*ain stopped, I the struggle ceased, and I fainted van. Just as he was stepping in, and ; across the body of my captive. if;' When the police were endeavoring to keep back the crowd that pressed ground, the prisoner suddenly •Snapped >h!s handcuffs, in some inex- ¥ icable manner, broke through the Jaystanders and fled down the Street. ilfe was seen to dodge down a back . nlley, followed by the crowd of sev­ eral hundreds. At the end of Shut l^ane he disappeared around a corner. And, strange to «ay, has not been .seen since. There can be no doubt that its will be j»ean£iired; but his V •'•V-jKvij.. - i" Vv When I'recovered consciousness I found msself lying upon a table in the Blackeley station with a symna= thetic crowd around me, and, best of all, I saw a face bending tenderly over me--the face of the yirl of my dream and my discomfiture. After making two or three efforts I man- oged to .say,-- "Where is Watson?" "Yery nigh dead," replied a ruddv- facett farmer who stood beside me. You almost strangled the life out of Ort* Cent a Montta. Hire a ifi4n to work at the rate* 6f 1 cent fdt the first month and theft agree to double his salary at the end of each of tbe-following months for,a term of three years and see how badly you will be surprised when he calls for the grand "total of his wages. Here are the figures in a nutshell: First month, .01; 2o, .02; 3d, .04; 4th, .08; 5th, .16;,6th, .32; 5th, .64; £th, $1.28; <Jth, $2.56; 10th, $5.12; 11th, $10,24; 12th, $20.48; 13th. $40.96; 14th, $81.92; 15th, $163.84; 16th, $327.68; 17th, $655.36: 18th, $1,311.72; 19th, $2,623.54; 20th, $5,247.08; 21st, $10,494.16; 22d, $20,988.32: 23d, $41.- 976.64; 24th, $82,956.28; 25th, $165,- 906^>2^iJ|23l,813.12; 27th, $663,- 626.24r^0C $>^,3T>2.48: 29th,' $2,654,704.9(1; 30th, v$4,609,009.92; 31st, $8,618,019.84; 32d, $17,236,- 039.68; 33d, $34,472,078.38; 34th, $68,- 944,156.72; 35th, $137,888,313.44; 36th, $275,776,626.88. Grand total of the thirtysix months' or three years' salary, $552,554,253.65; ̂ -St. Louis lie public. I oriunate tor the Collector*. A surprising number of interesting souvenirs of Napoleon are to be found in collections of objects of interest in France. Various mantles which the great General woie at Austerlitz and a quantity of wearing apparel which he must have found inconvenient at Waterloo are proudly displayed by collectors. A more valuable and important relic than any of these is, of course, the pen with which Napoleon signed his altdication. Arsene Iloussaye, a French journalist and man of letters, had two friends who were enthusias­ tic possessors of the al>dicatlon pen. He had the happy thought of intro­ ducing them to each other. He explained that each had a pen of undoubted authenticity, and waited to see what would happen. "It is easily explained!" exclaimed both collectors. "Napoleon abdi­ cated twice!" n WATER plants before they wither. ; f-iOW SOME MEN PfcOPOSfe. . r*n»a Who Is InteroAted tn tho subject. "I a crank," said the club m*n, "on the subject of proposals. I would rather hear a story of how a man asked the woman he loved to marry him than to take a trip to Europe. I don't know why I take so strong an interest in this, unless it is that I had such a hard time to get my wife to accept me. I had been in love with her tor years. I had proposed to her seven times and she refused me every time. Finally I went to tier in despair and said: "Well, Mollie, I've asked you to to marry me seven times, and you have declined rny name. I'm going to ask you once more, and if you don't marry me, I shall go out West and stay there,' "Well, Jack,'she said, if vou feel that way about it, Pll marry yoU|' To this day she cannot tell me why she refused me so often to marry me after all. "There's pay friend, Congressman X . He was a. poor young man, and one day he went to a young wo­ man whom he had knbwn for a long time. " 'Nell,' he sdid, 'I have been wait­ ing till I had enough money to get marrted. My salary was raised yester­ day. Will you marry me next week?' " 'Wait until next month,; she said. "'No, next week'; and ^hey \Vere married next week. •"•Brown, the lawyer, was a careless young fellow. The woman whom he loved would riot marry him. " 'You are the most reckless man in the world,' she said, *about money affairs. When you get $5,000 in the bank I may marry you; if you still want me.' "He went away and saved $5,000. She married him and to-day he's a rich man. Hp learned economy while winning his wife. "My friend Colonel H enlisted at the outbreak of cthe war. " 'Joe,' he said to the girl he wanted to marry, 'I am going down South to fight. Will you marry me now or Wait till I come back.' " -Right now, Sam,'she said, and that afternoon he marched away. " My brother proposed in a cool way. He hadn't been able to make up his mind what he was going to do in life, and one day the, woman who is his wife now said: *' 'Charley (they were second cousins), what in the world are you going to make out of yourself?' " 'Just whatever, you make out of me, he said, 'you're got lots more sense'thanl have, Maine.' "Has any one here any stories to tell about proposal#' continued the story-teller, "I AlWt know "of~ a single case where a ntanjamntdown on his knees. JL would like to hear one. No one will tell one, eh? Well I'm sorry. I like to hear about pro­ posals.--New \ork Tribune. I'hffiDlx TOWIIK In Burnish A frood illustration of the influence of the bamboo on the ways, and even on the character, of the people, may be found in observing one of the most frequent incident of Burmese life--a house or village on fire. Ip this country where the smoking of tobacco is limited neither by age or sex, nor tlnie nor place, and where houses are shingled and for half a year as dry as tinder, it will be un­ derstood that men become familiar with the phenomenon of fire. It is less easy to realize the comparative indifference with which such a visi­ tation can be received or to credit the truth that to the easy-going popula­ tion of this primitive region even fire itself seems robbed of its terrors. At a spark from a cigar or pipe a Burmese village is ablaze, and in a few hours whole streets are in ashes. But in the flutter and excitement that ensues We look in vain for any sach evidence of ruin and despair as a similar calamity elsewhere brings inevitable in its train. ,. Loss by fire.at a Burmese fire is al­ most unknown. The simple house­ hold stuff is quickly emptied from the single-storied cottages and heaped under the trees by the road side--lor to a people who live habitually in outdoor life there is no hardship in passing the night under the open sky; and when th^ fire has once gained an irresistible hold, it is a sight for philosophers to see the calm­ ness of the villagers as they sit and smoke quietly in groups watching the progress of the flames. In a few days the ephemeral city rises once more in clean and orderly streets, and beyond a few main sup­ ports of timbers, or in the houses of the leading townsmen, from end to end of the street, and from floor to roof of every house, the bamboo from the jungle hard by has supplied, at the cost of labor only, the principal materiftl of which it is built. There is much dancing and roasting on these occasions, as well as trading. All the trading is done by barter, no sort of money being in circulation. At this fair also many wives are bought. One can,(purchase a very1 good article of a wile for $10. Wives among the Esquimaux people are usually bought. Sometimes the Women are consulted. : - KxptsaalTe Oatmeal : f&derly gentleman whose M"bit of over-eating at unseasonable hours induced frequent attacks of dyspepsia, went to a large and fashionable Southern hotel to spend the month of March, by the advice of the popular physician who ministered to his ail­ ments. The gentleman was not fond of spending money lavishly under any circumstances, and the expense of jjthe trip weighed upon his mind to such an extent before his departure for home, that his friends were by no means surnrised to see him back again at the end of ten days. "Did you havtf a good time down there asked an acquaintance who met him on the street a day or two alter his return. 'fSeems to rne you're looking rather poorly." ^Poor'y!" groaned the dyspeptic. "You'd better say poor!- Thirty dollars for oatmeal gruel; that is what I've had to pay, sir, where I've been!" "What in the world do you mean?" asked the other, much mystified. "Why, I mean just this," grumbled the sufferer. "The night I got there I ate a fairly good supper, and the next morning I came down with one of my dyspepsia attacks, and I never ate another thing but oatmeal gruel for the six days I was in that place. And they wouldn't take a cent off the bill, not a cent, sir! So I packed my things and started for home. It was the most outrageous experience of my life!" he concluded, turning pale at the very r«collection of his wrongs. "I wanted to ask him if }*, was good oatmei1, at that price," said tlie friend, telling the story afterward to his wife, "but I didn't quite dare!" nil Charity. A great deal is written about rich men giving to poor boys, and it is pleasing and novel to hear a true story of a poor boy showing charity to a rich man. A writer in the Boston Transcript tells the following: One night, not long ago, General Swayne of New York was going up­ town on a Fourth avenue car. He tucked his crutches under his arm to investigate his pockets, and found that he had no money: "I suppose I shall have to get Off," he said to the conductor. The con­ ductor said he supposed he would. Then up spoke a voice from the bottom of the car. It belonged to a small, one-legged newsboy, who had to depend on cruches as General Swayne did. "There's a pair of us," said the boy. "I'll lend you a nickel to pay for your ride." * The offer touched, the General's heart, for It was plain that a desire to spare his pride had led the boy to call it a loan. He said to himself that some time he would pay the five cents back with interest- He asked the boy's address. The lad gave it, but told him it didn't matter. When Mrs. Swayne, at her husband's request, drove to the ad­ dress of the boy who had pitied her husband she found that he was dead. The debt could not be paid to him, but he had left a mother and some little brothers who have, profited by their brother's loan. ttroth«rg in Uintieaa. Little Roland Q----, an orphan who had been accustomed during the life of his parents to generous nurture and even to indulgence, went after thei| death to live with an uncle, who believed in severe treatment of chil­ dren. The boy was put at once upon a plain diet of oatmeal, bread and butter, a little meat and a carefully regulated allowance of fruit. This the poor boy regarded as next door to starvation; and he ate solittle that it was remarked in his presence that he was growing thin. 5 One day his uncle took him out to Walk, in the suburb where he lived While they were walking they met a friend of the uncle's, who was accom- Jianied by a large greyhound. The boy had never seen a dog of this sort before, and was greatly as­ tonished by its extraordinary thin­ ness. He looked very sympathetically at the animal. "Ah," said the dog's owner to Ro­ land, ' you think he's pretty thin, don't you?" "Y-yes:" said the boy; "does he Jive with his uncle?" Roland's allowance of meat was considerably increased after this inci­ dent, and now and then he was even allowed a bit ot pastry. Mt»e«illan«ou* Tr«<lin«. The Esquimailx wear reindeer skins for clothing. They buy them from the Siberian Chuckchees, who come over to an international fair that is, held every summer on". Kotzebuec Sound, just above Behring Strait on the Alaskan side. For the pelts seal oil and walrus oil arc exchanged. '•HolMon'a Choice." The expression "Hobson's choice" is often heard, but comparatively few persons recall its origin. Wide Awake thus explains: "Thomas Hobsou was born in 1544; he was for .sixty years a carrier between London and Cam­ bridge, conveying to and from the university letters, packages, and pas­ sengers. In addition to his express business he had a livery stable, and let horses to the university students. He made it a rule that all the horses should have, according to their abili­ ty, a proper division of work and rest. They were taken out in regui lar order as they stood, beginning with the one nearest the dOor. No choice was allowed, and if any man refused to take the animal assigned to him he might go without any. That or none. Hence the phrase, 'Hob- son's choice.' In the spring of 1650 the plague broke out in England. The colleges of Cambridge were closed, and among the precautions taken by the authorities to avoid infection Hobson was forbidden to go to Lon­ don. He died in January, 1651, part­ ly, it is said, from anxiety and fret­ ting at his enforced leisure. Hobson was one of the wealthiest citizens of Cambridge, and did much for the benefit of the city, to which he left many legacies. His death called forth several poems from membeis of the university, officers and stu­ dents, among them two by the poet Milton, then a student at Christ's College. • • Only Two Lett. The daughter of a revolutionary soldier died at Darien, Conn., re­ cently in the person of Mrs. Betsev Mather Loekwood. Her father, Dea­ con Joseph Mather, of the" same town, was at the taking of Ticon- deroga and at the seige of Montreal. Her grandfather. Dr. Moses Mather, pastor of the Darien church, was taken from his pulpit one Sunday by British soldiers and carried to New York, where he was confined in a prison ship. Mrs Loekwood was gran-ted a pension by a special act of Congress in view not only of her father's military service, but also of large pecuniary losses which his patriotism caused him to suffer. His daughter's age at her death was 97 years 9 months and 3 days. The names of but two daughters of revo­ lutionary soldiers now remain Qn the pension rolls. A Hon* Tra«le. The man had a horse for sale. "Wnat's the price?" asked the dealer. "A hundred and fifty dollars," said the owner. "I'll give you $50," proposed the dealer. • The man laughed. ^ • "Iguess," he said, "you take me for about as big a fool as I took vou for. You can have him for $100," and the horse was sold. % JUSTIFIABLE KISS. ^ Bew a ttcxlcaa Jnde* Viewed an impul­ sive Manifestation of Admiration. • Baron Strauss s&ys that the Ameri­ can women were so popular in Mexico that it interfered with th$ wheels of Justice in that Republic. "The American women," he said, 4•go about Mexico as they would in this country, while the Mexican wo­ men are caged up like birds. The only way to make love to them is to stand oft some hundred yaYds and stare. "The pretty senorita sits in her open window and you can only look at her. There is one chance in a hundred of getting an opportunity to speak to one while she is in church, but that is the only place. Last summer a New York merchant and his beautiful daughter stopped for a few days in the little town where I was sojourning. The young lady was one of the handsomest that I have ever seen--light hair, eyes like bits of heaven's blue, classic form, and all that was lovely. Well, you can im­ agine what a stir she created among the young Mexicans, who are held so far away from the native women. "The son of a wealthy planter used to stand for hours opposite the win­ dow of this American girl. One day the father went to the City of Mexico, leaving the daughter unattended for a few hours. The young lady walked from the hotel to-the station and was lollowed by the Mexican admirer. As she was nearly home the young fel­ low rushed up to her, and, implanting a kiss upon her forehead,, ran away for dear life. , "When the father came home there was a little excitement. He had the young fellow arrested, and the next day he was brought before the judge, who gravely asked what the charge was. "'Assaulting a woman,' spoke up the New Yorker. " 'What did the prisoner do?' " 'He ran up to my daughter on the street and kissed hej.' " 'He kissed this lovely young lady?' asked the judge, as he carefully scrutinized the fair American. " 'Yes, sir.' " 'Well, who wouldn't?' remarked the judge, as he left the court roonv And you believe it, that was all the satisfaction the New Yorker could get in Mexico."--Detroit Sun. Vum-lum as a VI altreis The little Japanese waitress never speaks or settles to any seribusrkity of the entertainment, sais gir Edwin Arnold, without falling upon her little knees, smoothing (her skirt over them, and knocking her flat nose on the floor, and will either demurely watch you use your chopstick, in res­ pectful silence, or prettily converse, and even offer her advice as to the most succulent dishes and the best order in which to do them justice. It is not so very difficult to use the chop­ sticks, those simple k-nives and forks of Eastern Asia, if you learn the secret of the guiding finger between them. Otherwise you will drop the first mouthful from the soup-bowl on your shirt front, to the gentle but never satirical laughter of your wait­ ress. Amid the talk that buzzes around you will have inquired of her already, "What is your honorable name?" and "How many are your honorable jrears?" and she will have told you that she is "Miss Star" "Miss Camellia," or "Miss Antelope," and that she was 18 or other­ wise on her last birthday. She coun-<; sels you to sieze that tiny lump of yellow condiment with your chop- striks, to drop it in the soy, to stir up and flavor these with the pink flakes of salmon, and you get on famously, "watched by her with the warmest personal interest. Now and again she shuffles forward on her small knees, to fill your cup or to rearrange the confusion into which your little bowls and platters have somehow fallen, always with a consummate grace, modesty and good breeding. With the condiments her little fin­ gers have mixed, the uncooked trout is so good that you cease presently to feel like a voracious seal, and won­ der if it be not wrone, after all, to boil or fry anything. Environed by all these tiny dishes, and lightly flut­ tering from one to another, you begin at last to be conscious of having dined extraordinarily well. So you say, "Mo yoroshil" (It is enough), and the service relapses a little for music and dancing. Having tun With a Cliinamaa. "Tlie other day a real smart young man came aboard," said Capt. Leale of the El Capitan to a San Francisco Examiner man, "and he came up to chat with myself and two young ladies before the boat started. Next to the ladies sat a Chinaman. The smart young man began to nod toward the blue-bloused heathen, and make all sorts of grimaces. He kept up his pantomime for some time, showing off before those girls in an endeavor to establish a reputation tor dare-devil fun. Ihe Chinaman eyed him with that stolidity which the race has accumulated throughout gen­ erations of starvation. Finally my o'er-bright friend tired of his monkey- shines and said: " 'Just watch me have some tun with that Chinaman.' " 'Oh, no; you'll not have any fun with me,' answered the brown man in irreproachable English "All the smartness left the bright youth. He was the cheapest buy on the human market. It was the .first time 1 had ever seen him done up. He reddened, became all hands and feet, and silently stole away, step­ ping on himself as he went. " I think I had more fun with him than he had with me,' quietly remarked the Chinaman. " 'Rather a tiresome young man, don't you think?' " The Saw Submarine Cable. The laying of the new submarine cable between the Bahama Islands and the United States was a skillfully executed job. It was done by men who are e*perts in the business of cable laying. It was done rapidly and without any trouble. Its layers deserve commendation. The cable was not expensive. It is 230 miles long, and cost $150,000, or about $650 for each mile of its length. It will be of more value every year to the Ba­ hama Islands than its total cost, and it will redound to the honor of its originator, the Governor-General Sir Ambrose Shea. TME STOICAL INDIAW W Xo JBatt«r Qow Cold Be Kay Be B* JSaver tieard to Complain. The Indian in winter is in mosft instances a sorry, rueful bird. There: is this remarkable trait in his charac­ ter, however: No matter how deep, his physical woe, let his blanket b«! ever so scant and thin and the blizi zard ever so knife-like and piercing,/., * " ̂ he stands it like a Stoic. A white*:1' man under similar conditions swears* and curses and assails his luck, and ; assures the world of his resolve trt::>v '/,^ have a vast and comforting changej • -1 an Indian undergoes the pinch with* ^r,"i out a murmur, and will frpeze even with no more row about it than a river. ' « , They are prone to do the best they'""-^'^ can under the limitations of circum­ stances, and remember a winter in New Mexico the nights whereof werflp^g: cold enough even for an iceman. Th(f mornings of each day were by no . means sultry, and until 11 o'clock thd * »: thermometer was g<jperally content to put in the time somewhere in th^w vicinity of the 20-degree mark. OnQ: morning early, while. the frosty ai|ySJ£ bit like a bulldog, I saw an okfj- Navajo with about enough on him^f count blanket and all, to flag a hand^*:"; ̂ _ car, very busy in the collection of a . heap ef splinters, twigs and chips.fek-7! Where he had put in the night could * t not even be guessed at, but he wa getting ready for a fire now. He con*"' \ tinued hisefforts'until he had aimasse<|^ a collection about the size and con* tour of a bushel basket. Then som# v two feet away he started a little fire " * that a pint of water would have extinguished. This becoming a crack­ ling success, he wrapped his thread­ bare blanket about the upper part of his body and over his head, and lay down on his face with a leg on either side of his fire, said legs being dis­ posed in a sort of parenthesis so as to , bring them fairly within reach of the genial influence. The old buck would "snooze," laid out in this fashion, for about twenty minutes, and then, the Are dying low, would raise enough to reach his little store of combustibles with one hand and transfer a small supply to the blaze. Then his slum- brous head would drop, the fire would recover and affairs go on smoothly foi another twenty minutes, when the play would be repeated. He got in some six hours in this way very suc­ cessfully, arising at 12 m. and begging me for his dinner.--Kansas City Star. A Sing-mar Kovelffet. "Not long ago the Paris newspapers recorded the death and cremation of M. Jules Stapleaux, a writer of romances which were published as feuilletons at the foot of the columns of French country journals. Stapleaux was well known to the literary men of Paris, who describe him as one of the brightest of conver­ sationalists, but p^bably the worst story-writer in France. The badness, from a literary point of view, of his stories was well known to Stapleaus himself, who took jokes on the sub­ ject good-naturedly. Here are some sentences quoted from this singular man's stories: "The viscount wore a very sh6i. waistcoat and pantaloons of the same color." "After the death of his greatly loved wife, the general aged rapidly. At the time which our story records he was 65 but be appeared just twice as old." "The baroness, aged 29, had jus! attained her majority." "Stapleaux had some difficulty fn getting his stories printed, but when he found a market for one he made the most of it. A newspaper once engaged him to write a serial as a feuil^ton. It ran daily, until th« subscribers began to stop their papers in large numbers; when, one day, the proprietor of the journal came to the author of the unpopular romance. "Look here!" he exclaimed. "Youi story has been running six months, and bids fair to last forever. The subscribers are in rebellion." "Well?" said Stapleaux, inno­ cently. "Well! I will give you just thrct days to wind the thing up!" "Impossible!, Just think of it. The countess is at Clermont, Jean Duroc is away off in Martinque, Cher baty, the spy, is on the point of being arrested. How in the ,yvorld am 1 going to bring all this to a wind-ux in three chapters?" "I don't know," said the publisher, "but 1 give you warning that I shall cut you off short in three days!" • He went away. At the end of the third installment thereafter the pub­ lisher was pleased to see the words, "The End," written in a trembling hand. He sent the number to press joyfully, without reading it, and when the paper came out, was aston­ ished to see that the last paragrah read as follows: "We shall tell, in another story tc follow this as a sequel, what became •of the countess, and how the advent, turous journey of Jean Duroc termi­ nated!"--Youth's Companion. gomo Interesting Data At the meeting of the French Me­ teorological Society on December 1, last, M. Angot presented the results of temperature observations made during the year 1890 on the Eiffel Tower at 515 feet, 646 feet and 99C feet above the ground. During the night the temperature increases uj to the mean hight of about 500 feet, then decreases, slowly at first, and afterward more rapidly. At about 1,000 feet the mean decreases in tem­ perature is about 1.4 degre'es per 328 . feet (100 meters.) During the day the temperature decreases constantly from the ground upward; in the lowei strata the decrease is slower in wintei - than in summer. In the latter sea­ son it amounts to 2.5 degrees per 328 feet; but above 500 feet the rate ol decrease does not show a decided annual variation; the amount is about 1.6 degrees per 328 feet. It is worthy of remark that aft the hight of 984 feet (300 meters) in open air, the de­ crease of temperature is very rapid* ̂ both during the night and during th^^ ? day, and nearly approaches the the^i^ oretical value of the law of the adf iabatic expansion of gases.-^-Nature. HE who gives himself airs of IM* portance exhibits the credentials ol impotence ---Lavater. IF you sow thorns you will not reap roses. \ Aydt'WJd,. .*•'t ft