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•••• i-s-'-x: ' ItE KISS. ' ^ -r ! **«UtI> SHFJXHT*T»uit l)*)(Nt|rBdH sad pru&ita, wbo detect all ' tar ttd picas uro, AaiwudiMetapnlB«or ptasion fa a certain •owoo of »<n, Coowwja4>his little ditty. *nd Admit that, in a ThelS^Seto'f your doctrines are assuredly too thiu; %•,£*,? / Fl* VoTujnieod's tlM tiMBM of tk« Joftieet ex- . : Istance; fill IdWMt life (a sacred, if bra* love It does not miss, Aad therefore I am wrttiaf with poetical per­ sistence, to oelebrate the comfort that ia centered in a kiss. Dye long-faced, long-sared donkey*I do yon deem your maxim* better Than the boisterous blood of beauty, as it rip- plea through tho heart Of some modest little maiden, when aba reads her first love letter That her bashful, boyish lover signed and sea'ed with loving art? la there any lore so lofty aa the low of true af­ fection? , la there any heart so happy that lore can t in­ crease its bliss ? Ia there any law so sacred aa the law of soul-se­ lect ion? Was there ever an enchanter half so subtle aa a kiss ? A« tile crimson clonds Of morning are made one in fond embraces; Aa the ocean waves, borne onward by the breezes, are iuftile one; So here, bv inward impulse, are two loving, youthful faces United in a rapture that seems paradise begun, AA the coming of Aurora drives the (Uukness | , , . from the heavens; I ««"g&ter, Aa St. Patrick from Ould Krtn drove away each serpent's hiss; A* G°d 10 ̂ oah's vessel led the clean beasts all bv sevens; So every sort of sorrow may be conquered by a kiss. And you, my bnddin ; beauty, my sweet Star- eyed little Stella! Ton precious little angel, purer than the dew of dawn! X now feel highly honored, since, you're told me I'm thefelio^y On whom yonr loving heart has been and is - most tru'.v >:oue, » I shall try to love you truly, and deserve the kind attention Yol have AO freely SHOWN pie, and I hQ|>e, my dearest b'isa; That we evermore may ' cherish in pur souls, without dissension. The Ir.xm y of lov ing, and the beauty of a kiaa. --Chicago S*n. \ i LOVE AMONG THE DAISIES. * A JUNE ROMANCE. It «fc8 only a London garden, but it was So walled in" from intrnsive et£s, was so judiciously planted with flowers that could stand the air of cities and the neighbor­ hood of smoke, was so surrounded by (rt?es, and the walls that encircled it were so covered with creepers, that it w as difficult to realize that it was actually a part of that "Old Court Suburb" which is now a paTt of London itself. There was an old bowling- green that made the smoothest and greenest of tennis-lawns; there were stately alleys, planted with quaint shapes of box and yew; an ancient sun-dial and a moss-grown fountain: trim walks through trellised dooorways, that led to conservatories gor­ geous with tropical flowers; and shady corners, much appreciated by the young people who came to Lady Mary Hazle- wood's garden parties, and that at other times were Met* Haidewood's favorite re­ treat. Lady Mary was the widow of a general officer, and Meta was her only daughter, a tall and rather stately brnnette of twenty- two, who had been out two or three seasons, and had refused several eligible offers without any very apparent reason. Miss Hazlewood did not even give any reason. The gentlemen who had done her the honor to wish to many her were no^to her i taste, she said, and seemed to think that statement conclusive. Meta's indifference to suitors was the only point of difference between her mother and herself. Ladv Mary would- gladly have seen her daughter suitably settled--as, indeed, what mother would not?--but in the long .run the girl Always had her way. "Do you want to get rid of me, mamma?" she would ask, with one of the smiles that an upright man. were half saucy, and wholly . 6weet; and there could be no answer to such a ques­ tion. Nevertheless, Lady Mary could not help feeling that her daughter was perverse. The feeling was intensified just now by an offer from Meta's latest admirer, and by the fact that Lord Castleman seemed likely to fare no better than those who had gone before him. "I can't understand it, my dear," said Lady Mary plaintively. "What was there in Sir John Hope that any girl need have objected to?" "He was not to my taste," said Meta, for the hundredth time. "Or in Captain Shaw? And I am sure they both worshipped the ground you trod on." "They would have been welcome to do that, if they would only haVe abstained from worshiping me," said Meta lightly. "My dear, don't be flippant; when you really fall in love yourself, you will know it is not a joking matter." "Ah ! yes--when I do!" said Meta. "And now there is Lord Castleman, and yon don't seem any more favorably in­ clined to him." "I can't help it, mamma," said Meta, rather wearily. She rose and gathered her work together, jmd left the field to Lady Mary. She was so tired of these endless lamentations, and she knew enough of her xnother to know that she would not leave her pet grievance till she had thoroughly exhausted both that and her daughter's patience. So Meta put on her hat and strolled into the garden, the shady old- world garden that always seemed such a haven of peace and* solitude amidst the whirl and din of the great city. It was here that Meta generally came when her mother's mood was too plaintive or too loquacious, not railing against the kindly, unwise woman, even in her heart, but feel­ ing the need for a little quiet and solitude, a little time in which to gather her thoughts, and perhaps live over again the one little month in which the garden had seemed greener and fairer and sweeter than it had ever seemed since. That was " five years ago now--that one month of Meta's life that had seemed to Lady Mary so mnch like any other June, but that had made the very name of June musical forever in her daughter's ears. It was June again now, and even in London there was a sense of summer in tho air. The garden was at its best, with roses just unfolding, and creepers greenly twining and putting forth delicate tendrils, as yet unemirched by dust or soot. The great June daisies that grow wild ia such Abundance in southern pastures and 011 breezy cliffs by the sea, but that needed much care and pains to induce them to grow here at all, were opening their yellow discs, and spreading their white fringes in the sun. 0 Meta gathered one, and put it softly to nor lips. "The one flower in the world'" whispered the girl, and then she blushed at her own thoughts, and fastened the flower in her girdle, and to^d herself it was folly, and worse than folly, to let anv man's words dwell in her heart like this and come back to her across the vetfls' whenever the daisies blew. It was five yews ago now. but every June, as the great white daisies opened to the summer sun it seemed to Meta that she stood onee more bjrRobin Lindsay's side, and heard him tell her that he should never see their bios •oms again without thinking of this Garden Mid of his cousin Meta. a mj 1». « you like. Or because they are fair JQd white, aud tall and stately and beauti­ ful, "said Mr. Lindsay. "Shall I fiud them MM you still here when I come back, I wonder? Will the daisies bloom year after year, in spite of fogs and smoke? And you Mjipwrt, will you be here, in spite of all thO'.iffHors who will try to win and wear thejfaguerite that is the one flower in the ftfor me?" She did not answer fer a She was only seventeen, and Lindsay, at least, she was cur- shy. And then, before she could he caught her hands in his. "Don't •MW*r, dMr," M said; "I had #0 right to ask. I will not bind you by a single word. Only give me a flower for old time's sake. It pledges yon to nothing, but I maj be glad to have it if I come bock some day and find no daises here." •One daisy will be here," said Meta softly- so softly that perhaps he did not hear; or perhaps he would not. Kobin Lindsay had no fortune but his profession, but he was a Scotsman, and as proud as he was poor. It seemed to him a baseness to try to win a pledge from this fair young cousin of his, whose mother naturally looked so much higher for her, and to whom an engagement to himself could only bring years of indefinite waiting. I The waiting and the burden of separation and donbt and anxiety should be liis, and not hers, he toM himself; and so he went away and left h«r free, net understanding that her freedom was a heavier burden than them all. He only wrote onoe, a formal letter to Lady Mary, acknowledging her hospitality, that somehow found its way among Meta's treasures; but every year there came a Christmas-card adorned with whitn Mar­ guerite daisies, and bearing an Indian post­ mark and the initials R. L. That was all; just such Christmas-cards as any one might have sent, pretty tokens of cousinly remembrance that might be the emptiest of compliments; but Meta flushed into trembling delight over them, and hid them away as a miser hides his gold. And Lady Mary, looking kindly at her with the unexpected acumen which otherwise foolish women sometimes display in matters of the heart, thought to herself that if Meta had not been such a child when Kobin Lindsay went away, she might have fancied there had been some "nonsense" between the cousins when they wandered so long in the garden those soft June evenings five long years ago. It was only a passing thought, dismissed the next instant as too unlikely for serious reflection, but it came back to Lady Mary with startling vividness this fair June morning, as she went out into the garden in search of Meta, and found her standing by the daisies, with eyes that were luminous, and tender, and sad. The golden bosses surrounded with pearly shafts of white, sud­ denly recalled the Christmas-cards that had borne them in every variety of dainty device. And when Lady Mary looked at her daughter with unconscious appeal and questioning, she knew, with a thrill of un­ welcome conviction, that the girl's eyes fell before her own. Was this it--Mis--that Meta. her proud, unapproachable Meta, was only proud and unapproachable because she was already won, and won either clandes­ tinely or unwooed? Either supposition seemed a desecration to Meta's mother, with Meta standing be­ fore her in her proud voting beauty; only the daisies made a background to her thoughts, an unacknowledged arriere* pensee that had it6 share in determining her speech. Do you know that Lord Castleman is coming for his answer this morning?" she asked, with an attempt at severity of demeanour that was not too successful. "What are you going to say to him. my dear?" "Wont you see him, mamma? You will say 'No' so much more graciously than I should." "But need it be *No,* Meta?" "What else can it be?" said Meta, rather drearily. The daisies were an unconscious back­ ground to her thoughts also. The daisies that had brought only happy memories and golden dreams to the girl in her teens, had come to have quite other meanings for the woman of twenty-two. Five years! Was it likely that the five- years-old story could 6eem anything but a boy-and-girl romance to Kobin Lindsay now? That was the question that the daisies had been asking Margaret Hazle­ wood this morning, that they had already asked her more than once as the empty years went by, and Kobin Lindsay gave no sign of claiming "the one flower in the world for him." "Need it be 'No;' Meta?" said her mother once more. "Lord Castleman is well-born, distinguished, a polished gentleman, and What fault can you find in him?" "None," said Meta, wearily. She thought that life would have been easier to her if her suitors had been a little less unexception­ able. "Then, my dear, why do yon not accept him? Do you know, Meta, what is the natural conclusion when a girl behaves as you do?" "Yes," said Meta hastily. "The natural conclusion, the only conclusion, is that she likes her home and her mother too well to wish to leave them." Lady Mary put aside the flatteiy with lofty indifference. "The natural conclusion is that there is some one she likes better--or fancies she does," said the. mother, considerately changing the form of expression as she saw the sudden flame in Meta's cheeks. It faded as quickly as it had come, and Meta said steadily: "That is not the case with me, mamma." It was not a wilful untruth. Her morn­ ing's communings with the daisies had brought home the conviction that Robin Lindsay had forgotten her, or thought of her only as a cousin, and nothing could therefore be more evident to Margaret Ha­ zlewood than that her own feelings must have undergone a similar change. "I am relieved to hear it," said Lady Alary. "I had really begun to wonder--ab­ surd as it seems--if there could have been anything between you and Robin " "No! oh. no!" cried Meta, vehemently. "How could you think so, mamma, when he has--never--" She stopped, afraid of her own voice. What was she going to do? To falter and break down before her mother-- to betray the weakness that had robbed her airlhood of its brightness, and that, instead of being conquered as she had believed, seemed ready to overwhelm her now with a sudden despairing shame? She paused a moment, steadying herself aarainst the gar­ den seat, and then she said, with a nervous little laugh--"How could you be so absurd, mamma? I should have thought youJmow me better than that." The two women were both too much excited to notice out* side things. It came upon them both with a little shock when a page appeared before them and announced that Lord Castleman was in the drawing-room. "I will come," said Lady Mary, nerv* ously, and then «be looked at her daugh­ ter. • . „ . , , "My dear, what shall I say? You will not sacrifice your prospects--your happi­ ness-- " • } ; "Sty happiness is not in question, mam* ma," said Meta, proudly. "You can send Lord Castleman to me." Lady Mary did not venture to ask any more. She kissed her daughter, and went off to her guest, rejoicing. Meta would not have sent for him only to reject him, she felt sure. And as for the doubts which the daisies had suggested, if Lady Mary did not belive her daughter's protestations as entirely as Meta would have wished,she be­ lieved in the healing power of time and the evanescent nature of human emotions,with a fullness of conviction that Meta herself would probably never attain to. She turned for a moment,. and looked at the girl's white-clad figure with tender mater­ nal pride, and then she wenton to the house and into the drawing-room, glowing with satisfaction and goodwill. Lord Castleman was standing by the table with a face that was becomingly anxious and grave, but he flushed into eager anticipation as Lady Mary came into the room. "You bring me good tidings," he cried joyfully. "I see it in your eyes." "She will see vou," said Lady Mary, beaming with smifes. "You will find her in her favorite corner by the conserva­ tories." - : Ha pressed her hand, and went, seeing everything a little mistily through the sudden dazzle of new hope, but pleading his cause with as much humility as though he had not just seen Lady Mary, and drawn his own deductions frojn the en-! couraging interview. , f And Meta sat with downcast eyes,' and listened to his tale in a silence he felt to be v v *•••* 7 •• | still more encouraging; but when he wotlld have taken her hand, she drew it back. "Walt," she said there is something I should like to show you first." She took from her pocket a faded leather case, and opened it with fingers that trembled a little in spite of her efforts to keep them Stall. Inside were the Christ­ mas-cards with the pretty frosted daisies, and the robins that used to be so seldom absent from Christmas-cards, but that hnd perhaps a special reference in these, and with them a letter that was a little frayed about the edges now. Lord Castleman started, at he might perhaps be excused for doing. "What are these?" he said. "Pardon me--I don't understand." "It was very foolish--and it was all five years ago," faltered Afpta; "but I thought you ought to know." He understood now, and his brow lowered ominously. He was all Lady Mary had called him--he was well-born and dis­ tinguished, a polished gentleman, ancl an upright man, but he was not large-souled. The confession that Meta had made, with a pain he could not even understand, moved him to no generous sympathy; it only wounded his vanity and stung his pride. He took fhe cards and the letter from her, and tore them into a hundred pieces, and then he turned upon his heel •' Miss Hazlewood, I have the honor to wish you good morning," ho said with a stiff' little bow. VI appreciate your candor, but you will understand that a Castleman does not care to " be second to any other man." He went away with his head in the air, knocking over his chair in his agitation, and Meta was conscious of a very unheroic feeling of relief. To please her mother, and so save her own pride, she bad brought herself to think she might accept Lord Castleman, but the sense of relief showed her how great an escape she had had. How long she sat where he had left her, she never quite knew. Her eyes were on tho torn and schattered fragments that were all that remained to her of her girl­ hood's dream, and as she sat and mused, her face was grave and sad--but it was a sadness in which Lord Castleman had neither part nor lot. The opening of the garden door roused her at last. And then--for life is some­ times kinder to us than our deserts or our imaginings--she lifted her eyes and saw some one coming up tho walk--some one whose coming her own pride had gone near making a curse instead of a blessing. For the someone was Robin Lindsay, come back at last to explain his long absence, and the untoward fortune that had till now made it impossible for him to come and ask for the Margaret who was still to him "the one flower in the world." THE I OF IIOXE. How a Detective Got Left. "Did I ever consult a clairvoyant for information?" repeated a detective as he flushed up and looked foolish over the question. "Come, answer." t-. "Well, once upon a time I did, and I don't mind telling you that I made a fool of myself--not by consulting her, but by refusing to heed her information. This statement probably astonishes you, and I will therefore explain. Do you remember when Preston's bank was robbed?" "Yes--a good many years ago." "So it was, and I had been detailed on the detective service about a fort­ night. Naturally! wanted to make a strike. My wife realized it, and she put me up to see a clairvoyant. I thought it a silly thing to do, and one night I slipped off like a criminal and dodged into the office of a leading fe­ male astrologist and planked down a dollar. I hadn't the faintest hope of securing any information of value, and therefore her very first words were a stunner. She said: " 'You are looking for criminals, and I will help you to capture three of them this very night!' /O " 'If you please,' I modestly replied. " 'At 11 o'clock to-night,' she con­ tinued, 'men will set out to rob a bank. They are now consulting in a room and they have placed blankets to the win­ dows to hide their light. If you go at once and get help you can capture them.' 1 : • • "'But where is it?' " *Let me see. The building ia rather old. It is on a corner. A stairway leads up from a side street. Street cars pass the door. It is a mile or more from this house.' "I questioned her for ten minutes, but she could give me no closer infor­ mation. For a time I thought there might be something in it, but after getting outdoors I kicked myself for an idiot. I knew all the banks in town, but I could think of only one which bore this description. Suppose I started out to prove her words true ? I should be obliged to summon help, and what would any sane man reply when I told him that my information came from a clairvoyant? I went down to headquarters, found everything quiet, and went home and called my wife a noodle-head and crept off to bed. Next morning, as I went down-town, the bank was in possession of the police. A hole had been cut through the floor of the room over the vault, the brick of the vault roof removed, and the robbers had descended and made their haul, departing some time before daylight. You can't imagine my feelings, no mat­ ter how hard you try. I had been swindled at both ends of the route."-- Detroit Free Press. Royally Entertained. The chairman of a delegation from Spink County, Dakota, to a territorial convention was telling on his return how well they were entertained at Huron, where the gathering was held. . "Brassbands, I suppose ?" said one. "Y-e-s, I blieve they had a band." , "Banquet, too?" "Yes, but we wasn't there." "Speeches of welcome, drive around the city, grand ball, etc., probably?" "Yes, they had all such things but we didn't take much stock in 'em." "I'd like to know, then, why you think our delegation was so well enter­ tained?" "Why, you see the mayor took each one of us 'round separately and asked our private advice on a hoss trade he was about making with the city attor ney! How's, that for hospitality?"-- Estelline Bell. Dr. Talmaee <m KvtU of Boardtn*- Houtie LUt-Tbc GoMlp-MUl of a Cheap Hotel. , one of the great evils of the daj is found in the fact that a large popula­ tion of our cities and towns are giving up and have given up their homes and taken apartments, that they may have more freedom from domestic duties and more time for social life, and because they like the whirl of publicity better than the quiet and privacy of a resi­ dence they can call their own. The lawful use of these hotels and boarding- houses is for most people while they are in transit, but as a terminus they are in manv cases demoralization, utter and complete. This is the point at which families innumerable have begun to disintegrate. There never has been a time when so many families, healthy and abundantly able to support and di­ rect homes of ttyeir own, have struck tent and taken permanent abode in these public establishments. It is an evil wide as Christendom, and by voice and through the newspaper press I utter warning and burning protest, and ask Almighty God to bless the word, whether in the hearing or reading. In these public caravansaries the demon of gossip is apt to get full sway. All the boarders run daily the gauntlet of gelieral inspection--how they look when they come down in the morning and when they get in at night, and wliat they do for a living, and who they re­ ceive as guests in their rooms, and what they wear and do not wear, and how they eat and what they eat, and how much they eat and how little they eat. If a man proposes in such a place to be isolated and reticent and alone they will begin to guess about him: Who is he ? Where did he come from ? How long is he going to stay? Has he paid his board? How much does he pay? Perhaps he has committed some crime and does not want to be known; there must be something ,wrong about him or he would speak. The whole house goes into the detective business. They must find out about him. They must find out about him right away. If he leaves his door unlocked by accident he will find that his rooms have been inspected, his trunk explored, his let­ ters folded differently from the way they were folded when he put them away. * Who is he? is the question asked with intenser interest until the subject has become a monomania. The simple fact is, that he is nobody in par­ ticular, but minds his own business. The best landlords and landladies can­ not sometimes hinder their places from becoming a pandemonium of whispers, where reputations are torn to tatters, and evil suspicions are aroused, and scandals started, and the parliament of the family is blown to atoms by some Guy Fawkes who was not caught in time, as was his English predecessor of gunpowder reputation. The reason is, that while in private homes families have so mueh to keep them busy, in these promiscuous and mifltitudinous residences there are so many who have nothing to do, and that always makes mischief.. They gather in each other's rooms and spend hours swallowed. It is then taken up by the circulation, aftd, finding itself sur­ rounded by material which develops it, vivifies it, becomes rapidly reproduced, and the symptoms of the disease show themselves. This period between the reception of the poison and the Appear­ ance of the symptoms is called the period of incubation; this is known to be either from one to six days, in some cases longer.--Dr.. J, M. Keating, in B a b y h o o d . • • , ' W Barton GUpm ft 1 ? »«>- Grown folks' monster Sunday-scliool class every Saturday afternoon "at Tre- mont Templo. Five thousand regu­ larly present. All Protestant denomi­ nations. Four-fifths women. Object: To get their own lesson and learn it to small Sunday-school scholars on Sunday. Teacher, Rev. Meredith D. D. Welsh. Big man, good-looking, im­ portant air, some bluster, some tear around, bit of a bulldozer. Puts ques­ tions Stinday-school style to audience. Answered by deacons and teachers. Corrects some( snubs others, dodges tough questions. v Fine inan. Stands high in own estimation:--as every man should. Boston go-slow-ativeness. No rapid transit. Half-mile of street cars daily seen at standstill every evening on Tre- mont Street at 6 o'clock. Ditto on Washington Street not much better. Just when all want to be moved most rapidly. Going from work to suburban 4iomes--distance, from two to five miles. Average time lost thus daily per man, one hour. Number of hours so lost daily, 120,000. Yearly, in days. 1,825,- .000. In years by the multitude, 5,000. Five thousand years of. time lost to Boston yearly through slow transit. Value in money at 10 cents *>er hour, $1,200,000 daily. Boston girls. Plentiful--very. Barge excess over males. Man goes West. Girl stays East. Restaurant full of girl-waiters. Stores ditto. Large pro­ portion never marry. Sad. Not enough man to go around. Occasional emeutes in consequence. Boston wisdom per­ plexed. "What shall Ave do with 'em?" "What will they do with us by and by?" Single women increasing. More coming. Feminine excess in Massa­ chusetts over man, 175,000. Boston Common full of open flirta­ tion in fair night weather. Couples on Benches--retired spots--arms round waists--not much prudishness--don't seem to mind public observation--pub­ lic gets used it--got over thinking it uncommon myself--hardened to it. Boston Conservatory of Music. Formerly St. James Hotel. One thou­ sand girls learning to fiddle. Con­ servatory lighted from cellar to garret at night. Girls fiddling up stairs-- girls fiddling down. No males or dogs allowed above first floor. Eruption of girls daily from front door with fiddle coffins in hands. Eighty tons of girl force used up daily in piano pounding-- enough, if saved, to run a cotton mill. Am studying invention to save it. Great deal of howling in the building. Italian music teachers--highly developed or­ gan grinders. Tall oaks from little acorns grow. Old graveyard in the' x rear--inmates complain--can't sleep in consultation about others.' If they well--eternal practicing next door-- had to walk a half mile before they got disturbs slumbers--no reguiescat in to the willing ear of some listener to pace--wakeful skeletons sitting on detraction, they would get out of breath their graves. Clairvoyants have seen before reaching there, and not feel in 'em taking chloral to induce sleep.-- • llll crl flW flf nw nta Pmam l/f«< T TJ /^L i. full glow of animosity or slander, or might, because of the distance, not go there at all. But rooms 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 are on the same corridor, and when one carrion-grow goes "Caw! Caw!" all the other crows hear it and flock together over the same carcass. "Oh! I have heard something rich! Sit down and let me tell you all about it." And the first guffaw increases the gath- ering, and it has to be told over again, and as they separate each carries a spark from the altar of Gab to some circle, until from the coal-heaver in the cellar to the maid in the top room of the garret all are aware of the defama­ tion, and that evening all who leave the house will bear it to other houses, until autumnal fires sweeping across Illinois prairies are less raging and swift than that flame of consuming reputation blazing across the village or city. Those of us who were brought up in the country know that the old-fashioned hatching of eggs in the haymow re­ quired four or five weeks of brooding, but there are new modes of hatching by machinery, which take less time and do the work in wholesale. So, while the private home may brood into life an occasional falsity and take a long time to do it, many of ^the boarding-houses and family hotels aft'ord a swifter and more multitudinous style of moral in­ cubation, and one old gossip will get off the nest after one hour's brooding, clucking a flock of thirty lies after her, each one picking up its little worm of juicy regalement. It is no advantage to hear too much about your neighbors, for your time will be so much occupied in taking care of their faults that you will have no time to look after your own. And while you are pulling the chickweed out of 'their garden, yours will get all overgrown with horse-sorrel and mullen stalks. DR. EDWARD HECKEL announces his discovery of a tree in Central Africa called by the natives"karite" or "care," which he says is likely to replace the gutta tree. The berries of this tree produce a stearic wax called "britter of karite," and valued highly by the natives and travelers. The tree covers the vast tropical area of Central Africa in dense forests, and after it has at­ tained the age of four years it is possible by discreet incision to obtain from its trunk and larger branches an annual supply of about nine pounds of gutta without injuring the tree in the least. A good substitute for gutta percha is much needed, in view of the rapidlv decreasing quantity of the supply of gutta of a really good quality. A YOCNO lawyer wished to cite an authority on a case he was conducting, and not being able to remember it, his opponent wittily remarked, "Though lost to cite, to memory dejup* The Means of Contagion In Scarlet-Fever. Scarlet-fever can be communicated by infected milk, and, as far as we know, the milk has only to stand in the room where the disease exists or has existed, to absorb the germs, which are so sub­ tle, so light, and yet so tenacious as to float in the air, and adhere to particles of dust. We all, know how much dust is con­ stantly floating in the air; let a beam of sunlight pass through an opening in the shutter, and we can readily see how the scales of skin from the body, pieces of lint, etc., can carry these microbes, which may be thrown off in the mucus from the nostrils and mouth, or in the perspiration, and even the urine. Not only are these secretions germ- carriers--that is, contagious--and they have all been proven so by direct inocu­ lation, but tne passages from the bowels, as well as the urine, are so--in that way sewer-air may be a means of their conveyance; drinking-water also, as well as the vapor from soil on which these matters have been thrown. Bear in mind, then, that the scarlatina poison can be carried in this way hundreds of miles; that it does not need the per sonal contact of individuals; that it re tains its vitality for months, and even years, unless it be subjected to certain influences that either entirely destroy it or deprive it of its malignancy--these chemical substances, as chlorine, sul phurous acid, and others. There is one now known that animals, such as horses and dogs, have a disease which is evi­ dently scarlatina; they can bo infected by the scarlatina of man, and probably their disease can be communicated to man. The poison of scarlatina is, then, either inhaled by the individual or is Prentice Mulford, in Utica Observer. Goethe's Sweethearts. The lady-loves, so numerous--often succeeding each other without an inter­ val between the old love and the new-- how worthy do they for the most part appear in what is known of them. Each has her individual charm. The first, Frederika Brion, is a blooming rustic. The second, Lotte, is a girl in higher position, gay and sedate by turns, the betrothed of Goethe's friend, who bitterly resents the portraiture of both given to the world in "Werther." The third, fourth and fifth, Anna, Sibylla and Maximiliane, are less known to us. The sixth, Lili, is a city belle, the daughter of a wealthy banker, and something of a coquette. She was the inspirer of some of the poet's best known lyrics, such as: Heart, my heart, what is this feeling That doth weigh on me ao sore ? Goethe follows her about to scenes of uncongenial gayetv, in braided coat, gazing at her "amid, the glare of chan­ deliers." In his conversations with Eckermann he calls her his first, last and only love, all others in comparison deserving only to be classed as inclina­ tions. When he says of this affection, "It has influenced my style," he pays her the utmost tribute that a literary man can offer to a woman. He loves, but marries not. The first attractions find him precocious in feeling, and mature enough in judgment to distrust himself. It costs him bitter tears to forsake his sweethearts. We can im­ agine that the tears shed by them must have been more bitter, and cannot put out of sight the disadvantage suffered by these young girls, when after every appearance of serious intention the brilliant youth flits from them, and leaves them in (to say the least) awk­ ward isolation. The fact that lie did so leave thtfm reminds me of a humor­ ous device in Offenbach's "Orphee aux Enfers." Jupiter, wishing to make love to Pluto's fair bride, descends in the form ot a monstrous butterfly, and presently hands forward his card, say­ ing "Je suis le Baron de Jupiter." The great Goethe, on the contrary, comes like a lord and departs like a butterfly. --Mrs. Julia Ward Howe: The Use of the Date Line. There are 360 degrees of longitude in the entire circle of the earth. As the earth turns around on its axis in twenty- four hours, l-24th of 360 degrees, which equals 15 degrees, corresponds to a difference of one hour in time. Now, if a ship is sailing eastward from London, when it has reached a point 15 degrees east of that plac.e the sun will come to the noon line (or merid­ ian) one hour sooner than at London. When it is 30 degrees east it will be noon cn the ship two hours earlier, at 45 degrees three hours earlier, and so on. When a ship is saifing westward the noon line is passed one hour later for eacli 15 degrees of longitude. If two ships meet, at a point 180 degrees from London, the one sailing easit and the other sailing west, the one will have gained and the other will have lost twelve hours on London time. The or ueprivo n ui us malignancy--uiese rule of navigators is to drop out a day are intense heat, especially boiling or when a ship crosses the 180th degree steam, plenty of fresh air. and certain meridian sailing westward (that is, the chemical substances, as chlorine, sul- 180th degree from the observatory of 180th degree from the , Greenwich, near London), and to add a other point which is important. It is dav when they reach the same degree sailing eastward. In this way the reckoning of ships sailing cast and west around tho globe is made as nearly uniform as possible.--Inter Ocean. THE man who is proud of his money, has rarely anything belter to'lt prtal of. Japanese Hones. It & getting to be very embarrassing, this civilization, especially to women. We are accumulating so much, our es­ tablishments are becoming so compli- ca&ed, that daily life is an effort. There are too many "things." Our houses are getting to be museums. A house now is a library, an art gallery, a bric-a-brac shop, a furniture warehouse, a crockery store, combined. It is a great estab­ lishment run for the benefit of servants, plumbers, furnace-men, grocers, tink­ ers. Regarded in one light, it is a very interesting place, and in another, it is an eleemosynary institution. We are accustomed to consider it a mark of high civilization; that is to say, the more complicated and over-loaded we make our domestic lives, the more civil­ ized we regard ourselves. Now per­ haps we are on the wrong track alto­ gether. ^ Perhaps the way to high civil­ ization is toward simplicity and disen­ tanglement, so that the human being will be less a slave to his surroundings and impedimenta, and have more leis­ ure for his own cultivation and enjoy­ ment. Perhaps life on much simpler terms than we now carry it on with would be on a really higher plane. We have been looking at some pictures of Japanese dwellings, interiors. How simple they are! how little furniture or adornment! how few > "things" to care for and be anxious about! Now the Japanese are a very ancient people. They are people of high breeding, polish, refinement. They are in some respects like the Chinese, who have passed through ages and cycles of ex­ perience, worn out about all the phi­ losophies and religions then on, and come out on the other side of every­ thing. They have learned to take things rather easily, not to fret, and to get on without a great many encum­ brances that we still wearily carry along. When we look at the Japanese houses and at their comparatively simple life, are we warranted in saying that they are behind us in civilization ? May it not be true that they have lived through all our experience, and come down to an easy modus vivendi? They may liave«had their bric-a-brac period, their over-loaded-establishment age, their various measles stages of civiliza­ tion, before they reached a condition in which life is a comparatively simple affair. This thought must strike any one who sees the present Japanese craze in this country. For, instead of adopt­ ing the Japanese simplicity in our dwellings, we are adding the Japanese eccentricities to our other accumula­ tions of odds and ends from all ere-' ation, and increasing the incongruity and the complication of our daily life. What a helpless being is the housewife in the midst of her treasures! The Drawer has had occasion to speak lately of the recent enthusiasm in this country for the "cultivation of the mind." It has become almost a fashion. Clubs are formed for this express purpose. But what chance is there for it in the increasing anxieties of our more and more involved and overloaded domestic life? Suppose we have clubs--Japan­ ese clubs they might be called--for the simplification of our dwellings and for getting rid of much of our embarrass­ ing menage!--Charles Dudley Warner, in Harper's Magazine. Fifty Years Ago. The winter apparel of the boys even fifty years ago would be an interesting subject. We lack the pen of Gen. Oli­ ver to do it justice. The change from those days to the present is something wonderful. India-rubber boots and shoes were not then invented; great­ coats were among rare things. Boys' clothes were generally made over from dad's dress coat; trousers were cut down and traveled through successive boys, and finally cut up to patch and piece other clothes. Boys' tailors were unheard of. Seamstresses passed from house to house and fixed over the boys' clothes, cut down and made over, etc. If a boy had a grandmother, he could count perhaps on a pair of woolen mits; otherwise he went without. To pur­ chase such things was little thought of. In tho houses no furnaces, few stoves, bedrooms as cold and colder than barns nowadays; warming pans for beds at night in constant use, as the bedclothes were like two cakes of ice. Washing was done by first breaking through the ice found in the pitchers over night. All cooking done by wood fires, and better done than that of the present day, in spite of our modern improvements. All that can be said of the boy of half a century ago is that the fittest lived. No wonder that consumption claimed its thousands and tens of thousands, both old and young. The wonder of us of to-day is how anyone ever lived through the winters of those days; and yet the boys, in my opinion, had a bet­ ter time, had more real enjoyment than is the case with boys of to-day. Toys, sleds, skates, balls, and marbles were costly and rare. The boys saved their pennies for a whole year to be able to buy a sled or a pair of skates. Christ­ mas presents were unknown. New Year, perhaps, brought round a some­ thing, and then most generally a some­ thing useful rather than playful. To­ day boys no longer treasure their things. They get them for- the asking, without effort on their own part, and they are consequently held in light es­ teem. This has engendered careless­ ness, dependence, and want of fore­ thought in our boys. The future seems all cut out for them. They have only to sail along the placid stream of life, and when trials and financial disaster come, as they do to most all1* human kind sooner or later in life, there is less manliness and tenacity of purpose--in fact, less integrity -- than formerly. When I went to Charles W. Green's school in Jamaica Plains, I had 6 cents a week pocket money, on condition I would put 3 cents each week in the bank. There was no room here for ex­ travagant expenditure, and my parents did not intend there should l»e, but I got more out of my 3 cents than boys do to-day out of $3--that is, of real sat­ isfaction. The subject is an endless one in all its bearings, and no less interest­ ing than of-advantage as displaying the tri*$8 and hardships of our fathers.-- liotUm Transcript. Variations In Granite. Prof. Winchell's comparative trials of the granite of New England and Minnesota have shown some surprising differences in strength. Two inch un­ polished cubes were taken, and crushed between wooden cushions, the average strength of Minnesota granite was found to be 94,272 pounds, or 23,218 pounds per square inch; crushed be­ tween steel plates, the average strength was 104,800 pounds, or 26,200 pounds to the square inch of surface. A like number of specimens of New England granite gave an average strength of 59,- 785 pounds, or 14,759 pounds lb the square inch. ' A BOT-COTT-- try languishes. bed on whiqh indos- PITH AJFD POIHT. who are fast do not keep fiurii Ml the regular fast days. "A STAGE smile"--the pasteboard goblets of a theatrical baa$0isfc CHTVALBY: NO, the knighiw of old did not carry their armor country in mkfl bags. «Mof catattk Walked op to a guttering twtth A»d gat a big drink, . down no ohink, And walked out, remarking, "TtxA, Svannuu Argm. "Is THERE any danger of the boa con­ strictor biting me ?" asked a lady visitor in the Zoological Garden. "Not in least, marm,' cried the showman. "He never bites; he swallows his wittlea whole." MR. DE LYLE (at the restaurant)-- "Do have some more oysters, "Mina D©- herty. They must have some left." Miss Doherty--"O, no, I thank you. I never eat more than four fries in one evening."--New York Tid-Bits. MOTHER, what is an angel?" "My dear, it is a little girl with wings, who* flies." "But I heard papa telling the governess yesterday that she was an an­ gel. Will she fly?". "Yes, my dea*; she will fly the first thing to-morrow-** THE Philadelphia Times says t-b** Mme. Durand ("Henri Greville"), the French author, "when at home lives with her husband." From which it is inferred that her husband is neither aa editor of a morning paper nor a "lodge" man.--Norristoivn Herald. HE (speaking of their marriage): "I think they both make a very good match." She: "How can yogi say so? Why, she's brimstone personified, and he's a perfect stick." He: "Brimstone and a perfect stick--precisely thp ^ , sentials to a good match." A MINNEAPOLIS man was so unfor­ tunate as to fall in with a circular saw and got cut in two in the vicinity of the watch pocket. One of the census enumerators happening in just after the accident exclaimed: "There' I've got to go right back and revise those fig­ ures--that man will count two on St.5*' Paul!"--Estelline Bell. HOSTESS (to Bobbv, who is dining otit with his mother)--"Will you have an­ other piece of pie, Bobby?"--Bobby-- "Yes'm." Hostess (smilingly)--"And so you are one of the fortunate little boys whose mammas let them have the sec­ ond piece of pie ? Bobby--"Yes'm; die does when we're out visitin'; but at home I never get but one piece."-- Harper's Bazar. A CERTAIN divine who had wandered, in the course of his travels, beyond the conveniences of the railroad, was obliged to take a horse. Being unac­ customed to riding, he said to his host: "I hope you are not so unregenerate jn these parts that you would give me a horse that would throw a good Presby­ terian minister?" "Wall, I dunno," was the reply. "We believe in spreadin' the gospel!" "WE feel," writes a Western editor, "that an apology is due to widow: Grimes. In our issue of last week we stated that she had eloped with an 18- year-old man. The truth was that she was thrown from an 18-year-old mare, which was riding in a lope, and which slipped and fell. Mistakes will happen in the best-regulated newspaper offices; and we are confident that when we state the item was sent over a tele- ̂ phone wire, no other apology will be needed. JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE. ' The literary fellow who can write as well aa Howells in a linsey-woolsey dialect as limp as cotton towels, and who mouths his land, productions, omitting all tho vowels: Kill him off, bill him off. The Amazonian woman with preponderancd O# muscle, quick to raise the war-lilce to for a sanguinary tussle, who can the ti little men intimidate and muzzle: Kill her off, kill her off. The sentimental languisher, so saccharine and gracious, to whom a healthy, man-like too* is rudo and contumacious, who lives on Hap­ less platitudes and old sawa saponaceous: Kill him off, kill him off. The loud, spread-eagle demagogue who howl sin tones of thunder, who declares our Constitu­ tion is a monstrous kind of blunder, whq lives in private affluence and feeds on puhUfc plunder: Kill him off, kill him off. " The Irascible erratic who is cursed with indigos* tion, and who hurls his loud anathemas Ot most profane suggestion, and is always on the windward side of every current question: Kill him off, kill him off. All adventurers and embryos of manifold de­ scription, wbo live in idieness and thus in- creas the world's affliction, gently hustla them away without sufierfluous friction: Kill them off, kill them off, kill them aft * * • • * » » » --Lynn Union. The Finest Diamond in the World. In August, 1884, the arrival of t|i# celebrated 457-carat fine white diamond from South Africa was announced, and its subsequent purchase by a syndicate of London and Paris diamond mer­ chants. The gem was intrusted to the care of one of the most skillful cutters, who has been engaged on the stone dur­ ing the past eight months, and expects to complete the work in April. As anticipated, the stone will turn out the most wonderful "brilliant-cut" diamond on record, surpassing in weight, as also, it is believed, in color, purity and luster, all the crown and historical brilliants of the world. The stone in its almost finished state weighs still 230 carats, but in order to give it the best possible shape and luster it is intended to reduce its weight to something under 200 carats. The Koh-i-noor weighs only 106 carats, the Regent of France 136f carats, the Star of the South 125 carats, and the Piggott 82J oarats. The Great Mogul weighs 279 carats. It is, however, a lumpy stone, only rose-cut, and if cut to a proper shaped brilliant it would probably not weigh more thaii 140 carats.--London Times. Locust Invasions. The records of locust-plagues in t|« warm countries of the East, in modern as well as ancient times, almost surpass belief. Kirby and Spence mention an army of locusts which ravaged the Mahratta country, extending in a col-; nmn 500 miles long, and so conrp that it obscured the sun like anecli; Near the close of the last century, so many perished in the sea on part of tli® African coast that a bank three of four feet high, and about 50 miles long, was formed on the shore by the;/*: dead bodies, and the stench of them was cat^, tied 150 miles by the wind. In another part of Africa, early in tho Christian era, one plague of locusts is said to have caused the death of 800,000 per­ sons ; and in 591 nearly as bad a plague occurred in Italy. Again, in 1478, more than 30,000 persons perished in the Venetian territories from caused by locusts. . ,41^ -------------- .. Sound Argument. " The former Bishop Cicero Hawks, <gf - St. Louis, on one occasion, hadanargUf i ment with one of his vestrymen in refefs^ ence to the increase of his salary. ' "Then you don't believe the . will feed the young ravens?* said vestryman. "Oh, yes, I do," the Doctor replied# "but nothing is said about the jsaqf "hawks.'"--St. Louis Magazine. ;.v.