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

aiudcalet J. VAN SLYKE, ETFTTSRMTF FHMMWT. McHENBY, ILLINOIS. THE undertakers of Sydney, New ' South Wales, are going to make an at­ tempt to stop Sunday funerals. Whether or not they will make it illegal for a man to die during the i&tter part of the week is not stated. P- Miss DUBOSE, granddaughter of Gen. Toombs, was disinherited and disowned by the Georgian, because she married a Ur. Golley, whom he considered his in­ ferior in birth. He had bequeathed her $60,000, but on her refusal to give up her lover he canceled the bequest, " and compelled her to leave her home within forty-eight hours. « sX' SENATORS BECK and Eustis*re sim­ ilar in appearance and manner. They , hold similar views in regard to Bilver. Big, broad-shouldered, full-bearded, dark in complexion, their black hair ~ and !>eards strongly marked with gray, • they might pass for brothers, perhaps for twins, so far as appearance and sim­ ilar views are concerned. A LEADING Chinese merchant s San . Francisco gives the names of the Chi- " nese Six Companies apd the number of Chinamen in California in round num­ bers, as follows: Ning Yung Compj^nv, 80,000 Chinamen; Tung Wo, 33,0^5; Sam Yup, 35,000; Kong Chow,. 40,000; Hop Wo, 55,000 ̂ Yen Wo, 10,000; total, 253,000. •• A ST. PATTL, Minnesota, dog watches - the trough directly under the ice chest where the beer kegs are placed, and when the trough becomes filled with beer he will lap it up. He refuses water and drinks beer morning, noon, _ and night. After drinking heavily he will go to sleep, and the first thought on waking up seemis to be of beer, as he ; goes directly to the trough and satisfies ; his thirst. BEN HOLLIDAY, of Oregon^the once famous overland stage owner, is now an old man. He has just won a suit against his brother Joe, for the recov­ ery of property worth $900,000, seized by Joe for the payment of a debt and interest of $240,000. On payment of this sum Ben Holliday will secure his real estate. He is the man who first made . Mr. Hippie-Mitchell a United States Senator. a few weeks. Skotti received a letter from fiie Gorkians, saying: "The rela­ tives of the late Mr. Petroff and the rest of the citizens beleive that no bet­ ter likeness could have been made." THE distinctive feature of the creole exhibit at the New Orleans exposition is its ancient and time-wGrn appearance. Like the Creoles themselves, everything centers in the past. There are speci­ mens of antique china, a chatelaine with seven jewels, 325 years old; a bead necklace dating to the fifteenth century; an ivory fan and silver candlestick owed by Lady Washington; a saddle and bridleused by the first Napoleon; a platter brought over by TJrsuline monks in 1727, and other relics of inter­ esting historical association. THERE is some discussion upon the equestrian performance of cowboys, shared the defenders and opjtonents of the western riders. One says: "Take a cowboy cutting out cattle. He sits his horse with perfect grace, scarcely a perceptible motion in seat, while the horse is going at full speed. But when the cowboy comes East and rides a trot­ ting horse in the English style his horsemanship meets a severer test. A master of a riding school near Boston says that one of the most singular pupils was a cowboy who could not keep his seat on an English saddle. A SPECIALIST in throat troubles was railed to treat a Boston lady who mani­ fested so much interest in his surgical instruments that he ^plained their uses to her. "This laryngoscope," said he, "is fitted with small mirrors and an electric light; the in£e|p®r of your throat will be seen by me as clearly as the exterior; you would be surprised to know how far down we can see with an instrument of this kind. The operation over, the lady appeared somewhat agi­ tated. "Poor girl," said her sister, who was present; "it must have been very painful." "Oh, no, not that," whis­ pered the Boston lady; "but just as he fixed his instrumei^t into place I re­ membered that I had a whole in my stocking." "J. RANDOLPH TTTCKER, who was here at the merchants' dinner," says the Bbston Post, "is a charming conversa­ tionalist and a most renowned story­ teller. He and Blackburn used to divide the honors of raconteurship. One even­ ing they had been at dinner at Wrom- ley's and capped each other's stories for several hours. The next day, Mr. Tucker went to a member t>f the House and said: 'I've got a good one on Joe. When I came out of the hotel last night Smith came to me and said: 'Well, we've had a pleasant evening; but, what an old bore Blackburn is!' 'Indeed!' answered the member ; 'Smith said the same thing about you, Tucker.' h§?' repled Tucker. 'I always Jipew Smith was an unappreciative old idiot.'" GLOOMY Siberia has furmihed a joke of her own that has made all the Bus-/ . sias laugh. Ivan Petroff, a merchants and mayor of the city of Gorki, of the Tomsk province, died a while ago. The citizens raised 20 rubies to procure a painting of the dead mayor. They sent the money to Mr. Skotti, the well-known painter of Moscow, asking him to make a portrait of the mayor. They did not inclose any photograph, but gal this description: "Age, 52 years and 6 months, stature, five feet six inches; hair and eyebrows, auburn; eyes, gray; nose, mouth, and chin, ordinary; face, clean. He had no special traits except stammering." The artist laughed, and gave the curious order to one of his young pupils, Astrakhoff, who in a few days painted the portrait of the stam­ mering mayor and sent it tp Siberia. In A LITTLE less than a quarter of a cen­ tury ago two young men werfc associated together in a small California town. One was a big-headed, awkward, red- haired school-teacher from Maine, and the other a short, wiry fellow, with the grime of the blacksmith<-shop appren­ ticeship upon his hands. Both were ambitious. By the fires of _ the black­ smith's forge the one studied at his law books, and at night, after sqhool was over, the red-headed Yankee did like­ wise in the solitude of his chamber. In a short time, however, the Maine Yan­ kee went back to his Pine Tree State. Twenty-five years went by, and now these two voung men meet in Congress. The Maine Yankee is Tom Reed, the Republican leader of the House; the blacksmith apprentice is Louttit, one of the Republican members of the Califor­ nia delegation. IN contradiction to reports thai the Hungarian patriot Kossuth was desti tute of means to provide the necessaries of life, a correspondent of' the Rappel furnishes an interesting account of his present circumstances: Kossuth's num­ erous friends will be pleased to learn that his political lectures delivered in England many years ago 'were suf­ ficiently profitable to provide a fair in­ come. Subsequently, however, liis capital was somewhat diminished by the failure of a bank, and Kossuth, conse­ quently published a volume of memoirs, of which the profits were considerable. He lives now in Italy with one of his two sons, both of whom are in good position as engineers. They received their education and professional train­ ing in France and England, and dis­ tinguished themselves in the construc­ tion of the Mont Cenis Tunnel. COUNT MCNSTER, lately German Am­ bassador in London, once at a Buck- inham Palace reception engaged in an undertone conversation with another di­ plomatic officer, when up came a super- serviceable court functionary, slapped him smartly on the shoulder, and in­ formed him that "people were not sup­ posed to come to tho palace to talk." The Ambassador pulverized the official with a haughty Bismarkian stare, and replied: "I did not come here, sir, to receive lessons in manners," and he at once summoned his attache, quitted the throne room in high dudgeon and drove direct to the Foreign Office, where- he lodged a formal complaint against the court functionary for insulting imperti­ nence, and announced that unless he re­ ceived a full and ample apology he would lay the matter before his Gov­ ernment. The case was laid before the Queen, who ordered that a proper let­ ter should be written to the Count by the fussy cQurt official, which was done at once. CHICAGO Current: The purists lately have kindly cautioned The Current against the use of "equally as well," and the grammarians have served no­ tice on it never to say "that much," and never to put any word l>etween the to and the be of the infinitive mode. Thus, we are to teil the printers always to alter incorrect manuscript, but to avoid telling them to always alter such manuscript. The preposition to is the sign of the infinitive, but it is not the infinitive mode. The interdiction of "that much" would also do away with "so much," "inasmuch," and all other muches by marriage. "Off with his head! So much for Buckingham!" cries Richard. Why not "That much for Buckingham ?" Webster's Dictionary does not compass the time worn uses of much. However, The Current wel­ comes the friendly letters which it re­ ceives on the subject of clear-leaking, and gladly learns of the bad ruts that wear into the highways of language. The student, however, must forever remem­ ber that, if a grammatical rule seems to interfere with the clearness of his ex­ pression, then the rule may be false. The man who fits his ideas to his book of rules is lost. Sine Qua Ifoh. An ignorant man seldom says, "I don't know." No matter if "stumped," he will attempt to go around the ob­ struction, rather than confess his in­ ability to deal with, it. Henry Clay used to ^tell a story which illustrates this eccentricity of ignorance. He said: "While I was abroad, labor­ ing to arrange the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, there appeared a report of the negotiations, and several quotations from my remarks or letters, touching certain points of the treaty, reached Kentucky and were read by my friends. Among my political friends was a shrewd, ignorant fellow, who went by the nickname of 'Old Sandusky.' He was reading one of these letters, one evening, to a small collection of the neighbors. As he read on, he came across the sentenoe,-- " 'This must be deemed a sine gua non.' (indispensable condition.) " 'What's a sine qua non?' asked half- a-dozen by-standers. " 'Old Sandusky' was a little both­ ered, at first, but his natural shrewd­ ness was fully equal to a mastery of the Latin " 'Sine--qua--non f said he, repeat­ ing the question very slowly; 'why, qua non is three islands in Pas- sainaqnoddy Bay. and Harry Clay is the last man to give them up! No sine qua V0n, no treaty, he says; and hell stick to it!' "The explanation was satisfactory, and the reading proceeded." EXPERIMENTS show that if fatty oils are cooled down to 20 degrees, and kept at this temperature for three hours,they assume very different degrees of hard­ ness, olive oil being the hardest. A cylindrical iron rod, one centimeter in length, and extending below in a cone, and upon which is exerted a pressure measured in grams until it penetrates into the oils with its entire length, shows that olive oil requires a pressure of 1,700, and cotton oil twenty-fiv« grams. BAD men excuse their faults; good men will leave them.--Ben /onion. MECHANICAL.-* THIS accounts of the Russian flax crop continue unfavorable. The plants suf­ fered much in consequence of excessive heat in June and July, and hail also caused much damage in many localities. The quality especially leaves much to be desired. A FRENCH writer alleges the very suc­ cessful use of a concrete for foundations made partly with asphalt. The slight elasticity, or hard, rubber-like flexure of minute range of this material, is said to render it superior to the usual foun­ dations for engines or machinery. THE largest profit by a German rail­ road in 1883 was 9.59 per cent, by the Right Bank of Oder Railroad. Four German roads earned more than eight pe* cent., two more than seven per cent., but no other earned as much as six per cent., while fourteen earned less than three per cent. To REMOVE writing from a printed page, the safest age«t to employ is chlorine water, or next to this a solu­ tion of the hypochlorite of sodium (sold in drug shops under the name of "Javelle water," or "Eau de Javelle"). The application of either or these will remove all signs of ink marks, and will not affect the print. ° " DR. STEINE, a French electrician, has devised a very handsome little apparatus for enabling surgeons to photograph the larynx, and thus obtain a record of the progress of certain tliront disorders from day to day. The apparatus con­ sists of a very small electric incande­ scent lamp, which illuminates the throat, and is kept cool bv circulating water, and .a small camera with gela­ tine-bromide plates. The combined apparatus is neatly mounted in a porta­ ble form, and provided with a battery to supply the necessary current. MR. BENJAMIN BAKER, civil engineer, read a paper before the British Asso­ ciation, in the section of mechanics, which goes far to explain some other­ wise unaccountable breakages of iron bridges, beams, and girders. He showed, as the result of careful and long-continued experiment, that the power of an iron bar to bear weight is no test of its strength to endure weight in motion^ It dislikes al>ove all things intermittent weight. When five-minute traps are run over girders they can hardly be made strong enough, and even slow and frequent movement wears out the resisting power. The usual theory is that a bridge is safe if it can bear three times the heaviest weight ever placed upon it; but this is by no means the case if the weights move, and such a bridge would break down rapidly under the passing of twenty trains an hour. Many English bridges are unsafe, from this cause or from de­ fective construction; and Mr. Baker added on the latter point a suggestion which would delight a Hindoo. Ameri­ can iron founders, he said, adopted a type of bridge or other work and ad­ hered to it, instead of trying all sorts; and it was found that from practice and observation of faults their bridges grew better and better. That is what the Hindoo workman has been saying for two thousand years or so, without get­ ting mnch attention. Diving for Pearls. The, Tuamotu Archipelago, to the east of the Society Islands, is perhaps the greatest pearl fishery in the world. Of its eighty islands there are only some lial f dozen whose waters do not produce the pearl oyster. Natives of this group know no industry but fish ing. Men, women, and children, they all dive like <sea fowl, and the women are the most expert. Two women, especially of Faiti, and some of Anaa or Chain Islands, are well-known in this trade--more dreadful far than sapphire gathering--for plunging into twenty-five fathoms of water, in the teeth of the sharks, and remaiuing as long as three whole minutes under water. A famous diver of Anaa escaped not long ago from a shark with the loss of a breast and an arm, and many go down never to come up again. If they make too many plunges in their day's work at the beginning of the season, which comprises the summer months, from November to February, they bring on hemorrhage or congestion; and after some years in the occupation paralysis is certain. Few of these divers work for themselves, but can earn eighty cents a day from the pearl trailers. With a wooden tube some sixteen inches long, ten inches square and glazed at one end, they prospect from their boats the l»ottom of these translucid seas; the glass end, which is put into the water, serving the purpose of suppress­ ing the eve-puzzling surface ripple. The diver of the Persian Gulf or of Ceylon attaches a weight of some twenty pounds to his feet to aid him in his descent, and carries seven or eight pounds more of ballast in his belt. He protects both eyes and ears with oiled cotton, bandages his month, and goes down forty feet with a rope. He re­ mains down from fifty-three to eighty seconds, and helps himself up again by the rope. But the Pacific diver prac­ tices the conjuror's ljoast of "no prepar­ ation." Just l>efore the plunge, he or she draws a full breath rapidly three or four times running, and finally, with his lungs full of air, drops feet first to the l>ottom, not forty feet, but 150 to 180 feet, and comes to the surface again with extraordinary swiftness, unaided in any Way. Each dive generally lasts from sixty to ninety seconds; and only Very occasionally the astonishing maxi­ mum of three minutes. The divers hardly ever bring up more than one oyster at a time; but this is chosen as likely to contain pearls by some fancied rule of thumb of their own. grounded on age, form, and color; and they bold the shell tightly together as they mount, lest the envious oyster should shed the pearl which the divers them­ selves are very quick to conceal by swallowing if the employer's eye is not fixed on them. Diving bells have been- introduced by some houses in the trade; but the natives will no longer work in them, saying they bring on early par­ alysis of the legs.--Home Journal. An Excellent Shot. A prominent merchant of Little Rock went turkey-hunting. In his household he had long boasted of his skill a.) a hunter, and when he left home his family knew that he would come back loaded down with game. After an un­ successful search in the woods he re­ turned to a railroad station, where he had got off the train early in the morn­ ing, and was greatly pleased to see a negro who had for sale several large turkey^ which he had caught in a trap. The turkeys were alive and the mer­ chant, glad of this, mused: "I'll get a couple of those monsters and shoot them just beforel get home." He asked the price of two large gob­ blers, and though the amount demanded struck him as bemg excessive, he handed out the money anl took the turkeys. He was not very ur from homo and he decided to walk, knowing that to be seen on the train, carrying live game, would not appear very much like a true sportsman. After trudging about three miles, part of the way through a cypress swamp, the merchant decided to sto| and slaughter his game. "Now," »ai<\ he, "I'll just tie 'em on this stump, witll their heads together, and will kill '-i» both at once." He placed the |tnrkeys on a stump, stepped off about thirty'paces and fired. "Wh-r-r-r-r!" the ten-keys went, sailing over the cypress treV The merchant stood aghast. His shot had only cut the string which bound the fowls.--Arkan* saw Traveler. An Afternoon in Teheran. It is the hour of peace; a rosy light bathes the house-tops, but the stately avenues leading north and south are in shadow, are cooled by the water thrown by the sadkahs. The tender evening light also rests on the snowy crests of the vast ridge of the Shim Iran, or Light of Persia, which soars to a height of 13,000 feet across the northern side of the plain, lAit nine miles away. The evening glow, before it fades into twi­ light, lingers last on the snowy cone of Demavend, 21,000 feet high, ever pres­ ent in every view, like the presiding genius that protects the capital of Persia. With slow and dignified steps the Persian gentlemen stroll through these inviting avenues, engaged in genial con­ verse. ^JTheir long robes, their massive beards, " their lofty caps or voluminous turbans, give them* a loftv stateliness as they wend along, undisturbed by the numerous horses and carriages, or the hideously unkempt and filthy dervishes who claim alms on account of their Sanctified rags. At this hour the tea-houses are in full blast. The reader may be surprised^ to learn that the uational beverage of Persia is not coffee but tea. One would naturally suppose that a country so near Araby the Blest and .the aromatic groves of Mocha would, like the Turns, prefer coffee. Of course a great deal of coffee, prepared in the Turkish way, is consumed by the Persians, but the fact remains that they are essentially a tea-drinking race, drinking it in vast quantities, flavored with lemon or tourchee, which is the prepared juice of the lime, and sweetened almost to a syrup. The habit is propahly the re suit of the commercial intercourse which at an early period existed be tween Persia and China, and which, as is now well known, gave an impulse to the arts of Persia, of which evidences appear at various stages of her aesthetic history. At Teheran the tea-houses takes the place of the coffee-houses of Constantinople. One meets them at every turn, of every rank, but.all alike resorts for rest, leisure, and entertain ment. There one may see public dancers, who by law are now invariably men, although women of questionable repute contrive to evade the laws some­ times and exhibit in the harems. Tho male dancers are brought up to this vocation from boyhood, and invariably wear long hair in imitation of women, and shave their faces smooth. - What interests an intelligent Euro­ pean myre at these tea-houses than the dances are the recitations from the poets. The songs of Hafiz may be heard there, and entire cantos from the great epic of Ferdoonsee, repeated with loud, sonorous modulation, heard some­ times at quite a distance at the more in* spiring passages, and listened to with enthusiastic rapture. Here, tocy.one may here the Arabian Night^r talcs given without any attempt at<Cxpurga- tion, exactly as in a recent translation. The reader will recolleet that the char­ acters in the Arabian Nights are con­ stantly and At every opportunity quot­ ing long and appropriate paisagcs from the poets. This may to the European appear to be an affectation or a freak of poetic license on the part of the author of these tales. On the contrary, he was simply giving us another of those traits of Oriental character the record of which has given to those inimitable narratives immortality as the finest pic­ ture ever given of the life of the East, which, after thousands of years, is only just beginning to feel the transforming influence of western civilization. » As one continues his ramble through Teheran at this hour, he sees a crowd amused by baboons dancing to the beat of tambourines--animals which, if they do not get all the happiuess they de­ serve, at least well fulfill their mission in ministering to the pleasure of myriads by their absurd antics and grimaces. Or wc see a chained lioness put through her paces or, fatigued by the part she has been forced to play in life, and un­ able to escape from it by suicide, is sleeping heavily on the pavement. But one of the most common spectacles of Teheran in the late afternoon--a sight which always draws a crowd--is a match of trained wrestlers, or athletes exercis­ ing with clubs, at both of which the Persians arc very expert, although they make no great figure in jugglerv.--S. <}. W. Benjamin, in Harper's Maga­ zine. . Ventilation. It is a simple matter to ventilate a room properly if people will only give it a little thought. The average amount of air breathed by every person is about twenty-four cubic inches at each breath, with about twenty respirations a min­ ute. This would l»e a cubic foot iu three minutes and a half, or 400 cubic feet in twenty-four hours, or the con­ tents of a room seven feet square and eight feet high. But this is only a tif: tietli part of what every healthy i»erson needs, for breathing vitiates the air rap­ idly, because the air exhaled has 100 times as much carbonic acid gas as.the atmosphere, while twice the amount contained in the atmosphere, or eight parts in 10,000. is as large a proportion as can be breathed without injury to the health. Crowded rooms in winter schools, etc., are sometimes found to contain three or four times as much,aud headaches and other ailments are the consequences of breathing the same air over and over again. There should, therefore, l>e enough fresh air for every person daily to amount to 20,000 cubic feet, or enough to fill eighteen rooms ten feet square and ten feet high. This would be amply supplied by an open­ ing, tul>e, or orifice three inches square, witli a moderate current. In tho day­ time there is usually enough air intro­ duced into rooms through opening doors, cracks in window casings, and in other ways. The chief danger is in sleeping-rooms, where pains should be taken to have a circulation. When the room is warm, and the air out-doors quite cold, constant, and often sufficient currents are caused. A hundred per­ sons should have a ventilating orifice equal to 2| feet square. The general principle seems to l>e simple eiiough; the difficulty lies in the unwillingness or neglect of people to apply it. \ OYSTER shells are being pumped froijn the artesian well at Americus, Georgia which is down 1,000 fee$. THE OHIO BOODLE-GAMG. The Investigating Committee < Colutabus Secures Inlppf esting Information;-, at J. Standard Oil Company Agent It Was Who Handled the Senatorial . Slush Fna4> FPcfa-mfttifi fOhto) special to With the Senate adjourned over into next wttek, and no matter of interest likely to come1 before the House, Columbus would be dead politically to-day but for the latest developments iu the Payne investigation. It is getting more and more apparent that direl-t testimony as to the buying of votes in the Democratic caucus will be hard to obtain, but it is also getting more'and more apparent- that the case made out to a moral certainty will bo as damning to some politi­ cal reputations asc onld be a conviction be­ fore a jury in a formal trial in court. The flight of witnesses desired is in itself an in­ dication of their guilty knowledge, and the circumstances under which these disappear­ ances occur, as some new fact is stumbled upon by the committee of investigation, are such as to make reported incidents of the past dovetail into each other strikingly. The investment in Pendkton legislators was made in a style which speaks volumes for the political acnteness of the purchasers. No checks were passed, no written promises to pay were given, and when the money changed hands it was in the form of crisp $500 and $100 bills. So much new money was never seen hi Columbus before. There must have been a trunkful of it in some room of the Neil House, the Payne headquarters, and the method of its expenditure was a triumph of secrecy. There was a slight trail left, though, and this trail the investigating com­ mittee has stumbled upon. The money was handled by a stranger. Many of those who dealt with him did not know hi3 name. He was not even a resident of the State, biit he is known now. He lives in West Virginia, and he is a trusted agent of the Standard Oil Company. Of course the in­ vestigation committee cannot secure this man to give testimony, and if they could he would not talk; but he is not unlikely to have fame thrust upon him soon to an ex­ tent which must be painful to one of his ' retiring nature. This paymaster must have been an ex­ ceeding shrewd as well as trustworthy per-, sonage. His connection with the promi­ nent figures among the Payne boomers was never suspected by the 'multitude. Col. Oliver Payne, an officer of the Standard Oil Company, of which his father, the Senator, is the long-headed adviser and schemer, occupied rooms in state at the principal hotel in Columbus, and his hotel and all others in town of any note were practically rented for the occasion, everything l>eiug made free as water to legislators and their families. There was a roar and a bustle, an advent of hundreds of the Cincinnati gang sent on by Payne's associates there, and amid th? tumult the confidential man from West Virginia could move about un­ noticed. The cashier was not a prominent personage before the caucus; after it he had but a few hours' work to do. and then he melted away like a fog in the morning. He has not materialized in Columbus since. The list of those who, immediately after the Payne election, stepped suddenly from almost penury to what is opulence in the rural districts has received a number of ad­ ditions. As the matter is agitated reports come in from the small towns, where each individual knows all about the affairs of every one else in the plane, and when* the sudden prosperity of the member of the Legislature from the district l>ecnroe about a year and a half ago the subject of com­ ment and scandal. The marvel is that these scandals were never grouped before. But one town knows little about the scandals of another unless such scandals are printed, and it is only now, wheu the tales of sudden comparative wealth are brought together, that their full significance is seen and an idea obtained of "the immense sum of money which must have been expended in Columbus immediately after the assembling of the Coal-Oil Legislature. Even the shrewdness of the men now em­ ployed to get witnesses and damaging documents out of the way of the In­ vestigating Committee is now tax?d in interposing obstacles, from the fact that information sought is now coming by letter from sources of which the Coal-oil "people can have no idea. There is literally no popular regard for Senator Payne in Ohio. He was not even a prominent Democratic leader before he appeared, with his enor­ mous fortune and backed by the auti-Pen­ dleton crowd yfrom Cincinnati, to defeat the favorite of the majority, and now no hesi­ tation is shown by Democrats of the better class in telling what they know of the methods of his group. The very fact that tho Payne investigation has been instituted is creditable to one portion of the Demo­ cratic party in the State and indicative of the presence in its ranks of a large number of honest and intelligent voters. It is from such as these that letters and telegrams are coming, and the obstructionists do not know where to find them. There is coming in this matter what the shrewdest men of both parties in the Legis­ lature say, as a political sensation, will dwarf the present struggle in the Senate. An Un-American Administration. An un-American administration is what the Democratic party has given the coun­ try. From the outset President Cleveland's advisers have arrayed themselves in open hostility to important business interests. 1. The Postmaster-General withheld from the American steamship lines an ap­ propriation for mail transportation made expressly for their benefit. He discrim­ inated between foreign aud American lines, favoring the former, and nullifying the will of Congress. He interrupted commu­ nications with foreign countries, substitut­ ed slow for rapid transit of mails, and placed American shippers and merchants at a disadvantage in competing with foreign rivals. This kind of administration is un- American. 2. The Secretary of the Navy made war upon the American shipbuilding industry, ruined the credit of the most enterprising firm, and finally drove it into bankruptcy. This kind of administration is nn-Amer­ ican. 3. The Secretary of State, instigated by the British Minister, prolonged the opera­ tion of the fishery clauses or the treaty of Washington, and opened proposals for a new international compact. The interests of the American fishermen were wholly dis­ regarded. ' The interests of Dominion fish­ ermen alone were considered. The Ameri­ can fishermen had induced Congress to ab­ rogate the fishery clauses, under which the Canadian fleet had been built and an Amer­ ican market opened to foreigners. The Secretary's action was taken on behalf of a foreign industry, the prosperity of tfhich has been imperiled by the abrogation of the clauses. This kind of administration is naAinurican. Three great industries have been exposed to destructive assaults by the administra­ tion. As time goes on, the Defriocatic majority in the lower house will settle down to tariff legislation, and every important in­ dustry of the country, which has been built up under a wise, economic system of pro­ tection, will be placed in jeopardy. That kind of legislation will be as un-American as the Democratic administration thus far has proved.--New York Tribune. MEASUREMENTS of the heights df clouds have been made at the Upsala Observatory during the past summer. The results are approximately as fol­ lows: Stratus, 2,000 feet; nimbus, off rain cloud, from 3,000 to 7,200 f«et; cumulus, from 4,300 to 18,000 feet; cirrus, 22,400 feet. Cloud measure­ ments are always somewhat difficult and uncertain, bat these figures are considered fairly exact. GEMS FROM GEORGE XACDONALD. WHATEVER is, not good and beautiful is doojned by the very death that is in it. MANY poor men are more devoted Worshippers of Mammon than some rich men. LET winter reigu without; love is king within; and love is lord of the winter. IT is better to be a child in a green field than a knight of many orders in a state ceremonial. IMPOSSIBLE things are always being done, else the world would have been' all moor by this time. THERE is the greatest danger of everything growing much worse before you find out that anything is wrong. THE doctor makes sure we are dead before we are buried; and the parson that we are buried after we are dead. EVEN the soldier-crab must have some likeness to the snail of whose house he takes possession, else he could not live in it at all. THE Pharisee thought it such a fine thing to be good that God did not like him nearly so well as the other, who thought it a sad thing to be bad. MUCH of supposed goodness is merely a looking of the thing men would like to be considered, originating, doubtless, in a vague wish to be that thing. IT is much easier to know what is true to do than what is true to think. But those who will do the one will come to know the other, and none else. THE man who would go to the dogs for lack of tfle woman he fancies, will go to the dogs when he has her; may possibly drag her to the dogs with him. EVEN the closest human loves have their only endurance, only hope of per­ fection, in the eternal, perfect love, of which they are the rainl>ow refractions. FEW seem to understand that the true end is not to keep their children from doing what is wrong, though that is on the way to it, but to render them inca­ pable of doing wrong. On Board an Atlantic Steamer. I believe it was Beeclier who said "the first day you are on the ocean you are afraid you will go to the bottom, on the second day you are afraid you won't.M Such was the experience of most of our passengers who were sea sick, who in their misery were indifferent to fate, but ere their journey's end laughed at their own reckless desperation. We were among the fortunate few who escaped this despairiug nausea, ahd took our four elegant meals a day with the gusto of a "sad sea dog," and not like an incorrigible land lubber. It is surprising, the variety of people you meet on the ocean steamers, the endless peculiarity of form, features, and man­ ners. Each nationalitv has its own human rara avis. An Englishman sitting in the smoking-room, with hunting jacket and red turban cap on, remarks 'Muggy weatli., makes me feel bobby you know." An American ven tures to inquire: "What does that mean?" "O, chippy, you know." But the American does not know, and he might as well have addressed him in Sanscrit or Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the reply came, "Why don't you talk United States'? Feel chippy, do you; I feel like I had been monkeying with a buzz-saw." Now it was the English­ man's time to be astonished, and he looked very much puzzled over the re­ mark. Near by we catch scraps of conversa­ tion between a Texas cattle man and a young lord. "Say, von are a lord. Avhat kin are you to Jestis Christ? He is the only lord we know anything" about in this country." This concludes the con­ versation, fts the lord looks at him with dignified amazement, as if he thought lie was what Robert Toombs called Wendell Phillips, "an infernal machine set to music." Thus do the extreme specimens of l>oth countries indulge in the murder of king's English and good manners without punishment, and to the amusement of all contemplative observers. And frequently they are taken as the true representatives of both countries. -- Cor. Kansas , City Times. Drying and Burning Bricks. The drying of bricks is a matter of great importance, and requires more attention than it generally receives. From hand-made bricks we haye to evajx>rate some 25 per cent, of water before it is safe to burn them; thus in works producing twenty thousand bricks per day, or six millions per annum, wo have to evaporate more than twenty tons of water every twenty-four hours. The burning of bricks is exposing the •Tried bricks to such a degree of heat as to change its character from that of a merely absorbent lump of dry earth to a hardened, indestructible, partially- vitrified mass, or artificial stone, which will withstand the action of the atmos­ phere. The effect of fire on clays or brick-earth varies with the proportion and number of earths and salts of which they are composed and the different percentage they bear to one another. Clay of pure alumina is infusible, but on exposure to great heat contracts freely in bulk. Alumina combined with silicia, or alumina combined.witli lime, will withstand the most intense heat which can be obtained in a furnace; but a mixture of these three earths will melt at a very low heat, the lime acting as a flux on the silica; and, according to Dr. tJre, iu his "Dictionary of Arts." the more readily the nearer the mixture approaches the following proportions-- viz., alumina, one-fifth; lime, one-lifth, and silica, three-fifths; by adding two parts more of sand it becomes one- seventh alumiua, one-seventh lime, and five-sevenths silicia. The general color of burnt brick is red, owing to the clay containing a little iron: but where the percentage of the clay of this substance is larger the color of the brick is blue. For burning bricks we have to employ the utmost care in exj>osing them to as high a heat as they can stand without endangering their melting. If they are not sufficiently burnt they will be very absorbent, and will retain sufficient moisture for a frost to destrov them. | A Delicate Inference. I Neglected Sacramento Boy--"Dad, I ! ain't goin' tew skule any more." | Diui--"Whv are you not going to I school?" ^ 1 Boy--" 'Cause, dad, I knaw as much j as yew do erbout edication." j Dad--"I know that; but don't you | wish to be a smarter man than your : father, Johnny?" | Boy--"Naw, I don't. With what little 1 learnin' yew've got yew made a fortune. ! Dad, yew don't think I'm a hog,do yew ?" ! --California Maverick. m •M 'M COURAGE in an ill-bred man has the I air, and escapes not the opinion, of I brutality; learning becomes pedantry 1 and wit buffoonery.--Locke. ' ILLINOIS STATE NEW& --Senator H. H. Evans, of AnrOsa, is aft tbs head of a baby-carriage factory soon to be established there. --Henry Smith, who located in Bafriiig- ' ton forty-five years ago, died at Elgin, lea*» ing twenty-five children. --Lee Nece, Robert Murphy, and John Thompson have been arrested for the mur- .. der of John Cable, at TayloTsrille. --At Paw Paw, Lee County, Orrin Msa­ ble's wagon-shop; including Odd Fellows' ft Hall, in the second story, was consumed by ' fire. •" ? --Articles of incorporation have /been issued to several. citizens of Jacksonville to erect a monument to ex-Gov. Richard Yates. . --Scarlet' fever is 'reported at Toledo, West field, and Neogn, and the public schools in the two former towns have been closed. --The Mason Eureka Salt-works, south of Effingham, have entered on an era of prosperity hy an outpnt of seventy-five 'bar­ rels of fine salt. -- Gilbert Thayer wai arrested while es- caping from a rear window of D. C. Baer's | cigar store, at Joliet, which he had succeed- • ed in burglarizing. --Rev. W. H. Moore, rector of St. John'a • Episcopal chnrch, Decatur, has tendered his peSi9^|tion, to take charge of Calvary Epis­ copal'church, Chicago. --Dominico Dezntti has been sentenced to the penitentiary for four yearefor having" shot and killed Baptista Viettune, a fellow- countryman, at Braidwood 1 i?t June. --A young Swede named Mnnson. in the employ of William O. Wright Jfc Co., Free- port, is said to have robbed the film's safe a few days ago and run away, not having been heard from since. --In an address to the Congregatiora! ministers of Chicago, Warden McClaughiy, of the JoKet Penitentiary, said the reforma­ tory measure most needed was the separa­ tion of new convicts from the hardened criminals. --L. M. Boyer, a young minister at Springfield who was at the head of a troupe of colored singers, who performed in chiucbes, fled from Richmond, Ind., tak­ ing all the available funds, and leaving the performers destitute. --Clifford C. Stevens, a grocer of Aurora, who was Bhot by Charles W-. Ross, while the latter was being detained for burglary* died, leaving an aged mother, a widow, and three small children. The murderer has hitherto borne a high character. --Jacob JohtSan and Thomas Still well, two Salvationists, have filed suits in the Cir­ cuit Court against Mayor Kelly, of Joliet, Cbief-of-Poliee Murray, and Officers Cope and Shannon, claiming $10,000 damages for false imprisonment. --G O. Lerorhe, an employs of the Electric Light Company at Danville, fell from un electric tower and received fatal injuries. Leroche missed his footing and fell fifty feet, his fall being checked by striking against rods supporting the tower. --Judge Kagy has issued a-permit to have ;J, three children of Joshua Huff at Salerno taken to the Institute for the Education of 5, the Deaf and Dumb at Jacksonville. This I is considered a remarkable freak of nature^ r.s neither of the parents nor any of the an­ cestors were so affected, £ --Recently a young man named Graham > of Lone Station, was married, and the evening of the wedding serenaders camq aror/.d with hoots, yells, and tin pans. The parent of the groom had the entire party ar- J rested. The charge was disturbing the peace, to which they pleaded not guilty, haying come at the invitation of the bride and groom. --Mrs. Perry DeWtes, nearDtland, com- mitted suicide some time in November lasl, and the peculiar circumstances that led to i her death gave rise to rumors of foul play. j; Under the direction of State's Atty. Hughes, of Piatt County, her remains were disin- s terred, and an effort made to ascertain the truth. Search, however, failed to establish^ anything wrong, vV --The Chicago, Wilmington, and Yer» milliou Coal Company dismissed about 24<t men at Braidwood, including married and " single, couse<ffcent upon the closing up of the company's shaft. The remainder of the 330 men in shaft G have been transferred to the H shaft, together with the machinery. About 150 single men were dismissed from the mines in Coal City during last week. --An important suit has been decided itt- J the Circuit Court at Decatur, in which ;' Christian Girl was plaintiff and several ^ prominent members of the Dunkard Churcht i were .defendants. Girl was formerly a Dunkard, but became eccentric. He waa arrested and tried as to his sanity, but dis­ charged. He then sued his son and oth­ ers who were witnesses and advisers in the matter for damages in the sum of $25,000, and got $500. --Judge C. B. Smith, holding Ciretdl Court at Decatur, introduced an important; change in the mode of instructing Junes. ̂ Instead of reading to the jury a great mul- - . < titude of legal conundrums, prepared by \ lawyers, the Judge now writes out his own „.^j instructions and lays down the law in a . ^ brief, plain and connected statement, with- X out repetition or argument, and so clearlr '*| that the jury has no trouble in knowing what the law is. --A desperate fight occurred at a country dance a few miles from Fairbuxy, recently. John Williams and James Weldon quar­ reled over a married woman. She had: promised to favor both in a certain dance, and the trouble arose over precedence. Weldon was victorious, but no sooner had they stepped out on the floor than Williams drew a pistol, and, presenting it at his suc­ cessful rival, fired twice, fatally wounding him. Williams was/arrested. --Two stout men at Decatur made then* selves obnoxious and were shut- out of the house by Mrs. K add iff, 'who was alone in the dwelling. The men went to a side window and tried to enter. Mrs. Radcliff headed them off. One of the men struck through the glass and hit the woman on the >' forehead. This so exasperated Mrs. Radeliff that she ran out of a side door, caught the man that struck her, and gave him a severe beating, single-handed and alone. The other party fled. Mis. Radcliff held on to her , captive until the police came and took him in custody. He is in jail. The fight at­ tracted a large crowd, and Mis. Badrlilf waa the heroine of the hear. m f#